Thanks for Fox News.......

A note to Free Republic..........

We should give thanks for Fox News……….10 years old.

There was a start our own TV station thread….. Some for and some against. From that thought of making some expensive positive action there came the thought of a cheap and readily accomplishable effort. Here is an on line Freep, something positive that is free and everyone can lend a hand and a few thoughts..

It has been ten years since Fox News came on the scene. As one who has followed one of the favorite sports on Free Republic namely Main Stream Media bashing, it seems appropriate to look back at the change Fox News has brought. To have a thread that gives one and all the opportunity to praise or bash the folks at Fox News. As the conservative core of their audience, our views should be important be they praise or criticism.

It is now fashionable among some to bash Fox. This bashing seems to come from a few who insist on their way or the hiway. An intolerant view of all thought that is in the slightest way a variance from that of the poster is posted as criticism. There is also much praise and over time the praise probably surpasses the criticism. Years ago we applauded loudly the birth of the MSM antithesis. That feeling of goodness when we could feel the breeze of media change is now a full blown gale as the other MSM is struggling to find the way. Fox News remains the only viable hope for conservative news watchers in spite of the bashing by those who insist on seeing a reflection of their narrow views.

This thread is for posting opinions on Fox News…. praise or criticism. It will be printed out in total and Fedexed to Roger Ailes. It will in actuality be a Fox News Freep. Good and bad, we can let Mr Ailes know how we condemn or appreciate his efforts over the last ten years.

I will post the thread to activism in hopes it will stay around for a while and coax comments from the depths of many PING lists. A few hundred posts will be good, but an all-out big time rousing 1,000 post discussion will be great.

We should include the various personalities. A Fox Babe discussion is mandatory. There might be a similar Hunk discussion as well. We can express our happiness at the removal of Julian Phillips and Rita Cosby. If there is still animosity toward Geraldo, let it out. Shep haters can get their licks in……. if they give a good reason for the disdain. Shep makes me sick won’t get it. Because a good reason must be added.

What were the really great moments…… Brian Kilmeade’s killer impromptu interview with a Bill Clinton drawn mothlike to the TV camera on the post 911 streets of New York. Rita Cosby breathlessly reporting incorrectly from the steps of the Supreme Court that Gore won. Shep’s hardcore disgruntled report from the New Orleans Bridge. The Greg Kelly report as he, live on camera, entered Baghdad with the conquerors. Tell Roger Ailes what you liked or disliked.

Then there are the segments. Fox and Friends is Great. Fox and Friends is too silly for me in the morning. Brit is the greatest but O’rilley sucks. More Cavuto. Less Wesley Clark.

The opportunity to present our views is too great to pass up. Rather than bitch and moan, we can make a real contribution to the movers and shakers at Fox as they toil to increase their ratings. We are the core of their viewer ship. We matter.

Five hundred words……… did I make my point?

Standing up For Free Speech...... Michael Richardson

As California goes, so goes the nation......

I'll take a different tack and defend Michael Richards. He is in California where trends begin. He is or at least seems to be a radical left winger. He is or seems to be a liberal's liberal. He is leading the way. From California he is showing the clear path to the future.

Political Correctness in speech is dead. No more are we to shackled and bound with the ropes and chains of PC speech. We are free as the constitution intends. We need no longer fear the feigned offense of the many minorities who whine and moan when their name is mentioned.

Rave on Kramer.....rave on.

Bias in Arab Media?

A reader asked.....

In an effort at "multiculturalism" and under the guise of recognizing 911 and media bias, a student at our school wrote in the school newspapaper that students have "too narrow a view and should go to aljazeera.com and palestine-daily.com to see why other countries hate us and why on 911 2001 people on the other side of the globe were running in the streets of the country in joy becuase the U.S. felt the violence and destruction that plague their countries."

He sites these news media as highly respected and unbiased and that American media is pro-American and pro-Israel with too narrow of views.

Can you help me out with this one?

Can you guide me to instances of aljazeera and palestinian papers being truthful, respected, etc.? I don't think they are, who owns and runs these?

The reply....

I can't comment on the ownership of the papers you cite.

The thing about bias is that it exists to promote a point of view or an agenda. The papers cited are Arab and sell their news to an Arab population wanting something closer to home than the BBC or SkyNews(Fox). They sell a point of view desirable to their local consumers.

I will argue that the writer in your school paper correctly directs readers to other than known and trusted sources. There is a vast difference between knowingly seeking out conflicting viewpoints and swallowing the package they deliver.

We suffer in America from severely biased organizations that are received daily into our homes. Both Reuters and the Associated Press have decidedly antiwar agendas and both provide the American masses in small town papers. Many of these small papers surrender their news gathering ability totally to these wire services. While the internet provides daily feeds m directly from the military command in Iraq, the papers choose to take the events filtered through the biased wire services. Dan Rather taught us that network TV news is totaly unreliable and often out right untruthful. He is no more.

The internet provides far more than a person can absorb, but continuous sampling with in-depth research on specific issues is beneficial. A sampling of the opposition is not a completely bad thing. It must be noted that the recent events in Lebanon were totally managed by Hezbollah. An individual known on the internet as Green Helmet Guy was present at each and every press event. He not only managed the event but actually staged false events. He apparently seeded bomb craters with new furry toys meant to show the deaths of children.

Here is a link: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1681197/posts

Reuters published an unknown but massive quantity of photo shopped pictures.

Here is a link: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1680949/posts

You used the term multiculturism. There is a difference between multiculturism in America and being a citizen of the world. Many today seek American isolation when the exact opposite course is unfolding. To develop a world view, it is necessary to sample thought across a very wide spectrum. To sample and to learn is not to agree.

Thanks for your question

Shelby's wedding....

My cousin Shelby is geting married..... She's how old? I think 72, maybe 70.

It's going to be a real blowout, the kind that make grandchildren wince at the inheritance blowing away with the wind.

It'll be a Black tie affair. A truly mega event with all the stops pulled out She hasn't been married for at least 40 years so she has had plenty of time to plan.

She's a Lawyer you know. She got her law degree after most sane people have retired. I got an engraved announcement. I would have preferred she issued merely printed announcemetns of an honorable pursuit, say opening a bordello. Madam seems preferable to esquire.

I know very little of her adult life. She had three fine kids and then divorced. Some time after that she was apprehended sneaking a pistol aboard an airline. I guess she survived that. She passed the board to be a lawyer.

I'll RSVP regrets, my tux is very old and extremely small. My sister and brother in law are planning to attend and uphold the honor of my side of the family. That is until Brother in Law gets wind of the fact that not only does he have to wear a monkey suit.....he may have to dance.

Best Wishes Shelby. We know your come to Jesus moment is security for all those years of living in sin.

A downsizing to ordinary.......

Lets see, the Old Gray Whore, madam to the New York presstitutes is closing a press and reducing the size of the paper from 54” to 48 “ , I presume that is the roll and the width makes two 23 inch high sheets. That is the size of many smaller papers……. As in small towns, as in fly over country papers. That is something of a come down for the madam who sets the tone for the whole liberal world. She has become careworn and sighhh ORDINARY.

Doing the math, 54-48= 6” and 6/54 x 100=11 % . The OGW is going to need 11% less content. The pundits there are discussing reducing or perhaps squeezing content. The reduction has already taken place. No Squeezing is required.One interesting fact is the reduction in adds. Assuming a 1:1 ratio between the add revenue and columnar space, the reduction correlates well with recent catastrophic declines in ad sales.

The cost problem remains however because there is also a big increase in the cost of the paper. The reduction might cover one of the two, but certainly can’t make up for it all.

That brings up the poor Jersey types who got fired. They are the printers of the blank add space. No ads, no need for paper, no need for printers. Imagine the horror of it all…… I am not required any more because Macy’s quit advertising face cream. I was a nothing, a face cream flack.

Artists as Left wingers at Penland

From deep within the belly of the liberal beast......

This note is written from the porch of the Penland School of Crafts coffee shop, the only student internet connection at the school. My thoughts are recordes for the period June 11-23, 2006.

As I write a gray balding, pony tailed.very long skirted hippy walks down the path before me. She wears worn T shirt proclaiming the meeting of the Coalition For World Nuclear Awareness that was held in April of 1980.

We had an orientation where the guy leading the social conscious sessions told of crossing the Missippi River on a ferry with, and as he choked up and began to cry, he described the restrooms for colored and whites.

There was finally some entertainment after his overly long and boring presentation including a description of a wall where writings can be placed. Thw wall was never actually designated and there were no actual postings.

If my car with the Free Republic sticker and the Bush Cheney bumper sticker is here at the end of two week it'll be miracle. This was a prescient statement. A few days after this was written, the right rear tire, the one under the Bush/Cheney sticker and American Flag was flat. I put some air in it before leaving and it is still inflated.

I estimate just shy of 150 people here. 85% women. 75% of those are teachers.

Every day there is a consciousness raising session. The topic for today was “By yourself in your studio listening to NPR.” I wasn’t able to attend but heard about it at dinner. The radio has been removed from the lives of good people and taken over by political radicals intent on destroying the world. The sound of silence is the answer, or perhaps NPR. The message was retreat to your innerself rather than be accosted by Rush.

I think we might have won a small victory if hard core, antiwar button wearing people are talking like this.

The topic of Wednesday breakfast conversation was the wood workshop dealing with bamboo. There was discussion of the properties that made bamboo both useful but different from ordinary wood. One person not in the class contributed the factoid that a designer somewhere designed a bamboo wheel chair for indigenous victims of land mines. It could be made from local materials by native craftsman. The construction of anything was made acceptable by the use of bamboo to counter the terror of land mines.

Today there was a special event on the portico of the dining hall. The women in Black held a vigil for Peace. Apparently there are similar gatherings across thee country by activists. It looked to me like a witches coven The said some poems and held hands as they made a ring around the rosie. Most of these women wear black all the time so it wasn’t really special.

I think the week of social consciousness raising is about completed. The events although held among and for the workshop participants who are genuinely strongly left wing, they seem not to be attending in a volume to suit the leader. By Wednesday he was coming around to every studio to drum up attendees. In a typical liberal manner he appealed to their guilt for not coming. On Saturady he arranged a poetry reading led by a noted poet and invited all to read their own socially conscious work. There appeared to be a handful there. Socially conscious poetry just didn’t have the attraction of beer.

My studio is metals…….nonferrous. We were invited to the new iron studio to watch a demonstration of blown iron. Pancake size sheets of steel were welded around the perimeter except for a small pipe opening. The steel was then heated in the forge until red and compressed air was blown into the opening. The hot steel ballooned slightly making a pillow. So far the artist admitted, there is no practical application even in the world of art. One wonders at the grant money she as a professional artist received. She is a 40 something who is invited to iron studios all over USA and even Europe to demonstrate the technique. She was dressed for the blacksmith shop. Black steel-toed shoes, red socks, black jeans shorts with a black long-sleeved t shirt. Her gloves were soiled tan heavy leather rolled down at the cuffs. Her string of pearls had lost their luster.

I have tempered my fear of CONSTANT drum beat of leftist drivel. There is some at the dinnertable but if begun, the subject is quickly changed. I have come to believe that there is pretty common consensus on issues. This is reflected as guilt that produces an intense desire to do something. This is reflected in the work where some object or line or color becomes a metaphor for something meaningful. It is illusion and perhaps delusion. The making of the mental metaphor is proclaiming nothing to be something.

It also seems that while liberalism is a given, activism is not. The number of bumper stickers is minimal and mild. My conclusion is that while these artists are very, perhaps even extremely liberal, they are not political. To be political requires effort they would rather not expend. That includes voting. I am coming to believe these well educated and liberally conscious artists are part of the 50% that can’t make it to the voting booth.

The Chicaps are coming, the Chicaps are coming.....

The American people were given a lesson this week and most missed it.

Hu came to American and was courted by Business and welcomed but not fawned over by our Government.

I maintain that China is bifurcated into waning communists and ascending capitalists. For many in America and perhaps most on Free Republic, The fact there is a transition under way that can not be overcome by old prejudice. The HU message was the Chicps want and need American products and will buy them in preferences to Euro stuff because a close tie with America is mutually beneficial.

Bill Gates et al in Washington State played good cop by wining and dining and red carpet treatment. They want the business

The President in Washington DC played bad cop by criticizing the various shortcomings including basic human rights. The government will not go out in front to lead the love China charge.

Both leaders were playing to their base. The Chicaps needed the welcome news of close ties to corporate America and Bush needed to keep his base happy by keeping the democracy issue feet to the fire.

There was great relief and intense celebration at the sudden break that signaled the end of the Soviet Union. The celebration has turned out to be unwarranted because although an enemy was no more, the Russian people were suddenly cast into a dismal abyss from which there appears no recovery. The current future is at best very dismal.

China on the other hand has no sudden break. There is a transition under way that is slow and controlled and apparently satisfactory with the Chinese people. There are those who want everything now but apparently the masses are comfortable with more moderately paced rate of change. The rate is blinding in many areas and imperceptible in others, but the change is underway.

To effect such a change in half a century is not an unreasonable historic event. If gradients are drawn from Hong Kong where life is on par with the best of the west to the most remote and backward Chinese village the slope must be shallow.Common sense dictates the village cannot be lifted up to Hong Kong modernity immediately. The task of nation building from roads and power and new political structures and freedom is immense. The process of change on such a huge scale is slow and cumbersome.

The message Hu delivered to America is join us as we make the journey.

Perky Katie and Uncle Walter

The cartoon has layers of meaning, perhaps one can read more than was intended

At first glance there is the comparison with the superficial leftist with the most trusted man in America. Say what you will now about uncle Walter, but the fact is he was the voice America, trusted, and respected. His mane of near white hair provided the illusion of wisdom. His experience as a reporter and war correspondent was yet more reason for respect. One story he told was about the D Day landing. In the confusion he lost his helmet and picked up one he found on the beach. He scurried to safety to get his bearings only to find a host of soldiers hugging his rear. He had donned the helmet of a slain officer and the troopers followed his lead. The bar on the back of the replacement helmet led them to do so.

Now comes his antitheses , Perky Katie. She tries to look young and beautiful. She exudes charm. She grew up trodding the path already deeply furrowed by her predecessors. She may have done some reporting, but mostly she was talk TV. She read some news provided by others and she interviewed people dumb enough or desperate enough to submit to her sugared blather or her vile recriminations. She was an on camera cheer leader, cheering her left wing team on or vigorously defaming her opposition

There are lots of ways to compare the two but it is near certain that no one would follow the Perky one up a beach under fire. The concept is inconceivable. Her-audience will be old folk. They will reject her in total. Her days as a newsie are over before she begins. If she has any success at all it will be as an interviewer. For that to happen, the 6:30 news will be gone from CBS.

The cartoon says something about CBS as well. There is a big empty chair. The empty chair is metaphor for what once was a big news organization. It is now an empty chair. It has lost the best audience and struggles on handicapped like General Motors with an overabundance of old and burnt out employees.

There is also a big empty table. The table has no papers or scripts just a CBS with Katie will have lost the ability to have a real pro convey the news. A shrunken CBS can't handle the Chair or the desk.

CBS Evening News is Gone. CBS evening talk will soon begin.

Southern Arizona Border Observations

Earlier in March I visited the border between Arizona and Mexico and actually drove about 90 miles taking it all in.

I wanted to see the situation for myself so I spent some of my vacation time checking out the territory.Arizona FReepers advised me to not miss Bisbee and once there I realized I was on the border.

Bad weather prevented the up close trip on a dirt road between the Coranado monument and Nogales but I was able to travel a parallel road 5 or six miles to the north.

I observed the territory from about 16 miles east of Douglas to Nogales. For most of the way Mexoco was always in view but the precise location of the border could not be discerned. My conclusion was that in the highly visable landscape a wall would be a waste. Long vistas are possible and people can be easily seen illegally crossing the border. The minute men are right. Strategically placed observation posts should be able to spot most trying to come across.

East of Douglas the border is flat. The road is close to the border. There is lots of Border Patrol Activity. i wittnessed two BP SUV's at a burning Camero. I guess they were waiting on a fire unit or maybe just watching it burn. There were no illegals. I wittnessed two SUV's with presumedly captured illegals in the back. Near the cut off to the Slaughter Ranch I crossed a wash. On the south side of the bridge there were lots of foot prints. On the northside there were the tracks of a vehicle that had turned around. Actually there were several such tracks. The wash ran right down to Mexico about a mile away and was obviously a conduit. There was not a lot of trash I expected to see.

I checked out the border east of Naco just south of Bisbee. I think this is where the Minutemen were last year. I saw nothing resembling Minutemen but believe they may have resumed the activity this week. It too has long vistas and observation posts could easily pick up movement across the desert.

The trip from the Coranado National monument westward to Nogales was pretty exciting. The long awaited rain and wind arrived. It had not rained in Arizona for 136 days so there was excitement at the prospect. Although it did not actually rain much there as promised, we chose not to take the 45 miles of dirt road and the potential washed out water hazards opting for a parallel road to the north.

We were dogged by a BP van as we climed the mountain from the park. We stopped at the top to let it pass and to view the spectacular landscape to the west. It is wild and rugged but you can see forever. Once again, a wall or fence seemed impractical, the visibility is too good.

We finally caught up with the BP van. There were two others and a BP SUV or two alnon with maybe 20 illegals. Some were in the vans and some were sitting on the ground. There were a bunch of BP officers as well. They checked us out closely......might have been the transport for the illegals. We could not have taken many in our Nissen Xtera. We did pass a Hippy green VW bus on the mountain and presume it was aborted transport for the captured illegals. The presence of any vehicles on the remote road was noteworthy.

There are two common BP vehicles. White Suv's will accommodate 4 or 5 captured illegals. For more than that the BP uses 15 passenger vans. Both are seen pretty often is Southern Arizona.

We stopped for gas and ests in Sonoita Arizona. There was visably large BP activity there. As we left town we could see why. There was a big BP base there. The fence containing at least 50 of the various BP vehicles had a "Help Wanted" sign.

If you are looking for work, they're hiring at the Border Patrol in Sonita AZ.

We headed into the populated area around Nogales and ceased our observations. Suddenly as we climbed a hill there were 5 or six people running across the road right in front of us. Looking to the side there were many others. I would guess 15 or so, all running up a draw between the hills. All were carrying gallon jugs and some had plastic bags. The survey ended with a spectacular array of illegals. I said they were running but one heavy and tired woman was waddeling up the trail obviously distressed. They were in trouble because the bad weather did actually come and they were not prepared..

Immigration problems.....

I have thought on the matter and concluded the fix has always been in. The plan has been well developed and a part has been assigned to all the players. The plan and the working through the plan is designed to minimize political damage to the incumbent Republicans while developinf solution to the problem.

The bifurcated problem requires dual action. There must be real border security. There must be a procedure for allowing conversion from illegal to legal.

The House bill and the Senate bill allow both.

The house incumbents require the most political cover. The incumbents must be allowed to strongly support a bill that is very strong in securing the border and dealing with those who enter in violation. This very strong piece of work allows those who voted for it to go home and boast they did their part. They actually put the rubber on the road and voted for a very strong bill.

The Senate does not have the same problem. Republican Senators have a little more lee way. Some can oppose the Senate bill if politically necessary or at least play with ammendments that make their effort vote worthy even if defeated. The Senate will deal with the manner in which Mexicans are allowed to stay as workers.

The President has had input and perhaps his people are quietly coordinating the total efort out of sight. I'm convinced that what appears to be a somewhat chaotic process is actually a carefully managed process to develop a solution while controlling potential political damage.

The process underway is power politics at its very best.