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Showing posts with label Keith Olbermann. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Keith Olbermann. Show all posts
Friday, June 1, 2012
Thursday, February 10, 2011
More proof of why we need the "Fairness Doctrine" back in our country (guest post)
A good and important read I somehow missed last Fall (and that nearly no one will read).
Olbermann, O'Reilly and the death of real news
By Ted Koppel
Sunday, November 14, 2010
To witness Keith Olbermann - the most opinionated among MSNBC's left-leaning, Fox-baiting, money-generating hosts - suspended even briefly last week for making financial contributions to Democratic political candidates seemed like a whimsical, arcane holdover from a long-gone era of television journalism, when the networks considered the collection and dissemination of substantive and unbiased news to be a public trust.
Back then, a policy against political contributions would have aimed to avoid even the appearance of partisanship. But today, when Olbermann draws more than 1 million like-minded viewers to his program every night precisely because he is avowedly, unabashedly and monotonously partisan, it is not clear what misdemeanor his donations constituted. Consistency?
We live now in a cable news universe that celebrates the opinions of Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly - individuals who hold up the twin pillars of political partisanship and who are encouraged to do so by their parent organizations because their brand of analysis and commentary is highly profitable.
The commercial success of both Fox News and MSNBC is a source of nonpartisan sadness for me. While I can appreciate the financial logic of drowning television viewers in a flood of opinions designed to confirm their own biases, the trend is not good for the republic. It is, though, the natural outcome of a growing sense of national entitlement. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's oft-quoted observation that "everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts," seems almost quaint in an environment that flaunts opinions as though they were facts.
And so, among the many benefits we have come to believe the founding fathers intended for us, the latest is news we can choose. Beginning, perhaps, from the reasonable perspective that absolute objectivity is unattainable, Fox News and MSNBC no longer even attempt it. They show us the world not as it is, but as partisans (and loyal viewers) at either end of the political spectrum would like it to be. This is to journalism what Bernie Madoff was to investment: He told his customers what they wanted to hear, and by the time they learned the truth, their money was gone.
It is also part of a pervasive ethos that eschews facts in favor of an idealized reality. The fashion industry has apparently known this for years: Esquire magazine recently found that men's jeans from a variety of name-brand manufacturers are cut large but labeled small. The actual waist sizes are anywhere from three to six inches roomier than their labels insist.
Perhaps it doesn't matter that we are being flattered into believing what any full-length mirror can tell us is untrue. But when our accountants, bankers and lawyers, our doctors and our politicians tell us only what we want to hear, despite hard evidence to the contrary, we are headed for disaster. We need only look at our housing industry, our credit card debt, the cost of two wars subsidized by borrowed money, and the rising deficit to understand the dangers of entitlement run rampant. We celebrate truth as a virtue, but only in the abstract. What we really need in our search for truth is a commodity that used to be at the heart of good journalism: facts - along with a willingness to present those facts without fear or favor.
To the degree that broadcast news was a more virtuous operation 40 years ago, it was a function of both fear and innocence. Network executives were afraid that a failure to work in the "public interest, convenience and necessity," as set forth in the Radio Act of 1927, might cause the Federal Communications Commission to suspend or even revoke their licenses. The three major broadcast networks pointed to their news divisions (which operated at a loss or barely broke even) as evidence that they were fulfilling the FCC's mandate. News was, in a manner of speaking, the loss leader that permitted NBC, CBS and ABC to justify the enormous profits made by their entertainment divisions.
On the innocence side of the ledger, meanwhile, it never occurred to the network brass that news programming could be profitable.
Until, that is, CBS News unveiled its "60 Minutes" news magazine in 1968. When, after three years or so, "60 Minutes" turned a profit (something no television news program had previously achieved), a light went on, and the news divisions of all three networks came to be seen as profit centers, with all the expectations that entailed.
I recall a Washington meeting many years later at which Michael Eisner, then the chief executive of Disney, ABC's parent company, took questions from a group of ABC News correspondents and compared our status in the corporate structure to that of the Disney artists who create the company's world-famous cartoons. (He clearly and sincerely intended the analogy to flatter us.) Even they, Eisner pointed out, were expected to make budget cuts; we would have to do the same.
I mentioned several names to Eisner and asked if he recognized any. He did not. They were, I said, ABC correspondents and cameramen who had been killed or wounded while on assignment. While appreciating the enormous talent of the corporation's cartoonists, I pointed out that working on a television crew, covering wars, revolutions and natural disasters, was different. The suggestion was not well received.
The parent companies of all three networks would ultimately find a common way of dealing with the risk and expense inherent in operating news bureaus around the world: They would eliminate them. Peter Jennings and I, who joined ABC News within a year of each other in the early 1960s, were profoundly influenced by our years as foreign correspondents. When we became the anchors and managing editors of our respective programs, we tried to make sure foreign news remained a major ingredient. It was a struggle.
Peter called me one afternoon in the mid-'90s to ask whether we at "Nightline" had been receiving the same inquiries that he and his producers were getting at "World News Tonight." We had, indeed, been getting calls from company bean-counters wanting to know how many times our program had used a given overseas bureau in the preceding year. This data in hand, the accountants constructed the simplest of equations: Divide the cost of running a bureau by the number of television segments it produced. The cost, inevitably, was deemed too high to justify leaving the bureau as it was. Trims led to cuts and, in most cases, to elimination.
The networks say they still maintain bureaus around the world, but whereas in the 1960s I was one of 20 to 30 correspondents working out of fully staffed offices in more than a dozen major capitals, for the most part, a "bureau" now is just a local fixer who speaks English and can facilitate the work of a visiting producer or a correspondent in from London.
Much of the American public used to gather before the electronic hearth every evening, separate but together, while Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Frank Reynolds and Howard K. Smith offered relatively unbiased accounts of information that their respective news organizations believed the public needed to know. The ritual permitted, and perhaps encouraged, shared perceptions and even the possibility of compromise among those who disagreed.
It was an imperfect, untidy little Eden of journalism where reporters were motivated to gather facts about important issues. We didn't know that we could become profit centers. No one had bitten into that apple yet.
The transition of news from a public service to a profitable commodity is irreversible. Legions of new media present a vista of unrelenting competition. Advertisers crave young viewers, and these young viewers are deemed to be uninterested in hard news, especially hard news from abroad. This is felicitous, since covering overseas news is very expensive. On the other hand, the appetite for strongly held, if unsubstantiated, opinion is demonstrably high. And such talk, as they say, is cheap.
Broadcast news has been outflanked and will soon be overtaken by scores of other media options. The need for clear, objective reporting in a world of rising religious fundamentalism, economic interdependence and global ecological problems is probably greater than it has ever been. But we are no longer a national audience receiving news from a handful of trusted gatekeepers; we're now a million or more clusters of consumers, harvesting information from like-minded providers.
As you may know, Olbermann returned to his MSNBC program after just two days of enforced absence. (Given cable television's short attention span, two days may well have seemed like an "indefinite suspension.") He was gracious about the whole thing, acknowledging at least the historical merit of the rule he had broken: "It's not a stupid rule," he said. "It needs to be adapted to the realities of 21st-century journalism."
There is, after all, not much of a chance that 21st-century journalism will be adapted to conform with the old rules. Technology and the market are offering a tantalizing array of channels, each designed to fill a particular niche - sports, weather, cooking, religion - and an infinite variety of news, prepared and seasoned to reflect our taste, just the way we like it. As someone used to say in a bygone era, "That's the way it is."
Ted Koppel, managing editor of ABC's "Nightline" from 1980 to 2005, now a contributing analyst for "BBC World News America."
Olbermann, O'Reilly and the death of real news
By Ted Koppel
Sunday, November 14, 2010
To witness Keith Olbermann - the most opinionated among MSNBC's left-leaning, Fox-baiting, money-generating hosts - suspended even briefly last week for making financial contributions to Democratic political candidates seemed like a whimsical, arcane holdover from a long-gone era of television journalism, when the networks considered the collection and dissemination of substantive and unbiased news to be a public trust.
Back then, a policy against political contributions would have aimed to avoid even the appearance of partisanship. But today, when Olbermann draws more than 1 million like-minded viewers to his program every night precisely because he is avowedly, unabashedly and monotonously partisan, it is not clear what misdemeanor his donations constituted. Consistency?
We live now in a cable news universe that celebrates the opinions of Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly - individuals who hold up the twin pillars of political partisanship and who are encouraged to do so by their parent organizations because their brand of analysis and commentary is highly profitable.
The commercial success of both Fox News and MSNBC is a source of nonpartisan sadness for me. While I can appreciate the financial logic of drowning television viewers in a flood of opinions designed to confirm their own biases, the trend is not good for the republic. It is, though, the natural outcome of a growing sense of national entitlement. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's oft-quoted observation that "everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts," seems almost quaint in an environment that flaunts opinions as though they were facts.
And so, among the many benefits we have come to believe the founding fathers intended for us, the latest is news we can choose. Beginning, perhaps, from the reasonable perspective that absolute objectivity is unattainable, Fox News and MSNBC no longer even attempt it. They show us the world not as it is, but as partisans (and loyal viewers) at either end of the political spectrum would like it to be. This is to journalism what Bernie Madoff was to investment: He told his customers what they wanted to hear, and by the time they learned the truth, their money was gone.
It is also part of a pervasive ethos that eschews facts in favor of an idealized reality. The fashion industry has apparently known this for years: Esquire magazine recently found that men's jeans from a variety of name-brand manufacturers are cut large but labeled small. The actual waist sizes are anywhere from three to six inches roomier than their labels insist.
Perhaps it doesn't matter that we are being flattered into believing what any full-length mirror can tell us is untrue. But when our accountants, bankers and lawyers, our doctors and our politicians tell us only what we want to hear, despite hard evidence to the contrary, we are headed for disaster. We need only look at our housing industry, our credit card debt, the cost of two wars subsidized by borrowed money, and the rising deficit to understand the dangers of entitlement run rampant. We celebrate truth as a virtue, but only in the abstract. What we really need in our search for truth is a commodity that used to be at the heart of good journalism: facts - along with a willingness to present those facts without fear or favor.
To the degree that broadcast news was a more virtuous operation 40 years ago, it was a function of both fear and innocence. Network executives were afraid that a failure to work in the "public interest, convenience and necessity," as set forth in the Radio Act of 1927, might cause the Federal Communications Commission to suspend or even revoke their licenses. The three major broadcast networks pointed to their news divisions (which operated at a loss or barely broke even) as evidence that they were fulfilling the FCC's mandate. News was, in a manner of speaking, the loss leader that permitted NBC, CBS and ABC to justify the enormous profits made by their entertainment divisions.
On the innocence side of the ledger, meanwhile, it never occurred to the network brass that news programming could be profitable.
Until, that is, CBS News unveiled its "60 Minutes" news magazine in 1968. When, after three years or so, "60 Minutes" turned a profit (something no television news program had previously achieved), a light went on, and the news divisions of all three networks came to be seen as profit centers, with all the expectations that entailed.
I recall a Washington meeting many years later at which Michael Eisner, then the chief executive of Disney, ABC's parent company, took questions from a group of ABC News correspondents and compared our status in the corporate structure to that of the Disney artists who create the company's world-famous cartoons. (He clearly and sincerely intended the analogy to flatter us.) Even they, Eisner pointed out, were expected to make budget cuts; we would have to do the same.
I mentioned several names to Eisner and asked if he recognized any. He did not. They were, I said, ABC correspondents and cameramen who had been killed or wounded while on assignment. While appreciating the enormous talent of the corporation's cartoonists, I pointed out that working on a television crew, covering wars, revolutions and natural disasters, was different. The suggestion was not well received.
The parent companies of all three networks would ultimately find a common way of dealing with the risk and expense inherent in operating news bureaus around the world: They would eliminate them. Peter Jennings and I, who joined ABC News within a year of each other in the early 1960s, were profoundly influenced by our years as foreign correspondents. When we became the anchors and managing editors of our respective programs, we tried to make sure foreign news remained a major ingredient. It was a struggle.
Peter called me one afternoon in the mid-'90s to ask whether we at "Nightline" had been receiving the same inquiries that he and his producers were getting at "World News Tonight." We had, indeed, been getting calls from company bean-counters wanting to know how many times our program had used a given overseas bureau in the preceding year. This data in hand, the accountants constructed the simplest of equations: Divide the cost of running a bureau by the number of television segments it produced. The cost, inevitably, was deemed too high to justify leaving the bureau as it was. Trims led to cuts and, in most cases, to elimination.
The networks say they still maintain bureaus around the world, but whereas in the 1960s I was one of 20 to 30 correspondents working out of fully staffed offices in more than a dozen major capitals, for the most part, a "bureau" now is just a local fixer who speaks English and can facilitate the work of a visiting producer or a correspondent in from London.
Much of the American public used to gather before the electronic hearth every evening, separate but together, while Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Frank Reynolds and Howard K. Smith offered relatively unbiased accounts of information that their respective news organizations believed the public needed to know. The ritual permitted, and perhaps encouraged, shared perceptions and even the possibility of compromise among those who disagreed.
It was an imperfect, untidy little Eden of journalism where reporters were motivated to gather facts about important issues. We didn't know that we could become profit centers. No one had bitten into that apple yet.
The transition of news from a public service to a profitable commodity is irreversible. Legions of new media present a vista of unrelenting competition. Advertisers crave young viewers, and these young viewers are deemed to be uninterested in hard news, especially hard news from abroad. This is felicitous, since covering overseas news is very expensive. On the other hand, the appetite for strongly held, if unsubstantiated, opinion is demonstrably high. And such talk, as they say, is cheap.
Broadcast news has been outflanked and will soon be overtaken by scores of other media options. The need for clear, objective reporting in a world of rising religious fundamentalism, economic interdependence and global ecological problems is probably greater than it has ever been. But we are no longer a national audience receiving news from a handful of trusted gatekeepers; we're now a million or more clusters of consumers, harvesting information from like-minded providers.
As you may know, Olbermann returned to his MSNBC program after just two days of enforced absence. (Given cable television's short attention span, two days may well have seemed like an "indefinite suspension.") He was gracious about the whole thing, acknowledging at least the historical merit of the rule he had broken: "It's not a stupid rule," he said. "It needs to be adapted to the realities of 21st-century journalism."
There is, after all, not much of a chance that 21st-century journalism will be adapted to conform with the old rules. Technology and the market are offering a tantalizing array of channels, each designed to fill a particular niche - sports, weather, cooking, religion - and an infinite variety of news, prepared and seasoned to reflect our taste, just the way we like it. As someone used to say in a bygone era, "That's the way it is."
Ted Koppel, managing editor of ABC's "Nightline" from 1980 to 2005, now a contributing analyst for "BBC World News America."
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Notes on Keith Olbermann and his new gig
First, yeah, he has a new gig.
Keith Olbermann just signed a deal, apparently, with "Current TV" (ever heard of them? I hadn't) so he'll be back on the air.
Second, it seems Keith had to get a dig in on MSNBC, right out of the chute, so to speak:
"Nothing is more vital to a free America than a free media," Olbermann told reporters Tuesday. "And nothing is more vital to my concept of a free media than news that is produced independent of corporate interference."
That is surely a dig on his old place of residence--MSNBC. It may mean because they were owned by GE or, more likely I think, because they were just bought by Comcast.
Third, that whole thing about a "free media" and being "produced independent of corporate interference" is a bit of a hoot since Current TV is the " public affairs network founded in 2005 by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt."
Don't look for the Conservative and/or Republican sides to be espoused on this channel or show, ala' "Point/Counterpoint" like we used to see on the old "60 Minutes" program. I'm not saying it should be, given the Fox "News" channel and all but it isn't that this station will try to show a balance on issues, either.
Next, there's this point:
Olbermann called the move to Current his "most exciting venture" in a decades-long television career that's included stops at CNN, ESPN, Fox Sports, and MSNBC (twice!). He described Current as "one of the fastest-growing television networks in history."
Yeah, right, fastest-growin television networks in history.
If you ignore the Spanish television channel, Telemundo it might be. Maybe. I guess.
More from the article: Current is available in 60 million households. Gore, on the conference call, suggested that Current has a larger potential audience than MSNBC had when Olbermann launched "Countdown" in 2003. (MSNBC, however, was available in over 78 million homes then and 95 million now). Current is also available in 15 million households outside the United States.
Yeah.
Finally, there's this:
Olbermann didn't hold back his political views on "Countdown," but he got into trouble in November after donating to three Democratic candidates in without alerting MSNBC's management. Those contributions led to a brief, November suspension that set the stage for his departure a couple months later.
Gore said that Olbermann, along with other Current employees, is free to contribute to political campaigns as long as the donations are disclosed.
As I recall, that was the rule at MSNBC, too, wasn't it, Mr. O?
Enough to make you at least smile, if not laugh.
Anyway, I'm all for him and Mr. Gore and the station. Good luck to them. I hope it works.
Unlike "Air America" on radio.
Links: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thecutline/20110208/ts_yblog_thecutline/olbermann-launching-primetime-current-tv-show-this-spring
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telemundo
Keith Olbermann just signed a deal, apparently, with "Current TV" (ever heard of them? I hadn't) so he'll be back on the air.
Second, it seems Keith had to get a dig in on MSNBC, right out of the chute, so to speak:
"Nothing is more vital to a free America than a free media," Olbermann told reporters Tuesday. "And nothing is more vital to my concept of a free media than news that is produced independent of corporate interference."
That is surely a dig on his old place of residence--MSNBC. It may mean because they were owned by GE or, more likely I think, because they were just bought by Comcast.
Third, that whole thing about a "free media" and being "produced independent of corporate interference" is a bit of a hoot since Current TV is the " public affairs network founded in 2005 by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt."
Don't look for the Conservative and/or Republican sides to be espoused on this channel or show, ala' "Point/Counterpoint" like we used to see on the old "60 Minutes" program. I'm not saying it should be, given the Fox "News" channel and all but it isn't that this station will try to show a balance on issues, either.
Next, there's this point:
Olbermann called the move to Current his "most exciting venture" in a decades-long television career that's included stops at CNN, ESPN, Fox Sports, and MSNBC (twice!). He described Current as "one of the fastest-growing television networks in history."
Yeah, right, fastest-growin television networks in history.
If you ignore the Spanish television channel, Telemundo it might be. Maybe. I guess.
More from the article: Current is available in 60 million households. Gore, on the conference call, suggested that Current has a larger potential audience than MSNBC had when Olbermann launched "Countdown" in 2003. (MSNBC, however, was available in over 78 million homes then and 95 million now). Current is also available in 15 million households outside the United States.
Yeah.
Finally, there's this:
Olbermann didn't hold back his political views on "Countdown," but he got into trouble in November after donating to three Democratic candidates in without alerting MSNBC's management. Those contributions led to a brief, November suspension that set the stage for his departure a couple months later.
Gore said that Olbermann, along with other Current employees, is free to contribute to political campaigns as long as the donations are disclosed.
As I recall, that was the rule at MSNBC, too, wasn't it, Mr. O?
Enough to make you at least smile, if not laugh.
Anyway, I'm all for him and Mr. Gore and the station. Good luck to them. I hope it works.
Unlike "Air America" on radio.
Links: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thecutline/20110208/ts_yblog_thecutline/olbermann-launching-primetime-current-tv-show-this-spring
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telemundo
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Farewell, Mr. Olbermann
Farewell, Mr. Olbermann. I appreciate what you've done.
I took up watching you and "Countdown" as my effort to keep abreast of the way the George W. Bush administration was taking our country apart. While too frequently sanctimonious (yes, honestly), we shared a great deal of opinions on current events. I know a lot of us out here want to believe you'll be back, somewhere on some station, doing similar work and very soon. We wish you all the best.
At least we still have Rachel Maddow.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Keith Olbermann on health care and reform: true then, true now
Our system is still broken.
That "public option" option for health insurance?
We needed that.
Sure, Mr. Olbermann gets all sanctimonious at the end of this (if you can last that long) but the fact is, he's right. We need what health care reform we got this year, we need it badly and the representatives who are bought and sold by the health care industry companies need to stand up for the people, not the companies.
Not that it will happen anytime soon or easily.
Enjoy your weekend, y'all.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Are you paying attention?
We really could fix this.
We need to get true campaign finance reform, folks, and pay for campaigns so corporations and their lobbyists and money don't, for starters.
We need to make money to any and all government representatives illegal.
Finally, we need to shorten the campaign season to 3 to 6 months, tops, for all.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Health care reform ruled unconstitutional
"The judge who ruled against health care reform owns part of a Republican consulting firm that worked against health care reform."
"Where are we living? Somalia? Afghanistan? Myanmar?"
--Keith Olbermann, "Countdown with Keith Olbermann", MSNBC
Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_overhaul;_ylt=AqiKsrAkiwt7gM.pmMkMOGKs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNuNGptZzNxBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAxMjE0L3VzX2hlYWx0aF9jYXJlX292ZXJoYXVsBGNjb2RlA21vc3Rwb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDMQRwb3MDMgRwdANob21lX2Nva2UEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yeQRzbGsDYmlnbGVnYWxzZXRi
"Where are we living? Somalia? Afghanistan? Myanmar?"
--Keith Olbermann, "Countdown with Keith Olbermann", MSNBC
Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_overhaul;_ylt=AqiKsrAkiwt7gM.pmMkMOGKs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNuNGptZzNxBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAxMjE0L3VzX2hlYWx0aF9jYXJlX292ZXJoYXVsBGNjb2RlA21vc3Rwb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDMQRwb3MDMgRwdANob21lX2Nva2UEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yeQRzbGsDYmlnbGVnYWxzZXRi
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Saturday afternoon "lighten up"
I love these things.
And it would be far funnier and "lighter" if it didn't have any painful truth to it.
On their one point in this, where they point out--rightfully, right now--how corporations can make unlimited contributions for and against any candidate or candidates or proposition in the country while, here, one private citizen is being chastised for supporting candidates--let's see. What political system is that most resembling??
Oh! That's right! Fascism!
Now they need to do one on how the Republicans and the Tea Party are going to try to destroy America so Pres. O doesn't get re-elected. It'd be perfect. Just a bit exaggerated but true, sadly.
Enjoy that beautiful weekend out there, folks. It's seemingly lasting forever but we know better.
And it would be far funnier and "lighter" if it didn't have any painful truth to it.
On their one point in this, where they point out--rightfully, right now--how corporations can make unlimited contributions for and against any candidate or candidates or proposition in the country while, here, one private citizen is being chastised for supporting candidates--let's see. What political system is that most resembling??
Oh! That's right! Fascism!
Now they need to do one on how the Republicans and the Tea Party are going to try to destroy America so Pres. O doesn't get re-elected. It'd be perfect. Just a bit exaggerated but true, sadly.
Enjoy that beautiful weekend out there, folks. It's seemingly lasting forever but we know better.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
The real Roy Blunt keeps standing up
Congressman Roy Blunt deserves to be retired for so many reasons. This is just one more. Let's get him and all Blunt family members out of government and end this family dynasty. They've fed off the American taxpayer trough far too long.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Do you see a pattern here?
All it takes is seconds on television any more.
You don't even have to have talent or education or knowledge or looks or anything.
First it was "Joe the plumber", who turned out to not be a plumber after all and now there's some kid President Obama spoke to in a crowd yesterday and bam--he's a celebrity.
These people have gone from "nobodies" on the street to nationally- and internationally-known phenomena within no time at all and for virtually no reason at all.
All it takes is presence.
Have you seen about this young kid since yesterday?
He stood up and asked the President a question--however manic he was and dis-jarring his delivery was--and suddenly he's all over the news. Keith Olbermann interviewed him live last night on his show on MSNBC, he's all over the internet, he got a radio disc-jockey job I guess, the whole thing.
What insanity.
Have we become so shallow that it doesn't even require knowledge or education or, virtually anything, in order to be famous and on television?
Does this make any sense?
Who is listening to these people? (Wait, I ask myself that about Rush Limbaugh all the time and he makes nearly a half-million dollars a year, for pity's sake).
It seems like this comes from the "Sarah Palin School of Politics".
Again, you don't need to know anything and you can still be "important". Heck, you can be elected governor of a state, for pity's sake and even, nearly, Vice President of the whole bloody country.
Man our standards are low.
Are you in the right place? Is it the right time? Then COME ON DOWN! "We have a position of former importance for you!"
Now that I think of it, it's likely an outgrowth of the "President George W. Bush School of Presidential Politics".
Wrong person. No knowledge. No experience. Ideologue. Divisionist. Destructive--all that.
But what the hell, "How about you be our President, boy?!"
We're dumbing ourselves down incredibly low, folks, and it ought to stop way higher than this.
No wonder we're going broke.
Link to story about latest connection here:
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2009/02/62687523/1?se=yahoorefer
You don't even have to have talent or education or knowledge or looks or anything.
First it was "Joe the plumber", who turned out to not be a plumber after all and now there's some kid President Obama spoke to in a crowd yesterday and bam--he's a celebrity.
These people have gone from "nobodies" on the street to nationally- and internationally-known phenomena within no time at all and for virtually no reason at all.
All it takes is presence.
Have you seen about this young kid since yesterday?
He stood up and asked the President a question--however manic he was and dis-jarring his delivery was--and suddenly he's all over the news. Keith Olbermann interviewed him live last night on his show on MSNBC, he's all over the internet, he got a radio disc-jockey job I guess, the whole thing.
What insanity.
Have we become so shallow that it doesn't even require knowledge or education or, virtually anything, in order to be famous and on television?
Does this make any sense?
Who is listening to these people? (Wait, I ask myself that about Rush Limbaugh all the time and he makes nearly a half-million dollars a year, for pity's sake).
It seems like this comes from the "Sarah Palin School of Politics".
Again, you don't need to know anything and you can still be "important". Heck, you can be elected governor of a state, for pity's sake and even, nearly, Vice President of the whole bloody country.
Man our standards are low.
Are you in the right place? Is it the right time? Then COME ON DOWN! "We have a position of former importance for you!"
Now that I think of it, it's likely an outgrowth of the "President George W. Bush School of Presidential Politics".
Wrong person. No knowledge. No experience. Ideologue. Divisionist. Destructive--all that.
But what the hell, "How about you be our President, boy?!"
We're dumbing ourselves down incredibly low, folks, and it ought to stop way higher than this.
No wonder we're going broke.
Link to story about latest connection here:
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2009/02/62687523/1?se=yahoorefer
Friday, January 16, 2009
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Let's get responsible, Senator McCain
Keith gets a bit overheated and sanctimonious but he's right, of course, and the sins of the Senator are pretty serious and irresponsible.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Unfortunately correct and vindicated
Well, ladies and gentlemen, I was correct.
Do you remember last week I said there was a good possibility that we might see a bank--or two--failing each Friday night for a while?
Let me repeat: I was right.
I wish I weren't, truth be told.
According to the news this morning, a small bank in Florida failed last night. It was taken over by the FDIC, of course, and will be quickly sold. See the full story here: http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSN0136691620080802
It was the 8th bank to fail so far this year. (Wouldn't you think Keith Olbermann--or some news junkie--would set up a weekly "bank watch"? Maybe they don't want to give the public reason to panic, since the American public doesn't want to pay attention, by and large).
The good news? It was a relatively small bank. First Priority Bank had "only" $259 million in assets and $227 million in deposits.
The bad news? Its failure will cost the federal fund that insures deposits--read: you and I, the taxpayers--an estimated $72 million.
Chalk it up to our account.
As I also said earlier here, in the 1st quarter of this year, the FDIC had 90 banks on its "watch" list. This article recounts that and states that they also won't tell which 90 banks they are. It's understandable--can you imagine the runs on those banks if they told which 90 they were?
Still, wouldn't you like to know if YOUR bank were, maybe, in trouble?
Once more, I'd like to take a moment to personally thank, with dripping sarcasm, the Republicans, for deregulating the banking industry.
Oh, well, for now, it's the weekend. Go out, work, relax, enjoy, keep cool.
Let's hope there either aren't any more banks that fail (I'm not counting on it) or, that, if they do fail, they are small and few in number.
Cross your fingers.
Do you remember last week I said there was a good possibility that we might see a bank--or two--failing each Friday night for a while?
Let me repeat: I was right.
I wish I weren't, truth be told.
According to the news this morning, a small bank in Florida failed last night. It was taken over by the FDIC, of course, and will be quickly sold. See the full story here: http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSN0136691620080802
It was the 8th bank to fail so far this year. (Wouldn't you think Keith Olbermann--or some news junkie--would set up a weekly "bank watch"? Maybe they don't want to give the public reason to panic, since the American public doesn't want to pay attention, by and large).
The good news? It was a relatively small bank. First Priority Bank had "only" $259 million in assets and $227 million in deposits.
The bad news? Its failure will cost the federal fund that insures deposits--read: you and I, the taxpayers--an estimated $72 million.
Chalk it up to our account.
As I also said earlier here, in the 1st quarter of this year, the FDIC had 90 banks on its "watch" list. This article recounts that and states that they also won't tell which 90 banks they are. It's understandable--can you imagine the runs on those banks if they told which 90 they were?
Still, wouldn't you like to know if YOUR bank were, maybe, in trouble?
Once more, I'd like to take a moment to personally thank, with dripping sarcasm, the Republicans, for deregulating the banking industry.
Oh, well, for now, it's the weekend. Go out, work, relax, enjoy, keep cool.
Let's hope there either aren't any more banks that fail (I'm not counting on it) or, that, if they do fail, they are small and few in number.
Cross your fingers.
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