Observations on today's funeral of Margaret Thatcher, THE most-important woman of the 20th Century, and for years, THE most-famous person. Period. History will remember her forever even as some of her political opponents and their professional social misfit allies are still rehashing the same feeble arguments that were thoroughly rejected three times by the British public when it counted -on Election Day; watch the funeral at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22151589

pressassociation·YouTube Channel video: Prime Minister David Cameron pays respects to Baroness Thatcher following the 87-year-old's death following a stroke. 

http://youtu.be/7lYolV88nLQ

UKParliament YouTube Channel: Tributes to Baroness Thatcher in the House of Commons Chamber. The House of Commons was recalled from the Easter Recess on Wednesday 10 April, to pay tribute to Baroness Thatcher via a general debate on the motion 'That this House has considered the matter of tributes to the Rt Hon Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven LG OM'. This excerpt consists of remarks by Prime Minister David Cameron and Opposition Leader Ed Milliband. Uploaded April 10, 2013.  http://youtu.be/KsTdIECilSs

Observations on today's funeral of Margaret Thatcher, THE most-important woman of the 20th Century, and for years, THE most-famous person. Period. History will remember her forever even as some of her political opponents and their professional social misfit allies are still rehashing the same feeble arguments that were thoroughly rejected three times by the British public when it counted -on Election Day; watch the funeral at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22151589

2:00 a.m.

I've got so very much to say about Margaret Thatcher that I've decided, rather reluctantly, and very much against my original plans from the weekend, to wait a few more days to posit it all at one time.

I did however want to share three columns -and some videos- that, to my way of thinking, offer the most spot-on assessments that have appeared in print or online since the news of Lady Thatcher's death last week, since they deal principally with the continuing power of her ideas and her ideals for making Great Britain strong and relevant again -Thatcherism.

I'm going to be watching the funeral at St. Paul's starting in a few hours, about 6 a.m. Eastern, via BBC News , which I'm watching right now as I type this.
You can watch it online now at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22151589

Wales Online

“She inspired love in her admirers, hatred in her foes and fear in her ministers. She dominated her Government and the nation like no other British leader since 1945.”

By Robert Llewellyn-Jones

14 Apr 2013 10:32

As a young reporter Sir Max Hastings felt like he had been hit by a "10-ton truck" after interviewing Mrs Thatcher when she was Secretary of State for Education in the 1970s

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/business/business-news/sir-max-hastings-late-margaret-2594155

The Guardian

The Iron Lady is dead but Thatcherism lives on

In death Margaret Thatcher has caused further division. 

The left has failed to convince enough people of the alternatives

By Gary Younge

11 April 2013 16.00 EDT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/11/iron-lady-dead-thatcherism-lives?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

Reason magazine
How Thatcher Liberated Western Europe
Even while saying "No. No. No," the famous Euro-skeptic helped the continent say yes to much-needed reforms
By Matt Welch
April 9, 2013
http://reason.com/archives/2013/04/09/how-thatcher-liberated-western-europe

For more information, see http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/lady-thatcher-1925-2013/

Brilliant because it's 100% true! TheWrap's Sharon Waxman interviews former LA Times editor Matt Welch on the persistent slide of the Times and why paywalls won't help but rather kill the patient -the newspaper

Reason Magazine editor-in-chief Matt Welch discusses the symbol-laden presidency of Barack Obama with Fox Business Channel's Stuart Varney.
http://youtu.be/b5W6KYFWN_Y


The blog post below is easily among the best things I've read, heard or seen all year, and I'm especially pleased that longtime HBB favorite Sharon Waxman is the one sharing the scoop with us via her blog on the website she created.


If you've read this blog for any period of time, you will know exactly why I feel this way, and just to give you a sense of the devastating and penetrating comments made by former Los Angles Times Assistant Editorial Page editor Matt Welch, now Editor-in-chief at Reason magazine, which he gave to Sharon on the telephone -wish I had the audio to play here!- take a look at this:

The paper is “blaming customers, blaming competition, blaming technology, instead of more forthrightly recognizing that the economics (of newspapers) got a lot worse,” he said. “If we don’t confront our own organizational pathologies, we’re in trouble.”

The Wrap
WaxWord blog
Former L.A. Times Editor Slams Paper For 'Blaming Customers, Competition, Technology'
By Sharon Waxman
Published: April 3, 2012 @ 2:58 pm, 

How badly does former Los Angeles Times editor Matt Welch think the paper is doing?

Its “attitude is killing the host,” he tweeted last weekend.

Read the rest of Sharon's post here -and be sure to read the readers comments!
http://www.thewrap.com/media/column-post/former-la-times-editor-slams-paper-blaming-customers-competition-technology-36768


For those of us like yours truly -and most of you reading this- far from The Left Coast who don't get the LA Times tossed into our front yard every morning, the costs under the LA Times: Digital Unlimited plan is 99 cents for the first four weeks, which includes unrestricted 24/7 access to latimes.com, plus special membership privileges, and then continues at $3.99 a week after promotional period, which comes out to roughly $196 for the year for digital access.

Here's a list of Welch's articles and blogs:  http://reason.com/people/matt-welch/all
Here's some pre-2007 pieces: http://mattwelch.com/


This post of Sharon's on Tuesday regarding the Tribune Company-owned Times actually follows by a few days an email I sent out last week about the decision of the Tribune's South Florida Sun-Sentinel to erect a paywall next week, and why I think that in their particular case -as opposed to the Chicago Tribune or even the Baltimore Sun, both of which are MUCH BETTER value-added newspapers- is positively a suicidal roll of the dice. 


I will post that email of mine online very soon.


And since many of you reading this probably never saw it the first time, I'll also include links to my critical and fact-filled email -and subsequent blog posts here- to  Miami Herald President and Publisher David Landsberg, with cc's to Herald executive editor Aminda Marques and managing editor Rick Hirsch regarding the Herald's continuing unsatisfactory news coverage of Broward County, which so often is either invisible when it should be anything but, or obtuse and condescending when it should be penetrating and hard-hitting.
As I said at the time, neither is acceptable.




Here's a list of Matt Welch's articles and blogs:  http://reason.com/people/matt-welch/all
Here's some pre-2007 pieces: http://mattwelch.com/