[Grovenet] Social Security

[Eric Canon]

--- Steven <NoSpam03 at comcast.net> wrote:

> Please correlate school funding to good
> education.

Well Steven, I thought you were on vacation or
something. Welcome back!

While I dream up a response to your question of
me, please respond to what I wrote last week to
you, which you must have missed:

--- Steven <NoSpam03 at comcast.net> wrote:

> Aw, heck. Now you blew it. Eric was trying to
> explain to me why it is OK to
> make something up when your name's not Rove. :)

Katie didn't blow it. Katie never blows it. She's
always right on.

Jeane and I went to Crater Lake, and then over
through the John Day area to Baker City and
Joseph. Beautiful country! Gorgeous! I love it
here, but over there is wonderful, too. In fact,
there were even some liberals over there, so we
were not entirely on our own.

For some reason, in spite of being a born and
raised Oregonian, I had never seen the Blue
Mountains or the Wallowas. What a sight! I wished
for Robert Van Natta or Bud to be riding along
with us to answer questions about the forests.

We also saw the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center
just out of Baker City, and that was fascinating.
We come from some tough stock. Coming across the
country was not for sissies.

But I digress: Steven, I've said several times
already that falsifying the news is not OK,
whether Rove or NBC or whomever. I responded to
your clip because, in my opinion, it was more
fallacious and inflammatory than the exhibits it
"exposed". None of it was journalism. It was all
repugnant to me.

As for sources of news, I use NPR, The Oregonian,
The New Yorker and Newsweek primarily. Long ago I
gave up on all the rest unless it's live coverage
of an unfolding event. Then I surf.

I do not feel one needs to endure the
sensationalism of commercial news to be informed.
When news is reported merely to sell ads,
especially today, I turn the channel. 

I'm an old dude. It used to be done with so much
more dignity. Specifically, I refer to Walter
Cronkite, Huntley Brinkley, and, locally, Tom
McCall, and Paul Linnman. These were journalists!
You endured the ads for the quality of the
reporting, not the sordidness of the stories
covered. I loved the news with those people!
Today, it's pretty much NPR. There may be other
sources, too, of which I'm ignorant, but I do not
subject my tender sensibilities to the insult of
some of this trash people call "news". It is not!
And at NPR they almost always have two people of
different persuasions, sometimes sitting at the
same desk, so that the viewer gets at least two
sides of an issue. Then I can decide, after I get
the facts.

That said, please Steven, help me out. I see Carl
Rove, and the commercial press in general, and
FOX in particular, as in lock step. Carl Rove is
the worst kind of spinner of the facts. He is not
interested in the least with getting facts out
for a decision from you and me. Rather, he spins
facts and falsehoods to make the decision for us,
to reflect his own view. Of course Kerry is a
coward and a liar. Look what these vets who were
there have to say about him! Our boy Bush? He
served honorably in the National Guard. Record?
Oh, sorry, those were lost.

For an equivalent from my side of things (liberal
and D), I suppose the one I could offer is
Clinton's guy (what's his name?), but does he lie
and deceive? He spins, and you may not agree, but
he is not Carl Rove. There's a difference.

Am I wrong? Who is the D equivalent of Carl Rove
in your eyes?

Another potential area for misunderstanding is
"Flat  Fatima". I am not familiar with the term
or the person or where it comes from.