4/05/2024
3/11/2021
Aides Whisk Biden Away Before Press Can Ask Questions During Visit to DC Hardware Store
Aides Whisk Away Biden Before Press Can Ask Questions During Visit to DC Hardware Store
Don't let him talk. What do they think he is, president of the United States, most powerful man in the free world. As he himself would say, if they'd only let him, C,MON!
11/14/2020
When reporting Covid deaths, why don't the newspapers etc. give us "compared to what"?
From the indefatigable Don Boudreaux:
DBx: How many of the pro-Covid-19 lockdowners or pro-obstructionists seem to be aware not merely that 95 percent of Covid deaths in the U.S. are of people ages 50 and above, but also that fully 41 percent of all Covid deaths in the U.S. are of residents of nursing homes?
Not many, is my guess.
How many pro-lockdowners or obstructionists appear to know that, according to the CDC, the Covid infection fatality ratio for all Americans ages 50-69 is 0.005, while that for Americans ages 70 and older is 0.054?
Ditto. So:
When people call for – or even express their approval of – lockdowns and other government-imposed obstructions on economic and social activities, they almost never reveal any awareness of the above facts. Why not? Why do the media so rarely put Covid deaths in perspective? Why are reports of “surging” Covid cases reported with a tone and urgency suggesting that cases are nearly the equivalent of deaths?
May I give three cheers for those questions? Why not comparisons? As with flu deaths?
There's a hint, however. When they feature the death of a young person, not only because it's by and large sadder than the death of an old one, but because it happens so much less often. But they don't make that point, just the former. Weepers sell.
What reasonable person believes, in light of the above facts about Covid-19’s lethality and overwhelming disregard for the non-aged, that it is reasonable, prudent, and justified to massively upend economic and social intercourse, as has been done and as governments continue to do?
Indeed. Moreover:
What sensible human being, in light of these facts, agrees to have government dictate the number of persons who are allowed to gather in private homes? To grind to a halt a great deal of productive activity? To shutter schools and have five- and six-year-old children “learn” through Zoom?
More:
To trust executive government officials with powers never before exercised in the United States on such a scale and with such utter arbitrariness – that is, to trust executive government officials to be dictators, for that’s what they have become and that’s what they remain as I write these words in fear, sorrow, and anger?
Damn. He's right.
Why are so many Americans, the vast majority of whom are at no real risk of suffering from Covid, treating fellow human beings as lethal monsters?
Warily passing them on a walk. Keeping them at a distance just in case, though that's another question. It's governmental overreach he's talking about.
A commenter adds this, which I say is at the heart of our problem:
Alas, we have done it to ourselves. We have learned to trust that the government has our best interest in its heart when it does such things, and that it knows that interest.
The road to serfdom, a wise man said.
11/08/2020
If there’s fraud in the 2020 election, then we must find it
From the woman who bird-dogged the Hunter Biden scam:
There’s more evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 election than there ever was of Russia collusion, so America is owed a legal examination of the election irregularities alleged by the Trump campaign.
It’s not crazy to say this, despite the gaslighting from much of the media.
Basically, the election is down to roughly 120,000 votes of almost 150 million votes cast.
That’s 0.0008 percent, a tiny margin by anyone’s reckoning.
Etc.
10/19/2020
Town-gown on S. Side
St. Xavier U. is “Campus Kong”? It has joined the club of universities led by Hungry Administrators Eager to Leave a Legacy of Infinite Expansion? Say it isn’t so, Mother McAuley (foundress of the Mercies, with girls’ school named after her next door).
Yes, it’s true, unless you think 400 Far (far) South Siders (Mt. Greenwood neighborhood) can be wrong. They have signed Dolores Madlener’s petition that has already blocked the Making of Three Dormitories adjacent to St. Xav (say “Zav,” rhyming with salve).
Not good enough for The Four Hundred, who want the three houses, bought up by Xav’s in the last three years and rented to families since then, to stay as family, not grad-student, residences.
Daily Southtown has it, Sun-Times ran it too. Meeting 8/10, 6 p.m., fourth floor board room at 3700 W. 103rd St., where Xav’s flak-catchers meet the people and reportedly tell all about the Three Houses.
Madlener tells this blog to pray. Sure, but keep in mind that if you live that far south, you should not be surprised at anything that happens to you. (Speaking with what was at the time an Oak Park, near west suburban, perspective.)
8/11/2020
Fact-Checking Fauci
Dr. Fauci said worse is yet to come Covid-wise: Didn't lock down soon enough, and when we did, people wouldn't stay locked down.
Sure enough,There are several immediate problems with Fauci's arguments, including the fact that COVID cases are showing clear signs of a summer resurgence in the same European countries that allegedly tamed the virus through harsh lockdowns in the spring.
The American news media . . . seized on Fauci's narrative, and used it to call for renewed lockdowns. The New York Times and The Washington Post both editorialized in favor of a second stricter wave of nationwide lockdowns lasting until October – this despite there being no clear evidence that lockdowns actually work at taming the virus.
Hmm.
3/01/2007
2/22/2007
Who will check on the checkers?
George Polk, of Polk Award fame, lied, says WW2 historian Richard Frank. What’s more, Frank can’t get his story published. Not good, folks:
Frank's article casts light not only in the dark corners of George Polk's career, but also in the dark corners of journalism today.
2/19/2007
Tribune Moves Closer To a Corporate Rewrite - WSJ.com
The cavalry has not arrived:
"if this auction ends as many expect, Tribune will have to self-inflict the kinds of harsh changes that normally come from an outside buyer. That will mean even steeper cost cutting and asset sales." [uh-oh]
"Tribune's fate is all in the Chicago family. Sam Zell, a Windy City real-estate mogul, and the Chandlers are still circling Tribune, though any chance of either party making a successful offer is unlikely." [not new]
"one possibility is that the McCormick Tribune Foundation -- Tribune's second-largest shareholder behind the Chandler family -- would help buy out part of the Chandlers' stake in the company." [ditto]
On the other hand, "It is hard to see how buying up more newspaper stock is good for the McCormick Tribune Foundation. If most shareholders are trying to get out of the newspaper business, why wouldn't the McCormick Tribune Foundation want the same?" [uh-oh]
Thus Sarah Ellison at Wall St. Jnl.
2/18/2007
Soft lede murders story, reader interest, read all about it
Rozek and Warmbir give us a marvelous lede in early-on story played big in today’s Sun-Times, invoking a well-known name:
Karolin Khooshabeh worked hard to bring her stepsister's family from Iran to Chicago, filling out paperwork and giving them money so they could start a new life.
Hey, anything has to do with the Khooshabeh family, I want to know about. This is a murder story, however, in West Rogers Park, and a hammer murder at that. And those two, or their insipid editors, dangle the Khooshabehs before us, here from Iran, which is better known for mullahs and nuclear weapons programs, but what the hey? When your short-staffed, you go for daylight wherever it appears.
So West Rogers is only second-‘graf stuff, and in any case we have here a leisurely approach to a hammer murder in a white Chicago neighborhood, where it’s not a cheap story. Pardon the italics, but sometimes I can’t help it.
Third ‘graf has the nub, all we need to know: “three beaten to death in a bizarre triple homicide,” which is a head, actually, right under the dreadful thumb-sucking editors’ eyes.
Otherwise, S-T this morning is full of extreme-nothing stuff. Mark Brown gives us an easy-going warmed-over Chicago campaign story about an aldermanic challenger — “Alderman's challenger stumped by the case of the missing mail,” which should read “yet another alderman’s challenger,” etc.
“Curious,” with “an active imagination,” Brown can’t help wondering, etc. about 10,000 pieces lost at the post office. I’m curious too, and Brown has steady work for people who like his approach, but there are mornings when I would like to be punched a little with a strong notion of absurdity. I mean I’d like the copy punched up, not myself. I am punchy enough already.
Not until we go to columns and reviews does S-T manifest even a smidgeon of inspiration on this Sunday. Ann Coulter is slam-banged in a review of one of her books and two others who slam her [no link to be found] — finally she gets banner treatment, after all these years of also-mention “ick” boxed items about her latest. George Will has something good about Guiliani as telling us something new about the Republican base. Opinion journalism not disguised as news story, that’s where it’s at these days.
2/17/2007
Slight distinction
“Bush, unlike Clinton [who recovered nicely when Dems lost control of Congress in ‘94], is in the middle of a bloody civil war, which can be ended only by the Iraqis themselves,” says David Broder, who thinks Bush shows signs of also recovering nicely.
But the war can be ended only by Iraqis? Yes and no. U.S. strategy says they need help in ending it, in addition to wanting to do so.
Don't even think about, he said
"There is going to be one question I'm not going to ask,” the Scooter Libby judge told the court, looking over questions submitted by jurors. “I've concluded that that question is not appropriate and therefore you should not speculate as to what the response would have been."
What was he talking about? A moment later, Walton told the jurors: "What Mrs. Wilson's status was at the CIA, whether it was covert or not covert, is not something that you're going to hear any evidence presented to you on in this trial."
In other words, Byron York explains in Wash Post, keep blinkers on, because all that matters is whether Libby lied. So what if the whole business began with her being covert? Prosecutor Fitzgerald says Libby lied to protect his job, which he would have lost if discovered to leak classified info. But he won’t put that to the jury, only “that there was an investigation into whether the law was violated."
Clever rascal. It almost makes you sympathetic for Chi pols who do time after Fitzgerald prosecuted them. Almost.
2/16/2007
Watch yourself
So what do noosepapers expect of hard-charging columnists when they go to the women’s section? If she’s a mother, they’d like something about breastfeeding in public, Debra Pickett found out at Sun-Times — as by Phil Rosenthal of Chi Trib, who ran this a day after Michael Miner blogged it at Chi Reader.
Once a weekly Page 2 columnist . . . and cast as one of [S-T’s] rising stars, Pickett had her column moved back into the Lifestyles section while she was on maternity leave. When an editor this week passed along [publisher] Cooke's suggestion that she ought to write about breastfeeding in public, it was a stark reminder of what being in the Lifestyles section might entail, and she quit.
"I didn't quit in protest over a single assignment," said Pickett, the 34-year-old whose column was for a few years was called "Age 29." "That seems to be the story going around, and it's very `Norma Rae.' ... But the question was what were expectations of me going to be when I got back, and that was a pretty good illustration."
Get personal, he said.
None of your business, she replied.
================================
Later: Automatic response from her Sun-Times address is “Debra is on maternity leave and will return to work in January.” Asked Phil Rosenthal, whose item is quoted above, about it. He: “She quit. It's possible she doesn't have access to her Sun-Times e-mail account anymore.”
===============
Yet more: As said above, Chi Reader’s Michael Miner blogged the story in detail. Among comments is this good one from “Insideout”:
The breastfeeding story idea gets at everything that is going haywire these days at the Sun-Times. Where did all the news go? The front of the paper is filled with wire and the news of the absurd. The editor and publisher are too busy hobnobbing with the powerbrokers (Daley, Blagojevich, Natarus and Burke) to care about writing critically about them. Instead, let's try the Tribune for mismanaging the Cubs. Or put a Sam Zell puff piece out front. An "independent newspaper"? Hah! Not long ago, the paper used to be one of the 10 papers that "did it right." Where has that paper gone?
And another good one from “Hobbes”:
The serendipitous beneficiary to this fascinating story is the kid. He now gets a full-time mom, who's there whenever he needs her---not when she decides to bestow "quality time."
Sweet spot no, Telander's amen
Lynn Sweet in “S.C. round goes to Clinton” dissects the process of hiring a “consultant” in S. Carolina, giving us inside-baseball stuff that newsies hash out over drinks. But the story is that the consultant, a state senator and pastor of a 10,000–member megachurch, endorsed Hillary after she hired him at $10,000 a month. This is the story in South Carolina, and it should be the story in Chicago.
[Later: It was the story in NYC too. What gives with Sweet, to ignore the main thing for the sake of some back and forth about pols’ negotiating?]
Same paper, Rick Telander excommunicates former all-star NBA player Tim Hardaway from his Church of the Open Mind — honored in his Sunday column in which he objects strenuously to Christianity in the locker room. “The world has not stopped” since the former NFL commissioner embraced his lesbian daughter and contributed to the death of “knee-jerk prejudice” vs. gays, he writes today in “Sport has heard the voice of hate.” As for being naked in the locker room with a homosexual man, Telander has the answer: “He can wear a towel.” Do knees jerk always in the same direction?
2/15/2007
Greetings from the Hallmark candidate
What I like about O’Bama is, he’s so clean. Me and Biden, another Democrat. Where do the Democrats get these guys? It was Gore, then Kerry, fringe characters both, now who? Read Ann Coulter for the real scoop. She discusses “Jonathan Livingston Obama” in her latest column, on the mark as usual, but unfairly picking fruit that hangs low on the campaign tree.
His speeches are a run-on string of embarrassing, sophomoric Hallmark bromides.
In announcing his candidacy last week, Obama confirmed that he believes in "the basic decency of the American people." And let the chips fall where they may!
Obama forthrightly decried "a smallness of our politics" – deftly slipping a sword into the sides of the smallness-in-politics advocates. (To his credit, he somehow avoided saying, "My fellow Americans, size does matter.")
No fair. We should leave the guy alone. Basic decency, smaller is better: it’s what the people want to hear in Iowa. It’s what Mayordaley II wants to hear, assuming it means prosecutor Fitzgerald is put to pasture. Whatever.
One must add this from The Coulter:
Obama has locked up the Hollywood money. Even Miss America has endorsed Obama. (John "Two Americas" Edwards is still hoping for the other Miss America to endorse him.)
She’s listening:
I can't wait for Obama's inaugural address when he reveals that he loves long walks in the rain, sunsets, and fresh-baked cookies shaped like puppies.
As for where Dems (libs) get these guys, Coulter is worried:
Maybe they're just running out of greeting card inscriptions.
That would be a shame.
2/14/2007
2/13/2007
Egad, a reporter who reports!
Anne Keegan ain’t into thumbsucking in public. She thinks the reader wants to know the news, not her great thoughts on the matter. So in her writing, as in her book On the Street Doing Life, she
doesn't once let the first person slip into her text. In her view, journalism is a "feeble attempt to find the truth," and the truth is "what happened, and that's all."
She continues, "I made no judgments on anyone. None. Zero. Nor did I say, 'I stood there, and gee whiz, I'm so scared.' And 'Gee whiz, I felt so sorry for that lady, and I cried when she said, "I don't want to be arrested."' I'm not a Gen Xer boring everybody with what I think. I wasn't part of the show."
This lady is this blog’s idea of professional. Even as a columnist, for Chi Trib in the 80s, she never wrote about herself, even when her editors said she “didn't write enough silly stuff about [her] kids' diapers. Or about [her] twins. Or [her] psychiatrist. Or how [she] found a coyote in [her] yard.”
Didn’t work for her genius editors, who put her on women’s news in ‘97, precipitating her departure. She went home and wrote about Cronin, the legendary cop who left a foot back in Viet Nam and got on the force because Mayordaley I spoke up for him.
The book, self-published, is based on her joining Cronin in his midnight rides in Drug Land, as in the now-gone Rockwell Gardens on Western Avenue, where she found herself once alone in a dark hallway with three big guys. She ordered them against the wall, bluffing until he returned. This time she had to tell about herself — or did she? Michael Miner in The Chicago Reader quotes her husband.
Is it in the book? One way to find out: buy it here for $13.50.
Later: Newspaper reader, of course, is what’s meant. For thoughtful, reflective stuff there are usually better places to go.
2/09/2007
We like it, it's our kind of news
Romenesko leads with this item today in his Poynteronline column: Network TV commentator Charles (“Charlie”) Gibson said mainstream news outlets are “even more important” in the “Internet age.” This is news that Gibson would say this? How so?
Chicago Tribune news : Local news, weather, ETC.
See Trib, see Trib web page. Top story is “Must-see machines” by auto writer Jim Mateja:
Have time for only the Cliffs Notes version of the Chicago Auto Show? Here's a look at the Top 10 -- plus one.
In adjoining column, under an axident update, is the day’s degenerate celebrity, dead on arrival at Fla. hospital:
Anna Nicole's mother blames drugs
• Why her death had us talking
• Photos | Video
• Watcher: Anna Nicole's baby
• Pop Machine: A tragic turn
• Tell us: Anna Nicole guest book
This is the Marshall Field & Co. system: Give the people what they want — hardly original in either context, retail store or newspapering.
No problem: the web is where you go for the latest and the grabber. You are on the go and want to be in the know. Does the super-web-news source Drudge give you thumb-suckers for mulling over coffee? Not on your screaming head or arresting graphic of Mars light flashing and turning.
Ah, but today’s Chi Trib hard-copy — what far more people read — has a HEALTH story for its main head: “Should age determine who gets a kidney transplant?” This is its typography. All caps? Forget it. Subhead: “Controversial proposal would put younger patients higher on waiting list.” Gasp.
You can discover this at the site because Chi Trib has hard copy there for the day plus previous six days. (Sun-Times does not, more’s the pity.)
Below the fold is “Flexing their brainpower: Academic Decathlon stars bring honor to a struggling high school,” under big pic of black kids hugging each other in joy of academic competition. Can’t say enough for this story, in a time of black athletes dominating most sports. With all respect to these kids, it’s truly a man-bites-dog story.
Where it goes on the web site — 10th place, just below TV’s Russert grilled in Libby trial — is another question. Same for the kidney transplant item — just above the Russert-Libby story.
When I spoke the other day about my newspaper reading addiction, a writer-reader confessed to the same, but on-line, not hard copy. It’s easier to find what you want online, to be sure, reading on the go, say on your notebook-laptop on the Green Line heading to work. (Oh? How many do that?) So NYTimes publisher may leave hard copy behind, he says.
"I really don't know whether we'll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don't care either," said [”Punch”] Sulzberger at Davos’ World Economic Forum.
"The Internet is a wonderful place to be, and we're leading there."
Meanwhile, today’s Chi Trib grabber for the real-life Green Line rider or muller-over-coffee is who gets the kidney, young sprout or old coot. That’s the question for the day. Or is the question how many will bother to read and/or mull?
2/07/2007
Hillary knows best
“The other day the oil companies recorded the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits. And I want to put them into a strategic energy fund that will begin to fund alternative smart energy, alternatives and technologies that will begin to actually move us toward the direction of independence,”
she told the DNC the other day, per Hillary Clinton: 'Hugo Chavez in a pantsuit'. Italics added.
Did she wag her finger?
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