Zzzzzz…..
The Sky is Blue, The World is Round, and now there’s another story about FOX News having a conservative bias.
This one comes from Timothy Noah in Slate. Noah claims to have FOX dead to right this time and as proof offers up an Op-Ed by a FOX News’ London Bureau Chief Scott Norvell in the Wall Street Journal’s European edition. The supposed smoking gun seems to center around the following quote…
Even we at Fox News manage to get some lefties on the air occasionally, and often let them finish their sentences before we club them to death and feed the scraps to Karl Rove and Bill O’Reilly. And those who hate us can take solace in the fact that they aren’t subsidizing Bill’s bombast; we payers of the BBC license fee don’t enjoy that peace of mind.
If this is the only ammunition Noah has, it’s circumstancial at best. A straight reading of the Op Ed shows a heck of a lot more about the opinions and leanings of the Norvell than it does of FOX. Norvell is clearly exaggerating FOX’s treatment of liberals because anyone who’s watched the network any amount of time clearly knows that FOX regularly has liberals on; not the “occasionally” that Norvell says. This not at all insignificant naunce was apparently overlooked by Noah in his zeal to nail FOX to the wall.
This isn’t to argue that FOX isn’t targeting an audience that tends to lean conservative. I think the case could easily be made that that is the case (but I’m not going to make it now…I’ve got more productive things to do…like wash my car). But, as I’ve argued before, targeting an audience is not in and of itself proof of bias. Noah fails to demonstrate a clear connection between Norvell’s somewhat sarchastic comments and a de facto conservative bias at FOX. This really is the quintessential non-story….
What difference does it make?
All Extremists Go To Heaven….Don’t They?
Purgatory.
I cannot seem to make it to either of the extreme political sides and being a moderate definitely leaves me at least in purgatory if not a perpetual limbo.
It is all of the words and actions that really get to me. Just when I think I have found it, someone does something to make me wonder again. They push the button and the followers follow, I am with them. They push another button and the followers are outraged, again, I find myself with them. They push a button and change the subject so they do not have to do anything about or talk about what was popular yesterday. I wonder why did they give up, forget so easily, what was so important yesterday that means nothing today.
The media is left wing liberal. Talk Radio is right wing conservative. There is no middle. The only middle is the two fighting over all of it and shooting at each other over my head.
Our leaders in the congress and the senate leave a lot to be desired and now I know why I was uninformed and uninterested for the longest time as I tried to find my way in the world. The confusion they generate is so extensive the average person avoids it. When a person is working for food, as many Americans do, there is no interest in politics.
The little guy who is just making it, the middle class American, is content to settle at least temporarily with where they are and what they have is just enough to allow them to find time to dig through all of the, hip to neck deep garbage, being thrown around.
The popularity of talk radio is one source of information and it has taken hold on a great portion of American society.
It all started for me while I was being held hostage in traffic on the way to work. I just had to have something to do. So traffic must be one reason Talk Radio has become so popular. As a rule, I seldom listen to Talk Radio unless I am in my car, but as soon as I start the car, the channel I listen to is there and if something else takes over I am scanning the airwaves for something, anything that can take its place temporarily.
Throughout the United States, where ever we moved, I would find the talk radio shows I found the most entertaining.
Although music is fine for passing some time or staying awake on a long drive it can be annoying while sitting still in traffic. At times, I wonder if the music playing in some cars may have caused accidents because someone tapped their foot on a gas pedal. I know I tend to pick up speed if the music playing is the right kind.
Taking sides, “thinking” for a cause can pass the time while stuck in traffic. Radio personalities like Sean Hannity who will tell a person calling the show they “Are a Great American”, can become the words that person needs to hear in order to identify themselves, what they need to hear in order to define what they are. To give them a meaning in life other than going to work and going home at the end of the day. It’s that little extra. The pat on the back kind of acceptance that is almost part of a faith, religion or cult and makes one feel they belong to something bigger and better.
They feel great, because they spend, “three hours a day” listening to someone tell them what they should think about any given subject. It is easy to agree with them because after all they have all of the real information, the truth, and are sharing all of the information with us. Because they believe in their hero, they are having their buttons pushed and the radio button is stuck on that station…I know mine is.
It’s not a bad thing…there I go again…I’ll never make it to heaven!
It is important to take only one side, why I have no idea. If you do something that a liberal would normally do, it is fine if for some reason they don’t do it. If you do something a conservative would do, it is fine if for some reason they don’t do it. Just make sure you tear them up about it along the way and constantly question all of it and why this time, they are not living up to their usual way of promoting and defending their causes.
Rush Limbaugh came along at a time in my life when I thought the liberals running the congress and senate could do no wrong. I heard him talk as I was being held hostage in my car trying to run a small business in three different locations. I listened as I went about getting the college education I had to put aside when things were rough. I wrote an English essay on “The Myth of the Campaign Promise” because I just knew President Clinton was not holding “America Hostage” as Rush would say.
I listened and listened. I started to write a book because I thought Limbaugh was crazy and the “ditto heads” were trying to take over the government and the country.
I was sure the man was anti-American and for the life of me could not come to grips with the fact that he just knew what buttons to push at any given point.
As I write now and reflect on all of it, I can understand so much of it is about pushing buttons. It is entertainment.
Still…do all extremists go to heaven?
I imagine if you die and go somewhere due to the way you look at life I should be able to escape Hell but I doubt I will make it to Heaven.
Seriously, I want to take sides. I think anyone that has any idea of what is going on would like to. The problem is the “extreme”.
Talk is cheap. Who said that?
Talk isn’t cheap anymore. Talk is running wild and although it is a good way to bring issues that need to be looked at by all to the fore front, expectations fall short in the end and at times, the extremists fail to be very extreme.
Hot Subjects are the rule of the day when it comes to the media and if they run out of Hot Topics, they use a fill in that makes a person wonder why?
National news can be as important as an Associated Press article about an Ex Walmart Associate that kills a cat. But corporate lies and greed can be by-passed even if the documentation is better than the sources the reporters at Newsweek have.
A sincere sounding, I still would like to know why, can be forgotten in a couple of weeks and if someone remembers, oh well, maybe someday.
There were a few of weeks on the case of Terri Schivago that took center stage on The Sean Hannity Radio Show and Hannity and Colmes. Sean really wanted answers, until it was over and something more important took over. “Men in Black”, The Nuclear Option and the Filibuster.
There was a sense of loss and a sense of well if no one else is going to push the button, why should I? It’s gone now unless there is a reason to use it in an attempt to push a button.
Any way, my book on Rush died on a disk that went through packing numerous times as my husband was transferred to different states while in the US Air Force and eventually died do to the heat of Florida and the fact that I had no idea it would happen to the disks if I left it in a box in that kind of heat.
That first computer was something and the chat rooms were alive especially when it came to Rush Limbaugh and the Ditto heads during the nineties. The newest computer makes me crazy at times and the web blogs are endless and only a product of someone who has what they want and can donate their time for everyone to read the most insignificant things that have nothing to do with everyday life for the average, American .
I must have too much time on my hands because right now I am not in my car listening to talk radio. I am looking for the streaming audio on Sean Hannity’s web site. One way or another I cannot get to the point of being extreme and will not make it to heaven if I don’t choose.
Okay so Sean is following in Rush’s foot steps. It is good entertainment if you like to listen to a tear’m up type of comedy and are willing to pay for it. I am fairly sure that eventually people will pay for Sean the same way they pay for Rush. You pay to be an insider. I would rather be a hostage in my car and listen for free. If I miss something, someone will bring it up again soon or one of the celebrity blogs will post it.
Sorry Sean, I just can’t make it to Six Flags in Jackson, New Jersey, to be one of the groupies there for your voice…I know you aren’t singing. I wouldn’t go even if Old Blue Eyes came back to life.
Basically I am cheap….Hey! Cheap Thrills…that must be it!!!
Someone to love. Someone to hate. Someone to dissect.
Al Franken…Michael Moore…Robert Greenwald and Lou Dobbs…Where are you? Someone help me through to the side that will take me to heaven! Someone show me the light at the end of the tunnel!
Comment by Julie Pierce — May 31, 2005 @ 9:43 pm
Emails from Walmart Corporate Offices…go to.
www.thewalmartwaynotsamsway.blogspot.com
Comment by Julie Pierce — July 23, 2005 @ 11:14 am
Almost daily, there is mention of Walmart somewhere in the media. Walmart finds itself up against more lawsuits then ever before and activists are at top of the list of problems that continue to plague Walmart.
From attempts to block the opening of new Super Centers to the individual and group lawsuits that are filed against the corporation, it will be the people, customers and the company’s very own associates who will determine the fate of the aging retailer.
Attempts at redeeming itself publicly and attempts at improving its image are a new way of handling the perception people have of the company. In the past public relations and the media were areas that the company avoided unless there was an extremely negative situation had to answered through the media in some way. Now the corporate offices have decided to defend the company to the extent of taking out full page ads in different areas of the country and designing a web site called Walmartfacts to allow the public access to its’ own view of the wonderful world of Walmart.
A corporation, a company, the as big as life retail behemoth whose founder Sam Walton, is looked at and remembered by many in different ways. Sam was a man who is quoted almost continuously by an assortment of different people and associates. Opinions vary and views on the man and his legacy continue.
The book” The Walmart Decade” by Robert Slater looks at not only the Walmart of today but also has many references to Sam Walton and the way it was. The book “Made in America” by Sam Walton and John Huey is a look at a man that seemed to genuinely care about the people that he more than once said “should be treated as partners;” his associates; his company’s employees who are no longer protected by the founder and his way of “respecting the individual.”
A new book titled The Walmart Way by Don Soderqist. It is supposed to be about the Walmart executives. It talks of the Judeo-Christian culture and although it is from the inside of the corporate and executive offices it is not from inside the stores and I am sure will not deal with the same things I am addressing in this book.
The corporate officers, the directors and the executive officers of the company are business people running a corporation, not Sam Walton. Anyone attempting to find a company, or a corporation to work for that would appreciate hard work could at one time find it here. A person could take a look at “The Walmart Culture” and that person would be easy to convince that Walmart has it all and will give it all to you if you work hard and treat the customer as number one, according to Sam Walton. It seems, from the inside to be getting further away from that kind of respect and inclusiveness each day.
Today we have “The Walmart Decade “By Robert Slater “How a New Generation of Leaders Turned Sam Walton’s Legacy into the World’s #1 company” You really need to read between the lines. You would need to understand that Mr. Slater received his information as it is listed at the end of the book.
He did not work in the stores and did not really have access to or the ability to really touch the average associate. I did. The largest retailer in the country and the world is more than just a retailer, employer and a stock on Wall Street. America’s most admired company is a large part of day-to-day living for the typical American family. It is a very large part of the day-to-day life of Walmart Associates.
From the outside of the stores, there is more than one opinion of the company, its’ suppliers and its’ worth. From inside there is also more than one opinion, and depending on many factors that determine your position in the Walmart order of things an opinion can be valid as far as Walmart is concerned or an opinion can be an expression of possible hostile aggressive behavior the way Walmart is today.
Among the many files, policies and trade secrets of the number one retailer in our nation and in the world are the people. These people work in the stores. The people that greet the customers and the people that keep the shelves stocked. In many cases, this book reflects the very lives of the people that this company will forever be connected to, like it or not. This is the warehouse, the truck driver and the system that keeps count on all of it. This is the story that includes a factory in a foreign country that produces the clothing that hangs on the racks in the softlines departments.
This book is a written view from the inside of the stores. It takes an in depth look at the associates, individual stores, salaried management and the executive offices of this company that is listed on tickers of the New York Stock Exchange as wmt.
Comment by Julie Pierce — July 25, 2005 @ 2:13 am