Watching Brakhage on Bluray and playing Settlers of Catan!

Watching Brakhage on Bluray and playing

A Response to the Grand Rapids Press

I just posted this comment on the MLive.com website, host to the Grand Rapids Press, my hometown newspaper. It was in response to this article:

Voters are in red, red state (that's how it was titled in the actual newspaper, not the website)


Ted Roelofs and the Press clearly intend to win the favor of tea-baggers and generally resentful curmudgeons that they must be counting on to sustain their circulation numbers. As an editorial, I suppose this article has a place in the front section, but not as a lead article. It starts by name-checking a prominent right-wing website, then gives Paul Rhoda an above the fold quote despite the fact that his views are neither newsworthy nor any more significant than anyone else they could have asked for an opinion. The fact is, Rhoda doesn't simply "lean Republican" (what a laugh I had when I read that classic understatement!) - he is one of the more extreme (and predictable) ideologues to make a practice of writing letters to the Public Pulse as often as the Press' policy allows, and when he does, it's little more than a fulmination against liberals, either to vote them out or not elect them in the first place.

How convenient for Roelofs, Rhoda and Norman Roe (who gets not only a quote in this article but a letter defending the Arizona immigration law printed in this Sunday's Press) that none of them have to put their anti-incumbent credibility on the line here in Michigan. I'm confident that if a Republican governor, congressional rep or Senator were running for re-election, they'd probably find a way to nuance their hyperbole and argue that they deserve our vote. The fact is, incumbency is not that big an issue in our area due to term limits and the fact that both Ehlers and Hoekstra bailed out of another term in Washington DC.

This article really doesn't offer much in the way of front-page news but it does provide an informative example of how spin is employed to influence readers. The statistics implying a "grim season for Democrats" are a case in point. "Just 42 percent of state Democrats" report more enthusiasm than in 2008. More enthusiasm? It's hard to imagine a party being more enthusiastic than the Democrats were in '08, with the opportunity to win the presidency, get past the Bush years and gain majorities in both houses of Congress. So of course, with more to lose and less to gain, and with a steadily negative anti-Democrat narrative running through much of the news media, "enthusiasm" will dampen.

Likewise "fully" 40 percent of those surveyed support the Tea Party movement. Huh? That's an even smaller number than the "low" number of unenthusiastic Democrats. But it's framed to indicate some kind of robust surge of appeal that the Tea Party is generating. Basically, the Tea Party = disgruntled McCain supporters, and I really can't fathom why they get as much fawning attention in the news media as they do, except for the fuel they add to the incessant fascination they have with the horse-race element of our national politics.

I recall being interviewed by Roelofs years ago at an antiwar protest when George W. Bush was laying out his case to take us into war with Iraq. I didn't have a problem with how he quoted me but I do recall that at the end of the article (and many others he wrote about opposition to Bush's foreign policies) he gave the last word to conservative critics of the event. I didn't notice the same kind of "fair and balanced" approach in this article, but I invite Mr. Roelofs to look me up sometime if he wants to get a comment from a mainstream middle-aged white guy who "leans progressive" in his future reports.

So I hear that the Lakers & Celtics have agreed to pause their game whenever Stephen Strasburg is on the mound tonight...

I'm downtown Grand Rapids today, getting trained in Nonviolent Crisis Intervention

I'm watching Katherine Hepburn in Summertime. WOW, what a gorgeous Technicolor tour of Venice! Wonderful old film...

Perez Prado's Cherry Pink & Apple Blossom White, followed by Glenn Miller Orchestra's String of Pearls

Perez

At the moment, I'm standing over a pan of chicken listening to Bert Kaempfert's Wonderland by Night. Who's got love for Bert?

I'm at Festival 2010 in Grand Rapids, listening to a band called SILENT BARK

just wrapped up another free-wheelin' episode of IGE Talks! Topic: Role of Government. Will be posted on Blip.tv soon