More evidence of left-collectivist racism

One more reason John Monds, Libertarian candidate for governor of Georgia, gets left out of "news" coverage: John Monds, Libertarian candidate for governor of Georgia, is black.
To rational people, his skin color is totally irrelevant.
To "news" people, though, it matters.
It matters because black people who stray off the reservation, black people who think for themselves, black people who don't follow a party line -- that party line promulgated by the "news" media -- are ignored, are treated as if they don't even exist.
Thoughtful humorist, and Georgia resident, columnist Ron Hart said, in 2004, "A recent Pew Trust poll told us what we already know: The major media in America are very liberal. They are out of touch with mainstream citizens and their reporting is agenda-driven."
He also said, "The major media are dying because of their lack of objectivity and their desire to use the news to achieve their agenda."

Remember November -- and forget "news" media

Unlearned (which is nicer than "ignorant") people might not be aware that, come November, the American people will have an opportunity to rectify a mistake made two Novembers back.
One mistake the people need to avoid this year is heavy reliance on the "news" media, perhaps especially the Times Free Press and definitely especially The Associated Press.
For example, in the TFP of Sunday, 29 August, there was a story of the three-way debate with the candidates for governor of Georgia, Republican Nathan Deal, Democrat Roy Barnes ... and, oh, yeah, Libertarian John Monds.
"Oh, yeah," because, as usual, the AP story barely mentions his name and, as usual, the points he tried to make during the debate get left to the bottom of the story which any local paper is likely to cut.
That happened to a candidate I was helping in 1998. Walker Chandler was running as a Libertarian for Georgia attorney general. In the debate, which Georgia public radio broadcast, the Republican and the Democrat just made fools of themselves, and resorted to some childish mud-slinging.
AP, as usual, mentioned the Libertarian as being present, then put his argument at the bottom of the story.
Next morning, when we couldn't find his name in the AP story in the local paper, Walker Chandler got angry at the sorry, dishonest coverage for the first time in the campaign.
I talked to the assistant managing editor and asked why. She said she had been in charge of laying out the paper that night. She also said her paper ordinarily moved that bottom-of-the-story mention of Walker Chandler to the top, since he was a local boy making good.
Alas, that night, being by herself laying out the paper, and being rushed, she didn't see his name, and the story remained in the lousy, dishonest format AP sent it.
Papers usually just clip the story where the space ends, and information at the bottom, no matter how important, just gets left out.
That, gentle reader, shows you how much "news" papers, including the Times Free Press, really care about content.
And that, gentle reader, shows you why "news" papers lose circulation every day, why "news" papers are being relegated to the dustbin of history as people seek their information from better, more immediate, more varied sources.

Surprise: No word from "anonymous"

But I will make one more comment.
Among the attempted insults was "your three readers."
Actually I have about seven: I, the two anonymouses, and three or maybe even four others who have commented.
We're open to the public, but we do have standards.

Anonymous name-calling

Recently some apparent coward wrote me a bit of hate-filled name-calling. I didn't read it all and obviously haven't published it -- not for the reason the person seems to ... I won't say "think," but feel.
No, I didn't publish it, not because it is an attack on me, but because it was anonymous and too general to respond to.
If the person had been paying attention, he or she would have seen a previous anonymous attack but with a specific point. Granted, some people thought I had made it up because it failed so miserably to hit its target, but I didn't.
This current attacker called me a "bully," which would be laughable, I guess.
I well remember my first encounter with a bully, two really big kids, monstrous fourth-graders. I was a scrawny little second-grader, so "monstrous" is relative, of course,.
After entering the boys' room, I was accosted by the bullies who demanded I say "yes, sir" to them. I said, "No, sir."
I got my head banged against the wall a few times but never said more than "no," dropping the "sir."
Maybe the bell rang, but the episode ended with my never acquiescing.
I have my name on this blog, and anyone who has paid attention knows my primary political doctrine is the ZAP, the Zero-Aggression Principle. I do not initiate force. By no rational definition can a sane person call me a "bully."
Here, on my blog, I can state a fact or opinion and someone can respond. If it's relatively civil and without obscenities, a response will be published -- IF it is signed.
Let me return to those school days: In junior high one day I shoved the school bully, who responded with a shocked look and almost tears in his eyes: "Why did you shove me?"
Like all real bullies, he was a coward and my little display of anger and even physical response so unnerved him, he never bullied me again.
So I know, from real life, what bullying is.
Bullying includes a government's telling individuals to live a certain way, or else.
Bullying includes threats, which governments are fully capable of carrying out.
Bullying includes intimidation.
How my stating facts and even opinions can be called "bullying" escapes my understanding.
So if this anonymous name-caller wants to write a third time, signing his or her name, and now I need some kind of proof, too, I will be more than glad to publish all three comments.
This is Monday, 16 Aug. By an interesting coincidence, I had planned to post this comment today replying to the anonymous hate post and found the second one sneering that I hadn't posted the first.
Well, here is why. If you have any courage, please respond. But I won't hold my breath.

Logic in "The Rant"

Out of many bad features in the TFP, "The Rant" is the worst, generally even worse, more ignorant or hate-filled, than the Times editorials.

For thoroughly fouled-up logic, consider this gem from 18 July: "People complain gripe and hate our government but seldom offer any solutions. Remember what nine years of war has cost our nation." (sic)

And this one, which has become one of the Democrat Party's talking points: "George Bush cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans, and 15 million people lost their jobs to pay for those tax cuts."

Perhaps the new editor will use some thought and eliminate this moronic anonymous garbage.

Two funny comments

In the usually abominable "Rant" of Sunday, 1 August, is this: "Overheard while giving out free U.S. Constitutions at Pops in the Park: A woman replied 'No Thanks, I'm a Democrat.' "

Almost as funny, if it weren't so sad: The TFP apparently has a new executive editor. His name is J. Todd Foster. "And I will share with you a pledge I made July 3 ...: We will give the news impartially, without fear or favor ..."

Yep, we've been seeing that same joke for many decades now. Originally it was on the Times, and was less true than even now.

OK, Mr. Foster is new. We'll give him a chance, but we're not holding our breath.

Inside look at behind the scenes

Following is a slightly redacted e-mail sent from a TFP reporter to candidates in a certain congressional district race.
I'm leaving out the reporter's name and anything else that serve to identify individuals.

Gang,

As you can see from this e-mail list, there’s quite a few of you running for the (redacted) Congressional District of Tennessee. My name is Red Acted and I’m going to be doing my best to cover each of you fairly in the run up to the election. (Yes I know it’s a bit late to send this, but I’m new here. Doing the best I can.) A couple of housekeeping notes.

1. Please give me a good number to reach you the night of the election. By this number, please include your name, age and party affiliation. I know that’s redundant, but with so many of you in the race it will make it easier for me to keep track of things.
2. A number of you have come in for editorial board meetings over the past few weeks and more than one has said they would release their IRS forms (I’m thinking specifically of Mr. X and Mrs. Y, but I wanted to expand this opportunity.) Any candidte that wishes to provide their most recent tax returns may e-mail them to me here or fax them to 423-668-5039.
   

Good luck to all of you and I look forward to working with you.

Of the candidates who told me about this, some wondered if the person was really a reporter, considering the poor writing style and spelling. I assured them that, yes, that is par for the course at the TFP.
Some also questioned the reporter's wanting to see their Infernal Revenue returns; so do I.
There is not, to my knowledge, any legal requirement for such a declaration. If there is, there shouldn't be; and if there is, it would be unwise, I think, to send it to a stranger.

Good point foolishly attributed

After some e-mail communication about the horrors of "The Rant," those frequently incredibly stupid and often just nasty anonymous short pieces, apparently the editors of the Sunday TFP are exercising a little more care.
But not much.
For example: "Thomas Jefferson said, 'Seventy percent of the people want free enterprise, 30 percent don't. So why is the 30 percent in charge?' Sound like today?"
It is a very good point ... but it is NOT something Thomas Jefferson ever said.
Any knowledgeable newspaper editor -- of which apparently there isn't one in the Tri-State area -- should know the term "free enterprise" was not in use then.
And that mythical editor should know that, at the time of Mr. Jefferson, mostly it was the free-enterprisers who were in charge.
OK, by no means one of the worst errors in this error-filled section of this error-filled publication, but another example of carelessness that calls into question every word in it.

Phooey on the people, raise them taxes!

Perhaps it would be like Adolf Hitler's declaring the Sabbath to be a holy day for the Chattanooga Times editorial page to support a rational economic policy (after all, it considers Paul Krugman to be an economist), but its editorial of Sunday, 27 June, is certainly one of its most fascistic and cynical.
In a time of high unemployment, high foreclosure rates, and general consumer worries, its editorial, "Fiscal reality begs tax hike," surely hits a new low even for these economic illiterates.
Chattanooga's mayor, Ron Littlefield, called for an outrageous tax hike, so outrageous that a recall was promptly initiated.
Even the members of the silly council objected ... but only to the outrageous amount, not to the horrible premise.
Still, the big government addicts who write the "down with the people" and "down with freedom" and "up with more government" editorials couldn't or wouldn't see the evil.
The Times will support big government under probably any circumstance.
And what is worse, calling the insanity "fiscal reality" really adds insult to the injury.

He is but a man

No columnist, no economist, no thinker, no substitute talk-show host in the world stands higher in my estimation than the great, the extraordinary Walter Williams.
Despicable as the Times Free Press is, I still look forward to Sundays because most Sundays, Dr. Williams' column appears, right beneath one by Thomas Sowell.
On 23 May, though, I was reminded of the pageantry of a victorious general leading his troops into Rome to be greeted and adored. He would be riding in a chauffeur-driven chariot pulled by gleaming white horses, and right behind him would be a slave murmuring into his ear (in the King James Latin), "Thou art but a man ... thou art but a man ..."
Just in case your senses have been dulled by too much reading of the TFP, the point was to keep the general's feet on the ground, to keep his head from swelling, to remind him he was a mortal, not a god.
Alas, Walter Williams is but a man. His 23 May column is titled "Immigration and liberty," but, double alas, he doesn't present his usual impervious argument in favor of liberty ... nor in favor of immigration.
He begins, "My sentiments on immigration are expressed by the welcoming words of poet Emma Lazarus' that grace the base of our Statue of Liberty: 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.' Those sentiments are probably shared by most Americans and for sure by my libertarian fellow travelers, but their vision of immigration has some blind spots. This has become painfully obvious in the wake Arizona's law that cracks down on illegal immigration. ..."
Then he blots his copy: "There are close to 7 billion people on our planet. I'd like to know how the libertarians answer this question: Does each individual on the planet have a natural or God-given right to live in the U.S.?"
No one is asking such a silly question.
It is a straw man.
Worse, it deviates sadly from Dr. Williams' usual position that an individual is self-owned, that it is the individual that counts.
Such a question begins, instead, with the premise of the nation-state, with individuals being merely components thereof.
Even more worse, his last sentence begins, "Most importantly ..."
As I have told clients and students, "importantly" is nearly always wrong. Correct use of "importantly" might be in this example: "President Obama strutted around importantly."
Walter Williams remains one of the greatest minds on Earth, however he is but a man.

Golden oldie reminds us

Looking back to Thursday, 6 November 2008, we can see a glaring reminder of just why so many reasonable individuals believe the Times Free Press to be a miserable excuse for a "news" paper.
In the Metro&Region section of that day the "journalists" and editorializers (so often the same people) were still basking in their accomplishment, there appeared this headline:
"Voters still relishing Obama's victory."
Bear in mind that the circulation area of this rag voted pretty overwhelmingly against Barack Obama and you will surely wonder what was going through whatever passes for a mind in the layout department.
Well, of course, some voters relished that victory, apparently including a large segment of the "news" media generally, but certainly including some pretty second-rate headline writers at the TFP.

Defending the indefensible

Following a post quite some time ago, "Racist Stulce endorses racist Bennett," I got an anonymous comment, to which I replied, and then I got this anonymous comment (also printed at the original post):

Anonymous said... I will apologize for my actual errors seeing as how I'm an engineer in the navy, not a writer like yourself. But, what I refuse to apologize for is my accusation of you personally attacking Bennett. If you reread your last paragraph, and can't see any attacks, you must be blind. To someone who knows personally that Clay is one of the most anti-prejudice and unbigoted men I've ever met, that looks like an attack. Yes, our CIC is black, so Clay draws him as a black man. That's the closest he's ever come to being a racist. Honestly sir, if you falsely accused me of being a racist, when all my friends and family know that I do everything possible to eliminate any racism or bigotry in my life and workplace, you'd get a good old fashioned military ass-chewing. And in mine and Clay's eyes alike, that is an attack.
Oh, by the way.. I'm remaining anonomous to save my family from any further personal attacks, thank you. I have the iron and resolve of a true american sailor, so please, don't challenge my courage.
MMFN MP

I have no idea what those letters on the bottom line mean, but I left everything just as it was written. Let 'em hang themselves.
Apparently poor Anonymous doesn't really grasp English, judging not only by his spelling but by his complete failure to understand what I said originally, and in my reply to his first anonymous comment.
He tells me "don't challenge my courage," as if joining the Navy (note the capital) is conclusive proof. No, conclusive proof would be his signing his name and standing proud for what he believes, whatever that might be.
Certainly a lot of brave people have joined the military, although I knew a man in Arizona who joined the Navy to stay out of the range of North Vietnamese bullets ... and was made into a corpsman [which is NOT pronounced "corpseman"], was assigned to the Marines, and got wounded three times!
Again, I don't attack Clay Bennett, except as a lying and vicious racist cartoonist. He is a racist, as I have explained several times, apparently to no avail, not because he draws Pres. Obama "as a black man," but because he ignores black people who don't buy into the same vicious, fascistic, racist viewpoint he does.
A friend told me she thought Anonymous's first comment was a hoax, a put-on -- in fact, she accused me of making it up -- then on re-reading just decided that, if that is an example of Clay Bennett's friends, he doesn't need any enemies.
However, even if he doesn't need any enemies, he keeps creating them, with every new cartoon attacking honest people, attacking people who prefer freedom to his desired racist, fascist system.
I, though, will not be an enemy of Clay Bennett, the person. I am not an enemy of much of any person, although, alas, there are persons who consider me an enemy, and there are persons who want to make me some type of political peon, me and every other individual.
But Clay Bennett, cartoonist of hatred, racism, fascism, and, yes, dishonesty, will definitely continue to be a target, though not an enemy.
By the way, why does Anonymous think being an engineer is an acceptable excuse to be semi-literate?
P.S. It is possible, although highly unlikely, that Mr. Bennett draws his vitriolic cartoons at direction from an editor or publisher or somebody. But it probably won't save his soul.

Why does Times publish falsehoods?

Again the question: Incompetence or Dishonesty?
Please see the link at the top of the blog.
Someone has a book and a film titled "Not Evil Just Wrong."
The nice people producing them believe, and want us to believe, the "global warming" scammers are not intentionally telling us falsehoods, that in fact the "global warming" proponents do also believe what they are saying, but are, simply, wrong.
Is that what we should in turn believe about the people who produce the Times editorial page?
That they believe their hogwash, but are just uninformed? Or dumb?
On said page for Wednesday, 21 April, there is a letter with this sentence: "Rep. Randy Neugebauer called Rep. Stupak, a leading right to life advocate, a 'baby killer' while Stupak was addressing Congress."
What Rep. Neugebauer said was, in fact, that the bill was a baby killer, and he explained that and apologized to Rep. Stupak, and some "news" organizations did report the facts.
Now if I, a very limited consumer of "news," can know that fact, why can't the editors of this alleged "news" paper know it?
And if they know it, why do they allow a falsehood into print on their editorial page?
Yes, I realize it follows their tradition of allowing their cartoonist and their syndicated columnists to call Tea Party people "racist," when any honest or sane person knows that also is a falsehood. (To repeat, just in Memphis and in Mississippi, there are three Tea Party candidates who are black, a fact easily knowable to "news" people in Chattanooga.)
The mis-called editors botch the heck out of grammar and punctuation and change well-written and accurate letters frequently. So why can't they correct genuine errors, why don't they avoid falsehoods?
The same letter continues the apparent falsehoods about some congressmen being called racially disparaging names, although no one has offered any proof, and at least one person who was with the alleged victims said it didn't happen.
Why, to ask again, though expecting no answer, why do the editors of the Times editorial page continue to publish blatant falsehood?
Letter writer John Bratton, of Sewanee, might be blind and honestly ignorant. He might have an excuse to write such inaccurate garbage.
The editors have no excuse. They must know they are publishing falsehood.

Time to reign in incompetent editing

Yes, I know what my headline says, but the "editor" for letters to the Times, Wednesday, 7 April, apparently doesn't recognize homonyms.
His letter head reads "Time to reign in wild spending."
The otherwise intelligent letter contains the same mistake, though it was not necessarily the writer who did it, but a real editor would have caught the error.

Dat ol' debbil weed

Straight from watching scenes of "Reefer Madness," Lee Anderson editorializes on "Crime and 'medical' marijuana" in the 29 March edition.
"A common argument in favor of legalizing marijuana is that legalization would reduce the big profits available from illegal sales of pot and therefore reduce drug-related crime.
"That claim appears to be on shaky ground in numerous states:
* Armed men recently broke into a Colorado site where "medical" marijuana was being grown legally. They bound the people inside, rifled through their belongings and made off with marijuana and guns.
* Three days later, five people invaded the home of a legal marijuana grower near Seattle and tried to rob him of his supply. The owner and a suspect were wounded in a shoot-out. But police say the victim, whose operation has been targeted for theft eight times, had nearly 400 marijuana plants -- far more than the 15 he is permitted under Washington's "medical' marijuana law. Ironically, four of the suspects are believed to have been smoking pot when they hatched the robbery plan.
* Another Washington man was beaten to death when he confronted a trespasser on land where he legally grew pot to 'treat' back pain.
* Meanwhile, California police have documented seven slayings linked to legal 'medical' marijuana in a one-year period, plus dozens of other crimes. In one case, a security guard was gunned down as he stood watch at one of Los Angeles' hundreds of 'medical' marijuana shops.
"'Whenever you are dealing with drugs and money, there is going to be crime. If people think otherwise, they are very naive,' Scott Kirkland, police chief in El Cerrito, Calif., told The Associated Press. 'People think if we decriminalize it, the Mexican cartels and Asian gangs are going to walk away. That's not the world I live in.'
"It seems the marijuana business and the crime associated with it are alive and well even in places where it is now legal."
Mr. Anderson is making the same mistake so many illogical people who are motivated by irrational religious prejudices have made: Ignore all other evidence and point to the bad stuff I don't like however nebulously associated it is.
People rob liquor stores, too; people hijack tobacco trucks.
Heck, people even steal newspapers, although that certainly is petty theft.
Do we, in those other cases, blame the stolen object?
Mr. Anderson's petty habit of putting quotation marks around the word "medical" in reference to marijuana just emphasizes his ignorant prejudice.
Even cocaine has medical uses.
Last I heard, the federal government, the very picture of schizophrenia, was giving marijuana to about half a dozen glaucoma patients.
A man I met several years ago told me he had been in a federal experiment testing whether marijuana would help his epilepsy. Parkinson's patients are given, in federal hospitals, a THC-derived medication.
Lots of things are bad for people and lots of things are bad for some people and not bad for others and there is no place for government to be involved.
Heck, it is very bad for one's health to read stupid and fascistic editorials. Should those editorials or editorializers be outlawed?

Down with "corporatist" politicians

Letter writer Amos Nance, of Jasper, Tenn., is one of those eagle-eyed, alert citizens whose vigilance will save us.
Editors put the head "Reform shows GOP to be corporatist" on his letter of Saturday, 3 April.
Mr. Nance wrote, "America will now find out that the health care reform bill was not the monster under the bed that Republicans said it would be."
That's an interesting comment considering that no one yet knows just what IS in the bill.
But Mr. Nance concluded, "The health care bill can help expose them for what they are -- corporatist."
Yep, I have here a report on how many corporations donated to help the slimy Republicans hold their national convention in 2008: 50!
See? Fifty greedy capitalist pig corporations gave money to the greedy Republicans.
The good guys, the common-people-oriented Democrats were given money by only 75 corporations.
So there!

'Fact or fiction?' headline for fictive article

Emily Bregel continues propagandizing for nationalized health care.
Her front-page article on Wednesday, 31 March, is headlined "Fact or fiction?" and piles more fiction onto the piles she has already shoveled out for us.
Her very first sentence echoes her previous piles: "From the debunked 'death panels' rumor over the summer to a politician's prediction of 'Armageddon,' overstated or outright false statements about the impact of reform are drowning out legitimate concerns over changes in the nation's health care system, some local health industry leaders worry."
Naively thinking, or hoping, that Ms. Bregel just didn't understand the English language, I wrote her some months ago about her terminology:
Dear Emily (this was my second e-pistle; she finally answered my first one after I made three attempts),
Here is the way I heard it, many years ago: A congressman from Asheville, North Carolina, would stand up in the House to give a speech, but would first wink at his co-conspirators and say, "This is for Buncombe," which, as you know, is the county in which Asheville sits.
Then he would proceed to pile up a bunch of ... well, buncombe.
"Bunk" became the shortened form of "buncombe."
Here is what Wikipedia says:

The American Heritage Dictionary traces the passage of the words bunk (noun), debunk (verb) and debunker (noun) into American English in 1923 as a belated outgrowth of "bunkum", of which the first recorded use was in 1828, apparently related to a poorly received "speech for Buncombe" given by North Carolina representative Felix Walker during the 16th United States Congress (1819–1821).^[2]

The term debunk originated in a 1923 novel Bunk, by American novelist William Woodward (1874–1950), who used it to mean to "take the bunk out of things."

Often the term "debunkery" is not limited to arguments about scientific validity. It can also be used in a more general sense at attempts to discredit any opposing point of view, such as that of a political opponent.

So, as you see, "debunk" is a pejorative term and not really suited to the use you gave it. It would be acceptable in an opinion column or editorial, but it is out of place in what is supposed to be a non-partisan, objective news story.
Yours,
Michael

Naturally, she didn't have the courtesy to reply; and, perhaps also naturally, she continues to propagandize, to "report" dishonestly, or at least inaccurately,

Surprising accuracy in editorial

"Chattanooga not 'OK Corral'" reads the lead editorial in the Free Press for Tuesday, 30 March.
Lee Anderson was referring to a string of shootings over a very short period of time, and at that he was a little anticipatory: There were more shootings before the ink was dry.
However, Mr. Anderson was, accidentally, correct: Chattanooga is not the O.K. Corral.
The O.K. Corral, in Tombstone, Arizona, had only one shooting.

Bregel strikes, part two

Included in the advocacy piece masquerading as Emily Bregel's "news" story is commentary from the Orwellian-named outfit called the Tennessee Justice Center (sic) in Nashville.
Gordon Bonnyman is identified as the executive director and apparently his idea of "justice" is being able to tap into other people's money.
The new Robin-Hood-Nanny-State law is welcomed by Mr. Bonnyman as a huge relief, according to Ms. Bregel.
"Those reforms, I think, are just fundamental to making the insurance system work right," Mr. Bonnyman is quoted, meaning he too is tickled other people will now be forced to hand over their money to spend as he sees more fit.
Frankly, I now need to see a stomach doctor because of the treacly approach by this terribly partisan "journalist."
She does, surprisingly, manage to bury some not-so-palatable facts in the bottom of the story relating that, surprise, surprise, insurance premia will have to rise, but I'll bet Ms. Bregel still has too little sense of both economics and morality to understand.

Bregel strikes again

She wears a costume as "Socialized Medicine Woman," but her secret identity is mild-mannered reporter Emily Bregel.
Ms. Bregel is, if not the official TFP point woman for nationalized health-care, at least the semi-official one, the chief "news" page advocate.
In the Sunday, 28 March edition, she has a front-page story headlined "Opening for those locked out of coverage."
Her centerpiece is a woman who had had treatment for breast cancer. Bregel sort of quotes her: "I think the (health care) bill's really flawed, but we all know that pre-existing conditions (protections) are a must-have."
In other words, she's saying, I'm tickled there is now a law forcing insurance companies to hand me money.
Well, now I want to go to my insurance agent and say, "Sorry, but I wrecked my car yesterday, and so now I want to add full comprehensive and collision to my policy."
Let's be serious: I need my car; therefore someone must pay for it. I can't. And, heck, insurance companies have lots of money, so, Q.E.D.