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Ashamed to say I commented in anger.
Sorry about that.
posted by
majroj
on October 26, 2004 at 10:34 PM
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beachbelle, that's what my dad the editor and reporter said,
The choosing of the facts to present is the most important part of the story. It is why I try to get the same story from both sides of the issue, for greater understanding. I figure that the one group will present what the other neglected to report. It is my hope, at least.
I always 'spin' my letters to family to report horrendous news as funny, upon reflection and it colors their views of my facts, but I do it from love.
All writers are suspect, no? I do like Mark Twain's reporting, however, as he seemed to talk about 'humanity' more as an observer who loved those that he observed, no matter how much nor how often their actions or thoughts irritated the heck out of him.
posted by
benzinha
on October 26, 2004 at 1:14 PM
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maj, like you, I am casting my votes to reflect my views on taxation,
medical neglect of the citizenry, outsourcing of industires, Social Security, Immigration issues, education, judicial rigamarole, Patriot Acts and Homeland Security and all that. I have my opinions on each issue, I have my ideas of which directions should be issued and what the future holds for my grandchildren and our All Volunteer Army, etc.
But, I'm an old woman and that makes me over thirty and not to be trusted anymore.
Did you have fun writing here? That is the important question. I had fun writing here and I just want everyone to vote. I won't say which ballot boxes I wish would fall into rivers and sink, but, an old lady can hope, can't she?
Seriously, I can't wait for the elections, because for the first time in a long time, I feel citizens developing a True Desire to cast a vote, some for the first time and that gets my old heart pumping. I may not get the outcome I so fervently pray for, but, I will have more of a true idea of the Nation's Thoughts with this one day's voting patterns.
May we go overwhelmingly in one direction or another and know what is to come. I am making a huge sign for my front garden which says Vote Today and shall offer rides to anyone who wants to go to the polls, no matter how they will cast their vote, she wrote while gritting her teeth.
posted by
benzinha
on October 26, 2004 at 1:08 PM
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Benzinha
It is incredible indeed that people can't look beyond the spin cycle. Some media people try to do a job informing people as best they can. The trouble is in the interpretation of what is good information.
posted by
beachbelle
on October 26, 2004 at 1:07 PM
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you look fabulous, well we certainly disagree, but we do it so nicely and
agreeably, that I have enjoyed your visit here. Thanks for writing.
posted by
benzinha
on October 26, 2004 at 12:56 PM
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Dems, are we possibly watching the same televisions?!?!?
The words 'left or liberal media' no longer exist. They own a few newspapers, but not the airwaves anymore. The television is so obviously biased in favor of the President, that I have turned them off because of their poisonous words and stories.
However, whenever either side pays for private ads, they both spew poison and I therefore watch no one anymore, in the regular television lineup. I watch alternative channels and foreign language channels, to hear the real news, presented by real reporters who just recount the facts and let their listeners form their own opinions of the news stories presented.
I had to giggle when you said the left rules anything in the area of presenting stories to the public, giggle. They do not and you are a funny person.
posted by
benzinha
on October 26, 2004 at 12:55 PM
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maj, I don't drive much, but listen to NPR when driving.
I do watch the public channels on television, our public access also and C-Spans two channels now. Better information, I think.
posted by
benzinha
on October 26, 2004 at 12:49 PM
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tely, artists agree, no?
posted by
benzinha
on October 26, 2004 at 12:48 PM
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attax, to agree with you for once is amazing to me!! Thanks for your kind
words.
posted by
benzinha
on October 26, 2004 at 12:47 PM
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Friarcito, you are right, or, at least, I agree with you. Thanks.
posted by
benzinha
on October 26, 2004 at 12:46 PM
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I'm not going to squabble in Abuellita's blog...
well, maybe I am. B, edit me out if you need to...
but I reserve the right to call myself an idiot (with permanent franchise rights to my wife).
I'm voting against Bush and not for the Greens. PBS has developed a left-lean since about the time Reagan started cutting their tax budget after their embarassing reporting about Central America etc. (Remember "Where was George?"?), but if you can take into account that embarassing tendency, it is the best-balanced reporting from the scene going for common consumption.
As a retired officer in the U.S. military I am extremely unhappy about this cheapjack bass-akwards invasion, howsoever deserved by Sadaam and his cronies but not by the citizens, of a country which the UN inspectors told the Bush team had no WMD. Then the White House kept slipping the premise for it around and redefining "victory". The Bush I and II, and Clinton, administrations have shifted more and more of the military mission to Guard, Reserve, private ( sometimes unbidded) civilian contractors, and shifted more and more money away from hard-core, rubber-meets-the-road preparedness to the developement and purchasing of higher and higher-tech weapons systems which so far have failed us strategically. Your tax dollars being stretched by under-supporting the mission.
Whoever gets the Oval Office next, gets the hot potato unless we get pushed out of Iraq or blown up before the inaugural.
As a member of the public nursing profession, and as a worker in a large jail system, don't get me started in those arenas.
So don't call me an idiot.
posted by
majroj
on October 25, 2004 at 8:33 PM
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Well, as a pacifist, I don't vote, because then I would be electing the person to hold his finger over the trigger. I do, however, believe that Bush is a man of integrity and conviction, and that all people have the right to defend themselves and their own.
posted by
TARZANA
on October 25, 2004 at 1:52 AM
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The liberal media (cbs, nbc, abc, pbs, cnn) is obviously massively bias to the left and are trying their utmost to sway the idiots who watch them into voting for Kerry, a 20 year senator with a terrible record that he can't even run on. Whatever happens after and if the media get Kerry in, will be blamed squarely on them and the DNC.
The effect on liberals everywhere will be devastating and very painful for them all.
DAE
posted by
DEMSareEVIL
on October 24, 2004 at 10:29 PM
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Three letters:
NPR. (National Public Radio).
Turn off your tv and turn on your radio. Watch public TV too. Subscribe if one can.
posted by
majroj
on October 22, 2004 at 6:25 PM
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Amen. I've felt horrible about the whole Iraq bit -- the quagmire that we're getting into there has pretty much destroyed the US's reputation world wide. Now -- now there's a lot of trouble left over and nothing but a nightmare ahead. You say what you need to, grandmother, we need to hear it to shake us up.
posted by
telynor
on October 22, 2004 at 3:26 PM
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Press
This piece is full of what I am loathe to admit are accurate observations. However, the individual should never abdicate his responsibility to himself for creating a well-ordered psyche. I believe that intellectual discipline can guide one through the messes you've demonstrated, but only if that internal order is honest. I am soothed by the warmth of your writing even when you excoriate Dr. Drive By.
posted by
attax
on October 22, 2004 at 12:32 AM
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Grandmammina,
Contemporary history is not understood by its contemporaries.
Actually, history is understood through hindsight, not through CBS or CNN or whatever...
posted by
Friar__Tuck
on October 21, 2004 at 9:36 PM
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Done and done, benzi
I think very, very carefully about the future, which is why I vote the way I do. I do not want to look upon my nephew someday and have to say, "Yeah, sorry about that." It is okay to disagree about how best to shape the world in which he will ascend to manhood. We are all doing the best we can, all of us here on the good Earth.
posted by
LadyKenobi
on October 21, 2004 at 9:00 PM
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"History" is the construct of a reasoning/justifying species.
The same species that has to name everyting and place it in a conceptual frame work which is a product of it's times. Not that I'm knocking it, but when (the generic) "you" ride a horse but come to call it a rhinocerous, you forget it is but a horse and will be repeatedly surprised and dismayed that it is only a horse afterall. And you'll STILL call it a rhino!
posted by
majroj
on October 21, 2004 at 8:21 PM
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beachbelle, if you were here in my country viewing my television and the
chaos of ugliness pouring out of it, you'd help me to toss it out into the street. We are of such rigid opinions around here. You are black or white in your opinion, there is no grey area. But as in all times, what is "good for the country" has ten thousand varied definitions. One definition is being espoused, reported upon and made to be the correct one. If you repeat a story often enough, maybe someone will believe it to be true, even when it isn't. Their philosophy.
What is good for the country, I say, is to return to real reporting, 'just the facts, ma'm', as they said in some old black and white film. Everyone feels the expert and must add their opinions to the facts, right or wrong. It is the news, for goodness sakes! Give me news facts! I just want the facts, I have a brain and wish to exercise it, myself. I want tons of facts flowing from the reporter's mouths, to better inform me. Instead, I have rivers of vitriol pouring out at me. A waste of television time and this viewer's brain. If I want an opinion, I'll ask or turn to a show labelled "Editorial".
When I watch Mexican news stations, they contain more stories about more places on earth in the same amount of time that it takes CNN or FOX news stations to tell me the same four stories that they have been telling me all day and night and into the next morning. An example, today on Mexican television they spoke about the Big Stories in England, Germany , Japan, China, Mexico, Honduras, Argentina, the Sudan and Nigeria. All of these stories contained inside the same thirty minutes afforded to FOX and CNN. AND, tomorrow, those Mexicans will tell me about Switzerland, Chicago, Mexico, South Africa, Russia, Tibet, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Ireland. CNN and FOX will give me a 'new spin' on yesterday's top four stories, again, and fill their stories with editorial opinion rather than just facts.
May your news never spin like this.................
posted by
benzinha
on October 21, 2004 at 8:19 PM
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Wiley, not only wasn't he there, but he heard the story from a liar!!
Thanks for reading and commenting.....and I give thanks for your being ancient and wise enough to recognize the 'mess' that I spoke of, and to agree with me.
I don't vote rigidly for one political party, I read all the lit available on each and every candidate for each and every office and position and vote for the individual, based upon the present (perceived by me) direction of society and of where I hope to direct it, using my vote.
Don't tell my family, but I'm voting for a few people of the 'other persuasion' for some offices!
posted by
benzinha
on October 21, 2004 at 7:54 PM
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benzinha - and where they are standing while they are looking......
posted by
Ca88andra
on October 21, 2004 at 7:49 PM
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ca88andra, not only on who is looking at it, but at what they are seeing,
no? Thanks for stopping by and not reaming me......tu Abuelita.........
posted by
benzinha
on October 21, 2004 at 7:48 PM
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Lady Kenobi, we canot agree on this and that is fine. I love you no matter
which little button you push on the voting screen. I only want you to take responsibility, in your old age, when you've had a chance to peruse your own ancient history and have absorbed a far bigger picture of it, for your decisions and I will do the same. Because, you see, your history will be rewritten and you too will try to point things out to the young and they too will not understand. It is the curse of the generations.
These few words in my post cannot contain the world of daily experiences that I have lived and so, fail to communicate the entirety of my philosophies. May words never fail you in your old age.
You are still welcome here, to live, search for work or just to vacation. Just don't come on Election Day, as your vote is very important back home!
I guess that 'mess' is in the eye of the beholder and you don't see any, so that's that.
posted by
benzinha
on October 21, 2004 at 7:47 PM
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I read this post hours ago and am still trying to think of a response
It probably stands to reason because such matters are from easy.
posted by
beachbelle
on October 21, 2004 at 6:25 PM
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Benzinha
I agree, it's a mess, it will stay a mess for a very long time.
"History is something that never happened, written by a man who wasn't there." Anon
posted by
WileyJohn
on October 21, 2004 at 6:06 PM
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benzinha - history always depends on who is looking at it.... take care!
posted by
Ca88andra
on October 21, 2004 at 4:49 PM
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You are so right about the rewriting of history
As I history minor I used to read books and hear news events about events that I had experienced, small sliver that they were, and think... "Really?"
(I disagree, of course, about what you characterize as "a mess," but I am weary of arguing all day, and just want to get along with our soulgrandmama, here in our little corner of the universe.)
posted by
LadyKenobi
on October 21, 2004 at 1:42 PM
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