Meet Sarah. Just a few years ago, Sara was a fresh graduate of QSU's prestigious Journalism program with an exciting job anayzing poll results for the Claxon-Ledger's front page. Today, after numerous rounds of layoffs and benefit cuts, Sarah is forced to pull triple duty -- writing OpEds, weather forecasts, and laying out the coupon section. She has tried to find alternative jobs in broadcast media, but declining TV news ratings mean she must remain in our half-empty offices, worrying whether her job will still be there next month.
How did this happen to Sarah? Because turncoat former subscribers like you decided to abandon a Quint State institution for the glitzy lure of Craigslist, Monster.com, and the unedited opinions of anonymous "bloggers."
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Please, any little bit helps -- $20, $10, even $5 per month. Together we can save the future for Sarah, and her dreams of an MSNBC talk show.
Remember: every time you click on the internet, a professional journalist cries.
Go read it all. You'll laugh, you'll cry laugh even more, . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
05/08/2007 13:08 ||
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Just sharing the snippet of an article that caused my boggle to let all its blue smoke out...
The leader of France's defeated Socialists appealed for calm Tuesday after a second night of post-election violence left cars burned and store windows smashed.
While the unrest has been small-scale, it sent a message to Nicolas Sarkozy: He may have won the presidency, but he hasn't won over the many French who consider him and his free-market reforms and tough line on crime and immigration frighteningly brutal.
Official figures released on Monday said demonstrators set fire to 730 cars and injured 78 policemen across France, with 592 people arrested in the violent protests against the tough-talking former interior minister.
That's small-scale? Are Watts-scale riots a nightly occurance in France, or something?
Posted by: Dave D. ||
05/08/2007 11:21 Comments ||
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#2
Let's see who's "brutal": 2 nights of riots vs. ?
#4
No kidding. If that kind of thing happened over here both the city and state governments would have their heads handed to them, and maybe even the federal government too. And we'd be seeing documentaries about it on the History Channel for the next 20 years.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
05/08/2007 11:34 Comments ||
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#5
It's like the BBC who describe the (failure reward system) benefits as "generous", but would never described the taxation to fund this stupidity as suffocating.
#6
The continuing violence in France shows that the Roosevelt adminstration's unilateral decision to invade France has proven to be a stategic disaster. Moreover, a study in Lancet establishes that over a million Frenchmen have died since 1944. We must withdraw now. The war is lost.
Posted by: Matt ||
05/08/2007 13:41 Comments ||
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#7
Matt you left out the Frenchwomen and Frenchminorities, you chauvinist swine. Surely they've suffered unduly under the tyranny of Rooseveltian patrimony.
The continuing violence in France shows that the white male Roosevelt administration's phallic decision to invade France has proven to be a stategic disaster with transparent racist and sexist overtones. Moreover, a study in Lancet establishes that over a million Frenchwomen have died since 1944, and that each was holding a baby duckling at the time of her demise. We must withdraw now. The Second World War is lost.
Posted by: Matt ||
05/08/2007 14:30 Comments ||
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#9
Dave D. - it's probably due to de-sensitization. Some french or rather anti-french blogs indicate that 200 cars per night is about average. 700 isn't that big of an increase.....
Women are forbidden to drive, to show their head and to speak in public, and to shake a mans hand. On television, preachers incite husbands to beat their wives for their own good. Saudi journalists describe the countless prohibitions facing Muslim women in their country and appeal for a distinction between religious truths and social customs.
Riyadh (AsiaNews/Agencies) Without permission, women cannot even drive a car or change the colour of their clothes, and television preachers warn that women who shake a mans hand are committing adultery of the hand. Citing such examples, Saudi journalists have criticized the social mentality that rules the relationship between wife and husband.
In the Saudi daily Al-Watan, Fatima Al-Faqih described the many bans imposed on Saudi women: [They] are forbidden to drive, forbidden to travel without permission [of their husband or father or whoever has authority over them] , forbidden to stay alone at a hotel without permission, forbidden to name their own children without [a man's] consent... forbidden to leave their homes or to take a job without permission... forbidden to change the color of their abayas [traditional, long tunic], forbidden to go to school or to the university without permission.
In some Saudi cities, a woman cannot even show her face, she cannot get married without permission nor can she remain married if one of her male relatives decides that her husband's lineage is inferior to hers... nor can she sue for divorce without apologizing and paying a fine. Without permission, she cannot keep her children after the divorce... hold a senior position in the private or public sectors... annoy her husband, and finally, a woman's voice is considered [a form of] defilement, and she is forbidden to speak in public.
Many men, writes Hasna Al-Qunair on the Al-Riyadh daily, justify the inferiority of women by resorting to a distorted reading of the sayings of the Prophet, a tactic often used by television preachers. For example, there is a verse that says: A tribe that nominates a woman [as leader] will not succeed. The journalist explained that on the strength of this saying, an expert said on television that wives should not be asked for their views as they were completely emotional. Another television expert, to defend the virtue of women, incites fathers, brothers and husbands, telling them that a girl who is not beaten from an early age grows up to be a rebellious woman, difficult to control and that a woman who leaves her home without a veil is like a woman who goes out naked. The same preacher warned Muslim women that not covering their heads was the main reason that women are seduced and fall [into sin]. Another preacher said the woman who shakes the hand of a man that is not her husband is guilty of... 'adultery of the hand'. The journalist said that the sayings of the Prophet needed to be considered in the historical circumstances and particular context in which they were pronounced and that religious duties had to be distinguished from norms of social conduct that were controversial and not subject to dogmas of faith, like the custom of covering the face.
Due to this culture, writes Maha Al-Hujailan on the Al-Watan, women live in constant fear that the husband may take another wife. Only women living in this fear properly fulfill the role of the wife, while a woman who feels assured that her husband will not take another wife comes to disdain her husband and her family life...This culture causes a women to feel mentally and psychologically inferior, like a quarrelsome child who must be constantly supervised, intimidated and punished into performing her duties.
The journalist said that women who felt this way may even believe that a good man who respects them is nothing but a weak and unstable man... In their opinion, an ideal man is a violent one who humiliates his wife.
Hasna Al-Qunair added: The woman is the victim of this insular culture, and her only salvation would be a reorganization of the cultural structure of [our] entire society."
. . . before Chirac fades from the scene altogetheror before he becomes embroiled in corruption investigationsI'd like to take this opportunity to recall some of the highlights of his diplomatic career. Many Americans know him only as the man who made the right decision about Iraq, albeit for the wrong reasons. You sure about that, Annie? Was taking out one of the world's worst tyrants a bad idea?
But try, if you can, to leave Iraq aside: Chirac's more important diplomatic legacy lies elsewhere.
Ponder closely, for example, what Chirac has had to say about Africa, where his country has enormous influence, in many places far outweighing ours. During a visit to the Ivory Coast, Chirac once called "multi-partyism" a "kind of luxury," which his host, president-for-life Félix Houphouet-Boigny, could clearly not afford. During a visit to Tunisia, he proclaimed that, since "the most important human rights are the rights to be fed, to have health, to be educated, and to be housed," Tunisia's human rights record is "very advanced"never mind the police who beat up dissidents. "Africa is not ready for democracy," he told a group of African leaders in the early 1990s. . . .
On Saddam Hussein: "You are my personal friend. Let me assure you of my esteem, consideration, and bond." "You paid good money for me, and you got just what you paid for."
On Eastern Europe supporting the United States in the United Nations: "It is not really responsible behavior. It is not well-brought-up behavior. They missed a good opportunity to shut up."
On Iran's nuclear program: "Having one or perhaps a second bomb a little later, well, that's not very dangerous." Theoretically, Chirac was supposed to be negotiating with Iran to give up its nuclear program at the time.
On hearing a French businessman address a European summit in English, "deeply shocked," he stormed out of the room.
As I say, it's a very important legacy: One of consistent scorn for the Anglo-American world in general and the English language in particular, of suspicion of Central Europe and profound disinterest in the wave of democratic transformation that swept the world in the 1980s and 1990s, of preference for the Arab and African dictators who had been, and remained, clients of France. In his later years, Chirac constantly searched, in almost all international conflicts, for novel ways of opposing the United States. All along, he did his best to protect France from the rapidly changing global economy.
Don't let the door hit you in the âne on your way out!
Posted by: Mike ||
05/08/2007 16:06 ||
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#1
"Don't let the door hit you in the âne on your way out!"
Yeah - you can't afford any more brain damage, Jackie-baby.
Sayonara, putz.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/08/2007 16:22 Comments ||
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#2
I believe that there are about 4 different indictments that could not be served while he was serving as president.
Newsweek publishes a breathless account of how George Bush's approval rating has dropped to 28%, and how leading Democrat contenders now outpoll the Republicans across the board for the 2008 presidential race. Coincidence, Newsweek asks? They should have asked that question of their pollsters:
Its hard to say which is worse news for Republicans: that George W. Bush now has the worst approval rating of an American president in a generation, or that he seems to be dragging every 08 Republican presidential candidate down with him. But According to the new NEWSWEEK Poll, the publics approval of Bush has sunk to 28 percent, an all-time low for this president in our poll, and a point lower than Gallup recorded for his father at Bush Sr.s nadir. The last president to be this unpopular was Jimmy Carter who also scored a 28 percent approval in 1979. This remarkably low rating seems to be casting a dark shadow over the GOPs chances for victory in 08. The NEWSWEEK Poll finds each of the leading Democratic contenders beating the Republican frontrunners in head-to-head matchups. ...
Like Obama, Edwards defeats the Republicans by larger margins than Clinton does: the former Democratic vice-presidential nominee outdistances Giuliani by six points, McCain by 10 and Romney by 37, the largest lead in any of the head-to-head matchups. Meanwhile, Sen. Clinton wins 49 percent to 46 percent against Giuliani, well within the polls margin of error; 50 to 44 against McCain; and 57 to 35 against Romney.
Yes, this would be a devastating poll, if one could rely on it. It contradicts nearly every other poll, which has consistently shown Giuliani beating Obama, Clinton, and Edwards. How could Newsweek get the results they have published?
Well, for one thing, it helps when you poll 50% more Democrats than Republicans. If one reads the actual poll results all the way to the end, the penultimate question shows that the sample has 24% Republicans to 36% Democrats. Compare that to the information given by Newsweek's NBC partners in February, which showed that party affiliation had shifted from a difference of less than a percentage point to a gap of 3.9 points -- 34.3% to 30.4%, with 33.9% independents.
Does it really surprise Newsweek that a sample where half again as many Democrats as Republicans were polled tend to prefer Democrats for President? Do they find it all that surprising that George Bush isn't terribly popular when surveys oversample Democrats? They knew that the poll had to have some problems; the margins of error for the poll were 7% for the Democrats and 8% for the Republicans, quite high for these kinds of polls.
Newsweek apparently doesn't employ people like editors and fact checkers before rushing their analyses to print. Thankfully, the blogosphere can take the time and effort to have these layers of correction so that we can provide the best possible information to our readership.
#2
And the MSM will continue to howl about the continued loss of readership/viewership blaming radio talk show conservatives and the net. Never ever will it be the crass bias and deceit they live by.
#4
The margin of error is plus/minus 7 percentage points for results based on 422 registered Democrats and Dem. leaners and plus/minus 8 percentage points for results based on 324 registered Republicans and Rep. leaners. In addition to sampling error, the practical difficulties of conducting surveys can also introduce error or bias to poll results.
Well, that's because there's more forward-looking, clear-thinking, well-educated, articulate Democrats than wild-eyed, raving lunatic, bible-thumping Rethuglicans, right?
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/08/2007 13:02 Comments ||
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#5
Does anyone believe the MSM? They cannot be trusted with the news. One could put up statistics that shows the declining readership of MSM print media and the declining viewship of ABC, CBS, and NBC television news. More and more people are turning to the internet for their news. The MSM has been lying for years to push a liberal left agenda.
#6
To balance out the MSM's leftwing bias we need a network that is slanted just as far to the right - you would have to imagine a network which polls 50% more Republicans in their representation of the American people because no such network currently exists!
First order of business: thank you. Thank you all, even the ones who channeled their inner Nelson and gave me a hearty HA HA. But mostly thanks to everyone who sent letters on behalf of the column many of which, oddly enough, were longer than the column whose loss they were lamenting and wrote words of encouragement on their blogs. And large blushing thanks to Hugh Hewitt, who spent about sixteen hours on the subject on his coast-to-coast radio show.
That said: jeez, folks, its not like they gutted Mencken in front of his family, or anything. The internet and journalism abounds with great talent in increasingly large quantities, and I am honored that you regard the work so well. But honestly, youre embarrassing me. Please keep it up. . . .
I usually write at home, since its easier, and I can pace and talk out loud and listen to music. But I didnt think Id have any writing in me today. (Although I filed a column in the morning.) The office atmosphere was a bit charged; think the morning of the day they tested the first atom bomb, and you have an idea. I had lunch in the cafeteria, something I never do, and was reminded why: you hope theres a measurable difference between the consistency of the turkey burger and the Styrofoam plate on which it rests, but you cant have everything. You could, however, have Salsa, this being a Southwestern Turkey burger, and I watched as the cook got out a giant industrial-sized bottle of Pace and glug out a portion with a sound like a rich, ripe beany fart. I ate at my desk and walked around talking to people, collecting rumors theyre going to fire everyone and raze the building and publish via mental telepathy! until I realized that I had a big feature on the 30th anniversary of Star Wars due in two days, so I wrote that.
Ninety minutes to the Big All-Company Meeting. Lets walk! I put on my headphones and walked around downtown, and I must have looked like a madman. See, I know whats going to happen to me, and it has its own liberating quality. So I just put on show tunes from the very limited selection of show tunes I can bear, and when Singin in the Rain came on I almost hopped up on a lamppost. Which is really the sort of thing you ought to do more often, anyway.
Then the meeting. Bar graphs were displayed. Some of them looked like basement steps built by a drunkard, unfortunately. The bad news was released: 145 positions would enter the ether. They would be pushing up daisies. They would be ex-parrots. After the meeting was over everyone regrouped according to profession, and the plans for the future were laid out. Buyouts were extended. Questions were posed. I cant speak for all, but it seemed like people were looking at others and seeing White Star Lines caps on everyones head. Which is to be expected, I suppose; this sort of thing is unknown at the paper. This was the first time the blade had fallen in a long time; not since the papers were merged, the Star absorbed into the body of the Trib, had the Reaper roamed the halls, laughing loudly.
I should also note that theres no reason we should be immune to this sort of thing. Ive seen all my friends go through this, no matter which industry theyre in. I should also note that if Id been fired outright, well, thats life. If Im not producing enough to justify my salary, make me write one or two features per week in addition to my column. And make me write longer columns! My dismay had to do with the nature of the specific reassignment, not the fact that Id come hard up against Reality. Just so were clear.
After the announcement the phones began to ring; I got a call from a local TV station. They were going to be outside and wanted a reaction on the end of my column. Good Lord. Television cares? Of course, it doesnt but Strib cutbacks were a story, and as far as anyone knew I was the only public casualty thus far. . . .
So where do we stand? Well, I had some conversations about things, and things may happen. Other, different things may happen as well. I just know that the column ends on Friday, and now I have to write the last one.
I know how to do that. Ive had it in my head all weekend. I still cant quite believe its over, and ended in this fashion. But I guarantee you that this situation has caused far greater unhappiness and uncertainty for my fellow workers, and they dont have email campaigners on their side. They have to worry about being shifted around to a different time of day who will pick up the kid? They have to worry about losing their beats for something new, and wondering whether the convulsions will shake the place anew a year or two down the road. Ill always have other outlets, no matter what happens at the paper. But there are people whove given their professional lives to newspapers, and not just because it was something they fell into by chance. They loved the medium.
But thats not enough alas. Things change. I still remember the first day I saw a web browser; it was in the offices of the Washington Post. I swear the fellow who showed me how it worked said Wait a minute, wait a minute. You aint seen nothing yet.
Posted by: Mike ||
05/08/2007 06:34 ||
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#1
...I'm inclined to believe the theory that the Strib management feels Lileks is a bit too big for his britches but can't just come out and say so, and figure if they demote him to street reporter he'll be insulted enough to walk on his own.
To paraphrase Bugs Bunny, "They don't know him too well, do they?"
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
05/08/2007 8:47 Comments ||
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#2
Never a truer word was spoken than that the strong must be protected from the weak.
The International Solidarity Movement never misses a beat when it comes to propaganda against Israel on US college campuses. In December of 2003, I attended their third national conference where one seminar discussed infiltrating Jewish groups in America to try and persuade American Jews that Israel was a pariah state, an apartheid regime akin to the former South Africa and a country no American Jew would want to support. Young American students are the targets for such indoctrination because they hold the future of American relations with Israel in their hands. The ISM is working in sync with Saudi-funded ex-president Jimmy Carter in furiously doing tours on American college campuses for just this purpose.
This week, UC Irvine is featuring a Holocaust survivor named Hedy Epstein who will tell students on the Orange County campus how horrible Israel is and promote the goals of the PLO to dismantle the Jewish state.
While it is true that Epstein lost family in the camps (she mysteriously has photos that she cannot account for as to who took them, it would be interesting to find out if they are even genuine, but let's say they are), she nevertheless spent the war in safety in England as a child. Calling oneself "a Holocaust survivor" connotes images of someone who was in the camps him or herself, starved, beaten and ultimately facing a gas chamber. Ms. Epstein was none of these.
The International Solidarity Movement that employs and sends Ms. Epstein around has only one goal: To send a message that "See? The Jews have no right to a Jewish homeland. We can parade around a Jew who will agree with our aims and mitigate everything we say and do." Shes a world traveler, staying in nice hotels, putting out the ISM party line and getting paid for it. Nice work if you can get it.
Is it narcissism on the part of Ms. Epstein? Is it money? Is it a radical perspective of revolution, communism or anarchism that guides her? Is it being treated as a prize cow and touring herself around as a "Holocaust survivor" that most people who have really experienced the Holocaust first hand would denounce as a fraud that drives her? Is she mentally ill? Perhaps it is all of these? Bat Y'eor in her book Eurabia would describe this woman as a dhimmi. Theyve always existed among the Jewish people whether for money or simply attention. But one thing is for certain: Ms. Epstein is a fraud and she insults the memories of the likes of Elie Weisel -- people who really were Holocaust survivors. She insults the memory of Anne Frank who suffered in an attic, then died of overwork and disease in a camp as a child. Hedy Epstein grew up in England where no Nazis banged on her door. She later did research for the Nuremberg trialsand was paid for it the same as she receives compensation from her handlers. Somehow her research never showed her the Nazis she researched were close allies during World War II of the same Arab irredentists who now parade her around to oppose Israel...
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Ponder closely, for example, what Chirac has had to say about Africa, where his country has enormous influence, in many places far outweighing ours. During a visit to the Ivory Coast, Chirac once called "multi-partyism" a "kind of luxury," which his host, president-for-life Félix Houphouet-Boigny, could clearly not afford. During a visit to Tunisia, he proclaimed that, since "the most important human rights are the rights to be fed, to have health, to be educated, and to be housed," Tunisia's human rights record is "very advanced"never mind the police who beat up dissidents. "Africa is not ready for democracy," he told a group of African leaders in the early 1990s. . . .
On Iran's nuclear program: "Having one or perhaps a second bomb a little later, well, that's not very dangerous." Theoretically, Chirac was supposed to be negotiating with Iran to give up its nuclear program at the time.
First order of business: thank you. Thank you all, even the ones who channeled their inner Nelson and gave me a hearty HA HA. But mostly thanks to everyone who sent letters on behalf of the column many of which, oddly enough, were longer than the column whose loss they were lamenting and wrote words of encouragement on their blogs. And large blushing thanks to Hugh Hewitt, who spent about sixteen hours on the subject on his coast-to-coast radio show.
