the rix mix

For the past week I've gotten more real information about power failures &  power company responses from Mike Francesa's afternoon sports talk show on WFAN than  I have from any other sources. Francesa,  who doesn't have much of a sense of humor to begin with, has been without power since the night of Hurricane Sandy.  He lives in the 'burbs & has partial power from a generator. His kids haven't returned to school yet. His power was out for days after Hurricane Irene & after a blizzard two winters ago. He is very angry. Francesa opens the  phones up & people call from all over, reporting if they have power or not, if they've seen repair crews sitting idle with no job  assignment or awaiting  authorization they never get to  begin work at a site. He's had calls from guys claiming to be on repair crews & wasting their time. He has calls from people who have lost everything. Francesa looks at power company websites & calls them out for "cooking" their maps of outage areas. I had to give Governor Christie credit (we shall see how he handles the situation over time), & I have to give Francesa credit for staying with the storm. He correctly says we can't "look back" at the disaster while the storm is still happening to hundreds of thousands of people.

It probably wouldn't have come out, buy  I should have tried to take a night photo from a block & 1/2 north on Cherry Street looking toward my corner. Beyond some lit buildings & a working traffic light there  wasa  black curtain or wall that swallowed anyone walking into it. It was penetrated only by the lights of oncoming cars  on the one way street, they had a ghostly quality. There was bright waning moon for several nights last week.

Labels: Elizabeth NJ, media madness, weather

America 1930












America 2012

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, culture, media madness, religion, THE election

Rush Limbaugh is losing sponsors all over the place. & Bill Maher is defending him as having just made a bad joke.

 In 2007, when Imus referred to the Rutgers women's basketball team as  "some nappy-headed hos," I admit I gave  thought as to whether that remark was worth more than a sincere in-person apology & a suspension. It was an impulsive remark (hardly the I-man's first racist crack), & I also believed if Imus met & liked Coach Stringer & the team, he's the kind of person who could do a complete turnabout, fess up to his insult,  & they would have no better  supporter in the media.  Imus' insult was not politically-motivated. I decided  however it played out would be o.k. with me, even if Imus were fired.

Limbaugh was different. He went at Sandra Fluke for three days, with the same defamatory comments. This was not improvisational shock jock comedy gone wrong. It was a deliberate, calculated, libelous attack on a private citizen's integrity & reputation in an attempt to discredit a federal policy on health insurance.

Labels: culture, media madness

If you find this defensible, I want to hear how. It can't even be apologized for.  Rush Limbaugh is a 61 year old man, wealthy enough to have a private jet, on his fourth marriage (no children), obviously deeply conflicted about sex, with weird fantasies about women at a Catholic university,  & cruelly misogynistic. Look at his facial expressions, his hand gestures,  hear his chortles & snorts. Women disgust him.  Sandra Fluke can defend herself against Rush, with fine legal representation &  a  $5 million defamation of character suit, given her prospects for a lucrative career as a Georgetown Law graduate.

Limbaugh can't be forced off the air altogether.  But if enough national & local market advertisers  withdraw their air spots, Limbaugh's show can become unprofitable in a major market like New York City no matter how large the audience,  &  could be dropped by WABC.

Labels: in the news, media madness, Showbiz

WTF?

Nothing I'm reading really explains it. Keith has to explain it, & I think he will.

The guy is a big, profitable media star with a huge ego. He carried MSNBC for years. Being treated in such a subordinate, public manner by his bosses over a few campaign contributions - prohibited by contract, not by law - infuriated him. Comcast purchasing MSNBC brings with it a byzantine tangle of corporate relationships that include FOX. Keith may have felt increasingly trapped in his show's format & the part he was expected to play. He's now wealthy enough & famous enough to believe he has some career options.

When he looks at his right wing counterparts, he sees guys like Bill O'Reilly - numbingly shrill & repetitive, & Glenn Beck - whose demogogic over-reaching is losing audience & markets (including New York & Philly radio).

He might have looked at Rachel Maddow, with her generally calm demeanor & the intimate relationship she has with her viewers - the lovely smile that shifts ever-so-subtly into a smirk, & who isn't expected to produce mighty You Tube-ready sermons of moral indignation.

If Keith wanted to exact some revenge, denying MSNBC the ratings & ad revenue bonanza of "farewell shows" is a pretty good.

Labels: media madness, TV

Political language - rhetoric - is generally awful. Think of how few really articulate, inspiring presidents we've had, who knew how to use language. I've written that John Kennedy was the most recent president who really understood metaphor & was a great speaker (Carter understands it, Reagan used it well but unsubtly). For a lot of Americans, a  gun target symbol is a gun target, not something else.  It does not signify something else. It is not pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey.

Most of the 20th Century in the United States was notable for the absence of noxious language in our mainstream politics. In Lincoln's time, language was incredibly foul, violent, & incendiary. Lincoln didn't discourage his supporters' use of it. He simply refused to indulge in it himself. When necessary, he denied that it represented his views. 20th Century America didn't lack demagogic media characters & politicians.  But journalistic standards improved & congress was relatively civil.

On the other hand, we haven't the patience for the kind of lengthy, detailed debates organized by Lincoln & Stephen Douglas, or for speeches that fully explain a politician's views.

A direct cause & effect cannot be drawn between right wing talk radio or Sarah Palin's gun-love & the Arizona shootings. The talk show hosts have plenty of deniability. But one nationally-broadcast host can hardly utter the word "liberals" without placing the word "disgusting" in front of it. His shows are word-streams of casual vileness, & violent words, & he assumes the vast majority of his listeners agree with him. Over & over he repeats the word "facts" - everything he says is a fact. That liberals are disgusting is a fact, period, no argument. What's to argue?

I reside in one of the most liberal radio markets in America & I can't find a liberal talk show host on the AM dial. It can only be worse elsewhere, where fundamentalist religious broadcasting is added.

Our major local newspaper, The Star-Ledger, no longer has the staff or resources to fully report the news. Weekend reporting seems to consist of a single person sitting at a keyboard while monitoring The Associated Press & Newark emergency services radio transmissions. When the bare bones of a news story are reported online, bigoted, anonymous comments fill in the "facts." There's no reporter in the field asking questions.

I knew someone able to speak civilly, even kindly, of Bill Clinton & Al Gore. She was no great fan of George W. Bush. She was sensitive about environmentalism & slowly moderating her views on gay rights. But she loathes Barack Obama & now sounds like an obsessed "birther." Why she so hates Obama is puzzlement unless I attribute it to a barely suppressed racial bigotry she is now allowed to focus on a single symbolic black man with real power. The right licenses her vitriol.

Labels: about writing, in the news, media madness

ShopRite veggie section is o.k., but the bananas are always very green, & they still look like the person who unpacks them bounces each bag off the wall before putting it in the display bin, every bag has bruised bananas. & speaking of bananas, I pay small attention to the rantings of Fox news personalities, but this is priceless:



A few days ago, sports radio station WFAN ran a promo for Fox TV business channel that ultra-right nutcase rocker Ted Nugent would be a guest that evening - I think he  lives in a luxury cave in Michigan & eats raw meat  - & among other topics Ted would be offering his opinions on the Gulf oil catastrophe. I doubt Ted took a beating on BP stock; he probably has his fortune invested in gold bullion & diamonds  he keeps in a secret vault somewhere, the same place he ages his moose steaks.

Labels: in the news, media madness, shopping, TV, video

Labels: Grandma Palin, holidays, media madness, video

Glenn Beck really went over the line last week. This is going viral:

I'm begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes.

He equated the terms "social justice" & "economic justice" with Nazis & Communists. The problem is that many, many Christians - not just "liberals" - consider those "missions" integral to the practice of their faith, & define them in various ways. Even conservative evangelicals like Joe Carter are angry. Catholics are outraged. (Mr. Beck was raised Catholic. He is now a Latter Day Saint. Are Mormons embarrassed, too?)

Most of my beliefs & attitudes regarding social & economic justice come straight out of American mainstream political history & traditions, not religion. Old Republicanism, New Deal Democrats; many in my parents' & grandparents' generations were still waving those banners. In the past, nutballs like Beck were claiming big bands, then Elvis, then The Beatles, then disco & punk rock, were a Communist conspiracy to undermine the morals of America's teenagers. Before then, they attacked farmer's movements like The Grange. Even Billy Graham drew their ire for integrating audiences at his Crusades.

Beck's not just blabbing & blustering, as Limbaugh is inclined to do. Beck thinks about this stuff. He considers himself a rational teacher, a moral instructor. His program is a bizarre Sunday School. What does the guy have to say before he's deservedly yanked from the air & marginalized to the whacko fringes of small market radio?

Labels: in the news, media madness, religion

Salahi denies being White House party-crasher

Of course Mr. & Mrs. Salahi were uninvited, & of course they're every bit the a-holes we think they are, & it's too late to do anything about them, because they accomplished their goal of becoming trash celebrities. At least some heads will roll in the Secret Service & on the White House social event staff. No president since Lincoln has been so at-risk from the implacable rage unleashed by his legitimate election to office, a rage directed at Barack Obama personally.

When Lincoln was president, anyone could walk into the White House & wander around. Washington was filled with spies & loud-mouth seditious Southern sympathizers - many of them entrenched in congress & the Federal bureaucracy, or writing for extremely partisan newspapers. Remind you of anyone? Others were even more dangerous, & Lincoln's close friends lost sleep worrying about his safety. Besides weekly meet & greet receptions featuring Mrs. Lincoln when she wasn't grieving, sick, or depressed, the President had regular open office hours & any citizen could get in line & have a chance to meet with him privately & waste his time. Some wanted his autograph or to counsel him on how to win the war (He knew how to win the war, he just couldn't make his generals do it). Others expected an appointment as part-time under-assistant postmaster of an obscure village. It was what he had to look forward to after his breakfast of one soft-boiled egg, a piece of toast, & coffee. The White House coffee, I imagine, was wretched in those days. Lincoln rarely treated his visitors rudely or abruptly, but he was expert at telling a little joke while steering supplicants out of his office before they realized they had been dismissed without getting anything. But then the next one entered.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, count the yoyos, culture, media madness

Ex-aide says Edwards fathered mistress' child

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — A man who once claimed to have fathered the child of John Edwards' mistress says in a book proposal the former presidential candidate is the real father and that Edwards and worked with his campaign finance chairman to hide that secret, according to a newspaper report published online Saturday.

The New York Times said the book proposal by former Edwards aide Andrew Young states he helped facilitate the affair between Edwards and Rielle Hunter. According to the newspaper, Young wrote that Edwards once told Hunter they would wed after Edwards' wife, who has cancer, died.

Chatter now is Edwards will own up to paternity. As if it should matter to anyone but Elizabeth Edwards. She's had problems accepting this. But Elizabeth was, before John's downfall, one of the most persuasive, sensible, listened-to advocates of "family values" in America, if by values we mean issues of family health care & education. If she hasn't handled it so well in her public appearances, just ask yourself, Why is she supposed to? She's neither Hillary nor Laura.

One commentator at the Star-Ledger version of this news story wrote: "Can you imagine this sleazeball as president?"

In reply, I can imagine John Edwards as vice president, & he would have been a lot less harmful to our nation than Dick Cheney. In America's skewed morality, the nasty, deceitful manipulator behind the Iraq War, secret prisons, torture, & assaults on the privacy of American citizens, who thinks it's sport to buckshot captive quail on a game farm & is so inept he shoots his pal in the face, isn't a sleazeball.

(Cheating on a sick wife is alright, too, provided you Praise the Lord when you marry your mistress soulmate.)

Labels: in the news, John Edwards, media madness

You knew it was coming eventually.

I stop in DD after the library, sit down with my decaf, with a view of the TV, CNN, hope to learn something about Iraq withdrawal, Iran, Honduras, health care bill, maybe a Karl Malden tribute or Al & Franni arriving in D.C.

Freakin' Michael Jackson.

Look, Michael lived under continuous stress for 50 years. For the first 21 or so, the stress was imposed from the outside. But after that the stress was increasingly of his own making. Poor career decisions. Clueless choices in his personal life. A prisoner of his own whims & obsessions. Whatever the doctor did, whatever drugs he prescribed, Michael Jackson wasn't murdered. There's no one else to blame. Not Papa Jackson, not Berry Gordy, although the "values" of those two exploitative men served him badly in the long run. Not his hangers-on & sycophants. Not Liz Taylor or the Sheik of Dubai, his "friends." Not the paparazzi. Doesn't matter who inherits his catalogue, estate & his debts & his test tube children. It's all product. Michael Jackson made product. Sometimes great product, all through his recording career. But he saw it as product.

He wasn't like Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, foundering on a "masterpiece" his damaged psyche wouldn't let him finish.

Michael Jackson had no sooner crowned himself "King of Pop" than three smarter, new megastars, Prince, Madonna, & Springsteen, damned near knocked the crown clear off his head. Hip hop rendered any "message" he had irrelevant. His own sister Janet wasn't messing around.

Which brings me to the opinion I've held for two decades. Following the unparalleled success of "Thriller," Jackson made a decision that revealed his tragic flaw & his Motown indoctrination. Rather than understanding the uniqueness of the achievement, the opportunity it presented, Michael set as his primary ambition the making of an album that would sell bigger than "Thriller." Not a better album. He had no clear idea how to accomplish this feat, & he didn't quite possess all the skills (or vision) he needed to do it. He didn't use the success of "Thriller" to develop his songwriting, to work on a point-of-view, to embark on some dreamed of personal artistic project, to get his life & finances on solid ground, maybe do some psychotherapy to control his demons. He bought a monkey & built Neverland & wrecked his face.

Michael Jackson was one fucked up man. In that regard, he truly did top Elvis. The other King, after a few years of bad movies & non-hits, shook off the indifference & a stifling manager, Colonel Parker, long enough to give us an incredible comeback, a trim figure, & some great records before he reverted to form, missing out on the beautiful support the new generation extended to Johnny Cash & Roy Orbison, & which would have revitalized him yet a third time.

A good king has a capacity for reigning wisely at least some of the time.

Labels: bully pulpit, Elvis Presley, media madness, music, obituary, Showbiz

Investigators try to unravel abduction hoax case
"Bonnie Sweeten appeared to neighbors, colleagues and other school parents like a woman smoothly juggling the responsibilities of work and family."

As The Field Negro noted yesterday, he knew the abduction was bogus from the start because why the hell would two black guys in a "colored Cadillac" want a coo-coo middle class white woman & her nine-year old daughter? If the 2005 Denali had been jacked, Bonnie Sweeten would be standing on the side of the road with her kid beside her. She's an excellent actress, but the police unraveled the story pretty fast. Bonnie shows the signs of a "suburban facade" kind of tale. The way her neighbors describe her is a little too good. Right now, she's facing misdemeanor charges & a psych eval, nothing she can't handle with a competent lawyer & the support of her husband. But I suspect her big troubles are just beginning.

Too bad Without A Trace was canceled. A made-to-order episode, & at the end FBI Special Agent Jack Malone would be really, really pissed off

Labels: in the news, media madness

I like unsweetened iced tea served with a lemon wedge. I add just a sprinkle of sugar. Mister Apple Pie Restaurant in Rahway NJ & a stand in Keansburg Amusement Park midway serve good, plain brewed iced tea.

"No taxation without representation" began as a slogan in the period 1763-1776 that summarized a primary grievance of the British colonists in the Thirteen Colonies. In short, many in those colonies believed the lack of direct representation in the distant British Parliament was an illegal denial of their rights as Englishmen, and therefore laws taxing the colonists (the kind of law that affects the most individuals directly), and other laws applying only to the colonies, were unconstitutional. In recent times, it has been used by several other groups in several different countries over similar disputes. Wikipedia entry

Residents of the District of Columbia lack representation. Residents of our territories aren't subject to federal taxes. So what's with the tea bag thing? I wouldn't have a problem with a tax protest if I thought the tea baggers were true fiscal conservatives. But other than Ron Paul, they've disappeared from the Republican Party. Paul points out that the whole set up is rigged to feed both parties. The biggest racket of all is war; government makes, profiteer takes. Where were these protestin' clowns the past 8 years? So what do the bail outs & stimulus packages mean?

• Fascism has come to America.
• Socialism has come to America.
• White males have lost control of the White House.
• Real Christians have lost control of the White House.
• The president is not an American citizen.
• "Obama took away my trip to Disneyland" [actual sign held by child, I can't imagine how Barack did it]

Curiously, the only organization in Boston re-enacting the original tea party -- the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender group -- was not associated with the partisan movement. But instead of tossing tea bags overboard, it planned to dump federal tax forms into the harbor on Wednesday night to protest the unequal tax treatment of married same-sex couples. New York Times

If that kid makes it to Disney, hope it's on Gay Day.

Labels: count the yoyos, media madness

WCBS-AM, an all-news station in New York City. A full 35 minute cycle from top of the hour is national headlines, traffic, weather, sports, traffic, weather, business, traffic, weather, local headlines. All the commercials , commentary, other news are squeezed between those rigidly scheduled segments. Charles Grodin gets paid for reciting an opinion no longer than a Twitter in a "wish I wuz dead" tone of voice. Dr. Joyce Brothers sounds as ancient as she is. Now you also get thematic-related oldies song clips before certain news stories; I think, there's another annoying duty for some staff engineer.

It has to be unsettling when you're stuck in a traffic jam & the 60 second health report tells you you're three times more likely to have a heart attack after being stuck in a traffic jam.

Then there's the commercials. In only 1/2 hour you're likely to hear about cancer treatment, heart surgery, joint replacement, prostate vitamins, assisted living for rich people, hospice care, a Jewish funeral home. Around St. Patrick's Day you get tours to Ireland - visit dead ancestors! Other commercials lean toward luxury cars; Lexus,Mercedes. BMW offers a Jacuzzi & full body massage while you're waiting for an oil change. Rub in it in on folks driving old Toyotas. But wait, all suits on sale ninety-nine dollars! Your life is a cheap suit.

Labels: culture, media madness, religion

The Senate Monday night approved unanimously a compromise bill (S.328) that would move the DTV transition date from Feb. 17 to June 12, but it must now be reconciled with a House version of the bill, and quickly, point out backers of the legislation.

Senator Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and the bill's co-sponsor, sought a similar vote on his original bill, which would simply have moved the date from Feb. 17 to June 12. That bill was blocked by at least one Republican, which is all it takes.

Rockefeller then teamed with ranking Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison on a compromise bill that dealt with other issues, including unclogging the DTV-to-analog converter box backlog and access to reclaimed analog TV spectrum by industry and first responders. Most importantly, at least in terms of getting Republican support, the bill is revenue-neutral, meaning the cost of making the move will be underwritten by future FCC spectrum auctions.

Postponement is good idea, & if the Repugs knocked out millions in additional consumer education money, that was a good idea, too. Everybody knows what's gonna happen. They ought to extend the expiration dates for the $40 discount cards. The main problem is availability of converters. Some are better than others, & as reviews were posted at various retail websites the good ones sold out - all $50-$70, & Amazon isn't even posting "more on the way" notices like it does for other stuff. Shoprite had a quality converter on sale this week & the item either sold out Sunday or the store never received the shipment at all - customer service was clueless.

Labels: media madness

Labels: media madness, New Jersey, postcard, WFMU

Thirty years ago, five teenage boys vanished after playing basketball in Newark, N.J. They were never heard from again.

Their remains were never found, Social Security numbers never used -- and no arrests have ever been made. But the community has never forgotten its tragic loss.

Melvin Pittman, 17, Randy Johnson, 16, Ernest Taylor, 17, Alvin Turner, 16, and Michael McDowell, 16, who have become known as "The Clinton Avenue Five," vanished Aug. 20, 1978. Wednesday marks the 30th anniversary of their disappearance.

This was not then, & would not be now, a Nancy Grace Show type of story. No blonde All-American girl in Aruba mystery. Move along, folks, nothing of interest here.

Police initially believed the boys had run away, but the family said they weren't the type to do that. Just one of the boys, McDowell, of East Orange, got into trouble once for a fistfight, but the others -- sophomores and juniors at Weequahic High School -- never got into trouble at all, according to The New York Times.

Trouble. The boys' movements were traced into the pickup truck of a contractor who had reportedly offered them work. He passed a polygraph test, the trail ended there.

But despite the disturbing, painful facts of their disappearance, there was precious little media coverage at the time. It was 1978 -- a decade after the Newark riots -- and many speculated that the reason local papers -- even The Star-Ledger -- and media outlets failed to cover the story at the time was because it was about five black boys.

The story of five black boys from Newark NJ. The Clinton Avenue Five.

Labels: in the news, media madness, New Jersey

(or maybe we didn't). You'd think the congressional suits were grilling an alleged New York Mafia consigliere or an alleged head of an international terrorist group. Roger Clemens does have an answer for everything, & as we all know from TV cop shows, that's usually a sign the suspect is hiding something. His trainer is lying. His best friend is mistaken. He's even jettisoned his wife, she's the one pumped up on growth hormones, & here's her electrolysis bills to prove it. Is this the same little chemical helper Sly Stallone was touting as the miracle behind his Rambo 2008 physique, a cross between Popeye & the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man going for rapper 50 Cent's medium security prison weightroom look?

But can Repugs run for reelection on this danger to national security? Oh, this year it's Red Alert for explosives hidden inside a prosthetic pregnant belly. Do Islamic terrorists even acknowledge that babies come from women rather than leaping fully-formed from the beards of radical mullahs? Or am I'm thinking of the Southern Baptist doctrine of Apostle Doubting Thomas & the Magic Cabbage Leaf.

Labels: media madness, sports

Now that Don Imus has been tossed off WFAN, let me know when it's safe to tune into WABC, where the mouths actually shill for the Repugs, theocrats, neofascists, homophobes & warmongers, & publish their spew in books that are on the shelves of my local library. Won't be as easy as shooting a half-dead fish in a barrel. I don't even want to think about what's on the AM radio dial west of the Delaware River.

One of my correspondents noted that the Imus controversy extended the media "sell date" of the Rutgers women's basketball team. Indeed, not only did it completely upstage Tennessee in the brief news cycle alotted to the women's NCAA championship game, it brought Rutgers out of the sports section on to the front pages & took the team all the way to Oprah's national stage. Sitting in a local Dunkin' Donuts that has a large flat screen TV tuned 24/7 to CNN, I watched clips of the Rutgers press conference immediately following updates on Anna Nicole Smith's baby. You can't buy that kind of publicity. Make no mistake, it was good publicity. & this team really is a team rather than the assortment of NBA-in-waiting egos you find in most top tier programs on the men's side.

Update: It's news that's creating news now, as NJ Governor Corzine was seriously injured in a crash on his way to a meeting between Imus & the Scarlet Knights. Bummer. Oddly, he's the third consecutive elected governor to break a leg while in office. Dick Codey gets to run things again.

Labels: media madness, Rutgers