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The Blogtastic Blogonator
October 2008
Wednesday October 29, 2008
Posted by: psloth at 11:38AM CST on October 29, 2008
Well why don't you just tell us?
Tuesday October 28, 2008
Posted by: psloth at 1:33PM CST on October 28, 2008
Oprah Winfrey has more influence when it comes to endorsing presidential candidates. So too do religious leaders, according to a report by The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
It begs the question, do newspaper endorsements matter? Fewer papers endorse.
Al Thompkins, a faculty member at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., posed the question in his daily media blog.
The Journal Times doesn’t make endorsements anymore. The newspaper used to endorse candidates both local and national.
The paper endorsed Bill Clinton in 1992 and again in 1996, Al Gore in 2000 and in 2004, the paper endorsed John Kerry.
The two most widely circulated papers in the country, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal, do not make endorsements either, Thompkins points out.
He cites a blog that delves into the history of newspaper endorsements. It isn't nearly as prevalent as it once was.
Citing a survey by Editor & Publisher writer Ethan Trex points out that by 1996, almost 70 percent of newspapers weren’t endorsing presidential candidates as opposed to just 13.4 percent during the 1940 election cycle.
So far in this race, Sen. Barack Obama has a 2-to-1 margin in newspaper endorsements from those that still make them, according to Editor and Publisher's most recent numbers. The number seems to change daily as Election Day draws near.
What do you think? Do newspaper endorsements matter?
Monday October 27, 2008
Posted by: psloth at 12:26PM CST on October 27, 2008
In her effort to unseat Republican Paul Ryan, Marge Krupp’s campaign continues to cite a three-week old Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Kimberly Strassel.
The article used the word “competitive” to characterize Ryan’s 1st District congressional race with Krupp, which could simply be taken to mean that he has someone running against him.
Krupp’s campaign staffers seized on that word in newsletters, portraying the article as something other that what it was — a glowing tribute to Ryan for what the author considered Ryan’s leadership in voting to approve the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, especially at a time when he is up for reelection.
Strassel never mentioned Krupp in the more than 800 word piece. Now, an Oct. 25 newsletter asking for help to fund TV ads for the Democratic challenger claims that campaign donations came rolling in after the piece ran, this time claiming it called the race between Krupp and Ryan a “toss-up.”
John Nichols, an editor and columnist for The Capital Times in Madison has written in support of Krupp, calling her a worthy challenger and taking Ryan to task for votes he’s taken while representing the people of southeastern Wisconsin in Washington D.C.
But not even Nichols calls the race a toss-up, unless by “wild-card” he means toss-up.
Is Krupp really a contender for Ryan’s seat? Saturday October 25, 2008
Posted by: psloth at 1:47PM CST on October 25, 2008
Welcome to the marketplace of ideas, where anyone with access to a keyboard can bang out any vile thing that pops into their head and send it to whomever they wish.
If anyone criticizes them for sending such vile things, oh … say … like the e-mails some people have reportedly sent to a Racine Unified School District official, they will undoubtedly hide behind the wonderful freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment.
The framers would be so proud.
As if it wasn’t bad enough that the e-mails — decrying the inclusion of excerpts from a book authored by Sen. Barack Obama and his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in a school textbook — grew increasingly vile as the weeks passed since the story about the textbook was first reported.
Now someone in the community is tacitly excusing this kind of “discourse” by calling on Unified officials to grow thicker skin, after receiving clearly rational missives like this one, according to a police report:
“It’s really too bad we can’t skin you #####s alive and horse whip the entire lot of you,” an Oct. 15 e-mail read. “That’s far better than you deserve after the indoctrination and brain washing of the children in your charge. Anything less than death is a great deal for scum of your ilk! Really!”
You shouldn’t be scared of someone who writes this kind of stuff, the local blogger seems to suggest. This is clearly someone blowing off steam, not a person seriously calling for one’s death.
Few will want to discuss the rich history that has helped the Supreme Court to understand the concepts of free speech and free expression and what of both should be protected.
Criticize, defend or ignore it, when there is a record of what one thinks (thanks to the Internet), as well as a perceived threat, the courts will determine whether that person’s writing is protected under the First Amendment.
As for the rest of us in this community, we should denounce resoundingly those who would write such garbage. If we don’t, we are as good as complicit in the act.
Monday October 20, 2008
Posted by: psloth at 1:51PM CST on October 20, 2008
There is nothing more infuriating than reading or hearing people who are so cavalier when targeting their political opponents that they compare them to Nazis, yes Nazis.
Today it was a letter writer who warned Americans who plan to support Sen. Barack Obama for President that the change for which they might wish could be more than they bargain for.
To support that assertion, the letter writer provides a truly bizarre comparison to an historical figure, one who was also good at making speeches and one who mastered the art of stirring large crowds with his oratorical skill.
Yes, that historical figure, the letter writer goes on to point out, was none other than Adolf Hitler.
It happens on both sides.
People on the left and the right try to demonize their political opponents by comparing them to Nazis. There are instances where people draw comparisons between the Bush administration and the Nazi Party. It is disturbing no matter who it comes from.
Is that the only recourse the public has when they disagree with their opponent — throw out the preposterous idea that they might resemble the evil clowns who perpetrated some of the worst crimes against humanity in attempting to create their idea of the “perfect world?”
It’s fair to attack your opponents’ policy recommendations and their philosophical underpinnings.
But until your opponent starts systematically hauling people out of their communities and tossing them into gas chambers, the Nazi comparison is nothing more than a hysterical distortion of history.
Not to mention the frightening insult this kind of comparison is to the millions of people who died and those who witnessed but survived the atrocities of Nazi Germany.
Wednesday October 15, 2008
Posted by: psloth at 6:12PM CST on October 15, 2008
Too bad there isn't this much discussion about improving public education.
Hundreds, maybe thousands of comments made around the country, about one textbook, yes, the one that includes 20 pages of content (not 15) related to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., complete with excerpts from a book he wrote and a speech he gave. Instead of being concerned about the content, think about how heavy textbooks are, especially in an age when everybody is talking about virtual education, when reams of information can fit on a tiny memory stick. I’m guessing most people haven’t held the offending textbook or even seen the thing (sure, maybe scanned images from it, including the picture of Obama). For one, it’s big, really big. I’m guessing it weighs in at close to 10 pounds.
Here's something else that weighs 10 pounds.
I digress.
A parent is allegedly mad about the textbook because it’s used in her child’s eighth-grade class and because it includes Obama’s stuff.
A local blogger makes an issue of the textbook (after receiving an e-mail from somebody, allegedly this parent) and runs with it, making it national blog fodder, note: not a national story, national blog fodder.
As far as I can tell, only one other news agency did a story about the issue (based on a cursory Google News search). However, bloggers from around the country have linked to or mentioned Another local blogger calls the textbook stupid — the 1,000 plus-page textbook that will be in We don’t know who the parent is, but Fox News interviewed her "on condition of anonymity,” a form of protection granted to sources, generally reserved for whistleblowers, government insiders and folks like that. It’s used more often by media types in No formal complaint is filed, reportedly. A complaint connotes the existence of a process by which said complaint might be rectified. No mention is made to school officials or district officials, allegedly. That is what district officials told me when I reported the district’s response.
Other bloggers have had their kick at the issue, too, including the person in Caledonia who sees behind every Unified story yet another reason to create a separate school district. A section that makes up roughly 2 percent of the material in a textbook is called an “Obama love fest,” without any context, as though the material in the book was dashed off quickly by campaign staffers and slipped into the textbook just before it hit the presses. A lot of heat is generated before any questions are asked. The district is put on the defensive. All kinds of allegations are leveled against the school district (as if there aren’t enough problems facing Unified). Then people from around the country and locally start sending nasty e-mails to district officials. They include e-mails calling for the superintendent’s dismissal, clearly oblivious to Racine Unified’s superintendent situation during the past year (a story about which an entire textbook could probably be written granted, probably not the most exciting textbook). All this over a textbook that includes other writers, too. John Steinbeck, Jack London, Gwendolyn Brooks and Bob Dylan, they’re all in there. Guess what, so is David Sedaris.
The textbook includes an essay from Sedaris' book "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim."
Let’s just hope he doesn’t run for office. Why should young readers be deprived of his wit? |
About This Blog
While I write on a daily basis, as a reporter, I'm new to blogging.
Rather than mix business with pleasure, I've decided to use this blog for writing about subjects different from my work on the Education Beat. Since this is all new frontier to me, it may be a few days before I start a blog here devoted to education related topics, but I plan to do so. I'm no one trick pony. On this blog, I will occasionally wax poetic on a variety of delightful topics, like the ethics of Charlie Brown or finding spiritual nourishment from bad TV. All I ask is that, if you must comment, be kind. I do not suffer fools gladly. Enjoy!  0 rating(s)
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