No surprise: Front-page advocacy in TFP

Probably it's more than a coincidence the headline on the front-page story says "Numbers count for federal aid," with a sub-head reading "Results mean $1,480 for every person recorded in community."
Then, in great, objective journalist style, the story, bylined Dave Flessner, begins, "A postal milestone is coming to your mailbox, starting this week, and your response will be worth millions of dollars to local governments across Southeast Tennessee and Northwest Georgia."
The "news," already announced by tens of millions of taxpayer dollars in advertising, including even an obscenely expensive ad during the Super Bowl telecast, is "the Census is coming."
Here is where the non-coincidence comes in: That very day, Tuesday, 9 March, USPS brought me a letter, very personally addressed:

Dear Resident:
About one week from now, you will receive a 2010 Census form in the mail. When you receive your form, please fill it out and mail it in promptly.
Your response is important. Results from the 2010 Census will be used to help each community get its fair share of government funds for highways, schools, health facilities, and many other programs you and your neighbors need. Without a complete, accurate census, your community may not receive its fair share.

Below, in six different languages, is the instruction to "Go to 2010Census.gov for help completing your 2010 Census form when it arrives."
In the U.S. Constitution are these words regarding the census: "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons."
That sentence has, of course, been seriously amended, but the next is operative and relevant to the census: "The actual Enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct."
And that's it.
"Enumeration" means a counting, an ascertainment of how many people there are so that representation can be determined.
Those very intelligent and knowledgeable people who wrote the Constitution never intended to create a structure for redistributing assets, for handing around the produce of working people to others.
To reiterate: The Census was meant solely to count people in order to know about proper congressional representation.
Today, though, it is being sold as another "share the wealth" scheme, a "get your share of other people's money" arrangement.
Frankly, I'm looking forward to the opportunity to throw my Census form into the garbage.
And by the way: Wouldn't it be better and simpler in the first place just to let me keep my own $1,480 instead of promising me someone else's?

Racism wins again

Semi-professional columnist (he gets paid but does a lousy job) and professional racist Leonard Pitts, Jr., made some interesting points in his Sunday, 7 March, outpouring, and some of the points he didn't intend to make.
First, let me note a few facts that won't be found in the TFP, or much of any other "lamestream" media.
Essayist and thinker Glenn Harlan Reynolds wrote in a column, "What I Saw at the Tea Party Convention," of two people in attendance who intended to go home to Mississippi and run for office.
They, like so many others there, were not experienced in politics, but were moved by the evils being perpetrated in D.C. and other seats of government.
The two Mr. Reynolds named were (gasp) black!
All right, that's reality. Reality and truth have never been known to stop such people as Mr. Pitts (or cartoonist Clay Bennett).
No, Mr. Pitts insists on seeing racism even though it isn't there.
Sometimes seeing what isn't there is an ocular problem, but often it is a mental problem.
Now, as if Mr. Pitts himself didn't already have credibility difficulties, he begins his column quoting the clinically insane Keith Olbermann of MSNBC.
"A few words on the meaning of tea.
"They are occasioned by a recent commentary from Keith Olbermann of MSNBC. The commentary -- you can find it on YouTube -- scores the tea party movement as the outcry of people who haven't yet made peace with the fact that their president is black.
"Everything else, said Olbermann, is euphemism. Taxes? Socialism? Budget deficit? No, he argued, when you strip away the pretenses and rationalizations, 'it's still racism,' and they hate the president only because he is black."
Now Mr. Pitts is apparently not as loony as Mr. Olbermann: "My point is not that Olbermann's argument is wrong," and of course we would never expect him to disagree with the MSNBC house crazy, "but, rather, that it is incomplete.
"Yes, race is obviously a component, and a major component at that ..."
Well, it goes on, and just further proves Mr. Pitts should be at least an outpatient.
MSNBC reached one of its nadirs when some of its screechy commentators were nigh fainting over a video showing part of a body that was armed and, worse, armed at an appearance of President Obama.
The MSNBC hysterics just couldn't accept that some obvious racist, and probable Klansman, would DARE appear in the crowd of a black president (their words) wearing a firearm. What a horrible sight!
Fortunately other, and genuine, news organizations also had video footage of that man with the holstered weapon. And the other organizations showed the whole person -- who is (gasp) black!
Well, Mr. Pitts, who is also black, obviously makes a pretty good living -- a better living than he deserves -- playing that proverbial race card.
But Mr. Olbermann, who is white, obviously reported on too many football games without his helmet (to paraphrase Harry Truman on Gerald Ford).
His rants are so beyond the pale, I can't understand why even Mr. Pitts would bother to quote him.
"Liar" is a word I hate to use, but Mr. Olbermann is either willfully blind, meaning dishonest, or perhaps just so incredibly stupid that he actually can't and doesn't see what is in front of him.
What is equally blind, stupid, and racist is the editorial policy of the TFP that every week prints a hate-filled and either dishonest or at least very inaccurate column by Leonard Pitts, Jr.

Columnist Magee joins the mad rush

David Magee was blessedly gone from the pages of the TFP for some time and no one I know or know of missed him. Alas, he's back, further polluting the pages of an already dismal paper, causing the deaths of countless innocent trees, and joining the throngs of economic and constitutional illiterates in the media.
Since his return as a regular columnist, his work has been boring but generally innocuous.
His column of Thursday, 4 March, while still boring, is not innocuous. He echoes the call for nationalization of health care.
"Health care costs are rising faster than inflation," he wrote, apparently ignorant of the causes of inflation, or, probably, even the meaning of the word.
His last paragraph shows his total disdain for the plight of the working and producing people, as well as his ignorance of both moral and economic consequences: "Sure, the fix may not be exactly right. It may not even be halfway there. Anything, though, is better than the current situation, which does not add up."
His attitude, similar to that of President Obama, is also similar to that of the Nazis toward the end of World War II: They knew the Allies were winning; they knew they would not have time or opportunity to kill all the Jews, but they were willing to kill as many as they had in their power.
Mr. Magee, Pres. Obama, and so many of the other unthinking left-collectivists know they can't completely socialize these United States; they know the coming elections will throw a lot of them out of office; but they are willing to collectivize as much of the economy as they are allowed, and destroy a lot of lives doing it.

Editors offer divergent views

As most educated readers know, editorial writers are generally the fuzziest thinkers and dullest wordsmiths even in the generally fuzzy and dull world of journalism.
In the edition of Wednesday, 3 March, the leftist Times editorializer hewed to the demagogic party line that the evil Senator Jim Bunning is grabbing food and medicine out of the mouths of starving widows and orphans:"Sen. Bunning's cruel hold."
The rightist Free Press ditto titles his editorial "Senator calls Congress' bluff."
Mr. Anderson's position is "Sen. Bunning is now being denounced for blocking federal spending. Instead, he should be praised for proving that Congress' supposed 'pay-as-you go' rules are really 'pay-as-you-borrow-and-tax' rules."
The Times demagoguery contains such garbage as "Party of No" and "their blatant obstructionism," winding up with "... they don't seem to mind how many innocent Americans they hurt in the process."
In all the long years the Times has been proclaiming big, intrusive government -- and that's all the years I've been aware of its existence -- "innocent Americans" have seldom been the concern of its editorial writers ... or its "news" reporters.
"Innocent Americans" are the working and producing people whose money is forcibly taken to allow the demagogues to buy more votes ... and to make the economy even worse by excess regulation and red tape and taxation.
If editorialists really cared about "innocent Americans," they'd call for more actions such as Sen. Bunning's and for repeals of laws and restrictions.
They'd call for a free market that would create jobs and let people work.

Editor misses point of campaign finance

Jumping on the bandwagon of complaints about political campaigns and money, editor Lee Anderson (Thursday, 4 February) expresses his worry about "huge sums of money from corporations, labor unions or any other organizations that may be able to concentrate enough money to improperly 'buy' election decisions."
As is usual in this discussion, Mr. Anderson is worrying about the smallpox spots rather than the disease.
If politicians and office holders would simply obey the Constitution, if they would simply restrict themselves to creating laws that protected the rights of people, then there would be no problem.
The problem, the possibility of moneyed interests either buying elections or influencing legislators or bureaucrats, would not even exist if governments, politicians, and bureaucrats had not just taken, illegally, immense power and powers unto themselves.
Many interests give money to buy favors, and others give money to prevent further harm.
Chop down the size and scope of government, and the money question ceases to exist.

Astonishing! A clever 'Rant'

Mirable Dictu! There is one intelligent TFP reader who wrote to "Rant" and got a comment published:
They say Obama, Reid and Pelosi spend like drunken sailors. When I was a drunken sailor, I quit spending when I ran out of money!
It becomes even better when one realizes it was published the day before the record-shattering Obama budget was announced.

"Moral" headline is right ... almost

"Care labeled a moral issue" is a headline on a story in the Metro & Region section of the Saturday, 30 January, edition.
A so-called "medical ethicist" named Larry Churchill is subject of the story because he is scheduled to speak (barring several inches of "global warming" keeping the roads closed to him -- essentially Tennessee has been shut down by a major storm) Sunday.
His topic is "What is Really at Stake in Health Care Reform" (sic).
In the story, bylined by the notorious Emily Bregel, apparently the TFP's primary advocate of a socialized medical system, he is asked "What is the greatest barrier to health care reform in the U.S.?"
Naturally, this academic, who doesn't have to live in the real world, cites the fact that a lot of people make their living, or, as he says, "a very good living," providing medical services.
Mr. Churchill, who as a Vanderbilt University Medical Center employee, makes a very good living, makes a heck of a lot more money than, even, Emily Bregel, but he still feels superior enough to tell the rest of us we are -- and of course I'm extrapolating here -- "selfish."
He would probably say "racist," too, since that's the current buzz word, the most-used trendy word to denounce us non-elites, us proles who dare to disagree with our betters.
Still, the headline writer got it right, though unintentionally, I'm sure: It is indeed a moral issue and the elitists, who won't forgo a penny of their income (forced from the pockets of working and producing people), are not only willing but eager to coerce all us proles into complying with their version of a moral code.
It is so strange to watch those elitists throw up their hands in horror if a high school valedictorian wants to say "Thank you, God": That, they say, is imposing a religious viewpoint, and that's a no-no.
When those elitists, though, decide on a moral code, it's more than all right to impose it since, after all, it was created by those elitists, those highly educated -- actually merely schooled -- superiors who are, by definition, our betters.
At least by their definition.

Racist Stulce endorses racist Bennett

Being morally and intellectually bankrupt, today's American left is able only to resort to vicious name-calling and denunciations of any proles who dare to disagree with our betters.
In the TFP edition of Wednesday, 20 January, former would-be Democrat candidate for Congress Terry Stulce has a letter to the editor.
In it he joins the finger-pointing chorus (it's not really a mixed metaphor: a vocal chorus is a waste to people who refuse to listen, but even those intentionally deaf might see fingers).
The erstwhile candidate, despite overwhelming financial support, despite spending about 10 times as much as his opponent, despite having the support of the Times editorial and news departments, lost the primary.
Even the other Democrats, at the rank-and-file level, were uncomfortable with his near-Marxist approach. The leaders, of course, were in lock step.
His letter appeared on the one-year anniversary of the reign of the Anointed One, and the new year continues to be as ugly as the previous.
For example, Mr. Stulce, rejected even by other Democrats, writes in support of cartoonist Clay Bennett, about whom a few opposing letters have recently been published.
Mr. Stulce and Mr. Bennett, bigoted and closed-minded to the last, continue to try to foist onto the public the untruth that the Republicans and the Tea Party movement are racist.
Mr. Stulce uses the technique of equating two not-necessarily connected positions to "prove" his own basically moronic point. He says, for example, that people, including the late President Reagan, who opposed so-called affirmative action are also anti-black. Consistently, the two ignore the fact, available to any honest person, that the leading public opponent of "affirmative action" is Ward Connerly, who is (gasp!) black.
Mr. Stulce claims, without a speck of evidence, offering not any proof, there have been "racial slurs" at "Republican rallies by 'tea baggers.'
It would be easy to claim Mr. Stulce is merely a lying pile of garbage, but it is possible that he is merely crazy, or -- to be kind -- merely blind.
Glenn Beck, who is probably the only broadcaster to make the effort, has had at least two programs whereon all the participants were black conservatives and libertarians and at least one anarchist -- anarchist in this case meaning probably "anarcho-capitalist."
There have been many people including speakers at the rallies and protests and Tea Parties who were black, but of course they were ignored by the "news" media, and certainly ignored by racists such as Messrs. Stulce and Bennett.
One of the black speakers, at a rally in Pennsylvania, referred to the previous November election as one where white voters of America showed they were not racist ... and black voters showed they are.
Black columnists Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams, both of whom are frequently published on the Free Press page of the TFP, are vehemently on record opposing the socialist-fascist policies of the Obama administration; how can Messrs. Stulce and Bennett ignore such prominent blacks, who are published in the same raggedy paper as Mr. Bennett's cartoons and Mr. Stulce's silly letters?
Obviously -- there is no other answer -- Messrs. Bennett and Stulce are racists. They are blind to the existence of blacks, those "invisible men" (in Ralph Ellison's words), who don't bow to the elitists, such as, by pure coincidence, Messrs. Stulce and Bennett.

Racist Bennett draws perfect picture of a leftist

Clay Bennett, who has shown himself to be a racist with his attacks on Tiger Woods (and, after all, he himself said that criticizing a black person can only be for racist reasons), has now given us an honest picture of today's "liberal," who is, these days, usually only liberal with other people's money.
In his cartoon in the Perspective section of Sunday, 17 January, he draws Sarah Palin on a TV screen, with "mute" in large letters and a caption of "Sarah Palin at her best."
Now, we could take that as meaning Women should be seen and not heard.
Or we could take as his meaning that his mind (using the term loosely) is made up and he refuses to be confused with any facts, that he refuses to listen to anything she might say, on any topic, because he has excommunicated her and that's it.
Really that typifies today's "liberal" attitude. Attack personally, but don't deal with any ideas or issues.
Mr. Bennett is a disgrace to any tradition of civil discourse, but he symbolizes both the "news" media approach and the leftist means of dealing with any other belief.

Where stand the intellectuals?

About 2,500 years ago, an aphorism, translated from the Greek, said something to the effect "There is no idea so stupid that some philosopher won't support it."
Only a few decades ago, George Orwell said to some argumentative Communist, "You must be an intellectual. Only an intellectual could say something so stupid."
The term "intellectual," obviously used very loosely, today includes people in education, politics, and, most loosely, journalism.
It should include only people of intellect, people who deal with ideas.
Unfortunately it means, more often, people who can be and are called "elitists."
In the Sunday, 10 January, edition of the Perspective section is a perfect example of what I mean above: New York Times (and hence Chattanooga Times) columnist David Brooks pontificates that the real divide in the United States body politic is between the educated and the uneducated.
Naturally Mr. Brooks and other Times adherents are the educated (despite the poor quality of their respective papers). Those of us who oppose the various forms of involuntary servitude proposed by those intellectuals are, by definition, uneducated:
"Every single idea associated with the educated class has grown more unpopular over the past year.
"The educated class believes in global warming ..." despite record low temperatures, especially the last couple weeks but actually during the last three years.
Brooks, the educated, doesn't mention real weather but goes on to say "... so public skepticism about global warming is on the rise."
Yeah, us uneducated people ought not to pay attention to thermometers, shouldn't look out the window, should, instead, just listen to our betters, such as Mr. Brooks.
He goes on, mostly attempting to trash the Tea Party movement, but by serendipitous coincidence giving a nice lead-in to a column on the other side of the paper by Thomas Sowell titled "Intellectuals vs. society."
The once-again-great doctor says, "There has probably never been an era in history when intellectuals have played a larger role in society. When intellectuals who generate ideas are surrounded by a wide range of others who disseminate those ideas -- whether as journalists, teachers, staffers to legislators or clerks to judges -- the influence of intellectuals on the way a society evolved can be huge."
Intellectuals include, for example, Karl Marx, whose ideas led to the murders of hundreds of millions of people all across the world.
Non-intellectuals, as Dr. Sowell points out, include the Wright Brothers, who gave a lot more to people and the world than the Marxes and Brookses and the Mussolinis -- all of whom, interestingly, were in one way or another journalists.
Dr. Sowell also said this: "Intellectuals generate ideas and ideas matter, far beyond the small segment of society who are intellectuals. Ideas affect the fate of whole civilizations."
Then, next day, Dr. Sowell goes on, in a column titled "Good ideas vs. practical ones." In it he says, "If there is any lesson in the history of ideas, it is that good intentions tell you nothing about actual consequences."
Among the other sins of journalism is that those consequences are not reported as they should be.
We can still point out The New York Times and its adulation of Josef Stalin. That kind of miserable reporting was a good antecedent for its reporting of the most recent presidential election. The Times was just one of the "news" media slobbering (to use the very apt word of Bernard Goldberg) over Barack Obama.
Ideas most certainly do matter, and one of the problems in this modern day is that one idea, that of liberty, seems to have no place in "news" reporting or, apparently, in the minds of intellectuals generally.

Readership declines further

According to baseball folklore, during an early practice of the New York Mets, a fielder, trying to catch a pop fly, missed, and the ball hit him on the head.
Legendary manager Casey Stengel shook his head and prayed, "Doesn't anybody here know how to play this game?"
Surely the people who own and manage the Times Free Press must be asking themselves something similar: "Doesn't anybody here read this thing?"
I think not.
Here is one reason I thus think, a listing in the lamentable TV Times of 20 -26 December 2009:
A Story of David ** ('60,Drama) Jeff Chandler. DO NOT USE. King Saul unjustly accuses David of seeking his throne ...
Then in the next issue, in the regular feature called "tvtrivia" is this example. There are five questions, and a picture of someone named Katie Cassidy is inset with question 1: Who currently plays Ella Simms 'Melrose Place' 2009? (sic) Answer choices: (a) Katie Cassidy (b) Stephanie Jacobsen or (c) 6416? (sic, again)
Interestingly, the answer is ... Katie Cassidy.
Question 4: Why were Jerry and his pals sentenced in the series finale of 'Seinfeld'? (a) for disturbing the peace (b) a case of mistaken identity (c) or for helping out?
Honest, sic.
Here is the answer: 'Good Samaritan Law.'
Answer: No, nobody here reads this thing.
Maybe if the Obama administration does carry out the threat to shell out "stimulus" money to the "news" media, the TFP will hire at least one copy editor.

Speaking of vicious ...

For some reason, the first "Perspective" section of the year shows a retrospective of work by hatemonger Clay Bennett, staff cartoonist of the Times. (Interestingly, the editors chose not to re-run his nastiest cartoon, the one in which all us opponents of the Obama administration's collectivist ambitions are portrayed as Ku Klux Klanners.)
To be honest, three or four times a year, Mr. Bennett is not a hatemonger or vicious collectivist, and once or twice is even somewhat humorous.
But he seems to prefer to be vicious. For example, when Sarah Palin's book -- which has sold in the millions, and in fact advance orders forced her publisher to re-start the presses -- a Bennett cartoon showed a couple standing in front of a store with her book on sale, saying, "Shouldn't she read a book before she writes one?"
Now the caricature leftists and hatemongers have of people like Ms. Palin is that they are ... well, if not illiterate, certainly un-read.
Naturally only the elitists, our betters, such as Mr. Bennett, are the truly literate and knowledgeable. (They refuse to believe that Ronald Reagan probably read more books than any other president, of recent times, anyway.)
Ignore that Sarah Palin, to name one, actually has a college degree in ... journalism!
Hmmmm. Come to think of it, after reading such raggedy publications as the Times Free Press, I realize perhaps they have a point. Perhaps we should recognize journalism grads are probably among the least-educated people in American society.
They obviously don't know history, are even more ignorant in economics, seem not to have even a passing acquaintance with ethics and morality, and far too often don't even know grammar, punctuation, or style.
Yet these are the people who act as filters as to what you and I are allowed to learn as "news."
I can't imagine a circumstance in which I would vote for Sarah Palin. She is, after all, a Republican. But, even so, I do wish there were some modicum of fairness, of decency in how she's treated.
Childlike, I guess, I also wish there were more than a modicum of fairness, of decency in "news" generally.
And, while I'm at it, I wish I had a pony.

Viciousness gets uglier

Perhaps it's because I see mostly the left-oriented "news" outlets, and fewer of the right-oriented ones, though of course "news" media are mostly left oriented, but I cannot remember seeing the viciousness, the ugliness against leftists that I see, on a daily basis, against rightists.
Attacks on Sarah Palin, as noted often, have reached the point of insanity.
I have not seen anyone say "Palin says so-and-so on this issue and she is wrong for these reasons ..."
No, it's usually the kind of garbage Times cartoonist Clay Bennett dishes out: Personal attacks, but not necessarily with any basis in reality.
The left-oriented outlets, though, don't limit their nastiness to spews from only their own staffers. Here are four examples, listed in order in the moronic "Rant" column that worsens an already miserable Sunday opinion section:
Joe Lieberman is greedy, arrogant and vindictive and has chosen loyalty to insurance companies over his commitment to the American people. That's his legacy.
Obama, get a backbone! You're giving in to Republicans. You are being bought by insurance and drug companies. This is not what I voted for.
GOP senators and the right wing media inflating them now have blood on their hands, the blood of millions of uninsured men, women and children.
Jimmy Carter apologizes to Israel, good. Now, maybe he should apologize to the American people for being such a flake!
While at the same time bewailing environmental losses, leftist editors waste the lives of innocent trees with this stuff? And, still at the same time, moan and whine that they don't have room for the important news, that, apparently, they really aren't covering anyway?
Even funnier, they don't understand why people are canceling subscriptions.

Afghan government corrupt? What about ours?

Surely no rational and honest person doubts corruption exists in governments around the world, especially such governments as Afghanistan. Well, I mean, since the United States "news" media and members of the United States government pretty generally proclaim it as fact, it must be true.
It's obvious why those members of the U.S. government would not want to talk about it, but why are the members of the "news" media so reluctant to point out that the U.S. government is also corrupt?
One reason there is so much corruption is illustrated by the weekly column of the TFP publisher, Tom Griscom, on 6 December.
While bragging about the splendid "news" coverage of the ongoing party primary campaigns and the upcoming primary and general elections, he makes this statement:
"In less than a year, a Republican and a Democrat will face off."
Yes, that is true, but it is only partly true: There will be others seeking those various contested governmental offices.
Since, though, the "news" media bothers to mention only the vested interests of the two old parties, the people, the voters, the citizens, the taxpayers who must foot the bills the victorious politicians run up will, as usual, be cheated of the needed knowledge and information to make proper choices.
That is, since the "news" media make mention only of the two old parties, it will always be a member of the two old parties who takes office.
And that, gentle reader, is exactly why government in the United States, and perhaps especially in Tennessee, is just as corrupt as government in almost any other place in the world, except with less murder (so far).
The corrupt and dishonest "news" media, coupled with corrupt and incompetent government schools, work together to keep us as uninformed as possible; as a result, frequently only the worst even attempt to get elected; and that means the very worst are the usual winners.

Clay Bennett must be a racist

Times editorial cartoonist Clay Bennett jumped on the demagogic bandwagon, joining the chorus crying "racist" for people who dared to disagree with the anointed one, Barack Obama.
Mr. Bennett even went so far as to call protesters Ku Kluxers in one especially nasty cartoon.
The "logic," or whatever lefties of his ilk use in lieu of, is that anyone who disagrees with the African-American president can't have any other basis for disagreement, so, QED, must be racist.
Well, on Sunday, 6 December, his cartoon attacks the almost equally black golfer, Tiger Woods, showing a golf cart with mud flaps sometimes found on over-the-road trailers depicting the exaggerated form of a female.
What else can we think of Mr. Bennett except he must be a racist, and probably a covert member of the KKK?

TFP cheats readers, and others, again

With circulation dwindling (gee, I wonder why) and, thus, income and profits, publishers of "news" papers cut every corner and finagle every way they can.
One way the TFP publishers have found is to compress the funnies and slap some advertising onto the "extra" space.
Never mind that making them smaller makes them harder to read, and never mind that certain cartoonists, such as "Doonesbury" artist Garry Trudeau, even have contracts mandating a certain size, half of the front page of the Sunday funnies of 6 December is devoted to an ad for a satellite TV service (with a bargain rate of $19.99 for "over 120 channels") and the entire back page is an ad for a heater.
Never mind, too, that, as often stated here, the funnies are not only the best feature on this or any paper, often they are the only readable part, especially in this paper.
The number of strips has been cut over the years, with budget constraints and retirements ("Fox Trot" and "For Better Or Worse," for example), but this compression is really an insult.

Amazing: Paper does something right -- twice

As mentioned previously, John Trever is one of the most brilliant editorial cartoonists in the world -- in fact, in the history of the world.
His home base is the Albuquerque Journal, otherwise not a very distinguished paper, but located in one of the greatest places to live in the United States.
In the two-dimensional "thinking" that suffocates U.S. political discussion, Mr. Trever is usually thought of as "conservative."
In truth, he is much more intelligent than that.
As a political thinker, he is advanced far above the herd, and as an artist, he wields a pen in such manner to prove he is genuinely worthy of the term "artist."
Well, lately his work has been showing up in the TFP more often, not, unfortunately, replacing the loathsome Clay Bennett, but supplementing Bennett's work, and enlivening the otherwise deadly-dull Times editorial page -- AND appearing as the chief cartoon on the Free Press page.
Wait. What? Trever cartoons on both pages?
Yes! And, joy to behold, on Friday, 4 December, his work is on both pages -- both pages the same day!
Mark your calendar, and paint the date red. When TWO Trever cartoons get published the same day, it's almost worth buying the thing.
One site to look at: http://www.cagle.com/politicalcartoons/PCcartoons/trever.asp
For the Albuquerque Journal: http://www.abqjournal.com/

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.

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.