Language abuse!

[muckefuck]

"For that reason [the bombings in Turkey], we're expecting a solidly weak open [in trading]."

From CNN Headline News this morning. I watched a few minutes of it and immediately regretted it. Top story: Michael Jackson. What else? Who cares about car bombings when a major celebrity is being charged with molestation? From now on, I turn to the Internet when I need a news fix.

Strange day yesterday. I felt wonderful in the morning--between the sunshine and the fading of my sinus headache, it was like I had a new lease. Then, around lunchtime, things went downhill and by the time I got to monshu's, I had chills, a light fever, and no energy to speak of. Now I feel good enough that I'm gong to risk going in. Odd. I have the sensation of being just above sickness, that no matter how well I feel, some added strain could push me under again.

But I must get to work today. It's half-off day at the booksale!

Comments

[lhn.livejournal.com]

From CNN Headline News this morning. I watched a few minutes of it and immediately regretted it. Top story: Michael Jackson. What else? Who cares about car bombings when a major celebrity is being charged with molestation? From now on, I turn to the Internet when I need a news fix.

Yah. At this point, I'd say the only reason to watch TV news is that it's arguably important to know how the major TV outlets are prioritizing and spinning the news. (Since AFAIK that's still how most Americans get news.) Generally, this isn't sufficient to get me to watch it.

Though for my sins, I do tend to listen to public radio in the car. (I'm not a very music-oriented person, and I find regular talk radio fairly annoying much of the time, so that leaves either WBEZ or WBBM repeating the same headlines every eight minutes.) So, for example, while driving to mollpeartree's knitting/trash TV night, I got to listen to PRI's "Marketplace" (which IIRC used to be more balanced due to having input from the Economist) get a balanced look at the mood of London on the eve of the Bush visit by interviewing "Red Ken" Livingstone and George "Paid Agent of Saddam, No, Really" Galloway. Livingstone is at least justifiable as the mayor of London, but it's odd that the only MP they got a quote from is the one who was expelled from the Labour party for encouraging British troops to mutiny while inciting the enemy to fight them. Nor, apparently, could they find any of the plurality of Britons who favored the Bush visit to talk to.

The annoying thing is that public radio often covers issues that don't get a lot of play elsewhere. While getting their spin on the war or health care is merely irritating ("Marketplace" also had a "news" piece last week that was pure "businesses should support adopting the Canadian system," with no contrary opinions or examination of the tradeoffs), it's much more frustrating where they're my only source of information on a problem or controversy.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

For my sins, NPR is this only radio station that comes in clearly on my antiquated, hand-me-down clock radio--and I can't stand to wake to the buzzer. There's a cronkite, comforting quality in the voices of Bob Edwards and Carl Kassel that eases me into the day, even when they're telling me how many people got blowed up the day before.

As for Galloway, wasn't the Telegraph forced to retract its accusations after some of the documents it obtained were shown to have been forged?

[lhn.livejournal.com]

For my sins, NPR is this only radio station that comes in clearly on my antiquated, hand-me-down clock radio--and I can't stand to wake to the buzzer. There's a cronkite, comforting quality in the voices of Bob Edwards and Carl Kassel that eases me into the day, even when they're telling me how many people got blowed up the day before.

Yeah, I wake up to them too, despite the occasional nightmare scenario. (I remember a long period of semi-sleep during the '92 campaign where they were doing some sort of montage of Al Gore leading supporters in chants of "Four more months! Four more months!" I imagine that it was only a few minutes really, but in my memory it was an hour of rhythmic Gore-chanting.)

As for Galloway, wasn't the Telegraph forced to retract its accusations after some of the documents it obtained were shown to have been forged?

The Christian Science Monitor retracted its claims regarding different papers implicating Galloway. According to the linked article, the expert that found the Monitor's documents to be forgeries said that the Telegraph's documents were "consistent, unlike their Monitor counterparts, with authentic Iraqi documents he has seen." As of now, the Telegraph is standing by the story, and Galloway is pursuing a libel action against it.

[mollpeartree.livejournal.com]

I had my own NPR moment when a cabdriver happened to have it on one day. It was right after the 9/11 report had been issued with 25 pages on the Saudis blacked out, and NPR was interviewing their “expert” about why this might be, and why some people seemed to think the Saudis were some kind of a danger instead of our loyal allies. And the guy went on and on about how Saudi Arabia just seemed to be some kind of incubation area for extremists despite their best efforts to maintain order, and how the Saudis thought the deletions made them look bad and they were very angry about it and wanted the uncensored report released immediately. I said to princeofcairo, “Why doesn’t the guy mention that members of the Saudi royal family funded 9/11? Because that would be why everyone wants to see what’s in that report. And maybe Bush doesn’t want anyone to see because it says that “Bandar Bush” made the call authorizing it from his cell phone while on vacation with Bush on the ranch in Crawford, or something else equally embarrassing to the White House, which is also why the Saudis can angrily demand its publication till the cows come home at no actual risk to themselves.” And princeofcairo said “Because that would involve acknowledging that there is a war on terrorism.”

I mean, just deal with the missed opportunity to question Dubya’s motives there. Some biases are so deep you can’t even remember where you put them.

[gopower.livejournal.com]

In CNN's defense, a lot of people need to know how the market opens in the morning, though by the time CNN gets around to it, we're all slaving away at our desks already.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

The particular sin in this case was not reporting on the market, it was the oxymoronic phrase "solidly weak". Perhaps I should've italicised it.

[gopower.livejournal.com]

Hey, I make my living, such as it is, coming up with crap like that!