More from "The Social Network"

I haven't posted in a month. Wow! I love my modest little blog!

I was only joking about being on strike; there were serious personal issues, including the death of a good friend, that precluded venting about peripheral events. I was offline for a week, and found 160 messages in my inbox when I finally checked e-mail last night. (I think that's a record, but I don't keep count.)

So, I wandered over to FaceBook last night, found the following comments, and replied. Just as provocative e-mail provides the impetus for many of my rants, I'm finding that silly statements in the little closed political group I participate in do likewise. This one wound my watch, and I got carried away with a simple reply:

Understanding The History And Purpose Of FOX News
www.addictinginfo.org
"You’d think a thing like FOX couldn’t happen in the United States. Although they’re free to be crazy and free to support the Republican Party, you’d think Americans would be too smart to fall for the made-up outrages, dishonest reporting and relentless appeal to our meaner nature. Unfortunately, man...

It's garbage in garbage out. When MSNBC is told how to act they just ignore talking about something. Faux changes the story and twists the facts, quite often just completely lying about it. They are not even close to news, they are the media arm of the Right, and therefore my sworn enemy."

I could get 3 blog posts of 2500 words apiece on the Rolling Stone hatchet job about the "Fox Fear Factory." Since college degrees are so highly esteemed by Those People, I have a Bachelor's in Journalism [pre-Watergate old-school, factual stuff], and Dickinson's garbage in RS 1132 (9 June 11; Lady Gaga on the cover) is typical of the "I want to change the world" idiocy that's infused the journalistic mentality since Woodward & Bernstein. If I want to cite FOX as a source, I'll fact-check and cross-reference their reportage. I've never caught them in a lie on straight news coverage.

As for FOX commentary, of course they have an agenda. It's the grand perk of owning your own news outlet. The only "UPI" I work for any longer is United Possums International; as the sole proprietor, chief editor, and bottle-washer, I can say whatever I want. I bow to no king, and bend my knee only to God, so if I see something as bullshit, I'm free to say so. These days, I'm drowning in bullshit, and not just from Those People, although they have it refined to an art form.

I thought my eyes were gonna roll irretrieveably yesterday when Whoopi Goldberg started capping on Mr. Newt on "The View" about an alleged statement he made concerning education and "...making kids work as janitors instead of becoming pimps and whores..." (Ya, I'm eclectic about my media inputs, even though I refuse to watch "The View" when there's an outbreak of swine flu.) Whoopi tried a "gotcha" question on Donald Trump later on in the same show, fishing for a comment about Newt's alleged statement. When The Donald said he hadn't seen it, and wasn't aware of it, Whoopi's producers should have had the videotape keyed up and ready to go, so she could've said "Watch this!" With the research staff of a Big Three network at her beck and call, there's no reason she should be "reading" off a 3X5 card and calling it a fact.

This is what's wrong with Dickinson's "Fear Factory" analysis of FOX News. He makes a lot of bold assertions in his paid-by-the-word article, but there isn't a single footnote or citation to back up anything. That's tantamount to Barry O telling "60 Minutes" that "most Republicans" agree with him about raising taxes and soaking the rich. Most Republicans agree that Barry O's got to go, and like me, they'll vote for the mangiest yellow dog before they give Jughead another four years of failed Socialist bullshit.