Opinion and Commentary since 2003
Thanks to Donnie Burtless from Buffalo Eats for a fun interview, which you can listen to here. We touch on all kinds of topics like food, blogging, pizza, cocktails, and the finer points of arguing. Courtesy of Buffalo Eats and Audio Buffalo.
[audio:http://buffaloeats.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/podcast-21-alan-b.mp3]Saw an odd Tweet Monday morning from WIVB (Channel 4) anchor Joe Arena:
It’s a news anchor (whose Twitter profile reads, “News 4 Morning Anchor. Part time Winging It Buffalo Style host and an all around heck of a guy! Buffalo · http://www.wivb.com“) yukking it up with conservative TV talk-show host Stefan Mychajliw over some “typical Barry” (meaning President Barack Obama) behavior, linking to a story in the Washington Post.
That story in the Washington Post amounts to a facile summarization of an interview that CNN’s Candy Crowley conducted with Republican House Speaker John Boehner. Apparently, Boehner claims to have a great relationship with the President (whom his caucus has gone out of its way to obstruct almost always), and that the current battle over the imminent doubling of student loan interest rates is made up.
But as is typical in Beltway journalism – and is missed here by the morning anchor on Channel 4 – there’s a critical follow-up missing. If you read the transcript of the interview, Boehner says this:
Democrats and Republicans for months have been working together to try to figure out a way to resolve the problem. And for the president to politicize this for his own re-election is picking a fight where one doesn’t exist.
The next words out of a quality interviewer’s mouth should be: how can you say a fight “doesn’t exist” when you yourself just said that the two sides have been working “for months” to try and resolve this particular issue? Crowley doesn’t ask it, Boehner doesn’t offer it, and here we have Joe Arena commiserating with Stefan Mychajliw about “typical Barry”.
Yes, typical Barry, pointing out that the Republicans are obstructing something to score political points against Obamacare.
But most “journalists” who maintain Twitter accounts that are linked to their employment as journalists go out of their way to avoid controversial political opinions. No one knows if Ginger Geoffrey, Aaron Besecker, Nalina Shapiro, or John Borsa is a Republican or a Democrat. No one knows what any of them thinks about “Barry” and his typicality.
Not to be outdone, Arena then Tweeted,
[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/joearena4/status/196946917882724353″]
Linking to this story, at the ultra-conservative “Newsbusters” site, run by the execrable “Media Research Council”, whose stated mission is, “Exposing and Combating Liberal Media Bias”. The story is about a speech that anti-bullying activist Dan Savage gave, where he essentially said, (as “Newsbusters” writes,)
…he said there are people using the Bible as an excuse for gay bullying, because it says in Leviticus and Romans that being gay is wrong. Right after that, he said we can ignore all the ‘B.S.’ in the Bible.
The shock-horror is that Savage actually used the phrase “bullshit”; as if high schoolers have never heard that term. But the more salient point is that Savage is objectively correct. Not only do conservatives and their Christianist allies rely heavily on certain cherry-picked passages in the Bible to morally justify their homophobia and hatred, but Savage is also absolutely right that we can “ignore” it.
Why?
Because the Bible says that homosexuality is an abomination. You know what else the Bible says are abominations?
You k now what the Bible says is perfectly hunky dory?
You can believe whatever you want. I don’t really care. You can think whatever you want. I don’t really care. But if you’re a journalist and you’re using a Twitter account that identifies you as being an anchor for a straight news program, you should probably Tweet your opinions about “Barry” and that durned librul media on a separate account.
As to Arena using a Channel 4-branded account to provide political commentary on national issues, I sent an email to WIVB News Director Joe Schlaerth this morning, noting that this post would be published after 5pm. I received no reply.
New York City Supreme Court Justice Barbara Kapnick rendered a decision yesterday on a motion for summary judgment brought by SiriusXM against Howard Stern’s production company and agent. Stern listeners will know that he took SiriusXM to court alleging that they are in breach of his first 2006 – 2011 contract with Sirius. He alleged that, under the contract, the post-merger influx of XM subscribers into the merged company should count towards his performance bonus, which dealt with how many subscribers Stern had attracted to the service. Listeners will be aware of his recent comments mocking the fact that SiriusXM claims to be one company, or two, depending on how it might convenient for it.
The judge, however, sided with SiriusXM, pointing out that the contract had a specific clause providing for a $25 million bonus in the event of a merger with XM, which was honored. The judge interprets the contract to not count incoming XM subscribers – only 1 million of whom opted to actually listen to Stern via the “Best of Sirius” add-on package – as part of the bonus structure.
I fully expect that Stern and Buchwald will appeal this ruling, but it makes for interesting reading and a unique glimpse into Stern’s business dealings.
Stern Dismissalhttp://www.scribd.com/embeds/89702610/content?start_page=1&view_mode=list
And what about hip-hop music? Does listening to it “send a message” that puts “young blacks at risk”?
WTF.
Racist Nazi apologist and anti-Semitic Holocaust denier Pat Buchanan is, at long last, leaving MSNBC. In a column, he whines about being “blacklisted”, evoking the specter of the McCarthyist Red Scare of the early 50s. It’s a tricky line for Buchanan to walk – occasionally, he uses the McCarthy witch hunts as a sword against perceived liberal smears against, e.g., Sam Alito. But on the other hand, Buchanan is quite clearly, at least, a McCarthy apologist.
But Buchanan is off the air in part because of a grassroots clamor over what he wrote in a book. He equates a changing culture in a country, which has from its very founding been a multi-cultural melting pot to its very destruction. He’s free to espouse those views, to publish them, defend them, disseminate them, and to find another damn TV network on which to spout them. He’s not entitled to a lucrative MSNBC contract, and it’s frankly high time this washed-up, anachronistic ironic xenophobe was no longer polluting the airwaves.
This isn’t brought about due to some unconstitutional “House Un-American Activities Committee” holding a public show-trial “hearing” over Buchanan’s links to an unpopular political organization. Likening a popular effort to have him removed from the airwaves to mid-century government-backed witch hunts and government-sanctioned shunning is disingenuous, at best.
Buchanan always ran for office as a populist blower of every paranoid dog-whistle available. He should understand the power of average people.
Buffalo’s sleepiest political columnist™ strikes again!
Speaking of the Grisanti district, much has been made in some quarters about the efforts of Kitty Lambert — a same-sex marriage advocate and head of a group called Grisanti Grassroots – to register about 300 sympathizers in the Conservative Party. The idea would be to build support for Grisanti in the minor party should he face a primary over his 2011 vote in favor of same-sex marriage.
But Erie County Conservative Chairman Ralph Lorigo says about one-third of those new Conservatives hail from Niagara County, which is not expected to be part of the new district. And he points out that Conservative honcho Billy Delmont signed up another 200 Conservatives himself over the past few months. Those new Conservatives may not be as enthusiastic about the Grisanti vote.
His mustachioed somnolence also stuffed Sunday’s column with the third or fourth mention of Barry Weinstein and Chris Collins stalking NY-26, and how Collins in particular loves that he won all the Erie County towns in the district when he ran.
This is because much the suburbanite electorate is comprised of low-information WBEN voters.
But that Grisanti thing – “much has been made in some quarters”. Passive voice + strawman, paired with supposed information from what amounts to the boss of a political gang, just shouldn’t be in the paper.
Same-sex marriage and civil rights advocate Kitty Lambert set Stenographer Bob right. She runs a group called “Grisanti Grassroots” which has been working to register same-sex marriage proponents as Conservative Party members to help Grisanti should there be any primary.
Dear Bob:
I was pleasantly surprised to see my name in your column today, especially since I had not spoken to you. I was more surprised to see that you relied solely upon the Conservative Party to provide you with information about our registration drive. Of course, they know none of the details; we didn’t provide them with courtesy copies of our work…
… only 12.5% of the 304 Conservative Party members we registered are from outside Erie County – and nowhere near one-third are from Niagara County.
They lied to you.
Also, my election attorney advised me that, according to NYS Election Law Section 5-304.3, only voters whose registrations were collected and submitted before October 15, 2011 can legally vote in the 2012 Erie County Conservative Party Primary. That’s why we hurried to get it done. That’s also why we did it quietly: so the homophobes in the National Organization for Marriage wouldn’t do the same thing and negate our efforts. We caught them by surprise and they aren’t happy about it.
If our group could have been registering new Conservatives legally qualified to vote in the 2012 primary AFTER October 15, 2011, we would have certainly registered four or five times the voters we did. Therefore, not even one of the voters Billy Delmont allegedly registered “in the past few months” will be legally permitted to vote in the 2012 primary. The only exception to this rule are voters who just turned 18 years old after October 15, 2001 – and I doubt crusty old Billy Delmont knows two 18 year olds, let alone 200.
They lied to you again.
Perhaps we can talk on the telephone or over coffee the next time you write about a project I’m coordinating. My number is 716-xxx-xxxx. I would be delighted to talk or meet with you, as I am an avid reader of your column. And I won’t lie to you.
Sincerely,
Kitty Lambert-Rudd
Coordinator
This is probably illustrative of why buyers of the paper version of the Buffalo News prefer its coupons over anything else.
Buffalo Sabres 2007:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3R0gOt6QCg]
WGRZ Super Bowl ad 2012:
http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1
Over the weekend, the LeRoy story about high school kids suddenly developing unexplained Tourettes-like symptons took a strange turn. Some of the families have retained the services of Erin Brockovich, who consults with personal injury / environmental tort law firm Weitz & Luxenburg, among others. (You may know Weitz & Luxenburg as being the firm for which Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver works).
The Brockovich team was on hand over the weekend to take soil and water samples from the general area around the high school, and brought the media along to watch & inquire. The school district, however, appears to be overreacting to this, playing hardball with respect to the small town media circus this is becoming. Howard Owens from the Batavian comments,
[Brockovich investigator Bob] Bowcock was told by [LeRoy Central School District rep Bill] Albert that he could walk the grounds, just like any other citizen in Le Roy, but could not take soil samples, and the media would not be allowed on the grounds. Albert said that while members of the media were citizens, they could not go on the property while acting in capacity as media, even though numerous Supreme Court cases have not drawn a distinction between a “person” and a “corporate entity” (most recently Citizens United) for the purpose of First Amendment rights.
School property is public property and public access cannot be denied so long as it does not disrupt the educational purpose of the campus.
The media was on site during non-school hours and there was no evidence of educational activity. To label the media presence as “criminal activity” is beyond ludicrous.
Ludicrous indeed. But not because of the distinction between a “person” and any other legal entity, but because if a person has the right to traverse the property, a person with a camera has the right to photograph them, and a person with a microphone has a right to question them. The school district’s reaction to all of this is likely guided by overprotective counsel, but is fast becoming comical. The environment at the school could quite possibly hold the key to this outbreak of an unknown malady, and the school should be welcoming additional investigators and scrutiny – not lobbing Soviet-era threats as if this is some military secret.
The LeRoy High School isn’t Area 51, and the families of kids who go there have a right to be 100% sure they’re not learning trigonometry and science on top of an environmental catastrophe.
The New York Times’ public editor has an earnest question to ask you:
I’m looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge “facts” that are asserted by newsmakers they write about…
…[for example,] on the campaign trail, Mitt Romney often says President Obama has made speeches “apologizing for America,” a phrase to which Paul Krugman objected in a December 23 column arguing that politics has advanced to the “post-truth” stage.
As an Op-Ed columnist, Mr. Krugman clearly has the freedom to call out what he thinks is a lie. My question for readers is: should news reporters do the same?
If so, then perhaps the next time Mr. Romney says the president has a habit of apologizing for his country, the reporter should insert a paragraph saying, more or less:
“The president has never used the word ‘apologize’ in a speech about U.S. policy or history. Any assertion that he has apologized for U.S. actions rests on a misleading interpretation of the president’s words.”
To me, getting to the truth of a matter asserted is part & parcel of a journalist’s job. Anything less is nothing more than mindless transcription of spin and press releases. It’s as if the Times is asking whether doctors should treat patients, or whether lawyers should represent clients. For years, it’s been a given that the fourth estate acts as a BS detector for a populace seeking information. Enough with the phony “some say” strawman, enough with letting people get away with repetitive lying.
Should the New York Times, the paper of record, be a “truth vigilante”? It should never have been otherwise.
Isn’t Wolf Blitzer’s from WNY? Isn’t he one of the few locals who went on to become a media giant?
If so, why is he busy penning facile book reports about how nice it is that people are willing to run for king of the free world?
From the rarely-situational Situation Room, Wolf hopes you have as much fun reading his 5th grade essay as he did writing it!
