An American Lion

This is sad:

The mother of former major league pitcher Victor Zambrano was kidnapped Sunday, Zambrano’s agent Peter Greenberg said late Sunday night by phone. Elizabeth Mendez Zambrano was abducted sometime Sunday morning from her son’s farm, about half hour from the central Venezuela city of Maracay, Greenberg said. Venezuela has been haunted in recent years by the kidnapping of rich and famous people. Yorvit Torrealba Jr., the son of Rockies catcher Yorvit Torrealba, and his uncle were kidnapped this summer. They were left unharmed on a road a couple days later. Torrealba has since moved his family to Hollywood, Fla. Former Angels infielder Gus Polidor was killed in April, 1995 while trying to prevent the kidnapping of his infant son via a carjacking. Zambrano played seven years for Tampa Bay, the New York Mets, Toronto and Baltimore. His last game in the big leagues was Sept. 30, 2007.

The attraction is, of course, money, and big league players have certainly been flush with cash. While a player like Zambrano may not have played under a lucrative contract in recent years, there is a perception that anyone who has played in the big leagues has money, and in South America, that means the threat of kidnapping. Throughout Latin America, kidnapping is used to extort money from the rich, or from people perceived to be rich. Here’s an older article about the situation, but I think it is indicative of how the crime has perpetrated itself throughout the world, not just Latin America:

Kidnapping is defined as “to hold or carry off, usually for ransom”, and encompasses a wide variety of crimes. Economic kidnapping – or the kidnapping business – is where a financial demand is made, which could be either hard cash, or some other financial resource. Political kidnapping, on the other hand, is where political concessions, such as the release of prisoners, changes to the law and policy retreats, are demanded. This distinction may seem straightforward, but in reality cases are rarely this clear cut. There are often grey areas between political and economic kidnapping. For example, the FARC in Colombia is a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group, but kidnaps for money and is thought to earn hundreds of millions of dollars from it each year. Criminals with political aspirations have also been known to diversify. Definitions are often regarded as the preserve of hair-splitting academics, removed from the reality on the ground. But effective policies and practices for tackling kidnapping are not possible unless they respond to the motivations for the crime and take account of the way kidnappers will react to pressure. For this reason, it is vital that kidnapping cases are defined in terms of the immediate demand rather than any higher order political, religious or other goals a group may have. Economic kidnapping is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world. It is estimated that kidnappers globally take home in the region of $500 million each year in ransom payments: the hostage is a commodity with a price on his head. Reliable statistics are hard to come by, but it is estimated that there are approximately 10,000 kidnappings each year worldwide. The undisputed kidnap capital of the world is Colombia, where the activity has been described as ‘a cottage industry’. In 2000, the Colombian National Police recorded 3162 cases. Colombia’s problem has not been contained within its own borders. Colombian kidnapping groups often cross over into Venezuela and Ecuador to take hostages, and both countries feature in the top ten. Other hot-spots around the globe include Mexico, where the problem has risen dramatically in the last five years, Brazil, the Philippines and the former Soviet Union. The following table shows the top ten hot-spots in 1999.

Global Kidnapping hot-spots – 1999 1 Colombia 2 Mexico 3 Brazil 4 Philippines 5 Venezuela 6 Ecuador 7 Former Soviet Union 8 Nigeria 9 India 10 South Africa

As the table above shows, Latin America is an important hub for kidnapping. However, it would be wrong to see the crime as a uniquely Latin American problem. Over the past decade or so, kidnapping has risen in parts of Africa, most notably Nigeria and South Africa. This can largely be traced to the expansion of multi-national companies into these countries following the rich natural resources on offer. Similarly, companies moved into parts of the Former Soviet Union following the collapse of communism at the start of the last decade, and the kidnapping rate has grown there, too.

How sad is it that, ten years later, this sort of thing is still prevalent, even in Venezuela? Let’s hope that Zambrano is able to get his mother back safe and sound.

Posted via web from TalkingSmackAboutSports | Comment »

This is sad:

The mother of former major league pitcher Victor Zambrano was kidnapped Sunday, Zambrano’s agent Peter Greenberg said late Sunday night by phone. Elizabeth Mendez Zambrano was abducted sometime Sunday morning from her son’s farm, about half hour from the central Venezuela city of Maracay, Greenberg said. Venezuela has been haunted in recent years by the kidnapping of rich and famous people. Yorvit Torrealba Jr., the son of Rockies catcher Yorvit Torrealba, and his uncle were kidnapped this summer. They were left unharmed on a road a couple days later. Torrealba has since moved his family to Hollywood, Fla. Former Angels infielder Gus Polidor was killed in April, 1995 while trying to prevent the kidnapping of his infant son via a carjacking. Zambrano played seven years for Tampa Bay, the New York Mets, Toronto and Baltimore. His last game in the big leagues was Sept. 30, 2007.

The attraction is, of course, money, and big league players have certainly been flush with cash. While a player like Zambrano may not have played under a lucrative contract in recent years, there is a perception that anyone who has played in the big leagues has money, and in South America, that means the threat of kidnapping. Throughout Latin America, kidnapping is used to extort money from the rich, or from people perceived to be rich. Here’s an older article about the situation, but I think it is indicative of how the crime has perpetrated itself throughout the world, not just Latin America:

Kidnapping is defined as “to hold or carry off, usually for ransom”, and encompasses a wide variety of crimes. Economic kidnapping – or the kidnapping business – is where a financial demand is made, which could be either hard cash, or some other financial resource. Political kidnapping, on the other hand, is where political concessions, such as the release of prisoners, changes to the law and policy retreats, are demanded. This distinction may seem straightforward, but in reality cases are rarely this clear cut. There are often grey areas between political and economic kidnapping. For example, the FARC in Colombia is a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group, but kidnaps for money and is thought to earn hundreds of millions of dollars from it each year. Criminals with political aspirations have also been known to diversify. Definitions are often regarded as the preserve of hair-splitting academics, removed from the reality on the ground. But effective policies and practices for tackling kidnapping are not possible unless they respond to the motivations for the crime and take account of the way kidnappers will react to pressure. For this reason, it is vital that kidnapping cases are defined in terms of the immediate demand rather than any higher order political, religious or other goals a group may have. Economic kidnapping is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world. It is estimated that kidnappers globally take home in the region of $500 million each year in ransom payments: the hostage is a commodity with a price on his head. Reliable statistics are hard to come by, but it is estimated that there are approximately 10,000 kidnappings each year worldwide. The undisputed kidnap capital of the world is Colombia, where the activity has been described as ‘a cottage industry’. In 2000, the Colombian National Police recorded 3162 cases. Colombia’s problem has not been contained within its own borders. Colombian kidnapping groups often cross over into Venezuela and Ecuador to take hostages, and both countries feature in the top ten. Other hot-spots around the globe include Mexico, where the problem has risen dramatically in the last five years, Brazil, the Philippines and the former Soviet Union. The following table shows the top ten hot-spots in 1999.

Global Kidnapping hot-spots – 1999 1 Colombia 2 Mexico 3 Brazil 4 Philippines 5 Venezuela 6 Ecuador 7 Former Soviet Union 8 Nigeria 9 India 10 South Africa

As the table above shows, Latin America is an important hub for kidnapping. However, it would be wrong to see the crime as a uniquely Latin American problem. Over the past decade or so, kidnapping has risen in parts of Africa, most notably Nigeria and South Africa. This can largely be traced to the expansion of multi-national companies into these countries following the rich natural resources on offer. Similarly, companies moved into parts of the Former Soviet Union following the collapse of communism at the start of the last decade, and the kidnapping rate has grown there, too.

How sad is it that, ten years later, this sort of thing is still prevalent, even in Venezuela? Let’s hope that Zambrano is able to get his mother back safe and sound.

Posted via web from TalkingSmackAboutSports | Comment »

This is sad:

The mother of former major league pitcher Victor Zambrano was kidnapped Sunday, Zambrano’s agent Peter Greenberg said late Sunday night by phone. Elizabeth Mendez Zambrano was abducted sometime Sunday morning from her son’s farm, about half hour from the central Venezuela city of Maracay, Greenberg said. Venezuela has been haunted in recent years by the kidnapping of rich and famous people. Yorvit Torrealba Jr., the son of Rockies catcher Yorvit Torrealba, and his uncle were kidnapped this summer. They were left unharmed on a road a couple days later. Torrealba has since moved his family to Hollywood, Fla. Former Angels infielder Gus Polidor was killed in April, 1995 while trying to prevent the kidnapping of his infant son via a carjacking. Zambrano played seven years for Tampa Bay, the New York Mets, Toronto and Baltimore. His last game in the big leagues was Sept. 30, 2007.

The attraction is, of course, money, and big league players have certainly been flush with cash. While a player like Zambrano may not have played under a lucrative contract in recent years, there is a perception that anyone who has played in the big leagues has money, and in South America, that means the threat of kidnapping. Throughout Latin America, kidnapping is used to extort money from the rich, or from people perceived to be rich. Here’s an older article about the situation, but I think it is indicative of how the crime has perpetrated itself throughout the world, not just Latin America:

Kidnapping is defined as “to hold or carry off, usually for ransom”, and encompasses a wide variety of crimes. Economic kidnapping – or the kidnapping business – is where a financial demand is made, which could be either hard cash, or some other financial resource. Political kidnapping, on the other hand, is where political concessions, such as the release of prisoners, changes to the law and policy retreats, are demanded. This distinction may seem straightforward, but in reality cases are rarely this clear cut. There are often grey areas between political and economic kidnapping. For example, the FARC in Colombia is a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group, but kidnaps for money and is thought to earn hundreds of millions of dollars from it each year. Criminals with political aspirations have also been known to diversify. Definitions are often regarded as the preserve of hair-splitting academics, removed from the reality on the ground. But effective policies and practices for tackling kidnapping are not possible unless they respond to the motivations for the crime and take account of the way kidnappers will react to pressure. For this reason, it is vital that kidnapping cases are defined in terms of the immediate demand rather than any higher order political, religious or other goals a group may have. Economic kidnapping is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world. It is estimated that kidnappers globally take home in the region of $500 million each year in ransom payments: the hostage is a commodity with a price on his head. Reliable statistics are hard to come by, but it is estimated that there are approximately 10,000 kidnappings each year worldwide. The undisputed kidnap capital of the world is Colombia, where the activity has been described as ‘a cottage industry’. In 2000, the Colombian National Police recorded 3162 cases. Colombia’s problem has not been contained within its own borders. Colombian kidnapping groups often cross over into Venezuela and Ecuador to take hostages, and both countries feature in the top ten. Other hot-spots around the globe include Mexico, where the problem has risen dramatically in the last five years, Brazil, the Philippines and the former Soviet Union. The following table shows the top ten hot-spots in 1999.

Global Kidnapping hot-spots – 1999 1 Colombia 2 Mexico 3 Brazil 4 Philippines 5 Venezuela 6 Ecuador 7 Former Soviet Union 8 Nigeria 9 India 10 South Africa

As the table above shows, Latin America is an important hub for kidnapping. However, it would be wrong to see the crime as a uniquely Latin American problem. Over the past decade or so, kidnapping has risen in parts of Africa, most notably Nigeria and South Africa. This can largely be traced to the expansion of multi-national companies into these countries following the rich natural resources on offer. Similarly, companies moved into parts of the Former Soviet Union following the collapse of communism at the start of the last decade, and the kidnapping rate has grown there, too.

How sad is it that, ten years later, this sort of thing is still prevalent, even in Venezuela? Let’s hope that Zambrano is able to get his mother back safe and sound.

Posted via web from TalkingSmackAboutSports | Comment »

It’s hard to find the words to describe phony outrage. I know it when I see it, but it doesn’t reveal itself to me like it used to. Phony outrage is a misdirection play, an argumentative form of the wildcat play they’re using in football this season, and it is designed to make you think someone cares about x when they really care about y.

I believe the marketing people at Fox News know that when people stop talking about them, that’s when the problems will really start. The histrionic ways in which they react to criticism are designed to keep people talking about Fox News, and this is not because they really want people to think it is a fair-minded and balanced network. No, that would kill off their hardcore viewership. They’re smarter than that. They’re engaged in working the refs, which is a way to get a more favorable amount of coverage. The media hates that, so they become more unhinged and make sharper attacks, which blow up in their face. The truth is, they want people to amplify the real message that they’re trying to get out, which is, if you want to drive liberals nuts, come watch Fox.

There’s nothing wrong with that—everyone should get a chance to test their ideas in the marketplace, unless of course they are reprehensible or deranged. Fox News has subjected itself to the marketplace, and lots of people are buying. It doesn’t get any more difficult to understand than that.

[PBS Ombudsman Michael] Getler writes in his blog that he received some negative correspondence following the October 29th broadcast of the children’s show. In this episode, Oscar the Grouch — the founder of the Grouch News Network (GNN) — receives a phone call from what appears to be a female muppet (or Bret Michaels from Poison) complaining that GNN isn’t grouchy enough.

“I am changing the channel,” she says to Oscar. “From now on I am watching ‘Pox’ News. Now there is a trashy news show.”

It sounded so much like FOX News that even he was fooled by it.

“Everybody who wrote to me heard this as “Fox News,” and I can’t really blame them,” Getler writes. “When I went and watched the tape for the first time, I thought I heard “Fox” as well, perhaps because of the association one assumes when you hear “news” right after the word.”

Getler said in one respect the joke worked, but overall it was too close for comfort.

“Pox News as an alternative and competitor to the Grouch News Network would seem to be a clever and appropriate title,” he wrote. “But you would have to be anesthetized as a producer not to assume that many parents will hear this, or assume this, to be a clever shot at Fox News.”

“I don’t know what was in the head of the producers, but my guess is that this was one of those parodies that was too good to resist. But it should have been resisted. Broadcasters can tell parents whatever they think of Fox or any other network, but you shouldn’t do it through the kids,” he added.

It is true—the children’s demographics are pretty important. I don’t think the Sesame Street demographic counts as much as the Hannah Montana demographic, but still. The blog post here is a good example of phony outrage, however:

Later in the episode, Anderson Cooper from 4th place CNN, guest stars as a reporter for GNN.  He interacts with “Walter Cranky” and “Dan Rather-Not” —  Muppets representing real-life liberal news personalities — and they talk about “Meredith Beware-a” and “Diane Spoiler.” But no affectionate nicknames for Fox News personalities; no Spill O’Reilly or Brittle Hume — nope, and the only disparaging characterization of real-world news is reserved for Fox:  Fox is a POX.  It is trashy.  They didn’t even attempt to try “MessyNBC.”

If Mom and Dad watch cable news, it’s better than 50/50 they watch “POX News.”  So what gives? PBS — a network partially funded with my tax dollars — has the right to tell my kids that their parents watch “trashy” news?  The message is clear, I can’t even sit my kids in front of “Sesame Street” without having to worry about the Left attempting to undermine my authority. And don’t tell me, “If you don’t like it change the channel.”  There are no channels left! It’s everywhere. Just last week I had Obama’s service and volunteerism promoted on every single major network, including Disney and Nickelodeon.

…by the way, why SHOULD I change the channel?  This is MY channel, I’m paying for it!

The fact that this is a re-run from an episode written during the Bush Presidency only reinforces that this is nothing new.  The Left has been doing this for years now. All of us have seen it and felt powerless to mention it, because if we do, we’re ridiculed and dismissed (thank you, Mr. Alinsky).

No, this is nothing new.  In Julia L. Mickenberg’s book “Learning From the Left” the history is plainly spelled out.  Radicals drummed out of mainstream culture in the late 1940’s turned to children’s entertainment for opportunities not just to work, but to influence.  In her introduction, she quotes folk singer Pete Seeger about those artists:  “I think many of them are thinking more on the lines of, ‘If we’re going to save this world, we’re going to have to reach the kids’.”

Now this is always a slippery argument for us to make from the right, because we run the risk of being caricatured in the way the late Jerry Falwell was in the infamous “Tinky-Winky” incident.

Okay, that’s unhinged, to say the least, and it only goes to prove that the Tinky-Winky episode has manifested itself in a complaint about how the parodists did not give that idiot Cavuto his own lame nickname, although without the obvious Tinky-Winky shenanigans. If you want to be taken seriously, drop the argument that the news anchors have to have “affectionate” nicknames. That goes well past reasonable. No reasonable person is looking to Sesame Street for witty or urbane political commentary, snark notwithstanding. The nickname “Diane Spoiler” is nowhere near as affectionate or as clever as the woman deserves, by the way. A spoiler is a bad thing, sir. Way to blow past the obvious. It was harmless parody, and “Walter Cranky” took a body blow worse than Fox News did, because he recently died. How would you like to be immortalized by a children’s show as “Walter Cranky?” As to the name “pox,” well, go sell crazy somewhere else. It’s a rhyming play on words. Pox, being a Middle English word for a disease resulting in pock-marking of the skin or skin eruptions, just happens to rhyme with Fox. Should they have used Box or Cox or Sox or Rox? My reaction to that is, so what? I believe that one of the necessary ingredients for parody is to find a clever bit of wordplay upon which to hang your hat. Fox News created this problem by branding itself with that particular name. Next time, call yourself Orange News.

The world at large should just lighten up. I don’t understand or engage in parody—it’s never funny, it never works, it makes you a miserable person (or so I have been lectured), and the kids don’t get it. I don’t know. I might engage in it at some point. Right now, I’m busy being fabulous.

Posted via web from An American Lion is on Posterous | Comment »

It’s hard to find the words to describe phony outrage. I know it when I see it, but it doesn’t reveal itself to me like it used to. Phony outrage is a misdirection play, an argumentative form of the wildcat play they’re using in football this season, and it is designed to make you think someone cares about x when they really care about y.

I believe the marketing people at Fox News know that when people stop talking about them, that’s when the problems will really start. The histrionic ways in which they react to criticism are designed to keep people talking about Fox News, and this is not because they really want people to think it is a fair-minded and balanced network. No, that would kill off their hardcore viewership. They’re smarter than that. They’re engaged in working the refs, which is a way to get a more favorable amount of coverage. The media hates that, so they become more unhinged and make sharper attacks, which blow up in their face. The truth is, they want people to amplify the real message that they’re trying to get out, which is, if you want to drive liberals nuts, come watch Fox.

There’s nothing wrong with that—everyone should get a chance to test their ideas in the marketplace, unless of course they are reprehensible or deranged. Fox News has subjected itself to the marketplace, and lots of people are buying. It doesn’t get any more difficult to understand than that.

[PBS Ombudsman Michael] Getler writes in his blog that he received some negative correspondence following the October 29th broadcast of the children’s show. In this episode, Oscar the Grouch — the founder of the Grouch News Network (GNN) — receives a phone call from what appears to be a female muppet (or Bret Michaels from Poison) complaining that GNN isn’t grouchy enough.

“I am changing the channel,” she says to Oscar. “From now on I am watching ‘Pox’ News. Now there is a trashy news show.”

It sounded so much like FOX News that even he was fooled by it.

“Everybody who wrote to me heard this as “Fox News,” and I can’t really blame them,” Getler writes. “When I went and watched the tape for the first time, I thought I heard “Fox” as well, perhaps because of the association one assumes when you hear “news” right after the word.”

Getler said in one respect the joke worked, but overall it was too close for comfort.

“Pox News as an alternative and competitor to the Grouch News Network would seem to be a clever and appropriate title,” he wrote. “But you would have to be anesthetized as a producer not to assume that many parents will hear this, or assume this, to be a clever shot at Fox News.”

“I don’t know what was in the head of the producers, but my guess is that this was one of those parodies that was too good to resist. But it should have been resisted. Broadcasters can tell parents whatever they think of Fox or any other network, but you shouldn’t do it through the kids,” he added.

It is true—the children’s demographics are pretty important. I don’t think the Sesame Street demographic counts as much as the Hannah Montana demographic, but still. The blog post here is a good example of phony outrage, however:

Later in the episode, Anderson Cooper from 4th place CNN, guest stars as a reporter for GNN.  He interacts with “Walter Cranky” and “Dan Rather-Not” —  Muppets representing real-life liberal news personalities — and they talk about “Meredith Beware-a” and “Diane Spoiler.” But no affectionate nicknames for Fox News personalities; no Spill O’Reilly or Brittle Hume — nope, and the only disparaging characterization of real-world news is reserved for Fox:  Fox is a POX.  It is trashy.  They didn’t even attempt to try “MessyNBC.”

If Mom and Dad watch cable news, it’s better than 50/50 they watch “POX News.”  So what gives? PBS — a network partially funded with my tax dollars — has the right to tell my kids that their parents watch “trashy” news?  The message is clear, I can’t even sit my kids in front of “Sesame Street” without having to worry about the Left attempting to undermine my authority. And don’t tell me, “If you don’t like it change the channel.”  There are no channels left! It’s everywhere. Just last week I had Obama’s service and volunteerism promoted on every single major network, including Disney and Nickelodeon.

…by the way, why SHOULD I change the channel?  This is MY channel, I’m paying for it!

The fact that this is a re-run from an episode written during the Bush Presidency only reinforces that this is nothing new.  The Left has been doing this for years now. All of us have seen it and felt powerless to mention it, because if we do, we’re ridiculed and dismissed (thank you, Mr. Alinsky).

No, this is nothing new.  In Julia L. Mickenberg’s book “Learning From the Left” the history is plainly spelled out.  Radicals drummed out of mainstream culture in the late 1940’s turned to children’s entertainment for opportunities not just to work, but to influence.  In her introduction, she quotes folk singer Pete Seeger about those artists:  “I think many of them are thinking more on the lines of, ‘If we’re going to save this world, we’re going to have to reach the kids’.”

Now this is always a slippery argument for us to make from the right, because we run the risk of being caricatured in the way the late Jerry Falwell was in the infamous “Tinky-Winky” incident.

Okay, that’s unhinged, to say the least, and it only goes to prove that the Tinky-Winky episode has manifested itself in a complaint about how the parodists did not give that idiot Cavuto his own lame nickname, although without the obvious Tinky-Winky shenanigans. If you want to be taken seriously, drop the argument that the news anchors have to have “affectionate” nicknames. That goes well past reasonable. No reasonable person is looking to Sesame Street for witty or urbane political commentary, snark notwithstanding. The nickname “Diane Spoiler” is nowhere near as affectionate or as clever as the woman deserves, by the way. A spoiler is a bad thing, sir. Way to blow past the obvious. It was harmless parody, and “Walter Cranky” took a body blow worse than Fox News did, because he recently died. How would you like to be immortalized by a children’s show as “Walter Cranky?” As to the name “pox,” well, go sell crazy somewhere else. It’s a rhyming play on words. Pox, being a Middle English word for a disease resulting in pock-marking of the skin or skin eruptions, just happens to rhyme with Fox. Should they have used Box or Cox or Sox or Rox? My reaction to that is, so what? I believe that one of the necessary ingredients for parody is to find a clever bit of wordplay upon which to hang your hat. Fox News created this problem by branding itself with that particular name. Next time, call yourself Orange News.

The world at large should just lighten up. I don’t understand or engage in parody—it’s never funny, it never works, it makes you a miserable person (or so I have been lectured), and the kids don’t get it. I don’t know. I might engage in it at some point. Right now, I’m busy being fabulous.

Posted via web from An American Lion is on Posterous | Comment »

It’s hard to find the words to describe phony outrage. I know it when I see it, but it doesn’t reveal itself to me like it used to. Phony outrage is a misdirection play, an argumentative form of the wildcat play they’re using in football this season, and it is designed to make you think someone cares about x when they really care about y.

I believe the marketing people at Fox News know that when people stop talking about them, that’s when the problems will really start. The histrionic ways in which they react to criticism are designed to keep people talking about Fox News, and this is not because they really want people to think it is a fair-minded and balanced network. No, that would kill off their hardcore viewership. They’re smarter than that. They’re engaged in working the refs, which is a way to get a more favorable amount of coverage. The media hates that, so they become more unhinged and make sharper attacks, which blow up in their face. The truth is, they want people to amplify the real message that they’re trying to get out, which is, if you want to drive liberals nuts, come watch Fox.

There’s nothing wrong with that—everyone should get a chance to test their ideas in the marketplace, unless of course they are reprehensible or deranged. Fox News has subjected itself to the marketplace, and lots of people are buying. It doesn’t get any more difficult to understand than that.

[PBS Ombudsman Michael] Getler writes in his blog that he received some negative correspondence following the October 29th broadcast of the children’s show. In this episode, Oscar the Grouch — the founder of the Grouch News Network (GNN) — receives a phone call from what appears to be a female muppet (or Bret Michaels from Poison) complaining that GNN isn’t grouchy enough.

“I am changing the channel,” she says to Oscar. “From now on I am watching ‘Pox’ News. Now there is a trashy news show.”

It sounded so much like FOX News that even he was fooled by it.

“Everybody who wrote to me heard this as “Fox News,” and I can’t really blame them,” Getler writes. “When I went and watched the tape for the first time, I thought I heard “Fox” as well, perhaps because of the association one assumes when you hear “news” right after the word.”

Getler said in one respect the joke worked, but overall it was too close for comfort.

“Pox News as an alternative and competitor to the Grouch News Network would seem to be a clever and appropriate title,” he wrote. “But you would have to be anesthetized as a producer not to assume that many parents will hear this, or assume this, to be a clever shot at Fox News.”

“I don’t know what was in the head of the producers, but my guess is that this was one of those parodies that was too good to resist. But it should have been resisted. Broadcasters can tell parents whatever they think of Fox or any other network, but you shouldn’t do it through the kids,” he added.

It is true—the children’s demographics are pretty important. I don’t think the Sesame Street demographic counts as much as the Hannah Montana demographic, but still. The blog post here is a good example of phony outrage, however:

Later in the episode, Anderson Cooper from 4th place CNN, guest stars as a reporter for GNN.  He interacts with “Walter Cranky” and “Dan Rather-Not” —  Muppets representing real-life liberal news personalities — and they talk about “Meredith Beware-a” and “Diane Spoiler.” But no affectionate nicknames for Fox News personalities; no Spill O’Reilly or Brittle Hume — nope, and the only disparaging characterization of real-world news is reserved for Fox:  Fox is a POX.  It is trashy.  They didn’t even attempt to try “MessyNBC.”

If Mom and Dad watch cable news, it’s better than 50/50 they watch “POX News.”  So what gives? PBS — a network partially funded with my tax dollars — has the right to tell my kids that their parents watch “trashy” news?  The message is clear, I can’t even sit my kids in front of “Sesame Street” without having to worry about the Left attempting to undermine my authority. And don’t tell me, “If you don’t like it change the channel.”  There are no channels left! It’s everywhere. Just last week I had Obama’s service and volunteerism promoted on every single major network, including Disney and Nickelodeon.

…by the way, why SHOULD I change the channel?  This is MY channel, I’m paying for it!

The fact that this is a re-run from an episode written during the Bush Presidency only reinforces that this is nothing new.  The Left has been doing this for years now. All of us have seen it and felt powerless to mention it, because if we do, we’re ridiculed and dismissed (thank you, Mr. Alinsky).

No, this is nothing new.  In Julia L. Mickenberg’s book “Learning From the Left” the history is plainly spelled out.  Radicals drummed out of mainstream culture in the late 1940’s turned to children’s entertainment for opportunities not just to work, but to influence.  In her introduction, she quotes folk singer Pete Seeger about those artists:  “I think many of them are thinking more on the lines of, ‘If we’re going to save this world, we’re going to have to reach the kids’.”

Now this is always a slippery argument for us to make from the right, because we run the risk of being caricatured in the way the late Jerry Falwell was in the infamous “Tinky-Winky” incident.

Okay, that’s unhinged, to say the least, and it only goes to prove that the Tinky-Winky episode has manifested itself in a complaint about how the parodists did not give that idiot Cavuto his own lame nickname, although without the obvious Tinky-Winky shenanigans. If you want to be taken seriously, drop the argument that the news anchors have to have “affectionate” nicknames. That goes well past reasonable. No reasonable person is looking to Sesame Street for witty or urbane political commentary, snark notwithstanding. The nickname “Diane Spoiler” is nowhere near as affectionate or as clever as the woman deserves, by the way. A spoiler is a bad thing, sir. Way to blow past the obvious. It was harmless parody, and “Walter Cranky” took a body blow worse than Fox News did, because he recently died. How would you like to be immortalized by a children’s show as “Walter Cranky?” As to the name “pox,” well, go sell crazy somewhere else. It’s a rhyming play on words. Pox, being a Middle English word for a disease resulting in pock-marking of the skin or skin eruptions, just happens to rhyme with Fox. Should they have used Box or Cox or Sox or Rox? My reaction to that is, so what? I believe that one of the necessary ingredients for parody is to find a clever bit of wordplay upon which to hang your hat. Fox News created this problem by branding itself with that particular name. Next time, call yourself Orange News.

The world at large should just lighten up. I don’t understand or engage in parody—it’s never funny, it never works, it makes you a miserable person (or so I have been lectured), and the kids don’t get it. I don’t know. I might engage in it at some point. Right now, I’m busy being fabulous.

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Fish inside of a caulking tube

If you have spent time on the water in the blue water part of the oceans on this Earth, you’ll know what I’m talking about when I speak of debris. I have never seen what is described here, but it sounds awful:

In this remote patch of the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles from any national boundary, the detritus of human life is collecting in a swirling current so large that it defies precise measurement.

Light bulbs, bottle caps, toothbrushes, Popsicle sticks and tiny pieces of plastic, each the size of a grain of rice, inhabit the Pacific garbage patch, an area of widely dispersed trash that doubles in size every decade and is now believed to be roughly twice the size of Texas. But one research organization estimates that the garbage now actually pervades the Pacific, though most of it is caught in what oceanographers call a gyre like this one — an area of heavy currents and slack winds that keep the trash swirling in a giant whirlpool.

Scientists say the garbage patch is just one of five that may be caught in giant gyres scattered around the world’s oceans. Abandoned fishing gear like buoys, fishing line and nets account for some of the waste, but other items come from land after washing into storm drains and out to sea.

Plastic is the most common refuse in the patch because it is lightweight, durable and an omnipresent, disposable product in both advanced and developing societies. It can float along for hundreds of miles before being caught in a gyre and then, over time, breaking down.

These giant whirlpools are where the garbage itself becomes encrusted with organisms and turned into floating carriers. As the organisms grow and multiply, their weight sinks the debris slowly, causing it to go down far enough to kill what it is on it and shed what is on it and then pop back up to the surface to do it all over again:

There are researchers trying to do comparative analysis of this problem:

Charles Moore found the Pacific garbage patch by accident 12 years ago, when he came upon it on his way back from a sailing race in Hawaii. As captain, Mr. Moore ferried three researchers, his first mate and a journalist here this summer in his 10th scientific trip to the site. He is convinced that several similar garbage patches remain to be discovered.

“Anywhere you really look for it, you’re going to see it,” he said.

Many scientists believe there is a garbage patch off the coast of Japan and another in the Sargasso Sea, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Bonnie Monteleone, a University of North Carolina, Wilmington, graduate student researching a master’s thesis on plastic accumulation in the ocean, visited the Sargasso Sea in late spring and the Pacific garbage patch with Mr. Moore this summer.

“I saw much higher concentrations of trash in the Pacific garbage patch than in the Sargasso,” Ms. Monteleone said, while acknowledging that she might not have found the Atlantic gyre.

Ms. Monteleone, a volunteer crew member on Mr. Moore’s ship, kept hoping she would see at least one sample taken from the Pacific garbage patch without any trash in it. “Just one area — just one,” she said. “That’s all I wanted to see. But everywhere had plastic.”

Yes, it is everywhere. It sounds like the Pacific Ocean truly has a problem with this trash. Finding a way to clean it up and turn the plastic into something that can be safely disposed of is a problem we could try to solve with better technology. An organization called Project Kaisei, cited in the article, is looking for a viable way to study this debris and use the material positively and wisely.

Posted via web from An American Lion is on Posterous | Comment »

Fish inside of a caulking tube

If you have spent time on the water in the blue water part of the oceans on this Earth, you’ll know what I’m talking about when I speak of debris. I have never seen what is described here, but it sounds awful:

In this remote patch of the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles from any national boundary, the detritus of human life is collecting in a swirling current so large that it defies precise measurement.

Light bulbs, bottle caps, toothbrushes, Popsicle sticks and tiny pieces of plastic, each the size of a grain of rice, inhabit the Pacific garbage patch, an area of widely dispersed trash that doubles in size every decade and is now believed to be roughly twice the size of Texas. But one research organization estimates that the garbage now actually pervades the Pacific, though most of it is caught in what oceanographers call a gyre like this one — an area of heavy currents and slack winds that keep the trash swirling in a giant whirlpool.

Scientists say the garbage patch is just one of five that may be caught in giant gyres scattered around the world’s oceans. Abandoned fishing gear like buoys, fishing line and nets account for some of the waste, but other items come from land after washing into storm drains and out to sea.

Plastic is the most common refuse in the patch because it is lightweight, durable and an omnipresent, disposable product in both advanced and developing societies. It can float along for hundreds of miles before being caught in a gyre and then, over time, breaking down.

These giant whirlpools are where the garbage itself becomes encrusted with organisms and turned into floating carriers. As the organisms grow and multiply, their weight sinks the debris slowly, causing it to go down far enough to kill what it is on it and shed what is on it and then pop back up to the surface to do it all over again:

There are researchers trying to do comparative analysis of this problem:

Charles Moore found the Pacific garbage patch by accident 12 years ago, when he came upon it on his way back from a sailing race in Hawaii. As captain, Mr. Moore ferried three researchers, his first mate and a journalist here this summer in his 10th scientific trip to the site. He is convinced that several similar garbage patches remain to be discovered.

“Anywhere you really look for it, you’re going to see it,” he said.

Many scientists believe there is a garbage patch off the coast of Japan and another in the Sargasso Sea, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Bonnie Monteleone, a University of North Carolina, Wilmington, graduate student researching a master’s thesis on plastic accumulation in the ocean, visited the Sargasso Sea in late spring and the Pacific garbage patch with Mr. Moore this summer.

“I saw much higher concentrations of trash in the Pacific garbage patch than in the Sargasso,” Ms. Monteleone said, while acknowledging that she might not have found the Atlantic gyre.

Ms. Monteleone, a volunteer crew member on Mr. Moore’s ship, kept hoping she would see at least one sample taken from the Pacific garbage patch without any trash in it. “Just one area — just one,” she said. “That’s all I wanted to see. But everywhere had plastic.”

Yes, it is everywhere. It sounds like the Pacific Ocean truly has a problem with this trash. Finding a way to clean it up and turn the plastic into something that can be safely disposed of is a problem we could try to solve with better technology. An organization called Project Kaisei, cited in the article, is looking for a viable way to study this debris and use the material positively and wisely.

Posted via web from An American Lion is on Posterous | Comment »

Fish inside of a caulking tube

If you have spent time on the water in the blue water part of the oceans on this Earth, you’ll know what I’m talking about when I speak of debris. I have never seen what is described here, but it sounds awful:

In this remote patch of the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles from any national boundary, the detritus of human life is collecting in a swirling current so large that it defies precise measurement.

Light bulbs, bottle caps, toothbrushes, Popsicle sticks and tiny pieces of plastic, each the size of a grain of rice, inhabit the Pacific garbage patch, an area of widely dispersed trash that doubles in size every decade and is now believed to be roughly twice the size of Texas. But one research organization estimates that the garbage now actually pervades the Pacific, though most of it is caught in what oceanographers call a gyre like this one — an area of heavy currents and slack winds that keep the trash swirling in a giant whirlpool.

Scientists say the garbage patch is just one of five that may be caught in giant gyres scattered around the world’s oceans. Abandoned fishing gear like buoys, fishing line and nets account for some of the waste, but other items come from land after washing into storm drains and out to sea.

Plastic is the most common refuse in the patch because it is lightweight, durable and an omnipresent, disposable product in both advanced and developing societies. It can float along for hundreds of miles before being caught in a gyre and then, over time, breaking down.

These giant whirlpools are where the garbage itself becomes encrusted with organisms and turned into floating carriers. As the organisms grow and multiply, their weight sinks the debris slowly, causing it to go down far enough to kill what it is on it and shed what is on it and then pop back up to the surface to do it all over again:

There are researchers trying to do comparative analysis of this problem:

Charles Moore found the Pacific garbage patch by accident 12 years ago, when he came upon it on his way back from a sailing race in Hawaii. As captain, Mr. Moore ferried three researchers, his first mate and a journalist here this summer in his 10th scientific trip to the site. He is convinced that several similar garbage patches remain to be discovered.

“Anywhere you really look for it, you’re going to see it,” he said.

Many scientists believe there is a garbage patch off the coast of Japan and another in the Sargasso Sea, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Bonnie Monteleone, a University of North Carolina, Wilmington, graduate student researching a master’s thesis on plastic accumulation in the ocean, visited the Sargasso Sea in late spring and the Pacific garbage patch with Mr. Moore this summer.

“I saw much higher concentrations of trash in the Pacific garbage patch than in the Sargasso,” Ms. Monteleone said, while acknowledging that she might not have found the Atlantic gyre.

Ms. Monteleone, a volunteer crew member on Mr. Moore’s ship, kept hoping she would see at least one sample taken from the Pacific garbage patch without any trash in it. “Just one area — just one,” she said. “That’s all I wanted to see. But everywhere had plastic.”

Yes, it is everywhere. It sounds like the Pacific Ocean truly has a problem with this trash. Finding a way to clean it up and turn the plastic into something that can be safely disposed of is a problem we could try to solve with better technology. An organization called Project Kaisei, cited in the article, is looking for a viable way to study this debris and use the material positively and wisely.

Posted via web from An American Lion is on Posterous | Comment »