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Tuesday, February 17. 2009
Liberal Media Redux
I’m lazy today so we get a rerun.
But, it has a photo of Miss March 1978, Christina Smith!
Just to keep up on what’s going through the minds of the insanely conservative wing of our population, I subscribe to a number of their web sites. Let’s face it, they’re fun! One of those is Townhall.com, run by Brent Bozell who is the founder — and possibly the only member of — Media Research Center and the Parents Television Council, the group that doesn’t support freedom of the airwaves. He’s been around since 1987, mid term of the St. Ronny Administration, railing against that evil leftist media.
Which is just about every news organization with the exception of Fox News and the Washington Times.
We all need the freedom to voice our opinions, regardless of how insane and ignorant they may be. In fact, I’m happy to live in a country where a yahoo like Brent Bozell can speak freely because it means I can speak freely too. What is troubling though is the legitimacy the media gives such people as Brent Bozell, especially on TV. And this is especially curious since, through his various organizations, Bozell does whatever he can to restrict your — our — freedom to watch what we want on TV without interference from government. He’s the guy who generates thousands of form letters and e-mails to the FCC when people like Howard Stern and Bono say dirty words on the air or Janet Jackson (bless her heart!) shows us her boob on TV during the Super Bowl half time show.
My gawd! Will we ever recover from the Janet moment! When was that? Super Bowl XXXVIII (38 for those of you who are in the same camp with Bozell and can’t figure out Roman numerals) February 1, 2004. Not to mention his campaign to force Carl’s Jr. to pull their Paris Hilton ad. You remember the one, I certainly do! I like Paris Hilton! Now that’s entertainment!
Most notorious for letting Bozell on the air — besides Fox — is MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough. Bozell has been on with Scarborough more times than I care to count. I like Scarborough. His morning show is pretty good, although he can get a little obnoxious at times and he has people with a wide variety of views and as far as I’ve seen, they all get relatively equal time. But I have to wonder about a network’s credibility when they offer, with such regularity, an idiot like Bozell airtime. Are they afraid of his letter-writing campaigns?
Like his so-called “Christian” colleagues, Bozell is good at creating an anti-[fill in the blank] campaign, complete with form letters — and now e-mails — ready to send off to whichever organization he has decided needs to be inundated with his viewpoint.
Case in point, the e-mail I received this morning. It’s one of these anti-Hispanic, disguised as anti-immigration, e-mails railing against sanctuary cities that let undocumented aliens live without fear of reprisal. The melodrama of the e-mail is priceless.
DID YOU KNOW many cities throughout the U.S. are knowingly harboring illegal aliens ... including felons?
DID YOU KNOW that even after preying on, sometimes murdering, American citizens, these illegal immigrant criminals are still not deported?
DID YOU KNOW we are now experiencing what one prominent researcher has called a “crime wave” across America committed by illegal aliens?
On this last point I sent an e-mail to Bozell asking him who the prominent researcher is, since he didn’t give us a name or organization to check for accuracy. I’m still waiting for a reply. Let me check again! Nope, no reply yet, but it’s only been two hours since I sent my request.
This latest campaign is directed towards our state governors. Bozell wants us to flood their mansions with e-mails decrying this epidemic of crime and the efforts of the “elitist liberals in our pro-open-borders national news media …” to cover up this crime wave.
“Friend, if you’re sick and tired of the leftists in the news media and big city politicians covering up illegal alien criminals DEFYING the laws of this country, I urge you to CLICK HERE NOW to demand your governor take action!”
“This Urgent Appeal doesn’t lobby for any new laws. It demands that your Governor state publicly and unequivocally that the constitutional powers of the Governor’s office will be used to enforce existing law by SHUTTING DOWN any so-called ‘sanctuary cities.’ ”
So, just out of curiosity, how does one “shut down” a city? Do you march the National Guard in — if they’re not stuck in Iraq for 15 months — and then force all the residents out at gunpoint? We did that once, in the not-so-distant past when the feds rounded up all those of Japanese descent on the West Coast during World War II (That’s “2” for you Bozell bozos). If I claimed to be a Bozell Bozo, could I avoid deportation?
What Mr. Bozell doesn’t write in his bombastic e-mail is that immigration is a federal jurisdiction and state governments have little — if any — ability to affect any influence on immigration law enforcement.
This is pretty funny: Today there are more than 60 sanctuary zones, including 30 of America’s largest cities, such as Cambridge, Massachusetts; Detroit, Michigan; Chicago, Illinois; Austin and Houston, Texas; Denver, Colorado; and the two centers of the liberal Big Media, Los Angelesrnia and New York City.
I’m leaving in as much of his style and formatting as possible, including his typos. Don’t want to misquote him! But I did bold the funny part!
What happens next is a few of those who subscribe to his daily e-mail newsletter and web site will take this e-mail and send it, as a mass chain e-mail, to everyone in their e-mail address book and viola! Bozell has another “grassroots” movement.
Bear in mind, there won’t be millions of e-mails sent, probably not even 100,000, to the various governors, but enough of a response that Bozell can get on the air, adding publicity to his organization, claiming some sort of success in this campaign. And that’s what its really all about for Bozell. Keeping the cash rolling in from his sugar daddies and supporters. It’s a lesson I can learn from actually. Start an advocacy group, round up some well-heeled supporters and then generate campaigns for whatever issue is the hot topic of the day, like immigration and the war in Iraq.
Or the right-leaning mainstream media.
And on a brighter note: Congratulations to Al Gore, Jr. on his award of the Nobel Prize for Peace for his campaign to alert the world to global warming. Wish he was running for president. The environment has been under attack since the Reagan Administration, with pollution pouring from the smokestacks of America at increased rates, not to mention all the other nations in the world, like China, that are now pouring more pollution into the air than ever before.Then there is the proliferation of oil-drilling in environmentally senstive areas like the North Slope in Alaska, adjacent to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The assault on the National Reserve was stopped, but the area adjacent has been approved for more drilling. For those who think the oil companies do this without harming the environment, guess again.
While reviewing information on the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969, which first brought the spotlight to the dangers of off-shore oil drilling, I came across a web site for tourists wishing to visit the Santa Barbara beaches. It extolls the virtues of the Santa Barbara area and at the end offers three “beach tips,” the last of which is this: “Invest in a pair of those little jelly beach shoes. We have beautiful beaches that tend to have oil leaks. It's not something we like to talk about, but tar makes a mess of rugs, shoes and everything white.”
Recently I had been communicating with Playboy Playmate Christina Smith, Miss March 1978. Part of her Playmate portfolio was shot on a beach, which turned out to be in Santa Barbara. The sand had a black tint to it and I often wondered how the photographer, Arny Freytag, got that effect. Christina answered, telling me it was a “black sand” beach and they had a problem with oil/tar on their clothes and shoes — and her naked skin I presume, since she was laying and sitting in it. Eight years after the oil spill and the beach still had oil residue?Apparently, the ocean floor around Unocal’s Derrick Alpha, where the disaster originated still has leaks. The oil spill started because the oil company got a waiver from the U.S. Geological Survey to use a shorter casing on the pipe that brought up the petroluem. The casing is used to prevent blowouts. Since no one had envisioned the scenario of an off shore oil rig disaster, there were no plans, equipment or techniques for stopping such a catastrophe. It took eleven days for those involved to contain the spill.
Part of what happened was that pressure built up as the oil company extracted pipe from the well. That pressure wasn’t adequately compensated for with drilling mud that is pumped down into the well as the pipe is extracted. When the pressure got to dangerous levels they tried to cap it. Natural gas burst in an explosion that destroyed not only the well, but caused cracks in the sea floor.
Those cracks were filled with a chemical mud to seal them, but oil still trickles out in leaks, none that would cause any widespread media coverage, but enough to deposit oil on the beaches that cause them to be dark and have tourist promoters suggesting we have throw away sandals so we don’t mess up our carpets from the oil on the beach.
At one time, the Santa Barbara Channel and its beaches were some of the most pristine areas in America; a haven for marine floral and fauna which was the magnet that drew so many to the area. Santa Barbara was/is the jewel of the California coast line. It has been irrevocably damaged. Parts of the Santa Barbara area are still wildlife refuges and the scenery is magnificent — but if you go to visit, buy those throw away jelly sandals, the oil will ruin the carpet in your SUV.
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