How Not to Report the News

No this is not a post about Fox News or any other overly slanted media outlet. Yes, I do believe know that Fox presents bias disguised as news, on the other hand CNN has the always orgasmic Wolf Blitzer "breaking new, breaking news, Breaking NEWS!!!" as their chief anchor.

Sorry let's start again.

I have friends on both the left and the right who are so far out there that 'conspiracy theorist' is not an insult. I listen, I offer other 'facts' they might want to consider but our discussions generally come down to one of my olde standard bits of advice: "There is no need to make up stuff about either the left or the right or the middle for that matter. What these people actually do, right out in the light of day, is bad enough.

You don't have to claim President Obama is a muslim, wasn't born in the U.S. or smothers baby bunnies. Just stick with the facts, what he does right out there in public is more than enough to justify not trusting him or any of the other political toadies offered up by the plutocrats.

But it's those in the media, particularly the internet media, who are my focus today. Time and time again they make a reasonable, cogent point. Only to follow their valid utterance with some complete nonsense, thereby discrediting themselves. Here is an example from a NSA whistleblower, first the intriguing paragraph.

"Here's the big one (revelation)... this was in summer of 2004, one of the papers that I held in my hand was to wiretap a bunch of (phone)numbers associated with a 40-something-year-old wannabe senator for Illinois. You wouldn't happen to know where that guy lives right now would you? It's a big white house in Washington, D.C. That's who they went after, and that's the president of the United States now."

This comes from an article claiming that the NSA has used illegally obtained information to blackmail politicians from local to federal levels including the Supreme Court and the White House. Right up until here the argument held some merit and might have been worth further investigation. Then comes the next paragraph.

"I hope you realize that the only people who are still left standing and telling the truth are people who the NSA could not corner with compromising dirt. And because the vast majority of U.S. Senators, in particular, are perverted, deviant, power-hungry monsters with all sorts of disgusting secrets involving under-age children, they are very easily compromise and controlled."

Really? The majority of the U.S. Senate are pedophials. Well, that reasoning will certainly gain your argument credence. This comes as a particularly shocking revelation to those of us here in California where we are represented in the U.S. Senate by Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein. We really had no idea about those two. Why not mention the kitten cannibals in the House of Representatives while you're at it and the aforementioned bunny killer on Pennsylvania Avenue?

Okay enough ranting for this week. If you would like to read the full article that prompted my momentary rise in blood pressure. You can find it here. And please folks, just stick with the facts, those really are more than damning than all of this out-of-context fantasy crap. Let's here it for the socialist president from Kenya!

Text on Monday, Tableau on Friday

Top Seven Articles of the Recent Past

Here are seven of the best articles I have surfed across in the past month or so. With my added commentary of course.

#1 (Politics)*

"In the wake of the Tea Party, the Occupy movement, and a dozen or more episodes of real rebellion on the streets, in the legislatures of cities and towns, and in state and federal courthouses, this presidential race now feels like a banal bureaucratic sideshow to the real event – the real event being a looming confrontation between huge masses of disaffected citizens on both sides of the aisle, and a corrupt and increasingly ideologically bankrupt political establishment, represented in large part by the two parties dominating this race."

-from The Meaningless Sideshow Begins in Rolling Stone


*This comes as close as anything to capturing my own rationale for and disgust with the 2012 U.S. election.

#2 (Media)

We all know that what passes for Main Stream Media has become at best infotaintment, if not outright sleazy reality tv instead of news. But have you noticed recently that the political stories, particularly those on the presidential election have become more like the Sunday NFL pregame show. The SportsCenterization of Politics.

#3 (Psychology)

Bloomberg.com asks and answers the burning question: Did Psychopaths Take Over Wall Street?


"It took a relatively obscure former British academic to propagate a theory of the financial crisis that would confirm what many people suspected all along: The “corporate psychopaths” at the helm of our financial institutions are to blame."

#4 (Politics)

This next one is a book review from the New York Times, but before my conservative readers pass this one by... let me say that you will probably like this a lot more than my liberal visitors. Take for instance this quote:

"President Obama has betrayed the voters who elected him. He ran like a populist, but he has governed like a plutocrat, or at least a friend of plutocrats."


What I liked most about this piece was the rolling argument the reviewer has with the "liberal elitist" views of Thomas Frank, the author of the book - Pity the Billionaire. Very informative to see the left wrestling with itself.

#5 (Tech)

This one comes from Tina Fields a good friend of mine. Her post is about the reaction she had to a really wonderful radio piece by Mike Daisey. I recommend my friend's blog post as a contextual teaser to the actual radio program which can be found on NPR's This American Life website. Both of these links are mandatory for progressive Mac users.

#6 (Marginalia & Fun)

If you are a fan of marginalia and fun (both are necessary) take a look at this NYT piece on both. And did you know you can share marginalia between many eReaders, which means if you and I are reading the same book on your kindle we can trade liner notes. I understand the archives of several great marginalists (Twain, Coleridge, Plath, Nabokov, Melville) are planning to make such available for eReaders.

#7 (Bizarro)

The estate of a deceased teenage boy is being sued by a woman who has hit by parts of the dead youths body after he was struck and killed by a locomotive. Really you just can't make these things up. The Illinois court ruled that the boy's death was "reasonably foreseeable" and that his estate (no he wasn't rich) can be held responsible for his negligence. Full story.