Media Log: R.I.P.
It is with great sadness that we all say goodbye to Dan Kennedy's Media Log blog which he wrote for the Boston Phoenix. Dan will be heading to academia, teaching journalism at Northeastern University, at the end of the summer. Dan's last post is here: ["The Last Post"]. Our loss, however, will be his journalism students' gain. And, as Kennedy says in the post, there may be a personal blog coming together soon at his site, dankennedy.net.
Over the years, Dan has been good to me on his blog and his features about Boston talk radio for the Phoenix. We've never met, but he appeared on my radio talk show in Boston a couple of times. The first time was to face off with me on whether or not independent candidates should be covered by the media.
At the time, Kennedy was temporarily covering some political races for the Phoenix, watching the 1996 Senate race between Democratic incumbent John Kerry and then-Gov. William Weld, a Republican, and the 10th Congressional District open seat featuring then-Quincy D.A. Bill Delahunt and Republican Ed Teague. In both races, there were third candidates: Susan Gallagher, running as an independent under the Conservative Party moniker for the Senate seat, and a friend of mine, Charles Laws, who was running for the seat as a Green Party member [Laws would later mount unsuccessful races for Congress and Governor as a Green in Nevada where his wife's parents live].
Both Laws and Gallagher appeared on my show a number of times, and in my mind, were credible candidates. Gallagher showed on a whole host of issues, Kerry and Weld were pretty much the same. A close analysis of their positions on trade, abortion, immigration, the Peso bailout, globalism, media consolidation, financials, welfare reform, and so much more, showed that Gallagher's comments rang true. This gave her credibility as a candidate because she was clearly offering a different choice to voters. The 1996 race was more about minutiae than any other race I have ever seen, with most people just voting based on the candidates' labels. Kerry even admitted in one of the last debates that he believed Gallagher should have been allowed to debate [This could be taken two ways: As a shining moment for Kerry, showing true concern for fairness, in an otherwise pretty abysmal political career, or, as a politically calculating shameless plug and attempt to get a conservative on TV so she could shave votes from Weld. Later on, Kerry and the Democrats showed us what they thought about liberal independents who want to run outside of the box by their reprehensible treatment of Ralph Nader and others during election cycles]. Laws - a former engineer, veteran, and small business owner with a wealth of knowledge and ideas - blew away the presentations of both Delahunt and Teague over and over again. Hardly a socialist like some Greens, Laws approached issues from the viewpoint of commonsense. Again, like Gallagher, Laws was offering the voters a different choice and should have been covered.
So, why weren't these two interesting candidates being covered? Because they ran outside the two-party system and showed the flaws in said system and the media elites who control the news didn't want voters then - or now - to think beyond the two-party structure which they can so easily manipulate and control. It made too much sense to cover Gallagher and Laws, never mind that they both gathered thousands of signatures with a handful of volunteers ... it might turn into anarchy or something if you gave them coverage!
Anyhow, while on my show, Kennedy, if I recall correctly, said the independents shouldn't be covered because they wouldn't make a difference and they couldn't win, the usual talking points on independent candidates. But the difference between Kennedy and other writers is that he was a good sport; he actually took a pretty good swath of criticism from me and even admitted that politics wasn't his strongest front and later, IMHO, showed improvement in his political writings by growing as a journalist, as we all try to do. He didn't take offense that someone was critical of him, like so many others: he worked harder. That is a testament of a true journalist.
As well, from that point on, Dan gave me a lot of credibility in many of his writings.
In the end, on the 1996 elections, Kennedy was somewhat right: Gallagher wasn't a factor in the race, receiving 4 percent of the vote and Weld lost to Kerry by much more than that. And neither was Laws, who also received 4 percent in a race where Teague was killed by Delahunt. But the fact that these candidates may not win isn't the point. Weld didn't win and neither did Teague. In fact, Teague never even had a chance of winning despite the population growth of moderates and conservatives on the South Shore and Cape, and despite the fact that he was a member of the state's second major party. His chances were barely much better than Laws in reality.
Unfortunately, for all of their work, criss-crossing the state in Gallagher's case, and campaigning around the 10th for Laws, who had to ferry in from Martha's Vineyard to attend events, they were both completely - and wrongly - ignored. Indie candidates proceeding 1996 have also shown that the press is completely ignorant when it comes to covering politics, and in actuality, perpetuate much of the brainwashing that goes on in the political game.
So there is a bit of history.
However, the larger point is that Kennedy will be missed and not just because he occasionally promoted me and Politizine. He will be missed because he was a great media critic, caught a lot of good stuff over the years, exposed it to the public, and made all of us much better at finding fault in the media. This, in turn, helped those of us in the media who read his stories or blog entries become better journalists. And now he will bring that skill into the classroom at Northeastern.

Links-O-Rama
Here are a bunch of links I haven't had time to publish but I feel like clearing out my favorites box so here they are:
* Howie Carr at the Ford Hall Forum? Yup, it actually happened: ["Fish out of water"].
* Is Robert Novak Schizophrenic? May: ["No Romney in 2008?"] June: ["Make no mistake, Mitt’s run has begun, but can a Mormon be elected President?"].
* Ralph Nader makes another great point: ["Hemp for Victory"].
* Billy Graham, a Hillary fan? Read the fine print and say, Oh no!: ["Clinton Honors Graham at Final Revival"].
* Christians: "Free" trade hurts the poor: ["The Cost of 'Free Trade' To Africa's Poor: $272 Billion "]
* China wants oil ... and they are willing to pay billions to control it: ["Chinese Oil Company Offers $18.5 Billion for Unocal"].
* Is it time to Freecycle? You be the judge: ["Freecycle"].
* Live 8 Concerts on TV: ["MTV, VHI to Show Much of Live 8 Concert"].
* Dems reveal Ohio problems: ["Democrats find 2004 voting problems in Ohio"]. Here is the full report: [http://www.democrats.org/vri/ohioreport/]. But, maybe these voting machine problems aren't really the problem, as noted here: ["Why the Democrats Will Keep Losing"].
* No surprise: Wisconsin Dems want Feingold to run in 2008: ["Favorite Son Feingold Wins Pres. Preference"]. Feingold has a new fund too: ["Progressive Patriots Fund"]
* Changing our money ... to make it stand for Liberty: ["The Liberty Dollar Bill"].
* Drip, drip, drip ... ["Last Days"].
* MyDD: The pleasant Daily Kos alternative: [MyDD.com].
* Zeese interviews Frank: ["What the Left Must Learn from 2004"]. BTW, Joshua Frank's new book, "Left Out: How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush," is a must read.
* Former Bush Administration official calls the collapse of the World Trade Towers "bogus" and suggests it was a controlled demolition: ["UPI Hears..."]. The entire column written by Morgan Reynolds is here: ["Why Did the Trade Center Skyscrapers Collapse?"].
* Boston Herald whacks veteran reporters, staff: ["Amid cuts, Herald loses newsroom veterans"]. As a former "made member of the Purcell clan" - via CNC, this is so sad to watch. The Herald used to be such a hot paper and now it is just a filthy tab. It is so, so sad.
* Dems want Dean to go off: ["Democratic leaders back Dean, don't want 'wimp'"].
* Greens continue to lose credibility: ["Santa Monica City Council member leaves party"].
* But here is another Green that is intriguing: ["Elect Gloria"].

Good works ...

This story appeared in The Bow Times last week.

I forget the exact saying but it goes something about good works are those you perform when no one is looking. But every once and in a while, it is nice to get recognized for something good that you do for someone else. As well, this is the positive side of community journalism which sometimes is just reporting on corrupt officials, misused municipal funds and crime.

The death of the Gehring children was a terrible tragedy in our state, one made all the worse because the remains of the children have not been found. I will never understand why people do such horrible things. There was no reason that these children had to die. Almost everything in our lives can be resolved without death. I truly hope and pray that Teri can find her children and lay them to rest. She has strength and I know she will be able to find them.

Here is the site where you can learn more about the children and where they may be: [PhilipandSarah.com]. If you live anywhere between Grove City, Penn. and Iowa City, Iowa, along I-80, please take a look around and help Teri find her children.

The Noise Top 30 chart for July
For a couple of years now, I have been compiling Boston radio station playlists and putting together a Top 30 chart for The Noise, Boston's local music magazine. The chart represents New England area bands which have received airplay on local music shows. I will be publishing this list monthly here and there will be a link to The Noise Web site where folks can find the list. Here is the Top 30 list for July:

1. Ad Frank & the Fast Easy Women – The World’s Best Ex-Boyfriend
2. Willie “Loco” Alexander & the Boom Boom Band – Dog Bar Yacht Club
3. The Bags – Sharpen your Sticks
4. The Marvels – Cheat to Win
5. Rock City Crimewave – Six the Hard Way
6. Auto Interiors – Let’s Agree to Deceive Our Best Friends EP
7. Sarah Borges – Silver City
8. Asa Brebner – Hot Air
9. LABB – Coup de Grace
10. Ziaf – Hello Boy, You Come with Me
11. The Konks – The Konks
12. Ellis Paul – American Jukebox Fables
13. The Stone Coyotes – Fire it Up
14. Blitzkriegbliss – Every Day is Marked
15. The Charms – Pussycat
16. Flynn – An American Wake
17. Crash and Burn – The Value of Mistrust
18. Mary Timony – Ex Hex
19. Ho-Ag – Pray for the Worms EP
20. Cyanide Valentine – Let it Rot
21. Bane – The Note
22. Andrea Gillis – Andrea Gillis
23. Ashby – Looks like You’ve Already Won
24. The Black Clouds – Black Clouds
25. Cheaterpint – Cheaterpint
26. Marissa Nadler – The Saga of Mayflower May
27. The Static Age – Neon Nights Electric Lives
28. Amun Ra – Bloom
29. Amusia – Way Back Down
30. The Cautions – Proceed with … The Cautions

Reporting stations: WAAF, WBCN, WFNX, WMBR, WMFO, WTCC, WZBC

So what else is going on?
Well, the rumors that Sen. John Kerry was going to call for President Bush's impeachment were not true. Nothing has happened so far in the Downing Street Memo situation but it is still early. Kerry seems to have chickened out on his threat. Typical ... And, why was he not a flip flopper again?

Q1: Will Bush be impeached Monday?

The Internet and global press have been abuzz about something called The Downing Street Memo, written in July 2002 and recently released in Britain: ["The secret Downing Street memo"].
In the memo, British intelligence officials claim that the Bush administration was rigging intelligence to make the case for invading Iraq. Here is the suspected incriminating segment of the memo:

"C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."

This memo has been virtually ignored by the mainstream press in the U.S. and a Google of the words "Downing Street Memo" pretty much proves this, even though the story was broken in early May in the British press and clearly affected that country's election cycle since Blair barely hung on to keep his seat [Isn't it interesting that we hear everything about the Royals but nothing about this? We heard about Charles' second wedding to the woman whose tampon he once said he wanted to be; we still hear about Diana, almost eight years after her death; but nary a word about this].

Deep Throat revealed

Well, now we find out who that true American hero was: W. Mark Felt, the former No. 2 man at the FBI: ["I was Deep Throat, says top FBI man "].
It is astonishing that this secret has been kept for so long. And think about it for a second: Many people knew who this guy was, and yet they didn't reveal the source ... after more than three decades. That is quite an accomplishment in this day and age. Considering the fact that a whole bunch of Nixon henchmen would have loved to wring this guy's neck, it is amazing he is still alive! After listening to Pat Buchanan seething on MSNBC's "Hardball" tonight and it is clear that even decades later, some folks still think this way [Matthew's batted "Pitchfork" Pat down when he started to go off blaming Felt for the fall of Southeast Asia, which is a bit of a stretch].
A secret source. One little secret source who revealed all. And yet, no one was able to find out until now, when the guy decided late in life to reveal himself, at the urging of his family.
Now, think about other secrets that are being held for just a second more and who may know them. Do you think that those secrets could be held even though many people might know the secret? How many people does it take to hold a secret and how many is too many to hold a secret? And how many are too many when the secret gets out? It seems like secrets are pretty hard to hold these days. Or, are they?
In some ways, it is different with a source. A journalist's source is his lifeblood. You never want to burn them or they will no longer help you get your stories. As well, when burned, that source will no longer help other journalists and therefore, other sources, seeing that Source A got burned, will hesitate to expose problems within government, business, etc., which sometimes need to be exposed.
All of this brings me to another point about secrets and modern times. There are a lot of "conspiracies" on the Web about the TWA 800 flight, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Sept. 11 tragedy, and other things that we may never actually know the truth about. Similar to the JFK conspiracies, some of these are completely out there. And yet others aren't so out there, like the theory that a missile hit TWA 800, especially since hundreds of people claim to have seen a missile hit the plane, or whether a jet actually flew into the Pentagon. Anyone who looks at the pictures of the Pentagon right after the incident can presume pretty easily that a jet didn't fly into that building. There's no plane wreckage. The entire front lawn would be on fire from the spilled fuel. The hole in the building is a fraction of the size of the wingspan of a jet. Later, when adding in the puzzle piece that the FBI confiscated all the videotaped security of the area and still refuse to release any of these tapes to the public - although they did release three frames from a Pentagon camera which doesn't show anything but the explosion - and it's impossible to assume that a plane hit that building. However, we consider it a fact right now.
But, with almost all of these conspiracies, there would have to be a whole slew of people who knew the secret but would not reveal it. They would have to be sworn to secrecy. Not once could they reveal the conspiracy. Not after drinking too much and blurting out the truth. It would have to be sealed - like a secure suture. But as we know, humans are flawed. They can't keep a mistress a secret never mind a global conspiracy of the size that some of these would have to be.
I have always believed that it is for this reason that no one could pull off some of the most outrageous theories ever written about in the history of mankind. Too many people would have to be involved. Too many people would know the secret to risk a leak. Then again, some of them are so outrageous that no one would ever believe the leak, right? Then, there is Deep Throat and the press, letting the public know the truth after all these years ... Not revealing Deep Throat seems to have been more of a courtesy than the norm.

Other secrets?
But even when "the truth" gets out - in the form of say, public discourse or opinion - it doesn't mean that anyone will listen.
A couple of days ago, I had an email conversation with an acquaintance of mine on a radio email list about radio talk show host Chuck Harder, who once had this network called For the People and sold American-made goods and odd, inaccessible books via mail order. This woman is a former college professor and didn't like the fact that Harder went after the Clintons and talked about various "conspiracy" topics on his show, like the issue of microchips embedded in people, the sucking sounds of jobs going overseas, that Vince Foster didn't kill himself in Ft. Marcy Park, that Timothy McVeigh didn't act alone in blowing up the Murrah Federal Building, etc., you know, typical Buchanan stuff. As well, her main point was about the overwhelming amount of conservative talk radio and on that point, we completely agree.
But, I liked some of Harder's conversations and having listened to him over the years and done some of my own research, I found a number of his theories and fears to be pretty feasible. And, as history has shown us, most of the stuff Harder talked about at the time has shockingly come true.
Go through the list: Transponders are now in everything - from unknown black boxes on GM cars, to RFIDs in clothing tags, to pets who might run away, to Lowjack and OnStar. They were even implanted into the IDs of Olympiads so authorities would know where they were at any given time. The new REAL ID legislation which sailed through the Congress is potentially the final step to a national ID system which has potentially serious privacy implications. Retinal scanners at airports? They're there too in Europe. Cameras watching your every move? In most urban areas, look up and you'll see one, although they are doing much to "fight crime." This isn't paranoia; this is awareness. There is even legislation to consider implanting biometric chips into Alzheimer's patients so you always know where they are. You can almost hear the ads .... bombarding the airwaves similar to all the ED ads ... a calm, soothing voice comes over the air, ala a "Robocop" ad:

"Is your dad wandering around aimlessly in later life and not knowing where he is? Give yourself peace of mind ... with the Elder Secure ... the implantable biochip device ... so you can sleep at night ..."

Ten or 15 years ago, all these points would have been considered "tinfoil hat talk." Yet, it has all come true. And you don't have to be a Biblical scholar to realize that this stuff smacks of "The Mark of the Beast." Where is the Stephen King novel to go with all the reality?
I remember one talk host I heard years and years ago - I think it was Tom Donahue or one of those short wave guys, not Harder, but I can't remember the guy's name - who said that car manufacturers were working on a mechanism where cops could click on a device built into a car and be able to shut the car off. I remember telling a couple of friends of mine about this program and they laughed at me like I was in the loony bin. Well, with OnStar, they can stop or start your car by remote. They can unlock your car by remote. And they have been accused of listening in on people having private conversations in their car. Law enforcement officials are also keeping an eye on how this technology progresses. Will it be long before a new version of the PATRIOT Act is unveiled giving the authorities the sweeping power to be able to stop your car for any reason beyond what they have now? They are pretty close to that, aren't they?
We all know that the jobs have gone overseas due to this myth known as "free trade" - in droves. Whole towns have completely lost their job base. Whole manufacturing sectors are doing everything overseas. At the same time, illegal aliens are flooding over the border; searching for a better life [Can you blame them? Why work in a maquiladora for $1 an hour when you can wash dishes for two to three times that? Why live in a cardboard shack with toxic waste running down your dirt street when a bunch of you can be shacked up in a one bedroom apartment enjoying cable TV and cold beer?]. Even some proponents of NAFTA are regretting their positions. We all remember former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean backing off on his position, along with some other Democrats [until they lost the election and now they are tinkering with the new CAFTA agreement, which expands "free trade" into Latin and Central America]. Here is an article about Rep. Esteban Torres of California who previously supported NAFTA and now says he was wrong: ["Esteban Torres speaks out: Regrets of a NAFTA supporter"]. Imagine that: A politician essentially admitting he was wrong without admitting he was wrong.
I won't go into the Vince Foster thing because there hasn't been any new information on that but I would advise people who may be interested in this conspiracy to check out some of the information about it. You will come to the same conclusion I did: Foster was probably dropped in the park and probably didn't take his life there. He may have done it somewhere else or he may have been killed. But no one has been able to explain away the forensic evidence and all the blond hairs and rug fibers found on Foster's person.
But what about Oklahoma City? Did anyone see this?: ["FBI has secret docs it's reluctant to give up"]. What are they hiding? When will they release all of what they have? A trial isn't just about getting revenge for an act; it is about truth and justice. And then there was Terry Nichols a few weeks back revealing that there was another guy involved in the bombing. The guy he fingered denies involvement. He must like his freedom too much to admit to being involved, which is understandable. But what else is there? Maybe McVeigh shouldn't have been lethally injected so we might be able to appeal to his inner self and get the whole story. Otherwise, we are not truly safe from "the terrorists," are we?
The point of all this? Is Chuck Harder a prophet or just a lucky guesser? I don't know but I do know this: Harder's network has been decimated and he has few affiliates broadcasting his show anymore while at the same time we have many liars and thieves - sans my boss, of course - holding onto the public's airwaves and licenses and not using them for the public good. It would seem that with his record for revealing "the truth," Harder would be on the air everywhere. And, he is not.

Millionaire rock stars protesting the world
I can be such a "heartless bass-stahd" sometimes but this rock stars protesting world governments is really starting to irk me even if I agree with their premise and their point. Bob Geldoff is at it again: ["Geldof announces Live 8 stars"]. You can almost hear the guy scheming [add Irish pub accent here]: "Hey guys, I gottan idea. Let's have a buncha concerts, see. And we'll like, protest the World Bank and stuffs, see. Mate, it will be bloody fun and maybe it will help me move sommore remastered reissues of the Boomtown Rats box set, see ..."
Sure, Geldoff doesn't really care about CD sales but I can't help but think ...
And the corrupt Elton John pictured with Geldoff - a man who blew tens of millions of dollars and basically went into bankruptcy buying fresh flowers - lecturing anyone about global finance is simply preposterous and obscene.
And, as I have written before, if Bono wants to do something to help the people of Africa, stop having lunch with Condi Rice ["Bono to Condi -- All I Want is You to aid Third World"] and start a world tour to raise money to do something about the plight of the African nations (Wonkette had a picture of Condi looking star-struck and Bono looking disinterested but I can't find it now). How many shows did U2 sell out in Boston, three? Four? How many more people in Boston would have paid to see them? Enough for three or four more shows? Well, do it already. Sap the tens of millions of dollars you can out of the American music fan and transfer the money to some organization which will actually get something done there, like implement an inexpensive HIV drug program.
Save the world, Bono! You can do it, I know you can! Protesting these nations, embarrassing their leaders, dining with Condi in some chi-chi restaurant, holding press conferences, etc., isn't going to do a damn bit of good. Put your money where your mouth is and self-finance the hope. End of lecture.

The world is going crazy, Part 3
Here is the latest in my continued amazement of the world around me. Someone, please, figure this all out because for the life of me, I cannot.
The Supremes - not the musical trio two-thirds of which were left high and dry by Diana Ross - the court: ["Justices Overturn Andersen Conviction"]. What? Can anyone say, "technicality"? I can almost hear the blathering in the financial world that this case was "all about nothing" and "that evil liberal district judge trying to keep a corporation from its God-given rights ..." blah, blah, blah ... Question: Since when is shredding documents acceptable and not about keeping regulators from "the truth"? Watch it: There is that truth stuff again. How stupid can anyone be to throw this ruling out? This isn't some homeless guy who stole a slice of pizza and is going to jail for life because a state has a three strikes and you're out legislation [Oh, that's right, that guy is still in jail!]. This is an accounting firm! These guys should be made an example of and strung up in the publik square [Old English spelling, sorry, couldn't resist]! Oh, okay, not strung up. But at least their mansions should be taken away.
Jack Rabid, the editor of one of the best music magazines on the planet, the bi-annual The Big Takeover, has a great editorial this issue about bankruptcy laws and how businesses, such as the one that has stiffed him for about $9,000 in back monies, are almost never held accountable to anyone because as an entity, they are almost escapable from any type of enforcement. A hit like that for a small magazine such as his is sometimes a death sentence. However, Jack [and his many helpers] somehow manages to keep it together and continue to put out great music literature.
FEC to go after bloggers: This is pretty creepy right here ["FEC treads into sticky web of political blogs"] but at the same time, it may not be. The key here is what a specific blog is about and whether you are a "journalist" or a political "activist." If you are a journalist, you can't accept monies from any political entity [just story tips]. If you are an activist, your site should be noted as such and if you are being paid by a campaign, you should also note that as well. There has been some discussion about this issue and it really is very clear without the FEC regulations. In the case of DailyKos, whose owner was paid as a consultant for the Dean campaign to get its Web operation up and running, it has been a bit sticky. Kos did note on numerous occasions that he was being paid a fee by the campaign to consult for them. At the same time, he posted comments on his blog about the campaign and the candidate. It was no big secret despite what the WSJ has said. Since his blog is also a very large posting board for political activists, journalists, elected officials, and junkies, it may have been a conflict in the FEC's eyes although I didn't see any during the time I participated in conversations on the site. As well, Kos has disclaimers on his ads so that people know the site has political ads.
The problem with Kos' site is that it is no longer about "political analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation." It's an echo chamber of liberal and centrist Democrats sounding off about whatever and troll-rating out of existence any free-thinking folks and their thoughts. Even politicians like Rep. John Conyers are interacting with the site, with his comments being recommended almost daily, meaning his diaries stay on the front page for days.
No offense to Conyers, who seems like a decent man, but don't we get enough of the politicians?
So FEC, regulate away I guess. At least with the disclaimers, readers will know which sites are about exposing "the truth" - there is that funny truth stuff again - and which are just flogging a specific candidate or political party, if the bloggers so decide to abide by the rules and disclose such points. It should be noted that a lot of stuff flies under the radar of the FEC. So, don't expect this to really change anything.

The world is going crazy ... Part 2
If you take away almost a month of blogging from yourself, the saved links start to pile up in your "favorites" file. So, here are some that I have been collecting over the past few weeks, and a few comments to go along with them.
First, from a few hours ago, the otherwise unreadable [and unhinged] Ann Coulter posts a halfway decent piece here, noting some pretty significant bias by Newsweek, which did hold stories about charges against former President Bill Clinton, especially the very credible rape charge: ["'NEWSWEEK DISSEMBLED, MUSLIMS DISMEMBERED!'"]. But what she doesn't realize - because she is completely blinded by her own ideology - is that the reports of Quran desecration were widespread throughout the foreign press. It is safe to assume - especially since the Pentagon refuses to release any information to the contrary - that the reports are accurate.
Although I was stupidly banned from DailyKos for calling John Kerry a flip-flopper [it was a troll rate attack by a bunch in the ABB crowd after the hilarious post first debate skit on SNL], I still like to keep up with some of the diaries that are posted on the site. Here is an interesting post from a speaker at a recent commencement: ["My Bitch Slap to the Class of 2005"]. I especially like this quote, after the speaker asked how many of the Bush supporters were signing up to serve in the military to back the president's cause and found out there was only one single student serving:

"Thank you, sir. The rest of you then lack the conviction that is needed for America to succeed. If you are not willing to back the leader of this country in his ambitions to defeat terrorism and promote democracy with your bodies, then how can we expect you to defend it from anything else. So I am going to stop wasting my breath about talking about the Chinese and Indian students who believe [in] what they preach. Because they have already won. Until American youth and their parents are willing to actually practice what they preach [vis a vie] their bumper stickers, then talking about real threats is pointless. I guess we will continue to graduate hypocrites. That appears to be the new America Way."

Such a brilliant piece and so well put.
Recently, I interviewed a woman involved with a group encouraging civic engagement in young people. They seem to be doing good work. The woman noted that while there was a lot of public service being done by the students there wasn't a lot of voting or interaction between young people and elected officials. Of course, while she was encouraged by the public service young people were performing, she and others ignore the biggest problem: Most of this public service is forced in school, as a part of graduation, meaning that it isn't about "serving" as much as it as about a student doing what he has to do in order to get the high school diploma. This is something that has always annoyed me ever since I started following these public service credits more than five years ago. What it all means is that while some of these kids might learn a little about helping out others, it is really only a task to be accomplished and not really about learning how another person lives ... how another person suffers ... how another person is harmed by the holes in society ... Is it really just enough to go feed the hungry for a day and get credit for it or is it more important to actually know what it is like to be hungry and figure out ways of fixing the problem? This is why the diarist from Kos is so relevant - the kids of today aren't solving problems, they are just learning about them. And when the assuming affluent kids and their parents are asked to serve a higher cause other than their own, they balk. Send someone else's kid off to die for my cause, is essentially what they are saying by their actions.
Moving on. I really dig Coldplay. They are one of the better new bands although I think many of the other music snobs of the world don't like them because so many dorks do like them. Anyhow, the new album will be out in a couple of weeks and I can't wait to hear it. One of the other cool things about Coldplay - beyond being a great band - is that they love Echo & the Bunnymen. Singer Chris Martin is also a fair trader and as we can see from this rant: ["Coldplay attack 'evil' of profits"] is still a pretty funny guy. I especially like these lines: "I think shareholders are the great evil of this modern world ..." and criticizing "the slavery that we are all under to shareholders." So Chris, the new Coldplay CD is like, free, right?
Speaking of the Bunnymen, they came to the states to play a handful of shows - none of them in my neck of the woods, so I missed them - but here is a post from a guy in Philly who had a post-Bunnymen party, was arrested for promoting it, but the band actually showed up!: ["Busted And Blitzed With The Bunnymen: A Short Story By Joey Sweeney"]. Isn't Mac looking a lot like Mick Jagger these days? Damn, we are all getting so old.
There is a new film, "The Power of Nightmares," making its way around the film fests. This one looks as interesting as "F9/11": ["UK film at Cannes says terror fears exaggerated"] and this: ["The Power of Nightmares: Baby It's Cold Outside"]. And then there is this: ["U.S. House Votes to Replace Color-Coded Terror Threat Warnings"]. What? No more FoxNews alerts?! What, pray tell, will we all do?!?
Dartmouth gets a blog: ["The Little Green Blog"].
So does Greek goddess Arianna Huffington: ["The Huffington Post"].
Comic Ted Rall can sometimes be very hurtful. His comments are like salt in the wound of an infection that just won't heal, like his comment making fun of the death of the football player who went to Afghanistan and was killed by friendly fire, Pat Tillman. But at the same time, his comments can sometimes be dead on. Here, in this column, he makes some really great points: ["Black and White and full of crap"].
It's been a week ... some of us are still waiting for answers: ["Bush asked to explain UK war memo"]. Oh, that's right, we're distracted. I'm still concerned about Newsweek ...
With "Star Wars" about to open at movie screens across America in about 45 minutes, this link seems rather appropriate: ["How Lightsabers Work"].
John Edwards is right: "Don't listen to Mary Beth Cahill ..." ["Edwards Looks Back - And Ahead to 2008"]. Rumors have it that he'll be in New Hampshire sometime next month and some insiders are already thinking seriously about an Edwards campaign. Other names being circ'ed? Sen. Evan Bayh and Gov. Mark Warner. The name that is bringing the most indigestion to insiders? Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. And John Kerry is D.O.A. Thank heavens.

The world is going crazy ... Part 1
My posts have become much too infrequent. But that is what happens when you are busy doing a job you love.
However, while we are all performing our jobs, raising our families, trying to grasp what is going on, it is clear that the entire world is going mad ... insane ... crazy. When is up down and down up? When is truth a lie and a lie, the truth? Right now baby.
While I love my job in radio, sometimes I miss print. Radio is hot ... fast ... quick ... and what you say is sometimes forgotten in a split second ... slipping in one ear and out the other. Which, frankly, is good in a hot medium. Sure, some of your words may have a lasting effect and inform. But radio only works with repetition. Hence, the need to play a song five times a day until you can't leave without hearing the song and you go out and buy the record only to realize that you have bought the record and are now sick of the song!
With print, however, words can often have a very lasting effect on whatever you write about. First, the writer often has a physical copy of what he has written. In radio, you can back up your work on CDRs or tape, but you can't physically look at the words on a page. Sure, you can listen to them, but it isn't quite the same as reading. If the words are biting, heated, or hurtful, they can perform devastating harm on those you are targeting with the writing. But the printed word can also illuminate ideas and reveal the truth to the reader [or listener].
Such is the case of Newsweek magazine "scandal" and retraction this week which in an oft-handed remark seems to have set off a firestorm in the Islamic world. For the last two days, the story has been all over the media - an unnamed government official reportedly gave reporter Michael Isikoff inaccurate information about the Quran being desecrated at Gitmo [It should be noted that Isikoff is one of those "cocktail crowd-types" I am always complaining about]. Interesting that it is a government official [like maybe a plant to make Isikoff look bad] that would leak this. Of course, this makes the case why no one in the media should use unnamed sources, if at all possible.
However, deep in this ABC News piece, you see a little reality: ["White House: Newsweek Story Did Great Harm"]:

"The Newsweek account was not the first allegation about U.S. personnel desecrating the Quran at Guantanamo Bay. British and Kuwaiti detainees alleged last year that they saw U.S. personnel flushing a Quran down the toilet. The Pentagon has been unwilling to say if those allegations were investigated."

In fact, according to bloggers, the NYT, the LA Times, the UK Guardian, the Daily Mirror, and other foreign papers, have all reported the stories in Newsweek. So, what is the problem here? It is either correct or it isn't. Since the Pentagon "has been unwilling to say if those allegations were investigated" or pronounce them true, the press has to take the word of the witness and testimonial, and report what might happen to be the facts that time.
Howard Kurtz, the media critic of The Washington Post, a subsidiary of Newsweek's parent company, has a great piece here: ["Debate Over Newsweek Retraction of Report Widens"]. Here is a very telling point:

"The Newsweek report triggered protests that turned violent in Afghanistan and other countries, causing at least 16 deaths, although the degree to which the article was responsible remains unclear. Pentagon officials have blamed Newsweek, which is owned by The Washington Post Co., for sparking the violence, but Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week that his senior commander in Afghanistan had told him the riots were 'not at all tied to the article.'"

This paragraph should have been written like this: " ...the Newsweek article reportedly triggered protests ..." especially when Kurtz writes that Myers said the riots were not tied to the article. It isn't fact. Kurtz doesn't know.
But, since down is up and up is down, we actually know why these riots are being tied to this article - and not the others in many other newspapers around the world over the last two years. Because the president's PR flack, Scott McClellan, planted the story in the media with exclusive - unheard of - one on one briefings to stir up the pot on Newsweek. This couldn't have anything to do with say, The Downing Street documents which are being curiously censored by the media even though they indicate that the Bush Administration may have lied to make its case for invading Iraq look better, could it? It couldn't be the fact that while Isikoff used a single unnamed source in his article that the Bush Administration used a single unnamed source to make the case that Iraq had a mobile biological weapons lab? It couldn't be the fact that the Bush Administration used that crook Chalabi as a source for a whole bunch of other bogus lies and that somehow, someway, someday, when up is up and down is down again, we might wake up from this nightmare and realize that it was all a dream, hmm?

NAB/RTNDA: Day 3
The third day here in Vegas was a particularly interesting one because I was able to attend a couple of conferences and also take in some of the more touristy sights around the strip.
I was out earlier than the rest of my team in an attempt to get to some events early. One of these events was the Educator Breakfast and Program about journalistic integrity vs. individual responsibility. But due to my ticket snafu, I was unable to get into the breakfast because it was a ticketed event and I didn’t have a ticket. I told the lady guard that I was only there to hear the speech and didn’t want any of the food - although it was 8:04 a.m. I was zooming on a Starbuck’s Caramel Macchiato - she didn’t budge, so I went off to do some writing [BTW, there are no Dunkin’ Donuts here].
Showing up early for the next seminar, “Are we becoming irrelevant?” or a discussion about citizen journalists and the blogosphere, proves to be a good decision since I am the only one in the room while they are setting up and most of the panelists introduce themselves, noting that I am on a computer. I confirm to them that while I am a radio news director, I am also a blogger and was writing the Day 2 post because I was kept out of the breakfast. The two folks I speak with have a quick laugh about that and go back to setting up their stuff.
The conversation was an interesting one, featuring three panelists and one, broadcasting from NYC via the Internet. There were some technical difficulties with phone levels for Jeff Jarvis, the president and creative director of Advance.net, who also posts for Buzzmachine.com and MSNBC, and was at the remote location but it was a neat trick.
Another panelist was Russ Hill, of KLS 1160 in Salt Lake City, a winner of the Edward R. Murrow Award for best radio news site, located here [http://radio.ksl.com/] . He explained that his news staff does more than just write news stories. They also take video cameras out to tape stuff, which is then transferred to the Web site, and they also allow reporters to blog about certain news stories. He said it accomplished two things: It allows the audience to get more access and familiarity with the news staff, and it allows the staff to write more about the news story than the 35 second stories which will air on the station. The station also allows for guest bloggers, almost like a column, to react to some of the stories. The blog is located here: [http://ksl.typepad.com/ksl_blog/]. Hill said they started doing this during the Lori Hacking investigation because the staff was getting a lot of details about the story which it couldn’t air. It is a voluntary process for news staffers there but also became a necessity when members of the staff were camped out for days on end at the dump as investigators searched for the missing woman. Hill advised attendees to embrace the new technology and use it as your own - before your competition does.
Most of the other panelists - Dan Gilmour of Grassroots Media, Inc. [also formerly the tech writer for the San Jose Mercury News], Terry Heaton, president of DONATA Communications, and Jarvis - all agreed that bloggers were here to stay and that journalists should use them just as they would any other source, when needed.
Jarvis was particularly populist about his comments concerning citizen journalists noting that the process of blogging was about control and the questioning of the mainstream media. He suggested that news orgs listen and read the blogs, highlight citizen journalists, use them for sources, empower them, and post their stories online.
Heaton said the importance of bloggers is that they were a threat to the status quo but that “the status quo needs challenging.” He said the level that journalists were being put on a pedestal was “abhorrent,” noting that some bloggers are “better journalists.” He also said that stagnation in the radio business wasn’t about revenue but about audience and that programmers were losing focus of the audience [by worrying about revenue, IMHO]. He added that news was becoming irrelevant to the country because departments weren’t listening to the audience and the “bottom up phenom” of citizen journalists, with the top working to control it, wasn’t a good model. The panel also talked about Pod casting - the use of iPods to download radio segments and play them back at a later date.
There were a bunch of questions from the audience, some dealing with legal issues while others dealt with interaction. Most of the panelists - unlike other panelists - weren’t so worried about any legal ramifications.
Gilmour said that every blogger could be a stringer for a radio org. and could be used as a rallying point for bottom up citizen media. One of the panelists, I forget which, noted that news orgs often use citizen video of tornadoes or citizen comment for stories, why not bloggers?
I came back to my point about the tabloidization of the mainstream press and the fact that while motivated by opinion; the bloggers were doing the hard investigations that reporters should be doing. Unlike the stuffed shirts at the big national radio chains, the panelists completely agreed with me that the mainstream was too tabloidy and this was one of the reasons for the citizen journalist and blog movement. Jarvis called my comments exactly right, saying: Bloggers take more seriously news selection of stories ... People will take on issues that are important … You aren’t going to see blogs talk about Michael Jackson … Bloggers look at economic things and take on issues that are too expensive to take on.
After the blogging seminar, I went to a discussion about managing extreme personalities in the newsroom. It was another productive conversation about identifying personality traits in your newsroom and then using techniques to move them to alter those traits.
With the RTNDA seminars over, I went back to the NAB area to check out some more booths, including the bookstore, where I didn’t find anything particularly interesting to me, and the Sennheiser booth - since I need a new pair - where I was able to try out some sound-blocking headphones.
Our group also got a chance to walk around the strip a bit and noticed that it seemed a lot more touristy than the first day we arrived. It is almost like Orlando and Miami combined only surrounded by mountains. The Venetian Hotel’s mall was amazing. It is literally Venice with a roof. Buildings inside the mall are two to three stories high with moats and gondolas drifting through the mall. In the center square, we were able to hear some opera singers and other musicians play as if we were right there in Venice. It was pretty spectacular … for a mall. I also noticed that in almost every hotel lobby and even at a couple of outdoor bars, there was a lot of new wave and 80s music. Hearing a cover band do "Send me an angel," by Reflex one night and the now classic "Blister in the sun," by the Violent Femmes and Blondie's "Heart of Glass" another night, was hilarious. Or hearing the Psychedelic Furs' "Heaven" or New Order's "Bizarre Love Triangle" blasting through the hotel lobby, was pretty cool as well.
We also noticed that there were almost no police in sight - either during the day or later on in the evening - although there were folks walking around with open containers everywhere and pretty much behaving themselves. There were a lot of mall-type cops and security guards, but not a lot of uniform. We speculated that they might be under cover cops. We also had lunch at the Bellagio which had an beautiful indoor garden with a butterfly net area in the middle of the hotel. We went to see the exotic car collection at the Imperial Palace then “Mystere,” by Cirque du Soleil.
Later today, we head out to check out the mountains before returning home.

NAB/RTDNA: Second day

Between all the things going on here and a mix up in my ticket registration, it didn’t seem like a productive Day 2. But in actuality, it has been.
To start, I managed to win a super-cool Marantz digital recorder PDM660 in one of those business card contests. On the first day here, I happened to pass by the Marantz/Denon booth and saw they were giving a bunch away. The PDM660 is the latest in recording technology for radio journalists. It records direct to .wav, .mpeg or .mp3 files instead of using minidisk [MD] format, which is actually pretty productive, as well as low cost. For whatever reason - probably because they have some other format coming - Sony is discontinuing MDs and all the major radio purchasing sites are no longer carrying recorders. What stinks is that the PDM660 is a $700 machine - whereas the MD recorders are in the $200 range. However, I’m told that the PDM660 allows for the computer user to grab the file and put it directly into Adobe Audition. This is actually a huge time-saver, since MDs require the real-time transfer of audio from MD player to Audition. This should save a slew of time in production of audio, especially long press conferences or meetings, which in the end, saves time which saves money.
But enough of the gadget talk.
Because of the ticket mix up, I was unable to get into a discussion about getting news stories in a pinch when nothing is going on. After trudging all the way back to the main registration desk on the other side of the convention center, I was able to get a new pass and catch the tail end of “50 investigations in 50 minutes,” hosted by Duane Pohlman of WEWS-TV. I plan on looking into purchasing the CDR of the talk because the last 10 minutes of the presentation which I did manage to catch were very enlightening.
While the discussion was mostly geared towards television and newspapers, the stories can be presented in any format. Topics like campaign finance contributions, pollution and drug statistics, child endangerment, and other things were listed. Most good reporters know to look at these things anyway. But it doesn’t hurt to get an overview.
Later in the day, our group rushed over to the NAB luncheon which really opened my eyes to not only the power that radio has over people’s lives but also the ability to connect with the community in a positive manner.
NAB President and CEO Eddie Fritts gave out Crystal Awards to 10 stations - narrowed down from 50 - for community service awards. To hear some of the things these stations did for their communities was truly impressive. Fundraisers, blood drives, voter reg. drives, charitable contributions and events, community meetings, hours and hours of assistance to communities they served was like nothing I’ve ever seen especially in these days of corporate-dominated media thinking of nothing more than the bottom line. It is also something to strive for in the future.
In the handout presented to luncheon attendees, all 50 stations really set out to serve their communities on a regular basis, however, a few of the 10 eventual winners really stood out. One station - KNOM-AM in Nome, Alaska - serves 150,000 square miles and flies 300 volunteers around the region to cover meetings and bring in audio clips to share with their listening public. Can you imagine that: Hundreds of folks, working for free, just to bring their regional news into the station? Amazing. What a community. Another station, WCMT in Martin, Tennessee, a 700-watt AM station, was also honored with an award, as was KLOS-FM in Los Angeles. A number of the other 10 stations named were under the ownership of Bonneville Broadcasting - a large corporate owner of more than 150 radio stations. Most of the speakers for those stations noted that the corporate mucky-mucks had encouraged GMs to reach out to the community - in big ways [I may talk later about NAB and the corporate owner issues. Right now, I want to stick to the positive]. I can’t stress enough how inspiring these awards were and all the work and time these stations put into the community - beyond an employee’s 40-plus hours a week. I couldn’t help but wonder how much good could get done if every employee of every company in media gave as much time. Of course, we all have personal lives too, and nothing is more important than taking care of one’s own family. But this part of the luncheon was really inspirational and really got me thinking about not only all the great things radio does but how much more we can do.
John Gage, the chief researcher and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, gave the keynote speech, speaking from random notes he put together from the day’s events on his Mac, which was then presented on large screens in the ballroom. Gage commended U2’s Bono for being able to galvanize thousands of people at concerts to use their cell phones to sign a petition to release the third world from their massive debts [As an aside, I am still waiting for Bono to take the initiative on this matter by going after the World Bank and IMF or even having U2 headline a massive tour in which the proceeds were donated to Africa aid relief. Can anyone say Live Aid II?].
Gage also discussed the benefits and dangers of new technology which was a bit compelling. Clearly, he had been gathering data, if you will, from the discussions at NAB, since this is a worry among broadcasters. Digital broadcasting to cell phones and other gadgets as well as the danger of RFIDs were also highlighted by Gage. He also introduced a new “product” his company worked on during the last two weeks - a converter for TVs which would distribute a digital signal to analog TVs which cost Sun about $30 in parts to build. Gage noted that current converters are about $300. He didn’t mention whether Sun would be getting into the converter business but his point was pretty clear to those folks who are working on the technology.
The late Jack Buck, a St. Louis-based baseball and football broadcaster, was given the NAB Hall of Fame Award. His second wife, Carole Buck, accepted the award and told humorous anecdotes of his life and charity and 50-plus years of sports broadcasting.
After the luncheon, I attended the last half of “What’s the future of radio news?” with a bunch of the big national radio news organizations as panelists: ABC, CBS, Clear Channel, NPR, and Sirius. The moderator, Thom Callahan, is the GM of AP Radio. The discussion, however, seemed less about “the future” of radio news and more about the current state of radio news. There was also some discussion about bloggers and how they can’t be trusted and neither could information on the Web.
Interestingly, a few of the panelists joked about wanting “world domination.” While it was a lighthearted comment by Robert Garcia, bureau chief of ABC Radio, others in attendance seemed to agree, including the guy from Clear Channel, Gabe Hobbs, the VP of programming for news, talk, and sports, whose corporation owns more than 1,200 radio stations. Hobbs made a couple of self-deprecating comments about his network, which were pretty funny.
There were some good, solid questions from the audience about where the new generation of radio news reporters was going to come from, and other issues related to employment issues. There was a guy from something called The Next Generation, apparently a group working with NPR, trying to come up with ways to get folks into the radio news industry. A couple of questioners asked about employment issues and a few of the panelists talked about their internship programs and how they were making new hires. Hobbs said he was unable to find good folks to work which garnered some scuttles in the audience and at least one college kid who stood up and said he would be looking for job in two years. He also deflected some criticism from a guy complaining about one to two person news teams serving multiple stations and pointed to a train derailment in upstate New York which spew chemicals into the community yet none of the stations were on the air live with a news team to report the incident. I don’t know if the stations were Clear Channel owned and operated but if they were, Hobbs handled the question well. He noted that in the case of the train derailment, the Emergency Broadcast System was not issued by authorities - leaving the stations in the cold - and therefore, it was the fault of authorities for not letting the public know about the incident.
I also made some comments which led to a question about the tabloidization of the media. First, I commented that bloggers - while often motivated by opinion - relentlessly research to prove their points, essentially doing the jobs that the media is supposed to do … like cover important stories, such as the foreign nations buying American debt. I then tied that into the question. While not naming the network that the station I work at carries, I noted that the Michael Jackson coverage had been particularly dark and disgusting, which could also harm listeners who might have been molested and would have to listen to the Jackson trial coverage ad nauseam, on the hour, especially during the accuser’s testimony phase of the trial [I could go into the perverse descriptions that were relayed by the news reporter over and over again but then, that would make me as bad as said network, right? You've all heard about the case. You all know what child molestation is about. 'Nuff said]. I also was critical of the Martha Stewart coverage [not knowing that Sirius had just signed Stewart to a radio show] and noted that Dave Ross of CBS News had a hilarious short radio commentary which aired on the day that Stewart was released from prison, collecting audio from all the networks and comments they made and wondering whether this was all that important a story to cover. What is the future of the important stories that radio news is supposed to cover?
Needless to say, there was some unease with my concerns.
All of them pretty much agreed that they didn’t think bloggers could be trusted and that the public was driving the tabloid coverage of the news and that there wasn’t anything they could do about it. The Sirius guy, Jay Clark, EVP of programming, jokingly said he hoped the news departments would keep talking about Stewart. Hobbs said he thought it was dangerous for news departments to not cover what the people wanted and instead, cover what news directors and departments want - or thought - they should cover [Note to Hobbs: What is the point of having a news director if they can't suggest important stories to cover instead of Michael Jackson?]. Harvey Nagler, the VP of CBS Radio News, grimaced during my comments and his answers, probably knowing that yeah, I was talking about his crummy network, and he gave me the evil eye for much of the rest of the discussion. He also reiterated that the tabloid coverage was driven by the listeners. Hogwash. Try not covering it for one day and cover something and see what happens. Challenge yourselves to inform and educate the listening public and not just titilate - or disgust - them!
These comments were pretty shocking to me but not surprising. They lend credence to the extremely important comments by Valerie Hyman which I wrote about in the previous NAB post - journalists are patriots, the only job protected by the Constitution, and whose jobs make for a better democracy. It also leads one to wonder about the state of the news and its future, something the panel didn’t seem to answer very well at all.

NAB/RTNDA in Vegas
I'm currently in Las Vegas for the National Association of Broadcaster's convention, as well as the Radio TV News Directors Association convention, which is a part of NAB. This post won't be very long, just a few quick observations.
First, the time change thing is a bit of a struggle. At three hours behind EDT, everything seems thrown off. Last night, after dinner, I turned in only to realize that in real time, I had been up for about 21 hours. I don't know how folks who zig zag across the country manage to do this without getting completely exhausted.
After our party landed, we took an Airport Limousine bus to the hotel and the first sign of the sociological problems I had a feeling I would see set in.
Our driver, while a nice enough man, seemed jittery and possessed, almost like some junkie musicians I have known over the years. I didn't think anything of it ... until the guy started driving. The bus clearly had mechanical problems and he was beating every bit of juice out of it that he could. At the first stop light, he looked down at his lap and started fiddling with something. Since I was in the front seat, I could see him acting strangely. I thought, ‘Oh, I hope he isn't getting ready to pop a pill or something worse.’ Well, he wasn't ... he was counting his chips. He separated them into colors and then re-separated them, clicking them together and fiddling with them nervously. It was a pretty weird thing to witness. He then quickly put all the chips into his saddle bag by his feet and began driving again.
The bus drove around the inner parts of the city before the hotels. Not surprisingly, there were a lot of XXX video stores and a couple of strip joints, as well as apartments and smaller, seedy - for lack of a better word - motels. We drove by a whole slew of boarded up apartments - not big brownstones like you would see in the Bronx - but what seemed like nice bungalows or something you would pay a small fortune for in a place like Miami.
I looked around at some old folks vacationing on the bus and at least one NABster annoying chatting on his cell phone and some were clearly worried about the ride they just got on. Thankfully, we got off the bus at the second stop.
The strip is busy ... almost like Times Square. Everything is loud and clanging, with horns going off, music, and Spanish street vendors handing out pamphlets for escort services. A "fat" Elvis is posing for free pictures outside one of the hotels but there is a Subway and McDonald's nearby. The hotels are big and glamorous, not unlike I expected and no different from what you see on television. The lights aren’t on - we would see that later - but you get the awe of the place.
At check-in, there is a long line and the cacophony of clamoring of slot machines so loud you can barely think straight. I think out loud that this is what a schizophrenic must have going on in the brain. The hotel, while trying, fails to blow away the cigarette smoke from the casinos and bars. Unlike Foxwoods, where people hog two and three slot machines and there is a look of death and hopelessness on faces far and wide, a lot of the machines and tables are not being used and people generally seem to be having fun. Of course, I'm not really paying as much attention to their faces because I am too distracted by the noise.
After check-in, we board the monorail to the convention center to check out the exhibits. I also want to attend the RTNDA seminar about being a new news director.
The monorail is pretty cool - not unlike the one in Miami. However, one can’t help but notice that it goes over almost all the seediness we just passed by to get from the airport to the strip. It is almost as if it was built to keep all the special people away from the riff raff. While that is good to keep crime down and preserve tourism, I wonder if it is the best thing for society. More boarded up apartments and construction everywhere can be seen.
I keep thinking about Stephen King's book "The Stand."
NAB is a radio, TV and film geek’s dream world. Every gadget you could possibly imagine is here - from antennae manufacturing to studio production and some of the coolest space-aged mixing boards I have ever seen.
“I wish I had a million dollars … hot dog!”
Before the news director’s seminar, my group checks out some of the vendors and has a couple of conversations with some interesting folks about software and mics. After leaving the NAB section, we head up to the RTNDA section which, as far as booths go, is extremely disappointing. There is a CNN store and a couple of other news booths, like AP and Consumer Reports. But there isn’t much else. I was hoping to find some other groups who might offer bartered news features or production tools. Not surprisingly, a few military interests have media promotion outposts, as does the HHS, where I grill a couple of folks on flu quarantine issues. Thankfully, they don't look at me like I am nuts and take my civil libertarian concerns very seriously.
For the record, flight attendants are reportedly trained to call airport officials who then call CDC officials when they believe there might be a medical emergency on a flight from overseas in which a quarantine/flu treatment situation might kick in.
I attend the first news director’s seminar about how to manage your news department after being promoted from within and other tips on getting the most out of your news staff. It was a pretty interesting conversation geared more towards TV news departments, but much of the information can be transferred into any management situation. I like that the main speaker, Valerie Hyman, kept stressing that in order to stay fresh and focused, news directors need to take breaks and schedule something I otherwise call "quiet time," to take care of those mundane tasks. Note to self: Take a walk in the middle of the day, especially if it is nice outside.
At the end, Hyman makes a most prolific statement about news directors being one of the most patriotic jobs a person can have and how the press is the only job protected by the Constitution. She also states that our job is one of the only ones that preserve democracy. I begin to feel all warm and fuzzy inside. :-)
Alright folks, that’s it for now. I may not be updating the blog while out here but I wanted to give folks a taste of what I am seeing. If something super cool or newsworthy happens, I will post something. Otherwise, check back in for a longer report by the end of the week.

Charlie Shannon: RIP
State Senator Charlie Shannon, D-Winchester, Mass., passed away this morning from complications from a bone marrow transplant treatment in his fight against leukemia, according to press reports. He was 61. There are press reports here: ["Charles E. Shannon dies at 61; loses battle with cancer"] and here: ["Shannon succumbs to long illness"] [Shockingly, there is nothing at The Winchester Star site about his death. CNC could have at least put up the thorough and decent Medford Transcript story].
When I lived in Somerville, Shannon was my state senator and I also covered him as editor of The Star for over 2.5 years.
At first, I wasn't all that impressed with him. He was just another socially conservative Irish Democratic pol who probably should have been a Republican. And in Charlie's case, he was a Republican when he was first elected. He later changed parties after, as he put it, Gov. Bill Weld and another Republican Senator tried to screw him on a budget appropriation. Charlie told me the story over coffee at Nelson's in Winchester one day saying he went to then-President of the Senate Billy Bulger and said he would switch parties if he could get his line item in the budget. Bulger got it done for Charlie and Charlie waved goodbye to the MassGOP. Another stupid move for Republicans since it was a Democratic seat being held by a Republican.
As I covered him in the press, I really learned to like the guy. He was a good ole coot. Although a conservative Democrat, Shannon was also a populist and fought for the working class of his Medford and Somerville district. He had all kinds of stories and was great with a quote. I'll never forget the times he tore into Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, calling him "heartless," for cutting funds to some of Massachusetts' most vulnerable. After Romney was elected, I did an analysis piece about how towns he didn't win in the election were seeing their local aid cut more deeply than towns who voted for Romney. It should have been a great statewide story had the Boston Herald bothered to publish it after I shared it with them. As well, no other state news outlet bothered to look at the numbers and find the story themselves. Anyhow, Shawn Feddeman, Romney's adorably cute spokeswoman, scoffed at the idea but Shannon laid into the guv. I had to edit his language, as you can imagine. But Somerville and Medford were getting whacked something fierce and Charlie was livid. That was the kinda guy he was ... always worried about the little guy.
Despite always being a target for Shannon, Romney acknowledged he fought for the little guy in a press release today, noting that Charlie was "a tireless advocate for the people." Unlike a lot of pols, Shannon never forgot where he came from. Unlike a lot of pols, Shannon never forgot why he was in the state Senate.
There was one thing he did that I didn't think was too keen - holding up a wine and liquor license in Winchester for trivial reasons, which also benefited the brother of a long-time campaign contributor. But hey, that's minor when you consider all the good things he did.
Unlike another elected Democrat from Winchester, who will remain nameless, Charlie didn't flip out when I looked into all the lobbyists and political action committees throwing money at his campaign committee. Instead, he sloughed it off and told stories about some of the guys he grew up with who went to his "times." He didn't take it personally and cry like a little baby; he knew I was just doing my job, asking the tough questions like any good writer or reporter does.
One of the last times I spoke to Charlie, he was reserving space in the paper for a killer column coming out against a huge $3.9 million Proposition 2 1/2 tax override in Winchester, strategically placed to run just before the election. A former selectman, he was furious at what he perceived to be mismanagement with the town finances. He also knew that even though he wasn't as powerful a pol as in the past, he could still sway the votes of some of the old timers in town, many who would be detrimentally affected by the increase in property taxes coming with the approval of the override. A big chunk of Winchester's residents are over the age of 65 and not all of them have trust funds. The perception that Winchester is an affluent town is skewed by all the newcomers who moved into town over the last decade or so, with their masters degrees, big salaries, and wives in Lexuses. Shannon's column was a brilliantly biting piece - with a headline calling on the voters of Winchester to vote No on "Winchester's Day of Infamy" [The vote was scheduled for Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor Day].
But Shannon's role went beyond just writing the column. I later found out that behind the scenes, he quietly helped organize the No forces so that they could defeat the override. I later learned - off-the-record, of course, which means that you don't reveal the source - that Shannon paid for a telephone push poll which called a ton of voters across the town, mildly urging them to vote No.
On the morning of the election, while the Vote Yes side was gleefully assuming they had victory in their grasp, due to freezing rain and snow pouring down on the community, Shannon was chipper and excited. He knew that the old-timers would come out and defeat the override, weather or no weather.
"It will be defeated by a two-to-one margin," he said.
"What?!" I asked. "Impossible."
"Two-to-one," he said again, laughing.
At the time, I didn't know that Shannon had authorized the push poll, so I couldn't report it. I also didn't know that the results of the poll were two-to-one against the override. In the end, the override was defeated and while it was a less than two-to-one margin, it lost by a whopping 1,000-plus votes.
Of course, a push poll of hundreds of voters wasn't the thing that killed the override. What killed the override was the fact that it was too much, too soon. And the fact that people actually went out and campaigned against it. Had the advocates proposed a smaller override, they might have gotten it and wouldn't be making plans to layoff a slew of school teachers. Shockingly, all of those with masters degrees, big salaries, and wives in Lexuses, never seemed to get those little common sense things that the rest of us realize.
Just before I left The Star, Charlie called to wish me luck. He was into his fight against leukemia again but was still energetic and funny. When he told me he was going to beat it again, I knew he would, and I also told him I would pray for him. Unfortunately, he didn't beat it. But he lived a full life and helped a lot of folks out. His family - and district - will miss him.

Speculation will now turn to a special election which will need to be held to fill Charlie's seat. It's been a long time since the district has seen a competitive race. However, that is all for another day.
Rest in Peace, Charlie.

A persistent vegetative state ...

Not unlike lots of other folks, I think it is tragic watching the Terri Schiavo case unfold 24/7 on every channel across the spectrum. And, if you are a news junkie like I am, you are seeing a lot of this case.
Personally, I am getting a bit sick of it. In typical fashion, the media are going completely overboard in covering this tragedy which is essentially a local - and family - issue. While Schiavo is incapacitated, it is easy to say that the media are also in a persistent vegetative state.
The coverage brings up a whole bunch of different emotions on a variety of levels. There is the issue of when life ends or who has control over someone in this state. There are those of us who are truly concerned about preserving "life" and there is the manipulation of the issue by some of the most craven politicians in our country: ["Dialysis was denied for DeLay dad "]. There is the issue over who should have guardianship in these situations - a husband who has two kids from another relationship - or the parents who want to preserve the "life" of their daugher. Having watched some of the relentless coverage, I am aghast at what I have seen.
Once again, FoxNews has gone completely over the top.
Rita Cosby on "The Big Show" Saturday virtually claimed that Michael Schiavo was somehow responsible for his wife's heart attack when everyone knows that the attack was brought on by a lack of potassium - a sign of bulimia. Maybe FoxNews is thinking that Michael somehow made Terri starve herself to lose weight. The Schindlers - Terri Schiavo's parents - did nothing to dissuade this kind of talk even though it probably isn't true. If I were Michael Schiavo, I would hire a libel attorney after seeing some of the coverage. But it isn't just these issues. I won't even go into Sean Hannity's night after night after night of claims that she can talk and that somehow her husband is killing her. And where are the conservatives - like Howie Carr, for example - who are always yelling at anti-war protesters to "get a job." They have been silent on this issue too, yet one could say that all these people holding candles need to get a life, no pun intended.
Like David Ross of CBS News said last week in his commentary, the Schiavo case hasn't really preserved life - it has preserved death. Everywhere, families and loved ones are having serious conversations about the end of life and how we would like to go out. Ross noted that most of the people he talked to stated the same thing: I wouldn't want to be alive if I were in her condition. This doesn't mean that a person's request will actually be respected in the end - without a living will or some other sort of documentation - but it does allow for these serious conversations to occur.
But what about "life" or the quality of said life? It is one thing to say that a fetus in a mother's womb has the potential to live a long life as a child if brought into the world; it is quite another thing to say that a person in Schiavo's condition is going to have any sort of life, lying there, unable to feed herself, unable to speak, unable to do much of anything that most of us would consider having a life. Personally, I wouldn't want to live that way ... but I wouldn't want to die that way either.
On a larger - and more important scale - look at what the world is missing while we are distracted with Schiavo case, the Wacko Jacko nonsense, Prince Charles' silly wedding, the pope's condition [which, granted, is important to hundreds of millions of Catholics], night after night: Important stories like this ["Baghdad Coup D'Etat For Big Oil"] or the second anniversary of the Iraq invasion, which was barely covered by most of the press, the bulging trade deficit and globalization wrecking the American family, foreign nations buying up all of our debt, the utter sin of the bankruptcy bill ["Christian lawyers say bill, Bible don't mesh"], etc. etc. It is an absolute disgrace. And, it is also one of the reasons I work in the media - so I can do relevant stories for people and not get caught up in all of this unimportant nonsense.
Ralph Nader has his thoughts about the case: ["The Many Layers of the Terry Schiavo Controversy"] which I found pretty interesting, and of course, there is Jesse Jackson's view, again, all over the place, including of all places, on FoxNews where Hannity was acting like a complete rump-swab ... actually treating Jackson like a human being instead of an adulterer and a swindler ... which has previously been the case with Hannity. Yeah, it was pretty shocking to see tonight.
We all know that life is precious ... and this is no way to end one, no matter what you feel about the issue or the outcome. 


Other stuff:
* Former Dem VP candidate John Edwards is on a tear of late: ["'08 White House Race Draws Iowa's Interest"]. Is he the one? As I have said before, I honestly believe that had he been out on the stump more, Kerry might have pulled it off. It seemed as though Edwards disappeared for a month there late in the campaign. Where did Shrum hide him?
* "Hot" Air America, as Nader called it during the 2004 campaign, gets raked over the coals this week on HBO: ["HBO to Air Docu on Air America: 'Left of the Dial'"]. I don't have HBO so I will be missing this but I bet it is amusing.
* This is so scary and makes me worry more and more about what is going on with this government: ["Administration kept mum about unapproved modified corn sold"].
* Danny Schecter is one of our country's most important commentators right now. He has a good piece on the coverage - or lack of coverage - of the anti-war movement: ["Miscovering Anti-War Protests (Again)"].
* I totally missed this but I bet it was a funny sight, for lack of a better word: ["SNL Tries Penile Implant"].
* This headline says it all: ["'One huge US jail'"]. Between the pipeline crap and this, what the hell is going on over there?
* Political things in Massachusetts are getting a little testy these days and once again, it looks like the Democrats are going to eat themselves alive. Typically, incumbents in the state Legislature are trying to protect themselves while reformers want to make the process better. At the same time, the party hacks want to make it harder for outsiders to get on the ballot: ["State Democrats seek to streamline primary process"]. Possible gubernatorial candidate Deval Patrick is making the early rounds, in what will be a David vs. Goliath fight for the nomination: ["Impressions of Deval Patrick from Cambridge, 3/26"] and ["Dem rival gives gov run for his money"]. Then, there is this, by a former three-time non-victorious candidate from the left, George Bachrach: ["Reform the Democrats with more democracy"]. [I didn't really want to call Bachrach a three-time "loser" because while I think he can sometimes be a bit whiny, his heart always seems in the right place. And, as we all know in campaigns, more people are non-victorious than victorious, so Bachrach is in good company.]
* One of the reasons some liberals have no clue is because they don't read all forms of commentary. I may not agree with a guy like Robert Novak much, but he always has some pretty good ditties like this one; ["RNC warns Congress of Republican electoral disaster in 2006"] and this one: ["With Condoleezza Rice’s support, America will leave Iraq this year"].
* The book is still not closed on the 2004 election and this article proves it: ["Voting glitches haunt statistician"]. I will never for the life of me understand how so many smart people can get caught up in so many dumb theories. Exit polls are wrong all the time! They are completely unscientific. Folks lie on them. Maybe the pollsters didn't do their work properly. It is completely illogical to presume that a sampling of one one-millionth of a precent could determine the outcome of an election. The only thing exit polls are good for is for gathering data on the people who fill them out and to get some sense of what those sampled voters were feeling at the time. Exit polls are not good predictors. And lastly, these types of theories make wild and grand allegations about voting technologies that no one actually knows to be true. As was seen during the Nader recounts here in New Hampshire and the Miami Herald recounts in northern Florida, many historically strong Democratic towns and counties in both states in 2004 voted for Bush. The recounts prove it. In Ohio, the majority of voting machines are not computerized but paper ballot or punch card ballots. There may be rigged machines in some places across this nation but not so far in the ones that have been recounted and no one has still shown me that the nation's voting machines can be rigged in some giant conspiracy to swing the election. We know that there are other problems as noted in an entry posted here two years ago: ["Vote fraud, conspiracies, and real solutions to the elections problem"] Of course, no one wants to talk about double-voting or illegal aliens voting; it is much easier to keep perpetuating the theory that there is a wizard somewhere swinging the votes to the evil, Christian Republicans. Give me a break.

Primaries:
In the Northeast, we are right now in the middle of a pretty huge blizzard which is thankfully hitting us on a weekend instead of the middle of the week. This inclement weather is allowing folks like me to bundle up in the house and wait for enough snow to fall so that I can go out and snow blow without it being a wasted effort. The storm also allowed for the opportunity to sit in front of the TV watching C-Span - and the first hearing of the Democratic National Committee’s Commission on Presidential Nominations.
Unfortunately, only the first segment of the discussion was aired. Around lunch, C-Span cut to repeats of budget hearings. But what I did see was extremely interesting, with a lot of history being shared about previous commissions and campaigns. There was a very fascinating historical presentation by a woman from the JFK School, Dr. Kamarck, or something, where she solidified the importance of having the first primaries and caucuses in small states. She also made a plug for Iowa and New Hampshire keeping their places. After a few questions, she was whacked by Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan who has a recent history of trying to strip New Hampshire of its First in the Nation Primary. He even interrupted her when she was trying to answer one of his questions - which can happen sometimes at these things. It also made me think back to the initial introductions where I noticed that the state of Michigan seemed to have three folks on the panel representing their interests where other states only seemed to have one or two members. Why does Michigan get three? Why do the others only get two? New Hampshire seemed responsibly represented by former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen and Terry Schumaker, an executive director with the NEA here in the state. But other states didn’t seem to have a voice at all.
There were also some interesting comments made by [I believe] Ronald Walters, a University of Maryland professor, about how the first states weren’t diverse enough and how fringier candidates like the Rev. Al Sharpton should be taken seriously by the party and the voters. While he makes a valid point about the lack of darker skin tones in both states, he ignores the fact that both Iowa and New Hampshire are diverse in other ways - like in economics. Skin color isn’t the only measure of “diversity.” Personally, I hate it when politicos get obsessed with skin color as if it should be a measuring stick for access to power or, that somehow, folks who are not people of color can’t relate to the trials and tribulations of our nation’s minority populations.
The interests of the DNC are not necessarily the interests of the voters when setting their calendar. This is clear from the previous results of commissions and DNC chairmen who have set the primaries up to be front-loaded - with the false impression that getting an early winner would allow that winner to compete more aggressively and, eventually, win. The DNC is interested in winning back the White House - not necessarily setting up a calendar of primaries which empowers voters and people into making the best decisions for the party. Levin’s relevance is to remove New Hampshire from the picture; just as Shaheen’s is to preserve our role. The goal of the commission, however, shouldn’t be to strip Iowa and New Hampshire of our status. It should be to set a calendar that creates a primary and caucus schedule that allows as many states as possible to have the retail political experience.
But it isn’t just the calendar that matters. It is also the media and the candidates who decide how long a campaign should be waged and whether other states have a role in participating.
In 2004, I thought most of the candidates quit too early. By the end of February, most were gone. Two of the candidates - Sen. Bob Graham and former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun - quit before a vote was even cast. Another candidate, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who could have waged a more relevant campaign had he not “changed his mind” on abortion and ran as a pro-life Democrat, stayed true to his message to the very end, giving his voters a reason to go to the polls, even though he was never going to win the presidency [As an aside, Kucinich did score some pretty good numbers in late contests - 26 percent in Alaska, 17 percent in Minnesota, 12 percent in Colorado, 12 percent in North Carolina, 10 percent in Kansas - it just wasn’t enough to make much difference - or even win many delegates].
Other candidates could have stayed in longer or forged alliances to beat the clearly unelectable John Kerry. There was a point in mid- to late-February where the Howard Dean and John Edwards forces needed to have a serious sit down - not the one they did have which led to nothing. Dean had amassed a number of super delegates and Edwards was surging as the Kerry alternative. The two of them together could have led to a stronger ticket than the Kerry fronted ticket. Imagine, no Swift Boats, no Massachusetts liberal [especially if Dean was VP], very little flip-flopping. Edwards would’ve easily beaten President Bush in the debates and Dean would have easily beaten Dick Cheney. It would have been a stronger ticket, Ralph Nader still would have only been a minor footnote, and the Democrats would have been stronger going into the final election.
Then, there is the media, which has done a pretty poor job of covering the candidates in the past. Gone are the days of relatively thorough, and decent coverage of the candidates; in are the days where a candidate’s howling at a campaign event is repeated over and over again to the point of personal destruction. It's not like he was tagging an intern or anything. There is also the issue of the Washington, DC cocktail crowd who always seem to manage to wreck everything with their pomposity and arrogance.
Another point: While there has been a lot of testimony by Democrats to the committee, the one thing missing - so far - is any response from non-insiders who might have interesting ideas about how to fix the system. Almost everyone on the panel is either an elected official [or former elected official] or some sort of party hack - for lack of a better term. I guess the regular watchers of the process will have to leave our comments to columns and remarks made on radio talk shows.

Catching up:
I have been incredibly busy of late but I thought I would take a minute to catch up here on some stuff that I have seen over the past couple of weeks. I was recently appointed News Director at WKXL 1450, along with my arts and entertainment duties. I will also continue to submit stories and host two hours of news during the day. It's an incredibly invigorating job. The news team all wear multiple hats at the station. Barring some minor production problems, it has been pretty good so far.
Here is a good story about what is going on in Concord radio, including some cute comments from my boss about what we are doing: ["Radio industry in flux "]. It is pretty exciting to be working for a truly community radio station.

Alright, let's start with this: ["Ridge, Pollsters Met During Bush Campaign"]. It isn't bad enough that he was taped partying in Hawaii on the dime of the federal government, under the guise of "homeland security," as covered by "20/20," but now we read that he was working with Republican pollster Frank Lutz while stating he wasn't involved in Bush's campaign. Yes, the same Lutz who was doing polling analysis and focus groups of the Democratic candidates for MSNBC was meeting with Ridge about homeland security issues. This is outrageous. Imagine if one of Clinton's underlings had done this in 1996. They would have been castrated! Yet, barely a peep about it in the news. Just this story and then, poof, it's gone. Gee, wonder why?
Also, isn't it interesting that we don't see those colored terrorist warning charts much anymore? Lutz is a pretty fair, IMHO, pollster. And yeah, pollsters are whores. They work for whoever pays the bills. But he should have known better than to get involved in this. It smells. It smells like stealing an election with fear.
Then, there is this: ["Bush team tried to suppress pre-9/11 report into al-Qa'ida"].

[Bretweiser] told The Independent: "There were 52 threats that were mentioned. These were present threats - they were not historical. There were steps that could have been taken. Marshals could have been put on planes that spring. Condoleezza Rice's testimony is undermined." To the consternation of members of the commission who published the original report last year, the administration has been blocking the release of the latest information. An unclassified copy of this additional appendix was passed to the National Archives two weeks ago with large portions blacked out.

The site for the documents is here: ["document"]. It kind makes you wonder about all of this. Maybe folks like Sander Hicks are on the right track: ["The Big Wedding"].

Hunter S. Thompson: R.I.P. When I heard he had committed suicide, I began to wonder about this too. The guy was always playing with guns, he lived a full and chaotic life, and then, he actually takes his own life? It doesn't make any sense. I know that Denver cops were furious at him for defending this woman on death row. Anyhow, read "Fear and loathing on the campaign trail, '72," one of the best political books ever written. Writers for the Boston Phoenix have a tribute here: ["Remembering Hunter S. Thompson"]. As does my ole Cambridge bud Ralph Lopez here: ["Huge balls to the end"].

Speaking of not seeing things in the media, why is it only the underground press that is talking about Jeff Gannon/J.D. Guckert gay prostitute getting a "hard" - no pun intended - press pass to the Bush White House? Why isn't this as huge as the story about Dan Rather going after the president leaving the National Guard early when we all know he left the National Guard early? Some of the video on this Gannon/Guckert guy is hilarious - thrashing Democrats and throwing softball questions at the president [Once again, thank God for C-Span!]. But when you combine this with Cheney's lesbian daughter and her wife on stage with the president after winning the election, I really have to wonder what is going on in this nation. I have no problem with people's personal opinions. But I hate people who act stupidly. It is clear that the good Christian folks of America, who do mean well, were duped by this clown. Or were they? Their other main choice was the pathetic, flip-flopping John Kerry. So, since they didn't really have a choice, maybe they weren't duped at all. Bring on 2008.

Speaking of 2008, there may be hope for the Democrats after all. Howard Dean was named DNC chairman last week. However, not all are happy with this move. Here is a piece by Bob Burnett that is worth a quick read: ["Meet The New Boss "]. I don't agree with his point at all but it is a different point of view that is worth noting for originality alone. I think he is off base because Dean has committed to invigorating the base from the ground up. And if he can do that - with incorruptible, normal folks trying to do what is right - the country will be a better place.
On a similar note, here is my hero, Ralph Nader, really clocking the NYT's Bob Herbert: ["A 'Participant-Observer' on Losing Elections, Pushing Agendas"].

There is another kind of abdication. That is when a progressive columnist, who reaches millions of readers, sits idly by and watches the Democratic Party spend millions of dollars with corporate law firms to file phony lawsuits to push Nader/Camejo off one state ballot after another, and unleash torrents of lies about this candidacy. Denying candidates' right to freedom of speech and assembly, which is what running for elective office comprises, might have been seen by a consistent Bob Herbert as an important violation of civil liberties - if not for the candidates, at least for the voters who were denied their choice of candidates.

It's true. There were very few columnists and writers who defended Nader's right to run. I was one of the few who did - and got beat up for it too. But who cares? In the end, the voters did what they did and the liberals still lost. But where are the responsibilities of those on the editorial pages to fight for freedom? If those folks won't fight for us, who will? And let's chuck the two-party system into the garbage can already. Every other country in the world - even the Iraqis - have more choices than we do. Enough already.

In the wake of destruction, some positive things occur. Check out this story about an ancient city found outside of India: ["Tsunami Uncovers Ancient City in India"]. Can you say, Wow!? And then there is this, lights above Hawaiian skies: ["Astronomy Picture of the Day"].

I'm not a big fan of The Nation's David Corn. Sometimes, he writes good stuff. Other times, he acts like a whiny liberal. However, this piece on his blog just nails it so hard it isn't even funny: ["Negroponte's Dark Past"]. And there is this from the Boston Phoenix today: ["Dumb Intelligence"]. And now this guy is the Director of National Intelligence? He couldn't see the crap going on in Latin America and now he is in charge? This, along with Alberto Gonzalez as the new AG, and is there any wonder that the United States of America is marching down the road to banana republic?

Another reason why I love bloggers: ["CNN's Nuke Plant Photos Identical for Both Iran and N. Korea!"]. How do they dig this stuff up?

Suicide is never the answer: ["'Over my dead body'"]. Rest in peace Curtis Greene.

This will open your eyes: ["Twenty Questions: Social Justice Quiz"]. Again, we are going backwards.

Why free speech is important, Part 1: ["Display Stirs Controversy In Land Park"]. Part 2: ["O'Malley Likens Bush's Proposed Cuts to Sept. 11 Attacks"]. Part 3: ["Professor refuses to apologize for essay, book about Sept. 11 attack"]. Part 4: ["What Ward Churchill Didn't Say "].