Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Times: More obscenely stupid daily

As mentioned, a time or two, the Times Free Press has two editorial pages. On the right, in two senses, are the more-or-less conservative views with editorials written by Lee Anderson; on the left, the editorials are apparently written, at least mostly, by Harry Austin.
As is true of newspaper editorials in my experience, the writing is usually stultifying and not intelligent.
The left side also has the work of one Clay Bennett, a vicious, unintelligent and/or dishonest cartoonist.
Sunday, he drew a bookstore with a section labeled "Self Help" and another labeled "Self Serving," stocked solely with Sarah Palin's new book.
Of course Bennett hasn't read the book; perhaps he doesn't know how to read; perhaps it's just that his mind (using the term loosely) is made up and he refuses to be confused with any facts.
Still, it's odd to see "self serving" as his pejorative of the day, this man who signs his name in fairly large letters on each cartoon.
Wednesday, still without reading the book, he makes another dig, this time with a character saying, "I heard she had a ghost whiner."
One must wonder what motivates such ugliness: Fear?
I've never heard of Sarah Palin threatening to throw, say, cartoonists into jail or fining them or even taxing them.
Then why so much fear, and of course not just from such lightweights as the loathsome Bennett. Time, formerly known as a "news" magazine, did its best to trivialize her, and the moron Joy Behar managed to make several untruthful statements in the one paragraph I heard her speak before I clicked on the channel changer.
Would I vote for Sarah Palin? Of course not. She's a Republican. But I would really like to see some sense of decency and proportionality. Even just a little.

SO WHAT IS A BETTER WORD?
In a private e-mail, a Tennessee legislator referred to President Obama as "a socialist," obviously a term seldom heard, and one that must cause trembling in such places as the editorial page office of such rags as the Times Free Press.
Mr. Austin, or whichever robot wrote the Wednesday editorial, says this: "The right-wing myth that President Obama is a socialist ..."
Perhaps Mr. Austin doesn't own a dictionary. Certainly there is much evidence no such book resides anywhere near the news and editorial rooms.
But surely any United States adult should know the word "socialist" means "an advocate of government ownership of the means of production."
How is Mr. Obama not a socialist?
My guess is the socialists, such as likely Mr. Austin, just don't want to admit to ownership of the word, don't want us to realize they are indeed socialists, and sometimes national socialists.
In an otherwise mediocre -- at best -- "news" paper, it also seems the socialists inform the rest of the paper, too.

FRONT PAGE HORROR
"Poll: Americans say rich should pay for reforms"
An Associated Press story indicates the complete failure of U.S. schools and the overwhelming success of the "news" media and academia in gulling the public.
Even though facts show otherwise, 72 percent who responded to this poll said they believe "insurance companies made too much profit."
Greed and envy are now apparently the chief motivating factors of not just the Democrat Party but an increasingly large percent of the public ... at least the ones the AP queried.

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Blind faith or superstition?

While religion, even the majority's Christian religion, gets a battering from the so-called "news" media, members of the media themselves continue to be overcome by superstition and blind faith.
This is a headline on Page 1 of the Tuesday, 3 November, edition: "Stimulus helps save jobs in Georgia, Tennessee."
The sole source of the "facts" in the story? A government Web site, recovery.gov.
Gosh, the lapdog press is so credulous.

Has subject addled "editors'" brains?

Cable television and Internet connection are being offered by the Electric Power Board, and most people have been looking forward to having competition to the corrupt and incompetent Comcast.
However, just recently it was discovered that EPB will be offering, among its cable choices, (gasp!) so-called "adult" TV, including the Playboy channel.
Naturally, since this is Chattanooga, ire has been raised. (Why do people forget they don't HAVE to watch television, and certainly don't HAVE to subscribe to any cable service?)
In a story Monday, 2 November, further proof is offered that perhaps "stimulus" money should be used to hire at least one capable copy editor for the TFP.
"Critics object to a government-owned utility putting out what they say is pornography. But EPB says it has a free speech mandate not to censure a diverse programming menu ..."
Obviously the word should be "censor."
"David Fowler, a former Republican state senator who now heads the Family Action Council of Tennessee, contends there is no excuse for a government identity peddling porn."
Obviously that should be "government entity."
And it is also obvious there ought to be more opposition to a government's getting into the entertainment business, but the Comcast monopoly has done such a lousy, and expensive, job of delivering cable TV that even many free enterprises have put their principles into escrow for the nonce.