I don’t see how this helps anyone but Fox News. Maybe we should call for a nationwide beer summit.
Category Archives: The Press
Book Pages Returning to NC Newspaper
The Greensboro News-Record dropped it’s book pages a while back, probably following the lead of other newspapers. No doubt the decision was made by a secret cabal of news editors and producers who hate independent thinkers and truly want to crush reading throughout the country, at least reading outside the approved list. But readers still live in Greensboro. This editorial explains some of the popular demand that brought the book pages back to the newspaper.
More than 150 book clubs are affiliated with the Greensboro Public Library and dozens more operate on their own in dens and living rooms throughout the Triad.
Greensboro’s One City, One Book initiative ranks among the most successful community “read-ins” in the country.
The Barnes & Noble store in Friendly Center is one of the chain’s highest-volume stores in the Southeast.
I doubt this will become a trend. Everyone knows people who read newspapers don’t read or care about books.
Don’t Criticize Those Peaceful People
If they want to abuse their women, let them.
Michael Weiss writes, “Misogyny as multiculturalism,” in response to media flak over an academic book on religious abuse and suppression of women. The left in the British press (at least some of them) are afraid of Muslims and will self-censor just to get along. “Cowardice gets dressed up as cultural sensitivity;” Weiss explains, “an eagerness to please semi-literate reactionaries becomes a form of willing internal exile, whereby independence of one’s own mind is held in suspicion, if not thought to be lethal in itself.”
Meant to Be Condescending
When a Washington Post writer profiled a leader for the cause of traditional marriage and freedom from homosexuality, she meant for the piece to be “condescending” or perhaps “snide.” She didn’t mean for liberal readers of the Post to rake her over the coals for giving a conservative a fair shake.
Incredible!
Frank Wilson links to “The Narrative,” a presentation on PJTV on the playbook many media outlets use to present their views. It’s incredible. The war against Western culture and by extension the God whose words informed that culture has been waged for decades by the people with the bumper stickers “War is not the answer.”
Embrace the Future
Terry Teachout writes about new media: “Everybody in America was talking about TV early in 1949, though comparatively few Americans owned a set of their own. Network radio was still the dominant mass entertainment medium.” There are lessons for today, but they aren’t detailed. Making money by reporting news or providing entertainment online is still a pioneer territory. The old ad model may not do the job anymore.
It’s probably nothing, but boy, that sure looks like four horsemen…
One of the classic scenes of the Icelandic sagas comes from Njal’s Saga, in its description of the deliberations of the Icelandic Althing (national assembly) over the issue of converting to Christianity, about the year 1000 A.D.
As the debate raged, news came that a volcano had erupted, and the lava was threatening one of the leaders’ farms. The heathens in the assembly immediately pounced on this as evidence that the old gods were angry.
At that point Snorri the Chieftain (who happens to be a character in my novel West Oversea) stepped up and asked, “Then who were the gods angry at when this lava around us flowed?” He was referring to the rugged Icelandic landscape, which is all formed of cooled lava. The argument was dropped, and eventually the Icelanders agreed to be baptized (thus becoming, I’m told, the only nation in history to adopt Christianity through legislative action).
I tend to agree with Snorri (though he’s hardly my favorite saga character). I won’t go so far as to say that signs never come in our day, but I’m leery of them. Whenever I’ve thought I’ve seen a sign in my own life, it’s turned out to be an embarrassment. My church body believes that, in our time, those who have the Scriptures don’t need any further input on divine matters.
And yet, sometimes… Continue reading It’s probably nothing, but boy, that sure looks like four horsemen…
“Better is One Day in Your Courts”
Mike Adams over at Townhall.com (sorry for the pop-up rich environment) posts what seems to me a splendid piece today. It’s in the form of an address to his students at UNC-Wilmington, which he plans to give at the start of the school year. In it he throws down a gauntlet, declaring that he plans to violate the school’s speech code, and see how the administration defends the suppression of ideas in an academic setting.
By the time these three speakers are finished, at least one of you will have filed a formal complaint claiming I have created a “hostile environment.” You’ll be relying, of course, on one of our university’s illegal speech codes.
I will respond by doing something that may surprise you: I will use the same illegal speech code to claim that the speech in your complaint is hate speech, which creates a “hostile environment” for people of faith.
Deceased: Ben Stein’s NY Times Column
Ben Stein used to write for the NY Times. He does not now, because according to his editors, he had the appearance of a conflict of interest in his writing and commercial endorsements. It’s very much like the clear conflict Rush Limbaugh had with Pizza Hut several years ago. I mean, he probably ate a Pizza Hut pizza before and even after his commercial deal with them. Ridiculous. Stein, pictured right on April 4, 2001, wrote about finances in his column and endorsed a company which offers credit checking services. Both things are related to money; he probably even carried money on his person–clearly a conflict of interest.
In related news, the Times tossed out a column in which Stein criticized the president’s power grabs. They did that just before they let him go. Bad timing, no doubt. Lots of people complained about Stein’s columns over the years. Only now do they get through to the editors. Stein states:
The whole subject reminds me of a conversation Bob Dylan had long ago with a reporter who asked him what he thought about how much criticism he was getting for going from acoustic to electric guitar. “There are a lot of people who have knives and forks,” he said, “and they have nothing on their plates, so they have to cut something.”
There’s a quote to put on tap.
Why Most Journalists Are Democrats
Barbara Oakley, a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers, write in a blog on Psychology Today’s site:
Soviet Socialism, as it turned out, was a perverse system that killed motivation even as it made fear as natural as breathing.
Why wasn’t this widely reported in the Western press?
As it turns out, the preponderance of journalists are Democrats. And socialism, with its idyllic, “progressive” programs, has formed an increasingly important role in Democratic policies. Who wants to investigate a possible dark side of your own party’s plank?
… there’s a critically important concept that students of journalism are rarely taught. It’s easy to find any number of targets to write about in capitalist societies with an open press. But totalitarian governments are journalistic black holes.
(via Frank Wilson)