Newsies

We are what we read .. - Screenshot by blogSpotter

by blogSpotter
Before diving into today’s topic, I’d like to mention my day’s activity. I visited the George W. Bush Library at SMU. The parking was overflow and that should have clued me in... the line for exhibits was a mile long, wrapping all the way around the main lobby. The facility is beautiful; the “lantern” section has a 90 foot ceiling with an LED mural. You can look at the public area and the museum shop without paying admission. I’ll come back on a less crowded day. To my liberal brethren, I’d like to say this museum can be fascinating to those of any political bent. In fact, if you dislike Number 43, you might find the exhibits interesting from the standpoint of how the exhibitors did spin and damage control.

Everyone’s a Newsy

When I was 7, I required adult supervision. Left to my own devices food-wise, I would’ve had M&M’s, fudge brownies, BBQ potato chips and ice cream for dinner. I would’ve considered the chips my veggie for the day. What! ... you (the presumed adult) say that diet lacks balance. There are no vegetables, no fiber. There’s nothing redeeming about it.

Now let’s flash forward to 2013. I live alone, but time has given me insight into my dietary needs. I get spinach, asparagus and vitamins daily. My adult sensibilities have even given me an affinity for these things. In an oddly similar way, we all need to be sustained with an “information” diet. We get our daily news mostly from TV and the Internet. A few of us dinosaurs still read Time and the Dallas Morning News. A friend my age laughs derisively at “dead tree” media. “Time’s stories are a week stale, the day it comes to your mailbox”, he says. Likewise, DMN is rehashing the CNN headlines you already saw last night on your iPad.

I won’t argue his points, but I have a couple of ideas to add..

1) I read the paper for Op Ed and essays as much as anything. An informed opinion about reasonably current events doesn’t grow stale like day old bread.

2) I read “mainstream” venues to get the other guy’s opinion even if I don’t love him or her. I’ve read many articles by Mark Davis, Pat Buchanan, George Will and even Ann Coulter. The Morning News offers guest opinions from opposing sides. I like to know what the “enemy camp” is thinking -- what arguments do I need to counter.

3) I read the dead tree media because my eyes will by happenstance land on ideas, issues and events I might otherwise tune out. I’m made aware of the Dallas City Council positions and Mayor Rawling’s GrowSouth initiative. Not everything is the substance of Firing Line but it’s worth knowing nonetheless.

My friend is conservative -- he reads web sites with names like “National Review” and “American Patriot”. He devours FOXNews.com as well as FOX news on TV. Liberals have their equivalent sites -- Huffington Post and Daily Kos. What I see happening is a segregating, silo effect. You and I may be next door neighbors and yet have such differing grips on reality. Our take on everything is slanted and possibly backwards. Then because maybe we both canceled the daily paper, we’re not even aware of a local election or fund drive.

Pandemonium

One web site that I like has a conservative label but it serves up liberal Op Eds as well: RealClearPolitics.com. You’ll find the offerings of Ann Coulter right next to Maureen Dowd. Liberal economist Paul Krugman will follow right after NeoCon Bill Kristol. It’s pandemonium in a way, but a good pandemonium.

What I’d like the reader to carry away is that news should annoy you -- when you see what the other guy thinks. It might also fill you with concern, obligation and sometimes remorse. There is a yin and yang to knowledge and knowing. If all you eat is M&M’s you’ll become a fat, complacent diabetic porker. Better to take in the roughage and variety that makes us mindful, sentient, sometimes disturbed but always hoping to have a better world. Sometimes the greatest insights come from the storm clouds of reasoned debate -- and we benefit when lightning strikes.

© 2013 blogSpotter

Z as in Zealot

He doesn't look like a killer .. - Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
April 15th is not a day that we love, normally because of income taxes being due. For 2013, the young Tsarnaev brothers, Chechen immigrants, made the day all the more frightening by detonating two pressure cooker bombs at the Boston Marathon finish line. It seems that 26 year old Tamerlan and 19 year old Dzokhar were carefree and careless in their methods. They strolled casually along the street planting bomb-laden backpacks, little realizing that watchful security cameras recorded every move. They later bragged to a car jack victim that they were the bombers.

What the brothers lacked in common sense, they made up for in religious devotion. In 2012, Tamerlan is thought to have visited a Salafi mosque in Dagestan where he was versed in radical Islam. He came back a “purist” with a beard, condemning American libertine behavior. Both boys posted various Islamic prayers and poems on their web sites. Because America is a free society, and many among us are religious devotees, none of these behaviors seemed out-of-bounds. In the aftermath of their horrific plot, the specter of Islamic zealotry did in fact rear its head.

In days that followed, the “liberal” media (Salon, Huffington Post, msnbc) contorted themselves mightily to deemphasize the radical religious angle. This crime was done “independently” by “loners” who acted without any guidance or participation in a terror cell. Never mind that the formula for the bomb came from the Al Quaeda magazine, Inspire. Never mind that Islam was given as a life view on FaceBook. My personal feeling is that participation in a terror cell doesn’t matter. Whether it was a large collective effort or individual madness, a jihadist religious philosophy drove this behavior, pure and simple. In my previous blogs about Heaven’s Gate and Jim Jones’ temple I suggested some cautionary remarks about any prophet, priest or minister who exhorts you to:
o Commit murder
o Commit suicide
o Destroy property
o Commit blind, random acts of destruction
o Violate secular, state laws regarding sex with minors, plural marriage
o Disown blood relations, give away property
o Castrate or otherwise harm yourself
o Perform disfiguring corporal punishment on “non believers”

If someone (a mortal human, like you) is claiming to have some cosmic connection and asking you to do these crazy things, your inner cynic should come to the fore. In the above case, the boys’ father was a secular lawyer who hated radical Islam. It’s odd that they could still be swayed away from his more reasoned approach.

Even “mainstream” organized religion can go places it shouldn’t – look at the Westboro Baptist Church who protests American soldiers’ funerals with placards that read “God hates fags”. Look at the Catholic Church which simultaneously condemns gays while sheltering pedophiles in its ranks. Speaking from my own singularly secular perch, all religions can give me the willies. Unitarians serve up some of the weirdest rituals of them all (what with its Wiccans and Pagans). While I will stay in my zone (and the reader, stay in your zone as you see fit), let’s not any of us throw away a life over “wackadoo” extremism that makes promises and threats to weakened minds. I believe there is in fact a God, and he (she or they) expects better from us.

© 2013 blogSpotter

The M Word

Romney at Battle Creek - Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I haven’t done an election piece for a while. Thought I would weigh in on a few things as 2011 draws to a close. Today’s topic is Mitt Romney but I’d like to address a couple of small “nits” first …

Dallas' NBC 5 and its love affair with Rick Perry

I’ve noticed that NBC 5 and the Dallas Morning News run prominent Rick Perry stories every day now. These are nice, softball pieces that show up in on the front page of DMN or the top of NBC 5’s news hour. I’d like to inform these two news agencies that Rick Perry being from Texas does not mean that all Texans are pulling for him. I felt sorry for Perry when he had his (now historic) brain freeze in one debate, forgetting which federal agencies he’d cancel. But more generally when the man opens his mouth he says something appalling – that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme or ending Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell is a violation of Christian morality. I think that if DMN and NBC 5 want to continue running commercials for Rick Perry they should either (1) charge him standard rates for the coverage or (2) give equal time to other candidates. A Texas upbringing is a minor, negligible factor in which candidate is best.

Mark Davis and his hatred of immigrants

Mark Davis, in his 11/30 DMN editorial railed against illegal Mexican immigrants. He compared an illegal immigrant to a bank robber or other serious felon. Really Mark? You’re going to follow that line of illogic? A poor Mexican father of four is probably doing what any “market actor” does – he looks for the job that offers the best salary and benefits. That’s probably what Mark Davis does when signing on with a news program or talk show. Yes, the immigrant may violate US immigration law – does that make him equivalent to a bank robber? Our (Anglo) forefathers came from Ireland, England and Western Europe for much the same motivations as Mexican immigrants. There was a huge, paranoid outcry at the turn of the last century, much like now. I will close this topic by saying that immigrant contributions far exceed what they might cost in social services. Conservatives need to quit looking for hapless scapegoats when Wall Street is much more the problem with our current economy in the dumps. Pick on someone your own size. And President Obama -- tear down that fence along the Rio Grande.

The Trouble with Mitt

Now that Newt Gingrich has overtaken Romney in all the polls, people are wondering how and why. Newt has been described as an ego-maniacal, grandiose windbag with a short fuse, no less. He’s also said to be charming, brilliant and fascinating – none of these traits preclude each other. The essential verdict from pundits who know Newt is that he’s an amazing man who probably shouldn’t be President due to a non-Presidential temperament. Mitt Romney on the other hand is like the devoted High School valedictorian – he’s a picture of discipline, self-control and temperate thoughts. He’s done all the homework. Romney has also succeeded well in business though he modestly keeps his $200,000,000 net worth out of his “humble” biography.

Magazines and talking head shows have pointed to a couple of main things in analyzing Romney… he’s a flip-flopper on issues, he prevailed over a “socialist” government health care plan (“Romneycare” in Massachusetts), and he’s seen as too liberal by the extreme-right GOP. These things may all be true, but we’ve put other flawed men into office – men with heavy baggage and far less to recommend them (e.g., Nixon’s 2nd term, Bush after the Iraq fiasco). What people (and the media in particular) tip-toe around is the fact that Romney is a devout Mormon. “M” in my title is not Mitt – it’s Mormon. Mainstream deep-south Protestants view the Mormon Church as a cult. This might not be as it should be – how unpleasant is the topic of intolerance. This is what is.

When JFK ran for President in 1960, his Catholicism was an issue – would he be taking orders from the Pope? Political Correctness hadn’t yet put the stranglehold of an overfed boa constrictor on our society. The topic was allowed to be broached and even discussed at length. When discussion was allowed, the silliness of the original proposition was fully apparent. Kennedy made it clear that he would be foremost a U.S. President, for all Americans. What is disturbing in 2011 is that a significant viewpoint probably knocks all the ex-Confederate states out of Romney’s support column. And that viewpoint is a forbidden topic. Conservative Texans, when asked why they don’t like Romney, will pussyfoot all the way around the sagebrush… he’s “too liberal…a Rockefeller Republican”.. Translation …. “There is no way in Hell that I’d ever vote for a Mormon cultist”. This blog’s author sees Christianity and Mormonism as similar types of cults. One simply has more history and infrastructure surrounding it. In 2012, we’ve closed the door on the discussion because it might lead to another discussion about religion. Now is the PC moment for all of us to clear our throats uncomfortably and change the subject.

But let’s just put the 2012 GOP race into perspective. Because of all the weirdness in this year’s candidates it’s indeterminate what will happen. Bachman developed crazy eyes, Rick Perry forgot his lines and Herman Cain had bimbo eruptions. But it’s looking like Mitt will not be the guy either – for a reason that in 2012 “dare not speak its name” – religion and cults.

© 2011 blogSpotter

News in a Barbie World

Miles and miles of Miley footage -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I’m still huffing & puffing to catch up with my blog – work is getting busy (uncomfortably so) just two days before Christmas. Today’s blog is inspired by tabloid overload from this morning’s Today Show – and I can probably present it without too much prep time.

What do Natalee Holloway, Chandra Levy and Amanda Knox have in common? Unless you've been living under sensory deprivation, you’ll know that the first two are beautiful women who disappeared under tragic, mysterious circumstances in Aruba and D.C. respectively. Amanda is a beautiful woman who is implicated in the tragic murder of her beautiful roommate in Italy. What all three of these women have in common is thousands of hours of news coverage. Not just tabloids, but “legitimate” news venues (Time, NBC News) have devoted mountains of pages and film footage to these events.

Not to diminish the sad and sorrowful nature of these happenings, their primacy is weird in a nation that is otherwise challenged with two wars, a great recession, cancer, pollution and probably a thousand topics that are more central to our well-being. That the stories are tragic gives them the aura of “newsworthiness” that can’t be garnered from the titillating exploits of Miley Cyrus, Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian. The news peddlers' fascination with beautiful women is out of proportion; they know that more ordinary women are gripped with envy and "what-if's?". Men are mostly lured by sex, albeit a glossy, unreal and unseemly aspect of sex. The observations go from the vapid (Paris Hilton sans underwear) to the lurid ("bones of missing woman found in park..."). The common thread here is that the dramatis personae are beautiful, young, generally affluent females. In fact, I’ve worked up a profile – you can compute how tabloid worthy you are...

AM I TABLOID WORTHY?

• Beautiful ...30 points
• Female ...30 points
• Young (under 30) ... 20 points
• White ... 10 points
• Affluent ...10 points

There’s no definite way of scoring this, but I’ll say you need an 80/100 to be on the front page of American Statesman. You need 90/100 for Nancy Grace to feature you obsessively.

Wanda Sykes has a whole comedy routine about the public concern over missing black prostitutes – there is no apparent concern. After a point, a john in the neighborhood might say, “Where’s all our ho’s?” A black woman can be abducted at a car wash, in front of witnesses, directly across the street from the Dallas Morning News. It will barely be a footnote under Metro events, page 7D. The above profile attributes taken together say a lot about our social values. It also has to be a fair damsel in distress, otherwise there is a marked loss of interest; a chinless woman with glasses will fall through the media cracks. Along gender lines, one supposes that men must know better or fend for themselves. There have been occasions where men have been abducted or tortured – it’ll have a better placement than 7D in the paper but not much. It certainly won’t give Greta Van Susteren material for a year’s worth of forensic expert interviews.

The victim doesn’t have to be affluent, but it helps. If the subject isn’t solidly middle class or higher, it may be seen as the necessary consequence of a squalid upbringing. The consequences are sad but not surprising. Advancing age is like masculinity – it confers a certain responsibility on the victim. “She should’ve known better .... she should’ve seen it coming”. If a 45 year old woman was abducted in Aruba people would spin it very differently ... “That old broad, she got in over her head”.

When King Kong scaled the Empire State Building, he didn’t hold a balding 35 year old man, a fat woman or a cleaning lady. He held Fay Wray, a terrified beauty with torn clothes. No detail of Fay Wray could be different – there would be no movie otherwise. Maybe society’s alter ego will someday expand beyond an idealized Blonde Venus and we’ll care about that bald-headed man. But not so much now.

© 2010 blogSpotter

"Dead Tree Media" Has Staying Power

Why magazines should rule -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Much has been said lately about the upcoming demise of the “dead tree media” -- magazines and newspapers. I remember circa 1995 when we were still bandying terms like Prodigy, Lynx, AOL and Mosaic. The Hotwired-reading prophets of the time predicted that magazines would be over and done with by 1996. They were wrong about that to be sure, but in 2010 I’d be remiss not to mention that lots of “dead trees” have really died. I need only look at my local Dallas Morning News which has had to nearly double its subscription rate to $33/year. Yes, some periodicals have ended their periodicity -- but I have hope that some survivors will persist.

Here is why. When I pick up a new copy of GQ or Rollins Stone magazine, I get more than the article content. I get beautiful, printed color lithography -- a tactile experience of paper and a veritable time capsule of ads and articles that speak to the current day. I get a thematically assembled-and-bound album of ideas and art that I might not think to put together myself -- suitable for a keepsake if I so desire. Imagine printing this week’s Newsweek content on your local inkjet and assembling it in any way as portable or pleasing as a printed magazine. OK, I hear the reader saying, “I don’t need assembled keepsakes, all I need is two articles”. You force me to bring up the “positive negatives” of dead tree media:

THE BUS -- If somebody mugs me at the bus stop, all they get is Newsweek. They don’t get an $800 Dell Inspiron with all my financial documents, software and photo memories.

THE BUTTER FINGERS -- If I accidentally throw my Men’s Health into the fireplace, all I’ve lost is $4.50 -- maybe not even that much if I already read it. If I drop my HP Pavilion, I must hope it’s still under warranty. ** See above addendum about photo memories.

THE BEACH -- If I take my Mini notebook to the beach, I risk gunking it up with sand, salt and suntan oil. I might get smears on a magazine but somehow it’s not as traumatic. Magazines were plainly made for the beach

THE BURGER KING -- Burger King will have generous stacks of Green Sheet, Dallas Observer and other freebies at the store entrance. These periodicals are free for the taking and paid for by local advertisers. I have yet to see the store that provides a stack of PC’s for customers who want impromptu browsing material.

THE BATTERY -- Utne Reader has an instant boot and shutdown time. I can read it for endless hours and no battery has been depleted. Don’t need to search for wifi or electrical outlets.

THE BIG GRAPHICS -- Some people will say that Smart phones are so small and simple that they eliminate some of the concerns of dropping or smearing with suntan oil. To that I have to say, this is where technology is limited by human physiology. A hand-held device should not be much smaller than a deck of playing cards -- lest it get easily lost or baffle it’s user with tiny controls. No less is true of a portable reader (be it an iPhone, a netbook or a SONY ebook reader). I have an iPhone and strain to read it even with reading glasses. Vogue on the other hand is bigger-than-life and splashy. A middle-aged person can read much of it without glasses.

Magazines give you fold-outs and cologne samples. When will computers offer fragrances? Magazines are light-weight and made for abuse. You can roll them up and cram them into tiny places (OK, mind out of the gutter). blogSpotter (I, the author) is admittedly old and out of the mainstream. But I truly think that our dead tree experience is something that has staying power. Maybe the next decade will prove me wrong. I wonder if there are any magazines that cover this issue?


© 2010 blogSpotter

Perez in the Springtime

Giving us the scoop and some doodles -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Why do I envy Perez Hilton? Because the nonchalant, 30 year-old publicity hound is one of the world’s most successful bloggers. His real name is Mario Lavandeira and he was born to Cuban American parents in ’78. He’s worn many hats already in his short career. He’s been a GLAAD publicity agent, actor, receptionist and managing editor of Instinct magazine. He finally struck pay dirt with his on-line gossip rag, http://perezhilton.com.

The web site leverages off of Hilton’s LA celebrity connections -- many photos are originals from events that Perez personally attends. Hilton claims the site has received 8.5 million hits in one day, a staggering number. (That would probably bring my site down). His “stage name” Perez Hilton is an obvious play on Paris Hilton -- a devoted BFF who receives a lot of promotional build-up on Perez’s site.

Others are not so fond of Perez -- his site has been drawn into much controversy. He’s been accused various things -- falsely reporting Castro’s death, playing copyrighted music of Britney Spears, and defaming an LA DJ by reporting a drug arrest. One of his biggest ongoing controversies is the outing of GLBT celebrities who aren’t ready for the spotlight. He so far has maintained that the outing is perfectly OK although civil litigation begs to differ.

The latest Perez brouhaha has been the Miss California controversy where he, as a judge, asked the perky bimbette her opinion on gay marriage. She replied that marriage should be between one man and one woman. There was a media storm that followed when Miss California lost the competition (as a result of how she answered the gay marriage question?). Perez poured gasoline on the fire by referring to Miss California as a “dumb bitch” on his blog… The controversy whip-sawed a different direction when it turned out that Miss California had posed for some topless photos earlier in her career. (“It was windy”).

The bombastic "angel of mercy" Donald Trump gave Miss California a break for her tawdriness, probably hoping to quell the prior controversy with a little after-the-fact forgiveness, letting her keep the title.

Stir, stir, stir. What have we with Perez? We have an extreme, successful far-out-of-the-closet gossip maven who knows how to “work it” from a business standpoint. Closeted gays and Christian conservative models would probably do well to stay out of his way. And 5-hits-a-day blogSpotter would do well to capture any part of Perez’s momentum or business know-how.

© 2009 blogSpotter

The Tawdry Tale of Jack Ryan

Ryan on the campaign trail -- Picture courtesy of Illinois Channel

by blogSpotter
If you believe in chaos theory, you will have good fodder with the tawdry tale of Jack Ryan. Ryan is the 49-year old ex-Senatorial candidate from Illinois who lost to Barack Obama in 2004. Ryan is a model-handsome businessman who had much of the world handed him on the proverbial silver platter. A graduate of Dartmouth and Harvard, Ryan became an investment banker at Goldman Sachs where he earned hundreds of millions of dollars. Ryan ran in 2004 on a conservative platform, emphasizing tax cuts and tort reform.

Back in the 90's, the handsome Ryan had some pretty nice arm candy in the form of his beautiful blonde then-wife Jeri. The 40-year old actress is best known for her role as Borg Seven in Star Trek: Voyager, although she had other acting credits -- notably Co-ed Call Girl. Jack and Jeri had one son named Alex. Because they were both pursuing careers and traveling constantly, the marriage suffered -- it ended in divorce after 8 years in 1999. It wasn’t a particularly acrimonious divorce and both people agreed to keep the custody papers permanently sealed for privacy reasons.

If only the Chicago Tribune and a certain LA Superior court judge Robert Schnider had shared the Ryans' feelings about privacy .... The custody records were unsealed on June 22, 2004 and it was revealed that Jack Ryan had asked his wife to act out with him sexually, in public. He took her to various sex clubs in New York, Paris and New Orleans -- some with whips and chains, others with mattresses on the floors. She wasn’t interested, and felt weirdly pressured by these requests. Thus ended the marriage in ‘99. (Mind you, these are divorce allegations and not proven facts).

The rest of this is history. Ryan dropped out of the 2004 race and was replaced by Alan Keyes -- a loud and (by some estimations) obnoxious candidate who stood no chance against the practiced and honey-smooth Obama. Obama ran with the senatorial position and used it as the foundation for his Presidential quest. Ryan was already trailing Obama by 18 points in May 2004, but this was after an email campaign (started by Obama aides?) had already hit the internet. Apparently, Jack’s shenanigans were already public lore by this time. How might this have turned out if news media hadn't pushed to unseal the records? Ryan calls it a new low, and points out that similar privacy requests were honored for John Kerry and John McCain.

So a thorny weed takes root in 1999; it bends in the wind in 2004, and we have a different President in 2008. So goes chaos theory, and so goes the tawdry tale of Jack Ryan. Some might actually see this as karma, not chaos. After all, actions may have consequences. Whatever the case, Ryan is doing fine -- he now owns a company called 22nd Century Media in Chicago that publishes newspapers. Jeri is remarried to famous French Chef Eme and lives in Los Angeles. Obama is President.

© 2009 blogSpotter

Hush, Limbaugh!

Mugging for mug shot -- Picture courtesy of TSG

by blogSpotter
Rush, Rush, Rush. What more can we say about this chubby bubba blowhard that dominates airwaves of rightwing talk radio? The host of a nationally syndicated radio show, Rush is credited by the National Review for single-handedly upholding the chastity of the Right during the Clinton years. In a 2005 op-ed piece for WSJ, Rush opined, "We (conservatives) believe in individual liberty, limited government, capitalism, the rule of law, faith, a color-blind society and national security". His "color-blind" phrase must refer to his Affirmative Action stance. After all, Rush has referred to Obama as "Halfrican American" and said (during a brief NFL announcing gig) that Donovan McNabb was overrated because the media wanted "a black quarterback to do well".

The chubba-bubba we love to diss hails from an old, established family in Cape Giardeau, Missouri. The Limbaughs are a long line of lawyers, with only Rush taking a right turn into showbiz and celebrity. Rush has actually done guest stints on a number of shows -- Pat Sajak, The Late Show, and The Simpsons to name a few. He's been married 3 times, each one ending in divorce after a few years. Back in 2003, Rush was exposed by National Enquirer as a frequent user of Oxycodone and even implicated in the illegal practice of "doctor shopping". He was actually arrested for the doctor shopping but charges were dropped after he agreed to rehab and payment of $30K in court costs. Rush claims to be completely deaf, although a cochlear implant has enabled his harassing ways to continue.

Rush, the bloviating wind machine, has been involved in so many controversies that I have to sum them up in bullet format:

o He suggested that Parkinson’s sufferer Michael J. Fox was faking his spastic arm gestures.
o He suggested that Iraq vets critical of the war were "phony soldiers" who only wanted to receive benefits.
o He tried to instigate (but failed) Operation Chaos where Republicans would vote for Hillary in the 2008 Democratic primaries.
o He described feminists as feminazis whose purpose was to give ugly women social access and ensure maximum abortions.
o He called Obama the "Magic Negro" in a take-off of Puff the Magic Dragon.
o He said on his show "I hope Obama fails" in January 2009 -- spent the next month refining that message to make it seem less ad hominem.
o He locked horns with the new GOP Chairman, Michael Steele, saying he wasn't fit to be chairman.
o He resorted to gross gags on his show. He "aborted" a phone call with the sound of a vacuum cleaner and a scream.

We don't really need to go on ... Rush's antics are almost so far to the edge that they seem like self-parody, or something out of a John Waters movie. Here are some groups who've been spurred into official Limbaugh repudiation:

o Fairness and Accuracy in reporting (FAIR)
o VoteVets.org
o Media Matters
o Environmental Defense Fund

I will have to be honest and admit -- some of the above makes me laugh out loud. I hardly agree with a word of it but the pure audacity and unflinching nerve of it are impressive to me. Rush seems to be related however distantly to Anne Coulter, another conservative pundit with a pugilistic wit. I won't be tuning into Rush's show anytime soon, but I will enjoy the circus atmosphere and negative examples he frequently provides to us all.

© 2009 blogSpotter

The Photogenic News

Too beautiful not to report? -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Newspapers and magazines (old media) are over a barrel these days. As Time pointed out, they were already suffering from internet sites giving all the same stories and insights away for free. Then the September 2008 market crash did nothing to help matters. The mid-January issue of Time had a scant 56 pages, giving immediate testament to the severity of the problem. Their ads have taken a dive.

Now, along comes President Barack Obama and he is truly a God-send to the magazines, given the dire circumstances. Regardless of your political views, Obama is manna from Heaven for Time and Newsweek. Here is why: he and Michelle are stylish, young, photogenic and even a little bit mysterious. My coworker's 5th grade daughter is an Obamaphile along with her entire class -- she has a stack of news magazines featuring Obama on the cover. How can there be such a blatantly "lookist" phenomenon and what might be the implications?

15 years ago, Lady Diana was the talk of the town. Magazine publishers the world over knew that they could boost sales a lot by putting her face on their covers. Magazines like US and PEOPLE could do it unashamedly -- give the people what they want. The tabloids rejoiced, there was no limit to Di-namic media profits. But serious news magazines had a bigger quandary -- how do we work Lady Di into a legitimate news cover story? There were a few things -- her divorce, work with AIDS and land mines and of course her tragic death. News organizations had to "pump it up" to justify much beyond the headline-quality material. Pump they did, because a Diana cover could sell twice as many magazines in one week.

Now come Barack and Michelle. They are probably the first truly attractive, vibrant, chic couple since the Kennedys 46 years ago. (With all due respect to the Clintons, Reagans and others). Not only do they sell magazines, they're the First Couple of the Free World -- Time and Newsweek can pretty easily justify a cover every other week. This brings me to other knotty questions about the obligation of news outlets in a capitalistic system of news-selling. The top tabloid subjects this week are as follows:

* John Mayer and Jennifer Aniston
* Justin Timberlake
* Britney Spears
* Zac Efron
* Tiger Woods
* Angelina Jolie
* Rhianna
* Octuplets Mom
* Academy Awards
* Oprah Love Triangle (alleged)

These are the topics that engage Americans standing in line at Krogers -- hardly material for Meet the Press. I remember being disappointed that PEOPLE shifted to a tabloid style @ 10 years ago. Then, I realized that they actually had stories about heroism, coping and politics toward the back of the magazine. The truth was "out there" -- it just wasn't glamorous or superficial enough to rate a front page appearance. I've noticed very much the same "lowest common denominator" at work in TV and movies -- see my blog, Television for Dummies.

If you like to read WSJ, UTNE Reader, obscure blogs or Newsweek, you are in the minority in so many ways. Not only are you NOT reading the most popular weekly, you are probably demanding a higher quality of analysis, reporting, news-worthiness and even for that matter, grammar. I have no major, Earth-shaking conclusions here except that true news may end up in the domain of non-profits (think PBS, NPR, church, AARP and charity-affiliated magazines).

The all-mighty dollar is less mighty when it turns America into drooling, tabloid sex junkies that care more about J-Lo's cleavage than they do about the credit crisis. It's a free country, so maybe J-Lo's cleavage should get all the air time that the dollar bill requests. Considering the sad state of our economy, J-Lo is probably helping the economic stimulus. But less exciting things like Citibank nationalization should still find a forum in some medium that doesn't have to tart itself up for space at a Kroger's news stand. In my idealistic mind, I think that such a place must exist -- let's please create it if it's not there already.

© 2009 blogSpotter

Breaking or Broken News?

Fair and balanced they say -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
A lot of my conservative friends gravitate to FOX News for their news blurbs. I hear, "FOX is the only one that tells it like it is." The mainstream media (that apparently would be ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC) are just hopelessly liberal. With the likes of Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, FOX definitely marches to a conservative beat. It was founded in 1996 by entertainment media mogul Rupert Murdoch, and helmed by CEO Roger Ailes, a GOP strategist. As the only channel for read-meat conservatives, FOX News still gets a trifling sub-20% ratings share. How can that be in a center-right nation that twice put W. Bush in the White House?

I'm going to jostle some cherished notions by suggesting that personal bias is only one parameter at work here; there is also this thing called quality. Here are a couple of angles to check out. I'm comparing FOXNews.com to msnbc.com. I'm also referring to web sites and TV channels somewhat interchangeably since the web sites seem to reflect the TV stance.

BOY WHO CRIED WOLF
Since 9/11 all the news channels seem to run "breaking news" marquees to garner viewership. Why is it that FOX News seems to have them more frequently and over less earth-shaking events? If it's not major or it's a re-hash of news already-aired, it doesn't need to be flashed as "breaking".

FLUFF and STUFF
Looking at today's MSNBC.com web site, they have this layout... Major headlines, more (national) headlines, local, US & World, politics, business and stock ticker. Entertainment, health, science and other topics are selectable on a side bar.

FOXnews.com has on their web site: major headlines, features and faces (showbiz articles), a large ad that looks at first like FOX news content, US, world, business, politics, entertainment, and then many other topics (the web page is very long). What we have with FOX is crummy web page design, emphasis of commercialism over content and an obvious relationship of FOX news to its entertainment forbears.

Gee, why would I prefer one over the other? What I want with my news is a fairly accurate, unfettered, uncluttered presentation without any editorial bent (liberal or conservative). Too often FOX news veers between National Examiner (titillating showbiz fluff) and the Drudge Report which features sledge hammer over-emphasis on, yes, conservative topics. If nothing else, the cheesy Hannity and O'Reilly ads at the bottom of their mega page convey that image. And yes I have drudgereport.com as one of my own sidebar links -- they do have original stories from time to time and I actually go for some alternate views.

So there you have it -- fair and balanced. If FOX News can hide its conservative wolf-ness a little better, the readers will come. Else, we darned progressives will keep looking at those Obama-loving mainstream sites.

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