Jamison Foser says ...

8 Words of Wisdom for Week Ending 3/20/2009 #4

Honeybees are pretty important. See, humans need food. Without it, we die. And bees not only produce honey, they pollinate all kinds of crops -- onions, cashews, celery, strawberries, beets, broccoli, cabbage, cucumbers, apples ... you get the picture. Honeybees play an important role in our food supply, and our economy. And honeybees have been disappearing at an alarming rate in recent years, for reasons that are not fully known.

Here's how the state of Pennsylvania described the problem last May:

Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff today said the commonwealth will increase funding to continue research on the potentially devastating "Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder."

"Honey bees are critical to Pennsylvania agriculture and to our state's economy," said Wolff. "Pollination from the honey bees determines fruit set and increases fruit quality at an estimated value of $80 million. We can't afford to be lax in dealing with this problem."

According to a study by two Cornell University professors, honeybee pollination accounted for $14.6 billion worth of crops annually between 1996 and 1998.

Honeybee research doesn't sound so funny now, does it?

Now, you can't expect most Americans to know this. Most Americans don't give much thought to bees beyond hoping they don't get stung by one. And that's fine: The life cycle and migratory patterns of bees, and their resultant effects on avocado and cucumber growth, are fairly obscure subjects. We can't, and shouldn't, expect the typical American to know about or act upon these things. After all, there are a lot of obscure but important things that, as a nation, we need to know about and act upon. We can't know about and act upon them all individually; it's literally impossible.

That's another of the reasons we have a government: to know about and act upon the things we cannot know about and act upon individually. It's one of the reasons we watch television and read newspapers, too: They have the resources that we lack to learn about important but obscure things, and the ability to educate us. (This is where some defenders -- and critics -- of the news media will remind me that the media's job isn't to educate the public, much as I might wish it was; their job is to make money. To that I say: How's that working out? Maybe it's time to try a more serious approach.)

Source - Media Matters

No comment other than to ask you to read the entire article at the link provided above. It does a terrific job articulating the role the people need the government to play, and an even better job of indicting the media for playing around while the conservatives do stupid things. Great stuff.

Eric Boehlert says ...

8 Words of Wisdom for Week Ending 3/13/2009 #4

In an effort to tag the current economic crisis on the new president, more and more business news outlets are pretending there was no unfolding financial crisis before Obama's Inauguration Day, and that the Dow for some unexplainable reason has suddenly gone south with his arrival in the White House. Mouthing the anti-Democratic complaints from the Street, the business press pretends our economic woes started January 21.

...

In the wake of the unfolding economic collapse, lots of people have pointed the finger at the business press, suggesting for years they failed the see the current troubles forming; that they played dumb. Well, it turns out some portions of the business press aren't done playing dumb.

- Source: County Fair

I've always been amazed at the Republican lies that somehow end up as accepted truth. My personal favorite is the concept of the "liberal press" ... you know ... the accusation that the traditional media carries a liberal bias. It simply isn't true of course. They have no evidence to back up the position. Here's a little lesson about conservatism though: they know how to sell a talking point. Many people (on the left even!) just assume that all the talk about the liberal media is somehow true. For anyone who buys this crap, I strongly recommend the work of Eric Boehlert at County Fair and Eric Alterman at Altercation.

Bi-Partisan

8 Random Items for 2/13/2009 #6

Both issues are part of an emerging GOP case against Obama and the ruling Democratic Party: Strip away the new face, the lofty rhetoric and the promises of post-partisanship and you’ll find the same big-spending party of old, bent on politicizing government to consolidate its hold on power.

Even with the stimulus package on the verge of passing later this week, the unanimous GOP vote against the bill in the House and the near-unanimous opposition in the Senate revealed a Republican Party surprisingly united in direction and in message for perhaps the first time since losing its congressional majority in 2006.

Yes, the Republican party is united in their opposition to anything proposed by President Obama, to the surprise of no one. Of course, it's the Democrats who are not sufficiently bi-partisan, right? Any member of the press who is told by a Republican that the President, or that the Democrats in general are too partisan should laugh in their face. Will they? No. The press is so cowed at this point that they'll never call them on the BS.

For the record, Politico may get the occasional scoop, but they engage in more wankery per word than any news site even slightly to the left of Fox.

Tragedy

8 Random Items for 2/13/2009 #4

The crash of Continental Flight 3407 into a home in suburban Buffalo is a massive human tragedy, but it is not one with larger implications for the country. Should the entire news cycle be lost to tragedy while we are in the midst of the debate over the stimulus bill? 

The priorities of our news organizations is astounding. Journalism ceased being about "nobility" and has become far more about the fame. That's the irony of "All the President's Men". The reporting by Bernstein and Woodward was impeccable and just, but the movie and the fame ruined a generation of journalists. The goal is no longer to expose the corruption behind power, but to be played by Robert Redford in the movie based on your story.

Well, those two paragraphs were random.

More Please!

8 Thoughts About the Stimulus for 2/9/2009 #4

When FDR took office in the midst of the Great Depression, he went on offense and he stayed there. He used his enormous personal popularity to ram every idea that he and his people had down the throat of Congress. Without that personal popularity, the New Deal could not have been accomplished. 

It's good to see President Obama and his staff tapping into his popularity to promote the stimulus. As for the attacks on the press, I love it. Unlike conservatives, they are doing it without sounding like major league champion whiners. 

The best part of "working the refs"? It works.

The Problem with Politics

8 Thoughts About the Stimulus for 2/9/2009 #3

I think that the press should be informed that the stimulus isn't a political matter. Politics affects how things get done, but it's the real work that serves the people. Perhaps journalists might consider that they should be placing the details of the stimulus package into context rather than transcribing the back and forth between the two political parties. 

Fair is good. Accurate is good. Facts are good. Experts are good. "Balance", however, is bad for journalism and is bad for America. 

The First Amendment

8 Random Items for 1/8/2009 #2

Do you ever wonder why there has been so little real reporting in the American press? Well, the Bush DOJ is going after the New York Times and the whistle blower who went public with the Bush administration's illegal domestic surveillance program. Yes, you read that right. They are not going after the lawbreakers, but rather those who exposed the lawbreaking.

I'm not sure how much power an Obama administration would have to stop this if it is already underway when he takes office, but I would hope they would find a way. The press should always, always, always be protected whenever they are exposing corruption and law breaking.

This speaks to a larger issue we have which is a crisis in the American press. Investigative journalism is near dead, so we the people and our elective representatives need to applaud this type of whistle blowing. So much of what passes for reporting in this day and age is reporters acting as little more than stenographers for powerful people. I don't see the press as biased towards conservatives or liberals as much as I see them stuck in a rut, repeating the conventional wisdom and taking to task those who would oppose it. When this happens, America suffers.

In the history of this nation, the press has performed a role as important as the three major branches of government. The first amendment allows them to serve as yet another check and balance, protecting the people from abuse. The press has even brought down a President for his law breaking. Sadly, the press, as it largely exists today, is as incurious as President Bush. It is to our shame as a nation that they have been cowed out of doing their job. It is to our shame as a nation that powerful conservatives seek to punish those rare occasions when the press does do it job. It is to our shame as a nation that we have not risen up and demanded more of our press.

Or have we? Newspapers are going out of business or cutting back on their publishing schedule. Ratings are down for network newscasts. Maybe the citizen journalism allowed by the web is what will save "the press" for the people. For the country's sake, I hope it's true.

Can't Find Anything More Important?

8 Random Items for 12/15/2008 #2

If Jesse Washington of the AP is looking for something to write about he can contact me and I'll be more than happy to give him some ideas. If articles like this are any indication, he's desperate for material.

Gimme a Break

8 Random Items for 12/11/2008 #3

Well, the Blagojevich scandal continues to burn, but the press is once again showing their collective rank stupidity. Here's how the media critics at County Fair put it ...

The scandal "may or may not implicate members of Congress." That's a completely meaningless thing to "report." Klein may as well write that the scandal "may or may not implicate" the Easter Bunny. It's just as true!

Let's put the facts on the table, there is nothing in this case that even remotely suggests any wrongdoing by the President-Elect and his staff. However, the press has decided, while egged on by Neil Boortz, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and other bottom feeders, that because this case involves Illinois, and Obama is from Illinois, then somehow Obama could be tainted by it.

What are they basing this on? If there is any taint from this scandal on Obama, it is because of stories like this in the press. Again, there is nothing in this scandal that has implicated Obama or his staff in anything. So why would this taint him?

If I were Obama, I'd have long conversation with my new Secretary of State about what happens when the press decides there's a scandal despite the facts. They can bring the business of this country to a screeching halt.