Ocassional Thoughts of an Independent Progressive Atheistic Humanist
The University of Findlay Oilers beat Cal Poly Pomona for the NCAA Div II Men’s Basketball Championship 56 to 53 on a last second 3 point shot by Senior Tyler Evans.
Grats to Coach Ron Niekamp and the Oilers for an 36-0 perfect season.
One of my favorite songs is the classic Grazing in the Grass performed by South African Hugh Masekela. One reason is because it was a hit the year I was born – so it has to be good…. right? When I heard the cowbell start it also reminds me of the classic Saturday Night Live – More Cowbell sketch, so I get a nice chuckle.
Grazing in the Grass – Hugh Masekela
The recent spat between Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, and Jim Cramer, host of Mad Money on CNBC has been entertaining. It started with a scathing 8 minute video clip of the incestuous relationship between the talking heads on CNBC and the CEOs and climaxed with a face to face discussion between Stewart and Cramer on The Daily Show Thursday night. But why should we care about two TV hosts bantering back and forth like enemies on the junior high play ground? It’s because it shows a light on the problems we have in our so called free press.
As I’ve written before, the classic idea of the press is to be advocate of the people who are suppose to be objective and ask our leaders the tough questions, we, the public either would like to ask ourselves or need an answer. When the press fails to do that, as all too often happens in the corporate media of today, their reporting becomes more like propaganda than journalism.
Jon Stewart and his Daily Show staff – which by the way is a comedy show – showed in their 8 minute clip that CNBC missed the recent financial melt down even as the red flags marched down Wall Street and instead they continued to have a parade of CEOs on claiming “don’t panic”. CNBC was so caught up in having the access to all these rich guys they failed to report about the storm clouds and problems that started in the housing market in 2007.
Financial news shows are not the place to be passing off press releases from CEOs as reporting. People who trusted the network got hurt if they didn’t take action before the market melt down. As Stewart told Cramer last night on his show “This is not a game…”
As James Moore wrote on Huffington Post:
Nonetheless, reporters at the big TV networks and the major publications have no excuse. Minute by minute people like Jim Cramer are feeding crap into our culture and public perceptions and it has nothing to do with reality and everything to do with their egos. How is it that a comedian is the first person to hold accountable these cheerleaders who are promoting a team that has no chance to win and, in some cases, isn’t even in the damned game?
Analysts doing the autopsy on newspaper reporting and the corpse of mainstream journalism are constantly lamenting the fact that so many young people and an increasing number of others are getting their news from Jon Stewart and Comedy Central. Where else is there left to look for thoughtful, analytical, and insightful analysis of the issues of our day? The yuks are just a bonus. Cable news shows can proclaim “no bias, no bull” all they want but every story is framed for a purpose, which is drama and conflict. The viewers and the readers aren’t there without the dramatic tension. You might as well be watching Law and Order: Special News Unit.
Yes, negative press can hurt a business but journalists have a responsibility to report the truth even if that means negative reports about a business or market. An uninformed public is a powerless public and they get hurt far worse than these CEOs who stole our money. As Stewart pointed out our 401k’s capitalized their adventures.
Here is part 3 of the Stewart vs Cramer interview on the Thursday Daily Show
*Update*
Saw this bit in a column by Glenn Greenwald on Salon’s website and thought it makes the same point I was making but includes the entire press establishment:
That’s the heart of the (completely justifiable) attack on Cramer and CNBC by Stewart. They would continuously put scheming CEOs on their shows, conduct completely uncritical “interviews” and allow them to spout wholesale falsehoods. And now that they’re being called upon to explain why they did this, their excuse is: Well, we were lied to. What could we have done? And the obvious answer, which Stewart repeatedly expressed, is that people who claim to be “reporters” are obligated not only to provide a forum for powerful people to make claims, but also to then investigate those claims and then to inform the public if the claims are true. That’s about as basic as it gets.
Today, everyone — including media stars everywhere — is going to take Stewart’s side and all join in the easy mockery of Cramer and CNBC, as though what Stewart is saying is so self-evidently true and what Cramer/CNBC did is so self-evidently wrong. But there’s absolutely nothing about Cramer that is unique when it comes to our press corps. The behavior that Jon Stewart so expertly dissected last night is exactly what our press corps in general does — and, when compelled to do so, they say so and are proud of it.
A friend of mine posted a note on his blog about the upcoming youth baseball season in Findlay. It gave me a chuckle. Like the youth soccer program, the baseball program was something we did when I was a kid. All my friends were in it so I did it too. It was also a good low cost way to have fun in the poor economic times my family lived in.
I played in the junior league for my first time out at organized baseball. I had a new mitt not even broken in when I went to the try outs. Being a youth league the try out was a mere formality as if you showed any skill they put you on a team.
When I was 13 I moved up to the Major Youth League. I was drafted into the GM Red Sox. Many on the team were classmates and friends I had known since elementary school. Our coach was the Phys Ed teacher at Glenwood Jr. High – Mr. Nichols. I played outfield and batted 9th and even then I stunk. My fielding was good. I could throw the ball to the infield but I couldn’t hit for crap. During my two seasons I had two base hits. Now why wasn’t I on the All-Star team at the end of the season…..
The funniest bit happened the year i found out I needed glasses.
Mr. Nichols was trying to help me in my batting. During practice he called me over and held a ball in his hand.
“Hit this out of my hand,” he said.
“What?”
“Hit the ball out of my hand.”
So I took my stance and swung away, smashing the bat into his hand. I heard some curse words I never heard before. What he forgot to tell me was not to take a full power swing but to go slow and so he could see my swing. Instead I nearly broke his hand and I wanted to fall over dead right there.
Ahhh, memories.
As Mark says in his blog post:
I would hope that you will encourage your kids, grand kids, nieces & nephews to join in the fun that is Findlay Youth Baseball. And, it isn’t just for kids. Adults can volunteer to help out as well. Umpiring, coaching or keeping a score book for the team of your little ball player are ways you can positively impact the life of a youngster. I promise you that it is very rewarding.
Yes, indeed.
During my childhood, one activity we could afford on a regular basis was going to the movies. On March 13th, Disney comes out with “Race to Witch Mountain (2009)”, which is a retelling of “Escape from Witch Mountain (1975)”. “Escape” was and still is one of my favorite films from the 1970’s.
In Findlay we had the Jerry Lewis Theater (later called Twin Palace), Cinema World, and during the summers we had two drive-ins – the Millstream and the Findlay Drive-In (I think that was the name. It was located across from where the present Liberty Benton High School is now). When I was even younger we had the old State Theater downtown where I saw “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)” and “Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)”.
“Escape from Witch Mountain” starts out with the haunting theme music and the superimposed images of the twins Tony and Tia running from dogs and it doesn’t let up. Donald Pleasence was one of the bad guys. The special effects look dated today but for little kids before Star Wars came out they were wild.
Tia was played by Kim Richards and I still have a crush on her to this day. Kim was the smart girl next door who had a decent career before she decided to leave acting to raise a family. She recently returned and one big role was playing Christina Ricci’s mom in Black Snake Moan (2006). Kim has a cameo in the new Witch Mountain film. She has been compared to another Disney product – Lindsay Lohan (in a good talent way). Little known fact is Kim is Paris Hilton’s aunt.
Tony was played by Ike Eisenmann. Like Kim, Ike showed up in all kinds of movies and TV shows in the 1970’s. He moved into voice acting for animated films. He also has a cameo in the new film.
Disney started remaking their old live action films. “Herbie the Love Bug” was fun if a bit off and reading the press on the new Witch Mountain film had me worried. I’ve seen the trailer and seeing they aren’t just redoing the old film makes me feel better. I also learned that the source book by Alexander Key was much darker and more hard core sci-fi which also helps. The original was pretty sugary since it was Disney and the director of the current movie said Disney had no problem with a darker retelling.
If [Director Andy] Fickman has his way, the film will be accessible, but bold. “We want this to be a movie that anybody can go and see and have a great time,” he says. “But I wanted to feel edgy, too. It’s dark and creepy. I went back and read the original Alexander Key book, Escape to Witch Mountain, and it’s a very heavy sci-fi novel. It’s all about questioning authority, hiding in plain sight, and you don’t know who to trust. I loved it. I respect what they did in ’75 at Disney — they had a coat rack attacking people — here we just wanted to make it more intense.”
When asked for a film that he’d compare Witch Mountain’s tone to, he surprised us with the 1982 Eddie Murphy flick 48 Hrs. “The humor in 48 Hrs. came from a very natural place, but the movie itself was a very dark in tone adventure. And that’s sort of where we land. It’s also very inspired by ’70s action movies. The camera angles, the zooms — the way the action was shot.”
But my heart will still be with the 1975 version. Here is a clip of the first 6 minutes of the film: