Author: VD

From the NYT:

Ms. Rosenstein has every right to brag about her school’s 2005 test scores. The percentage of her fourth graders who were at grade level in English was 40 points higher than in 2004. How did she do it? New teachers? No, same teachers. New curriculum? No, same dual-language curriculum for a student body that is 96 percent Hispanic and poor (100 percent free lunches). New resources? Same.

So? “The state test was easier,” she said. Ms. Rosenstein, who has been principal 13 years and began teaching in 1974, says the 2005 state English test was unusually easy and the 2004 test unusually hard. “I knew it the minute I opened the test booklets,” she said.

The first reading excerpt in the 2004 test was 451 words. It was about a family traveling west on the Oregon Trail. There were six characters to keep track of (Levi, Austin, Pa, Mr. Morrison, Miss Amelia, Mr. Ezra Zikes). The story was written in 1850’s western vernacular with phrases like “I reckon,” “cut out the oxen from the herd,” “check over the running gear” for the oxen, “set the stock to graze,” “Pa’s claim.”

Ms. Rosenstein said such language was devastating for her urban Hispanic children. “They’re talking about a ‘train’ and they mean wagon train,” she said. “Our kids know the subway. I walked into a class and there was a girl crying. I took the test booklet and read it. I thought, ‘Oh, my God, we’re in trouble.’ “

In contrast, the first reading in the 2005 test was 188 words about a day in the life of an otter. A typical sentence: “The river otter is a great swimmer.” Ms. Rosenstein said: “The otter story was so easy, it gave our kids confidence. It was a great way for them to start the test.”

She said the pattern continued throughout the two tests. In 2004, on the “hard test,” the second passage was about the Netherlands thanking Canada for its support during World War II by sending 100,000 tulip bulbs to Ottawa. The third story was about a photographer, Joel Sartore, who embedded himself in Madidi National Park in Bolivia to get rare nature shots….

In 2005, on the “easy test,” the second passage was about hummingbirds. The third was about a boy who thought he won a real horse, but it was a china horse. The story was told mainly in dialogue that read like the old Dick and Jane primers:

” ‘What’s going on?’ asked Beth.

‘I just won a horse,’ said Jamie.”

I wasn’t aware that otters were a significant part of Hispanic culture. Interesting. Also interesting is to see that what was once considered to be second-grade level only twenty years ago is now fourth-grade, and even with this “improvement” only 59 percent of New York’s fourth-graders can manage it. At this rate, in another two decades homeschoolers are going to have to go to college at ten because they can read a newspaper, do multiplication and avoid drooling on themselves.

Oh, if only the government would spend more money on the public schools! If only the American people were willing to make education a real priority and pay teachers like the superstars they are!

From SI’s Truth and Rumors:

An 80-minute meeting Mike Tice called with his players earlier in the day left some wondering if their coach was on the verge of resigning. Some players praised Tice, with one veteran calling the meeting very “useful.” But three players said Tice told them he contemplated resigning hours after the Vikings’ blowout loss to the Falcons, a point two players considered deplorable. One starter said Tice delivered a “rambling resignation speech.” “He quit on us,” the starter said. “I lost all respect for him.” “You could tell he gave up on us,” another player said. According to that player, Tice also said he would not be surprised if Vikings owner Zygi Wilf made a coaching change.

We can only hope…. But Zygi’ first move – announcing that the next Vikings stadium will be open to the elements – gives one some cause for optimism that he’ll soon do the right thing with regards to Mike Tice.

Bush wants right to use military if bird flu hits

President George W. Bush asked Congress on Tuesday to consider giving him powers to use the military to enforce quarantines in case of an avian influenza epidemic. He said the military, and perhaps the National Guard, might be needed to take such a role if the feared H5N1 bird flu virus changes enough to cause widespread human infection.

“If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country? And how do you, then, enforce a quarantine?” Bush asked at a news conference.

“It’s one thing to shut down airplanes. It’s another thing to prevent people from coming in to get exposed to the avian flu. And who best to be able to effect a quarantine?” Bush added. “One option is the use of a military that’s able to plan and move. So that’s why I put it on the table. I think it’s an important debate for Congress to have.”

Bird flu has killed more than 60 people in four Asian nations since late 2003 and has been found in birds in Russia and Europe.

The key words being “wants right to use military”. I don’t think the particular excuse really matters, except that enough people will buy into it. On a tangential note, isn’t it interesting how a virus that has killed 60 people in 18 months should justify quarantine and martial law, while thousands of AIDS-carriers are allowed to roam around the world infecting others freely?

A 39-year old woman finally gets around to considering children:

As certain as I am that now is the right time for me to have my children, it’s hard not to blame myself for how difficult it’s turning out to be. My husband tells me we don’t know if it was any easier for our friends because no one talks about the trying, only the success….

So, now that you know, what do you say next time you see me? Don’t say anything. I’ll tell you when I’m pregnant, and in the meantime you can stop wondering whether every decision I make means I am. After all, I don’t ask you if your interest in Gyrotonics is just a sign that your kids are growing up and you have nothing else to do. I don’t blame you for being able to have your beautiful children. And I’m learning not to blame myself for my difficulty having my own.

This woman would appear to be more than a little slow. She’s still convinced it’s the right moment for her to have children, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. But if it’s not her fault, then whose fault is it? After all, decades of sex education classes have taught us that babies don’t simply appear out of the sky, carefully dangled from the beaks of storks, right? Perhaps society is to blame….

This is simply an evasive, feeble and ultimately futile attempt at self-deception. She knows perfectly well it’s her fault; life is about nothing if not opportunity cost.

If a woman decides that she wants to have children – a decision that everyone concerned with the long-term fate of the West should wholeheartedly support in every way – it’s really not all that difficult. A few suggestions:

1. Don’t engage in casual dating relationships after eighteen. They tend to keep one occupied in a manner that prevents one from examining more serious possibilities.
2. Make your potential relationships the top priority. If you put your career first, there’s a reasonable chance that a career is all you’ll have at forty.
3. Settle earlier rather than later. I can’t tell you how many women I know who have blown off perfectly decent men in their late teens and early twenties. Most of them who are now married are married to men I would consider to be of lower quality than those they blew off. Remember, your choices narrow as you get older, while men’s choices broaden.
4. Let those around you know that marriage and children is your goal. Too many women, fearing the wrath of the Sisterhood, secretly wish for it while publicly and piously professing feminist-approved cant. Screw the Sisterhood. They’re stupid, toothless bitches with third-rate minds and they don’t give a damn about you, your hopes or your dreams.
5. Don’t hesitate to end relationships that aren’t leading towards marriage or with men who are anything less than completely positive about the prospect of children. Men are very good at learning how to string women along and they know they’ll have no problem replacing you when you finally show your cards. Don’t confuse conflict avoidance for malleability.
6. Shed your toxic friends as well as those loyal to the Sisterhood. Misery loves company and miserable women love to make everyone else miserable. They’ll do their best to sabotage any potential relationship with a decent man.

Freewheeling young women in the United States and Canada first have intercourse at the age of 15, partake more in oral sex than previous generations and are far less prudish, according to a landmark new report by researchers at California’s San Diego State University.

Between 1943 and 1999, the age of first intercourse dropped to 15 from 19 for females, while the percentage of sexually active young women rose to 47 percent from just 13 percent in 1943, according to the study that appears in the most recent issue of the Review of General Psychology.

If there’s still any doubt as to who won the sexual revolution, this should clinch it. On the one hand, men face declining real wages and a court system that actively discourages them from marrying. On the other, there’s a never-ending supply of hot young lovelies eager to roll over on command for the first alpha male they encounter.

Sure, it’s a complete disaster from the moral, spiritual and historical perspectives and the lovelies are showing an appalling tendency to beef up far too fast, but from the average red-blooded male American’s very short-term point of view, it’s hard to see a whole lot of downside. Throw in birth control, breast implants, fast CPUs, the NFL Sunday Ticket and free Internet porn, and it’s apparent that history has never known a more wildly hedonistic time to be a young man.

My friend’s German cousin, overcome with pure masculine delight, may have said it best upon the occasion of his second visit to the United States. “I love zee American bitches!”

We are so doomed….

From The Sports Guy’s Q&A:

Q: I am a senior in high school, and it is about time to write our Senior Quotes. I really want mine to be funny. Any suggestions?
— Christopher Burk, Bellport, N.Y.

Well, Christopher… you came to the right place. I have been kicking myself about my high school yearbook quote for years. Here’s what I actually chose:

And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They’re quite aware of what they’re going through
— David Bowie

Translation: I’m an enormous dork.

And it wasn’t just me; almost everyone screws up their high school yearbook quote. It’s like a rite of passage. My buddy Jim and I were on the phone this week sifting through our yearbook … it was like a 100-page car crash. Why in God’s name did everyone take it so seriously? Quote after agonized quote from The Police, Rush, Styx, Led Zep, Pink Floyd, Boston, Journey … you would have thought we were these anguished, miserable, disaffected kids. Please. We were going to prep school!

A genuine and precocious horror of teen angst was what led me to select an uncharacteristically philosophical quote from Duran Duran. I recall considering selections from Herman Hesse and Ayn Rand, but in the end, I decided that you simply couldn’t sound too pretentious quoting a hair band. Also, there was a genuine debt to acknowledge as Duran Duran completely turned around my social life in high school.

People tell me I haven’t changed at all
But I don’t feel the same.
And I bet you’ve had that feeling too
You can’t laugh all the time.
– Duran Duran, Hold Back the Rain

Of course, if I could do it all over again, I’d do it very differently, most likely with an untranslated and borderline inappropriate line or three from Juvenal. In high school, everyone wants so desperately to be understood, primarily because they really don’t understand themselves. Once enough water has flowed under the bridge, it becomes significantly more difficult to give a damn whether anyone understands you or not, including yourself.

In fatto, sto pensando che quando sviluppero’ una scioltezza completa in italiano, magari scrivero’ solo in italiano, or forse nel’una polilingua consitente di italiano, latina, tedesco e le parole diverse che i piccolini stanno inventando. Che cos’e’ il punto di communicazione quando non fa niente? E se questo blog e’ sopratutto un diario dei pensieri, che significa se nessuni altri possono – o vogliono – capirgli?

Va bene. Non mi interesse tanto in queste domande della filosofia. Preferisco l’argumento ontologico, se quello e’ la cosa giusta. L’esiste perche l’esiste. Anch’io non devo capire.

Upon deeper reflection, however, I wish I’d gone with this.

EVERYTHING SAID SO FAR HAS THE APPEARANCE OF MERE PARADOX, AND BY WAY OF REASSURING THE TIMID WE CAN CONFIRM THAT THIS IS SO.
– Umberto Eco, Apocalypse Postponed

IN2N asks a reasonable question:

I am curious though, why the copyright citation? Seems like a lot of folks around here ascribe to the notion that a man’s ideas are not his own…

If you want to take a shot, IN2N, then by all means, take a shot! As I’m the only possible target – being the party responsible for posting a copyright notice – there’s no need for this slyly oblique critique.

Anyhow, the reason for the copyright notice is twofold. While I am completely unconcerned about my works being copied and distributed electronically, I do not wish to see them promulgated without being identified correctly. I may be dubious about the ability to own ideas, but I do not deny that there is usually an original source for them, even if it is nothing more than a blending of ideas first conceived by other invididuals.

Second, my publishers and the overwhelming majority of my potential publishers do not subscribe to my skeptical view of copyright. If I wish to work with them – and I do – then I am compelled to respect their views. This is why there are no free downloadable versions of my novels posted here ala Charles Stross’s Accelerando, although I have repeatedly requested permission to do so from my publisher.

From the Telegraph:

Research suggesting that it is better for mothers to stay at home to look after children up to the age of three is sexist and mistaken, the Equal Opportunities Commission said yesterday.

It said there was no reason why the father could not look after the children rather than the mother. It also said that full-time working mothers whose children were looked after in day nurseries or by child minders or nannies had perfectly “healthy and happy” offspring.

Except, of course, when they don’t. I find it very interesting how Science rules all, except of course when it violate the progressive agenda of the Equalitarian Society, in which case it can be dismissed as “sexist and mistaken” on the sole basis of its conclusions. There’s no criticism of the methodology, (as there is, for example, in the supposedly anti-scientific criticisms of evolution), just a blanket statement that the study is wrong because its conclusions violate the Equal Opportunities Commission’s core belief.

Because we are all the same, there is no difference between any two individuals and if you happen to perceive any such differences, then you are sick and in need of behavioral and attitudinal adjustment.

I imagine the irony inherent to that mindset likely escapes those who hold to it.

Ramesh Ponnuru writes on NRO’s Corner:

THE PICK It’s an inspiring testament to the diversity of the president’s cronies. Wearing heels is not an impediment to being a presidential crony in this administration! I can only assume that the president felt that his support was slipping in this important bloc, and he had to do something to shore it up.

It’s beginning to sound as if Ramesh is about one more presidential speech from defecting to the Libertarian Party.

Chief John-John and Harriet. I wonder how many you who flirted with third parties before returning to the Republican fold in 2004 on the basis of the Supreme Court nominations now wish you hadn’t?

UPDATE: “The President’s nomination of Miers is a betrayal of the conservative, pro-family voters whose support put Bush in the White House in both the 2000 and 2004 elections and who were promised Supreme Court appointments in the mold of Thomas and Scalia. Instead we were given ‘stealth nominees,’ who have never ruled on controversial issues, more in the mold of the disastrous choice of David Souter by this President’s father.

“When there are so many proven judges in the mix, it is unacceptable this President has appointed a political crony with no conservative credentials. This attempt at ‘Bush Packing’ the Supreme Court must not be allowed to pass the Senate and we will forcefully oppose this nomination.” – from Drudge

All together now… I TOLD YOU SO!

MEDIA WHORES: COURTESANS AND CHARLATANS OF THE AMERICAN COMMENTARIAT
by Vox Day
Copyright(c)2005. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER ONE: Building the Brothel
Vir qui amat sapientiam laetificat patrem suum qui autem nutrit scorta perdet substantiam.

The Buggles were wrong. Video didn’t kill the radio star. The truth is precisely to the contrary. Video not only made the radio star huge, it also made him a best-selling author and, more often than not, a pop icon to boot. Radio, television, cable, the internet and even traditional newspaper and book publishing have insensibly merged into one massive and amorphous entity, known to its consumers as simply “the media”. But it too is a consumer; it is a voracious beast, devouring all that come within its grasp, and only the strongest, most single-minded parasites can survive and thrive in its acidic maw.

With the gradual transformation of what was once news into infotainment, the requirements for the talking heads who serve as the primary conduit from the beast to its beholders changed too. In the early days of television, talking heads were reporters who had spent years in the field, researching, interviewing, writing and recording their own news stories. Murrow, Cronkite, and even the recently retired Dan Rather are examples of this sort. They feigned an Olympian objectivity, hid their political affiliations and projected the sort of deep and immobile gravitas that made the term “network anchor” seem so fitting.

As the producers became more sophisticated and technologically adept, it became less and less necessary to have an experienced reporter reading the news or even writing original stories in the newspaper. Gravitas went by the wayside as attractive, focus-tested women were added to the mix, and with the exception of the primary network news broadcasts – the majestic second triumvirate of Brokaw, Willams and Jennings – the two-headed bi-gendered news team came to the fore. Teleprompters and professional writers meant that the talking heads were no longer required to write or think, allowing producers to concentrate on what matters most to the television viewing audiences, namely, looking at attractive men and women.

This second generation of television news brought to the forefront men with chiseled jaws and names like porn stars(2), accompanied by blondes with journalism-lite backgrounds consisting of acting credits and tasteful nude photography(2). This model quickly became de riguer for the local news format, which is now such a matter of rote that one cannot easily distinguish between the ABC affiliate’s newscast in Minneapolis and the CBS affiliate’s newscast in Albuquerque. The basic cast is always the same; the forty-something neo-patriarch with a full head of hair touched with gray at the temples, the thirty-something blonde co-anchor, (ethnic optional in cities with large Black and Hispanic populations), a weatherman who is either a sexless androgyne or a beta blonde, and last and least, the roguish sports anchor.

The first cable channel, CNN, was largely content to follow in the footsteps of its predecessors, although its expansion of the news spigot from one to 24 hours daily would insensibly make its effect known over time. However, the shift from journalism-free journalists to full-blown infotainers accelerated quickly with the appearance of the Fox News Channel, which like Athena sprang fully accoutered for battle from the head of Roger Ailes, wisely eschewing the leftist slant hidden behind the condescending pretense at objectivity of the ABCNNBCBS cabal.

Infotainment had long been present within the cabal, of course, but it was kept on the sidelines by an embarrassed media elite, in the context of crossover shows like 20/20 and Today. Barbara Walters became the unquestioned queen of the quasi-news with her infamous interviews on ABC, The Barbara Walters Specials, where she enlightened the American public by eliciting answers to insightful questions that no one else had ever dared to ask of international figures and celebrities.(3)

The terror of creeping infotainment at the networks during the early Eighties was such that Ms Walters managed to hold a co-anchor spot at ABC only briefly before being banished to matters arboreal. But it returned with vengeance in 1996, when the Fox News Channel burst onto the scene and in less than seven years, not only overturned the existing order but turned the cable news ratings war from a horse race into something bearing closer resemblance to a prison rape.(4)

The brilliance of Roger Ailes was two-fold. First, recognizing the iron law of supply and demand in a country evenly divided between what passes for “liberal” and “conservative” in the political spectrum, he offered a taste of what had hitherto been absent from the television screens of America. Where CNN was self-consciously international, Fox News was proudly patriotic. Where the ABCNNBCBS cabal inordinately consisted of those supporting Democrats(5), Fox dared to put self-proclaimed Republicans on the air without the accompanying soundtrack of The Imperial March(6) or pairing them with a polar opposite providing instant counterpoint.

Ailes’ logic was impeccable, demonstrating that alone among the executives of the media industry, only he understood the lessons of the talk radio phenomenon. Of the 105,405,100 votes cast in the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore and George Bush both received about 48 percent of the vote(7). But not only does the ABCNNBCBS news cabal market itself entirely towards the pro-Gore 48 percent, it is joined in doing so by PBS, MSNBC, and, to a lesser extent, CNBC. This abandonment of the opposite 48 percent equated to a wide-open market of epic proportions, which Ailes has exploited with ruthless abandon. The motto is “fair and balanced” and while the actual slant is only vaguely rightward, the symbolism is much more strongly so. Liberal-minded CNN cast-offs, such as Geraldo Rivera and Greta van Susteren, are forced to keep their inclinations firmly in check, while moderates are spun as conservatives at almost every opportunity.

Second, the Fox News chairman wholeheartedly embraced the concept of being the humble servant of the marketplace. The media has long had an inflated view of itself; it is nearly impossible to listen to a mainstream journalist recite a ponderous description of his ever-so-weighty responsibilities without bursting into laughter. The elite journalists see themselves as the Fourth Estate, asking the tough questions and dedicated to afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted. If you have ever seen a journalist performing a Monica on a big celebrity get in what is apparently supposed to pass for an interview, it’s not hard to see that the media are not only deluded in this regard, but are also incredibly ill-suited to accurately observe human events.

Due to this delusional self-regard, executives at the ABCNNBCBS cabal have long considered themselves above the dirty and unpleasant realities of the market, while government-funded PBS actually is free to ignore the wishes of great unwashed as it fulfills its sacred mission of allowing liberals to pretend they are intellectuals and loftily look down their noses at those who prefer entertainment that offers a frisson of divertissement. Fox News, on the other hand, appears to have an interest in making money, which in a capitalist society tends to involve paying a certain amount of attention to what the consumer wants.

And what the cable news consumer wants, apparently, is pretty girls, in-depth coverage of murder trials, missing children(8) and car chases. Only eighteen months before the launch of the Fox News Channel, the famous O.J. Simpson car chase(9) and subsequent trial took place, and apparently it left an indelible impression on the soon-to-be Fox News Channel executives. It could be seen, in retrospect, as the per
fect Foxian trifecta, combining a celebrity, a car chase and a murder trial. Had there only been an Amber Alert involved somewhere in the mix, it would have been the perfect story. And although the quattrocephalic news cabal flogged the O.J. trial mercilessly, no channel drew more useful conclusions from it than Fox News.

In the eight years since it made its debut, Fox News has covered 416 car chases, 42 missing children and 11 murder trials, which is approximately 469 more stories of the sort than PBS has covered(10). On a directly related note, the O.J. trial also marked the launch of the instant news celebrity. Greta van Susteren, Marcia Clark and Gloria Allred are now inescapable, appearing with wearisome regularity on the screen like the haggish handmaidens of Big Brother, three Erinyes convinced that Orestes is to be found hiding somewhere in a television studio.

But if O.J. got the ball rolling, it was the Monica Lewinsky scandal that cemented the instant news celebrity in the public consciousness. Not only do we owe Miss Lewinsky a linguistic debt(11), but without her and Paula Jones we would not have come to know and love Lucianne Goldberg, her lovable teddy bear of a son, Jonah, Ann Coulter, and interchangeable Republican Barbie.(12) But it was not only these perma-guests that were made by the scandal; shows such as the O’Reilly Factor and Hannity and Colmes also saw their popularity explode.

The reason was simple. There was continuing interest in a story in which very little was known and almost nothing was happening. Even if the ABCNNBCBS cabal had been inclined to cover the self-destruction of a Democratic president – they weren’t – there was very little that a show even half-heartedly committed to hard news could cover. Bill Clinton wasn’t talking, Monica Lewinsky wasn’t talking, Paul Jones wasn’t talking, and even those who weren’t directly involved in the two cases were claiming legal considerations that prevented them from speaking with reporters.

But it wasn’t possible to simply ignore a story that had more compelling elements than any three Hollywood movies. Was Bill Clinton’s penis really crooked? Were we really supposed to believe that a notoriously horny old dog would hook up with a ripening young 38DD and keep his hands off her most prominent assets? Had he really done THAT with a CIGAR… with Yasser Arafat was waiting in the next room? Add a bad rhythm guitar and a moustache, and you practically had a 70’s porn flick in the making. No wonder the world was captivated.

And yet, there was still really nothing to say. No one actually knew anything new until Matt Drudge unveiled some shocking tidbit of information, at which point everyone learned about it at the same time. But the camera abhors a vaccuum no less than nature, and thanks to the 24-hour cable news channels, more time than ever required filling. Enter the new talking head, who substituted wisecracks for written copy, who was quick enough to think and spar on her feet, and was entertaining enough to allow people to forget that they were no more informed at the end of a show than they were at the start.(13)

Conservatives excelled immediately at this game, partly because years of being shut out of the mainstream media had prepared them for an adversarial relationship with the television hosts, and partly, as was previously mentioned, because they were seldom permitted to appear alone on a ABCNNBCBS show without being accompanied by a liberal(14) Greek anti-Chorus. The fact that many of them had some degree of familiarity with the brutally combative arena of the conservative talk radio ghetto meant that they were seldom thrown off-balance when a deceitful host tried to set them up for an ambush or a bait-and-switch.(15)

In short, they were ready to rumble. And audiences fell in love with hand-to-hand combat long before the first gladiators were shouting “morituri te salutamus!”(16) No blood is shed in the televised arena, but the news shoutfests bear far more similarity to a gladitorial combat than to the somber pronouncements of Walter Cronkite. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; certainly it is vastly preferable for half of the viewing public to see someone championing their point of view instead of being forced to sit through pompous neosocialist lectures condemning the many evils of their bourgeous perspective. Give and take will always hold the attention longer than a monologue, Shakespeare’s excellent soliloquoys notwithstanding.

However, there can be little question that despite the divergence of views on offer, the end result provides far more entertainment than information. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, for as novelists as diverse as Umberto Eco(17), Rigoberta Menchu and Dan Brown have all discovered, few things sell better than a product that makes its consumers feel smarter. You may not actually be in possession of a single iota of new information after watching Bill O’Reilly thump his chest and shout down a guest or seeing Tim Russert delve into the minutae of the House Appropriations Committee with a congressman, but you will nevertheless be left with the vague impression that you are better informed than if you had instead tuned in to the third re-run of Friends that evening. After all, you’ve been watching the news!

FOOTNOTES:

1. Can’t you see Stone Philips fronting the list of names starring in “I Know Who You Did Last Summer”? Okay, maybe it’s just me.
2. “I did pose for ‘Black and White’ magazine, a prestigious, artistic publication, several years ago.” Former CNN Headline News anchor Andrea Thompson in The New York Post. In 2002, the Washington Post reported that the CNN anchor had also performed “clothing-challenged work for an Australian magazine and an Italian erotic flick….”
3. She reached the apex of her unique brand of unintentional comedy in 1981, when she asked actress Katherine Hepburn the question: “If you were a tree, what kind would you be?” It seems Kate saw herself as an oak. I think I’m more of a birch. But a really tough-barked, hard-core birch you wouldn’t want to mess with, you know what I’m saying? A son of a birch, if you will.
4. The August 11, 2004 ratings showed that Fox News Channel’s prime time ratings averaged 2.058 million viewers, almost double the ratings for CNN, MSNBC and CNBC combined. Fox’s top show, The O’Reilly Factor, almost tripled the viewership of its top rival, CNN’s Larry King Live, with 2.666 million viewers compared to 985 thousand. Hang onto that soap, Larry.
5. 89 percent of 130 Washington bureau chiefs and congressional correspondents reported voting for Bill Clinton in 1992, compared to 7 percent for George Bush, the elder. Twelve years later, it is still almost impossible to name a single anchor or reporter working for the cabal that does not openly or implicitely pledge allegiance to the Democratic Party.
6. Or, as it is known in the colloquial, Darth Vader’s Theme.
7. Al Gore received 50,999,897 votes, or 48.38 percent of the popular vote, while George W. Bush received 50,456,002 votes, 47.87 percent. However, since the United States of America is a constitutional republic and not a pure representative democracy, Bush’s 271-266 victory in the Electoral College made the popular results irrelevant. That’s all completely beside the point here, but it’s best to get it out of the way anyhow.
8. Missing children who happen to be pretty little girls, anyhow. I have no evidence that Fox News has a detailed system wherein a missing child is assigned 2 points for being white, 4 points for being blonde, and 10 points for having an attractive mother, but I am suspicious. And is it truly only little girls who go missing? I’m just curious.
9. The O.J. car chase was the greatest moment in live news history. Listening to “Robert Higgins” telling Peter Jennings in an outrageously fake black accent so obvious that only a lobotomized Canadian could think it was real: “Oh
my Lord, this is quite tenses… Ah see… OJ! Ah see OJ, man!” was, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the ultimate in news entertainment. We were screaming with laughter almost from the start. The best part was how Jennings had no idea that the caller was a prankster until Al Michaels explained it to him. Yeah, they’re real sharp, our media elite.
10. Yeah, like I watched and counted. If you harbor a strict accuracy fetish, simply substitute “a lot” for each of the categories mentioned.
11. I would argue that she must be credited, not only with her inadvertant eponymous contribution, but also for popularizing the concept of “obtaining one’s kneepads” as a synonymous alternative.
12. Ann Coulter, Barbara Olsen and Kellyanne Fitzpatrick nee’ Conway were the original three. Since then, Laurie Dhue, Linda Vester, Rita Cosby, Heather Nauert and Michelle Malkin have followed in their footsteps, but none of them have yet demonstrated the unique combination of savage intelligence and eye-rolling, hair-tossing nonchalance of the original.
13. Being blonde and looking good in a miniskirt didn’t exactly hurt either.
14. For simplicity’s sake, I use the terms “liberal” and “conservative” in the sense of being largely synonymous with “Democrat” and “Republican”. The former indicating an orientation towards the political left, the latter indicating an orientation towards the political right. As the two major parties have merged into a single bi-factional big government ruling party, these terms have become increasingly meaningless. See Appendix B.
15. Thomas Sowell explained why he turns down 90 percent of his TV and radio invitations in an April 2004 column, entitled “Bait-and-switch media”. After being invited on the program to talk about his book on affirmative action, he found himself being grilled by a third party about minimum wage laws. The old lion, familiar with the trick, left the host in the lurch live on the air by simply hanging up the phone. Booyakasha!
16. “We who are about to die salute you!”
17. I once asked Dr. Eco about the characterization of his novels being extremely successful, but often unread. He replied: “I must confess, there are books that I love very much, and I didn’t read them completely. It happens. When “The Name of the Rose” came out, so difficult and full of Latin quotations, and it had the success, it started the legend that it was an unread book. I am content.” And yes, we were actually hanging out at a monastery that day… because nobody kicks it like the real old skool.