Sunday, March 06, 2005

Iddybud's 'Hood According to Findory



Iddybud's 'Hood According to Findory

According to Findory, this is my personalized blog neighborhood (size in order to the proximity/relation to my own blog...my own name being largest, naturally).

Note: I decided to reach out. I introduced myself to my "closest neighbor", Susan Madrak at Suburban Guerilla. We are colleagues at American Street.
Corrente is well known to me - a fellow Liberal Coalition member. David Brock is next on my list. Although I haven't had the opportunity to make his acquaintance yet, I highly respect the work he's doing out there.




Truthout's 4-Part Series on Journalists & Military





Truthout's 4-Part Series on Journalists & Military

In case you've missed it, here are the links to the first three:

Part I | Hearing What Eason Jordan Said
Part II | Army Failed to Probe Its Attack on Palestine Hotel
Part III | Targeting the Media the American Way

Part IV is yet to come.


5000 Lebanese Students Emboldened to Demand Syrian Pullout



5000 Lebanese Students Emboldened to Demand Syrian Pullout

FIVE YEARS AGO..while Bill Clinton was still president.


2001

These kids have been tough and emboldened long before Bush and the Neocons lied their way to the war that goes on today in Iraq.

Emboldened by Bush, emschmoldened by Bush.

Some of us were born yesterday. Some of us understand that the youth of Lebanon has been fighting for independence from both Israel and Syria for years.

Why doesn't anyone in the American mainstream media report about the current situation honestly and thoroughly?


Gannon/White House: AMERICAblog Opinion in LA Times



Gannon/White House: AMERICAblog Opinion in LA Times

I am glad the LA Times decided to give John Aravosis equal time to make his case on the Jeff Gannon/White House Press Corps issue.

The story is worthy of much more serious and investigative coverage than your basic
Howard Kurtz-style "Micheal Jackson-ing" or "Kobe Bryant-ing" or "Martha Stewart-ing".

Excerpt:

I can think of three possible reasons The Times didn't cover this obviously major story with any vigor:

(1) Trepidation about gays, sex and power. In the age of wardrobe malfunctions, news organizations are extra cautious about covering anything involving s-e-x. And a gay angle only makes things more confusing. Would you be anti-gay or pro-gay if you wrote about an allegedly homophobic journalist who happened to be gay? Answer: Allegations of prostitution aren't just about someone's private life, they're about a crime that can lead to blackmail, especially if state secrets are involved. And in any case, your readers are adults — give them the facts and let them decide for themselves.

(2) Reverse liberal guilt. Too sensitive to right-wing accusations of being liberal, traditional media have overcompensated by becoming too timid in covering certain stories. They seem loath to aggressively report on scandals involving Republican politicians, in general, and this White House in particular.

(3) Blogophobia. Liberal bloggers scare the mainstream media. Media critics fret over our supposed lack of professional credentials, even though many of us are journalists. They doubt our facts but don't independently investigate the stories.

The lack of coverage plays into the hands of the White House. Mainstream media editors act as if our investigation of Guckert is about prurience and lacks merit. But there is more than enough evidence to make any reporter want to check out the possibilities of White House deception and media manipulation.

The Times' editors shouldn't allow themselves to think they are above the fray. In truth, they are failing to speak truth to power
.
Good for you, John, and a sincere 'thank you' from this blogger.


Untested bloggers pick up where hardened news hounds left off



Untested bloggers pick up where hardened news hounds left off

Written by student Ian McNamara of Cosumnes River College, Sacramento, CA:
"Hopefully the mainstream media and the large corporations that own them will realize that mainstream media reporting must improve to keep the bloggers at bay. That likely means a bigger news department budget and less profit.

Of course, the large corporations could dump the more costly professional journalists and hire the bloggers."


LINK - (I think you'll enjoy reading the whole story)

John Edwards Visits Hannibal's Demo Days



"When a merely honest man appears he is a comet--his fame is eternal--needs no genius, no talent--mere honesty."

- Mark Twain

John Edwards Visits Hannibal's Demo Days
An honest man in politics is met with cheers

The scene:
Hannibal, Missouri, the boyhood home of Mark Twain, at a banquet held as part of an event called "Democrat Days", which isn't really about elected officials. It's a unique experience. It doesn't happen in many places. The grassroots control what happens in their own arena — as opposed to decisions made from 'the top of the ticket'.

John Edwards drew cheers from the party faithful when he said:
"This party has always fought for people who don't have a voice. This party has always believed that everybody should have an opportunity to do well. And we believe that we have a moral responsibility to help those who are struggling.
During an interview, he said:
"If you spend so much time talking about your proposals and your programs, people don't know what you're made of inside. They need to know what it is that drives us every single day, and as simple as that sounds it is at the core of what people look for when they vote for a presidential candidate."
He urged Democrats to stay true to their roots and communicate clearly about what Democrats believe.

There were 650 people in attendance, and such a large crowd in a non-election year is unusual. The Democrat Days organizer John Yancey credited much of that to John Edward's popularity with the people.

Missouri Democrats at the event were fired up over their belief that Republicans, while controlling the governor's mansion and the Legislature, are hypocritically embracing policies out of line with the religious values that their [Republican] party claims to espouse.

The confluence of former Senator Edwards with his appearance in the boyhood home of Mark Twain recalls, to my mind, a quotation from Twain's "A Tramp Abroad", where Twain visits the opera and sees a performance of "Lohengrin".
This was while a gorgeous procession of people marched around and around, in the third act, and sang the Wedding Chorus. To my untutored ear that was music--almost divine music. While my seared soul was steeped in the healing balm of those gracious sounds, it seemed to me that I could almost resuffer the torments which had gone before, in order to be so healed again. There is where the deep ingenuity of the operatic idea is betrayed. It deals so largely in pain that its scattered delights are prodigiously augmented by the contrasts. A pretty air in an opera is prettier there than it could be anywhere else, I suppose, just as an honest man in politics shines more than he would elsewhere.
I would imagine the Democrats in Hannibal got that feeling yesterday upon hearing John Edwards, a man they see as refreshingly honest, realistically optimistic, and firmly standing in the hope for the healing of our land.

Interview: Uma Thurman





Still Cool
Creative Loafing's Interview with Uma Thurman

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

"The white youth of today have begun to react to the fact that the "American Way of Life" is a fossil of history. What do they care if their old baldheaded and crew-cut elders don't dig their caveman mops? They couldn't care less about the old, stiffassed honkies who don't like their new dances: Frug, Monkey, Jerk, Swim, Watusi. All they know is that it feels good to swing to way-out body-rhythms instead of dragassing across the dance floor like zombies to the dead beat of mind-smothered Mickey Mouse music."

- Eldridge Cleaver



Be Cool is getting panned all over the internet