A media food fight to the death is in progress on the pages of tomorrow’s (today’s for me here in Japan) New York Times Book Review. “To the death”, you ask? Well, something extreme if you read the reaction of the Times’ own executive editor Bill Keller to the essay “Bad News” by Richard Posner in a previous issue of that review. (Disclosure: Keller is a friend and I would like to keep it that way.)
Apparently Posner had the temerity to suggest the near-monolithic liberalism these days of the Times and similar publications was motivated to a great extent by Mammon (in part in response to outside competition like blogs). Keller accuses Posner of making “ almost no distinctions within the vast category of American media, between those that are aggressively partisan and those that strive to keep opinion sequestered from news… Hmm… The editor later continues:
The saddest thing is that Judge Posner’s market determinism leaves no room for the other dynamics I’ve witnessed in my 35 years in newspapers: the idealism of reporters who think they can make the world better, the intellectual satisfaction of puzzling through a complicated issue, the competitive gratification of being first to discover a buried story, the pride in striving to uphold a professional code of fair play, the quest for peer recognition and, yes, the feedback from attentive and thoughtful readers. He makes no allowance for the possibility that conscientious reporters and editors are capable of setting aside their personal beliefs or standing up to their advertisers (and the prejudices of their readers) to do work they believe in.
But it does. I don’t think Posner would deny any of these things. Nearly everything has some influence, but the key point is that times are changing. They always do and entrenched forces almost always resist it. Elsewhere Keller has called blogs a “circle jerk,” an intemperate remark from someone who should know better - or perhaps projection, since that term just as easily applies to the world of Krugman, Rich, et al, perhaps more. But whatever the case, the Times seems on the defensive and has purchased, possibly for an excessive amount, the rather benign online information source About.Com.
There is a lot to learn from the plight of mainstream media right now for those of us in new media (hate that term). We should all remember ,first of all, not to be complacent. It doesn’t take Robespierre to remind us that the “revolution eats its young.” (ht: Tammy Bruce)
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41 Comments
1. richard mcenroe:In the interests of your continued friendship with Mr. Keller, this is all I have to say.
Aug 20, 2005 - 3:44 pm 2. Mike Lief:The NY Times’ executive editor has a conniption in the Letters-to-the-Editor section? Has there ever been a better illustration of, “Me thinks he doth protest too much”?
Well, at least Posner didn’t hit a nerve.
Heh.
Aug 20, 2005 - 3:55 pm 3. David Thomson:ìHe makes no allowance for the possibility that conscientious reporters and editors are capable of setting aside their personal beliefs or standing up to their advertisers (and the prejudices of their readers) to do work they believe in.î
God bless Bill Keller. Iím sure that he is a sincere fellow. Why is he so goofy? It is because Keller is perceived as a moderate, if not even conservative, by others within his own Manhattan elite social circle. I have no doubt that this gentleman has little use either for Oliver Stone or Michael Moore. But guess what? Many of his friends worship the ground these idiots walk on. Almost certainly Keller is often told that he is too soft on George W. Bush. He is constantly asked why the New York Times isnít running articles about how the President is secretly cooperating with the Zionists to take over the world. Is the Times too worried about its advertising revenue to ruffle the feathers of Halliburton and the evil oil companies? When is he going to have the guts to stop pussyfooting around? The result is that Keller is left convinced that he is a fair and objective man who stands above the fray. Itís those partisans at the National Review and the Nation who should be criticized, not a trained and dispassionate journalist like himself.
Aug 20, 2005 - 3:57 pm 4. Karl:On the off-chance that Mr. Keller reads this, I note the very first on his list of “other dynamics” is “the idealism of reporters who think they can make the world better.”
I would submit to Mr. Keller that such is the root of many of the problems at his newspaper.
I’m sure Duranty thought he was making the world better in not reporting on the famine in the Ukraine.
I’m sure “60 Minutes Wednesday” thought it was “making the world better” by running the TxANG story right before the 2004 election.
I’m sure Uncle Walter thought he was “making the world better” by reporting the Tet Offensive as a defeat, rather than the victory it was (according to military historians).
I’m sure that whoever it was at the NYT who recently stuck words in Phil Carter’s mouth thought he or she was “making the world better.” BTW, Mr. Keller — who was that and why hasn’t that person been fired?
More generally, Mr. Keller might ask himself how often some idealistic journo’s concept of “making the world better” was in line with a more liberal ideology versus a more conservative ideology.
Journalists who are driven by a desire “to make the world better” at the expense of providing timely and accurate information are, imho, one of the main reasons why the established media continues to lose credibility in public opinion.
Aug 20, 2005 - 4:43 pm 5. Rick Ballard:For those confused as to what Mr. Keller meant by “circle jerk”, I strongly suggest continuing to read beyond his letter in the link. Bill Moyers and Eric Alterman complete the circle and, read in complement with Mr. Kellers, provide as fine an example as I have seen.
Roger,
Give us a photo of the monkeys from the Tosho-gu shrine so that we can assign appropriate names to them.
Aug 20, 2005 - 4:57 pm 6. Mark Poling:the idealism of reporters who think they can make the world better,
Am I the only person to see this as part of the problem and not part of the solution?
I mean, name a utopian despot who didn’t have the same ideal goal. I don’t mind anyone with a healthy dose of self-doubt who wants to make the world a better place. What bothers me about institutional media is that became so intellectually homogenous that self-doubt was actively discouraged.
Blogs came by maybe 30 years too late. Maybe the 70s could have been avoided….
Aug 20, 2005 - 4:59 pm 7. Kevin P:Mark:
You are 100 per cent correct. Newspapers should be in the buisness of reporting the news in the most truthfull manner possible. If they throw in “make the world a better place” into their mission statement they set up the situation where if they report the truth could that not hinder their goal of world improvement. If they happen to believe that a Democratic political victory would make the world a better place then they would be tempted to fudge the facts. If they think the war in Iraq is bad for the world they might decide they need to use their position to end the war, not simply report on it. The L.A. Times puts stories on battles in Iraq that go badly on the front page and cover them in exact detail. they put stories on battles that go well in the back pages underneath stories about a mass wedding in Iraq and simply list the enemy dead and wounded and give little to no details. I am sure they think they are making the world a better place.
Kevin Peters
Aug 20, 2005 - 5:43 pm 8. D Anghelone:Elsewhere Keller has called blogs a “circle jerk,” an intemperate remark from someone who should know better - or perhaps projection, since that term just as easily applies to the world of Krugman, Rich, et al, perhaps more.
But the pajamas make for quicker reaction.
The blog-go-round is, IMO, less repetitive and more additive than traditional media and more persistent to boot. Stories are less apt to be dropped as yesterday’s news.
Aug 20, 2005 - 5:47 pm 9. JorgXMcKie:The following letters by Moyers and Alterman are even more illuminating. I don’t believe I have ever seen such examples of combined hubris and obdurate inablitity to see beams for motes.
In Moyers’ long list of his ‘oversight’ do you discern even a single example of holding a liberal interest to account? I guess they never do anything wrong, or such a professional as Moyers would have spotted it.
As for Alterman, does his preening and flaunting of his (so he supposes) huge and throbbing intellect and his trained discernment of intellectual capacity have no end? I don’t remember such a twit since Gore Vidal was at his pinnacle of his waspishness, and Vidal was interesting. Alterman is a poseur at best. At worst, and more likely, he is actually a toadying suckup to what he obviously sees as his class and ideological betters. Cloying and pathetic only begins to describe his work.
It is truly hard to believe that all three of these appear truly unable to understand their own Achilles’ heel.
No wonder what passes for liberalism is dying as rapidly as the Democratic Party
Aug 20, 2005 - 5:48 pm 10. JohnFNWayne:Keller’s op-ed is typical editorial reactionary blag. This is the same industry that obsessively asks for feedback, holds multitudinous focus groups (which every major newspaper in the country has done over the last two years) and begged the public as to why they shun their product, hoping to find that holy grail of answers as to why their circ. numbers are plunging, and they respond in the same arrogant, condescending and self-righteous pose each and every time. It’s either group arrogance or a dismal fellowship of self loathing.
Aug 20, 2005 - 5:55 pm 11. David R. Block:Jorg, I think that you have it right on beams and motes.
The monolithic left-leaning, often to the point of tipping over, editorial pages, or as I have called them lately “idiotorial pages,” indeed shows the arrogant media circle jerk. They know so much better than us unenlightened rubes, particularly if we live in a “red state.”
Aug 20, 2005 - 5:56 pm 12. MaDr:I find it curious that Keller didn’t include in his list - accurate and balanced reporting.
I guess he already conceded that point when he wrote - “Even sophisticated readers of The New York Times sometimes find it hard to
distinguish between news coverage and commentary in our pages.”
Commentary is code for opinion.
Aug 20, 2005 - 6:29 pm 13. erp:MaDr you beat me to the quote.
In referring to the sophisticated readers, does Keller mean both of them?
Aug 20, 2005 - 6:36 pm 14. morganworks:I was also going to make the point that “the idealism of reporters who think they can make the world better” is a root cause of “aggressively partisan” journalism, but Karl and Mark beat me to it. This self-righteous sense of knowing what is best certainly trumps the other “dynamics” Keller lists with the exception of “the quest for peer recognition”.
Aug 20, 2005 - 6:40 pm 15. Vasily:the idealism of reporters who think they can make the world better
Yes Mark, it leaped at me also. Make the world a better place by doing what, reporting on what, exposing what, grinding whose ax? This notion assumes one knows what the world needs, and that mere reporters can and ought to be tasked with the responsibility. Hubris on top of pride, wrapped up in ego. What happened? Who was there? What did they say? What are the issues? What is the context? What are the unasked questions? Who is the expert on the subject? And so forth. Do this please. Provide these perspectives, and the people in a Republic, whom the founders trusted, will surely make up their own minds. The Dinosaur Media, (”What was that flash of light in the sky?”) cannot go extinct too quickly for me.
Aug 20, 2005 - 6:49 pm 16. The Kid:Thereís nothing wrong with idealism, itís just that I wonder what the journalistís ideals may be and what formative experience s/heís bringing to the story. By all means shine a bright light on corruption, public and private. But first make sure you understand why this is, er, stooopid: Despite crime rates at an all time low, Americaís prisons are overflowing like never before.
Er, is this troika taking a preemptive whack at a possible Supreme Court nominee?
Aug 20, 2005 - 6:55 pm 17. Rick Ballard:“Er, is this troika taking a preemptive whack at a possible Supreme Court nominee?”
Nope, Judge Posner should have had Souter’s seat but GHWB didn’t want to face another Borking. Judge Posner is now a bit long in the tooth for an appointment to the Supreme Court. I don’t know about Keller but Moyers and Alterman were mudflingers at both Bork and Thomas.
Watch what the NYT does wrt Roberts. Roberts learned a lot watching Bork go through the fire and part of the reason the mudflingers can’t find anything on him is because of what he learned. That’s not going to keep the NYT from painting him as “extreme” with absolutely no supporting evidence.
Every once in a while I see a nature program featuring what is called a “living fossil”. Discovery Channel or National Geographic should put a camera crew on these guys. A program on Komodo Dragons would probaly achieve a higher rating but I bet they woud do better than ‘The Dodo - Nature’s Dumbest Bird’.
Aug 20, 2005 - 7:21 pm 18. chuck:Every once in a while I see a nature program featuring what is called a “living fossil”.
Cockroaches and horseshoe crabs? Nah, too common. Living fossils only intrigue when they are rare.
Aug 20, 2005 - 7:37 pm 19. auspatriotman:Get rid of the PC crap in the post. Keller and his ilk are covert Marxists like The Nation. Anytime the MSM can be exposed for the anti-american, socialist/marxist progandists they are is fine with me. No PC accepted. Screw them. They ran more freeking articles on Abu Gharib than they did on fine military folk like Pat Tillman. Who the heck is kidding who here?
That Posner wrote what he did was a deserved kick in the scrotum of the the Times and all the other rotten anti-war/patriotic scum media that are in their ‘circle jerk.’ Two Words:Cindy Sheehan. I am livid what the MSM has done with her. Talk about a Michael Moore/Howard Dean/Joe Biden/Nancy Palosi/Ted Kennedy/Pat Lehey/Harry Reid/Jonh Conyers foot print!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The war of words is as fierce as the bullets that flew in Fallujah and still flying anywhere against these terrorist scum. There is a fight between ‘Blue and Red’, Right and Left and quite frankly I’ll take a Red Righty any day of the week.
Next: We get the pacifist/terror loving Dems like those mentioned above and a number of RINO’S I might add the heck out of The House an Senate!
Aug 20, 2005 - 7:42 pm 20. Vulgorilla:“…..the idealism of reporters who think they can make the world better,…..”
Therein lies the root cause of the problem. I thought that the role of the reporter was to report, as accurately as possible, the sequence of events that makes up the news event. I couldn’t care less what the particular reporter thinks would make the world better, in fact I suspect that the reporter’s vision of what a better world would look like and my vision of what a better world would look like are two radically different visions. I’m not paying for his/her vision of a better world, I paying for accurate news reporting, and quite frankly, I can’t get accuracy and objectivity from the TSM (Terrorist Supporting Media - the old MSM). That’s one of the reasons I’m here commenting on this blog, and not watching CBSNBCABCCNN, nor subscribing to a local newspaper. There’s a lot of us, and our numbers are growing daily - just look at where the advertising dollars are flowing now. Heh.
Aug 20, 2005 - 7:47 pm 21. Mescalero:Too bad Keller has problems with the real world.
Why has the Ole Grey Lady suffered a sprial decrease in circulation and subscriptions? The answer isn’t so obscure that any fifth-grader couldn’t figure it out. The NYT is horribly unbalanced and biased against the military and veterans. They make no bones about covering up lies and distortions made by liberals and leftists.
Maybe Mr. Keller can tell us why the Ole Gray Lady still cherishes a horribly corrupt Pulitzer Prize awarded to that notorious Stalin apologist Walter Duranty. One of these days, those of us of Ukrainian descent will remove that evil award for lying and consign it to the sewers of New York!
Aug 20, 2005 - 8:00 pm 22. David Thomson:ìKeller and his ilk are covert Marxists like The Nation.î
You are going off the deep end. Bill Keller is not a covert Marxist. He is a man who can no longer see the forest because the trees are in the way. Just about all of his professional buddies see the world through the same set of lenses. They are truly bewildered by our complaints. So much so, their feelings are sometimes hurt by our accusations. This is why the Bill Kellers of the world are doomed to extinction. He is similar to the pilot whose out of control airplane is rapidly approaching the hard ground. Itís too late for him to be saved. Someday you may see a statue of Keller in a museum next to a dinosaur.
Aug 20, 2005 - 8:12 pm 23. Billy Hollis:The “make the world a better place” nonsense has already set me off once this week. Rather than repeat a rant I made over at Daily Pundit, I’ll just link to it.
Aug 20, 2005 - 8:17 pm 24. Brian:Rick Ballard: The Komodo Dragon is the world’s largest living lizard. It is found on the steep-sloped island of Komodo in the Lesser Sunda chain of the Indonesian archipelago, and on the nearby islands of Rinja, Padar, and Flores. It is a ferocious carnivore, and one swipe of its powerful tail can render an enemy senseless.
Aug 20, 2005 - 11:16 pm 25. dan cliff:Rick,
“Give us a photo of the monkeys from the Tosho-gu shrine so that we can assign appropriate names to them.”
While a number of depictions of such monkeys exist, perhaps this is what you had in mind (scroll down).
Yama
Aug 21, 2005 - 3:54 am 26. Sarge:What is mildly surprising is the obviously sincere belief BY THE OMSBUDSMAN that a journalist at NYT is admired for shaping the world, versus reporting events in sufficient detail for readers to shape their own thoughts. Perhaps the definition of ‘world’ is what is missing. I suspect that the ‘world’ from the NYT perspective is different than many readers live in.
Aug 21, 2005 - 4:27 am 27. Mike Walsh, MM:Roger, et al,
“the idealism of reporters who think they can make the world better” –this is precisely the issue, and not just among journalists. It points to the solipsism bordering on pathological co-dependency that is at the heart of North American liberalism.
Regards
Aug 21, 2005 - 6:40 am 28. Catherine:Hi everyone
Sorry, I haven’t read the thread yet (MUST GET BREAKFAST!) but thought I’d chime in to say the Posner piece was wretched.
Wretched, wretched, wretched.
Seriously.
It’s pure Market Determinism: people do what markets tell them to do, over and out.
If you’ve spent five seconds of your life dealing with markets you know that’s wrong. If everybody just did what ‘the market’ told them to do, we’d all be rich.
And in the case of Keller & the TIMES, there’s no pleasing their market.
Plus the Posner article went on and on and on, one unsupported assertion after another–unbelievable.
I read Keller’s letter last night, and was pretty shocked, I have to say. Even though I think he’s right, I experienced it as an outburst.
All I can think is the Edit function over at the TIMES seems to have gone missing. Posner’s thing should never have been published in the first place, not without MANY REVISIONS and the addition of SUPPORTING EVIDENCE.
Then they needed to cut the word count in half. At a minimum.
And Keller’s letter, if he was going to do it, needed to go through about 5 more drafts, too.
Then he should have left it on his computer.
off topic
Anyway, I logged in to post something off topic: the new foreign affairs has a brief book review of America on the Brink: How the Political Struggle Over the War of 1812 Almost Destroyed the Young Republic by Richard Buel, which is apparently an account of the first anti-war movement in this country. Walter Russell Mead likes it, and it sounds great.
Aug 21, 2005 - 6:49 am 29. Tinker:People need objective sources of information, with analysis strictly separated from straight news and in a format obvious to the reader. We need objectivity and straight reporting to help develop informed decisions.
When the MSM slips analysis into their straight reporting, either through bias in articles or burying stories they don’t agree with in the back pages of their papers, they not only do a disservice to citizens, they also risk marginalization once citizens catch on to the bias. I believe that is what is happening to the MSM with their declining subscriptions and the rise of the blogosphere.
The MSM should wear it’s political stripes on its sleeve in the editorial pages, and have the guts to include contrary views on those pages to allow the citizens to make informed decisions.
Keller has to realize he’s part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Aug 21, 2005 - 6:53 am 30. Rick Ballard:Catherine,
Judge Posner’s piece could have used a firm editorial hand but I wouldn’t call it wretched. He has always taken some pleasure in the judicious application of gasoline to fires and he has (to my memory) always taken a stance on issues relating to economic and competitive issues that comports with the theories developed by Mises and Hayek.
I’m pretty sure that he’s chortling over the knee jerk reaction from the liberal troika. I know I would be.
Aug 21, 2005 - 7:40 am 31. richard mcenroe:Sarge — In New York City, “world” = Sullivan Street to 96th.
Aug 21, 2005 - 8:43 am 32. David Thomson:ìIt’s pure Market Determinism: people do what markets tell them to do, over and out.î
Well, thatís because people almost always obey the dictates of the ìmarket.î It is very rare when they donít. They often, however, are not consciously aware of how their behavior has changed due to these ever changing demands. Human beings normally react on a gut level and not by point by point rational evaluation. Economist call this phenomenon, price- signaling. Neither Ludwig Von Mises nor Friedrich Hayek fell into the error of believing that so-called market determinism is limited to financial rewards. It is well understood that people are also motivated by fame, being part of an in-crowd, etc. This is probably why a Pinch Schultzberg seems relatively unconcerned about his paperís declining stock price. He is adored by those within his own social circle. That is sufficient remuneration for him.
Aug 21, 2005 - 9:22 am 33. Henry O.:Not all broadsheets’ sales are dropping. In New York at least, if you don’t like the Times, you can read the Sun, which has better local reporting, more interesting editorials, far superior arts coverage, and is cheaper to boot!
Roger is right, the ridiculous biases at the NYT are, in part, a business decision. Since the paper truly went national, it has cultivated the Upper West Side liberal niche consumer in each local market around the country. Which is why the paper is scarcely recognizable any more as a New York paper.
Read the Sun online!
Aug 21, 2005 - 10:49 am 34. dan cliff:New York Sun
Yama
Aug 21, 2005 - 11:12 am 35. dan cliff:And with this it looks like The Sun is thinking about ways to use blogs to increase their readership. Good for them.
Just a question, but why is that L.A. and New York, for so many years, have had only one paper (for all intents and purposes)? You have to go all the way down to the third largest city, Chicago, to see this kind of monopoly end. Go NYSun!
(Full disclosure: I delivered the Washington Star for the three years prior to its death.)
yama
Aug 21, 2005 - 11:22 am 36. jack risko:Roger:
I think both men are somewhat correct. Posner is right about lower costs feeding the growth of the New Media, but he vastly understates the importance of deregulation. Keller has available some strong arguments that the NYT’s left-leaning approach is not in its economic self-interest (at least in its home market), but he doesn’t use them.
http://www.dinocrat.com/archives/2005/08/21/the-painful-and-confusing-experience-of-losing-market-share/
Thanks,
Jack Risko
Aug 21, 2005 - 1:27 pm 37. richard mcenroe:Brian, Rick Ballard ÔøΩ The best thing about Komodo Dragons: They Eat Journalists
Aug 21, 2005 - 2:18 pm 38. Kyda Sylvester:“the idealism of reporters who think they can make the world better” –this is precisely the issue, and not just among journalists. It points to the solipsism bordering on pathological co-dependency that is at the heart of North American liberalism.
Hear, hear. One of the more appalling things I noted during the Enron et al scandals was the results of a survey taken of MBA candidates regarding priority concerns for the CEO. The respondants might as well have said “As CEO, I’d like to teach the world to sing and thereby make it a better place”. For example, providing full, accurate and honest financial information to stockholders and other interested parties came in at a dismal #4 on the list of priorities (and no doubt would have polled even lower in the absence of then current events). And what was #1? Why, creating a diverse workplace, of course (need you even ask?). Followed by environmental concerns and something I can’t remember but which fit quite nicely with the first two (consumer protection perhaps). Notable was the lack of interest in, for example, product/service quality or maximizing profits/minimizing risk. Pitiful.
In a 1902 memorandum, Joseph Pulitzer, wishing to endow Columbia with a School of Journalism, wrote:
The sad thing is that journalism could indeed be one of the “great and intellectual professions”, but not as long as 9 out of 10 would-be practioners are frustrated social workers. Those who have as their primary motivation a wish to change the world, or even “make it better”, should seek another profession/trade/craft. They simply are not reliable.
I’m not interested in having a journalist “speak truth to power” or even act as a “check on arrogant power”. All I want is someone who will persue information, dig for it when necessary, and after having discerned the facts to the best of his ability, present them in an evenhanded, objective (I should never be able to guess a reporter’s ideology) manner. Give me a factual rendition of events observed and accurate, in-context quotes. And give me opinion and analysis separately please and based on fact or otherwise it is worthless.
A fully and accurately informed public is all the “check on arrogant power” required. Why, it could even change the world.
Aug 21, 2005 - 2:53 pm 39. Rick Ballard:Richard,
Do you know if the dragon recovered from the poisoning? The article says it wasn’t injured while it partook of Bronstein but there may habeen fatal after effects.
Aug 21, 2005 - 2:56 pm 40. richard mcenroe:Rick Ballard — I don’t know. But of course, Phil and Sharon sued the zoo.
Aug 21, 2005 - 8:08 pm 41. Knucklehead:This thread is probably long since dead. I’ve been otherwise occupied.
Others above have clearly identified the central issue -journalists are so hung up on themselves they actually believe they can make the world a better place. What a bunch of stupid, ignorant, arrogant fools.
To select one example of how the MSM could, if they were so inclined, do a better job of helping the public better understand the issues, let’s pick the “record levels and rising” price of gasoline.
Can anyone point to any effort by any outlet of the MSM to explain to the public what the components of gasoline prices are, why they are rising, what tools the goverment has available, if any, to mitigate rises, how such tools have been used in the past and to what effect, and on and on and on in terms one needn’t be an economist, a petro-chemist, or an oil-broker to understand. You’d think some enterprising journalist would at least take the time to go figure out, and use his skills to explain, the potential amount of work that can be gotten from the burning of a gallon of gasoline, how much petroleum is required to make it, and how far that can propel the average sized vehicle. Nope, instead the average John Q. Citizen is still convinced that somewhere there’s a carburetor that will take a gallon of gasoline and somehow make autos travel 3 or 4 times as far on it.
To my knowledge all we’ll ever get from them on this topic is that “the Bush administration isn’t doing anything about it”, doesn’t feel the pain. The general public stumbles along completely uninformed about the issues and the difficulties surrounding it and is left with some idiotic notion that somebody has a magic wand to wave but simply refuses to wave it for some nefarious reason.
It just baffles me that one can’t turn to these bastions of public knowledge and analysis and quickly find out what it costs to pump, transport, and crack oil and then transport and pump gasoline. Surely a team of professional journalists with access to all their resources couldn’t spend a week figuring out why costs more, at least in some places or from some sources, to put a gallon of milk into one’s refrigerator than to put a gallon of gas into one’s automobile.
The American public has spent the last 40 years growing increasingly ignorant party because those who have the best opportunity to discover, learn, and pass along information (teachers and “journalists”) is, instead, engaged in their own idiotic political jihad. The bastards have lost track of what their job is.
Aug 22, 2005 - 11:40 am