The Dallas Morning News sends out their E-mail edition in the afternoon; go figure.
The following two headlines lead the Local News section of the edition that arrived in my inbox an hour or so ago:
Perhaps Mr Said, the subject of the first article, will be well rewarded by the sentiments of the second article.
I’ve said it more than once and now the New York Times is catching on:
It was bad enough having a one-party government when Republicans controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. But the Democrats took over, and still the one-party system continues.
At best the differences between the democrats and republicans are minor points of emphasis when it comes to protecting your life, liberty and pursuit of happiness…they are not really interested in this. The differences are a bit larger when it comes to the constituencies whose votes they try to buy.
Unfortunately for all of us none of these critters represent even a majority of the citizens in their states or districts. If they did it might be more appropriate to call the United States a representative democracy and its government a government of the people. Today, our congress critters represent themselves, their parties, lobbyists, state corporate interests and government power. Their only interest in the citizens of this country is how to get enough votes to stay in office.
Kudos to the NYT for this editorial.
Where were they, though, during the lead up to the Iraq invasion? When the patriot act was being passed?
They have a lot more work to do to re-establish their position as the paper of record for the people of this country rather than whoever is currently pulling the strings from the Washington, D.C.
NB: Will chris dodd be able to survive as the independent he is playing?
Via Hullaballoo.
Mustang Bobby alerts us to the the fact that the New York Times is mostly free again via online access and that:
So starting tomorrow, Maureen Dowd, Thomas L. Friedman, Frank Rich, Gail Collins, Paul Krugman, David Brooks, Bob Herbert and Nicholas D. Kristof and all the rest will be liberated from their purgatory and will no longer rely on the kindness of strangers for getting their word out to the electronic masses.
Frankly, I haven’t missed reading these folks* and wouldn’t mind if they kept them behind the wall. When one of them said something really interesting as MB notes:
…there was probably one reader or blogger who went around the gate and posted the material for free on other websites or excerpted enough of the articles for blog commenting as to render the pay site pointless.
Isn’t the most important thing about this the news archives:
In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain. There will be charges for some material from the period 1923 to 1986, and some will be free.
Over the past two years I’ve been stopped in mid-track many times by the archive wall when wanting to read something a couple weeks old.
Yea, there were workarounds but now just the news, please.
*Guilty: I read them before the wall went up and will probably read and blog them again not that the wall is down. But, as above, I have not missed them!
The New York Times today explains the nature of establishment journalists :
Even as they exploit the newest technologies, the Libby trial bloggers are a throwback to a journalistic style of decades ago, when many reporters made no pretense of political neutrality. Compared with the sober, neutral drudges of the establishment press, the bloggers are class clowns and crusaders, satirists and scolds. (Ed: Emphasis added.)
Are they really neutral or just pretending to be? At least with the left/right bloggers we have a decent idea what filters they are using when they write their material. All too often the MSM pretense of neutrality or being fair and balanced makes us work that much harder to understand what has been left out or added into their stories.
The first reason you are not president is that you probably are not…, well, read on:
To me, the desire to be President of the United States in itself means you’re a psychopath who should never be President of the United States. Unfortunately, of course, this desire is a job requirement.
A Funny Little Story About The Media, Jonathan Schwartz, 8/22/05
He goes on to note:
But the point is the powerhouse media and their politician lovemates truly do feel there are things normal, grubby Americans simply can’t handle. Moreover, it has nothing to do with political parties. Everything I’ve seen in my life confirms that, with few exceptions, they feel this way across the (extremely narrow) political spectrum.
If you’re not part of their little charmed circle, believe me, all your worst suspicions about them are true. They do think you’re stupid. They do lie to you. They do hate and fear you. Most importantly, they think you can’t be trusted with the things they know—because if you did know them, you’d go nuts and break America.
I don’t know as going nuts is the right phrase but it seems it might be wise to calmly and with determination reclaim our lives and our potential from the political parties and their bureaucratic lapdogs at every level of government
Via Making Light via Pharyngula.