Phairness Doctrine

I read a letter to the editor in a recent TIME Magazine (8/24/09) from a gentleman in Raleigh, NC. He was weighing in on Henry Louis Gates, Jr. being arrested in his home. He posed the question: “Why is everyone overlooking the fact that Gates immediately starting mouthing off and playing the race card? A cop’s job is tough enough. Why couldn’t he have simply answered the officer’s questions and said, ‘Thanks for looking out for us.’?” While this is certainly a simplistic answer to what Mr. Gates could have done in response to being questioned in his own home, I don’t want to argue that Mr. Gates’ response was completely without fault. But, we should remember for what it was Mr. Gates was arrested. The official reason for his arrest was based on him “exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior”. Let me say that again. Mr. Gates was arrested, in his own home, for exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior. This, after having done nothing wrong whatsoever. With this in...

I can't believe I'm still hearing people talk about this notion of a "death panel" being a part of the health care bill. I switched over to Sean Hannity during my lunch hour (for my daily dose of increased blood pressure) and he's going on with this ridiculous lie as if it's true, using words like "mandatory" and "orwellian". There is no such thing as a death panel. Nothing even close. Here's what's in the bill: A provision in the House bill written by Rep. Earl Blumenauer , D-Ore., would allow Medicare to pay doctors for voluntary counseling sessions that address end-of-life issues. The conversations between doctor and patient would include living wills , making a close relative or a trusted friend your health care proxy, learning about hospice as an option for the terminally ill , and information about pain medications for people suffering chronic discomfort. The sessions would be covered every five years, more freque...

Back in May of 2008, the Nintendo Wii gaming system had been on the market for a year and a half, but sales were still outpacing supply. According to cnet.news at the time, "the Wii is still essentially sold out online; we couldn't find the console available to buy from major retailers like Amazon.com, Best Buy, and Circuit City ." Meanwhile, Wii's competitors, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, were both readily available online. What was their response to Wii's inability to satiate their customer's demands? Well, it's obvious, isn't it? Of course they pointed out that the Wii was a complete and utter failure and suggested Nintendo should get out of the gaming world completely. I mean, if their customers liked their product so much that Nintendo couldn't keep up with demand, then they must have been a failure. Right? Of course not. But, it's that very same argument we're hearing some make against the wildly successful Cash for Clunkers ...

It’s the beginning of August here in Las Vegas. We’re coming off the 5th hottest July on record, but the desert heat is nothing compared to the seething heat being generated by the Right Wing in response to the health care reform debate raging in D.C. With the Democrats controlling both the House and the Senate, the Republicans find themselves in a less than enviable position when it comes to fighting health care reform. So, what are the Republicans doing now that they’ve lost the election and have nothing intelligent left to add? They're acting like spoiled little brats. That’s exactly what they’re doing. They do it in many ways… they call names, they cry, that yell, they pout, they kick their feet. And now, in their latest act of petulance, they’ve taken to disrupting town hall meetings around the country. Their strategy isn’t to debate the issues at hand, but instead they’re content with disrupting these town halls to the point where no one can get a word in edgewise. Better to...

Okay, we all know Fox News kills the competition when it comes to the ratings. This has been going on for some time now. But, given their huge ratings, and their obvious right-wing, conservative slant, how is it that Barack Obama won the last presidential election? Why didn't Fox News' huge ratings success translate to John McCain winning in a landslide? Well, that's because television (and radio) ratings don't necessarily translate to the viewpoint of the country as a whole. I can remember hearing the ratings for the local radio stations while living in Los Angeles and discovering that the one Spanish speaking station in town continually got the highest ratings (this was a few years back when there was only one Spanish speaking station in LA). That just didn't make any sense to me. I knew of several stations that seemed to have a large following... the pop station (KIIS-FM), the rock station (KLOS-FM), the alternative rock station (KROQ-FM)... the dance stati...

I found it interesting how Robert Gibbs was recently grilled over the Obama administration's supposed "lack of transparency" in regard to the health care town hall conducted in Annandale, VA. Did we hear this same outrage when President Bush went to Iraq to stage a town hall and handpicked the soldiers and told them what to ask? Was Scott McClellan grilled about that? How about the whole Jeff Gannon debacle? Here's a guy who was given daily access to the White House press room and served up softball questions meant to make President Bush look good. And Gannon wasn't even a real member of the press. Now THAT's what I call a true lack of transparency. But, what really gets me about this situation is the complaint about the lack of transparency on President Obama's part. True lack of transparency would have meant that Obama's team would have chosen the methods for fielding questions for the town hall, but wouldn't have been honest about how it was d...