Lefties of the species more vicious than ...

"Mean-spirited" was one of those cliches thrown around by the media during the time of Republican ascendancy.
Surely no one, though, has ever matched the left for sheer nastiness.
In the 8 April edition, on, naturally, the Chattanooga Times side, there is a cartoon I haven't in a long time seen matched for ugliness -- or stupidity.
Don Wright, of the Palm Beach Post, writes "Loose lips ... " then writes in, around a toothy open mouth, the names Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michele Bachmann, and "Chuck Norris, etc."
First of all, I'd be awfully hesitant about attacking Chuck Norris. Even though he now qualifies for membership in AARP (born 10 March 1940) and other "senior" groups, he is still in better shape than ... well, especially any editorial cartoonist I know or know of.
Otherwise, of course, the cartoon is right on the money: The man despondent because his wife was leaving killed his family only because of something Glenn Beck said.
The fellow in despair because his employer closed down murdered his family because he had been listening to Rush Limbaugh.
Come on. Seriously. Does any rational person think any of those multiple murderers even knows who Michele Bachmann is?
Especially that poor immigrant in Binghamton?
I know various right-wingers have also used guilt by association over the years, but for sheer viciousness, it's hard to beat this kind of garbage.
The cartoonist ought to be ashamed, but the "editor" responsible for putting this on a TFP page should too.

Racism is racism is racism

Letter-to-the-editor writer James R. Mapp, no city given, is blamed for an especially egregious pile of nonsense: He urges the election of a particular city council candidate, in the words of the headline, "to avoid loss of black on council."
Many years ago, when I was still a child, but even then smarter than Mr. Mapp, I realized that voting for a candidate because of his skin color was just as bad as voting against a candidate because of his skin color.
Apparently Mr. Mapp accepts the racist notion that "all them blacks think alike."
Ironically, two black thinkers of a very different set appear with frequency on the editorial pages of the Free Press, Walter Williams (one of my particular heroes) and Thomas Sowell (for whom my admiration often palls).
One of the goals we who fought for Civil Rights sought was, as even Martin Luther King sometimes said, a color-blind America, one in which we judged people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.
People like Mr. Mapp, and other racists, however well-meaning they might believe themselves, are setting back that possibility of color-blindness. They are furthering, instead, the cause of racism, and are helping to encourage racism from people of other racial and ethnic connections.
However, I offer this solution to warped-minded people who believe as does Mr. Mapp: Let's have a tri-cameral legislature; let's have a Senate based on geographical boundaries, a House based on population numbers, and a third house (and we need a name here) based on something else.
That third house (oh, what can we call it?) could be created by, say, petition, with people who belong to some group or other, including even racial identity, forming themselves into a bloc and choosing a representative.
We could have, say, blacks choosing a rep, plumbers choosing one, Rotarians choosing one, Presbyterians another, atheists still another ...
Oh the grouping are, perhaps, endless.
The advantages to a tri-cameral legislature are numerous, with the disadvantages being, to my belief, one: More tax money being spent on politicians and bureaucrats.
But, and this is one hope, a third house could slow down the legislative process so that the ultimate result would be far less spending.

Headline writers don't read stories

Robin Hood not so good? reads the headline, with this sub-head following:
Ancient Brits questioned outlaw, says history professor.
Then the story, on Page 2 of the Sunday, 15 March edition, is about one -- ONE -- notation in the margin of "an ancient history book."
Julian Luxford, identified as "an art history lecturer at Scotland's University of St. Andrews," said "a 23-word inscription in the margins of a history book, written in Latin by a medieval monk in about 1460, casts the outlaw as a persistent thief."
Regardless of what is true history, once again the TFP headline contradicts or ignores the content of the story.
Besides, it's funny to find a story in any way disparaging the legend of Robin Hood when "robbing the rich" is so much a part of the current political miasma which was very much foisted upon us by the lamestream media, as someone calls it.

Here's what's wrong with the country

Even for Chattanooga and even for the TFP, letter-writer Harry Geller stands out as dumb.
Here is the beginning of a letter published Sunday, 22 March:
"I do not claim any expertise on the economy. I am entitled to my opinion, however ..."
Yep, a glowing tribute to what's coming out of the government schools, Mr. Geller also has this: "I am sick and tired of the oft-repeated phrase 'redistribution of wealth' ..."
Yes, I can understand he would object strenuously to any cold water of facts splashed in his face.
Feelings, emotions, reactions to the demagoguery -- yessir, that's what Mr. Geller and his ilk, including many a "journalist," offer to the conversation.
But, holy cow, learning anything about the subject? Hah!

Can't find a cartoonist with a brain?

Very few newspapers today have the luxury of on-staff cartoonists.
Because there are, though, plenty of cartoonists, it would seem even a small-market publication such as the Chattanooga Times Free Press, specifically the left-wing side, the Times, could find a cartoonist who knew something besides how to draw.
Maybe the company just hasn't made the effort. Certainly the previous cartoonist, Bruce Plante, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, was sorely lacking in knowledge of economics or political morality.
The current holder of the position, Clay Bennett, knows nothing about economics or how government should deal with the economy, though he is a good stylist.
For example, his cartoon of Thursday, 12 March, shows a burning building, labeled "economy," with firefighters hosing it down, and bystanders saying, "Just look at all the water they're wasting."
As one would expect with the Times, Mr. Bennett has everything backward. A better equivalent would be firefighters squirting gasoline onto a burning building, or pouring water onto someone drowning.
What is wrong with the economy is, in fact, government intervention, government coercion, government spending, government restrictions on a genuinely free market.
If Mr. Bennett is drawing from his own misunderstanding of the world, shame on him; if he is drawing according to orders from his bosses, shame on him and shame on them.
The United States economy could be improved if government, meaning politicians and bureaucrats, would get out of the way, remove the obstacles to starting and running businesses and factories, and let the free market operate, which means grow.
A reminder: Politicians are like cockroaches: It's not what they steal and carry away; it's what they fall into and mess up.

"Truth" advocate manages to mis-lead

TFP publisher Tom Griscom likes to pretend he is, or was, a Republican, and in one of his Sunday columns, referenced below, he tried to say it was his policy the paper always tell the truth.
Once again, though, he shows why we should hesitate to believe either him or the rest of his writers.
For some reason, there is currently a "controversy" about people, and especially members of the legislature, who are licensed to carry firearms and, more to the point, the public listing of their names.
Here is a sentence from the "truth-teller": The more pressing issue, under the direction of the National Rifle Association, a Washington-based lobbying group, is to approve a series of handgun measures.
"Lobbying group" is a phrase that means "you don't have to think about this slimy outfit; just know it's bad."
For those, though, who are slow, he later adds this sentence: But the issue that has rallied the gun supporters and brought in the well-heeled Washington lobbyists ...
It is always possible, though highly unlikely, that Mr. Griscom is just ignorant or, to be more polite, uninformed.
But the NRA is more than just a lobbying organization. It is composed of about four million members, including probably a few people who are about to cancel their subscriptions to the TFP.
As do many other pro-freedom individuals, I have problems with the NRA; I much prefer the Gun Owners of America and the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.
But I much prefer the NRA to the TFP, and to any other inaccurate and/or dishonest misrepresentative person or publication.
Whether gun permits are records that ought to be made public is an interesting issue, but one TFP reader made an even more interesting counter-proposal: Make public the records of people drawing welfare or other taxpayer-funded checks.
Obviously the real basis for "controversy" is the neurotic opposition to any ownership of guns.
Here is another counter-proposal: Pass a law that everyone who opposes the individual right to own firearms must post a sign reading "No Guns in this House."

What does it mean?

Among the many problems at the TFP is the headline writing.
Often it seems the layout people haven't read the article for which they are supposed to be writing headlines -- but then more and more people in the tri-state area are not reading them.
But here is a puzzler: For what is apparently the major story (slow news day?) on Monday, 9 March, under the main head, "Saddling up for safety," is this apparently intendedly cute subhead: "Sheriff's office has 'neigh' old time with new mounted patrol."
The word is pronounced "nay," so I have no idea what is meant.
I hope someone will enlighten me.

Propaganda labeled as "news"

Probably the most frequent gripe about "news" papers is that they editorialize in what are supposed to be news pages.
Here is an example in the TFP of 8 March. Headline: "Both Parties love big government -- just different programs."
It begins: Strip away the political finger-pointing over President Obama's proposed budget and the fight boils down to a clash of values. Both major parties are really for big government -- just big in different places.
Republicans say they're outraged that Obama would "borrow and spend" his way to a new behemoth government. But they borrowed and spent their way through the '80s and the current decade. And they love big government -- when it's at the Pentagon.
Really there is not a thing a rational observer can criticize, except it is "analysis" and not "news," and should have been so labeled.
Unusually, in the piece there is even a comment from the relatively libertarian Cato Institute.
This article was by Steven Thomma of McClatchy Newspapers.

Look for this reader to stop, too

Letter-to-the-editor writer Barbara S. Arthur, of Rossville, is likely another soon to drop her subscription.
She wrote a letter titled "Article about Poe had many errors," published 23 February.
Responding to an article titled "University of the South to mark 200th Birth of 18th-Century mystery writer," published 12 February, she says, in part:
Poe was not an 18th-century mystery writer. Mystery writers in the modern sense were unknown in the 18th century and in Poe's day. In his short life, lived entirely in the 19th century, Poe invented the detective story ... Contrary to your reporter's fatuous remark, his poems and stories do not produce in the reader anything so banal as goosebumps, but, at their best, a profound sense of dread. ...
Certainly Poe did not undergo 200 births, yet this is what the headline says. Another poet, Dylan Thomas, said that after the first death, there is no other. Likewise everyone, including Poe, is born but once.
Must the reader of the newspaper point out these things, or is this the duty of the reporter and editor?
Bless her heart, she answered her own question.

TFP accomplishes amazing feat

After receiving hundreds of complaints about the TV Times' stupidly showing only Monday daytime programming under the heading "Weekday mornings Monday - Friday" and "Weekday afternoons Monday - Friday," the brilliant editors at the TFP woke up, a little, and now their listings are even more generic.
For example, for Turner Classic Movies, which shows almost nothing but movies, with an occasional documentary about movies or movie-makers, and the occasional short, including cartoons or travelogues, this is now the listing: "Movie" followed by "Varied Programs" followed by "Movie" followed by "Varied programs."
Same for American Movie Classics, for HBO, for Showtime, for ...
Well, I never would have thought it possible, but the geniuses at Chattanooga Publishing have really accomplished something: Their TV magazine is now as lacking in useful information as the front page!

Paper's so bad, it infects community

On most of the nation's editorial pages, often the only intelligent, rational commentary is in the letters to the editor.
Alas, the Times Free Press is so bad, even the letters are generally irrational and unintelligent, if not just partisanly dishonest.
On Saturday, 14 February 2009, is this headline on a letter from one Pat Hagan, no community or address given, apparently with good reason: "Wamp denies health care for children."
Hagan (Mr.? Ms.?) says, "I just read where Republican Zach Wamp voted against the federal bill that expands health insurance for low-income children."
Naturally the letter rambles on and on, further denouncing Wamp, the member of Congress now running for governor.
Hagan and whichever knucklehead wrote the headline apparently can't discern the difference between another government program of -- as even Hagan wrote -- "insurance" and medical treatment.
Possibly neither the letter writer nor the headline writer is being intentionally dishonest; possibly both are just dumb.
I mean, never mind that most of the opposition to the program's expansion is based on the fact, or belief, that many more than "low-income children" would be suddenly eligible, there are other, including constitutional, reasons to oppose the bill.
Even Wamp, by no means an admirable member of Congress, and certainly no friend of the working and producing people, would actually "deny" medical care to children, or to anybody else.
Once in a while, though, even Wamp will say "no" to further federal tax waste.
It's too bad the editorial page employees have so little understanding ... or, perhaps, honesty.

Can't spell, sure, but can't count?

Headline: "4 stations to begin digital broadcasts Tuesday." That's the front page of the Metro & Region section of Saturday, 14 February 2009.
In the article, we see this: "Switching on Tuesday, WTCI, Channel 45, WDEF, Channel 12."
I've counted it several times to be sure and every time it comes out two.
I don't know if the "editors" can't count, or if they, like a growing number of other people in this area, just don't read the paper.

More on the TV magazine

Lest anyone dare to think my criticism of the Times Free Press is mere nitpicking, let me point out one more example of the lack of care, the lack of thought in the TV magazine, which is named TV Times.
Each week there is some quiz titled "TV Trivia Questions."
Here is a sample: "In Terminator 3 who played the role of the killer cyborg?" Three possible answers are given ... right next to a photo of Kristanna Luken.
In the current issue (1-7 Feb. 2008), the question is "What film star was a former all-star point guard, fashion model and apeared on Ugly Betty (a) Gabrielle Union (b) Lindsay Lohan (c) Heather Tom (sic)"
No punctuation. And right next to it is a photo of Gabrielle Union.
Yep, a real brain-stretcher.
The real quiz is, How can one publication be so slovenly?

... and further ... and wider

There is an old story about the parents of a horrible child discussing buying their little hellion a bicycle. Mama asks, “Do you think it will improve his behavior?” Daddy replies, “No, but it will spread it around further.”
Perhaps that is the thinking behind Chattanooga Publishing's decision to create still another publication, this one a slick monthly called “Chatter.”
It is, of course, generally inane, with almost no worthwhile content (though of course that is really subjective).
There is a cover price on the February edition, but that apparently is just a joke, or perhaps someone is being hopeful. Chatter is found in free boxes around the area.
Alas, Chatter is just another example of the company's total lack of quality control.
Articles will have a beginning single quote mark (‘) rather than an apostrophe (’), which is the result of one or both of two problems: No one reads the stuff before it is printed, or no one cares … or possibly no one understands the difference.
Worse, in the January edition is an article about a couple who moved from Michigan to open a shotgun club in the area. Looking at the big photo of the two firing their shotguns, I thought, “Gee, they’re both left-handed.”
Well, no, they’re not. Some non-thinker, or non-carer, flopped the photo.
Pictures further into the article show they’re both right-handed.
The Table of Contents says the article begins on Page 26, but it doesn't: It begins on Page 44. Very careless, and further evidence of no quality control.
A naggy article about “calorie-laden dishes” says of fettuccini Alfredo “there’s nothing remotely healthy about it.”
Uh, no, of course not: It’s dead or no one would try to eat it.
However, just as with the rest of the mis-educated writers at Chattanooga Publishing, the writer does not know that “healthy” means “having health” and what was meant was “healthful,” which means “giving health.”
Reading the daily or weekly or monthly publications from Chattanooga Publishing is, more than fettuccini Alfredo, very dangerous to one’s health, including, perhaps especially, one's blood pressure and digestion.
(By the way, "fettuccini" is usually spelled "fettuccine," but other spellings are listed as acceptable.)

Believe it or not, TFP deteriorates further

Sunday circulation of most papers rises because readers want the TV magazine (sad to say, too often mis-called "the TV guide").
Readers get the Sunday ads, the coupons, and the color funnies (the best part of any paper) for their money, so apparently see the Sunday paper as a better deal than the actual TV Guide magazine, whose sole purpose is to outline the coming week's programming.
Compared to other such TV magazines in the area, the TFP's was rather well laid out, although its movie listings and descriptions usually omitted the very movies I wanted to know about (possibly not on purpose ... but who knows?).
As of 1 February, though, the magazine has deteriorated even further. Rather than a full day's listing, it now tries to consolidate the daytime listings, apparently under the delusion that daytime programming is the same Monday through Friday.
So the premiere issue of the new magazine has page 14 labeled "Weekday Mornings, Monday Feb. 2 - Friday Feb. 6" and there is, sure enough, the listings for Monday, including TCM and AMC movies ... but nary a word, anywhere in the rag, as to what will be playing the rest of the week.
Obviously, quality control is an unknown concept at the TFP.
Here's another example of the lack of attention by the "editors" and other people who really ought to be paying attention to what goes into the TFP pages: Each week, on the last page of the listings, right above the Saturday Late Night schedule, is a box labeled (though in my opinion mis-labeled) "late nite laughs."
For this Feb. 7 page, here is one of the supposed laughs, from a routine by Jay Leno: "Now the real pressure is on. He only has three days left to respond to Hurricane Katrina."
This is WEEKS after the coronation, and the TFP is still printing would-be jokes about President Bush.
Whoever chooses this stuff is terribly humor-challenged anyway, but surely someone could train the person to pay a little attention to a calendar.
Perhaps, though, calendars have just bypassed the TFP completely, and it will soon go the way of the dodo, which its editors rather resemble.

Times Free Press furthers cause of racism

Back in the bad old days, Lee Anderson, then editor of the Chattanooga News-Free Press, was -- sad to say -- a segregationist.
I believe he's grown up since then.
Unfortunately the "news" paper with which he is now affiliated continues to disseminate racist propaganda.
My guess is it's the same people who fill up the Times side of the editorial section who force the racist garbage of Leonard Pitts, Jr., onto the Sunday pages.
Now to give the devil his due, Pitts did, around the time of the coronation, caution Obamaniacs not to get too carried away with the worship of Abraham Lincoln, and not to draw a direct line of succession from Lincoln to Obama, citing Lincoln's oft-stated belief blacks could never be equal to whites, could not live with them, and certainly could not rule over them.
But usually Pitts is the kind of columnist who would find something "racist" in so innocuous a statement as "the sun rises in the east."
Pitts has now jumped on the bandwagon trying to silence Rush Limbaugh (see below) for his "I hope he fails" comment.
I'd be willing to bet that Pitts never hears Rush's show, and I'd double the bet he didn't hear that particular comment.
The intellectual level of Pitts' diatribe is illustrated by his frequent use of the word "clown" to describe Rush and, apparently, conservatives generally.
Pitts is, obviously, angry, and he is, apparently, not very sane.
All of which brings into question the sanity, or the honesty, of the "editors" who propagate the ... well, at least inaccuracy of such screechiness as Pitts'.
Why would this excuse of a paper, just a few weeks after publisher Griscom swore up and down he wanted "truth" (sic) in his paper, waste the precious lives of trees to print the ranting of an obsessive racist such as Leonard Pitts, Jr.?

More untruths delivered by the "editors"

Among the many disservices "news" papers perform is the dissemination of untruths, falsehoods, and inaccuracies.
During the dark days of the Clinton presidency, one of his female victims was further victimized by a sleazy ex-boyfriend, who sold the poor woman's photo (in a nude pose) to one of the porn magazines ... which magazine, of course, defended and loved Bill Clinton.
The "news" paper in Dallas published a letter to the editor in which was the statement that the poor woman had posed for the magazine, an allegation already in the news as being false. In fact, the woman had filed suit to prevent the porn rag from printing her photo, but the court -- and remember it was the Clinton era -- ruled against her.
(That poor woman sure did have bad luck in the men with whom she was acquainted, sleazebags of the worst kind.)
The paper knew -- had to have known -- the statement was false, but printed it anyway.
The Chattanooga Times has followed docilely along in that tradition, though in a less offensive matter: It published a letter, Wednesday, 28 January, from one Walter M. Benton of Signal Mountain, titled "Right-wing dogma spreads falsehoods" (boy, talk about pot calling kettle ...), in which is this paragraph:
"When asked about President Obama, Limbaugh said, 'I hope he fails!' This statement is undoubtedly the vilest line that any radio or TV 'personality' could state! Think about it! This is our country!(sic)" (And that many exclamation points indicates a limited intelligence.)
Though Rush Limbaugh is hardly our favorite political philosopher, even he deserves to be treated fairly. By an odd coincidence I happened to hear the segment of his program in which he made that comment.
The context was, if (or since) Obama's plan is to increase big government and lessen individual freedom, "I hope he fails."
And that is a perfectly rational position.
And a perfectly American position.
In the next day's paper, on the Free Press side, letter writer Ben M. Wolk, of Fort Oglethorpe, responded, his letter being titled "Limbaugh comment taken out of context."
Mr. Wolk made two statements I want to repeat: "If President Obama ever promotes individual freedoms and marketplace solutions, I will happily support him" and "Secondhand information is seldom reliable."
The so-called "news" media have made a scarecrow and strawman out of Rush, using and mis-using him to scare their lock-step followers (who must be dying off or getting intelligent, since newspaper circulation is falling steeply) and trying to portray him as some kind of bell-wether, at least for the Republican Party or the conservative bloc.
Rush might not be, despite his book title, always, or even often, right, but he is at least as honest and reliable as the "news" media, and probably much more so than the Times Free Press.

Licking the boots that soon will be kicking 'em

Not to be outdone by the national "news" media, the Times Free Press has almost wet itself in oohing and ahing about the recently crowned "leader of the free world" (which will almost certainly be less free if his party has its way).
Here is just one example of partisan headline writing, from the front page of the Wednesday, 21 January 2008, edition: All agree, it's time for a change.
The first sentence: "The energy of President Barack Obama's inauguration rippled through Chattanooga on Tuesday as people around the city sat glued to televisions, witnessing history in the making."
Urp.
Being a "news" outlet, naturally the next paragraph is racial: "Black elderly residents wept ..."
Actually, a lot of people, of various races and creeds and colors, wept, threw up, snarled, and even drank, less at the sight of Barack Obama being sworn in than at the disgusting display of slavish sycophanting (and if there ain't such a word, there oughta be) by the media.

Picture worth many thousands of words

Mallard Fillmore is a rarity: a non-left-leaning journalist.
If you're not familiar with him, here is an excellent example:

Thinking about the Electoral Elementary School

Fifth-grader Olivia Samples probably ought to sue her school and perhaps all its teachers.
Poor Olivia was allowed to display her mis-education on the editorial page of the Free Press Saturday, 22 Nov. 2008, in a letter headlined "Electoral College isn't fair process."
Being in the fifth grade, she can perhaps be forgiven for not understanding the "process," but her school and, indeed, the entire mis-called "education" system are to be condemned for not teaching Olivia and all the other students just why there is such an institution as the Electoral College.
This is why: When the 13 colonies rebelled against tyrannical King George, they won and became 13 sovereign states.
Those states formed a confederation, but remained sovereign.
A faction decided the confederation wasn't working well enough (to suit them, anyway) so they met in Philadelphia and wrote a constitution, the Constitution, for a union of those sovereign states.
In order to get all 13 to go along, several compromises were agreed to, including the bicameral legislature and an (almost fatal and far less forgivable) acceptance of chattel slavery.
The Founders had a well-founded fear of democracy, and their fears were proven sound in the last presidential election (as well, come to think of it, as most of the ones before that).
They rightly feared that individuals might well vote for someone likable rather than someone capable, for someone personable rather than for someone knowledgeable of the Constitution.
Checks and balances was the approach, and among those was a filtering system for electing people to the United States Senate: Those senators were to be chosen by the legislatures of the respective states rather than directly by the people.
Also rightly fearing a centralized government, the Founders -- and remember they were organizing a union of sovereign states -- created a method of having the states directly, rather than the people directly, electing the chief executive officer, the president.
Each state would send a delegation of Electors to pick the president and vice president; and those Electors would be chosen by the people in the respective states.
Today, partly because of miserable "news" media and partly because of terrible "education" systems, people don't know and/or don't understand why there is an Electoral College.
Others, who might well understand the why, really don't like the checks and balances and want a system more vulnerable to demagoguery.
There is a movement under way to change that system, to elect the president directly by a popular vote.
Naturally, most of the success of that movement is in those states themselves susceptible to demagoguery, such as New York and California and Massachusetts.
Petr Beckmann said, in his book on "The History of Pi," that in battles between thugs and thinkers, thugs always win, but thinkers always outlast them.
Thugs might well get a democracy, but you thinkers will be around longer.