Columnists

I've been thinking about the value of journalists vs. columnists, sparked by a number of outrages and incidents over the past few months. I've been studying journalism for close to 20 years now (e.g. I wrote my senior thesis on the subject after studying with Roger Mudd) and I believe strongly in the 1st Amendment, a free press (sorry: A Free Press), and the need to keep tabs on government & unregulated business, and generally to be the voice of the populace.

Sadly, as I've pointed out often the commercialization of the press has brought down this mighty tool. And while I agree that we're actually living through a great age of information, there is something fundamentally flawed with a press who needs to be interested in sales as opposed to their Constitutionally protected and necessary role. Especially since all the journalists I read and know all believe that what they do is 'speak truth to power' or something like it.

That's why it's key to distinguish between a reporter and a columnist. Both could be under the category of 'journalist', but a reporter appears to still be the role for the fact-gatherer. The columnist is the opinion spewer. And what is clear is that they operate under different grundnorms.

The reporter is an academic-lite - both fields are ostensibly about amassing expertise, knowledge, facts and then publishing (reporting) them. Reporters are held to a lower level of book knowledge but they are to make up for it with street knowledge and with speed. The grundnorm is both cases is the desire for fact. This ability to acquire and publish fact is the real freedom of the American system and the keystone of our liberty: the 1st Amendment (which, even more than the text of the Constitution, is the most important contribution to world history).

A columnist, however, is in the politics or entertainment field and their grundnorm, besides the lust for power/money could be the "ethic" of free expression. This is a more recent "ethic" - it's like the 1960s hippie BS mixed with the 1970s+ self-esteem movement. Whatever its source, it is ugly. And that is what I see in the work of most online columnists (and probably those in print, but I almost never read a print newspaper unless its Shabbos and I'm at someone else's house).

Columnists are definitely a scourge of our democracy but, as my vaunted 1st Amendment asserts, I need to protect their rights. But I can still condemn them.

NYTimes to Go Back Behind the Firewall

So the New York Times has decided to go back behind a paid firewall. I remember when they first did this (back in '05? it feels like yesterday)... And I got through it easily back then. The only person I cared about reading at the time was Krugman, mainly because he was the only sane voice during the terrible two years of 2005-2006 (when the GOP was unstoppable in their evil). Sadly the Times could have taken a leadership role and dubiously decided that they needed to make more money.

I'm on record saying that when the News acts as a for-profit business, everyone suffers. The news-agencies turn into lowest-common-denominator gutter entertainment organs (because that's where the money is), creating and perpetuating scandals, and - worst of all - distorting the news in order to sell sell sell. The best example (outside of the "Feeding Frenzies") was the very existence of Sarah Palin. In the modern for-profit journalist world, every election needs to be a 'horse race' and even when a violently unacceptable candidate for VP is chosen, the media needs to keep the sides even.

The Times, arrogant as ever, believes that they have survived the newspaper crunches and can demand that people will pay for their product. Were they accurate - i.e. were they truly a good news source - then maybe it would be a smart plan. But, pardon my French, the Times' sucks. Their news quality is poorly written (I remember when the Times was written at a 12th Grade level), ignorant and thus biased in the worst way, and not nearly as useful as a good blog collection will be.

They have no idea how badly they will get burned by this - because five lines of computer code will be able to collect news from around the web better than the Times. Competition in the infinite cyberspace makes one specific news source obsolete.

The only thing the Times could boast would be their columnists - and two have just bolted. Frank Rich, who was the best thing in the paper, and now Bob Herbert (who I couldn't care less about). They must be the smartest people there because they're getting out. Columnists are pundits, which makes them nickel academics. In the idea profession, it's far more important to have influence than shiny metal coins: an academic would gladly give academic books/papers out for free if that meant more people would read 'em.

What to Read Instead?

There are a few options. The best news agency out there is actually the old Knight-Ridder, now known as the unpronounceable McClatchy. Their main site is here and it's worth reading instead.

The other options are Yahoo News - which is the AP Wire, a very good option. AP is still biased, but by dint of necessity - they try to sell to as many papers as possible - they are as comprehensive as possible. It's business model is most likely to survive the internet.

And of course I'll just go to Jpost and Haaretz more.

Reaction to Tuesday's Midterms

Some quick reactions from Tuesday's Midterm Elections. Note, when I say "we" that refers to "Democrats" and/or "(Normal) Jews" and/or "(Normal) Americans". This is because, as I said Monday, the current Republican party is bizarrely more evil in intention than the ideas backing the Bush Years:

1. This could have been much much worse. As the dust settles, the Democrats lost only 1 House. Many of the lost seats in the Senate should have been quite safe (PA, Ill-a-freakin'-Noise) and that's a depressing sign. But considering that Teabaggers were defeated in many places, that California stayed Blue, and that Harry Reid's Faustian deal is still under warranty, means that it wasn't as bad as it could have been.
   


2. The irony about Reid is that if anyone is responsible for the current failure of the Democrats, it's Reid. As I said in the intro, it's a given that the current GOP is freakishly evil (see below), but the only places where their evil could reign was SCOTUS (which is a lost cause until Scalia and Thomas get incapacitated by their own hatred of humanity), and the Senate. Despite the Dems having a historically high 60 seats, Reid allowed the Senate Republicans to destroy most attempts to repair the economy and help America. It's that bad. And because of the deadlock in congress, more people are out of work than should be, the health care plan is flaccid, and Obama's appointees are stalled in committee. All this evil was hated by the American people who returned their ire on... House Democrats. Who were by and large heroes these past 2 years. If there was any justice, Reid should have lost, the Dems should have kept the Senate - and House.
   


3. Which leads to the most infuriating result of Tuesday. While it's bad enough that the disturbing and malevolent John Boehner will be the new speaker, and that the Teabaggers have renewed vigor, what I'm especially angry about is that the GOP tactic of legislative anarchy worked for their benefit. The GOP is better at "playing the ref" than the Dems, mainly because the GOP is ideologically anti-government! Even when the Dems were trying to stop Bush's evil, in general their party is in favor of legislation. GOPers can take it or leave it. They may have claimed that they were trying to stop laws that hurt the American people, but only morons or fanatics actually believe that was true. Seriously. The proof is that the GOP supported everything they claim Obama stands for when Bush was the president. Every (non-alcoholic/moron) in Congress knew that we needed economic stimulus, health care, and bank reform - the GOP just didn't want those vitally important things to happen under a Democratic president. Which makes them a special type of evil.
   
   Note, this proof is the same one behind the Teabaggers: (1) if you don't like deficit spending, then why did you support Bush's epic/disgusting ballooning of the deficit? Because you want tax cuts and crazy wars? OK, yeah, you do. But it's because they're bigoted fiends; (2) if you hate health care reform, why did you support the Medicare Prescription Drug Boondoggle? I could go on but the pattern is obvious.


The Republicans spent 2 years blocking vitally important legislation - that they supported and knew would help get people jobs, medicine, life - in order to help their electoral chances... and it worked. And the American people fell for it. And I just threw up in my mouth.

And because it worked, the GOP will do it again and it will work again. It's bad enough to know that evil has gone unnoticed, it's worse to know that it will keep happening.


4. It's possible that Obama should be blamed for not strongly broadcasting the GOP evil before Nov 2. It is my biggest cavil with the president: that I want him to fight more. Yeah, it's nice to be 'non-partisan' but evil is evil and must be stopped. However, in retrospect, I have to blame the House/Senate democrats - and thus the DNC - for the responsibility of carrying out that message. It was their gooses about to be cooked and their legislature to be explained, and thus I blame their loss on themselves.
   
   
5. The big silver lining about the election is that - based on the GOP Evil Analysis above - that the hidden enemy of Republican Obstructionism now has a face. Ya see, as I've experienced in my own life, it's part of the American psyche to dismiss the excuses behind loss and failure. Bush lied, stole 2000, so what - he crossed the finish line and now we can move on to the next horse race. So too in Congress - so what if the GOP committed legislative fraud and grand evil over 2 years - it's not visible therefore its not provable. Yet now Bone-nert/Bay-nert/Boonert is the orange face of Congress. And we have a clear, easily spotted - even at night - enemy of Democracy.
   
   
6. Other good news - Massachusetts stayed Blue. The Scott "Nudie Model" Brown debacle of 2009 did not repeat.
   
   
7. On the unknown/bad news front: one piece of info I was looking for in the news organs is probably the most crucial factor of the Midterms - the makeup of State legislatures in those states that will gain/lose Congressional seats because of the new census. As Obama said on the Daily Show, the two biggest anti-Constitutional enemies to the Republic are (1) the filibuster, especially in the hands of the anarcho-nihilistic burglars of the GOP, and (2) gerrymandering of House districts. The GOP has succeeded in the former and may now succeed in the latter.
   
   
8. The last reaction for now has to do with newspapers. I sought out a (free) New York Times on Tuesday morning because I felt that I needed to have a good analysis and breakdown of the effects of the Midterms. Yet, I didn't get one. Not only was the newspaper frozen in time while reporting on a constantly shifting fact landscape, what information they did contain was fluffy and pedestrian. I wanted numbers! I wanted facts about losses and wins and causes and effects. Instead the paper was filled with reaction pieces about mood and feelings. It was useless. The internet wins again - not only because its up-to-the-second in news, but because the possible info is BETTER.

Flotilla Context: Another Mexican Shot by US Border Patrol

Just to give some context to the Gaza Flotilla-Palooza, see this top-story from the AP (not found on the NYTimes front page) about the murder of a Mexican teenager by the U.S. Border patrol. OK, you can say that it's not news because we're Americans and we generally get a free pass to kill people whenever we want (it's called He Who Has the Most Nukes Makes the Rules) - like the unmanned wedding-crashing drones in Afghanistan - but let's dig deeper:

The killing of the Mexican by U.S. authorities — the second in less than two weeks — has exposed the distrust between the two countries that lies just below the surface, and has enraged Mexicans who see the death of the boy on Mexican soil as an act of murder. Mexico's government says the number of Mexicans injured by U.S. immigration authorities has increased this year. ... [The boy] was found 20 feet (six meters) into Mexico, and an autopsy revealed that the fatal shot was fired at a relatively close range, according to Arturo Sandoval, a spokesman for the Chihuahua state attorney general's office. Mexican authorities said a .40 caliber shell casing was found near the body, suggesting that the Border Patrol agent might have crossed into Mexico to shoot the boy.

Compare and contrast.

Pic presumably of the Mexico-US border from here.

Helen Thomas and Applying the Double Standard

As you doubtless have heard, Helen Thomas - the bubbie-like senior White House Correspondent for the world, a chum of Steven Colbert and champion of freedom under George "The Scumbag" Bush - turns out to be a raging wacko anti-Semite. Thankfully, she has announced her retirement after her these comments were spread all throughout modern technology's platforms:

Thomas was asked by Rabbi David Nesenoff on May 27 if she had "any comments on Israel."

"Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine," she said.

Nesenoff, who was attending the first Jewish American Heritage Month event at the White House, asked where Jews should go.

"Go home," Thomas said. Asked to elaborate, she said: "Poland, Germany and America, and everywhere else."

Ya see, simple point for Helen and her fellow Nazis: it rankles many of us Hebrews, or really any thinking educated human, when someone tells Jews to go back to Germany. It's clear Nazi talk. Just a reminder.

You got to see the video for the full effect. She's one crazy Nazi:


OK, now that she's been successfully retired, let's apply a little bit of the double standard that's normally applied to us (Jews/Israelis). First, it should be noted that her comments were made before the Flotilla Debacle, so unlike her soul-brother Mel Gibson, who made his drunken comments in the midst of the Second Lebanon War, she was neither drunk nor responding to a recent crisis.

Second of all, it turns out that she's the child of Lebanese Christians - which shows that it's not easy to profile the enemies of Israel and the Jews into simple categories.

Third: a good sign for an anti-Semite is the automatic conflation of "Israel" with "Jew." Israelis should go back to where they came from? Yeah? And that's Germany & Poland - the wonderlands of genocide - or America (part of the Jewish American notorious Israel lobby, no doubt). An anti-Zionist non-Anti-Semite (who may exist) would say, possibly, "Europe" instead of the concentration-camp intensive specific countries. Just playing Devil's advocate. Almost literally.

Fourth: let's apply the double standard here. This evil woman was a "dean" of the Press Corps and she's a closet neo-Nazi. I think that just as every Jew is put on the hot-seat every time Netanyahu commits another in his colossal string of screw-ups, so now every journalist should be under the presumption of being a barely hidden anti-Semite. Payback's a beeyatch.

Me and the New Republic

We finally canceled our subscription to the New Republic. I'd like to contrast my relationship to TNR to two other magazines: The Atlantic, which I also canceled, and the New Yorker, which I've retained.

The Atlantic is a very good magazine, with a top-notch website and bloggers. But when the recession hit, I needed to cut back on frivolities, and I found that I was just not reading the Atlantic that much. Maybe a fifth or quarter of the issue. So out it went - but if my fortunes were better, I'd subscribe again because it's a quality product.

The New Yorker is both a quality product and an identity object. My family's been subscribing for decades, even through the execrable Tina Brown years, and it's part of how we see our life as public intellectuals. The writing is consistently superb - it's probably the finest source non-fiction around. They also employ fact-checkers, so you can actually trust what's between the covers. And they have cartoons.

Just a quick example of the New Yorker's excellence; last week's issue has an story about an international arms dealer, that you should read if you want to (a) know how accurate Hollywood action-thrillers are (e.g. the dealer, Monzer al-Kassar, is the son of a Syrian diplomat, buys weapons from a factory in Poland, lives in Spain, and uses third and fourth person proxies, in different countries, so to avoid violating flaccid international laws against arms trafficking; he's arrested in Spain in 1995 and after three main witnesses are compromised - somebody killed them or kidnapped their children - he's let free); (b) to know just how scary international intrigue is; and (c) read something you can trust, because as opposed to most books, magazines, and especially newspapers, everything in the article has been verified.

Anyway, what about the New Republic? Well, like the Atlantic, I found that I wasn't reading the magazine - or website - all that much. True, both magazines suffered from the end of the Bush era/2008 Election and the news-junky-dom that those terrible times created, but it's more than that. I found that I just couldn't trust what I was reading in TNR anymore. Here's why:

1. Very Bad Reporters - Top of this list is the uber-hack James "T" Kirchick. I even asked TNR to change their editorial policy and put the authors of specific pieces at the beginning of the article rather than at the end - not only to avoid the worst of their reporters (more below) but specifically for Kirchick who is a serial fantasist, hysteric, and all-around worthless presence. James Woolcott, not usually a person I'd quote due to his persona as bilious cat queen, was spot on when defending Joe Klein in a spat with Kirchick, stating:

   "Kirchick is the Eddie Haskell of neoconservatives, a calculating little suck-up whose obsequious pieties drip like melted plastic. (To wit: "Reached for comment, Kirchick said 'McCain spent five years in a North Vietnamese torture camp. He doesn't need lessons in the horrors of war from the likes of Joe Klein.'") If Commentary made a lunch box, Kirchick is what you find packed inside, between a banana and a hand grenade. "

   There's a certain amount bathhouse politics in Woolcott's assessment, true, and my opposition to Kirchick isn't solely based on his idiot politics (gay republicans, like black republicans, are mystifying to me considering the GOP party platform is explicitly anti-gay and even more so implicitly anti-minority), but is focused on his journalistic crimes: he makes stuff up, distorts everything else, and his continued presence in TNR made me doubt the higher editorial purpose of the journal.
   
   
2. Other bad reporters are there too, and I'd list them, but their names get confusing to me (there's like 11 Jonathans on staff) and the key is that some may get the facts right but when called on to editorialize - which is nearly all the time - their judgement/wisdom is abysmal. The mixing of editorialism and journalism is the next big issue:
   
   
3. TNR Moved from News to Opinion - I never knew if a story could be considered journalism or an editorial. Almost every piece seemed to advocate a position and it was getting maddening. Not only do I want to read journalism from journalists - I get opinions from better people, thank you - but the opinions presented were often purposefully marginal and loopy; what has now been labeled 'Contrarianism.' I first noticed this in Slate - which is why I stopped reading them as well, about 3 years ago. Every Slate piece seemed to be angled to present an opposition to conventional wisdom, which thus meant that facts were twisted or obviated and crazy ideas were emphasized, just to be hip/catchy/shocking/whatever. Since it was clearly a marketing strategy rather than an intellectual one, I swiftly chucked the website from my reading. But then the same tone/goal seemed to spread all across the intertubes and eventually rested uneasily in TNR (see next).
   
   

4. TNR Started to Champion 'Contrarianism' as an editorial policy - as stated above, Contrarianism (for how this is used by others, see this Economist piece) is a journalistic attitude of twisting a story's perspective to present a minority/marginal point of view. E.g. "eating cheese may lower cholesterol!" "Cheney says Obama is not a liberal!" "Spree Killers may eat too much cheese, are too liberal, says Cheney"). It's a terrible trend in journalism and it reeks of flop-sweat. This trend is especially sad given that the Obama administration is fighting gamely against the gnarled nihilistic nub of the GOP who have cynically contradicted everything the good-guys have been trying to do. But since TNR, Slate, and even the Washington Post (so I've been told), among others, are committed to contrarianism - the two intellectual tactics help each other. The GOP happily distorts facts and these journalists oblige with their own twists. It's hurting the country and I want no part of it.
   
   
5. The Website became unusable - at one point, early in 2008, TNR's website was still a place I could go to find out breaking news in politics or what-have-you. Now, I have no idea how to use the dang thing - there's thirteen different blogs, each sharing front-page space, and it's just an addled mess.

All told, TNR had to go, and I don't see returning any time soon.

Update 1: When searching for good pics for this post, which I do after writing it, I found this story from Oct 2009 about others who hate Slate's contrariansism. Nice to know I'm not alone.

Update 2: Just had a blinding insight - contrarianism has existed on the internet for a while, but it's generally called being a 'concern troll.' While they're not exactly the same, the attitude is similar enough that I think the epithet fits.

First pic from here, second from here. Third pic comes from some dude's 4-chan pile and relates to update 2.

Sullivan Off the Rails, Cont.

Andrew Sullivan has been going off the rails (or off his meds) for a few months now. I think it's an elastic snap-back from his years attacking Republicans that he feels a need to just lash out brainlessly. I've detailed my misgivings about his most recent foray into anti-Zionism (it's in a backpost, be patient). But just today he shows the true reason why a sane person (like me) needs to be wary of anybody in the press. Obsoive:

"Maureen Dowd's column today hits on something she's been tuning into for a while. Dowd's instincts about human character are foolish to bet against. She has essentially read every recent president correctly from the get-go as types.

OK, pause for a second... do you get that? Sullivan is praising Maureen Frickin' Dowd! As being always right! Dowd may be the only person in the press corps who is *more* of a screaming splitting borderline hysteric than Sullivan. They're birds of a feather. I guess I always knew that but to see him actually praise her, and for something totally stupid, is just too much:

And she has always seen Obama as a bit of a cold fish, aloof, too unwilling to punch back, too arrogant to explain himself too much.

Get this: Modo's nonsense vendettas are validated because of her childish belief that Obama is just too aloof? This is the same complaint about Obama made by the insane Right Wing - which should tell you, immediately, how much into crazy town we've gotten. But the real proof is in his last line (emphasis mine):

MoDo worried about that in the campaign as the Clintons brought more raw human emotion to the trail and Obama often seemed to coast too cockily only to right himself, usually with some spell-binding speech or shrewd piece of campaign management. I generally trusted Obama's instincts. In the campaign, MoDo was nearly right (Obama did let the Clintons get back off the mat a few too many times) but in the end, wrong (look who got elected). But in government? The coolness has yet to be proven effective - as Kissinger has noted."

You know just how bad Sullivan has gotten when he uses Henry Kissinger as support for Maureen Dowd. Barf.

Pic from here, note - I am only one of millions that think Dowd is a silly person who is given too much of a platform.

Matt Taibbi on Polticial Reportage

I concur with John Cole that this article by Matt Taibbi about the behavior of political reporters is just filled with win: Yes, Sarah, There is a Media Conspiracy. The whole thing is great (by which I mean, Taibbi agrees with me).

h.t. Cole, pic from here showing the Press Corps for President Teddy Ro.

Why Palin Matters

For reasons I can't understand, Left Wing bloggers are trying to act like Palin shouldn't matter. E.g. Steve Benen stating: "I have deliberately steered clear of writing posts about Sarah Palin this week, in part because I don't think she's worth the obsessive media attention, and in part because I find myself struggling to care." And others who say that Newsweek had a sexist cover (which I won't reprint here) of Palin in jogging shorts, or that it's excessive for AP to have 11 fact checkers of her book (which they didn't, but whatever). Here's my take:

1. I am happy that the somnolent, stenographic news-establishment has finally woken up and realized that someone, in this case Palin, is an existential threat to the United States. The press was sleeping about Iraq, about Abu Ghraib, about the Patriot Act, about almost everything dangerous and catastrophic that the Bush Administration perpetrated, in real time - except for the brief, quickly-snuffed, outrage over Katrina. But, Cheney is still treated as an authority of matters that don't just exist in his fantasy dungeon; McCain is jokingly called "President McCain" by my favorite bloggers because of his retained authority and ubiquity on Sunday talk shows. The press is relentlessly market driven to the point of self-inflicted triviality. But now they have woken up about Palin and are treating her like the threat to our country that she is. That's at least one aspect of my spin on their obsession with her.
   
   To be honest, they're motivated more by her popularity - positive on the GOP end, negative on the Rest of The World end - and her sexpot tabloid trash image sells units. So she is good for business. But I am willing to say that the press has also realized that we almost had her for president.
   
   
   
2. Plain is the presumptive GOP nominee in 2012. That's just the way our election cycles run: the VP candidate of the losing ticket becomes the presumptive nominee next election. Lieberman led the polls for the 2004 primary back in 2001-2003. Edwards was presumed to be the front runner from 2005-2007; even Quayle thought he had a shot in 1996. So by structure alone, Palin is the presumed nominee. And, not to push to hard on this, it doesn't matter that she stepped down from the gov., Edwards was out of the Senate after 2004 as well.
   
   
3. In a real sense, Palin is the face of the GOP right now. True, the de-facto heads of the party are Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, but Palin actually was on a national campaign and millions of people pressed the lever with her name in November 2008. She is real, while the others aren't.

Her popularity with the GOP base is why I characterize her as an existential threat: she could very well be the nominee in '12, and (as others have coined) the "Any Given Tuesday" weirdness of election day could put her in office. And she is dangerous, stupid, crazy, and religiously convinced of her inerrant rectitude.

Whatever made Bush bad, she has, without anything that made Bush good. I've said this before, I believe, but it bears repeating - as un-meritocratic and elitist it may sound, there's a benefit to electing a person who comes from a political machine. They are usually surrounded by professionals who have experience. Sadly, the Bush machine's experience was all in Evil. And they were bad at it. But his candidacy in 2000 rested on the barely unspoken premise that, yeah, he's a moron but he has good advisers. This over-confident bluff cannot be said for Palin. So Bush without expertise is a clear recipe for catastrophe.

The last point, especially about Palin and Bush, is this: for most of America (and the world) George W. Bush was a disaster. Most people, therefore, would hate and fear another Bush and we have learned to recognize the symptoms of another Bush. Hence, this is why most thinking people detest and fear Palin. However, the gnarled nub of the GOP who remain, the teabaggers and Birthers and Christers and Beckters, by definition, loved the last 8 years. If they have any complaints, its that Bush wasn't conservative (read: crazy) enough! And thus they really want Palin - for the same reasons we don't want her.

First two pics are all over the place and are undoctored stills of Palin in public debates; the last Bush-Palin pic is from here.

Lou Dobbs to Quit CNN

From the Times, Lou Dobbs to Quit CNN.

This is excellent news. Dobbs was a bigoted clown and a public embarrassment. He deserves to be on Fox, he's so biased and bad. [Spitting sound]

Update: The Onion, for the win: U.S. Deports Lou Dobbs: CNN Host Had Been Living Illegally In Country Since 1961

Acting on anonymous tips from within the Hispanic-American community, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials on Wednesday deported Luis Miguel Salvador Aguila Dominguez, who for the last 48 years had been living illegally in the United States under the name Lou Dobbs.

BATman

The identity of the author of the Styx is a deep mystery, shrouded in intrigue, only barely discoverable by intellects who are able to type and have access to Google. Nonetheless, my anonymity is a legal fiction I intend to uphold for now.

That said, I cannot and will not admit that I have a brother specifically named Aaron Cypess, M.D., Ph.D., but were he my brother I would be incredibly proud that Aaron is the first author of a New England Journal of Medicine article about "brown fat" (Brown Adipose Tissue = B.A.T., hence the fat Batman). The article is so important that it was carried by every major newspaper as well as NPR and even the major network TV news: NBC with Brian Williams, the Today Show, and CBS News.

Some newspapers decided to break with scientific and journalistic tradition and they did not mention the first author's name. One paper in particular, whose name rhymes with Shnew Dork Shtimes, committed this calmnus fraud. Not sure why... I won't say it's because Aaron wore a yamulka to the interview; it's probably because the Shtimes is a rag.

Yet, because God has a sense of humor, this story broke on the first day of Pesach. Which meant that the entire frum community, who weren't able to listen to NPR or watch 2 of the major news networks on Chag, were stuck reading the Shtimes and thus did not know that the Cypess Family Name was being honored so greatly.

What follows is a list of the journalistic heroes, i.e. those that carried Aaron's name along with his revolutionary findings. Also are three video clips noted above (NBC, Today, CBS) - where Aaron is shown doing his research proudly wearing his keepah:

NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102887700

NPR audio: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102887700

Reuters (as Cypress): http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE5378SL20090408?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews

CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/10/brown.fat.obesity/

WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123922489513102541.html

WPost: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/08/AR2009040804290_pf.html

Boston Globe: http://www.boston.com/news/health/blog/2009/04/brown_fats_hold.html

Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/hscout/2009/04/08/hscout625876_print.html

Scientific American: http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=adults-store-calorie-burning-brown-2009-04-09

LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-sci-fat9-2009apr09,0,6366429,print.story

WebMD: http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20090407/can-brown-fat-make-you-thin

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News

Congratulations Aaron, if you were my brother, I'd be very proud of you.

Fat Batman pic from here.

William Kristol Finally Given the Boot

According to the tagline under his NYTimes column: "This is William Kristol’s last column." Kristol is by far the worst of the existing neocon morons and the fact that he was *still* employed by a non-neocon publication was a scandal. The NYTimes has done some stupid things in the past (among the many evil along the way: exhibit 1, ignoring the Holocaust, exhibit 2, actually liking it when Israelis are killed by terrorists), but hiring - and retaining - Kristol over the past year has to rank as one of the stupidest things in the past half-century.

Yeah, it's nice to have a balanced editorial page - it's one reason why I read daily, and subscribe to the print version of, the Atlantic - but that should require the editors to find columnists who are *honest* and (preferably) intelligent. But based on the living muppets Tom Friedman and Maureen Dowd - both whom might be too stupid to feed themselves - the Times columnists have been steadily shrinking in quality. Dowd is haphazardly opinionated, vapid, and holds a blinding vendetta against the Clintons and all male Democrats. Friedman's crimes against facts and sense are well documented.

Kristol took the NYTimes' callowness and idiocy into a new, twisted level. After Rove was ousted in 2006, Kristol became the de-facto head of the Republican party (the "intellectuals" at least) - it was he who pushed for Sarah Palin early and often, and managed to override the GOP nominee to install his own, hand-picked, meathead.

Kristol regularly lies in his written columns and all in the direction of purposefully helping the Republican party. Why should the Times participate in helping a pure partisan further his aims?

Well, as I've prediction many times before, when Obama/Democrats took over, the Press - who from 2000-2008 were willing to swallow whole whatever garbage the Republicans spewed - now realize that they have new overlords. This will persist as long as Obama stays popular.

J.M. Marshall, of TPM, has long contended that the Beltway pundits weight the opinions of Republicans/Right Wingers as more serious than those views on the left... and I agree with his assessment. Which means that as soon as Obama's popularity dips, so Kristol will be taken seriously again.

See here and here (which has links to criticism of Kristol) for more data on the NYTimes decision. Pic from here.

Don't Try to Be Funny

As I've mentioned before, I read dozens of daily poltiical cartoons (they come to my e-mailbox as a paid service from Gocomics.com). There's a trend I've noticed where political cartoonists basically use their space to write a joke. Which is entirely not what their job description demands. There are 'funny' cartoons and then political cartoons. To mix the two basically makes for a waste of space. Poltiical cartoonists have a serious, and consequential job (only slightly taken over by the late night talk show hosts, no kidding).

Anyway, this is an example from Bruce Beattie from a few weeks ago that just broke the camels back [click to enlarge]

What is his point? It's not even funny. It's stupid. And considering the dire situation the US is in, and the need to galvanize the electorate, why choose a stale joke-like-substance?

Miscellaneous from My Files, part 2

More miscellaneous links & commentary from my inbox:

1. 09-03-2008: From Sullivan, it turns out that Palin *is* what the GOP tried to smear Obama as... right down to the preacher!
   
   
2. The Onion's page about Bob Barr is right on the money in almost every way (warning: nivul peh).
   
   
3. 09-05-2008: Washpost review of Woodward's scathing new book about Bush. Woodward's a consummate journalist - his books supported Bush when he was popular and attacked Bush when he was not. Thanks, Woodstein! It just proves that the real hero of Watergate was William
   Deep Throat" Felt - the FBI informer who gave the journalists all the info. He risked his career, they made theirs. Ah well, there's a reason why print media is dying.
   
   
4. 09-07-2008: Maureen Dowd is so weird. She thinks so little of Obama... that he'll somehow be eviscerated by Sarah Palin; and she thinks so much of Hillary, while hating her. Sad.
   
   
5. 09-07-2008: Frank Rich is a great contrast to Dowd (and others). When he was a regular columnist, he wasn't so hot, but since his weekly Sunday spotlight he's been en fuego! Key line (about Palin): "How long before we learn she never shot a moose?"
   
   
6. 09-01-2008: Martin Peretz defends Biden. Peretz is as Zionist as they come (and as Zionist as necessary). If he defends Obama and Biden - which he has - then it's good enough for me. Peretz' critics claims he finds anti-Semities in shadows... so choke on this feebs. Key line: "Look, what is happening here is that a senator with a sterling record, an unexceptionable sterling record on Israel is now in the eyes of the snipers, a kind of political terrorism in which evidence has no place, history no relevance and real politics no standing. Joe Biden is one of the most astute and committed supporters of Israel in American politics."
   
   
7. 09-16-2008: This is fun video
   
   
8. 09-09-2008: Kinda funny: Black Comic Introduces McCain (warning, many naughty words).
   
   
9. 09-17-2008: Ruth Marcus of Washpost turns against the McCain campaign. Something I predicted: that journalists will start to be professionally insulted by the bald-faced lies and distortions. I've been there: I get more angry at a lie that insults my intelligence than an attempt to deceive based on desperation or greed. And here's another journalist fleeing.
   
   
10. 09-21-2008: The only good thing I can say about Maureen Dowd is that she lets better writers do her work for her; here's Aaron Sorkin imagining Obama meeting President Bartlett.

Why Aren't They Reporting the Lies?

I mentioned below that the press will try to cover up for the McCain/Palin horrors as much as they can. How do I know this? Well, uh, because they've been doing it. Were Obama, Hillary, Gore, or Billy J Clinton to have said or done the same things McPalin has done, they would already have been laid out on a spit and roasted by the press. So why the double standards? Here's why:

1. Fox News & WSJ plus about half or more of the columnists in the major newspapers are lock-stock part of the GOP. No, they're not paid by them (as far as I know), but they identify closely with the GOP and believe that its crucial to their financial well-being and possibly the existence of civilization that the GOP remain in power. So this group of "journalists" - plus, naturally, all the known scum on the radio - will be campaigning for the GOP, attacking Obama, and covering for the GOP stooges. I suspect that based on the roster above, more than half of the voices in the major mainstream media are part of the GOP. Add onto that what I wrote about here - that the mainstream media is not liberal because of the market for news.

2. Reporters are basically cowards driven by market forces and will support anyone who's popular and attack anyone who's out of favor. People seem to really like Sarah Palin - and who doesn't want a evangelical dominatrix with a Fargo accent? - and the press won't rock that boat. Until people stop liking her.

3. Above all, the press need a horse race. The tension and conflict of politics sells news. We got the Iraq War because the press were cowards and we got a Bush re-election because the press needed to keep the election close. Even though in 2004 the Abu Ghraib story had already broke, and we hadn't found WMDs in Iraq, even with all these horrible things, the press decided that we needed a close election. Thanks.

What this means for 2008 is that even though McCain is clueless, has a temperament problem, changes his views more often than he changes shirts, appears to be very very stupid, and all in all will be a very dangerous president... were the press to point that out, there'd be a landslide for Obama and nobody would watch TV.

And even though Sarah Palin is a crazy Christian who can't tell the truth, bullies her enemies - which include those whose religion she despises - and is manifestly unqualified to be Vice President... if the press pointed all this out, they'd lose advertising dollars because of lack of interest.

As I said before, I think there's a good chance Palin/McCain will end up like Romney, but the press will do it's durndest to make sure we don't hear it from them.

Glenn McCoy - Voice of the Wingnuts

Political cartoonist Glenn McCoy not only can't draw that well (or at least he makes his figures purposefully disquieting) but he has one of the lowest common denominator minds of the idiot Right Wing. For a quick primer in what the wingnuts are thinking (or, a better term for right-wing nut: freeper), just read Glenn "W is God" McCoy.

These cartoons are from September 2007, but McCoy is as persistent as all small minds, so what holds back then, still holds for today.

Exhibit 1 (Aug 14 2007)

Exhibit 2 (Aug 8 2007)

Exhibit 3 (July 26 2007)


Exhibit 1: A standard Freeper view is that the media is unabashedly liberal. I disproved that canard here, - and it's pretty obviously a lie to anyone who pays attention - yet it's a rock solid axiom of the right wing.

Exhibit 2: Heh heh heh. Up until she actually left the race in June, the freepers believed with absolute certainty that Hillary was going to be the democratic nominee. It came from two coincident axioms: (1) The Clintons were unbeatable (proven by the fact that they hadn't been beaten) and (2) that the Democrats were so stupid, venal, evil that they would naturally choose Hillary.

Exhibit 3: Same with #2. Extra points for making Hillary look monstrous.

Summary: The key question is does Glenn - and by extension the rest of his freaky-right-winger ilk - actually believe this narrischkeit? Yeah, they're convinced, like most radicals, that the press is against them. The secret truth, that the press is on their own side, doesn't penetrate (but that's a different screed). But about Hillary? Or are they just trying to stack the deck in favor of who they think is the worse candidate, Hillary? This is what Rush Limbaugh did, with his Operation Chaos, and I at least give him credit for knowing that he's on the side of evil (same with Rove). So I guess the real question is: is Glenn in on Rush/Rove's joke?

Backpost, started 9/4/07, finished 2009-12-07.

Backpost: Premiere vs. Us

Backpost: 8/10/07, 2:54 PM. Just the post title.

So it's been almost a year since Premiere went belly-up. The magazine subscription service I use decided to give us another magazine in its place: Us Weekly. This is, not to exaggerate too much, a travesty of irony.

Premiere was a entertainment magazine that actually had decent journalism and an independent mind towards film criticism. It was on the high end of the spectrum (not too high; that realm is for frou-frou academicishe journals).

Us Weekly, on the other hand, is a bottom-feeding paparazzi rag. Paparazzi are a blight - they are paid to stalk and harass people - and Us Magazine expanded the market for this despicable practice with their tagline: "celebrities, they're just like US." Meaning that US magazine pays for ANY picture of a celebrity doing something ordinary. Pumping gas, buying milk, wheeling a carriage. Thus Us Magazine have given paparazzi to be even more intrusive, invasive, and offensive.

Leafing through the magazine once gave me an intense urge to jump into a mikvah and then burn down the company HQ.

How they dared to replace Premiere with Us shows either corporate ignorance or willful malfeasance.

Dowd and Hillary

Via TPM, the NYTimes Ombusperson (a.k.a. Public Editor) criticizes Maureen Dowd's coverage of Hillary (Pantsuits and the Presidency). I guess I don't expect much from Dowd to even bother outrage anymore. Dowd is an embarrasment to the profession, and that's saying a lot since 'pundits' are usually the lowest form of writer. 'Pundits' as we now have them are either bought-and-paid-for partisans or glib hacks. I really have no idea how Dowd got to her position (and I'm not surprised that she's won a Pulitzer - because those things are given out like meth at a hillbilly wedding).

But what makes this particular line of criticism important is the recognition that Dowd is basically gay-baiting. She applies a stark sexual politics onto Democrats - painting Democratic men as gay (unless they're like Bill Clinton and then they're pimps), and the women as lesbians. Considering Dowd is unmarried, and has attacked the notion of marriage in her book (Are Men Necessary?), her fixation on gender and sexuality goes beyond creepy into the pathology zone.

The whatever blog, Hullabaloo, put it very well:

"Again, the question isn't whether she should have treated Clinton any differently. It's that her entire worldview is toxic, both culturally and politically. She uses explicitly sexist and homophobic imagery that favors traditional authoritarian leadership to explain politics. She gets away with it because she has a rapier wit and is a physically beautiful person, thus insulating herself from the kind of criticism others would receive for writing this crud. But in truth she's a walking anachronism, more like a character in Mad Men than a modern sophisticate."

Pic self-made. Backpost finished 2009-12-03.

The Hagiography of Russert

Jack Shafer, one of the best things about Slate magazine, agrees with me about the selfish wasting of airspace and attention of the death of Tim Russert (for an example, see Remnick at The New Yorker.) Basically, they are treating him as an important world leader when, basically, he's just another of the pack of journalist-talking heads who emphasized the horse-race over real substance. Every prominent journalist who was working from 2001-2008 should be ashamed about what they let the Bush Administration get away with.

Here's a choice quote from Shafer's piece, The Canonization of Saint Russert:

I wonder whether the media grievers gave a moment of thought to how this Russert torrent they produced played with viewers and readers. Did the grievers really think Russert was so important, so vital to the nation's course, and such an elevated human being that he deserved hour upon hour of tribute? I wonder whether any of the responsible journalists paused to think, Hey, this is really weird. We're using our unchecked editorial power to soak the nation with our tears about our friend, and that's unseemly!

On days like this, I, too, hate the press.

Join the club, Jack.

Pic from here. Backpost finished 2009-12-06.

Sebelius vs. Hillary

The TNR quotes from this Washpost story about Hillary supporters pushing back against Kathleen Sebelius as a possible Obama VP because, wait for it, Sebelius is too nice. And, evidently, the Hillary supporters that interest the mainstream media the most, are unhinged wackos who back Hillary mainly because she's equally mean as they.

Why is it that I - a major Hillary hater - have more respect for her than her supposed supporters? Logic would state that the media just seeks out the crazies, because certainly there must be some sane people among the millions who voted for her. These 'journalists' just prove, again, that they are out to create trouble and stir up controversy in the hopes of stirring up revenue.

I'm on record supporting Sebelius as Obama's VP, she seems to be a good electoral choice, and it is about time to have a woman hired into the White House.

Pic self made. Backpost finished 2009-12-07.