Who needs to know this?

(Warning: Some mention of inappropriate material here.)

The headline on CNN reads, “Lusty e-mails make news anchors blush.”

How, exactly, is the public served with this stuff? I don’t need to know what Gov. Sanford and his mistress said to each other. I read part of one such story, then realized that this wasn’t advancing my understanding of the case … and quit. I get it. He had an affair. That’s all the information I need to know. I don’t care what he said about her hands holding what … and I don’t want to know anything else he might have said.

The same applies to previous scandals. We knew details about the Monica Lewinski-Bill Clinton affair that were unnecessary (the cigar story, for instance). I really didn’t need to hear this in order to know what I needed to know about the story.

Very rapidly, news coverage has degenerated into pure sensationalism. In the interest of keeping a 24-hour news cycle going, no one is monitoring whether the news is “fit to print,” as the old slogan goes. If it’s being said, it must be good enough.

There are several reasons why there should be some exercise of discretion. First of all, Gov. Sanford’s family doesn’t deserve this. The affair happened. They don’t need every detail of every failure trotted out for the world to see. I can’t think of a single reason to torture them like this.

Second, it contributes nothing to the story. Sanford’s affair would be no more appropriate if not for the e-mails, and they don’t really make it any worse.

Third, there is the public. Thanks to Bill Clinton, we all had to explain to our kids who happened to be in the room with the news what “oral sex” means. I don’t see that exposing families to more racy “news items” is helpful in any way.

The excuse, I’m sure, is that if one agency didn’t run it, they’d just be scooped by someone else. If not Fox, then CNN would have. If not CNN, then MSNBC. If not MSNBC, then ABC, and so on …

For the record, I have not heard them mentioned on NPR. The story was covered, then the news went on to other things without the graphic details. Although I’ve read stories on other web sites, I don’t think that I’ve learned anything else useful.

If the story makes the anchors blush, then maybe they should consider what it does to parents trying to watch the news with their families, and exercise a little journalistic restraint.

Or is that too much to ask these days?

Hiatus

I might as well admit it and get rid of the pressure of trying to post anything …

I’m going to take some time off from here. I’m stalling most of my scheduled posts for a bit, since they’re supposed to keep momentum for a series, and there will be even less happening here than usual.

On Friday, my sons are coming over for the week. That means I need some time to get the house in order, and then the following week is spoken for. Then, there’s a baby coming on 7/8. From there, there’s taking care of said baby and of my wife and Eagle.

I promise, I’ll post the appropriate baby details as soon as feasible. Mostly, though, I’m going to be much more of a blog-reader-and-comment-maker than blogger for a while.

Tomorrow, by the way, I have an interview for a position at my wife’s school. I’m not at all sure what that would do to the whole mix.

In any case, I’ll be around, if not as much as usual. Take care, and I’ll “see” (for lack of a better word) you around.

My beef with talk radio, part III: Sean Hannity

This is probably the end of this series. I’d thought about going on to Michael Savage, but he’s far more of a fringe character, and so my real problem with the Big Three — Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity — doesn’t apply as much.

Still, here we are. Of these three, I feel the least objection to Mr. Hannity. Unlike Beck, who is basically crazy; and Limbaugh, who will say anything to make sure that he keeps his buzz going; I think that Hannity has the potential to be reasonable. I think that, generally, he believes what he says.

What he doesn’t do, though, is give a lot of thought to his positions. Hannity is pretty reliably a spokesman for the conventional wisdom. This is too bad, because I think that Hannity has the potential to stand out among these three as one who is honest and committed to what’s really right, rather than just what’s Right.

My beef with talk radio, part II: Rush Limbaugh

Continuing this series …

Yesterday, I hit on my gripes with Glenn Beck. When his show ends, though, we’re treated to the most popular radio talk show host in the country … Rush Limbaugh. Arguably, he’s the leader of the Republican Party and/or the conservative movement. I would contend that he’s a disaster for both.

I’m not really sure where to begin with Mr. Limbaugh. As a matter of political strategy, holding with him represents a disaster. The man enjoys using inflammatory rhetoric, dishonest accusations, and childish name-calling. He calls this refusing to give in and standing up for his principles. In fact, though, it has the effect of ruining one’s ability to persuade others.

I, for example, enter discussions with the hope that people will change their minds and come to agree with my position. That isn’t possible if I turn others off by calling them names over and over again.

Rush Limbaugh, though, doesn’t seem to care about persuasion. Rather, I think he’s in it for the amusement. I don’t know if he actually cares about the position that he claims. Part of me suspects that he’s nothing more than a performer — he’s taken on the role of Rush Limbaugh the Crusader and plays his part in such a way that he does his job. His job, remember, is to build a radio audience and attract advertising. It isn’t to advance any kind of social or political agenda.

My beef with talk radio, part I: Glenn Beck

I’ve been asked, with varying degrees of politeness, exactly why I have such a problem with three particular talk radio hosts. I listen to Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity a reasonable amount of time each week, but not because I want their input particularly. Rather, it’s because I am monitoring what they’re saying and I don’t want to be accused of criticizing them without actually listening to them.

I have often remarked that people who accuse NPR of being radically left-biased never actually listen to NPR (a statement which stands up pretty well, by the way), and I don’t want to have the same charge thrown back at me.

So, what exactly is my problem with these guys?

I suppose the best thing to do, really, is go through them one at a time. Lacking any other logic, I’ll go with chronological order by air time …

Inflaming and blaming

Over the past few months, we’ve had a lot of conversations about who is saying too much and who is engaging in irresponsible speech. Paul Krugman wrote about that in today’s New York Times, and it’s worth spending a moment looking at his column.

The first thing I have to mention is something I believe he got wrong –

He said that Glenn Beck …

warned viewers that the Federal Emergency Management Agency might be building concentration camps as part of the Obama administration’s “totalitarian” agenda (although he eventually conceded that nothing of the kind was happening).

I listen to Beck quite a bit, and the only time I’ve heard him mention the alleged FEMA camps was when he had an expert from Popular Mechanics on to debunk these stories. (I never did get why PM was the source for that, but they had apparently sent someone out to look into these stories.) As much as I think Beck is off his rocker, I have to call this one for inaccuracy.

Predictably, Mr. Krugman only sees hatred from the Right. That, frankly, undermines his credibility in this piece. If one is looking for hate-filled rhetoric, and wants to combat it, then one should go after ALL hateful rhetoric. After all, if it’s wrong for Rush Limbaugh to call feminist leaders “feminazis” (which it is, by the way) then the same principle should apply to members of the Bush administration. As much as I disapprove of the NSA domestic wireless wiretapping program, its supporters are not, in fact, Nazis. They are people with different principles and priorities than mine.

Nationalism is idolatry

I’ve started and stopped this post several times this week. Here goes …

(Side note … It still doesn’t feel right, but I’m posting this because I need to get the post done. It’s taken me most of a week to write this borderline-drivel. I had other issues about which to write.)

Friday night, a speaker at a rally in Virginia said this:

“The notion that we are just one of many among equals is nonsense,” [he] said. The United States is a “blessed” nation, he said, calling American revolutionaries’ defeat of the British empire “a miracle from God’s hand.”

Before I get into the details of who said this, I need to address a couple things. First of all, I have been unable to find an unedited transcript or any kind of video of this speech. It was closed to the press, but carried on God.tv, a web site to which I do not subscribe and so am unable to dig anything up. It is possible that the quote is badly out of context … and I hope so.

The reason for this, of course, is that the statement is erroneous in a great many ways. First of all, the idea that the US holds a special blessing from God is indefensible in any logical or Scriptural way. First of all … Why should God choose another country? He has identified a special and chosen nationality group, and it certainly isn’t clear why He would need a new one. Frankly, that didn’t work out so well, anyway … the modern state of Israel is one of the most secular countries on the planet, and certainly not anything remotely like a Christian nation.

Loud pipes and all that …

Later this month will be Bike Week, when the city of Laconia, NH concedes that it just can’t control the streets for a while. It rather makes me wish I didn’t like so near Route 11.

Anyway … the popular slogan for a certain category of motorcyclist is “loud pipes save lives,” apparently claiming that they need really loud motors so that we people driving normal cars don’t run over motorcyclists. To an extent, I can see this concern. However, there are some other things that save lives:

Christian Carnival 269

I know, I haven’t mentioned the Christian Carnival in a long time.

That’s because I haven’t been participating. Anyway … this week I did, and the Carnival is up at Participatory Bible Study Blog. It’s themed to summer vacations (themes … one of those clever things I’ve never mastered), and it looks pretty good. Since it’s 1:30, I’m going to bed, but I’ll be perusing it thoroughly at a more-civilized hour.

Enjoy!

Sotomayor

I haven’t really weighed in on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor before now for exactly one reason: I wanted to get my facts together.

I have spent some time wading through the fluff that makes up most of political discussion — Pat Buchanan is charging that she’s just an affirmative action nominee (side note: why does anyone still give Pat Buchanan air time?), many talkers on the Right are accusing her of being a racist, and then there’s the unfortunate remark she made about appellate judges making policy.

However, let’s get some thing together here, before we start: President Obama is never going to appoint a nominee who really excites me. He’s not going to pick a judge who lives by the original intent of the Founders, and it’s unlikely that any candidate is getting past the vetting process without giving an assurance that s/he will uphold Roe v. Wade. In case anyone didn’t notice, President Obama won the Presidential election rather handily, and both houses of Congress are pretty solidly on his side. There is no reason to think that he’d even consider a genuine compromise candidate, much less another Scalia.

Given this, we have two main choices: first, we can take what we can get; or , second, we can simply obstruct.