Did you, for example, ever know a single fact about Joe Biden’s health care plan? Anything at all? But let me guess, you know Barack Obama’s bowling score. We are choosing a president, the next leader of the free world. We are not buying soap, and we are not choosing a court clerk with primarily administrative duties.
Matthew Yglesias seems inclined to believe that the news media’s double mission of “objectivity” and “toughness” leads inevitably to not caring about the issues. Taking an “issue” would require sacrificing “objectivity,” while all “tough” questions must be distributed evenly among the candidates.
I’m not sure if that alone is enough to make reporters into trivia hawkers. I think a third component is essential: Contempt. No one can get away with hating its consumers as much as the media does. “We’re just giving the people what they want!” they say, despite all the evidence to the contrary. It should be unsurprising, then, that political reporting’s short-term gains (we’ve got more viewers for the “gotcha” debates!) will become long-term folly (crap, all TV news is tanking!).
I think the most important thing for people who are concerned about that shooting is to figure out how do we come together and assure that those kinds of tragedies don’t happen again.
Umm, Ok. This statement doesn’t really address the present situation and what needs to be done about Bell’s verdict. Sadly, I have come to expect this sort of vacuous rhetoric from Obama and I’m not sure why he indulges in it. Take his response to the Jena 6 trial-
Outrage over an injustice like the Jena 6isn’t a matter of black and white. It’s a matter of right and wrong. We should stand as one nation in opposition to this and any injustice.
Well, that sounds so wonderful, Senator, but it’s simply not true. The Jena 6 case was a public illustration of the institutionalized racism that African-Americans face everyday. The criminal justice system, in particular, stacks the odds against minorities and this sad fact has been well documented. Any attempts to paint the incident as anything other than bigotry is political calculation. Contrast this with Sen. Hillary Clinton’s statements about Jena-
This case reminds us that the scales of justice are seriously out of balance when it comes to charging, sentencing and punishing African Americans.
Barker is a sophomore majoring in journalism and business.
The Writers Guild of America strike is still screwing up our lives, even though it’s been over for two months and our favorite shows are almost all back. The strike might have cut “Lost” fans the deepest.
Our favorite time-bending island mystery only planned on having 16 episodes this season anyway, but the strike cut that number to an even smaller 13. As “Lost” fans know, less is never more, even if executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse promised the story would just be more accelerated. Much worse, the show was scheduled to only receive a one-hour finale. One-hour finales aren’t something “Lost” does.
Thankfully, ABC has stepped in to solve some of these woes and to prove yet again why it’s the best major network, regardless of ratings or revenue. “Lost” has been given an extra episode so the season finale can be just as it should – two hours (or three, if you count the episode before, which is reportedly strongly connected).
I could’ve been offended. I’ve written opinion columns for the IDS since September, and I’ve worked full-time in the newsroom since January. But WEEKEND magazine never asked me, an outspoken Republican, to write anything for them until they wanted to cover “hillbilly” activities in Brown County. The IDS should feel lucky they have at least one Red State Redneck to do their dirty work for them. Who does the New York Times get to cover the annual Big Apple Barbeque Block Party? But rather than taking offense at this crass stereotyping, I leapt at the opportunity to spend an evening listening and dancing to music that God’s own angels couldn’t beat. I just couldn’t understand why nobody else wanted the assignment. What were they afraid of, the Boot Scootin’ Boogie Man?
I was beaming with a big Texas-sized smile as I drove over to Brown County with a few friends. It was a beautiful spring day, and I had my country-western music blaring as loudly as it would go.The Little Nashville Opry was our first stop. This modest music hall, on Highway 46 in the middle of nowhere, has hosted some of the biggest names in country music through the years: Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, The Oak Ridge Boys, George Strait and, my personal favorite, Toby Keith. In fact, if you’re looking for something to do this Saturday night, you can go see special guest Bobby Knight. (When I remarked that he would be there to the gentleman selling tickets, he helpfully informed me that Mr. Knight would not in fact be singing.)
We got there at about 5 p.m., a good three hours before show time. Country legend T.G. Sheppard would be providing the night’s entertainment, and we wanted to be there to catch a fleeting glimpse, if possible. But being the powerful and influential members of the local media that we are, my colleagues and I were invited onto his tour bus for a world-exclusive interview.
I saw this yesterday on TV and almost lost my lunch. And my breakfast. And in-between snacks.
We don’t always see eye to eye, (dramatic pause) do we Newt?
Oy. There’s so much here that could be commented on, but as it’s the end of the semester and finals season, I have no time to do so. Suffice it to say that Newt is not the stalwart conservative leader so many make him out to be. He’s a politician through and through. In the ’90s he knew how to articulate what conservatives wanted to hear in order to get power but let the base down whenever true conservatism was too politically inconvenient. Now, in a major bird-flipping to his own party, he’s teaming up with San Fran Nan on an issue that drives the Democratic agenda forward.
When I read a story like this one, I can’t fathom what kind of “American values” these idiots envision for themselves. A bunch of nudniks are calling on the Arizona state legislature to ban textbooks which go against “American values,” because of a book which teaches Hispanic history and particularly U.S.-Mexico relations. Normally, crank state legislature bills kill themselves in committee, but this one has had staying power, pushing past an initial committee hurdle on its way to the floor.
A notable passage from the article:
Rep. Peter Rios, D-Dudleyville, said that kind of attitude ignores the United States as a “culture of diversity.”
“What is the downside of students learning about their culture along with the American culture, value and mores?” he asked. Graves said nothing - as long as it’s not just Hispanic culture being taught.
So… Hispanic culture =! American culture, even though Hispanic is a term entirely constructed to label immigrants from “Latin America.“ Honestly, I understand the urge to fortify “American values,” but one of those values has to be tolerance and acceptance of immigrant values into our own. I would feel more sympathetic to such indoctrination factory suggestions if their proponents were not so blatantly racist.
This whole nebulous idea of “American values,” which underlies every political argument our nation has - from gun control to abortion, from judicial review to interrogation of suspects - is just too vague to force into legislation. What if I decide “American values” involve aboriginal genocide and forced relocation, prison camps and nuclear warfare?
One supporter of the bill puts it more generously…
Biggs, however, conceded the language of what would be prohibited is “somewhat vague” and probably needs work.
I didn’t watch the Democrat debate the other night. I’ve heard some highlights, including the post Jacob wrote. But I just watched the famous Obama on capital gains clip for the first time.
Somehow, this was the first thing that came to mind.
Lots of lefties were in a huff over the “cotton candy” non-issues being asked about at the debate, but it might be good for Obama to just stick to defenses of how much he really does love America - no, really he does.
But hey, why should we worry about taxes anyway? We just want to hope for change.
But since it was pretty early, I wasn’t fully conscious when my bed started shaking. The first thing I thought was earthquake. The second thing I thought was this:
If you’ll recall, the rumbling of approaching alien spaceships felt like an earthquake. “Independence Day” was a formative experience as my first taste of “disaster film” and also a movie that I thought was the greatest movie ever made. It’s still the standard by which lame destruction-porn movies should be judged. In any case, my conditioning by the movie forced me to consider all options. I was momentarily concerned that I’d wake up to a humongous flying saucer over Bloomington.
Then, deciding that an alien invasion could be no worse than the system of government we have now, I went back to sleep.
Barack Obama responds to the debate backlash with a cultural dog-whistle. Get (get) that (that) dirt off your shoulders!
Again, though, I wonder whether Obama’s coolness hurts him among older voters. “I may not be ‘hip’ to all the ‘new’ stuff the ‘kids’ are doin’ these days, but I like a gritty, tough character like that Clinton or McCain.”
In any case, hard to fault a man who gives a Jigga reference.
April 28th, 2008 by 
Peter Chen, columnist
