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Wednesday, June 07, 2006
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Remember when MSNBC's Ashleigh Banfield spoke out against the way the media was covering Iraq. Then, later WorldNetDaily: NBC News dumps Ashleigh Banfield. The reason the far-rght WorldNetDaily trumpets it is because they want the point driven home - -you criticize == you lose your job. MSNBC caved to the far-right. Suppose you want a career in media, want to rise up, want to buy (or keep) a house and car, have health insurance etc., how does your brain digest this news?
And today, Middle East Wars Flare Up At Yale: Controversial academic shot down for appointment; was campaign against him politically motivated?
When Cole’s potential hiring became publicly known, several of his detractors, including the American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin and Washington Times columnist Joel Mowbray, took various steps to protest the decision. They wrote op-ed pieces in various publications and Mowbray went as far as to send a letter to a dozen of Yale’s major donors, many of whom are Jewish, urging them to call the university and protest Cole’s hiring.
... “The articles published in the Yale Standard, the New York Sun, the Wall Street Journal, Slate, and the Washington Times, as part of what was clearly an orchestrated campaign, contained made-up quotes, inaccuracies, and false charges,” he said. Yale caved to the far-right. Suppose you want a career in academia, want to rise up, want to buy (or keep) a house and car, have health insurance etc., how does your brain digest this news?
We remember McCarthyism as a dark period because people were smeared and denied jobs because of thier political beliefs.
(Via Seeing the Forest.)
6:27:35 PM 
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Sums it up pretty well in regard to the GOP:
You might not have always liked Republicans, but you could count on them to manage the bank. They might be lousy tippers, act snooty, talk through their noses, wear spats and splash mud on you as they race their Pierce-Arrows through the village, but you knew they could do the math. To see them produce a ninny and then follow him loyally into the swamp for five years is disconcerting, like seeing the Rolling Stones take up lite jazz. So here we are at an uneasy point in our history, mired in a costly war and getting nowhere, a supine Congress granting absolute power to a president who seems to get smaller and dimmer, and the best the Republicans can offer is San Franciscophobia? This is beyond pitiful. This is violently stupid.
It is painful to look at your father and realize the old man should not be allowed to manage his own money anymore. This is the discovery the country has made about the party in power. They are inept. The checkbook needs to be taken away. They will rant, they will screech, they will wave their canes at you and call you all sorts of names, but you have to do what you have to do.
(Via Rising Hegemon.)
6:26:18 PM
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Watching a good movie is "passive" in the same way that looking at a great painting is "passive" -- which is, not very; you're quite actively lost in thought. For my friend, though, the only activity that seemed "active," and thus worthwhile, was when a person sitting at a PC engaged in digital busy work of some kind.
The short cinematic pastiche we saw is an example of what has come to be called a "mash-up," and for a big part of the tech world, these sorts of mash-ups are becoming the highest form of cultural production.
6:09:15 PM
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But, I don’t think you actually have to say it for us to imagine Jesus laughing. In the famous episode where there’s a storm on the lake, and the fishermen are out there. And they see Jesus on the shore, and Jesus walks across the stormy waters to the boat. And St. Peter thinks, “I can do this. I can do this. He keeps telling us to have faith and we can do anything. I can do this.” So he steps out of the boat and he walks for—I don’t know, it doesn’t say—a few feet, without sinking into the waves. But then he looks down, and he sees how stormy the seas are. He loses his faith and he begins to sink. And Jesus hot-foots it over and pulls him from the waves and says, “Oh you of little faith.” I can’t imagine Jesus wasn’t suppressing a laugh. How hilarious must it have been to watch Peter—like Wile E. Coyote—take three steps on the water and then sink into the waves.
(Via robotwisdom.)
5:57:36 PM
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Whew! Last night's San Francisco Giants game was reason in itself for watching baseball, on TV or otherwise. Jason Schmidt has pitched some wonderful games in the last few years, but it's hard to match that 2-1, 16-strikeout masterpiece, including 3 big strikeouts in the 9th inning. It's not hard to sometimes be a bit cynical about big-money, big-corporation sports, but when you get right down to it, it's all about individuals turning in great performances individually and working together as a team. It's not all that much unlike watching a movie, a dance, a concert, a symphony. The live nature of baseball sets it apart from the contrived nature of movies, and the sponteneity of it sets it apart from plays, dances, symphonies, etc. In any case, watching that game was a real joy. (Probably not for Marlins fans.)
10:31:41 AM
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© Copyright 2006 Steve Michel.
Last update: 7/1/2006; 9:38:37 AM.
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