Month: October 2009

Obamacrats Eye Bailout of Print Media

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France, the model upon which Obama is reshaping America into mediocracy and public obeisance to government, has already decided that its print media are ailing and needing of a bailout, so the government is injecting millions of Euros into the industry’s advertising pages.

Poor print media. Hit on one flank by the cyber-reality of free competition and the concomitant loss of paying readers, and on the other by the flight of classified advertisers to free sources like Craigslist and display advertisers to online resources, they hardly know what to do. Why not turn to the guy whose elected they mandated through their pages?

Obama, of course, is more than willing to oblige. He’s having trouble silencing Fox News and other critics through the traditional Democratic devices of mockery and demonization, so why not own a few newspapers and magazines here and there, at least figuratively speaking? (Probably a waste of money, though, since the traditional media are already his lapdogs.)

Argentina has a long history of supporting its print media through the purchase of advertising. Problem is, as government ad dollars rise, the print media’s watchdog goes to sleep and critical stories recede from the pages of the newspapers. This is what a study by the Neiman Journalism Lab showed:

Their analysis found a ‘huge correlation’ between, in any given month, how much money went to a newspaper and how much corruption coverage appeared on its front page. For example, if the government ad revenue in a month increased by one standard deviation — around $70,000 U.S. — corruption coverage would decrease by roughly half of a front page.

Many people today probably take newspapers for granted, but it was once again Thomas Jefferson who summed up the correlation between press and freedom best: "Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost."

Of course, it was also Jefferson who foresaw our nation’s eventual Frenchification: "When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe."

Sacre bleu! 

Stupid as the Driving Force of Our Lives and Culture

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I stumbled upon a blog called zippitydodah and further titled/subtitled "Reflections in a Petri Dish: As the Landfill Burbles with the Toxic Wastes of a Disintegrating Culture, I’ll Be the Voiceover" that proved both interesting and perceptive–and refreshingly written.

No byline accompanied the article, but it was written in the first person. The commentators seemed to know the author by name, though I never discerned who was who in the back and forth of the dialogue. Names didn’t really matter, though.

The article I read was entitled "The Rise of the Stupids and the Fall of Rome," and in it author guy posits that stupidity reigns in Rome, i.e., the United States of America. (I agree.) In fact, author man goes on to personify this trend as a ruling deity named Stupid.

I won’t go into more detail but will quote a couple of paragraphs from toward the end of the article, which I hope all of you read. Here goes:

The impressive and indomitable force of stupid, [sic on the comma] reigns supreme over the land. Stupid is genius. Stupid is God. Stupid is as stupid does and stupid does what it pleases. Stupid will kill itself before you day after day and then rise from the dead to lead the legions of stupid to the place where stupid rests.

They have not yet opened the gates of the chittering worlds that wait behind them, in the coliseums where you have been marched, at the behest of Stupid. There is still a semblance of order and the highways of hope are constructed by the hour and woven out of the words of the liars who have led you to this place. The true beauty of Stupid is that it will never occur to Stupid what it cost and what was lost. Perhaps Stupid is indestructible and is the heir to a kingdom that only he can see. Some certain and profound confidence motivates Stupid and only Stupid knows what that is.

Categories: Grammar Sucks