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Category Archives: Media

Brooks again

Friday, May 18, 2012

Dean Baker concentrates his fire on David Brooks again, despite my suggestion that he avoid high blood pressure by not reading him. Baker takes issue with this gem from Brooks’s latest column: “Western democratic systems were based on a balance between self-doubt and self-confidence. They worked because there were structures that protected the voters from […]

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The Day does good

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

I’m a frequent critic of the New London Day, so it’s only fair that I give credit when they do something right, and they’ve done just that recently. In my other life I spend a lot of time in housing court, and the subject of their recent exposé is not unknown to me. Zane Megos […]

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Pity poor Dean

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

I’m a big fan of Dean Baker. Every morning I check in to get his latest take on the sins of the press. It is his self appointed task to correct the economic illiteracy of the press and the punditocracy. It’s a horrible job, but someone has to do it. Still, it seems to me […]

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Both sides do it, whether they do or not

Friday, May 4, 2012

Thomas E. Mann of the Brookings Institution and Norman J. Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, entrenched members of the punditocracy, and therefore very serious people, have just written an opinion piece in which they announce to a startled world that it is the Republicans who are responsible for the present state of our dysfunctional […]

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Another fauxpology

Friday, April 27, 2012

Monica Crowley “apologizes” for her offensive and illogical tweet (“To a Man?”) regarding Sandra Fluke’s engagement: Regret my tweeted question caused a stir. I certainly & unequivocally apologize to Sandra & anyone else I offended. Not my intention. This comes slightly closer to being an apology than the Zimmerman fauxpology, but when properly translated, it […]

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Pay that word overtime

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

One of my favorite passages from Alice in Wonderland: When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said […]

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Media lies on social security

Monday, April 23, 2012

One of the reasons I started this blog was to combat, in my own small way, the Bush attack on social security. I educated myself on the issue quite a bit. Back then, it looked like Bush was going to succeed in privatizing the system, with help from folks like Lieberman and little resistance from […]

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English Lesson

Saturday, April 21, 2012

We are told by the press that George Zimmerman apologized to Trayvon Martin’s parents yesterday. It is a curious thing: people, meaning the press, who live by words, so often seem to have no idea what they mean. The word was used in today’s Day, Times and Globe, and was all over the internet yesterday. […]

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New Normal

Monday, April 16, 2012

Headline at Politico: Senate kills ‘Buffett Rule’ The Senate never voted on the rule. It was filibustered by the Republicans. That is what should be reported.

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The moving middle moves again

Saturday, April 7, 2012

The following tells you all you need to know about today’s media. It consists of the first two paragraphs from a column absurdly titled Common Sense, by James Stewart in the business section of the New York Times.   This week, President Obama called him a social Darwinist. The conservative Club for Growth criticized him […]

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