My prescience is priceless: Americans will soon show their disdain for 'Occupy' by leaving home before 12 a.m. to buy corporate must-haves at Le Mall

Above, the Tom the Turkey balloon in the flower section of the Publix grocery store on Hallandale Beach Boulevard & S.E. 14th Avenue, Hallandale Beach, FL. November 24, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

My prescience is priceless: In days, Americans will show their overwhelming disdain for Occupy Wall Street by leaving their families at home to get to stores by Midnight to buy Corporate America's must-haves.

Or, put another way, welcome to "A Very Vegan Thanksgiving in Ft. Lauderdale" -with French faux-Turkey recipes collected by Ron Gunzburger, noted Francophile and Vive-le-Jet-Set member! http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=34136590@N02&q=France

How the Miami Herald, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel , the business/legal newspapers and all the local Miami-area TV stations have managed to hold off on doing articles, columns or news broadcast about his seeming hypocrisy on this issue, on the one hand, comporting himself every bit the Broward establishment figure from his position as a government attorney for the Broward County Appraiser's office, while at the same time, having been the very picture of the savvy PR flack for the Blame America First branch of the Democratic Party in Broward, that's so universally laudatory about the Occupy Wall Street protesters, is really quite something.

That "something" is called being asleep-at-the-wheel.

Seriously, is there anyone around in South Florida political life who more consistently imbues the average American's (outside of South Florida) mental image of the prototypical liberal, wine-sipping, self-loathing American Bohemian who must escape to France en vacances once in a while to get in touch with himself than Ron Gunzburger?

Mon dieu, non!

(Of course, once he's over there, he can see all over again what real pretentious hipsters are like first-hand by simply looking around, and trying not to be drawn into un-necessary internecine French political arguments over party purity or the merits of a fusion ticket.)

That Ron Gunzburger is well-known, gay and in a position to actually either compliment or scold well-known reporters, columnists and media personalities thru his popular political website, is, of course, only the liberal gravy if you will, speaking of upcoming Thanksgiving.

http://www.politics1.com/

And yet because of one thing or another, even the thing I don't mention here, the local Miami and Ft. Lauderdale news media haven't even bothered to lift their fingers in an attempt to put him on the spot for a bit and have him try to explain himself, chiefly his seeming bi-polarity of both having his cake and eating it, too.

The local media haven't made any serious attempt to give South Florida residents an idea of why someone who is in many ways the very picture of a govt. bureaucrat -and image-conscious to boot- hasn't seen even a single negative news vibe since the whole Occupy PR machinery went into high gear? Not one.

Really.

Want proof, see for yourself:

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/search/dispatcher.front?Query=%22Ron+Gunzburger%22&target=adv_article

http://www.miamiherald.com/search_results?aff=1100&q=%22Ron+Gunzburger%22

The next time you see a professional reporter or columnist or editor hereabouts skulking about at some news event or public meeting take a moment to walk up to him or her and ask them about that supreme and jaw-dropping lack of effort.

And if they actually respond civily, take the opportunity to ask who else is on that Untouchable list of theirs, write it down and let me know.

We'd all like to know, though some are givens, like all the Dem congresspeople from South Florida, who hardly need press secretaries given the job the local media does of playing stenographer.

Broward Clean Sweep video: How Broward reporters cover Broward politicians

http://youtu.be/cUDV_E4hO3s

For the record, I don't personally dislike Ron Gunzburger, I'm just genuinely mystified how and why in the year 2011, given what is known about him -his political sympathies, his various efforts locally, et al, plus, the ease of technology that makes it easier for the news media to do their job than ever before- that the South Florida news media is SO completely frozen in place that they are unable to see a NEWS STORY when it is staring right in front of their face waving a red cape like a matador.

Frankly, I don't doubt that he has wondered the same thing.

It's media myopia plus dollops of disconnectedness, a very bad combination for newspaper readers and TV news viewers if ever there were any, and that won't be helped any by Tryptophan Thursday, as next weekend's newspaper stories and columns are almost guaranteed to be the worst of the year, as happens every year like clockwork.

In fact, even as we speak, someone's column for next weekend is either being written or edited right now, so that column will on some large 'theme' instead of a particular news story.

Unfortunately, many of those columns will be written by the very same Mainstream Media folks like E.J. Dionne, Leonard Pitts, Jr. or Kathleen Parker -who can't help herself from mentioning Sarah Palin, even when nobody else is- all of whom, so consistently mis-fire and continually draw the wrong conclusions about what is actually happening in our country, good or bad, regardless of what the subject is, and, consequently always seem to prescribe a cure that may well hasten the demise of the system we enjoy, however imperfect and galling at times.

Speaking of income equality, Mickey Kaus is spot-on here: http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/11/ows-to-msm-dynamics-of-closed-loop-systems/

Yes, in the very same newspapers all over the country that have, does have and will have front page stories all week about the confounding trend of holiday consumerism intruding on family time together, and instead heading for Ye Olde Galleria or Target or Best Buy at Midnight, après le third NFL football game du jour is finit, to indulge in some consumer theory first-hand, are the very same people will say that the Occupy forces have really taught us all a valuable lesson.

Aand that their message will linger longer than anything the Tea Party does.

In my opinion, that conclusion, common in the blogosphere among self-styled 'progressives' is not only untrue, but unprovable, but that hardly seems to matter now, despite the fact that these same folks say the intentionally loose amalgam of people supporting the Tea Party's economic and limited government principles are the power within the GOP.

(How can it be both the power and a negligible force that will soon be eclipsed, they never quite explain.)

It's like saying if Don Shula had finally traded for an elite NFL running back, the Dolphins of the 1990's would've won a Super Bowl with Dan Marino at quarterback.

BOBBY KNIGHT OF INDIANA

A Profile by Frank Deford, January 28, 1981

Like if you gave former IU coach Bobby Knight control of North Carolina's perpetual mother-lode of crazy incoming talent that Dean Smith had all those years, and ask how many MORE NCAA basketball titles he would have won before Coach Smith finally won his first -years after Coach Knight had already won two titles at IU, including my sophomore year in Bloomington?

THE CHAMPS!

Hoosier Hero Isiah Thomas, April 4, 1981

That's speculation of the worst sort because in the end, you only end up chasing your tail.

But I've heard those very questions posed before.

Sometimes, all in the same long drive to South Florida from Bloomington at the holidays or Spring Break.

Imponderables.

Like what if political candidates said out-loud in a prologue before debates, forums and speeches, what particular reporters & columnists they sincerely believed were stupid, biased, incompetent or unethical -and had to give examples; would that be a positive to society to get it all out in the open and have some genuine transparency?

I say yes, but how can that be proven true unless everyone does it?

Aye. there's the rub!

-----

Santa's assault on Thanksgiving

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/santas-assault-on-thanksgiving/2011/11/19/gIQA0bKQcN_video.html

The Washington Post

A defense for Thanksgiving

By Ylan Q. Mui, Published: November 19

Thanksgiving is under assault.

Stores that once closed their doors in deference to the holiday are now touting Turkey Day deals starting as early as 9 p.m. Workers who should be on vacation are answering office e-mails on their smartphones. And those who plan on celebrating with a traditional dinner are finding that the cost of a bird is near its 30-year high, according to government data.

Read the rest of the article at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/a-defense-for-thanksgiving/2011/11/17/gIQAM33tcN_story.html

Wrong again! Swiss voters disappoint pro-chaos & confusion European news media predictions re Swiss People's Party, who remain THE most popular party

Euronews video: Despite losses in Swiss election, rightist People's Party remains largest party in country

http://youtu.be/S4QDzDo4MDU

Wrong again! Swiss voters disappoint pro-chaos & confusion European news media predictions re Swiss People's Party, who remain THE most popular party

Once again, as they did with the French and British elections, the U.S. Mainstream Media's print and electronic cousins in Europe tried to write the headline for a story before the election took place, with the result that they got caught with their pants down again when voters didn't play their parts as vox populi puppets, and do exactly what the news media said they'd do.

As for instance in The Telegraph: Swiss far-right party SVP aiming to make election history

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/switzerland/8837942/Swiss-far-right-party-SVP-aiming-to-make-election-history.html

Yes, I hear hear there's a lot of that going around...

Predictably, the BBC, after-the-fact, says rather arrogantly,

"Voters know many Swiss businesses, and their health service, depend on foreign workers, our correspondent says."

Yes, but Helvetia depended upon them just as much before, where previous elections resulted in the People's Party gaining some seats they have now apparently lost.

Time for the news media to work on getting a more accurate list of excuses and alibis for why their elections predictions -with matching horror stories about the Right- failed once again to come true.

When you read the BBC story below, you'll see that the key fact that the People's Party remains the largest in the entire country with 25.9%, one-third larger than the Socialist Party after the election, doesn't get mentioned until the last paragraph, instead of the first where it belongs.

Sort of makes you think they almost hated to mention it.

The BBC story -and likely any story you see about this election in the next few days in U.S. newspapers- also doesn't mention the germane fact that prior to the weekend election, the People's Party had THE largest percentage of the vote in Switzerland since the current system went into effect 92 years ago.

So answer me this question, in a modern, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual country like Switzerland, how exactly does the European news media get away with continuing to say that THE most-popular party is outside of the mainstream?

They are the mainstream.

BBC

Poll jolt for Swiss anti-immigration People's Party

23 October 2011 Last updated at 15:18 ET

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15418331

See also: Switzerland debates tough deportation proposal

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11847113

ABC News on one of Osama bin Laden's strategies: "to inflame race and class tensions in hopes of tearing down the [U.S.]"; Exploit Minority Converts

It will be very interesting over the coming weeks to see how the U.S. Mainstream Media -outside of ABC News- reports on this angle of this week's Osama bin Laden story, given how early on, the MSM seemed eager -almost devoted!- to framing anyone who said anything along the lines of what they're now reporting as fact at ABC News' The Blotter, http://abcnews.go.com/blotter, as either stupid, paranoid or possibly even racist.

Well, don't hold your breath waiting for the MSM to now suddenly see the error of their condescending and patronizing ways and suddenly apologize to those very individuals, many of whom spoke of the environmental role of prison life as a factor leading to Muslim conversions among minority prisoners, a topic which, itself, is one that has been reported on to the point that it's Common Knowledge.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/19/AR2005081901460.html
http://www.pbs.org/weta/crossroads/about/show_homegrown.html

And yet if you weren't a certified Beltway 'expert' and said this same thing, look out below!

ABC News
The Blotter
Osama Bin Laden's Anti-U.S. Strategy: Exploit Minority Converts
By Pierre Thomas, Richard Esposito, Lee Ferran
May 7, 2011

Osama bin Laden aspired to damage the United States not only through persistent terror attacks, but also by attempting to inflame race and class tensions in hopes of tearing down the country from the inside out, according to officials briefed on the evidence trove recovered from the al Qaeda leader's Pakistan compound.

According to materials in the cache of documents recovered in the U.S. Navy SEAL raid that brought down the terror leader, bin Laden planned to specifically recruit African-American Muslim converts to carry out attacks on the homeland.

Read the rest of the story at:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/osama-bin-ladens-anti-us-strategy-exploit-minority/story?id=13547780&nwltr=blotter_featureMore

MSM mess that disserves voters -Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic on "How to Fix Our Flawed Election Coverage"; Phil Bronstein muses on WH PR flacks

Obama protest at DNC fundraiser http://bcove.me/mq3c122l
Related story in San Francisco Chronicle is at bottom.

Friday afternoon, while pondering the Miami Dolphins' NFL draft strategy -is there one?- I sent the link to this prescient Conor Friedersdorf story below around to my circle of Usual Suspects, and got a pretty favorable response, though some reporter friends who work in The Beltway actually thought it was, if anything, a little "too gentle" in their criticism of the American Mainstream Media.

They are constantly dumbfounded at the sheer number of people around them who 'play' journalist, but who are actually not emotionally or ethically grounded enough, or even talented enough, to be one.

If anything, they find many of their colleagues consistently unprofessional and nothing but either Washington press secretary wannabes or political consultant in-waiting.
Yes, everyone wants to be like David Axelrod -but not actually him.
Reporter first, then campaign consultant.

And however much they may talk and vent to me from time-to-time, they genuinely believe that the American public has no earthly idea how much many more conscientious reporters and columnists with more old-fashioned ideas about the ethos and the lines you don't cross, genuinely loathe many popular media stars, esp. those with a connection to TV.


The Atlantic
How to Fix Our Flawed Election Coverage
By Conor Friedersdorf
April 29, 2011, 12:52 PM ET

In presidential contests, the press regularly elevates candidates for all the wrong reasons

My colleague James Fallows is understandably dismayed by the American media's coverage of Donald Trump, the entrepreneur, reality TV star and occasional bankrupt who may or may not run for president. "Perhaps the media types who have been paying attention to Trump and his braying will stop to think about what they've actually been doing," he writes. "Conceivably there will be a moment of recoil about the unworthy, irrational indignity of this stage of national life. But I'm not holding my breath."

It is bizarre that an opportunistic publicity hound is shaping the national discourse. But is a "moment of recoil" among journalists the needed remedy? For the most part, Trump's enablers are either utterly shameless, or else they're already disgusted by the pathologies of their profession but feel powerless to change them...

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/04/how-to-fix-our-flawed-election-coverage/238039/

Also on Friday, I saw San Francisco Chronicle Executive Vice President Phil Bronstein's always interesting Bronstein at Large blog on the recent dust-up involving the Chronicle's Carla Marinucci and other Hearst folks running afoul of what White House preferences (ground-rules) were for reporting stories that had nothing to do with the reason President Obama was there.

Chron headline: San Francisco Chronicle: Obama Administration punishes reporter for using multimedia

Later: Update: Chronicle responds after Obama Administration punishes reporter for using multimedia, then claims they didn't

Read Bronstein's spot-on post at: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/bronstein/detail?entry_id=87978

It's quite insightful, too, and shows how childish so many of the professional, taxpayer-paid PR handlers for elected officials, even The White House, can be when it comes to wanting to short-circuit enterprising reporters or putting the kibosh on alternative narratives of a story, things the American public wants but usually don't hear about until much later in a book.
Better that we know about such ham-handed efforts when they happen, then later!

I really wish we had about four dozen Phil Bronstein disciples or clones manning South Florida's myriad media machines so that citizens, readers and viewers could be MUCH better served than they are by the current crew that constantly sleeps, sleepwalks and doesn't show-up, and is risk-averse to boot.
IF only...

-----

Conor Friedersdorf is not just 100% correct, he is even more spot-on than he thinks, in that his sound criticism of the Mainstream Media's predictable reach for the low-hanging fruit and 'herd' mentality coverage of the presidential primaries could, in far too many instances, also be applied to local newspaper and TV station's coverage of open congressional seats.
I have a perfect example of it.


The above-the-fold headline of the Miami Herald on Wednesday the 27th was, and I quote, "GOP in search of a rock star" and the article was written by Adam Smith, a very good reporter at the St. Pete Times, someone whose articles and blog posts I've read since returning to the Sunshine State.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/26/2186913/in-florida-and-nationally-republicans.html

Still... that might well be a fine story in a newspaper's Sunday Op-Ed section in about 5-6 months, but really, in late April of 2011?
Not so much.

It actually seems to me that the news media in Florida, all-too-conscious of how important the state of Florida will be next year in the presidential campaign for both parties -especially with the Republican National Convention scheduled to be in the Tampa/St. Pete area starting August 27th, 2012- actually covet someone to play leader-of-the-pack so they can all know whom they're supposed to analyze to a fair-thee-well, killing with kindness in laudatory pieces for weeks or months before someone decides to get the knives out, rather than have to go out and do intel recon by themselves, and possibly saying something that goes against the MSM's extant CW.

Especially at a time when even in a large state like Florida -particularly for a large state like Florida, the fourth-largest state in the country- few of the potential candidates have actually visited the state for formal organized purposes.

Part of that is not just due to lack of time and money or opportunity, but also the sane realization by the candidate and his top staff that with the media in its current myopic state, any small slip-up of a completely inconsequential nature, is likely to be given extraordinary coverage for the simple fact that the media not only personally prefers to write about the horse-race, NOT the issues, but that in the absence of real tangible news, silly news will more than do.

That it becomes voter's first impression of the candidate is not the concern of the reporter, but should it?

Do you really think more than a handful of people in South Florida can really talk with any objective knowledge about what Tim Pawlenty did or did not do while governor of Minnesota?
http://www.timpawlenty.com/

Guess what, none of that handful are reporters, columnists or editors, but what they can do is re-write and finesse prior stories on Pawlenty to make it seem that they know what they're talking about; they already have
Given that dynamic and reality, why would any reasonable candidate considering the presidency subject himself to needless scrutiny when you don't have to?

Why should you change your long-term plan merely to assuage certain media markets, even in a key state like Florida, when any small slip-up will be over-played and toyed with like a cat and a ball of yarn?

As to the same bad, superficial press coverage template being used on open congressional seats. living in one, I'm more than able to describe what we dealt with and how that also highlights the Miami Herald's downward spiral in quality and sense of purpose, a much-discussed topic on this blog since it was created four years ago, in part because of that very problem.

Last year, to the surprise of nobody, FL-17's Kendrick Meek ran for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate to replace the retired Mel Martinez, whose seat was filled by George LeMieux in the interim.

Since voters and political observers knew well since the summer of 2009 that South Florida's FL-17 would have a brand new face for the first time since the current geographical configuration existed, a great opportunity presented itself to South Florida's much-maligned news media -to show local readers and viewers what's really required to win a Congressional seat in a multi-ethnic area (that stretches across two counties) with very different sort of voters, starting first with who runs for a seat for which you are NOT the candidate for whom it was carved-up for -Carrie Meek- or the heir.

To do the sort of solid fact-filled congressional election stories that CQ (Congressional Quarterly) and National Journal have been doing forever and that you sometimes see reflected in a few serious quality newspapers, where smart reporters and resourceful editors take you deep inside the campaign and give you some tangible insight into the candidates and their way of thinking things through.
In the end, of course, at least for me, the most important thing you vote about -their judgment.

But instead of seizing the opportunity, voters in FL-17 were given nothing but day-old leftovers. Not turkey leftovers the day after Thanksgiving, which can still be tasty, but more like the mashed potatoes and green peas five days later when the container they were in in the fridge has come off and everything had dried out and become less palatable.

The first "story" in the Herald on FL-17, by Beth Reinhard, circa pre-Christmas 2009, consisted of five sentences, one of which was a list of candidates names.
Talk about underwhelming, and it never got any better!

Nope, all the energy at the newspaper -never very great to begin with the past few years!- seemed to be focused almost entirely on the U.S. Senate race, not that there was much that was very original or compelling from Dec. 2009-July 2010 from the Miami side of the Times/Herald combine with the St. Pete Times.
Just lots of low-hanging fruit, much of it repeating what was first reported elsewhere.

It wasn't until mid-August, two weeks before the actual primary election between about 8-10 Democratic candidates, that what would normally be considered a genuine election campaign story on FL-17 ever actually appeared in the Miami Herald, and that one, naturally, made some obvious mistakes in describing what the exact boundaries of the CD were.
Yes, even though THAT should be the one thing the reporter -frequent HBB bête noire Patricia Mazzei- gets right. (Not that a correction was ever made!)

One legitimate news story in eight long months about an open congressional seat that nobody knew in advance who would win?
Really?
Yes!

That's the paradox of the American news media we have now.
Far too many print and TV reporters/editors/producers shrink from opportunities to do something original or bold, preferring the easy to write/produce stories about dubious polls and calling political consultants whose faces we recognize on TV before they say word one.

To me, political consultants as the go-to interview, is among the most troubling trends of the past fifteen years in journalism.
It's the lazy reporter's crutch.
They're asked what they think, instead of reporters proactively arranging to meet with large number of well-informed voters TO LISTEN.

Unfortunately, South Florida in the year 2011 is grossly over-represented by reporters, editors and producers who favor political campaign consultants as voices of reality to the very citizen voters themselves.

-----
http://www.nationaljournal.com/

Phil Bronstein's Bronstein at Large blog at the San Francisco Chronicle:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/bronstein/index

From our clever British cousins across the sea at Anorak: "Fukushima Is Only Another Chernobyl For Lazy Journalists";Out of the Ashes: Maria Sharapova

From our clever British cousins across the sea at Anorak: "Fukushima Is Only Another Chernobyl For Lazy Journalists"

-----
Anorak
Fukushima Is Only Another Chernobyl For Lazy Journalists

Two things have intervened in the media coverage of the Japanese nuclear plant crisis to make it misleading to the point of incomprehensible, writes Richard North.

The one is the frequent use of the Chernobyl disaster as a comparator, where there are absolutely no comparisons with the incident at Fukushima. The second is the childish refrain of “meltdown” by scientifically and technically illiterate journalists, who seem to be incapable of understanding what is happening, yet seem determined to spread their own incomprehension far and wide.

Read the rest of the spot-on post at:
http://www.anorak.co.uk/276390/media/fukushima-is-only-another-chernobyl-for-lazy-journalists.html

See also:
http://richarddnorth.com/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/richard-d-north

Nuclear Energy Institute - Information on the Japanese Earthquake:
http://nei.cachefly.net/newsandevents/information-on-the-japanese-earthquake-and-reactors-in-that-region/

http://www.youtube.com/user/NEINetwork

-----
In case you didn't see it the very first time I ran it on November 28th, you may find this excerpt from my post that details Maria Sharapova's relationship with the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 worth perusing:

Yes, a photo with Maria is exactly what this blog needs!

Maria's website is at http://www.mariasharapova.com/

Maria was the focus of a terrific mid-August segment on ABC News' Nightline that I've been waiting to post here on the blog when there was a good reason. Now there is.
It's the second of three segments and starts at 07:34. I'd recommend going Fullscreen.



ABC News Nightline, August 17, 2010
Out of the Ashes: Maria Sharapova
Reporting: ESPN's Rachel Nichols
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/nightline-081710-11425198

Just common sense - Peter King's long-overdue hearings on Muslim radicalism in U.S. gets backing from an unexpected ally at The WaPo: Ruth Marcus

Above, 9/11 pilot Mohammed Atta's Florida Driver's License

While living in Arlington County, I followed the 9/11 Commission hearings VERY closely, more than just about anyone I knew, watching or taping many of them off of C-SPAN, and, consequently, often staying-up late at night to catch up on their activities. Though it seems obvious now, while I'd heard from many sources that some of the hijackers had used Broward County Library computers to access the Internet to send messages -and book their flights- it never dawned on me to think about where, specifically, they had lived in South Florida.

But despite how much of the hearings I watched, I couldn't see everything, so it wasn't until another Washington-area friend who worked on Capitol Hill -also originally from Florida- pointed it out to me one night at a sports bar, that I found out that 9/11 pilot Mohammed Atta lived in Hollywood.
In fact, 4.6 miles from my father's home in Hallandale Beach.

(Not the subject of the column below, true, but just wanted to mention it all the same. Also relevant: On the morning of 9/11, I was working directly across Pennsylvania Avenue from the Dept. of Justice, the FBI and The National Archives. I was working on a litigation project for the law firm Crowell & Moring, a project involving DOD that was supposed to send me and my team to Dayton for a few weeks that Fall, but that was cancelled for obvious reasons.
From the firm's large windows facing Pennsylvania Avenue -and even more so from the large balcony that overlooked the street that were clearly perfect viewing for Inauguration Day festivities- I and the dozens of us on my flooor could clearly see the dark smoke arising in the SW from The Pentagon, just past our view looking towards the Old Post Office.
More about my 9/11 experiences in Washington, D.C. here, from a Sept. 2011 post, 
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/911-george-f-will-on-american-landscape.html)

Well, I've been sitting on them for a while now.
Wondering, wondering, wondering just when to run them in this space, but this excellent common sense perspective by liberal columnist Ruth Marcus in today's Washington Post about voluble Rep. Peter King of Long Island, and his resolve to finally have some long overdue congressional hearings on radical Islam in the U.S., despite protests from the usual suspects and however an imperfect a vehicle for that overdue development she thinks he might be, just might be the sign I've been waiting for.

So what's the them?
My sign to let you know that coming soon to the blog will be some delicious articles, columns and video about Islamic radicalism and not-so-democratic Muslim immigrants (not at all interested in assimilation) that I guarantee you you haven't seen or heard about elsewhere in the American Mainstream Media.

At least, as represented by the Miami Heralds and NPRs of the world, where news stories and real-life actualities that don't fit their political or social template never see the light of day in print or make the airwaves.

That's largely because even some liberals can see the lie of the fiction long articulated by the MSM, in the U.S. as well as in Europe, that EVERY Muslim -esp. immigrants- are just like Jane & John Q. Public, whether they live in Northern Virginia, Queens, London, Paris or Malmö.
Nope.

Some are but more than you think are NOT.
Just because the press wants it to be so doesn't change reality -or human behavior.

I know something of this first-hand because my first roommate at IU was a great guy named Salim who just also happened to be a Kenyan-born Muslim from Oman, who was at school on a World Health Organization (WHO) scholarship.

Salim was very appreciative of the opportunity he had to live and study in the United States and loved IU and the beauty and friendliness of Bloomington more than many of my other friends, who were blase about it, and because of his personality and willingness to talk about what he knew about growing-up in a life different than ours, Salim made friends easily.

A later roommate in the Washington area was a completely different story. I had known many Iranian-born friends as a kid growing-up in North Miami Beach, even seeing Grease at a drive-in with two -count 'em two- ridiculously cute and vibrant Iranian sisters in our family's convertible when I was in high school.

Their brother was a soccer teammate of mine and as I've related here previously, I sometimes went with him and his family to anti-Shah rallies at the JFK Torch of Freedom on Biscayne Blvd. in downtown Miami because members of his own family had been tortured or killed by the Savak. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912364,00.html

The Iranian-born medical student I was somewhat forced to live with in Arlington once another roommate moved-out just weeks before the lease was up -a know-it-all with with a real superiority complex- told me plenty of amazing stories about ways that Iranian students he knew played the State Dept. reps in Europe at the embassy or consulates for fools, in order to get visas.
They accomplished this by telling them the appropriate narrative that would allow them to be admitted into the country.

He said there even was a list of which State Dept. consular offices were more easy to fool than others, and since it was important to get to the U.S., they didn't mind the additional costs of flying out of whatever European country they might be living in in order to get to a consular office with a reputation for letting people in. Fly from Germany to Copenhagen or Portugal or... He knew that for a fact because it worked for HIM.

If college students knew how to game the system, do you honestly think that well-trained people with nefarious intentions and unlimited resources can't do even more?

Some people can never let go of their internal anger, never really want to fit in and are keenly disposed to wreck havoc on civil society wherever they can, even if that means corrupting freedoms or denying other people's guaranteed rights.

And when they're caught on film, they... yes, often celebrate their anti-social behavior.
That is, until they realize that it will make them look bad once it is shown on TV or the Internet. That moment of clarity is always a sight to see!

As you will soon see here for yourself, there's almost nothing better on TV then when the often-dubious world of Reality TV slams head-first into the behavior of the 'Real World' that the Left and its apologists in the media has been making excuses for for years.

That it happened in Sweden is not so surprising, sorry to say, but I can't help but think that if it had happened on a British TV show, where the conversation would've been in engelska, we'd all have long since seen the video by now and that it would be sure-fire water cooler conversation once 20/20 or Nightline or Sixty Minutes highlighted the behavior for Americans.

That is, if people still really have water cooler conversation as shown on The Office, instead of sipping their dopey Five-Hour drinks and $4 fruity organic drinks from their desk when there's a perfectly good cold Dr. Pepper in the soda machine looking to add drinking satisfaction.

-----

The Washington Post
Islamic radicalism: The questions that Rep. Peter King is right to ask
By Ruth Marcus
Wednesday, March 9, 2011

One of the odder exchanges I've ever seen during a congressional hearing involved Attorney General Eric Holder, Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith and the phrase "radical Islam."

Smith, at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee last May, cited three recent terrorist incidents: the Fort Hood shooting rampage, the underwear bomber and the Times Square bomber. "Do you feel that these individuals might have been incited to take the actions that they did because of radical Islam?" he asked Holder.

The attorney general did his best not to go there.
"There are a variety of reasons why I think people have taken these actions," he said.
"I think you have to look at each individual case."

Smith tried again - and again.
Holder repeatedly resisted, before grudgingly acknowledging the obvious. "I certainly think that it's possible that people who espouse a radical version of Islam have had an ability to have an impact on people like" the accused Times Square bomber, he said.

Read the rest of the excellent column at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/08/AR2011030804487.html

----

Dr. Pepper TV commercial, 1960's
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpByXzdMQfk

When I first got to Bloomington in August of 1979 and told people I met at my dorm, Briscoe Quad, or people I met on and off the IU campus that I was from North Miami Beach, it was very quickly obvious that they imagined that my life down here in high school on weekends was probably not unlike the end of this commercial, albeit many years later, with grill parties at the beach, throwing frisbees and footballs around and cute girls prancing around everywhere...

Believe me, it was very disappointing to have to tell them the truth about how boring and mundane late 1970's life in NMB was, or how many great opportunities or locales were wasted.

Haulover Beach on the Intercoastal side could get crazy on weekends, but it was never fun like life depicted in films or TV about teen life in SoCal, whom I envied.
You know, where people describe every other thing they go to as "epic"?
If only we had had cell phones and digital cameras and the Internet then...

I never liked Condi Rice as Sec. of State, and I like her even less now. When will she finally admit HER personal culpability for policy mistakes?

Condoleeza Rice is NOT Dwight Eisenhower.

Condi Rice: A speed bump of history that looms even smaller with every passing year.

Not that you asked, but I never liked self-serving Condoleeza Rice when she was Bush 43's Secretary of State, even though I voted for him, and I like HER even less now.
When will she finally admit HER personal culpability for policy mistakes?
Ever?

A short open letter to the one-time Secretary of State on the occasion of her new book and the absurd over-the-top kid-gloves treatment that she will get from the MSM for the next few months, as excuses are made for her by the very people who were quiet at the time.

Dwight Eisenhower is STILL dead and was an anomaly as a candidate who'd never been elected to any office before becoming President.
History is not about to repeat itself anytime soon.

Given your longstanding distaste for enduring public criticism, even constructive criticism, the fact that Beltway reporters of the caliber and reputation of the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler persist in public speculation that you may run for high public office is both alarming for him, and preposterous for you.

You have repeatedly shown your unwillingness to do the one fundamental thing required in American electoral politics: to listen to average American citizens.

In your particular case, you have avoided listening and responding with candor to Americans of either the Right or the Left -or the Right-Center like me- with an insulated, above-the-fray attitude that may serve you well when you are being paid to make speeches overseas to the comfortable elite stating the obvious, but not so much with average Americans, for whom you were and are an enigma.

But now, an enigma we no longer are curious about, despite what your publisher has told you.

It's too late for you to attempt to change the public narrative now, and you also can't change the fact that your track record comes largely from dealing with people for whom you were superior to in the organization, easily pushed-around self-important academic types at Stanford, or corporate glad-handers and apologists who paid you for being around or giving speeches, even while you were on Board of Directors for large American companies.

Simply put, you lack the 'common touch,' one that Bill Clinton, for all of his flaws, was born with and then honed for years while putting himself before the very American people that you have largely been sheltered away from in your self-selecting cocoon for YEARS.

In that regard, you share that with your predecessor, Colin Powell, for whom we personally feel similarly cold towards, having personally seen up-close in Washington that same MSM news media fawning machine when he was hawking his books and "leaving the door open."

You and Powell both seem to have been born with the same imperious, self-serving gene that so many actual South Florida politicians the community would be better off without, actually possess, like Debby Eisinger, Stacy Ritter and Joy Cooper.
It's NOT attractive.
In fact, it actually repels.

We not only DONT need you, Miss Rice, there is zero chance there will ever be a Draft Condi boomlet for any electoral office, except maybe something in Cali that is thought either largely inconsequential, or, 'for show.'

No matter how many times you subtly-yet-calculatingly insinuate to reporters and columnists that you're leaving the door open for future elective office, there will always be people like myself who are standing there, happy to shut that door on you with a simple recitation of the true facts of your chosen career and your above-it-all personality.
Nope, we are closing THAT door with you on the other side.
You can keep knocking, but we're NOT answering.

We also DON'T want you to have anything to do with the NFL, either, and are tired of THAT particular line of self-serving talk almost as much as anything else about you.
No thanks!
The NFL is doing fine without you.

------

The Washington Post
Rice meets with Obama, then defends his administration's approach
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 15, 2010; 10:43 PM

Not many authors on a book tour manage to snag a visit with the president of the United States.

But Condoleezza Rice is no ordinary book author. The former secretary of state and onetime national security adviser met one-on-one with President Obama at the White House on Friday afternoon, after a week of television appearances promoting "Extraordinary, Ordinary People," her memoir about her parents. The White House said Obama wanted to discuss a range of foreign policy issues with her.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/15/AR2010101506018.html

Reader comments at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/15/AR2010101506018_Comments.html

While savvy Channel 4 News (U.K.) gets even better, lazy U.S. TV network & cable newscasts AND shallow South Florida TV newscasts race to the bottom

Jon Snow guides us through what is new on the Channel 4 news website.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mkfeCqBuy4

While savvy Channel 4 News (U.K.) gets even better, lazy U.S. TV network & cable newscasts AND shallow South Florida TV newscasts race to the bottom.

It's okay, you're among friends.
You don't have to be shy about venting your frustration about how embarrassingly banal the American network TV newscasts have become of late, of the utterly predictable never-ending dog-chasing-its-tail quality of the U.S. cable newscasts, or the brain-dead nadir that local South Florida TV newscasts reached over this past summer, where you thought they couldn't go any lower and get any more insipid -but then they do.

And you are dumb-struck once again.
And you are reminded all over again what part of America you live in.
The part of America where they can't support a News Radio format.

For instance, recently, the 11 o'clock newscast of one Miami TV station really DID spend more time talking about who might be featured on a prospective Miami-based "Housewives" reality show than they did on what had happened that day at the Broward County Commission's FY 2011 Budget meeting in Fort Lauderdale, and what some of the programs slated to be cut might be and their impact on citizens.

And to compound this, they also DIDN'T mention which Broward commissioners voted for or against the 2011 budget, nor display the names or tally on-screen.

Yes, actual votes by elected officials, that boring civics stuff, especially when compared to talking about dopey Miami wannabe celebs, whom we just know in our hearts will be loathed across the country like they already are among their small circle of friends in the 305 or 954.

And if you're thinking globally not locally, the antidote for all that shallowness, banality and low-quality journalism is closer at hand than you might otherwise think.

And no, I'm not talking about the new and highly-popular Breaking News Twitter feeds, http://twitter.com/BREAKINGNEWS, though for some people, though not me personally, that may actually be a nice addition to their handy news toolbox.

I've written often here over the past year or so about how much I've integrated the Channel 4 News (U.K.) and BBC Radio 5 live diet of news and information into my busy schedule to make more sense of the world.

Website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/5live/#two
Listen LIVE: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/bbc_radio_five_live

Especially since I no longer get the hard copies of all the international relations and foreign policy journals I subscribed to when I was living up in the Washington, D.C. area, and actually could use what I already knew and had read at events at embassies, the IMF, the World Bank, SAIS and myriad think tanks, plus the great schedule of Russian-related events they had over at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center, under Blair Ruble, back when it was inside of the Smithsonian's castle on The Mall.
http://wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm
http://wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1424&fuseaction=topics.profile&person_id=4997

The very informative post-Noon Channel 4 email news updates I receive like clockwork before 1 p.m., the so-called Snowmail, named after veteran news presenter Jon Snow, and authored by him and other Channel 4 correspondents, gives me a real insightful head's up for what to expect later in the day on that night's newscast at 1900 G.M.T., but which I watch much later.

The fabulous Catch Up service on their website allows me to look back at anything that I may have missed within the past 7 days, which tends to happen a lot in the middle of the week due to evening local government meetings I attend.

As I've stated here previously, I often find myself watching the missed news segments on Saturday mornings before I get around to watching the Premier League matches on Fox Soccer Channel, or something on The BigTenChannel.

Plus, the Channel 4 broadcasts are broken down into news segments that are embeddable, thus making them perfect for blogs and websites, as I've used plenty here over the past year to great effect.

Well, at the end of September I received this new video from London that's p at the top of this post, and I think it gives you a pretty good appreciation for what is now available to you if you want to know what's going on in the real world outside of the rather shallow intellectual confines of the Sunshine State.

Such a deeply distressing story on so many levels...

Aid worker may have been killed by US grenade in Afghanistan

Jonathan Rugman reports aid worker Linda Norgrove may have been killed by US grenade in Afghanistan.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid601325122001?bctid=631900533001


Channel 4 News homepage: http://www.channel4.com/news/

Channel 4 News Catch Up Service: http://www.channel4.com/news/catch-up/

Channel 4 Blogs homepage: http://blogs.channel4.com/news/