Pour Joornalism

Pour Joornalism

On Thursday, 12/29, there was a front page story in the Denver Post written by Vivian Salama and Josh Boak of the Associated Press. The piece was about the first 8,000 of 50,000 jobs negotiated by President Trump with Japanese tech billionaire, Masayoshi Son, coming to the United States. The third paragraph read thusly (bear in mind this was front page news, not opinion page editorial): “In the grand scheme of the economy, the jobs announcement is unlikely to have a major impact. Still, it’s another example of how Trump is trying to stoke voters’ belief that he is actively fighting for their well-being.”

On what planet, in what galaxy, in what universe is that hard news? That’s the bigger question, I suppose. The smaller one is who do Vivian Salama and Josh Boak think they are?  Seriously? They are only reporters, and horrible ones at that. Their opinions are no more (or less) valid than those of your favorite bank teller or the guy who picks up your recycle. News stories, for those who haven’t seen one in 8 years or more, are supposed to be based mostly on attribution and not the opinions of a couple of hacks who don’t write well anyway employed by the propaganda arm of the current administration.

It’s not that hard.  They could have found some prominent democrat to agree to let them use his or her name and put quotes around the above excerpt. (Where’s Harry Reid when you need him?) A balanced news story would include the other side’s opinion.  Something like Paul Ryan or Anyone (R) saying, “Such negotiations before President-elect Trump has even taken office are why consumer confidence ratings are nearer an all-time high than they have been in over a decade.” Then, presented with both sides, the reader gets to draw their own conclusion about whether 50,000 new jobs is a big deal to anyone other than the 50,000 people getting new jobs.

I hate to point out the obvious, but that is what news is actually supposed to be.

To even call what we accept as journalism in this country bad journalism is an insult to reporters in other countries where the journalism is merely bad.  The crap we are subjected to is beyond horrible by any standards other than North Korea’s or Iran’s.

Vivian Salama and Josh Boak? Who? What? Why? When? Where? How? But mostly WHO gives a flip?
The fact that the left dares to accuse anyone else of creating fake news falls somewhere between absurdly laughable and frustrating on a blood-curdling level.

There is a reason Mike Rowe has never shadowed a journalist on his TV show “Dirty Jobs.” He will wade through sewers. He will slop hogs. He will handle venomous snakes. But journalism is too loathsome and disgusting for even his show’s generously low standards.

And the media is still trying to figure out how Trump got elected. They told us what a low life horrible person he was and that no matter how much smoke enveloped the life and times of Hillary “Cash” Clinton, there was no flame there as long as we didn’t look behind the curtain.  They told us what to do. They told us who to vote for. How did we come to a conclusion on our own that they didn’t hand us? (Any liberals reading this are thinking WE didn’t vote for him. Hilly had the major-i-ty.  Of course, most of them thinking that are in or are from California or New York, so….)

So they blamed James Comey.  Who filed no charges against their heroine. Then they blamed fake news, conceding that mainstream media sucks so badly that Fox News and Rush Limbaugh were able to shout down ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, HLN, the BBC, NPR, THE New York Times, The Washington Post, the AP, and almost every major newspaper in every major city in this country. Then I guess they decided that made them look too stupid so they blamed Russian hackers. Who leaked DNC email plans to cheat to wikileaks. Julian Assange says they didn’t but who are you going to believe, him or the mainstream media.  Maybe believe Barack Obama, who says he knew Russian hacking was going on all along (that would be a first) but didn’t want to politicize it before the election. (Talk about stretching one’s imagination to the brink and an insulting example of how stupid he thinks the American public is.)

This is a propaganda machine of which Joseph Goebbels would have been proud. They even want to deliver socialism to the United States as his Nazi Party did to Germany in the 30’s and 40’s. And they seem to support Obama in his hatred of the Jews which he shares with Adolph Hitler, as well as their similar strategies to divide a nation along racial lines.

Hey, here’s a theory. Maybe that nasty statistic that keeps coming up in which 70% of us don’t trust the mainstream media-joke isn’t fake news. Maybe we really do think the media is completely, totally, unequivocally full of….themselves. It’s sad to think of the intentional false reporting of Jayson Blair, Dan Rather and Brian Williams (I think I was in a helicopter that got shot down but it may have just been a drafty outhouse), as the good old days of journalism but who ever thought it would go this horribly wrong?

I personally hope they keep pursuing their current line of reasoning.  I hope their denial and inability to accept that they don’t matter to us in their current arrogant, misleading, opinionated form continues because nothing will ensure Trump’s reelection in 2020 like four more years of these idiots telling us not to believe our own eyes and ears and daily experience. Keep telling us what a bunch of uneducated, illiterate, redneck, scum-sucking losers we are. Because that worked so well last time.

Believe it or not we know that those sonsofbitches on Fox News are mostly doing op/ed talk shows and we understand the difference between that and news but we value their opinion for a little balance to the BS the mainstream media tries to shove down our throat every day. Believe it or not we know all on our own that under Obama we are making less money than we were, are paying more for worse health care, and are living in more dangerous times even though the almighty media has told us things are great and everything is just fine.

Hey media—as you are currently: You….Don’t….Matter. Or #medialiesdontmatter.

So here’s a simple tip for practicing putting some attribution in your next news story:  Spin Nancy Pelosi in two or three circles and hand her a microphone.   Write down whatever comes out of her mouth and put quotes around it.

It can’t possibly make any less sense than what you morons are peddling now.

By the way, this is an opinion piece, not a hard news story, just in case you didn’t recognize that.

 

Merry Christmas, alright?

Christmas has always been one of my favorite times of year. It may be the favorite in spite of the cold and the extra 180’ of sidewalk I have to shovel on my corner lot when it snows. And I have always said Merry Christmas.

I knew there was some hulabaloo about whether you should say it or not but I largely ignored it because Christmas is Christmas and everybody seemed pretty cool about hearing Merry Christmas in spite of the big social firestorm the media was trying to create around it. Those idiots do that stuff all the time and after awhile, ho-hum, I just quit paying attention.

Then we elected Donald Trump president three times and he said he was going to make it okay to say Merry Christmas again and you’d have thought he drowned a puppy on national TV.

I get it. I don’t need the president or anybody else to tell me it’s ok to say Merry Christmas. Right or wrong I’ve been doing it all my life and now I’m old enough I don’t even care if you like it or not. Presumably, based on nearly 60 years of saying it to people and in return getting Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays back at me I’m going to assume that I just don’t know a lot of militant atheists or it’s pretty much ok with most people if you offer them a cheerful greeting of the season.

Are you guys on the left just pissed because Donald Trump said it?

There was an editorial this week by E.J. Dionne Jr. of the Washington Post Writers Group that ran in the Denver Post. I could tell it was an editorial because it ran on the editorial page under a big banner that said “Opinion.” That was about the only thing that made it different from stuff that routinely runs on the front page but I’m a pretty sharp guy and I picked up on it right away.

Anyway, E.J., who says some things Donald Trump says enrage him and others just get under his skin, apparently applied this open-minded template to the new president’s remarks about making it ok to say Merry Christmas again. It really bothered E.J. who pointed out that he has been free to say Merry Christmas his whole life and Donald Trump had by God better not tell him he is free to say Merry Christmas for the rest of it.

Believe it or not, I follow E.J. here (kind of), just not with all the rage. I just said I didn’t need anybody to tell me it was ok to do what I was already doing.

Where E.J. starts losing me is that in his world it is only ok to say Merry Christmas to people that he is certain are Christians and celebrate Christmas like he does. So ok, how do you know when you pass someone on the street what their religion and belief systems are to know if it’s ok to let them know you care enough about the fact they exist to wish them a Merry Christmas? Or is he ashamed or guilty about celebrating Christmas?  Which is why I just say Merry Christmas and breathe a sigh of relief when I don’t get shot. (Not really.)

Are we really that sensitive about it? I don’t care if you answer me with Happy Holidays. I wouldn’t care if you answered me with Happy Hanakuh. I really wouldn’t care if you wished me Happy Kwanza although I am woefully ignorant what sort of celebration that is. I would feel better about life if you just acknowledged my greeting and well wishes with one of your own that recognizes me as a human being at a time of year when I thought we were supposed to recognize each other as human beings.

I double swear I won’t get pissed off at your choice from the above options (or anything else that’s civil and pleasant) if you don’t get pissed off at mine.

Both sides are guilty here if there really are filthy, white (people, not snow) Christmas celebrators insisting you only acknowledge them with Merry Christmas or they’re going to do something to your car. But don’t make it ok to become enraged if I don’t say Happy Holidays instead. Geez, Louise, you guys. Have we gone crazy?

What did we do for 200 years until someone came up with the term “politically correct?”

Even if you’re an atheist can’t you celebrate spending time with family and spoiling each other with gifts and tribute that say those close to me are close to me for good reason? Is that really offensive to anyone?

E.J. goes on to say that his parents raised him to say Happy Hanakuh to his Jewish friends but he manages to avoid stating whether he in turn required they say Merry Christmas to him out of mutual respect. If you aren’t certain he says you should say Happy Holidays.  If you know for absolute positive that someone is a practicing Christian who drug a pagan symbol (a tree for goodness sakes) into their living room to wait for the guy Coca Cola invented in 1929 to drop down the chimney and scare the crap out of the kids—only then could you say Merry Christmas.

Ok, E.J. didn’t say all of that but c’mon.

It seems like the right and the left are going to have plenty of boisterous times in the coming four years to voice our opinions in an open-minded, civil, constructive manner (and you wonder if I can really believe in Santa Claus) without tearing each other apart over Christmas.

Sure I’m pissed nativity scenes are a no-no in public. I wish they weren’t.  I wouldn’t care though if the Jewish community put a menorah right next to a nativity scene.  I wouldn’t even care if you put a Kwanza thingy there too just cuz I’m curious what the hell that would be. Are we really all required to walk on eggshells to protect the atheists from seeing other people believe in stuff? I actually don’t think most of them truly mind, they just think we’re foolish.

I do think we have found one more thing over which to let the nut jobs rule the asylum.

So E.J., even you acknowledged in your story—sorry editorial column—that it is a season of peace and good will to all. Try worrying less about the fact that Donald Trump said it was ok and in a moment of tranquility and reflection just accept a Merry Christmas from all those people you will go back to wishing were dead on Monday.

I can’t believe there is argument about this.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night. Answer me with whatever greeting your heart tells you is ok.  As long as you are civil and sincere and don’t use the F word, I’m ok with it.

Merry Christmas.

After The Math

My, my what a different winter we are looking at than the one many of us imagined.

A woman whose friendship I value said the other day, “Telling someone to calm down is not going to make them calm down.” So true but too bad.

So instead what I’d like to tell the ½ of the country that seems to be a teensy bit upset that Hillary Clinton is not going to be our next president is that I understand exactly how you feel and I know it sucks. Not because I am upset Hillary lost, but because I know how it feels to face four to eight years of feeling disenfranchised and being governed by leaders who don’t represent your point of view and who shove a bunch of stuff down your throat that makes you absolutely vomit. Though in fairness, Trump really hasn’t done any of that yet but I know better than to argue with you.

I don’t think we on the right expressed our displeasure any less vehemently or gently in 2008 or 2012 than those on the left are now, although I have to say I don’t remember us setting things on fire and rioting and looting and the like. But we were just as unhappy about it. I don’t mean to imply that all Trump haters are violent and childish. Just unhappy, distraught, near suicidal and feeling hopeless.  I understand.  We spent eight years there.

                What we didn’t have was a media that trumpeted every emotion we felt while we were waiting for our coffee to brew.

                Oh, I know, we have Rush Limbaugh and those lying bastards on Fox News. All I can say is those guys must be really good if your side can equate one news network and one talk show host with ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, HLN, The BBC, NPR, The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post and almost every major newspaper in every major town in the United States, but we can debate that next time we get together to smear feces on each other’s windshields or whatever you had in mind for the holidays this year.

                If you can suspend your disbelief enough to believe that most people in between coasts didn’t want to be ruled by California and New York maybe you can suspend it enough to believe we think you have more media at your disposal to make more noise about your displeasure. But I’m trying to agree with you here—I’m trying to tell you I know you’re upset and we on the right know how you feel (at least those of you who didn’t need days off and therapy and pla-doh and stuff—we don’t know how to really relate to that).

                You guys, for eight years we woke up every day frustrated and fearful of what the government and you-know-who might do that day to make America look a little less like the one of which we were once so proud. We didn’t like a lot of stuff. We didn’t much like Obamacare (although everybody likes no exclusions for preexisting conditions, c’mon); we didn’t really think much of Obama’s international apology tour or drawing imaginary lines in the sand or feeling like we had become the laughing stock of the global community.

                We didn’t like being told the economy was great when we set a record for food stamp recipients; equaled mid-70’s numbers for citizens not in the work force; and saw household income levels decline, all the while being told it was OK because this was the new normal.  I know, I know, all the bad stuff was George Bush’s fault. Obama is only responsible for happy things. So if your guy couldn’t fix it in eight years is it too much to ask for him to get out of the way because we are pretty sure our guy can?

                Yes? Too soon? Sorry.

                And my personal favorite, the racial division infection that has abscessed in this country under Obama’s leadership or lack thereof. I know, you don’t think that was his fault either, but believe me I am being kind when I tell you that I think his biggest failing as the nation’s first black president was the giant step backwards in race relations that he personally nurtured and encouraged.

                And good lord, the list of crap that made us puke is way longer than this but you get the picture and I promised a friend of mine who complained that I would try and keep new blogs around 1,000 words because he has a short attention span. (I should’ve mentioned the debt and border security, illegals and Sanctuary cities. Oh well, we’ll get to those another time.)

                So yes, we get it, and so should you: there is going to be a lot of stuff happen in at least the next four years that you aren’t going to like very much. Good grief, Trump isn’t even president yet and the mainstream media says doom is upon us.  I don’t know what to tell you other than you have my empathy.

                I’d like to tell you that we on the right will try and be more compassionate during the implementation of policies we’d like to see happen before our country is crippled beyond repair but I can’t speak for everyone, and many days I’m only one stupid liberal comment away from losing my stuff myself.

                Eventually President Trump will be sworn in in spite of fake news about fake news, Russian hackers (who thought it would be a good idea to see the U.S. ramp up its military again?), and aliens from the Planet Zoltar.

                I’d like to ask you to give Trump a chance to make your health care more affordable, your paychecks bigger, your borders more secure, your communities safer and your nation less vulnerable to defeat in the next war someone decides to declare on us but I’m not hopeful you will do that. Which brings us back to me knowing exactly how you are going to feel for the next four to eight years and I’m sorry.

For you.