First Draft

Remembrance

I read this story years ago. I go looking for it every once in a while, because its opening lines have never left me. You should read it all:

BEDFORD, Va. - On a high hilltop far from any ocean, a monument is rising for the 6,603 Americans who fell on the sands and sank in the waves while storming ashore in the largest military landing in history.

The site won't be dedicated for another year, but on this Memorial Day a crowd of some 6,000 is expected for the unveiling of a statue of a fallen soldier.

The question is, why here?

Why is the National D-Day Memorial being built in Bedford, a small town little known outside the Blue Ridge of southern Virginia, away from anywhere associated with a mighty armada in World War II? The answer is likely to wet the eyes and constrict the throats of any who hear the story of the sons of Bedford, and the story of their mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers.

What happened June 6, 1944, on the beaches of Normandy, France, was brutal. What happened weeks later in this quiet town overlooked by the towering twin Peaks of the Otter was brutal, too.

It was 8:30 a.m. on a Monday in mid-July when Elizabeth Teass reported for work at Green's Drug Store and took her seat at a teletype machine. She'd no sooner rung the bell that signaled good morning to the Western Union office in Roanoke, Va., than it messaged back: ""We have casualties.""

She can't remember now how many telegrams came that day. Was it seven, was it nine? She does know every one began, ""The Secretary of War desires me to express his deep regret that your son ... ""

There were just 3,200 residents here then, and word spread fast. People began coming into Green's, crowding outside the doors. Teass had to keep it confidential. The drug store's delivery boy was dispatched with sealed telegrams for families in town. The sheriff and the town's one taxi driver were sent hurrying off with the wires for those on outlying farms.

That wasn't the end of it. Time would pass, a time remembered as one of a silence that settled like a shroud over the community - and here would come another dreaded telegram.

Before it was done, there were 23 of them. That was for the dead. There were others, too, regretting to inform of some boy wounded in action, another boy missing, some believed prisoners of war.

No place in America suffered a higher per capita loss in the assault on Fortress Europe than Bedford, according to war historians. That's why it was chosen as the home of the national memorial to all who fell. As former Secretary of the Army John O. Marsh said at the groundbreaking, "Memories are best kept by those who love the greatest and by those who lost the most."

I mean it, read it all.

A.

Weekend Question Thread: First Draft Talent Show

If we held the show tonight, what would your talent be? What would you do to amaze and inspire the assembled masses dozens?

I'd probably read something, if I could find something I'd written recently without any profanity. Wait.

A.

Saturday Blogwhoring Thread

Post!

A.

Quitting Time Booster Shot

Welcome to the QTBS, where we understand that certain things are patently obvious, but we feel the need to point them out anyway…

- OK, there’s innovation, there’s desperation and then there’s this. When Newsweek decided to try something completely different and to move away from the “shackles” of the old news-weekly format, I don’t think this is what readers had in mind. Stephen Colbert is fine, I think he’s funny, but he’s not a JOURNALIST (which we scream a lot about when people tend to pick at Jon Stewart). This can go one of two ways: a) he does a lousy job and you continue your slide toward completely epic fail or b) he upstages Jon Meacham by doing a much better job, which means you've always been in the land of epic fail. You really want to up circulation and buzz? Let Larry Flynt run the show for a while. That'll guarantee that I’ll keep my subscription…

- Hey, Katrina victims! Those trailers we said we were going to take back, even though we had no use for them? For a five-spot they’re yours! (Score one for common sense…)

- In a more serious vein, is there a way we could do something to raise some cash like we did with the school journalism projects? Maybe a “buy a trailer” program or something? Sounds semi-formed and somewhat trite, but I’m serious in the idea that some folks probably don’t have five bucks to kick around so if we could help, that’d be worth doing.

- Here’s how faith in machines will land us in 2018 with Marcus Wright and Kyle Reese: Dad and I went to a local home improvement store yesterday to buy stain for the deck we wanted to repaint. The kid running the stain section showed us a nice redwood color chip and said about one gallon should cover. When we got it home, it looked pink, but you can never really tell until it dries. However, as it’s drying, the deck looks like Pinkalicious threw up on it. Halfway through, we’re out of stain and I had to go back to the store to get another gallon. Another guy mixes it and sends me on my way. When Dad opens it up, the stain is blood red and looks nothing like what we have on the deck. We go back to the store and this time the kid is there and he mixes a third gallon, using the same specs. This time, it looks like the second gallon. So Dad asks the kid, “Can’t you just screw it up the way you did the first time so we can finish with that color?” The kid’s response, “The computer says these are all the same color.” Obviously they weren’t, so the kid calls the manager over. The manager looks at all three lids and says, “These should be the same.” My response, “OK, but they’re not. Can’t you color match this? Your commercials have people bringing in plastic hippos that you can match color-wise.” He says he can’t do it, so we can either take the second and third gallon for no charge and he’ll refund all the money we spent on stain or he’ll try to get us a third color that might be close to the first color. I took the money and we repainted the deck. The whole way home Dad kept muttering, “Computers never make a mistake…”

- From the “Me thinks she doth protest too much” file: Clemson is having a field day fending off allegations that the school has manipulated its approach to education in order to increase its position in the U.S. News and World Reports rankings. A speech by a current staff member at Clemson has outlined the various ways in which they have gamed the system to move up in rank. None of the activities are illegal, but they border on the unethical in the mind of some folks. Here’s the thing that gets me: A ranking system is meant to be manipulated. It’s why Michigan plays East South Central Western State University and Barber College every year in football while guaranteeing the ESCWSUBC a six-figure pay day for agreeing to the game. It’s why academics publish in lower level journals so they can ratchet up the number of publications they have on the ol’ vita. It’s why Barry Bonds (allegedly) took enough steroids to make his head grow a size or two over his career. They want to climb the ladder. If you’re being ranked, you want to move up. It’s that simple. Some of the ways they did this (lowering class sizes, raising salaries etc.) aren’t that bad of ideas. Some of it is in the gray area, as they tended to shave a couple slots off of each class where the difference between 20 kids and 16 kids made a big deal in the rankings, but it’s not criminal. (The salary thing was a little iffy, still…) The bad thing out of this was the railing, screaming fit Cathy Sams felt necessary to throw as a result of the speech about Clemson’s maneuvers. (I have no idea why every PR flak on earth seems to feel the need to use the word “outrageous” to describe something that’s probably true, but isn’t well-received by the flak’s institution.) She would have been much more effective saying: “Hey, we set a goal to move up to the top 20. We have been told what we need to do to get there. We are doing those things. If you don’t like it, come get us.” As Linus once said in Peanuts, “As the years go by, you learn what sells…”

- Sad news today in Cleveland, as former Indians owner Dick Jacobs died today at the age of 83. Jacobs bought the Indians in 1986 when they were a laughing stock and helped bring them to the cusp of greatness. He helped bring Cleveland its first two pennants since 1954 and helped push the city to fund Jacobs Field (now Progressive Field). He was a developer and a visionary to the point where people didn’t always know what he was doing, but they were smart enough to follow him. He made it cool to like the Indians while also making a heck of a profit for himself and others. When I was just out of college, Jacobs had issued a huge block of Cleveland Indians stock, which had no controlling rights, no dividends and no real value. The stuff sold for $15 a share when it was released. He was banking on the idea that fans would love the ability to own part of the team and he was right. For my birthday that year, my folks bought me 10 shares, which at that time was valued at about $6 a share. About a year or so later, Jacobs sold the team to the Dolan family, which wanted to take the company private again. They bought out all the shares, including those owned by Jacobs, for about $24 a share. It was a forced sale, so all non-returned shares would become valueless, but they promised to cancel your certificate and return it to you. So I got about $240 out of the deal and I still have my certificate, stating that at one point, I was an owner of the Cleveland Indians. Jacobs, obviously, made much more… Still, it was his willingness to salvage my favorite team that made him a hero in my mind, even if the bottom line for him was always the bottom line.

- And finally, a moment of respect and silence for those who, 65 years ago tomorrow, changed the fate of the free world by offering themselves up during the Invasion of Normandy. A former student of mine once had a line on her email signature that said “A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life wrote a check made payable to 'The United States of America ' for an amount of 'up to and including my life.'”  A sincere bit of thanks to all who serve for that willingness.

Thanks for letting me share your air. Be back next week.

Doc

More than One Way to Skin a Cat(holic)

Had an odd experience this week, in that the Missus, the Midget and I were invited to witness my sister-in-law’s conversion to the Baptist faith. The Missus and her whole clan were raised Catholic but my SIL married into a family of Baptists, which led her to start to consider this process. No gripes against her husband, as he’s one of the most decent men I’ve ever met and the only thing I’ve ever been able to find wrong with him is that he’s a Bears and Cubs fan.

My biggest problem with this whole thing was the concept of certainty that people were holding about their religious structure. In listening to the prayers there, it seemed to me that there were very few differences in terms of the core beliefs between her former and soon-to-be religions. It wasn’t as if she was moving from a religion that viewed Jesus Christ as a deity to one that worshiped house plants and Henny Youngman. The use of the baptism, the petitions of faith and even a few of the songs (got an interesting version of “How Great Thou Art” rolling in the place) had clear crossover.

And yet there was a sense within that church that they had “saved” someone from sheer peril and the evil of her former faith. During parts of the early prayer service when they talked about how my SIL was “finding Jesus” I wanted to pipe up with, “Yeah, she kind of found him before when she was baptized, received communion and participated in confirmation in another branch of Christian faith, but hey, let’s not ruin the narrative.” I also had a moment during the “spontaneous praying” in which someone noted that the country was founded “for them to worship Jesus” and I wanted to break out my handy copy of the First Amendment for my “spontaneous prayer.” The Missus probably captured the feeling best when she said, “It’s like after you get your ass kicked in a softball game as a kid and they make you line up and say “good game.” You know the other kids aren’t thinking it was a good game. They’re practically laughing at you for having sucked so bad.”

I think I finally came to the conclusion that there is a reason I dislike the people I dislike. These folks were like many of the Republicans I know, the Duke basketball fans I know and the other general toolboxes who seem to propagate talk radio. The conviction of absolute certainty that THEIR WAY is the ONLY WAY discomfits me in many ways. I have faith in God, I worship as I see fit and I am happy to discuss the merits and drawbacks of the choices I’ve made. There’s not a sense that this is right for everyone and yet at the end of the day, I’m happy with what I’ve done, right or wrong. However, the people who feel the need to squeeze you until you cry “uncle” to adopt their philosophy aren’t going to be people with whom I feel comfortable.

Maybe that’s just me, but if someone has to be right at all costs, chances are, they’ve been wrong all along.

Way Cool

Watch the whole thing.

Via Plush Life.

A.

Friday Ferretblogging

Riot is a fastidious eater. Food may not touch his whiskers or his nose or his face in any way or he freaks out. Furry little princess:



A.

Being Happy About The Election Doesn't Mean We Didn't Think He'd Suck In Some Way

My real problem with all the OH MY GOD YOU GUYS GOT SUCKERED NOW I BET YOU WISH YOU'D VOTED FOR HILLARY/MCCAIN/NADER/MCKINNEY/RONPAUL HUH that goes around every time somebody opines that Obama fucked something up is the presumption that everybody thought Obama would solve all our problems.

I remember people supporting him passionately but I do not, outside of psycho Kos diaries, remember a whole lot of "well, this is all it's gonna take and then we can go home." All these pieces seem to begin, "unlike all you other fuckers, I alone was smart and pure enough to realize that Obama would require shoving in leftward directions," and I don't know who the argument addresses. The psycho Kos diarists? People making Obama YouTubes? Diddy? Who are we lecturing here?

And no, giving the guy ten minutes after the inuaguration speech to get his briefcase and move into the house doesn't count as giving him a free pass. I had a lot of arguments with a lot of people during the primaries but during none of them was my position ever that Obama was perfect. My position was that Chris Dodd was perfect, so I guess I should be all BRB DODD FANFIC right now, but I learned a while back that screaming I TOLD YOU SO at people you're in a lifeboat with doesn't get you out of the lifeboat any faster.

As to Jane's point:

The Bush administration and their wars gave fuel to the progressive movement in this country, no doubt. I was personally at a loss during the primary battles -- from a movement perspective, I understood our job to be to hold fast to our principles and reward candidates for hewing to them and make them compete for our support.

The stuff you care about doesn't become any less the stuff you care about because a guy who doesn't make you ashamed to be a mammal is in the White House.

A.

Your Regularly Scheduled Post About How It's Not Really Funny

A couple things today that happened:

Twitter shoved in front of my face the tasty morsel that WGNTV was going to be having a bikini fashion show coming up, and I proceeded to snark on it, and WGN proceeded to get snitty back that they do good things as well as this crap.

Which, yes. I will freely stipulate that a bikini show is not all that you are. The point of my snarking wasn't that you're just trivial peddlers of bullshit. The point is that for going on five years now I've sat and listened to one self-satisfied butthead after another tell me that the world used to be good until the Internet kids and all their blogging made it suck, while anyone publishing or broadcasting anything prior to 2003 had Ultimate Authority Points that could beat a Super Nintendo Warlord Dungeonmaster thing. And so I went on a campaign — if you can call lackadaisically linking to stuff I find hilarious a campaign — of pointing out every time one of the Sacred Guardians of Our Democracy did something that could just as easily have been done at Wonkette or, for that matter, on 4chan or Fandom Wank. To point out that GENERALIZATIONS ARE RIDICULOUS.

And whet asked, in comments to the Burris puppet post:

This might sound dumb, but not really sure what the fuss is about - seems like a not-funny op-ed cartoon married to a poorly-conceived stunt. Newspapers are almost exclusively unfunny these days, so I guess I'm not super surprised? It's a drop in the bucket compared to Maureen Dowd? Happy to be corrected if I'm missing something.

I don't think you're missing something. My point is that it was not funny, trivial, dumb, and bullshit. (Not only that but it doesn't even make sense. Whose puppet is Burris? Whose hand is up his paper ass? Why a puppet and not a marionnette? Why a puppet and not a stuffed animal? Most of the criticism I've seen of Burris comes down to his megalomania and his inability to shut up, two characteristics that make him the best client in the world if you're a lawyer late on his rent but don't necessarily add up to "puppet.") It's just lame and sad and full of fail, and that is the deeper meaning.

We keep acting like this is a new problem. In ANY medium, there are and have always been trivial peddlers of bullshit and the bullshit they peddle. There is no golden age of newspaper authority, the phrase "don't believe everything you read in the papers" was not invented around the same time Facebook came to be, and radio and television have been killing journalism for years and years and years now yet here we all are, tapping away on our keyboards, yelling into the phone that we just found out something amazing and have to tell the whole world.

There's always one example of horrifying stupidity you can point to, on any day ending in Y, in every medium you can think of including sidewalk chalking, and one example of shining greatness so profound it makes you want to believe in God. Fer chrissakes, I got into political blogging in the first place to defend good journalism, not to kill it. Though that's a side benefit. (NOTE TO WGN, THAT IS A JOKE.)

The sooner we all come to terms with the idea that no tool magically makes you above reproach, the sooner we can all get on with fixing things instead of just wanking about them all day long on panels. Because the longer people who do the work carry on bitching at each other over who sucks more, the more it benefits the same people who really are killing journalism. The people who are shoveling money out the back door into trucks while we're distracted.

A.

The Internet

Will it never stop destroying journalism?

A.

Half Assed Retraction

 

So easy, a caveman could do it.

Lookit What You Did

Sheesh, it's been a depressing week. How about some good news? The student journalists you supported (one of several projects adopted by First Draft readers here and here) are already taking photos with the camera you helped them to get:

You've all made a wise investment – and one that I admire and appreciate. I'm excited to have begun advising the student newspaper here this year, and I'm blown away by the student-staff's accomplishments thus far. Our lone stumbling block has been finding funding to provide the a visually-appealing, photo-enhanced product. In a district that I believe inspires success in students despite being at a disadvantage economically, your financial support helps me make sure we aren't bound by our tax base.

Specifically, your donation provided for our first high-caliber camera, a Nikon D-60. In a digital age where students are inundated with thousand of images on a daily basis, it's crucial for a student newspaper to provide outstanding imagery in order to draw readers into the writing. By improving our visual appeal, we're increasing our readership. When students know that their words are read by a growing readership, their work becomes more important, and the benefits they reap become more substantial.

Through grounded projects such as this newspaper, students have actually demonstrated an interest in their class and their school, and in improving their own communication skills. I feel confident that it is those skills that will help them as they pursue varied life goals after high school. And you should feel confident that you were an integral part of the plan.

The students here are very aware of and reflective about their educations, because as a school, we ask them to think about this process regularly.

Click through to the link above to see the full slideshow, it's awesome. The one in the middle is a photo the new camera took for their school paper:











Photos and updates from the other projects as we get them. Well done, all.

A.

Continuing Today's Theme of Doing People's Research For Them

Hey Graydon:

“Youthing” down a paper to attract 21-year-olds isn’t the answer: the only way you’re ever going to get the average 21-year-old to read a daily newspaper is to wait 9 years until he’s 30.

Sigh. Or, you know, give him a paper right now that is HIS and he feels invested in and wants to read each day. This stat really can't be repeated often enough:

The study found that more than three-quarters, or 76 percent, of college students surveyed had read their college newspaper in the past month. Readership was highest at campuses with daily papers, where 92 percent had read a student newspaper in the previous month. By comparison, just over one-third of students reported reading their daily community paper at least weekly.

(Yes, it's a survey for a college newspaper marketing firm. Does anybody BUT newspaper marketing firms give a damn if people are reading newspapers anymore?)

And you know what? I got this same line of bullshit from so-called adults when I was 21 and had been working a daily paper for three years. "Your generation doesn't read." Well, okay, now you've made me not want to read your paper since you obviously have a HUGE amount of respect for me, and I read three newspapers every day so fuck you, basically. This kind of crap always comes up in discussions with college journalism kids and I don't know where you get by busting on the next generation as being shit, I really don't. It makes me crazy.

I don't want to rag Carter too much, though, because after a recounting of this thoroughly excellent series the Telegraph has going on, he makes this point:

As this column goes to press, the Telegraph had already devoted 120 broadsheet pages to the story, in a little more than two weeks. And although the paper broke the stories on its Web site, then fed them into the next morning’s print edition, sales of the actual paper exploded. On the Friday the story broke in print, the Telegraph sold out. Since then, the paper has sold an extra 600,000 copies. According to the paper, it was the biggest sales uptick for a non-conflict-related story since World War II. More letters poured in from readers than at any other time in the Telegraph’s history. The story was so compelling that competing papers were grudgingly forced to illustrate their reports on the affair with shots of the Telegraph’s banner headlines. There is now talk of a knighthood for Lewis for his part in uncovering the scandal.

And they say newspapers are dead.

And had he ended with YOU MUST CHILL I HAVE HIDDEN YOUR KEYS or JESUS TITS or SCHMUCKS I'd be forced to declare I couldn't have said it better myself.

Hat tip, though technically as a blogger I'm supposed to just steal without crediting, to reader DR.

A.

Acting like legislators, acting like Democrats

So, that stack of bills that didn't get passed that I mentioned in my other post? It was a big stack and some of them were much-needed, like changes to Medicaid, solar energy incentives, Board of Education reform, controllling development in the Hill Country, and a whole lot more.

So, what happened? Voter ID, that's what. Changing the laws so that citizens would have to present a current driver's license, or two other forms of identification, in addition to their voter registration. Texas Republicans, like Republicans in numerous other states, have been pushing for voter ID for several sessions. Texas Democrats, like Democrats in those other states, have blocked such efforts, calling them what they really are: voter suppression aimed at intimidating minorities and seniors.

Democrats had been able to block previous Voter ID attempts because of the longstanding state rule requiring a two-thirds supermajority to bring legislation to the floor for a vote. So, right off the bat, early in this session, the Senate voted to suspend the two-thirds requirement and they passed Voter ID. You might remember the last time the two-thirds requirement was suspended...when the bill clearing the way for the Republicans gerrymandering redistricting of the state passed.

So, the Senate rammed through their shiny brand new voter suppression bill and sent it to the House. Then began the time-honored dance of strategically massaging the legislative calendar and agenda such that it favors legislation that the dominant party, the Lt. Governor, the Speaker, and the Governor (all Republicans) want to get passed. By backloading the calendar so that critical bills would be imperiled if the Democrat-heavy House decided to try and delay passage of Voter ID or water it down with amendments, the Republicans essentially were betting they could beat the Dems in brinksmanship, doubling down on the certainty that the Democrats would blink and back down.

But the Dems didn't blink.

After weeks of haggling in committee, Voter ID came up for a vote and the Democrats in the House began to chub. Chubbing is akin to filibustering, talking about minor bills and points of law and possible amendments while running down the clock until, at the last minute, everything has to get rearranged so that legislation that absolutely has to get passed becomes the priority.

And that's how the Texas House Democrats successfully killed Voter ID. Yes, there was undeniably high collateral damage, and yes the Republicans called them partisan obstructionists dependent on hordes of illegal brown voters to keep them in office, but they did something I sure haven't seen much of in the U.S. Congress: they acted like Democrats and killed a bill aimed at disenfranchising minorities, the poor, and the elderly. Like House minority leader Jim Dunnam said,

“Anytime you have a bill that is going to suppress turnout of legal voters, if you are not willing to stand up to that you shouldn’t be a legislator.”

I Think That Day Has Just Begun

New Hampshire.



A.

So ... What Did the Dickhead Idealogue Asshats in My State Lege Do This Session?

Monday was the last day of the 2009 session of the Texas Legislature, the day both the House and the Senate were supposed to adjourn sine die, having completed the business of the people of the state. It surprised no one that what happened instead more closely resembled chaos.

To begin with, there were stacks of bills that were not going to pass because time had run out before the necessary flnal measures could be taken. That much was known, and there was a reason for that (more on that reason later). Nonetheless, there were some important things that were supposed to get finished before sine die: the Democrats in the House were going to try and salvage an expansion of the state CHIP program that the governor didn't want and had vowed to veto, and both the House and the Senate needed to finalize safety net measures to keep five of the largest state agencies, including Transportation and Insurance, from shutting down before the next lege session. The House passed a resolution they felt adequate for this and adjourned abruptly, without the Dems saving the CHIP expansion, and without notifying the Senate. The Senate had an issue with the House resolution because it did not include 2 billion dollars in road-building bonds and construction projects. They sent it back but the House was already gone, no doubt partying down. So the Senate stayed in session late into the evening and tried to salvage the safety net but could not reach agreement, probably because so many Senators were busy collaring the milling-about journalists and newspeople and throwing down trashtalk about the House.  So they adjourned without the safety net.

On Tuesday the Senate kept blaming the House, the House blamed the Senate, Democrats blamed Republicans, Republicans blamed Democrats, and Governor Goodhair called a news conference and admitted that he knew less about the situation than anyone else, again surprising no one.

"If I could tell you that I understood what happened last night, I would be an absolute genius," Perry said. "I thought I was watching an episode of Lost. I have no idea what they were thinking or why they did not want to pass that resolution that would give a safety net to those agencies."

Despite all that, Perry declared the session a success, and in true Republican fashion, happily bragged about magical tax cuts that would solve everything:

"I bet there's not a lot of states out there that have cut taxes during this recession," Perry said last weekend. "California tried to raise a whole bunch of them. And Michigan. We gave small businessmen and women a tax cut."

The session was about business and jobs, low taxes and small government, he said – boldfacing his philosophy that economic development fuels every other possibility in the state, from better education to better roads.

Because in Perry's world low taxes and small government are better than adding 80,000 deserving Texas kids to the state CHIP program, better than using stimulus money to expand the state's meager unemployment benefits, better than helping families send their kids to college by freezing climbing tuition rates, better than making sure that tens of thousands of state employees have a job in two years. These are the people that should feel lost on a desert island because in Perry's world, they might as well be.

May Lee Enterprises Rot In Hell, Too

Demanding reporters take a 23 percent pay cut:

Lee Enterprises wants Newspaper Guild-represented employees at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to take a 23% pay cut over the course of a new three-year contract, according to the union.

In an article posted on its Web site, the St. Louis Newspaper Guild says the management proposal would cut wages 15% the first year, followed by smaller cuts in each of the next two years. Lee as a matter of policy does not comment on labor negotiations.

"The company also proposed contract changes that would allow them to lay off employees for any reason and without regard to seniority," the article stated. "The company wants the right to suspend employees for up to three days without 'just cause' or recourse through the grievance procedure."

Those are among the most dramatic of the sweeping contractual changes Lee is seeking, according to the Guild.

In addition, the management proposal would eliminate paid maternal leave, and limit unpaid maternal leave to a maximum of 12 weeks, half the current maximum. Photographers would lose a share of the sale of reprints, and access to company vehicles, according to union. Lee is also asking the union to agree that a person on sick leave can be fired after three months. The current contract gives management that right after 18 months.

Because of the Internet, right? RIGHT???!!

While Lee is in a distinctly unpleasant position with respect to its shareholders and lenders, it is important to note that the business generated $207.2 million in operating profits last year on sales of a bit more than $1 billion. Its operating margin of 20.1% surpasses that of Exxon Mobil Corp., which generated a 19.1% margin in the last 12 months. And Lee’s profitability positively blows away Wal-Mart, the largest Fortune 500 company, whose margins were only 7.4% in the prior 12 months.

God almighty. The dishonesty of this conversation is staggering. Next week I'm going to two conferences/panels on the future of journalism, one here and one here [yes, I know the link to their own journalism survival discussion is broken, we've notified them, I include it as illustration], and hopefully they won't both make my head explode.

A.

Oh, Newt

The jokes just write themselves:

Gingrich conceded that Sotomayor's rulings have "shown more caution and moderation" than her speeches and writings, but he said the 2001 comments "reveal a betrayal of a fundamental principle of the American system — that everyone is equal before the law."

A.

Well, If You NEED the Money ...

Dan posted this in comments yesterday but I was up to my ass in work and then a shrieking migraine so nothing except mocking that wingnut happened last night. Here's the AP, being really stupid:

As for AP, though, bloggers may want to prepare themselves for what is coming, whatever exactly that is. "We're going to be learning more ourselves about exactly how the technology is going to work" in about two weeks, Bridis said.

But about this he is sure. "You can't just taken an entire AP wire feed or even an entire AP story, or even half of an AP story, necessarily, and republish it or repurpose it," he said. "We need the money. The industry is falling apart."

Dan:

Well then by all means start filing lawsuits! We had no idea you needed the money! That clears everything up! Just think of all the troubled indistries that have sued their way to profitability!

You need money. Well, go get some. Raise the rates you're charging. Make the case to your member papers and to the public that international news is worth paying for. Sack Ron Fournier and Nedra Pickler. Do whatever it is you need to do to make money. But stop acting like suing Google and HuffPo is going to fix this. It isn't. GO MAKE MONEY.

Let's be clear about this: A lawsuit, which will doubtless be lengthy because Google don't play, will enrich no one besides the lawyers arguing it in court. Everybody will look stupid, and those impoverished reporters risking their lives sending dispatches from unholy shitholes around the world, about whom the AP pretends to be so concerned, won't see a damn dime of any windfall that comes. Because by the time this thing is resolved a few dozen more newspapers will have been murdered, and a few more will figure out that while local journalism is priceless, yes, the Internet is a source for national and international news so why pay through the nose for AP wire copy?

By the way, as someone who saw her leads nearly word-for-word repeated on the wire, hearing the AP canting about stealing and repurposing content is a little rich and a lot hilarious. Doc once famously described them as a "car theft chop-shop without the pesky ethical quandries." Yet now they want to lecture the Internet. I'd suggest they LURK MOAR.

A.

Happy Joey the Shark Photo

You know, for all the times I think Biden can be and has been a tool:

“Biden was offended about a story pushed by conservative operatives about his daughter getting into trouble with the police,” Wolffe writes in the book, “Renegade.”

Wolffe, who covered the presidential campaign for Newsweek and now works as a political analyst for MSNBC, doesn’t explain what the “trouble” was. But Ashley Biden was charged in 2002 with obstructing an officer during an incident outside a Chicago nightclub. The charge was dropped after she apologized.

Biden brushed aside his staff’s suggestion that he release a statement, according to Wolffe.

Instead, Biden said, “Hell, no. I’m going to call John myself,” Wolffe wrote in the book, which will be released today.

When McCain refused to take his call, Biden was even more annoyed. He tried again when the candidates were in New York on the anniversary of 9/11, preparing for a forum on public service.

“McCain’s aides said he could not be disturbed, but that did not inhibit Joe Biden,” Wolffe wrote. “He walked up to McCain’s door and thumped on it. ‘John McCain,’ he shouted. ‘It’s Joe Biden. The next time I phone you, take the damn call.’ ”

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Could Somebody Introduce Wingnuts to Sarcasm?

Good Lord, I don't think I've ever seen anyone miss the point so aggressively.

The point, by the way, was that shooting people in church on Sunday is now being defended as a perfectly understandable response to feeling kinda bummed your political views aren't adequately represented in government, but that holding an anti-war protest was tantamount to selling nuclear secrets to the Soviets not too long ago.

It's so depressing to have to explain everything to them.

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Do Not Put Ferret in Woodchipper

I love these care tips. It's like, "interact with your ferret every day." WHOASHIT I HAD NO IDEA. Mine do not give me the option of NOT interacting with them. Right now I'm eating cold chicken for breakfast and they're standing on my feet.

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Someone Bring Me A Sword

I'm at a conference in Atlanta this week (love your city, Atlantans!) so this'll probably be my only post today, and a  week-late one at that.  But I couldn't pass this one up.  My favorite Glenn Beckism yet didn't get nearly as much attention last week as I thought it should have (it got drowned out by the Sotomayor nomination).  But you should see this, because this time, Glenn really brought the funny:

The Empathy of Solomon

For those who don't want to sit through the trainwreck that is Fox and Friends, Glenn asked rhetorically, and I quote, "Was Solomon empathetic when he said 'cut the baby in half'?" 

Dear Glenn, when an agnostic who never attended a single Sunday school class in her life understands the Bible better than you do, perhaps you shouldn't quote from it.

Then again, where would all the fun go if you stopped?  Please, Glenn, tell me what you think Job was all about.  And that whole, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone..." thing.  C'mon...please?

Holy Shit, Does This Thing Still Work?

Hey hey, everybody.

Sorry I've been a ghost lately.  Things have taken a turn for the busy, and I don't really have lots of computer time for a bit. 

Oh, I've had things I've wanted to comment on.  From the usual right-wing stupidity, to what-the-fuck stories regarding economics, or various statistical illiteracies.

But I couldn't not say something about George Tiller.

And, right now, I don't have full-throated outrage to share.  I'm not even really shocked.

I'm just sad.

That will change, I know, because there's work to be done.

But I'm sad that this bullshit still goes on.  That a group of fucking busybodies have decided that people that they've never met making decisions about potential people they'll never meet is the worst sin ever in the history of the universe.  And they wave their bloody fetus pictures, and shout that "abortion is murder," and feel smug and righteous because, basically, they've never (by and large) had to make any hard decisions in that arena themselves.

Dr. Tiller was one of three late-term abortion providers--not in Wichita, not in the state of Kansas, but in the fucking United States of America.  Roughly speaking, that means there was one late-term abortion provider for every 50 million women (of all ages) in the US. 

Listen, anti-abortion people.  Late-term abortions aren't frivolous things.  Nobody says to themselves, "You know, I've been meaning to get an abortion, but then it was football season, and things picked up with my social life, and I just couldn't get around to it.  I think today I'll go get my nails done, get that late-term abortion, then go shopping for a new swimsuit."

Okay?  It's not a trivial consideration.  It's a serious medical procedure, and entails no small risk to the woman who has to undergo it.  But, sometimes, it's the least worst option people face.  That you can't see that--that you can't understand that these are human beings making painful and unpleasant choices about their own lives--indicates that you have no empathy (to use a lately much-maligned word), and no understanding that women are, in fact, humans with decision-making agency.  Killing doctors will not, ever, change those underlying conditions.  What you are doing (apart from making spouses, friends, and relatives grieve unnecessarily) is making life far, far more difficult for people who already have enough difficulties to last a lifetime.

This needs more fleshing out, but I have to be off to my job now.

So I'm sad.

But that'll pass.  There's more work to do.

The Political Process Has Been Closed

If only someone would give right-wingers the vote.

Wait.

Did that.

Back in '76.

1776, or thereabouts, anyway.

Shit.

If only someone would ... wait, I know! Give right-wingers more votes than everybody else!

THEN everything would be fine!

Using the political system to stomp on radicalized fringes does not seem to be very effective in getting them to eschew violence.  In fact, it seems to be a very good way of getting more violence.  Possibly because those fringes have often turned to violence precisely because they feel that the political process has been closed off to them.

Lady, are you smoking crack? Are you smoking crack while sitting in a cloud of crack-smoke wearing a T-shirt that says I HEART CRACK while waiting for your crackhead boyfriend to come home with more crack that you sent him out to get so that you'd have some crack when you were done with the crack you're smoking now? Seriously? Because last I checked, "not being able to convince somebody else that you're not a fucking lunatic and that your ideas about everything should be adopted by everybody" doesn't qualify as "the political process has been closed off" to you. That's not how this works, that's not how this has ever worked, and to coddle domestic terrorists by saying they were just pushed to it because they weren't handed everything they ever wanted is ... special. Some kind of special. Some kind of something, that's for sure. What the fuck, today? It's like all the stupid were set free from their stupid-farm for some kind of idiot rumspringa of 24 hours.

For eight fucking years anybody to the left of Pinochet had to kick back and watch while sensible centrists and the Coalition of the Involuntarily Committable got together and raped the country and fucked up the whole world. For eight fucking years we were told that marching in the streets with giant puppets was the most horrific form of treason imaginable, was demoralizing our troops and hurting the debate and making the baby Pope Benedict cry. Not once did I ever in that time hear Megan McArdle or any of her other sensible friends discuss how maybe, just maybe, President Bush and his administration had PUSHED us to the edge, where we HAD to make those puppets because we felt the political process was closed to us.

No, back then it was "elections have consequences" and "you lost" and "look upon my works, ye mighty, and fuck off," and anytime anybody had the temerity to say, "erm, dude, if you don't mind I'll be over here with this sign on a stick" they might as well have been plotting to shoe-bomb Air Force One the way the whiners in the nuttersphere howled and shrieked. There was none of this, "you just don't know how hard it is to be on the losing end of everything including your soul" back then. Just them, partying with Free Republic on the White House lawn, waving their big foam fingers in our faces going "nyah nyah nyah."

Now that they're out of power, natch, what choice do they have but to go shoot up church lobbies in the hopes of bagging abortion doctors for their trophy wall of American apostates? Really, what else could they do? It's not like they could vote, or convince other people to listen to them, or organize, or do any of the damn things I feel like we've been doing since before there was dirt in order to get a not-entirely-crazy in-another-life-he'd-be-a-moderate-Republican dude finally elected so a third of the country could act like Satan just put his feet up on their mother's white-clothed dinner table. It's not like they could do anything else, right? They had to start shooting.

Right?

A.

Oh For the Sake of God's Magic Unicorn Pajamas

Far be it from me to defend Michelle Malkin, since she pretty much thinks I and all my friends should die in a fire, but this is just horseshit.

A.

How the World Actually Works

Awful. Just awful. And from the comments:

I remember my wife, foggy with sedation after the final procedure, being helped from the exam table. He had her sit up and put her arms around his neck, and then he lifted her into a wheelchair. “You give good hugs” she whispered. He paused just for a moment. “You’re just fine,” he told her.

I've been on intimate terms with the fertility-medical-gynecological complex for going on three years now, and I have to say, never in my life have I met more tone-deaf compassionless sexist assholes than in that time. I'm not kidding, the meanness and stupidity and judgmental dickitude is constant and egregious. This  at a time when you're either pregnant or trying to get that way, being shot full of hormones and given well-meaning advice by every fucking busybody on the planet, so really, you'd think people would be gentle and kind. BUT NO.

This isn't just my experience, everybody I know has had at least one episode of professional dumbassery so profound it makes me want to bang my head against the wall. I've been seeing like eight doctors and there's only one of them I can remotely stand, and that's just because he barely speaks. And I'm a relatively run-of-the-mill patient. I cannot fathom going through what the commenter DougJ quotes went through with any of the doctors I currently have, nor at all, nor with anyone less than absolutely merciful and kind. In this field, decency and warmth seem to be in short damn supply.

And it strikes me, having ducked my head into some of the Freepi threads about Tiller's murder yesterday, that most people who rail against abortion even under these kinds of circumstances just have no honest-to-god fucking clue how any of this stuff really works. The dangers, the fears, the very real medical complications pregnancy can cause and what that MEANS for the people involved. I get that, I mean, it's easier to maintain your worldview if you don't think about what Tiller did as anything other than the horrendous thing it sounded like. I get that it's easier not to think about this except as the clinical description, and not as some situation where a woman and her husband were expecting a baby. Were happy. Were hopeful. And then had that all taken away.

It's easier not to think about it and to hold up the anecdote of some irresponsible, stupid girl as what we think of, to make the distinction. But this is the reality of the situation. This is the way this stuff actually works. There's nothing about it that isn't awful, and those standing by and cheering Tiller's death would do well to remember it.

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Paying The Bills

We've begun listing text advertising on the site after getting numerous requests from people. Rates available upon request. Your link can be listed for up to a year. For more info e-mail athenae25 at yahoo dot com with the link you would like and a description of your site.

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Doing Better

If somebody else did better than me, she must be getting away with something.

You know, I really think the world of punditry would be a better place if some of these people could just admit that seeing someone wildly successful makes them feel like lazy fuckers. Seriously, just sack up and admit that you sat there, Derbyshire, watching Sonia Sotomayor thinking, "Damn, she had to go through all that and she ended up being fecking brilliant, meanwhile my only disadvantage in life is to have the name of a Dickens villain and I did absolutely jack shit with what I was given."

We've all been there, dude, we've all had those moments of, "Man, I am SUCH a slacker." I have them every day. It's just most of us don't use those moments as an excuse to turn the other person into some kind of affirmative-action socially promoted charity case in order to make ourselves feel better. A healthier response might be to think to yourself, "Hmm, if this other person's life is making me feel insecure about mine, maybe I ought to work a little harder on the things I want to accomplish," instead of making it out to be that you're still not king because nobody established a "conservative choad assistance fund" at your school.

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Today on Tommy T's Obsession With The Freeperati - Freepers versus Bill-o edition

Good Monday morning, gentle people!
Doc got here early and changed the air fittings on the iso suits for us - much appreciated!
Let's hook up and charge the airlock, shall we?
Don't forget to keep positive air pressure in your suits - one whiff of the concentrated sleaze we're about to encounter is enough to make you start setting fire to retirement homes so you can sift through the ashes for dental gold - or maybe even vote for Michelle Bachman......

First up - It's the Free Republic / Bill-O throwdown !
Two "conservatives" enter - only one leaves....

Hey O'Reilly! Stuff a sock in it you bloviating windbag!
Free Republic | May 27, 2009 | Jim Robinson
Posted on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 9:09:17 PM by Jim Robinson

Re: Your on-air bashing of Free Republic

So, you think that because one poster on FR comments that a diabetic supreme court nominee might not live to a ripe old age that all 350,000 of us are insensitive right-wing loons?
Got news for you pal. The owner of Free Republic (namely me) is diabetic and I've already lost one leg due to this despicable disease and the other leg looks like it's ready to fall off any day now. My sister died of complications brought on by juvenile diabetes at the tender age 43. I've out-lived her in years, but I don't think I'll be signing on to any life term judgeships. And I sure as hell wouldn't wish this disease on anyone else.
Hey, what can I say. My political enemies make fun of the one-legged old gimp every day of the week. Good thing I'm not as sensitive as you about such nonsensical non-issues.
And if it's impossible for a minority to be racist, then it's impossible for a diabetic to be insensitive. /sarc
But, I do agree with you on one thing. We FReepers are a bunch of right-wing loons, bitterly clinging to our guns and religion. And proud of it you elitist gasbag!
Name and town, name and town:
Jim Robinson Free Republic, LLC PO Box 9771 Fresno, CA 93794

Um, Jimbo - people don't make fun of you because you're one short in the leg department.
They make fun of you because you're one short in the brain department.
Or if you do have a brain, you don't use it because it wears down the batteries.

To: Jim Robinson

There is a reason he is known as “BO”

7 posted on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 9:11:40 PM by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)

...another Freeper with an anal fixation...

To: Jim Robinson

Hear, hear! And I'm a Bill O’Reilly Premium Member.

11 posted on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 9:12:21 PM by GOP_Lady

Well, then, you're stupid twice!
The fact that you're giving money to both of them actually makes you stupid four times, but who's counting?

To: Jim Robinson

He will run and hide Jim.

16 posted on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 9:13:25 PM by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)

As of last Friday, O'Reilly seems to not be hiding.
Maybe he's researching places where Freepers can't / won't go?   Maybe the Army?

To: Jim Robinson

Good job!
The rest of us: FINISH THE FREEPATHON!

24 posted on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 9:14:32 PM by Jemian (PAM of JT ~~ Caligula, just like his Kenyan ancestors, is selling his countrymen into slavery.)

Jesus on a hovercraft - is that bloody thing still going on??

To: Jim Robinson

Did that screwhead really go there again? I haven’t watched him since he called us a hate site a few years back.

35 posted on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 9:16:30 PM by Domandred (Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.)

You know - if these guys crawl any further up their own asses, they're going to need CCTV to see the keyboard.

To: Jim Robinson

O’reilly always compares FR to the leftist hate-sites in his stupid attempt to be “fair and balanced”. He hasn’t got a clue how wrong he is. He keeps talking about “the loons on the left and the right” when all the loons are on the left.

453 posted on Thursday, May 28, 2009 1:51:30 PM by ozzymandus

Um - I just saw Jim Robinson himself describe this place and himself as "Right-wing loons".
You guys have got to make up your mind.

To: Jim Robinson

he has his conservative moments....then reverts to some leftist tack....He blows up at scumbags like Barney Fag, but for the wrong reasons(though I enjoyed immensely his dressing down of the queer legislator).

He tends to be rather dumb...although I tend to agree with him a good chunk of the time....probably by serendipity.

he is an enigma, wrapped in a riddle etc. etc.

Thanks JimRob for dressing him down

462 posted on Thursday, May 28, 2009 2:35:49 PM by Vaquero ("an armed society is a polite society" Robert A. Heinlein)

As long as he blow up at "Barney Fag", of course, he's a enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in some used toilet paper.

To: CaribouCrossing

"In my opinion, this forum would have been wiser to respectfully contact O'Reilly and explain how one comment does not reflect the views of the vast majority of those who post here.

That's really rich.

The poster did not offend BOR, so it wasn't any of O'Reilly's business to even pretend to be offended by a snide remark made on our forum.

Obviously you aren't aware that BOR was once the darling of FR. Fact is, his rise to the top of the FOX pedestal can be credited to his popularity on Free Republic and other conservative forums.

Now that BOR can't hide his true Liberal colors he throws a temper tantrum about Free Republic and YOU want Jim Rob to treat this man with respect?! Unbelievable!

We made him, but he's breaking himself against us.

I'd rather watch Nancy Grace than him..that's how bad he is.

sw

471 posted on Thursday, May 28, 2009 3:02:30 PM by spectre (Spectre's wife)

"Tonight! Only on FOX - it's Nancy Grace - 'Not as bad as Bill O'Reilly!'   BE THERE!"

More internecine blood-letting after the jump, so hold hands......

Kathleen Parker Blames Blogs for TV Sins

Also blames dinosaurs, meteors, Puck, the elves who live in her head ...

Within minutes, a dozen other e-mails tumbled through the hatch enumerating all the reasons Sotomayor was a terrible pick: affirmative action, identity politics, the Ricci case, double standards, racism, sexism. Boom shacka-lacka-lacka . . .

You could practically hear the clattering of bullet points ricocheting through the blogosphere.

Actually the first clichéd, pre-packaged idiocy I encountered was on the pages of the New Republic, Katykins, and that was BEFORE the announcement was made. TNR, you know, the magazine thing. Then, once the announcement was made, Gloria Borger was on CNN proudly announcing that she had just received the Republican talking points, and here they are for your edification! Ain't neither of those things blogs, last time I checked, so maybe not so much for you with the wanking.

So while we're racking things up, let's blame the blogosphere and its ricocheting bullet points (GAH, get me rewrite!) once we're done blaming TV and Jeffrey Rosen. I am so sick of how "the blogosphere" has become a quick way to excuse publication/broadcast of things the publishers/broadcasters know to be crap.

"It was a phenomenon ... on the INTERNET," they intone, as if that makes it better that they got sucked into this nonsense. At least when I read 43 comment threads about Barack and Michelle's hot NY date night over at ONTD, I know I'm doing it and don't blame that comm for contributing to the downfall of Western Civilization.

I think part of the problem mainstream media commentators have with the web is that most of them don't seem to like it much. Either they're not seeing the vastly good uses to which it can be put or they're simply not having enough fun in show business. This is one of those times when I think coming to the semi-pro political internet through the fandom internet was beneficial, because I freaking LOVE the internet, even the scary parts of it, because even though I'm terrified, somehow, knowing it's all there is so much better than just suspecting it's worse than I thought.

A.