08 September 2005
as some guy named murrow used to say, good night and good luck. get angry, get happy, get the message (but get the meaning), then get to work. if all else fails, for God's sake, fight. it's david gregory! he's been as much of a mainstay on this page today as i have. not bad for someone mark levin believes should be nothing but an amanuensis. ah, matthews is promising to return to the cheney question. "let's talk about these people." matthews is going to have, i believe, the labor secretary on. she's going to talk about job loss and such, but i don't know what to tell you about it. really, this blog has thrived on conflict, but it's been at a premium today, not just on 'hardball' (or should i say slow-pitch) but all over. he dispensed w/ the cheney question quick enough. i'd say it was a letdown if such a word was applicable. but, damn, did he build this thing up in the intro, giving the impression that this appointment has something to do w/ his running for president in '08. how dare he play on our fears like that? be sure ... to drink ... your ... ovaltine. ovaltine? a crummy commercial? if there's little to say, it's b/c there's little that chris matthews has to tell me at this point. this is the second time in the last twenty-four hours that i've seen bernard kerik. when questioning people who refuse to raise their head above the parapet, who insist on hinding behind ready-made phrases, i would encourge goading them, i would condone almost any kind of speech-act that would provoke an answer that that individual couldn't have foreseen, if you will, that he'd give. civility, in these circumstances, be damned. cant that must be fought on every front: "refugees," "finger-pointing," "blame game," and "bureaucracy." 60,000 people filed change-of-address forms in mississippi. a strain, to be sure, but i don't think it explains why, in new jersey, my sister, who filed a change-of-address of her own, is getting my mail. it's 3am and this is the first time i'm hearing about bush sending cheney down to new orleans. it's good to see that the vice president has decided to join the rest of us. "let's play hardball." aside from sean's bickering w/ the congressman, it really has been a kinder, gentler 'hannity & colmes.' and still no mention of rehnquist or roberts, but it's roiling beneath the surface, i'm sure. a guest asks: should new orleans consider not rebuilding b/c of the potential of another catastrophe? replace "new orleans" w/ "world trade center" and how would you answer? what seems more likely as i type this: a terrorist attack on new york or another direct hit on new orleans? which, does it seem, was the federal government banking on (so to speak)? in an act of cross-promotion, h&c are having greta v.s. on, whose show follows theirs. but, given recent nielsen ratings, maybe she should be giving them pub. newt gingrich giving lectures on the perils of partisanship. stay tuned b/c after the break he gives advice on how to keep your marriage together. "there's room for legitimate criticism. i'm not saying everything was done perfect." the politicization is "grotesque" and sean has never seen anything like it before in his life, or at least since schiavo. but who did the politicizing? "all issues are political issues," says orwell. are all things inherently political? or can one draw a line in the sand where an event becomes political? hannity puts it to the congressman from louisiana straight: "why didn't the (local) government help these people?" why weren't they put on a bus? "these people" (hannity.) when there's a democratic guest (like right now), alan always starts it off, setting him up, and then sean comes in to knock him down, usually making his entrance w/ a "yeah" as the guest is speaking. hannity & colmes are coming back from break w/ music that npr would approve of. "the amazing owl" is a magnifier you can slip in your wallet, where, presumably, you keep your license. but if you need a magnifier you better not be fucking driving when i'm out there. "why," alan asks, "does God let this happen?" he really, really wants him to say "the gays," but he's got the wrong preacher. what do you say about a preacher talking? that sean had to start off the discussion by bringing up rapes and looting and some report on drudge about scamming and, just now, finger-pointing--is it not possible to talk about the good w/o bringing up the bad? G!T!M!P! on T!V! 2:09am. fox news. top stories: five minutes in and we finally hear from sean. it's like orson welles in the third man. he introduces the political note--politicizes it, if you will--by mentioning the divisiveness in new orleans between nagin and blanco. i think going out into the field makes anderson cooper seem lesser (remember that earlier hurricane fiasco? "look at that sign!"), but it's been great for shep smith, who always seems like a bit of a jerk in-studio but was really humanized down in the flood. top stories: wow, it's been almost twelve hours since i last saw sean. i imagine he hasn't changed much since then. but i wonder what's on alan's mind? i mean, really? happy to have a job? now don't bother me for, like, a half-hour. your moment of zen: the repugnant jack burkman on msnbc basically saying, "10,000 dead ... hey, these things happen." he really went out of his way to defend the president on tuesday. for some reason, it strikes me that laughter is not the proper response to the news. oh, i've tried--really tried--to be humorous over these last 14 hours or so, but i hope i've said something more than just punchlines. i really like jon stewart, but i can't help but feel that he's become constrained by 'the daily show.' i've always enjoyed the 'onion''s headlines, but the articles have always seemed superfluous. w/ that said, 'daily show' skits always reminded me of 'onion' articles come horribly to life. it's been so long since i've seen 'the daily show' that i don't know who this balding guy who resembles the least-known guy on 'whose line is it anyway?" which is, let's admit it, really fucking not well-known what i really want to know, though, is will we get oil for food? i find celine dion easy to laugh at. so does 'the daily show' audience. but i find sincerity a lot harder to laugh at. 'the daily show' audience doesn't. and now they're showing the hannity concept of "i don't want to play the blame game, but if you want to ... " ah, but, of course, it's michael chertoff. stewart speaks of mayor giuliani and what a herculean effort he gave as mayor of new york. by contrast, he'll introduce us to a new breed of public servant in the feature, 'meet the fuckers.' i haven't watched 'the daily show' since ... basically, it and jon stewart b/c really, really famous. (it seems to have fallen into that tasteful and worthwhile category.) #1: mother & child reunion. question about 'countdown,' but i suppose it's subjective. is the #1 story really the most important story of the day? i mean, doesn't it make sense to lead w/ the big story so one isn't scooped by the other networks? (or, given 'countdown''s dismal ratings, does it matter?) is #5 really most important and #1 is just part of the gimmick? we shall see, true believers. we. shall. see. #2: survivors' story. worst person in the world: fema spokeswoman mary hudak. a firefighter, solicited by fema, complained about having to take a class in sexual harrassment while people were dying. hudak's response: "i would go back and ask the firefighter to revisit his commitment to fema, to firefighting and to the citizens of this country." the opinion i've come to regarding federal response is this: bush can say one of two things. he can either say, "hey, we dropped the ball on this one, mistakes were made" (which he kind of has said by saying "we think the response is unacceptable." gah?) or, more frighteningly, he can say, we haven't learned the lessons of 9/11, that if terrorists had blown up the levees, this is the best we could have done. #3: the politics of hurricane relief. according to olbermann, only 10% of republicans thought bush did a bad job; only 10% of democrats thought he did a good job. this is from that very same gallup poll, and yet i hadn't heard this stat. this story is about j.t. alpaugh, the pool photographer for the aerial coverage of katrina. the programs begin to differentiate themselves. o'reilly was political; scarborough was sedate; 'nightline' tells the stories you don't hear elsewhere; 'countdown' is focusing on different perspectives (aerial perspectives). it's very newsmagazine-ish, but it's a viewpoint worth hearing. honestly, how many politicians and military types can one listen to during the day? #4: the view from above. i remember after 9/11, and it's something i've written about before, how i would be unable to sleep nights b/c i'd be so desperate for breaking news, so fearful that news would happen while i was asleep. anyway, #5 on 'countdown': gulf coast in crisis. olbermann has gained tremendous respect--we'll see if ratings follow--literally over night--or over two nights--for his "rare" editorial at the end of monday night's 'countdown.' scare-quotes for "rare" b/c his is a program that frequently names rush limbaugh worst person ever and takes digs at bill o'reilly whenever it can.07 September 2005 nightline is now focusing on people who decided to take rescue efforts into their own hands. on that theme, the one story that's been making the internet rounds but i haven't heard all day is that of jabbor gibson. he, you might recall, is the 18 year-old from new orleans who took an unused bus and used it to drive over 100 people to safety in houston. there are only three stories on him on google news. the only credible news source to report it was the uk's telegraph:So the first school bus to escape New Orleans and make it to safety in Texas was one that had been abandoned on a city street. A party of sodden citizens, ranging from the elderly to an eight-day-old baby, were desperate to get out, hopped aboard and got teenager Jabbor Gibson to drive them 13 hours non-stop to Houston. He'd never driven a bus before, and the authorities back in New Orleans may yet prosecute him. For rescuing people without a permit? "mike tyson couldn't have us any harder," says a survivor. a (persian) gulf vet says the mississippi coast is worse than anything he saw in iraq. something the folks in iraq can commiserate w/: no electricity, no water, no gas, no schools. hey, you know, mississippi was hit by the hurricane too. in fact, it was, pardon a loaded term, ground zero. ted's going where no one else has been today ... to mississippi. even more white people who are staying behind! (ted is standing at the intersection of n. rampart & desire. yes, that desire.) wow! the government is trying to find 250,000 hotel rooms, good for up to 18 months! news! at this late hour! i've never ever ever watched 'nightline.' ted koppel is dressed to kill. or to interview. to paraphrase rachel maddow, "screw tucker carlson." i'm going to put on the local abc affiliate and wait it out until 'nightline.' if you don't live in new york, i feel sorry for you, friend, especially since liz cho doesn't anchor your evening news. you may keep your laurie dhues, sir, and all of the fox newsblondes for that matter. perhaps i'm being oversensitive, but i wouldn't, while showing black people who suffered from the hurricane, play a song in the background that contains lyrics like "my master's in the yard," even if does go, "i am overcome ... water in my lungs." the "master" part is a verse and could have easily been skipped. given "so poor, so black" and "refugees," they should be a little more careful w/ these things. awkward moment: tucker says goodbye ... pause ... the guest looks off to the right, cut to tucker. lt. david benelli of the new orleans pd is pissed off (not his words) by all of this talk of his men quitting. tucker reminds him that it was the dept.'s chief that told this to the press. the lt. thinks that the number of missing cops will come down, that it's largely a problem of communication. rachel maddow is not on tonight's 'situation.' perhaps she wouldn't appear unless her singer friend could come on also. tucker made the right move. ophelia if you're not familiar w/ 'pti,' it hems discussion of topics into about 1 minute blocks--it is the mtv style in excelsis. the topics right now: if you've seen espn's 'pardon the interruption,' then you already know 'the situation' (hell, you're probably happy to see frequent guest max kellerman, former host of 'pti''s lead-in 'around the horn.') of course, i'll only watch the first half-hour b/c it tends to get a little silly after that. again, if you've seen 'pti,' you can hardly imagine it being an hour long, although wags would contend that, w/ 'around the horn' before it, 'pti' really is an hour long. joe's last two guests have talked about sick kids, and what can one add to that but agreement that it's a horror and unfair. this last guest was the same gentleman who was on 'the factor' earlier, which offers me the excuse, not that it's needed, to do this again: you know, i thought i wasn't going to hear anything new at this hour, but joe is really embracing this "bureaucrat" thing. let's see if it's got legs. i've heard "dyke" used interchangeably w/ "levee." republicans are on shakey ground w/ both of these words ... new york firefighters going to new orleans was a story i first heard this morning on wor. ann coulter had wondered if new yorkers would help a red state out, the way that so many came to the aid of new york after 9/11. (new jerseyans, i'm happy to say, have been doing their part.) so, when new york firefighters headed for new orleans, there's only one position ann could take. saying she was wrong? you're new around here, aren't you? no, she simply stated that firefighters aren't new yorkers, which surely came as a surprise to all of them. this begs the question, who is a new yorker? (i'd guess that she'd say that the staff of the times are new yorkers, even though a number of them live in new jersey suburbs.) oh, the defense of the indefensible ... one's job is never done. joe's not going to play the "blame game" (but remember what randi said about that buzzword.) if my mom were head of fema and fucked up (again, not his words), i'd have to tell you about it. he's looking out for us. he wants to "shine the light on the truth." as do i, but "bureaucracy" isn't my truth--and thus foucault. 10:30pm. msnbc. top stories: the more i think about it, the more "bureaucracy" seems like a perfect compromise for republicans who are too pusillanimous to criticize the president directly, but who also don't want to seem to be hopeless ideologues ("kool-aid drinkers") either. so, we can say "bureaucracy" and all keep our reputations and jobs. bureaucracies, joe says, "the first word they always say is 'no.'" (but shouldn't bureaucracies say "no"? isn't that a conservative position? if they start saying "yes," where does it all end? remember the great society? &c.) but, again, bureaucracies aren't people, notwithstanding joe's attempt to personify it. so who the hell is this person saying no? the mayor and the governor are, in joe's words, "inept and over their heads," and worthy of no further comment. but, g-dub, dude, what happened? one might well wonder, though, why the guest who's sitting in front of washington, d.c., tony perkins of the family research council, is on at all. why, of all people, ask him his opinion on who's to blame? the frc is a conservative group, but at least joe admits that the guy is a supporter of bush. i always wonder if the setting behind a guest is real or like a blue screen. this guy right now is from washington and behind him is the capitol building. it's almost too perfect. there's no flag behind him, so i can't judge if there's a wind and it's too dark to see clouds moving or birds or any of that. rehnquist & roberts have been reduced to the crawl, it seems. joe scarborough is really, really tan--distractingly so. he's so tan that if he was on radio i'd still see it. i can't remember if he went to aruba or not. it certainly didn't do rita cosby any harm. i think i'm of the opinion that, at this time of night, we're not going to hear anything new. the idea of a "scarborough country" is similar to o'reilly's "folks." folks v. likely live in scarborough country. it's not a place on a map, dude, it's a frame of mind. well, every host has to have their video, and here's joe scarborough's. really, one of the great smackdowns in the history of cable news, delivered by a neurologist during the terri schiavo case. (yeah, it seems the doctor, of all people, was right, now that the autopsy is out.) at last, a v. good point, made by the producer, of all people. conservatives go on about judges legislating from the bench, unelected folks who stand athwart the will of the people. now, the california legislature passed a gay rights bill. the legislature directly represents the people, and yet schwarzenegger will strike it down! we have to stop these ... er, activist governors! i mean, let's look at his election: what was the deal w/ that recall? was it legal? &c. a nice parting shop from maddow et. al. rachel is talking about schwarzenegger, and she's putting herself in his place, answering as he might. she changes her voice ever so slightly, but it's audible. but she doesn't go for the austrian accent. i ... i don't understand. it's really slight in comparison to what she's trying to say, and yet i'm fixating on this. new orleans is important, according to erin, b/c it's the opposite of the rest of the country. i'm expecting her to say that it's, you know, decadent and has live sex acts and so forth. instead, she says, "it's slow." it's cliche to say that liberals are unaware of flyover country and its ways, but. ever been to kansas? "disconnect" is not endemic to conservatives either. thanks for proving a point, erin. i never thought i'd say it, but i miss tucker carlson. another thing erin mckeown and rachel have in common: they don't own tv's! neat! got lice? ah, that charming lack of professionalism on air america. says rachel to guest: "where's your microphone machine?" it's interesting to recognize how talky i've been since 'the newshour' ended. also interesting to note how npr brought out the primitive in me--ah, but as the 'phantom' commercial airs again, the primitive is coming back. perhaps liberals and i aren't so simpatico in terms of taste after all. (an aside: listening to 'the majority report' in the past, i often got the impression that, b/c they were unquestionably cooler and had better bumper music, sam & janeane, and liberals in general, their opinions had to be right.) nancy pelosi said to the president that mike brown should be fired. why? b/c of nothing went right. according to pelosi, he said, "what didn't go right?" scott mclellan denies this. but, boy, does it sound like something the guy who couldn't come up w/ three mistakes his administation has made would say. as mentioned earlier, rachel maddow is in for janeane & sam tonight. 9pm. air america. top stories: a student writes in saying that he read o'reilly talking points memo on self-reliance to his class and they loved it. bill encourages such behavior, even telling us to go to his website to download the memo. i'm not quite sure who's louder: bill o'reilly or billy mays. ah, bill's old hobbyhorse, ward churchill. that churchill wasn't removed will stick in his gaping maw. so, he's setting his sights lower, on a professor from wisconsin who (he says) is a sex offender. if he can't get him, you might as well call of the boycott of france. o'reilly: "do you really think bush sat back and said, '68% black in new orleans ... eh, i don't care about that'?" answer: put the commission in the hands of the military, not the politicians. o'reilly: "would you let some press people in to report it?" michelle malkin: WHOA WHOA WHOA, let's not look too closely at this. hp was really on a roll w/ those commercials of those. first, "pictures of you" by the cure, then "picture book" by the kinks. but apples in stereo? if i took digital pictures, i'd use a different camera/printer on principle. a good cause: missingkids.com. it contains photos of kids who are missing from new orleans. i adore awkwardness. so, when bill is doing his peroration and you can hear the theme music behind him and the police chief is trying to get a word in, i'm in heaven. bill to police chief: were these gangs of looters who stayed behind, or are these freelancers? now, most people tend to be all about laurie dhue, which i can understand; right now, she's looking very tan and it agrees w/ her. i've never been attracted to blondes, though. (admittedly, when she says fatah, it turns me on a little.) me, i'll take jane skinner or even patti ann browne anyday. yup. bill sums up a whole movement: "i don't want to get theoretical." bill has a colonel and judge napolitano on. bill and the colonel are having a conversation. the judge is just there to witness how AWESOME bill is. bill sounds really chipper. he didn't sound that way earlier. i call shenanigans. he said it again. "UNBELIEVABLE!" bill screams, unaware that that's hannity's line! no drinks for you! ... i haven't seen any arguments for bias yet. 'the newshour' is covering all of the stories that the talk shows were going on about. conservatives would appreciate the military being shown doing good works; liberals should like white faces being shown in new orleans. on the other hand, i'm not a fanatic, so i don't know what would tick them off. conservatives might not like the fact that they've done a bit on pelosi asking for mike brown to be fired w/o talking about mayor nagin resigning (and liberals probably would criticize bush's role in all of this not being discussed). conservatives also wouldn't see a point in discussing oil-for-food unless it brings annan down. liberals might ask where cindy sheehan is. if i'm not saying anything, it's b/c 'the newshour' is the most informative and substantive of any of the programs i've been watching/listening to today. as a pretentious teen, i tried to watch 'the newshour' nightly ... but that came to an end quickly. but, yes, now i will have to make a better effort. so far, i've seen two white faces in houses they've refused to evacuate. that's two more white faces than i've seen in the whole of network coverage. oil-for-food: scathing final report, harshly criticized kofi annan but--and here's why i haven't heard about it today--did not link him to anything illegal. paul volcker will discuss the findings later w/ jim. the president asked for $52 billion more money, not $40 billion as sean hannity had said. you would think that he'd have exaggerated the number--unless he was worried that the base might be concerned about spending. "right now, new orleans might be one of the safest cities in the united states," says the police chief. at least jim isn't taking the day off. caller: "i'm not anti-woman but ... when you're thinking about a female president, you have to think about how the governor of louisiana dealt w/ the press." david gregory thinks, according to mark levin, that journalism is smearing the president. no, says, levin, pace randi rhodes, your job is to transcribe the news, that's it. which, of course, would limit the questions being asked of authority. a good thing ... when a republican is in office. shared commercial: john madden & ace hardware. john, you whore! still, i think wabc listeners would be in greater need of hardware. but, yeah, man, power tools ... bridging gaps. buzzword that i can't stand: "disconnect," which mark just used twice. (i also am not a fan of "paradigm" or "blog," really.) drinking is too good of a penalty for that sort of thing. "TWO INCOMPETENT BOOBS," he yells, picking up on limbaugh's language. "and i'm not referring to the governor's--i count her as one." see? ribald. probably sexist. (right now, mark is engaging in a standard political radio exercise: reading off a lot of really big numbers about what the military has been doing down in new orleans. it's meant to make your draw drop. this is usually followed by an indignant yell. our boy doesn't fail us: "GEE! WHAT'S THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DOING?! THEY'RE NOT DOING IT FAST ENOUGH! PRESIDENT BUSH IS A RACIST!" he screams in a funny voice, probably a lib voice.) ron kuby, the station's liberal, is doing a dental plan commercial, which he begins w/ the words, "friends, comrades" and ends w/ "friends, you have nothing to lose but tooth decay." if you're unfamiliar w/ wabc, this should tell you all you need to know about: a woman once called levin to complain about his use of the word "comrade." she nearly demanded to talk to management. ah, he's indirectly approaching the question of "credentials," attacking harry reid, john kerry, hillary clinton, nancy pelosi, &c. the usual suspects, then. one should, i suppose, know what the invocations of such names mean, since, except for personal attacks, levin gives no evidence of what they've done that's so terrible, aside from having those names. he raises a question, though, that i don't have a suitable answer for, namely, well, why weren't buses used to get people out of new orleans? "let me suggest to you that oprah winfrey is part of the problem," not oprah herself, mind, but her mentality that the government can do no wrong. levin is a flamethrower, a real browbeater. he's actually quite humorous, whether he realizes it or not. he can be quite ribald, too. he's had some listeners call in to complain about his language, claiming that they were trying to listen to the radio w/ their kids. oh, yes, we're getting supreme court. fucking hell, savage is taking the day off. from one great radio person to another is a short distance to travel. however, the distance between the political ideologies of randi rhodes and michael savage is, perhaps, untraversable. randi, you're reading my freakin' mind. randi acknowledges the inexperience of the hosts on air america, which she compares to the heads of fema. big difference--aside from, you know, responsibility--is that air america brought in the likes of herself and mike malloy, who have experience, unlike fema, filled w/ arabian horse lawyers and wedding planners, allegedly, which is bad for disaster management, but perfect for the arabian wedding that katie wants! cheney, condi, rummy, and brownie. it's not an administration, it's the gang down at arnold's. congresswoman maxine waters is a guest. she meant to refer to fema head, mike brown, but she slipped and first said, "mike roberts." CONSPIRACY THEORISTS TAKE NOTE. she already has roberts on the brain. actually, i'm surprised: so far today, she's been the only one w/ roberts on her mind. do you remember your first time? ooh, a conspiracy theorist! i really have to get a hold of myself here. randi does, basically, the same thing as sean hannity. except she's right--that is, she's correct: this is a democrat/liberal issue. i believe that the federal government has to catch hell on this; she and i would disagree on what level of hell to put them on. oh, and randi just brought up ol' wolf blitzer. "so poor, so black." i'm still astounded. didn't see it? well, go to crooks and liars. "homeland" randi has the same sort of straightforward, commonsensical delivery that both limbaugh and hannity have, which is why, out of all of the air america types, she should be the breakout star. (also, like those two, she lacks a formal college education. conservatives, it seems, can only forgive high-fallutin' degrees when they're held from "hot" blondes. note which one i put under "hot"--turning into the picture of dorian gray, she is.) ah, sean hannity had used "city of new orleans" as bumper music. randi, though, starts off the hour w/ a song parody of "city of new orleans" indicting the bush administration for their neglect (and getting in a dig at the natalee holloway investigation--remember her?) randi rhodes, you might not know, has an impressive military record. in 1979, she was voted "most valuable woman" in the air force for her skills as a mechanic. she credits her experience in the military for helping shape her political beliefs. that's right, true believers, the military, w/ its belief in fraternity (and sorority!) and never leaving one of your own behind, led randi to the liberal beliefs she espouses today. 5pm. air america radio. top stories: ... and let us never speak of it again. anyone remember darrell from newhart? well, i've found his brother darrell, and he's on npr right now, reading a commentary. before you judge me too harshly, i read the economist every week. i just probably wouldn't like having it read to me. unless it was by, say, the cast of broadway's fiddler on the roof. if you were thinking of seeing 'two gentlemen of verona' tonight at 'shakespeare in the park,' you're fucked. maybe you can go see one of the tennis "games" at the u.s. open instead. a nice tennis "game," maybe? what's that? you'd rather see the whole match? YOU'RE FUCKING RIGHT, YOU ARE. FINALLY SOMEONE TALKS ABOUT REHNQUIST! AND IT'S THE LIBS NO LESS. i'm not convinced that all these people aren't the work of one guy. or woman. it could be a woman too. what i wouldn't give for one of these reporters to have a tragic long island accent ... so, what would you rather have: no fingernails or no eyelashes? i'd say no fingernails. have you ever had sweat drip in your eyes? stings like a bastard. i know it's crude to say so, but, man, i really want to watch tv. bob, melissa, you're giving me nothing to work w/ here. nothing. if there is a bias to npr, i don't think the general population (by which i mean "conservatives") need worry: dollars-to-doughnuts, it's being listened to by people who want their news biased. yes, yes, i'm being both a bore and a boor, but i'm working on it. it's not my fault that my sensibilities are what they are, it's society's. one of the political commentators is adducing republicans and conservatives who are speaking out against bush's response to katrina. his presentation and clever in parts, but, really, couldn't they have gotten someone to read for him? it's as if he was doing an imitation of rush limbaugh's take on academics. in my past as a corporate drone, i knew a lot of people who listened to npr in their cubes. i can totally understand that now. it doesn't distract, it doesn't draw attention to itself, which, given the larger culture, is, as they say, a breath of "fresh air" (hey, look, ma, i wrote a new yorker cartoon!). it's like--get used to the similes--one of the lesser brian eno albums, maybe not music for films, but maybe music for films iii. it's a show where somone will say the word "hastings" and expect the listener to know what he means (the cal-berkeley law school). insular, then. oh, but now there's some sort of folk guitar! it's like the aural manifestation of a coffee table book or a pbs totebag. "so now we know what it feels like to be a country that receives foreign aid ... " and, w/ that, the empire dies. or something. oh, yes, i can see myself listening to this all the time in ten years or so. oh, but it's jazzy! the bad sort! i've never listened to npr. oh, i know the name of shows: 'all things considered,' 'this american life,' 'talk of the town'--wait, is that a show or a new yorker column? perhaps you can understand the confusion. it's always just seemed like something v. tasteful and worthwhile, like the times on sunday morning, reading david sedaris, or the shins--which, frankly, isn't my style. i'm actually quite vulgar. but i'm willing to give it a try! "let not your heart be troubled." there's nothing quite so chilling as conservative talk show laughter. it's used for belittlement, it's used to ignore an argument. that is, it's always the laughter directed at someone. it is, perhaps, the laughter of someone who, for far too long, was laughed at him/herself. again, if i seem to like liberal hosts better, aside from their taste, it's b/c laughter w/ them, in the main, is not a strategy; it's simply what a human being does from time-to-time. interesting! hannity just played a clip from mayor nagin's interview w/ local radio. whereas liberals--and many other people--focus on what he's saying, hannity ignores all of it and just labels it a "breakdown." new orleans needs a new mayor, he says, and the state needs a new governor and, "frankly," two new senators. the use of the word "refugees" gets us back to the idea of politics and the english language. i don't really think that george w. bush has a problem w/ black people, but i think there's a correlation between the color and the economic class of those left behind and the use of the word "refugee." when i think of a refugee, i think of a person w/o a country or, worse still, a fugitive. for good reason, for as my dictionary defines it, a refugee is "a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster." who, really, sanctioned the usage of this word? it wasn't endemic to conservatives; it was in use throughout the whole of the press. "i don't want to blame but ... " has become the new "i'm sorry that her son died but ... ." it's just as grudging, just as disingenuous. "these people" is usually used as a pejorative, referring to one minority group or another. to that list, add "liberals." OMG! bumper music: "one more shot" by c-bank. (!!!) holy shit, there are a lot of commercials. and then there's the news at the top and bottom of the hour, and then the traffic, it seems, every twenty minutes. i regret that i haven't noted how much time hannity actually has to spend speaking. in hannity's favor, he's not a monster. he once appeared on 'the majority report' and, confronted w/ isaac, the show's producer, whose parents were gay, he didn't take the monolithic position that gays make bad parents. (i might've remembered the details wrong, but the sentiment remains true.) like a lot of conservatives, he views things in the abstract; he doesn't consider individual cases. (this is the part where hannity asserts his independence from the republican party by bringing up all of the times where he's criticized the administration and the republican congress. the two issues: the border and spending.) hannity promises a "shoot-out" w/ some character who wants to defend looting. again, we're back to the kanye west scenario. hannity won't debate, say, a joe conason, who once auditioned for alan colmes's role (and it should be obvious why he didn't get the "part"). no, he focuses on the fringe, as to say, "hey, swing voters, look how crazy these LIBS are." perhaps it's small wonder that only 18% of the population consider themselves liberal. scott shannon does all of the announcing bits for hannity's show. i mean, i know plj is owned by the same company, but does shannon's work indicate endorsement of hannity's views? one wouldn't think that a bad-boy of radio would line up w/ the republicans, but, at least, before iraq, howard stern seemed rather solidly in bush's corner. apart from the interest in sex and naughty language, there really is nothing liberal in the views of most shock-jocks, so perhaps it shouldn't be so surprising. top stories: so, sean hannity's music. okay, the obvious one is "independence day," w/ its line about letting "the right be wrong" (i still contend that singing this is why carrie underwood beat bo in 'american idol.') but he also uses "the way it is" by bruce hornsby. which is a song about, amongst other things, the civil rights act or, rather, the fact that the bill won't change the minds of people. conservatives, by definition, prefer things "the way they are," but i wonder if sean is aware of what the lyrics are really about? sean hannity drinking game. you at home will have to observe it. if i were to drink now, it'd be ... irresponsible. keeping w/ the office theme, i put this forth: 3pm: wabc top stories: one of the 8% who gave the government an "a" has called! one of the kool-aid drinkers! bill is both smart enough and rich enough to have gotten out of new orleans. so if he wasn't rich enough, he'd have had something to fall back on. i feel like i'm in the presence of gareth from the office. i call bullshit! "caller": "you don't need an ivy league education ... to not depend on the government. you can read books ... like your book bill, or e.d. hill's (part-time o'reilly sidekick) upcoming book going places ... " and he can increase your brain speed, too. (really, i've never heard anything like this. not the brain ... quickener, but all of these ads done by the host. is bill a madison ave "it" boy?) another o'reilly-hosted commercial spot, on some sort of water heater. (apparently, he can heat water, too!) caller glen, on the disappearance of "survival skills": "what i'd have loved to see the media do is to tell people how to distill water ... " wait a second, looking at that cnn article i linked earlier, gallup poll = usatoday. says cnn:Opinions varied widely, however, on the response of federal, state and local officials regarding Katrina. Forty-two percent of respondents characterized President Bush's response to the disaster as "bad" or "terrible," while 35 percent said it was "good" or "great."apart from the half-truth, there's the lying by omission. limbaugh didn't think it newsworthy that forty-two percent of the people thought bush's reaction was "bad" or "terrible." poll: there's something in them for everyone. o'reilly is citing a gallup poll on bush's handling of katrina, which stands in sharp contrast to the usatoday poll limbaugh quoted: right now, he's playing a (rather long) clip w/ new gingrich from the tv 'factor.' o'reilly, then, is both sun and moon. despite what i've said thus far, i kinda like o'reilly. i like that he's critical of the president, even if he has to qualify it. i think he voted for bush, though, and i think he's more conservative than he's willing to agree to. in this one break, o'reilly has done two of his own commercials. is this b/c of his appeal to the folks? "the governor of louisiana is a FOOL." b/c she's a fool, she can't spell it, so he did it for her. "F-O-O-L." she is also a "boob." a note: everyone is yelling today. anger = authenticity and may be > than actually being correct. the folks, the folks. who are the folks? are you a folk? (folks, i imagine, don't listen to folk b/c that liberal b.s.) bill, in typical fashion, is starting the show talking about a press clipping in the new york post by liz smith that mentions his show. liz smith is fair, he says, one of the few in the business (she also works for murdoch's post, owned by the parent company of fox news). still, she's a liberal, so she's coming at it from that position. the reason he's not a liberal is that they believe the government can solve all of our problems, which is "baloney." and, God, his theme and bumper music are terrible. (actually, he changed from evelyn "champagne" king's "shame" to "living in america." not "cold sweat," but it's an improvement.) on the other hand, sean hannity's bumper music--including "what do i do now?" by sleeper--is brilliant. if i tend to favor liberals more, it's b/c we have more in common. we're more likely to appreciate the same films, books & movies. bill o'reilly on culture: he went to see the "beach boys" at, i believe, jones beach. see, *you* understand why i use scare-quotes, but bill wouldn't. he said they were great, better than on record. he did, also, go see brian wilson. he liked the beach boys stuff, but thought the smile stuff was "too esoteric," a cleaned-up version of mike love's memorable assessment of the album as "avant-garde shit." (yes, bill o'reilly is the mike love of talk radio.) wor is the "alternative" in new york to wabc. alternative gets scare-quotes b/c it's definition of alternative is opposing conservative hosts w/ *other* conservative hosts, like bob grant and michael savage and, on many issues, bill o'reilly. wor news, top story: william rehnquist's funeral. the problem w/ what franken does in this bit is similar to rush's statements about the outrageous claims of liberals. he ignores some claims in favor of others. (and, again, we've returned to the point of being the moon and not the sun; on the "conservative" side, b/c he claims independence and i've identified him as such, only o'reilly does this w/ his fixation on franken. the others just swat him away, hannity's cries of "that idiot al franken" notwithstanding.) speaking of the limbaugh game, it's resident dittohead mark luther. al makes a good point about cronyism, i.e. mike brown, a former commissioner of the international arabian horse association, was made fema director. allegedly, he was forced to resign b/c "association officers were upset that he had accepted donations to a personal legal defense fund." this is almost as bad as former governor of new jersey and gay american james mcgreevey made alleged lover golan cipel the director of the state's homeland security. i want to be clear. gotomypc.com should not be confused w/ gotomeeting.com. they would seem related, no? i don't know for sure, but would appreciate if someone would do the legwork for me. i fear i might've done "gtmp" when i should've said "gtm." i apologize and will try to be more accurate going forward. speaking of dershowitz, he'll be a guest on 'the majority report' tonight. gtmp. al and dahlia are discussing judicial activism. dahlia mentions "semantic tricks." "two judicial activisms," the right thinks, "doesn't make an activism." for instance, since roe v. wade was allegedly activism, striking it down wouldn't be judicial activism. bad math, bad law. shared commercial: 'phantom of the opera.' andrew lloyd-webber, bringing people together. something that right and left can agree on--just don't get them talkin' about who their favorite phantom is ... here's something i found troubling listening to al yesterday. i know he'd been on vacation, so he didn't get to register his immediate feelings about the tragedy on the gulf coast. but yesterday he seemed, well, gleeful, not over the destruction--he's demonstrated himself to be an incredibly emotional and compassionate individual--but gleeful in the hope that this was finally, finally--after the war, the rove leak, cindy sheehan--they'd found something that would take down this administration. which, if the usatoday poll that rush cited is accurate, won't happen. "BILL O'REILLY IS STUPID," al proclaims. catherine, as usual, wants to push things along. al, in a sense, is a big child; he can't be left unsupervised. (this obsession w/ o'reilly on his part, and the station's larger obsession w/ bush is a real problem for people trying to reassert--or *reinsert* their party back into power. they act like the moon, reflecting, rather than the sun.) turn-of-events! pace my prediction, it's the conservatives who are talking katrina and the liberals who are talking john roberts! change of plans, then. 'dayside' has been pre-empted! (which happens often; most times the guests just sit and watch a rummy, condi, or brownie press conference. fox loves those guys.) which means i can't use my graphic: nothing like a little self-aggrandizement before the break. something called "rush on broadway" sold out in twenty minutes. four different terms are being used in the discourse: conservative, republican, liberal, and democrat. who's idea was homeland security, rush asks? joe lieberman, a democrat! hey, hey, wait one second: democrat doesn't translate to liberal* (although republican should = conservative, if they know what's good for them). this comes up in rush's attack on hillary clinton for introducing legislation that would make fema an independent federal program. "if heads are going to roll, congress's heads should roll too!" again, this is the thinking that results in lynndie england: executives aren't to blame; footsoldiers are. (hey, aren't these the people that believe in the trickle-down effect? or is that only for economics?) "the point of all this is ... if we want to play the blame game ... by God we're going to point them in the right direction ... the city of new orleans." blame the victims, then. he finds the media making outrageous claims, which he can't "laugh off"--but apparently he can't discredit them either, or won't try to, except by playing, not the blame game, but the name game. the city government of new orleans is corrupt, says rush. "this is the state of huey newton, for goodness sakes!" they did not use the money earmarked for levee repair! which, again, may be true. the story is from something called "the cyber news service"--which i've never heard of. i'd imagine, though, that they're highly impartial. he really does have a way w/ voices. journalists sound like george sanders; j-schoolers sound like eddie fisher. one is contemptible b/c of his elitism, one is contemptible b/c you used to run his underwear up the flagpole in high school. (one does wonder, though, what the conservative rich sound like ... like you and me, i guess.) of course, one way to look at that usatoday poll is that more people think that the federal government (bush + feds) are to blame than the local government. he's discussing the "difficulty" he had finding the poll (obviously the left is hiding it). he found it on cnn, the headline "most people believe new orleans won't recover." rush's preferred headline, i infer: "most people believe bush not to blame." which gets to the heart of the right's problem w/ the media: it's not that they're biased toward the left--the lichters never make this claim in the media elite, the bible of the right--it's that they're not biased toward the right. it's not that they're liberal, it's that they're nonconservative. the headline, seems to me, to be fairly impartial, it focuses on what, for most people, should be the most important part of the story: new orleans and its people. commercials for fox news and nexium. "the kook left" beside themselves w/ anger, rush wouldn't be surprised if dems call for bill burkett and cindy sheehan to unite for a sit-in on the outskirts of new orleans. "your first reaction is to laugh ... " oh, really? top story: been awhile since i listened to rush. different species of commercials here: bank of america, citgo, merck, overstock.com--corporate sponsorship. i think limbaugh has pried "my city was gone" away from the pretenders, in a way that sean hannity hasn't w/ his theme music (more on that later). really, it's the perfect song for him--or at least the bits he uses: insistent, repetitive, bottom-heavy. there is something disquieting about how low-key it is. wabc news. top story: nagin says get out! a caller from massachusetts contradicts dan about the problems in mississippi, citing trent lott on the cable news circuit. if you're having a fight in your house, do you want to take care of it yourself? or do you want the governor to come in and handle it? |
my name is fred solinger. on wednesday, september 7, i will provide running commentary on seventeen straight hours of running commentary, opinion, and straight news from a variety of radio stations and television networks. my objective is to be objective ... beyond that, i'm not quite sure, but hopefully it'll be more lucid at 4am, when all of this is over. one thing is for sure: i won't be lucid at that hour. links to the monitored programs, arranged ideologically*, in alphabetical order, lest i be charged w/ bias: the fair & balanced: the left: the right: *that is, when the host has an avowed political position; otherwise, they are assumed to be independent. this is as applicable to bill o'reilly, who leans right, as it is to jon stewart, who leans left.    |
