Here in Southeastern Minnesota, the newspaper of note is the Rochester Post-Bulletin. It's a cute little newspaper that thinks it's a lot bigger and better than it actually is, and I'm not just saying that because they outright suck from time to time. The P-B has such a high opinion of itself that it actually tries charging people to view its online content (hell, even the Minneapolis Star-Tribune doesn't charge for that), which I easily get around by using the username and password of a friend of mine. Sometimes, though, the P-B just bothers the living shit out of me, particularly in their editorial department.
I think what bothers me most about the P-B is that it's a deeply conservative newspaper that thinks it's liberal. Being neither conservative or liberal is just fine. I straddle the lib and con fence on a slew of issues, so I see myself as a middle of the road type of guy on a lot of issues. I'm a conserviberal, if you will, or a libervative. Whatever. But, the P-B refuses to admit its essentially conservative leanings, and its editorial department continually churns out tripe selling itself as liberal. Take, for example, one of their most recent blathers. It bothers me on many levels, which are pointed out here.
liberal media bias disproved
Thursday, June 19, 2003
If there is a liberal bias in the U.S. media, it was not in evidence during coverage of the war in Iraq.
The existence of a liberal bias, one would assume, would have led to television coverage tilted in favor of anti-war points of view.
As you can imagine, this immediately bothered me. According to the P-B way of thinking, to be liberal automatically means you're anti-war. WTF? Excuse me, but you could be liberal to the point of Communism and still support war.
In fact, just the opposite occurred, according to a recently released study by Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, a non-partisan media watchdog group.
Non-partisan my ass. Any group that advocates "greater diversity in the press that scrutinizes media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints" is pretty liberal in my book. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing bad about any of that, but tell it like it is: it's partisan as hell.
The study found a decided pro-war bias in coverage provided by programs on the six major news networks. For the first three weeks of the war, from March 20 through April 9, FAIR researchers looked at 1,617 on-camera sources for ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports, Fox's Special Report with Brit Hume, and PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer.
The study found that only 10 percent of all sources were anti-war, and most of them were Iraqi. Of American sources interviewed or shown on the programs, only 3 percent were anti-war.
So, the P-B gripe, which they took so long getting to, is that they feel that anti-war reporting should have had equal time alongside pro-war reporting. Under that logic, the KKK should be allowed equal time alongside civil rights issues. Let's get something straight here. Just because some people take a contrary side to popular opinion, that doesn't automatically entitle them to equal time on anything. When it comes right down to it, the anti-war crowd was given a tremendous amount of ink when you consider that their opinion reflected roughly 35 percent of the American population at the time. They just squandered their media face-time by looking ridiculous (note to protesters: don't wear cardboard missiles as penises in front of cameras. They make you look dumb as a rock).
By comparison, the programs routinely turned to official voices, including former military officers, for information and comment.
Soooo, news programs turned to former military officers for information and comment on a war? How crazy is that?! Who should they have turned to instead? Alec Baldwin?
Again, the tilt was heavily in favor of supporters of the war. "Of a total of 840 U.S. sources who are current or former government or military officials," the FAIR report said, "only four were identified as holding anti-war opinions."
Huh. Fascinating. Who would have thought it would have been so hard to find government or military officials who disagreed with their employer?
American news shows also turned to British sources for information and content. But despite widespread opposition within Great Britain to the war, not even one British anti-war voice was heard on the six news shows during the three weeks of the survey.
Even allowing that a rare anti-war voice found its way into the networks' coverage, there was nothing approaching proportional air time. "Not a single show in the study conducted a sit-down interview with a person identified as being against the war," the study found.
As you can probably tell, this whole concept of "proportional air time" really chaps my ass. It's getting to the point that every dissenting opinion on everything from the war in Iraq to the pros and cons of booger picking are demanding equal time. The push to give proportional time to those who oppose a viewpoint, in fact, has gotten so ridiculous, there are actually those who support requiring Web sites, blogs included, to offer up a "right of reply" for those who don't like your opinion or who may have been maligned by an offhand rant. Just imagine if, every time you waggle a finger a someone you dislike, you have to give them equal time to respond and post their nonsense alongside your carefully thought out diatribe. I'd go nuts. NUTS I tell you. But, I digress.
Reflecting American disdain for the viewpoints of others, the networks also generally neglected to tap sources from countries other than the United States, Great Britain or Iraq. "Citizens from those nations that most vocally opposed the U.S. war effort -- France, Germany and Russia -- accounted for just 16 appearances, constituting just 1 percent of all guests," the report said.
Oh, well, France, Germany and Russia sure proved themselves to be valuable voices in the anti-war movement, what with how they were protecting their financial investment in propping up Saddam and his murderous regime. I still roll my eyes every time I see footage of fleeing Ba'athists driving away in BMWs or when I hear of the sneaky oil deals France-based ELF had with Saddam. These are the anti-war folks the people at the Fairness and Accuracy and Reporting want to give equal time to? Why not ask Mike Tyson to explain why raping women and biting off ears are actually positive expressions of the soul?
All of it adds up to a pathetic performance by the major television news operations. News officials failed to provide fair, proportional coverage of all viewpoints. They neglected to do their own digging on stories, preferring instead to accept the unchallenged word of official sources.
This coming from a newspaper that just accepted, without question, the findings of the Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting organization. Pot, please meet kettle. Kettle, pot.
There was no liberal slant to television's coverage of the war. Nor was there anything approaching fair and balanced coverage.
Again, to the P-B, "liberal slant" means anti-war, which is such an asshat assumption it requires its own special department of monumentally stupid.
As a result the American people were poorly served by the broadcast media at a time of national crisis.
Yeah, some crisis. During a war when you could flip channels to American Idol, I would hardly call it a national crisis. Sheesh.
Yesterday, I realized that I needed some cash, because cash is an exchange medium by which I can gain access to goods and services. I needed to eat, and food is considered a good, so I required cash to access the food. This is the crazy world in which we live. Can't we just go back to the tried and true bartering system, where three sheep, a cow, 20 chickens and 80 jars of preserved prunes could purchase a child bearing daughter who works well in the field? Those were the good old days. Okay, not really.
So, anyway, I go downstairs to the on-site ATM machine, insert my IBM credit Union debit card, enter my pin number, and. . . the machine spits out the card without giving me any of the exchange medium known as cash. Huh. Interesting. So, I repeat the process with the same result. Well, I just assume that the stupid ATM is malfunctioning; perhaps it was illegally downloading music and Orrin Hatch came along and frizzled the machine. I decided to give up my quest for cash and come back to the ATM later in the day, hopefully after a technician came by and reset the ATM innards.
A few hours later, I again trekked downstairs, inserted my card, entered my pin number, and. . . the ATM made a funny little sound, the machine reset itself, and it did not give me back my card. WTF? What's going on? Why did the ATM just eat my card? Now I don't have a card any more, and my access to cash is now considerably hampered, and OH MY GOD I'm so fucking hungry, and that girl who just walked by is just totally knock out hot, easily worth at least eight sheep, two cows, 40 chickens and 120 jars of preserved prunes. At LEAST.
Befuddled and cardless, I returned to my office and call the credit union to explain my plight, without mentioning the hot girl, of course. The woman who helped me was very nice and polite, and we tried to work through the problem together, but I got annoyed when she kept asking me if I was sure I entered the correct pin number. Of COURSE it was correct. I've been entering that same pin number for over two years, so I'm pretty freakin' sure it was correct. She tells me that the credit union will retrieve my card and send it back to me in the mail. In the meantime, my card will be deactivated so no one else can use it. Thus satisfied, I hung up and daydreamed of the coming days when my card would arrive in the mail, I'd have access to cash, and all would be right with the world.
About an hour later, my friend Marc called me. He likes to call me at work just to remind me that he gets off work each day at 3 p.m. It amuses him that I have to work until 5 p.m. For my part, it amuses me that I make over $3 an hour more than he does, but I don't call him every day to remind him.
"Hey, I was just wondering how your IBM card is working today," said Marc, and I found it interesting that he would bring that up after all the card drama I endured that day.
"Well, now that you mention it, not all that fucking well," I answered.
"That's because you have my card and I have yours,'" said Marc.
Ohhhhhhh. On Sunday, Marc and I went out for food and drink at Buffalo Wild Wings and we paid separately with our own IBM credit cards. Obviously, we got them mixed up. Marc sounded a little bit upset with me when I told him that the ATM had eaten his card and that he would have to call the credit union to rectify the situation. Thankfully, Marc noticed he had the wrong card before an ATM could eat it, so he still had mine, which meant he could give it back to me and I would have access to cash and all would be right with the world way ahead of schedule. This made me deeply happy.
I met up with Marc at 7 p.m., and we decided to go grab a bite to eat at the local Rochesterfest celebration, which isn't so much a celebration as it is a bunch of greasy food stands lined up for two blocks. I told Marc that we would have to stop at an ATM so I could get some of the exchange medium known as cash, which I would use to purchase said greasy food.
Marc drove to an ATM, where I inserted my newly retrieved card, entered my pin number, and. . .
You should recall here that, earlier in the day, I called the credit union and they told me they deactivated my card. I did not recall that. Well, that's not true. I recalled it almost immediately after the ATM, for the second time that day, ate my card. Once again, there I was, cardless and cashless, all because of an amazing bout of stupidity on my part.
However, I think some of the blame should fall on our modern culture and our dependence on convenient banking. If I just had some sheep and chickens handy, none of this would have happened.
I don't mind aging. I mean, when it comes down to it, aging is a whole heck of a lot better than dying.
For the first 26 years of my life, however, I viewed the aging process as something other people did, particularly old people. Growing up, I would look at the people inhabiting my block and I was always aware that they were growing older. On the other hand, I never thought of myself as a recipient of the aging process. The smoking hot specimen of male hunkiness staring back at me from the mirror always seemed to look the same.
For 26 years, that was the case. Sure, I shaved my head, and grew a goatee, and a tropical rain forest of body hair sprouted from my legs, arms and chest, but generally I saw myself as a strapping young lad with a killer smile, bulging muscles and a really cute butt. As an added bonus, I remained very modest about how great I looked.
Then, one day when I was 27, I noticed something about the man in the mirror: he had a strange solitary white hair protruding from his otherwise jet black goatee. Curious.
Now, I had seen the occasional red hair volunteer itself from my facial stubble, owing to my supposed Irish blood, but a white hair had never before been encountered. I tilted my head to the left and right, up and down, making sure that the light wasn't playing tricks on me. In the end, there was no denying it: I had a GRAY hair.
In retrospect, I think I panicked. Rather than simply acknowledge the silver chin thread and move on with my aging life, I instead fumbled for the tweezers and yanked the intruder from its follicle, thereby setting a painful precedent for all other future gray hairs.
However, despite daily vigilance on my part, carefully scanning for any other emerging grays, after a couple weeks with no further chin plucking, I forgot about the whole thing. I fogot about it all the way into my 28th year. Until. . .
Last week, my girlfriend casually mentioned that she saw a couple of gray hairs jutting forth from my goatee. Although she laughed about it, I made a mental note to do a chin inspection of my own when she wasn't around and dispose of any and all gray facial intruders. I was not at all prepared for the battle that awaited me.
Upon close inspection, I realized that gray whiskers had staged a monumental offensive in the year since I plucked out their gray scout comrade. There were gray hairs EVERYWHERE! I plucked and plucked and plucked until nary a shimmer of white remained, and then I looked between my left thumb and forefinger, where the dead follicle soldiers lay.
All told, I removed 14 silver soldiers, and each assassination made me wince with pain. I don't care who you are, pulling whiskers out by their roots with a tweezers is an incredibly painful undertaking. In the end, I came to a sad conclusion: there is simply no way I can continue to yank every gray whisker that assaults my face.
So, I'm left with the sad resignation that I'm growing older and there's nothing I can do about it, no matter how much I pluck and wince. Therefore, I'm retiring my tweezers and allowing my whiskers to sprout in whatever color they so wish.
I can do this because I'm secure within myself. That, and I'm still a smoking hot specimen of male hunkiness. Yep, for an older guy, I'm pretty darned cute. And, did I mention my butt?
I Originally Found O'Reilly's Whine Via Glenn Reynolds' Instapundit, So I'm Sure Everyone Has Ripped On It By Now. . . But. . .
Okay, I'm probably not the first to give Bill O'Reilly a digital smack upside the head for his ridiculous whine about the Internet. The short version is that poor Mr. "In Your Face" O'Reilly is riled that, in his opinion, the Internet is awash in amateur character assassins intent on doing celebrities, including *gasp* himself, harm. Well, rather than spread falsehoods against poor Bill, thus angering him further, I figured I'd just opt to use his words against him. Shall we begin?
Sex, lies and videotape on the Internet, that's the subject of this evening's Talking Points Memo. Nearly everyday, there's something written on the Internet about me that's flat out untrue. And I'm not alone. Nearly every famous person in the country's under siege.
First off, Bill, let me just congratulate you on a shitty segue using the movie title "Sex, Lies and Videotape." It didn't do anything for me, but I'm sure you thought it was witty, and you're a big time talking head with your own show, so you must be right. So, you're mad that the Internet is a hotbed of nobodies needling famous people, eh? Well, you should get over it, because for every inconsequential barb out there, there are five truthful, fact-checked exposes that can rival anything the big media, and lesser cable media, machines can churn out.
Today's example comes from Web sites that picked up a false report from The San Francisco Chronicle that said a San Francisco radio station dropped The Radio Factor. If anyone had bothered to make even one phone call, they would have learned that Westwood One made a deal with another San Francisco radio station, weeks ago to move The Radio Factor. Thus the word "dropped" is obviously inaccurate and dishonest. We'll see if The Chronicle runs a correction, but you can bet you won't be seeing many corrections on the net.
Bill isn't mad because the item was 100% incorrect; he's mad because it was inaccurate and dishonest, and we all know that "The O'Reilly Factor" is a bastion of accuracy and honesty, and Bill will always own up to any statement he utters that may eventually be proven false. Bill is mad because someone posted something that was posted by The San Francisco Chronicle, and now he expects a retraction from the Web site that posted it. Really, though, let's say 1.5 million people read the Chronicle item, and then everyone went out and told five of their friends. Would Bill go out and demand that each individual make a personal retraction? Beyond all that, however, is the fact that Bill got so riled about something that he claims is false. Then, why make such a stink about it? The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
The reason these net people get away with all kinds of stuff is that they work for no one. They put stuff up with no restraints. This, of course, is dangerous, but it symbolizes what the Internet is becoming.
To me, this is the money quote. They put stuff up with no restraints. Yeah, ain't free speech just a pain in the ass? I love this because, more or less, Bill is saying that free speech is "dangerous." How dare people speak their minds! Don't they know that only Bill O'Reilly is allowed to do that?
In truth, The Chronicle's story [is] small stuff compared to other Internet sins. The child molestation people have now figured out a way to chat about their crimes without being charged with obscenity. And the Supreme Court actually helped these people by ruling that virtual child porn, computerized images of kids being raped, are legal, an extension of free speech.
So all over the country, we have people posting the most vile stuff imaginable, hiding behind high tech capabilities. Sometimes the violators are punished, but most are not. We have now have teenagers ruining the reputations of their peers in schools on the Internet. Ideologues accusing public officials of the worst things imaginable. And creeps gossiping about celebrities in the crudest of ways.
Teenagers ruining the reputatioins of their peers in schools?! Oh, the horror! But, it still sounds better than getting a swirlie, of which I'm a veteran of many. Truthfully, I would have loved to have the Internet at my fingertips in high school because it would have given me a voice and find others too terrified to speak up in the hallways for fear of suffering atomic wedgies. Idealogues accusing public officials of the worst thing imaginable? Yeah, it's called "an election." Creeps gossiping about celebrities in the crudest of ways? Yeah, they're called "tabloids."
The Internet has become a sewer of slander and libel, an unpatrolled polluted waterway, where just about anything goes. For example, the guy who raped and murdered a 10-year old in Massachusetts says he got the idea from the NAMBLA Web site that he accessed from the Boston public library. The ACLU's defending NAMBLA in that civil lawsuit.
Unpatrolled? Hardly. I had a plagiarist called to my attention just last week. The Internet, or at least the bright side of the Internet (not the porn and hate and other yucks that make up the dark cyber underbelly) largely does a bang-up job of policing itself. Leave it to Bill to grasp at an anecdote that totally forgets that the Internet, and blogs in particular, were instrumental in exposing the journalistic cancer within the New York Times and debunking claims that the Pfc. Lynch rescue was faked. Bill's inflated and fragile ego was bruised, so now he's lashing out against an entity so large it could discredit and squash him in just a few short weeks. Tread carefully, Bill. The Internet is listening, and right now we don't like what we're hearing from you. You don't want to be sitting out on the curb trying to sell pencils alongside Jayson Blair now do you?
Talking Points noted with interest the hue and cry that went up from some quarters about the FCC changing the rules and allowing big corporations to own even more media properties. But big corporations are big targets. If they misbehave, they can be sued for big bucks. These small time hit and run operators on the net, however, can traffic in perversity and falsehoods all day long with impunity. It's almost impossible to rein them in.
This is another interesting excerpt, because I think it underscores something I've noticed about Big Media organizations and their condescending nose-thumbing at the Internet. Folks like O'Reilly, who don the make-up and have cameras pointed at them, tend to think they should be the authority on news and opinion. This is true from small town local weekly papers to NBC nightly news. They have this inflated feeling of entitlement because they're in print or on television. They can't wrap their heads around the concept that America, and the world, is populated with people that have just as much right to opinion and say as they do, whether they're an Iraqi blogger or a small personal voice that resonates with people trying to live a daily life.
The O'Reilly's of the world just can't grasp that us "small time hit and run operators on the net" are often professionals ourselves, sometimes lawyers like Glenn Reynolds and sometimes actual journalists by trade, like myself, or Andrew Sullivan or Michael Snider. And we all have just as much right to spout off as O'Reilly does during his beloved "O'Reilly Factor."
So which is the bigger threat to America? The big companies or the criminals at the computer? Interesting question.
Hmmmmm, big companies such as Enron and Arthur Anderson and WorldCom, which tank amid fudged bookkeeping and greed, sending America further into an economic tailspin, or "criminals" at computers who post daily thoughts and opinions, usually enriching public discourse? I don't know. . . I guess it seems like a no-brainer to me.
UPDATE: Yep, everyone is ripping O'Reilly a new one, including this gem here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and even James Lileks is getting in on the fun here. And, if you can't get enough O'Reilly bashing, I suggest you go here. All of these links come via the indispensible Instapundit.
UPDATE: What was I saying about O'Reilly sitting on the curb selling pencils alongside Jayson Blair? Oh, right:
I predict that this dumb piece of O'Reilly's, inconsequential as it is on its own, marks the beginning of the end. Not because, as Andrea Harris writes, "That sound you hear is the sound of thousands of "right-wing" bloggers changing their tv channel from Fox News to ... anything else." But because this embarrassing "who are these little people to criticize the likes of me" bit indicates that O'Reilly has lost touch with the common man, and started to identify with the "famous people." Hey, that was Donahue's schtick. And we all know what happened to him.
Ya'll get back on yah horse and ride yah'self outta Blogosphere-ville, Mr. O'Reilly. We don't take kindly to whiners and weenies here. Not even Teagan.
UPDATE: Nothing too important to add here, except for maybe. . . Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
UPDATE: This will probably be the only time you will see my name stacked alongside such notables as Lileks and Reynolds. *tears streaming down my face in happiness*
It's Monday, so that means I'm in a boring blogging mood. The only way you could possibly get any more boring than me right now, is if you clicked this link. Man, that guy is boring, and he still gets enough comments to choke a horse.
And isn't that an odd saying? Choking a horse? How did a saying like that come into being anyway?
COWBOY #1: Hey, there, Emmit. You have a mighty whole bunch of food in front of yer horse there. What'cha plannin' on doin' there anyway?
COWBOY #2: I'm a aimin' to choke him. I'm a gonna' keep feedin' him and feedin' him until the food gets caught in his throat and he starts a chokin'.
COWBOY #1: I gotta say, that's a purty strange thing to be doin'. Any 'ticular reason?
COWBOY #2. Nah, no reason. Just curious, I guess.
For that matter. Where did the term "beating a dead horse" originate? What a horrible mental image that conjures.
COWBOY #1: Well, now what'r ya doin', Emmit?
COWBOY #2: The horse finally went and choked. Ya know, you'd be surprised just how much food it takes to choke a horse. Well, he went and keeled over, and suddenly I realized that I NEED this here horse. So, I'm tryin' to beat him back to life.
COWBOY #1: Emmit, you oughtn't be beatin' that dead horse. That just ain't right.
So, anyway, online-2003-christina-aguilera02.jpg">where was I? Ah, yes. The weekend. Actually, you know what? I'm going to skip over a lot of the weekend, so you're left thinking that I had high tea with the Queen of England on Saturday.
I went golfing on Sunday afternoon, which just also happened to be the most sweltering hot day of the summer thus far. It was hot. Damned hot. It was the type of beloved Minnesota heat where you could just stand perfectly still and actually feel your socks getting damp with sweat.
I'm not a patient golfer. Nothing irks me faster than being forced to golf behind slow groups, and on Sunday, my friend Jim and I were trapped behind the slowest golfers ever to play the game. My heart sank when I saw the first two golfers tee off, and the ball skittered 30 feet in front of them. It was going to be a long day. It was going to be a long, long, sock-sweating day.
To make matters worse, we had the most inconsiderate group golfing behind us. These folks didn't understand the concept of waiting until the people in front of them are out of range before hitting. After the third golf ball came bounding up behind me, narrowly missing my leg, I turned around, lifted my right hand, and extended my middle finger in the international golf sign language of "if you hit like that once more, just once more, you'll be the first human being in history to have a putter surgically removed from your ass."
They understood the sign language, and they didn't hit behind us for the rest of the round. Ah, the good old finger. Use it wisely. Use it only for good.
I caught the "Walking With Caveman" special last night. It was pretty okay, I guess, even though I think the Discovery channel may be milking the whole "Walking With. . ." theme just a tad too much. Eventually, I'll click on the tube and see "Walking With Insects" or "Walking With Fictitious Martian Carbon-Based Life Forms."
The whole Caveman special seemed determined to gross out the viewers by showing our genetic ancestors eating anything and everything as messy and disgusting as possible. They could have gotten away with telling us that hominids ate grubs and huge hairy spiders without showing us. The spider-eating segment was particularly gross. It wasn't enough to show spider-eating. No, then they had to drool thick green spider guts to show that early humans would, indeed, eat anything.
And Alec Baldwin? Why Alec Baldwin as the host? Here they are showing us the evolution of the human species, and Alec Baldwin is the best we can do to show the epitome of homo sapien development? Heck, the guy can't even spell "Alex" correctly. Why not Tom Selleck? Why not John Cusack? Actually, Salma Hayek would have been the perfect spokesperson for the human species at this developmental stage in our evolution. She's just too frickin' hot! She makes my neander stand thal. Ugh. One. . . one horrible joke! Ah! Ah! Ah! <-- insert Sesame Street's "The Count" inflection here.
And so begins another week. I won't talk about how much I dislike Mondays. To to do so would be to beat a dead horse, and that ain't right.
