French voters chose Socialist Francois Hollande as their new president Sunday in a race that will have implications for Europe's debt crisis, the Afghanistan war and global diplomacy.
Hollande, largely unknown outside French borders, beat out conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy, who faced widespread anger and disappointment over his handling of the economy.
Greece's youngest political leader Alexis Tsipras was the big beneficiary of Sunday's national election as austerity-fatigued voters catapulted his Left Coalition party towards second place.
Tsipras, 37, benefited from a stinging electoral rejection of conservative New Democracy and socialist PASOK, the two parties that dominated Greek politics since the fall of the junta in 1974.
We've been hearing for a long time now, about how, for example, a Greek debt default will tank the entire European economy, and then that of the entire world, because everything is so complex and intertwined in our "globalized" economy. Well, most of Europe has long since tanked economically (made worse by "austerity" measures), and the U.S. economy, for one, is, on the whole, improving.
I have no problem whatsoever, with voters taking a stand against austerity (for their poor and middle-classes, that is) in these countries. In fact, the only reason that I'm not more or less perplexed, that the results weren't far more one-sided, is a lifetime of having seen how readily large chunks of the electorate (they're called "conservatives") can be deceived and manipulated, here in the U.S.
Still, if you actually pay attention to such things, prepare for a deluge of commentary from "experts" in corporate media, about how these results mean economic calamity for the whole wide world, and doom for President Obama's reelection chances. They're mostly righties, anyway, and besides, they have to say and write that idiot drivel, or their employers will find others that will, to take their places.
Mainstream media reports "crime" the way that Disney Pixar movie dog characters notice "SQUIRREL!!!" With a publishing principle of "the more gore the better," the Minneapolis police receive major weekend coverage for having to shoot a person brandishing a knife and for officers shooting other officers in the process of shooting dogs. Couldn't a few backups have brought enough officers to take out a person with a knife without violence? Couldn't the police have simply waited for the dog owners to safely secure the dogs instead of shooting the dogs and each other? Hmmm, shouldn't we as reporters notice that the Minneapolis police are not working well together and quite frankly resemble a bad comedy more than a professional police force? And do notice that all of this Minneapolis activity is responsive, not proactive investigation and planning. 12 articles cover these events yet the articles do not provide comments on the police process that would help the reader understand how well the police are doing.
In contrast, the Ramsey County Sheriff's office, in cooperation with other Ramsey County police departments, performed a synthetic drug bust in St. Paul. This happened on Thursday morning, with no reports of shootings or injury. A four year old on site was safely secured. 12 articles also covered this event. Yet the articles missed the real news of the new Ramsey County Sheriff Bostrom successfully implementing his new Violent Force Team, the collaboration of all Ramsey county police departments. The previous Sheriff Fletcher was defeated in the previous election in part because of his connection to the scandal-plagued non-cooperative Metro Gang Strike Force. Also note that the raid is the result of proactive planning and investigation, not just a responsive action. Indeed Ramsey County Sheriff Bostrom and other local police departments are proactively preventing more prescription-drugs-turned-into-party-drugs abuse by providing free prescription drug drop-off programs that safely dispose of prescription drugs. The real news story is here is the huge positive change in the Ramsey Sheriff's office. Good policing always seems to be invisible news compare to "SQUIRREL!!!", oops I mean crime reporting.
Indeed, it would be nice to have always have crime stories done in context with history and analysis, so we could understand not just that crime happens but how our Sheriff and police departments are dealing with crime.
Last year a man currently referred to as "Mr. X" tweeted something so appalling about Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann that I don't wish to repeat it here. It was a horrible thing to publish and circulate--all you need to know to understand the following post is that the published tweet referenced the author's desire to use a machete on Bachmann's person.
Investigation and legal procedures began. Was Mr. X's tweet "a threat" (and therefore the proper subject of criminal prosecution) or merely some kind of appalling "joke" (wrong, possibly fodder for some kind of civil lawsuit, but an improper basis for a criminal charge)?
That's the "big" issue, for the prosecutors. But there's another big issue for "Mr. X." Until prosecutors and a grand jury actually decide that his tweet was indeed a criminal "threat"--not just a "joke"...
...does "Mr. X" have a right to maintain his internet anonymity? In other words, can the government compel Twitter to disclose his real name to law enforcement and prosecutaion, and should that real name be disclosed to the public? Can they do that, if it has not yet been determined that "Mr. X's" machete tweet constitutes a "threat?" A crime?
If you're a person who uses a pseudonym when publishing comments or communications on the internet or Twitter--you probably already understand instinctively that there are legitimate and common sense reasons for using a pseudonym.
You have a First Amendment right to express your opinion, but other citizens may hold that opinion against you. One of the main reasons for using a pseudonym is fear of threat or reprisal for an opinion you might have posted or tweeted. Someone who doesn't like you --may refer someone with authority over you (your boss, your teacher, etc.)--to your post or comment or tweet. And that person with authority or impact on your life-- might take action against you--fire you, refuse to hire you, pass you over for promotion, "hold your opinion or comment against you, etc.)
Similarly, there are "bad" reasons to use a pseudonym in digital media. As Mr. X and his machete comment make clear, internet anonymity can be used to shield oneself from accountability for what one says.
Presumably Mr. X would never have published his remark about taking a machete to Rep. Bachmann if he knew his identity as the author would be revealed. We can presume that, because up until now Mr. X has been fighting like hell to keep his identity a secret.
But now a decision has been handed down. A court has ordered that Mr. X's identity can be revealed, even if it has not yet been determined that his "tweet" constituted a threat and crime...
(CONTINUED)
Brian Lambert praised a Rolling Stone piece that related suicides by gay teens in Anoka/Hennepin to the homophobic rhetoric peddled by Congresswomann Michele Bachmann and other political types in the area.
Lambert went on to call the major league Minnesota press' coverage of Bachmann's career a "fail." Then he made the following ugly suggestion about why Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and the St. Paul Pioneer Press failed to cover Bachmann properly:
My suspicion/accusation has long been that the local news media have each separately made an economic calculation that regular and full reporting Bachmann's misrepresentations, activities, alliances and influences becomes counter-productive after the point of perfunctory diligence.
When Bob Collins of MPR read that accusation his ears burned or something. He wrote of Lambert's accusation:
The innuendo seems clear: Because MPR and other organizations didn't cover Bachmann "properly," kids are dying by their own hands, collateral damage in an economic calculation.
Well, the "innuendo" may be "clear" to Bob. But I don't think that Bob understands the message Lambert's trying to convey there, in that passage Bob quoted. All Lambert's saying there, is that economic calculation--the pursuit of self-interest by leading Minnesota news outlets--is a factor in explaining why Minnesota coverage of the state's leading demagogue has been so awful and so cowardly for so long.
Bob goes on:
(Lambert's accusation is) an unsubstantiated and scurrilous accusation that assaults not only the facts, but the integrity of those who've been waving their arms for more than a decade, yelling, "you've got a problem here."
What does Bob mean, when he talks about "those who have been waving their arms and yelling for more than a decade?" He seems to be referring to media coverage of Minnesota teen suicides--rather than to media coverage of Michele Bachmann, which was what Lambert was talking about. Bob doesn't seem to understand the distinction.
Bob discards the point at issue in favor of another topic, and hopes that no one notices, and then praises himself, and then assumes the role of moral arbitrator.
First...Bob cites his own coverage of teen suicides. He then deplores the fact that his own coverage met with indifference, "possibly because (those pieces) couldn't provide the political jollies that the pro-Bachmann/anti-Bachmann warriors seek in important issues."
Now that was two cheap shots by Bob Collins. Two cheap shots, in a single sentence! If Bob's pieces on teen suicide were largely ignored by the public--well, it wasn't just the "the pro-Bachmann/anti-Bachmann warriors" who ignored them. So Bob shouldn't have singled them out for blame--right?
The second cheap shot by Collins: Bob suggests to his readers that the "pro-Bachmann/anti-Bachmann warriors" are more concerned with getting their "political jollies" than "more important issues."
Wow. It doesn't even seem to occur to Bob that people who support or oppose Michele Bachmann are doing so precisely because they care deeply about important issues--global warming, abortion, separation of church and state, science, Christianity, political freedom, issues of war or peace...the list of important issues that concern pro and anti Bachmann people is actually very impressive--contrary to what Bob thinks and would have us believe.
So the stand that Bob is taking here--is an incredibly self-righteous or ill-informed or patently inaccurate stand for a news professional to take. (Take your pick, "self-righteous," "ill-informed," "patently inaccurate,"--or any combination of those.)
Nonetheless, it is valuable to see him print this stuff. Seeing "how Bob thinks and how Bob operates" helps to explain why we've been so ill-served by MPR's Bachmann coverage over the years.
Now: what do you think of Collins' dismissal of Lambert's accusation--that Minnesota news coverage of Michele Bachmann failed by because of self-interested "economic calculation" at MPR, the Strib, and the PiPress? Bob seems to think that accusation is "unsubstantiated and scurrilous."
(CONTINUED)
Michele Bachmann on Christian radio in 2004, speaking about the gay community and same-sex marriage:
"This is a very serious matter, because it is our children who are the prize for this community, they are specifically targeting our children."
(--radio program "Prophetic Views Behind The News", hosted by Jan Markell, KKMS 980-AM, March 20, 2004.)
Most of the Minnesota press ignored reporter Brian Lambert's characterization of their coverage of Michele Bachmann as a "fail." Bob Collins of MPR did not.
Bob Collins did not try to defend MPR from the charge that its coverage of the most important political career in the state of Minnesota-- sucked.
Instead of defending MPR's Bachmann coverage, Bob changed the subject. He got mad and wrote about how MPR's coverage of teen suicides in Minnesota was pretty damn good (in Bob's opinion.) "Lambert doesn't point out that (an MPR news blog) has focused on the complex issue of teen suicide for years," wrote Bob. Then Bob linked to the regular reports of Minnesota teen suicides at his news blog.
The problem is: Lambert did not identify MPR's "teen suicides coverage" as a "fail." Lambert was not claiming that MPR failed to report or deplore teen suicides. Instead, Lambert's point was that MPR's "Bachmann coverage" is a fail.
How did Bob respond to that charge?
According to Lambert, the Rolling Stone story is an example of "local journalism's Bachmann failure." That's a fair -- albeit debatable -- point."
But Bob would not debate that point. He just changed the subject.
I suspect that there's a reason that Bob wants to confuse the issues of "teen suicide news coverage" with "Bachmann news coverage." I don't think Bob wants to get into the details of why out-of-state coverage of Bachmann was better than MPR's--for years and years and years. Better, from Bob's point of view, to change the subject.
Anyway: I don't agree with Collins that MPR did as good a job on the Minnesota gay teen suicide tragedy as Rolling Stone did.
Rolling Stone makes its position clear: it believes that some Minnesotans holding political power or influence are "making war" on homosexuality--and that this climate of pervasive, condoned bigotry has led to bullying and suicides by gay teens.
"And so people have to make this call now... they need to demand that the people be allowed to vote on this in November (of 2004). Because otherwise, our children will be forced to learn that homosexuality is normal and natural and that perhaps they should try it, and that'll be very soon in our public schools all across the state, beginning in kindergarten." - State Senator Michele Bachmann, appearing as guest on radio program "Prophetic Views Behind The News", hosted by Jan Markell, KKMS 980-AM, March 6, 2004.
I've long since stopped reading the op-ed pages in the dead tree news media delivered to this household, namely, the Star Tribune. I'm not suggesting that everybody else should stop, too; it's just that there's nothing for me, there. And that goes double for its Sunday opinion section, because of its reliance on "Heartburn and Gas." (I think that it was Spot, at The Cucking Stool, that produced those monikers for Katherine Kersten and Jason Lewis. I'm not sure which, specifically, is "Heartburn," and which is "Gas;" it all works perfectly, either way.)
A couple of days ago, though, while rummaging for the sports section, one of those "pro" and "con" features caught my eye, enough that I checked it out. The topic was what I've been thinking of, these days, as the "Poorer, Sicker, Deader Worker Amendment."The argument for passage was provided by Kim Crockett, who works at The Center of the American Experiment. Aaron Sojourner, a University of Minnesota economist, presented reasons for voting "no."
Veteran Minnesota journalist and MinnPost staffer Brian Lambert explains why he thinks the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Minneapolis Star Tribune, and Minnesota Public Radio coverage was a "fail":
...the influence of Bachmann, and other hyper-conservative political characters on events in Anoka-Hennepin, was reported only flatly (by the Pioneer Press, Star Tribune, and Minnesota Public Radio.) There was no drawing of any overt lines of causation... Put another way, our local journalistic icons, treated the over-heated Anoka-Hennepin culture war milieu with studied dispassion and no evident desire to lay out a full and complete context for their readers/listeners.
My suspicion/accusation has long been that the local news media have each separately made an economic calculation that regular and full reporting Bachmann's misrepresentations, activities, alliances and influences becomes counter-productive after the point of perfunctory diligence. Translation: To have aggressively covered her - did I mention, a presidential candidate and the state politician with the highest profile on the national stage? - would be to risk blowback from her intensely contentious supporters, open themselves to invigorated charges of "liberal bias" and possibly/likely suffer advertising/underwriting blowback.
I agree, and this is a tremendously important point to understand about Minnesota politics and media. (The importance of the point that Lambert is making here: is the reason that I've been doing this series of posts about Lambert's piece.)
Lambert alleges that "an economic calculation" by the PiPress, Strib, and MPR led them to avoid "regular and full reporting Bachmann's misrepresentations, activities, alliances and influences."
That's what they failed to print and broadcast, despite the fact that Minnesota bloggers and reputable news sources outside the state--were doing just that.
Think about it: the three news icons that claim to deliver professional, quality news coverage to their audiences--have had a policy of not delivering "full and complete context" for the most important political figure in Minnesota.
As journalists claiming to be professionals, it's their job to print/broadcast "full and complete context" for their readers. And it's their job to do so in a timely fashion--as soon as they learn of "Bachmann's misrepresentations, activities, alliances, and influences." They should have been acquainting Minnesota voters with these, as they were revealed and properly sourced. They didn't.
Lambert opines that they didn't it because these news organizations:
1) didn't want to risk blowback from (Bachmann's) intensely contentious supporters,
2) didn't want open themselves to invigorated charges of "liberal bias,"
3) and didn't want to suffer advertising/underwriting blowback.
All those reasons for not doing full and fair coverage of Michele Bachmann--are related to self-interest on the part of the journalists and editors involved. In my opinion, these professional news organizations (and the editors and reporters involved) allowed their self-interest to determine what facts would and wouldn't be reported to Minnesota voters.
That's exactly what news professionals aren't supposed to do. It's cowardice, and their cowardice contributed to the entry of hateful demagogy into national politics and Minnesota politics.
(CONTINUED)
Veteran Minnesota political reporter Brian Lambert has dismissed leading Minnesota media's coverage of Michele Bachmann as a "fail."
It's not all bad news. Lambert did identify a small number of far less influential news sources that did do regular, valuable coverage of Bachmann. (Two that were recognized by Lambert turned out to be newspapers: The City Pages and the Minnesota Independent. I wrote about them yesterday.)
Lambert stated that the best political profile of Bachmann was done by an out of state journalist (Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker.) That's eternally shameful to Minnesota news professionals who covered politics in Minnesota during the last ten years. But I'm not sure the news professionals in Minnesota feel any shame.
The oddest thing in Lambert's assessment: his conclusion that many of the people who did the best "day-to-day reporting" on Bachmann were not full-time news professionals at all. In the opinion a veteran of Minnesota newsrooms, unpaid volunteer Minnesota bloggers did a better job of day-to-day news coverage on the biggest political career in Minnesota--a better job the state's three leading professional news
media.
That's a really newsworthy conclusion. I can't understand why the state's three leading professional media aren't playing that story up, this week: "LAMBERT: VOLUNTEER BLOGGERS BETTER THAN US ON BACHMANN STORY"
Why did the bloggers do better than the PiPress, Star Tribune, and MPR on the Bachmann story--year after year after year?
These volunteer bloggers have no budget (except for ad revenues from their blogs, and those are pathetic.)
And in most cases, bloggers have no experience when it comes to political reporting. (No J-School, for most bloggers.) And most volunteer bloggers are partisan; they write to publish their own political views as well as breaking stories.
And most bloggers don't do original reporting. Am I right? For most bloggers, the "news commentary" format is the norm--not original reporting by the blogger. I mean: what you normally see from a political blogger is...
(CONTINUED)
Veteran Minnesota journalist Brian Lambert broke with his fellow Minnesota reporters and editors about the quality of Michele Bachmann news coverage in Minnesota.
Lambert concluded that the leading news icons of the state (the Pioneer Press, the Star Tribune, and Minnesota Public Radio) represents a "fail" by these leading media. (The link is below.)
We start with the premise that the career of Michele Bachmann is the most important Minnesota political career in the first decade of the twentieth century. Bachmann is the only Minnesota politician who exercised national influence in that decade and beyond. She helped to lead and rally the tea party movement; she was recognized as a leader by national media conservatives and the national religious right. After entering Congress she became a fixture on national cable news, appearing to deliver her right-wing message to millions during conservative and straight news broadcasts.
Here in Minnesota, Bachmann galvanized the state's conservative evangelical voters--and the state's nascent tea party, and conservative Republicans in general. Governor Tim Pawlenty and other GOP legislators delivered flowery public tributes to her. Her electoral and media success inspired the Republican party to move ever further to the right.
The base that Bachmann activated here (with help from her powerful mentors outside Minnesota) made the Republican Party and the state legislature "more right wing" than it was. The GOP began to deliver candidates that would go into elections with "Bachmann/tea party"-like rhetoric. And too many of these--won. (More evidence of Bachmann's impact on the state's GOP: Rick Santorum's easy victory over Mitt Romney in the Minnesota GOP's presidential primary; the nature of the proposals coming out of Minnesota's Republican legislature.)
So that's why her career was so important. And that's why it was a "very bad thing" for the leading news professionals in the state to "fail" (year, after year, after year) to cover the most newsworthy and controversial aspects of her career, political roots, and ideology.
But if these "news giants" failed to cover it adequately, as Lambert points out--who did provide the best news reporting on Bachmann? According to Lambert:
Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker wrote the definitive Bachmann profile, Karl Bremer at "Ripple in Stillwater", Bill Prendergast and the rest at The Minnesota Progressive Project delivered the best day-to-day coverage and Rolling Stone laid out the most complete portrait of the pernicious effects of her rhetoric and influence.
Who else was "doing journalism" on Bachmann, when the big corporate and public media wouldn't?
(CONTINUED)
Veteran Minnesota journalist Brian Lambert broke with his fellow Minnesota reporters and editors and admitted something very important, very newsworthy.
Lambert acknowledged that the Minnesota political press has failed to cover Michele Bachmann's career properly. Lambert looks at the leading news icons of the state (the Pioneer Press, the Star Tribune, and Minnesota Public Radio) and concludes that their pretense of coverage is a "fail."
You should read the article if you want to understand how professional political reporting in Minnesota works--or doesn't work. The article represents a respected member of the Minnesota press breaking the silence to acknowledge chronic, habitual media cowardice in this state.
(Lambert doesn't use the word cowardice. But it's appropriate in the context of Lambert's explanation of year after year of rotten journalism by the PiPress, Star Tribune, and MPR.)
I spotted one error in Lambert's article. Lambert tells his readers that local blogger Karl Bremer is one of group of locals "who delivered the best day-to-day coverage" of the Bachmann story at his Ripple in Stillwater blog.
That is a factual error. I looked at Karl Bremer's Ripple in Stillwater blog yesterday--I looked back at past posts and found no "day-to-day coverage" of the Bachmann story there.
I have no problem with Lambert recognizing Karl for something he has actually done. But I do have a problem with Lambert reporting something that simply didn't happen, something that Karl simply didn't do.
It was sloppy reporting for Lambert to include Karl Bremer and Ripple In Stillwater on a list with people who really did put in all these years of gathering and publishing day-to-day coverage of Bachmann.
Lambert should run a correction, and identify it as a correction. He should remove Karl's name from the list of people who really did devote years to providing Minnesotans with day to day coverage of Bachmann. And Lambert should substitute the names "Eric Pusey of the Minnesota Progressive Project," "Ken Avidor of Dump Bachmann" and "the City Pages" as three sources who really run day-to-day news on Bachmann--throughout all those years when Lamberts' peers in the professional press wouldn't. (There is at least one professional Minnesota reporter whose consistent work on the Bachmann story deserves public recognition--that's Andy Birkey of the Minnesota Independent. Lambert should have mentioned Birkey and the Minnesota Independent, comparing their regular coverage to the "fails" at the Strib, the PiPress, and MPR.)
Karl Bremer should get the credit he seeks for the things he actually did--it misleads readers to give Karl credit for something he wouldn't do, didn't do.
Anyway: read Lambert's article, if you're a Minnesotan and you want to understand the kind of press we've got...
David Brauer wrote a piece deploring the state of Bachmann coverage in Minnesota. He quite rightly begins by excoriating Strib columnist Lori Sturdevant. According to Brauer, Sturdevant was running improper interference for Bachmann in wake of a Rolling Stone piece about gay teen suicides in Bachmann's district. Brauer makes a narrow point about how Sturdevant mischaracterizes what Rolling Stone actually says.
That's good. The problem is that Brauer uses the rest of his piece for settling scores with reporters who do report Bachmann's extremism to the public--in news items or in feature profiles.
The reason that some reporters do that regular or summary coverage of Bachmann extremism, is because what Bachmann says and tells people to believe has national and state-wide significance.
But Brauer doesn't allow for that in his critique. Instead, he alleges that all these guys who are reporting on Bachmann are somehow flawed. He claims that Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone profile of Bachmann last year was "ripped off" (not true, but Brauer foregoes dealing with the factual details in order to do a drive-by smear of Taibbi and Rolling Stone.) And Brauer thinks it's terrible that the City Pages regularly reports all these controversial things that Bachmann continually says.
(CONTINUED)
As of 10:05 AM, the cable news channels are reporting that Michele Bachmann will be announcing the suspension of her presidential campaign, in the wake of her pitiful, humiliating last-place finish in yesterday's Iowa caucus vote. (Gutless dweebs that the corporate newsies mostly are, they're refusing to use accurate descriptors like "pitiful" and "humiliating," of course.) I'll add more as it develops.
I'll leave it to others, to comment at length. I'm only going to take this opportunity to note what a blow this is to Minnesota's corporate media outlets, especially Twin Cities-based broadcast news and daily newspapers. Starry-eyed and fulsome, they've done all they can to promulgate their fantasies of the attention and status accruing to them, as a result of two Minnesota candidates in the running for the top job of all. Refusing to consistently, seriously report on the realities of both Michele Bachmann's and Tim Pawlenty's wretched, miserable, horrific records while in public office, has been probably the primary, and certainly the most disturbing, manifestation of that. And now, they're getting at least part of what they deserve, too.
Incidentally, Rick Perry is staying in the race, for now.
Rep. Frank Hornstein, DFL-60B (Minneapolis), was a guest and advocates restricting cellphone usage while driving, including conversing with hands-free devices. A caller raised an objection, that to her, it seemed talking on a hands-free device is no more dangerous than speaking to a passenger. Sounds reasonable. I used to think that too. I used to use a phone while driving as a matter of routine. Hornstein said there are about 20 studies that looked into the question and came up with the same conclusion: not so. Using a hands-free device is more dangerous than speaking to a passenger. Counter-intuitive maybe, defies common sense maybe, but there it is. Whatever the reason this is so, whether the lower sound quality increases the amount of our available concentration we need for the call, whether the passenger is a second set of eyes or knows when to shut up, all that matters in terms of safety and in terms of the point I'm making is that it is so.
So the next guest came on, Lance Ulanoff, Editor in Chief of Mashable and author of an article critical of cellphone bans while driving, and made exactly the same point about hands-free devices being just as safe as talking to a passenger. Presumably he hadn't heard Hornstein's response to the caller, so Hornstein repeated what he said about the studies all coming to the same result. What counter-argument did he get? He might have expected a response like a question about who did the studies, or the claim other studies have different results...
But no. Ulanoff made the same point as if it hadn't come up. So did another caller. So did someone sending a text comment. When it came up the fourth time, the host, Tom Weber, didn't mention that it had been answered, didn't ask Hornstein to repeat the point abotu the studies that have been done, but merely said the latest commenter made the point about it not making sense that hands-free devices could be more dangerous than talking to a passenger, as if which side the commenter agreed with was the only interest. Did Weber let Hornstein explain again, or explain it himself? No, his next question was how Hornstein could think he could get anywhere when the Republican chairing the relevant committee was against it. He might as well have said, "You're point is wrong because you can't get it enacted into policy."
(from BuffaloRidgeBlog.com )Now the "dead tree" and other establishment press quite often accuses us bloggers of lacking in the impartiallity they so proudly claim. Damn right, we have ideals and principles and we're not afraid to admit so and apply them in our writing!
But is the established dead tree daily here on this end of the Buffalo Ridge all that impartial? Well, the publisher of said Marshall Independent, Russ Labat, just appeared before the Marshall City Council to deliver a packet of letters from about thirty Marshall businesses complaining about property tax increases. And the tax increases the publisher was complaining about? About two percent, piddly given that costs of energy, health care, and a lot of other stuff cities have to purchase has gone up a lot more than two percent. Given that Russ Labat's paper doesn't have a whole lot of visible real estate in Marshall, he's clearly crossed the line from publisher to advocate. And given that it's only the republicans that insist on "no new taxes", probably a partisan advocate at that.
Now I'm not accusing the Marshall Independent's reporters of bias- I've met some of them and they're pretty scrupiously unbiased professionals. But it's higher up the food chain that the decisions get made on what stories get front paged and which get buried. While there's been more than adaquite coverage of every routine business opening or expansion in Marshall, there was scant coverage of the possible lesbian orientation of the two bullied teens that took their own lives last year.
So maybe it's time for Russ Labat to be upfront like us bloggers, and admit that his paper is partisan and lose the veneer of fake "impartiality". Russ, I dare you to do it...
Every year when the snow gets ready to fly, I get a little sad - because on December 4th, 1993 Frank Zappa checked out. I'm tossing this one up today, because tomorrow GOPer talking heads will make the TV circuit, oozing talking points. This one is from Zappa's performance on Saturday Night Live in 1976:
I'm thinking Frank was anticipating the advent of Faux News.
"That's right folks, don't touch that dial..."
While Frank had caustic commentary about politics, he - above all - was a musician. Below the fold is a HQ performance from 1988 in Barcelona of the instrumental "Watermellon In Easter Hay" - enjoy!
Voters in France 
In contrast, the Ramsey County Sheriff's office, in cooperation with other Ramsey County police departments, performed 
I've long since stopped reading the op-ed pages in the dead tree news media delivered to this household, namely, the Star Tribune. I'm not suggesting that everybody else should stop, too; it's just that there's nothing for me, there. And that goes double for its Sunday opinion section, because of its reliance on "Heartburn and Gas." (I think that it was Spot, at 
