Something Savage This Way Comes

A follow up to the News-Press entry from last night....

It seems I missed half the fun by not actually scrounging about for a copy of the print edition from Sunday, for INOTBB's favorite moral scourge Dr. (of Physiology) Laura had to put her two cents in about the Jerry Roberts accusations on page A2. Oh, and I don't mean to use a cliche when I say she put her two cents in--that's precisely what her notions are worth. According to Craig Smith, at the end of her column she writes:

I must say, however, that Mr. Roberts working at The Daily Nexus, which typically presents its own version of vulgar sexuality (check out the "Wednesday Hump" section www.dailynexus.com) looks bad . . .

Jerry Roberts was hired in late January 2007 to be publications director of UC Santa Barbara's Daily Nexus. The Nexus, although it has some advisory staff, is primarily student-run, and certainly student written and edited. It has run a sex column (not a section, as Dr. Laura called it, but then again, the people left in charge at the News-Press don't know their newsholes from a hole in the ground), called the Wednesday Hump, at least as far back as 2002, when then Hump-ster Beth Van Dyke was quoted in USA Today.

That USA Today article went on to say (starting with an amazing first clause that must warm the cockles of every non-free speech loving heart, but here I'm assuming Dr. Laura has one):

First Amendment issues aside, defenders say the columns address an issue important to its primary readers. "It's no secret that sex is a popular topic among college students and that, for a lot of us, it's our first chance to explore our sexuality," says Larry Griffin, editor of The Heights at Boston College. "It's worth it just to get the topic out there."

Given her own youthful indiscretions, you would think Dr. (of Physiology) Laura would have a bit more forgiveness for the perky, curious, and enthusiastic sexuality of those in college. It's less surprising she doesn't seem to care for First Amendment rights, which for her, and her employer Ms. McCaw, seems to mean, "Those who have the most money are first among equals, and therefore get to have the most right to speak." Why else would Schlessinger seem to think every blog should offer her a soapbox when we can hear her across the nation on Talk Radio Network stations?

And speaking of the company that sydicates her show, if she thinks Roberts somehow is besmirched by allowing college students to continue to write the paper they wrote before he came on board (some of which just happens to be about sex and gets specific about acts and uses dirty words and stuff--eww, gross!), should she also be calling out Chancellor Yang for allowing the paper to be published at UCSB? Or, perhaps we should ask--Dr. (of Physiology) Laura, you work for Talk Radio Network, who also represents Michael Savage, shouldn't that give you moral pause? To hit just some of his low-lights Michael Savage has:

• Agreed 100% with a caller who said that gay rabbis would likely rape teen age boys
• Blamed the Columbine shootings on sexual reassignment surgery
• Said Condoleeza Rice was "pushed up the ladder all of her life because of social engineering"
• Called "civil rights" a "con" and asserted: "It's a racket that is used to exploit primarily heterosexual, Christian, white males' birthright" (he did this on Martin Luther King Day)
• Said of Larry King and Wolf Blitzer: "The two of them together look like the type that would have pushed Jewish children into the oven to stay alive one more day to entertain the Nazis"
• Asserted after the 2004 tsunami: "Many of the countries and the areas in these countries that were hit by these tidal waves were hotbeds of radical Islam. Why should we be helping them destroy us?...I truthfully don't believe in foreign aid."
• Told off a caller in 2003 with the lines, "Oh, you're one of the sodomites. You should only get AIDS and die, you pig."

This man, Michael Savage, is sold by the same people that sell you, Ms. Schlessinger. Tell me, if we're going to tar people with the blunt brush of association, who looks dirtiest now--you or Jerry Roberts?

To Write This Wrong with Blinding Speed Goes Underblog

A quick word on why it's good to have blogs--because people outside the usual media channels can have a voice and be read. Clearly there's been a huge failure over the past few decades (probably longer): what's offered to consumers as news often isn't really news (anybody read a story about Anna Nicole Smith lately?) and then there's the whole ridiculous notion that a story without two "sides" is instantly biased (as if we need to quote the Flat Earth Society if there was a story on global rounding). Blogs rarely break news, sure--you need actual reporters and some funding to do that--but they do help keep stories alive that need to be kept alive (just look at Talking Points Memo and the US attorney firings) and also allow for some rumination before we run off and chase the next shiny bauble (and to think of all those editorials that claimed 9/11 beat the "summer of the shark" stories out of the press).

All that said, I find this entry from Santa Barbara's Blog to be most distressing, and not just for its smug, self-congratulatory tone:

In her A-2 column on Sunday in the Santa Barbara News-Press, Dr. Laura Schlessinger acknowledged the Blog for doing the right thing. Niceness aside, the Blog will continue to offer a voice to all in the community. The goal…a multiplicity of opinions, and quality interactive discourse.

Dr. Laura wrote: “And a thank you: It is a pleasure, and a surprise, to find a nice blogger in Santa Barbara! The editor of santabarbarasblog.com, has offered to run 150-word posts on a variety of subjects affecting our local community. ‘Dr. Laura’s voice deserves to be heard in Santa Barbara, but she often takes a lot of undeserved flack, especially in the local blog world.’

Thank you, (Editor Bird), I am grateful for your invitation and your positive, fair spirit. Now, we need to clone (the Blog) to uplift the S.B. blog quality of discourse.”

The 150-word post(s) noted by Dr. Laura, is the same, open invitation offered to all media personalities, newsmakers, local leaders, and dignitaries.

Exactly why does Dr. (of Physiology) Laura need a platform on Santa Barbara's Blog, too? Isn't her column in the News-Press (and radio show, and books) enough local exposure? Of course, she doesn't get much web exposure, given the News-Press doesn't let non-subscribers get anything for free, so maybe that's her concern.

And wouldn't someone with her ideas probably be against cloning? OK, seriously, do we want all blog voices to be the same? Schlessinger probably does--they should all say she's wonderful! She's all for a multiplicity of opinions as long as they all agree with her.

Which, of course, is where the paper she writes for and defends stands right now. If I shipped in a letter to the editor with content like my entry the other day decrying her praise for Rudy Giuliani (assuming I cut it down to the proper letter-to-the-editor length), would it ever run in the News-Press? They didn't even cover the NLRB findings as news, let alone allow any nay-saying words to be heard in their letters section.

I've heard plenty from "all media personalities, newsmakers, local leaders, and dignitaries." It's time to hear from those of us who just want to live our lives, who aren't necessarily experts (with our without doctorates in the fields we purport to be authorities in), but who have thoughts, think them through, and hope to be heard above the din of others' axes grinding.

You Add It Up It Brings You Down

So the News-Press received its latest installment from the satellite inhabited by Dr. (of Physiology) Laura today, out in its orbit pulled by the gravitational forces of Wendy McCaw, George W. Bush, and all the hypocritical moral scourges that have come before her. The first part of her column attacks the Santa Barbara Newsroom, but what else could it do, for the Newsroom is the home for all the fired former News-Press journalists. This rant, which belittles all unions (each worker, of course, should just stand up and take responsibility for him or herself--that's the way to fight unscrupulous owners who have all the power!) is boring--what else would a News-Press lackey like Laura Schlessinger say? It must be something to write and never surprise oneself with where one ends up.

No, I'd rather look at the second part of her column with the subhead "Cure for Gangs." In her typically authoritarian manner, her answer to the problem is simple--police, and lots of them (gee, does she know they have a union?). The kicker, of course, is this claim:

When he was mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani used the police force wisely and made the crime rate in New York City (a bit bigger and more complicated than Santa Barbara) plummet. He managed to do this without creating more fun and games for gangster types in hopes of distracting them. Just good old law presence and enforcement.

Yep, good ole (ok, she didn't spell it that way, which takes the Pusser out of it, but you know what I mean) law presence and enforcement. Just ask Amadou Diallo about that. So, beyond turning New York City into a police state that could be as scary for people of color as today's Baghdad is for everyone but John McCain, what else did Rudy Giuliani accomplish as mayor? The 2006 film Giuliani Time, widely praised, offers some suggestions. Here's some of Kenneth Turan's review in the Los Angeles Times:

"He was a one-trick magician, and that was crime," says Ruth Messinger, one of his unsuccessful opponents. Yet for all the talk that he was a mayor who "brought joy, safety and greatness back to New York City," Giuliani Time claims the mythology doesn't always stand up to scrutiny.

For one thing, statistics indicate crime in the city began to decline before Giuliani's election. For another, the policemen who made that decline possible were hired when [his predecessor David] Dinkins was mayor. Finally, there is no consensus that the celebrated "broken windows" school of policing that emphasized dealing with minor infractions such as vandalism really was a factor in suppressing major crime rates.

Andrew O'Hehir in Salon took a deeper look as to what motivated Giuliani, paragon of goodness for the dear "Dr.":

He [Giuliani] seemed incapable of grasping that many black New Yorkers felt that he had given police free rein to harass them, beat them and even kill them if it brought the crime rate down another few points. Giuliani may or may not be a racist, but he was raised in an all-white Long Island suburb and plays to primal, almost atavistic big-city fears. The fact that he could be elected not once but twice while totally antagonizing the black population and essentially telling the rest of us that those people were the problem is, as [journalist Wayne] Barrett notes, almost unbelievable.

For my money, the most important political argument in Giuliani Time is that Giuliani's cosmetic reforms had little to do with crime reduction, and a lot to do with making rich and middle-class white people in Manhattan and the brownstone neighborhoods of Brooklyn feel better about the city. Under the previous mayor, David Dinkins, crime had dropped sharply for three years before Giuliani took office in 1994. But Dinkins is a black liberal Democrat, so to this day, many people cling to the superstitious belief (argued vociferously by Giuliani during their '93 campaign) that he hated cops and coddled criminals. In fact, Dinkins had hired thousands of new police and introduced a street-level anti-crime campaign. (Some social scientists will tell you that crime rates are more a function of economic and demographic curves than anything mayors ever do, but that's another story.)

Ah, so it's a race thing. That should play well in Santa Barbara, where it's easy to say gangs are those people's fault, and we sure don't mean the ladies who lunch at the Little Town Club.

And leaving Schlessinger behind, let's not forget how Giuliani's pre-9/11 New York is the post-9/11 U.S. Bush now leads. We are constantly reminded of our primal, almost atavistic fears--if we aren't careful, they will follow us home. They will kill us here.

We have nothing to fear, however, but fear-mongers themselves.

My Own Private News-Press

Dr. (of Physiology) Laura is back at the News-Press just in time to save the world from its greatest scourge--blogs! (As you know, there's no point in linking as you have to subscribe for such wit, wisdom, and intellectual property.) Seems she's done with the "abundance of media travel responsibilities" that most honest people would call "out flogging the new book" and ready to take on all comers in Santa Barbara. She mostly complains about anonymous comments on blogs, and, of course, having actually talked to numerous anonymi, psychoanalyzes (physiologizes?) them:

It is these very types we all have to watch closely.

Can you imagine these perpetual attackers ever really having tolerance and a diversity approach? If they ran the News-Press, would they keep me, Scott or Travis? Since they spend a lot of time salivating over the demise of the News-Press and anyone and everyone involved with it -- I think they would create their own one-sided tyranny.

First, nice slip there--"their own one-sided tyranny" kind of implies there is a one-sided tyranny right now at the N-P. (It just happens that tyranny gave Schlessinger a column, so it's a good tyranny.) Now, I'm not really anonymous (after all, there must be hundreds of Georges with two greyhounds in town), but I have to admit, if I were put in charge of the News-Press, I would be tyrannical. Call me a brutish dictator, but I'd require all my journalists, editors, and columnists to be competent. To argue using facts and not hearsay and innuendo. To understand the community about which they write. They couldn't hold grudges against enemies real or made-up. They couldn't coddle friends.

They would have to do reporting, and not just tell us what they think people think. For instance, that Dr. (of Physiology) Laura column of 3/15 begins with a rant about why she will not watch Law & Order anymore. It seems it set her off that a recent episode took the sad, sad murder of Adrienne Shelly, lamented on this very blog back when it happened, as a starting point for its plot. Here's her problem with the episode:

Last December, a woman in an apartment building in New York City was brutally and cruelly murdered by an illegal immigrant from Colombia simply because she asked him to keep the noise down a bit on his construction job downstairs. He followed her upstairs and attacked her. She didn't die then. She died when he hung her to make it look like a suicide. This was major news in New York City in December of 2006.

Here we are early in 2007, and -- with their usual "disclaimer" about it not being a "true" story -- they put the exact same scenario in one of their episodes . . . except now, the white, Christian, businessman owner of the construction company is considered the murderer because he is the one to fake the suicide hanging to protect his business.

Imagine the brutal death of your family member "retooled" so that the actual murderer becomes the victim of white, American, corporate greed.

We don't have to imagine anything, Dr. (of Physiology) Laura. We could try to contact Shelly's family (she had a husband and very young daughter) and see if the episode bugged them. Of course, then we'd actually have to mention her name in our column--but why give her that humanity. For what we really want to do is use her case a complaint about political correctness. Her death means nothing to Schlessinger--it's that it didn't get used to beat up on illegal immigrants, and instead made an argument that greedy white men are bad (didn't see the episode--did it suggest all white men are greedy? I bet).

Seems she's "retooled" the murder too, doing the very thing she's accusing the Law & Order folks of doing. Probably because she believes she's the decider about what's law and order and she hates anyone crowding in on her territory. But she's got plenty of company with Wendy McCaw and Crew, for they're the same ones who accuse everyone else of bias when they don't even report on this week's NLRB finding in their own paper.