Reminder on commenting policy

Just a reminder that while pseudonyms or nicknames are allowed, completely unsigned comments will not be published. Read here for more details.

Horse manure

Speaking of the collapse of journalistic standards, it's a remarkable indictment of the local daily that this was the top story on the front page of the print edition, a choice defended by Post-Star supremo Ken Tingley.

Call me old-fashioned, me being only a fairly young contrarian, but I think sports should very rarely be on the front page of a serious newspaper. And I'm an unabashed sports' fan.

The front page of the paper should only include sports' stories when it's something that truly envelops the community, such as the basketball state tournament in Glens Falls. Ordinary sports stories, including this horse tale, never belong.

Then again, I guess that's what you get when you put a former sports' editor in charge of the news' department.

"Socialism" - American style

They want us to pay for this junk?!

There's been quite a discussion in media circles about whether online newspapers should charge the end user for content, in contrast to nearly every other segment of the news media. But are savvy consumers really going to pay for some content that they can get for free in a million different other places or the unique content that's guided by collapsing standards and vanishing quality?

Yet another example: a few weeks ago, The Post-Star published a letter to the editor by a self-proclaimed leader of the local Tea Baggers. He bragged that he was "very knowledgeable of the political process" and that he "had the pleasure of teaching it at the NCO Leadership Academy, Barksdale Air Force Base, La."

This American history expert went on to declare: "The government, as set forth in the U.S. Constitution, is a 'government of the people, by the people and for the people.'"

Apparently no one at the daily was educated (or observant) enough to notice that the phrase 'government of the people, by the people and for the people' comes not from the Constitution but from the Gettysburg Address. An editor's note was clearly warranted to correct this mis-implication.

Such carelessness has become par for the course for The Post-Star, which is now rife with common spelling errors. Bear in mind, I don't go scouring the paper for these mistakes. They just jump out at me. And I don't even read anywhere close to every article.

Why it matters is very simple.

If the paper shows that degree of carelessness with the easy things, one wonders how rigorous it's being with the hard, important things. If they screw up the stuff we know, how can we trust them to tell us the stuff we don't know?

Early this year, the paper published the engagement announcement of my sister. Despite being correct as submitted (my mom is an English teacher and a stickler for proper grammar, spelling and punctuation), the paper managed to misspell the word 'art' as 'are' in the paid announcement.

My mom was annoyed by this since she'd paid good money for it. She went into the paper's office and insisted they reprint it correctly. The employee made the correction in the computer and showed the version to my mom, which she okayed. Somehow, they managed to bungle the reprint, making the exact same mistake.

She went back to the paper's office, even more annoyed at the amateurishness, and made them retype the announcement from scratch. They finally got it right, requiring three attempts to properly spell the word 'art.'

So newspapers are betting their future that people will want to spend more money on this sort of incompetence??

Of course, the local weekly Chronicle is far from perfect itself. It ran the engagement announcement a month AFTER the wedding occurred which doesn't seem like good form. But at least the Chronicle doesn't expect to pay for their mistakes. And lame headlines aside, the weekly manages to be a little better written despite being free.

Temporary slowdown

Due to a very busy fall schedule, I will be posting here less frequently than usual in September and October.

The truth about government health care revealed!

I think I finally understand objections to the idea of government bureaucrats taking control of your health care away from private insurance bureaucrats (aside from the 70 million Americans who already get some form of government health care).

Not only will they make you kill grandma* to get your blood pressure check up, but they will also make you bring in an American flag to burn and agree to appear in an al-Qaeda video** with old chums Osama and Obama.

(*-Disabled children, fetuses or puppies can be also be sacrificed if you already killed grandma to get your wisdom teeth pulled)

(**-You can also burn the Bible or use a Cross for kindling)



Note: This information may have been provided to me by the Tea Bagger leader and ObamaCare opponent who informed us that the "government of the people, by the people and for the people" appears in the US Constitution. So it must be completely accurate.

Dear Blogger honchos...

This is not a spam blog. I am a real person. Thank you.

Don't belong to the Party of No

One of the things I've learned as a political junkie and wannabe-activist is that you can simply say No, No, No all the time. You have to offer people something to say Yes to.

In a previous essay, I took issue with some comments made by my friend PCS at Adirondack Musing blog. He promptly offered a response of his own. In it, he "asked [me] to give [him] the secret plans of how the Green Party is going to gain control of our government...."

I explained to him a little about American history; history which has repeatedly shown that organizations can have a huge influence on the direction of policy even without a majority of seats in a legislative body or none at all. In the early 20th century, the Progressive Party had a major influence in pushing progressive items, like anti-child labor laws and the health and safety labor regulations, that are now considered basic in any civilized society. They never controlled the presidency and I don't believe they ever controlled any governorship or state legislative chamber. Movements like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, NAACP, abolitionists and women's suffrage organizations weren't political parties at all.

All of these movements and parties succeeded not by crossing their fingers and wishing for the best for years upon years upon decades. They demanded not Hope but action. They succeeded by putting pressure on elected officials, without regard to party. Pressure that included threatening to withhold votes, support and money... and the willingness to follow through.

They weren't timid and meek. And most importantly, they weren't in hoc to any one particular party or individual (a key principle which the US labor movement singularly failed to learn, with results we can all see). Their responsibility was to their beliefs. As the political axiom goes, "There are no permanent allies, only permanent interests."

Politicians and parties worry about getting elected. Citizens must be more concerned with what's done once elected.

All citizens should be responsible to their beliefs, not their political party or any particular politician. The party and the candidates need to be servants, not masters.

I did point out to PCS that the first step in the Greens not-so-secret plan is to persuade people like him who clearly have sympathy with the Green agenda to actually vote for the party or, at the very least, consider it.

But none of this seemed to persuade my friend. He clearly thinks that the idea of the Greens or any other so-called third party making a difference is not pragmatic, is unrealistic.

So be it.

But in terms of how to the citizens can take back the government from the corporations, I've never heard from him or anyone else a realistic, viable alternative to real multipartyism.

So I will throw his challenge back at him.

If multipartyism is not his answer, then what is HIS illuminating secret plan to reinvigorate and render effective the progressive movement in the United States?

Any readers are invited to share their suggestions too.

Don't belong to the Party of No.