That Matt Lauer

Dear Today Show and Matt Lauer,

I am a stay-at-home mom and an artist. I am floored at how biased your programming has become in support of the Bush administration and the Republican party. I have noticed very pro-Bush news stories on the Today show since I began watching it since my baby was born. The piece on Barbara Bush recently showed Bush working out in the gym twice, the same shot--and I can recall no mention of the current war, or Barbara's thoughts about it. Matt Lauer recently interviewed Ann Coulter like she was a respected journalist instead of the attack-dog partisan spin doctor that she is. I heard him hopefully suggest that Republicans might be able to distance themselves from President Bush's dishonesty and unpopularity during the next election in an interview with Tim Russert (Russert, friend to many Republicans, didn't think that Republicans could distance themselves from Bush since they've been so supportive of Bush's dishonesty and failures). This morning Lauer asked Pat Buchanan how the Democratic party would respond to the Delay scandal--implicit in Lauer's "question" was a republican talking-points attack on the Democratic party. He said something about Democrats having no agenda. How does he know? Has he checked the Democratic web site lately or talked to leading Democrats in Congress? Does the press even report what Democrats say anymore? You all seem to just listen and repeat what Republicans say about Democrats. Do you only listen to the party in power? In any case, this he said/she said kind of reporting isn't journalism (or at least, it is now, but journalism used to be something better). To top it all, the Today Show ran a fluff piece today discussing God and President Bush--it lacked any coherent criticism of how religion is used hypocritically by governments, including members of ours lately, to cajole and manipulate the people. In my opinion, you have seriously comprimised journalistic integrity and your responsibility to the American people to be objective in your reporting.

[P.S. I'm trying very hard to strip "I like" or "I don't like" he or she from my language because I don't want our son growing up thinking, "Does he or she like me?" It is very hard not to say, "I don't like that Matt Lauer."]

Why do Bush's conservatives want Presidential tyranny forever more?

"...No doubt the Bush Administration will fight Specter's bill - for the simple reason that it does not want to be tested by a court, for it wants neither checks nor balances, but simple the unilateral exercise of executive power. And even if Specter can get the bill through the Senate, Bush's soldiers in the monocratic House will kill it."

Is it ignorance over the issue that affects every American's civil rights? Is it a thirst for ABSOLUTE power for YOUR guy (nevermind that you're setting a precedent for THEIR guy later)?

John Dean on Bush's illegal wire tapping program--Bush is worse than Nixon, and he lies, lies, lies (far worse than Clinton when it comes to you and me!!!).

Insensitive cartoon + inhumane response = civil & religious immaturity

Imagine two children who believed in the same G-d. The first child believed that images of G-d were insulting to G-d. The second child, an artist, believed that images of G-d were tributes to G-d. So the child who loved images of G-d imagined and drew a picture of G-d and showed it to the child who thought such pictures were insults to G-d. Does the first child, seeing a blasphemous image of G-d:

a. Smite his own eyes out
b. Attack the artist and anyone who agrees with the artist
c. Ignore it, since it is simply the imaginings of a child

Now imagine that the second child draws a picture of G-d as an evil-doer (and his publisher says he's proud of it). Does the first child:

a. Smite his own eyes out
b. Attack the artist and anyone who agrees with the artist
c. Ignore it, since it is simply the imaginings of a child

Being a child, the second child chooses B in each case.

Being adults we might pick C.

And, being adults, we might manage to respect other people's religious beliefs by not depicting their gods as evil-doers, as we expect others to respect ours.

And, in my humble opinion, as adults, we might make things a lot easier for everyone if we didn't elevate men to the status of gods, period.

Peace.

Tracing the message of conservatives

Ever make a mistake? Ever say something really stupid? Better hope your not an opponent of a conservative political candidate.

Their method is this:

Find one stupid thing that somebody has said or done and DEFINE that person by it. You remember, flip-flopper... It's beyond judgemental, it's simplisticly psychotic.

Would you like to be defined like that? That's what conservatives and perfectionists do to people (I've done it, just ask me about a mysogistic actor I know).

Hey you, you're that person who said women drivers should be shot.
Over there, you didn't pay your credit card bill on time.
I'm going to come after you and remind you of that over and over and over--welcome to the 21st century in rightwing politics.

This is what the right did to Cindy Sheehan. Forget that she was a grieving mother, an anti-war protestor, a passionate patriot. She lost her mind and said that foreign fighters in Iraq were fighting for freedom. Naive, yes, evil, no.

But do a simple web search and you will find page after page of conservative news sources and blogs reporting this single, crazy comment.

I tried to look up when Bush was interviewed by Brian Williams and made the comment that he "generally means it" when he takes the blame for things (regarding Katrina).

No one noticed. I couldn't even find it on a website of Bushisms. Our president IS a fake, according to his actions in this war (meeting with experts for 45 MINUTES this morning?!?! Woo, got a lot done there!), social security and environmental actions, but no one notices.

Good thing we've got Cindy Sheehans number, though, eh? Oh, and remember that Delay and Libby are just being tried on technicalities.

The rightwing, "It's not what we DO it's what you SAY." Ugh!

Peace.

Beware of the war on whatever

In regard to the post below, I meant to point out that only a fearmonger would frame small issues and problems with events as a "WAR on Christmas." It's a cynical and conscious attempt to generate fear and hatred in people. No one I know would be offended by being wished Merry Christmas, or Happy Holidays (Jew, Christian, Muslim or Buddhist). Any wish is meant kindly, for G_D's sake. And again, as I mentioned in Who's Stroking Your Holiday (below), who cares who Sears and KMart markets to? Isn't Christmas about Christ's birth?

I've been noticing that a lot of conservatives use bullying tactics in their communication, like "You should," "People should," "This is how it is," and liberals tend to use "I" or non-offensive language, like "I worry that..." "I feel that..." "I think that..." It's fascinating and reflects our different philosophies on life and human relationships (I must admit, I was more like a conservative in my first marriage--shudder).

Peace,
Urban Pink

Do we want to be right or to win?

The problem with liberals is that we can't escape our elite intelligence. We are so damn smart that we think that being right is all that matters. Letterman cut through this elitism with an effective knife last night when he said to Bill O'Reilly (I paraphrase), "You know I'm not smart enough to go fact by fact with you but I just get the feeling that 60% of what you say is crap." Not only was Letterman right, he was right without sounding like an elitist.

That isn't true on the this web site's comments: Media Matters An argument ensues between a conservative and liberal over the meaning of "comparison." The argument goes so far off course of the original idea, that O'Reilly is full of crap, and just becomes a glaring example of how liberals lose arguments. It's like being in a fight and pulling a single hair instead of punching someone in the gut.

We try to be right.
We try to be perfect.

If you'll notice, conservatives generally don't try to be either for their folks (the dumber the better, just look at our President). But they do point fingers at us when we're imperfect (Cindy Sheean), which makes us shudder and weaken (Oh no! We're not perfect!). Then they continue the fight by bullying and striking fear into people. We need to point this out, over and over, and tell people we have an optimistic plan for the future. Who cares if we're right on the facts (we generally are and this doesn't win admirers) and on the definition of words (of course we are, and this makes people feel inferior). We need to get along and lead our way out of this mess of fear and fake perfectionism.

Looking back at 2005

"I want to say one thing specifically to the world today. This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful. It was not aimed at Presidents or Prime Ministers. It was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old. It was an indiscriminate attempt to slaughter, irrespective of any considerations for age, for class, for religion, or whatever." The Mayor of London, shortly after July's transit attacks.

Hello but does anyone remember the London bombings? You'd think it had never happened the way Americans don't hear about it in the news, the way Bush keeps saying the same old things over and over about the war on terror keeping us safe at home. Who's home? Isn't England part of our "homefront?" What are we really doing to prevent such attacks here?

Peace