JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY (part 3)

You know, I've been thinking about what the Eugene FEEBLY said about Bruce Anderson not being able to continue AVA OREGON!, and the smug, supercilious kicking of a man when he's down continues to irk me.

After all, he decided against breaking a story about the "big-time journalists" who run the paper and their little "gaffe" around Christmas time. Might as well break it now. After all: fair's fair.

You see, the FEEBLY is entirely run by ads. It started out as "WHAT'S HAPPENING" which was, fundamentally, a club guide. You'll note that the club and entertainment guide is still the core of the paper.

It was only in the mid-90s that the paper was "retasked" into a pseudo-"Alternative" paper. Right.

They started raking muck where there was no muck, and NOT raking muck where there was. I ran for office earlier this year, and even though I put in their hands the state documents proving that HD8 "Representative" Holvey was a creature of his PACs, and received 92% of his shitbucket of cash from outside the district (75% from out of state), and I only ran to expose this whole sleazy cabal, the FEEBLY decided that the information wasn't interesting.

Get that? NOT interesting. NOT newsworthy. After kvetching about the mingiest pinhead that ever danced on the head of an angel, the utter corruption of our local politics (in the only contested primary race) wasn't worthy of their inflated self-image.

They haven't mentioned anything about it to this day. And, while I gave the documented info to EVERY other Lane County media outlet, no one else felt it worthy of mention, even though every citizen I've talked to about it has, WITHOUT FAIL, been shocked.

Well, that kind of sleazy complicity with corruption is par for the course here in Lane County, and if there were ONE overriding reason that AVA OREGON! deserved to survive, it was because Bruce Anderson had the balls to reveal the REAL scoop.

So forgive me if I think that the FEEBLY is basically glorified parakeet cage liner. Generally, the parakeets contribute the best material to the paper.

But at New Year's the FEEBLY outdid even its own abysmal track record, a gaffe that should have made them a laughing stock in local media circles. But word one was never spoken in the local media. There is a sort of honor among thieves; call it a complicity of hacks.

What was this little gaffe?

Er, in 96 point reverse-out headline type, on the back cover, in their "special" cooperative advertising orgy for 2005, the following astute journalism was distributed to 98,000 eager parakeets:

NEW
YEAR'S
2004

(click here to see the picture: http://www.hartwilliams.com/images/newyea1.jpg )

Like I said: Not a word. Jesus. Don't these imbeciles pay ANY attention at all?

Guess they're too busy kicking mud in the face of the only honest editor in Eugene -- not willing to kick him when he's up; only when he's down.

When you can't even get the year right, who the hell are you to comment on ... anything?

But that's "journalistic integrity" in Eugene, Oregon.

Woof.

(Oh yeah, Happy Birthday Abe Lincoln! The Tyranny of the Three Day Weekend has erased you, press-boarding your sawdust with George Washington into the cheap siding of "President's Day" but some of us still remember.)

JOURNALISTIC "INTEGRITY" (part 2)

As long as we're on the subject, guess what I read in the local "free" paper, the Eugene FEEBLY ... er, WEAKLY ... er, WEEKLY?

It's in "Slant: Short opinion pieces and rumor-chasing notes." Check it out:

A couple of weeks ago we asked AVA Oregon! (lack of italicization is sic) publisher Bruce Anderson about rumors that he's returning to California, and he denied it. Turns out we asked the wrong question. He's staying in town, but his newspaper is going away, unless of course he finds someone to bankroll future issues. The R-G gave AVA's demise about 200 words Saturday, buried on D3, getting less attention than the Springfield mayor's plans to go on TV for five minutes each week to answer questions. Back in November, the R-G gave Anderson's arrival in town two prominent stories, a photo and a total of 2,000 words. The Oregonian (no italics sic) weighed in with a big story, The New York Times (also sic) gave Anderson's move to Eugene 1,200 words, and the February Editor & Publisher (sic) devoted four full pages to Anderson, "the Jeffrey Dahmer of journalism." Hype generates hype, and it turns to whimpers.

Speaking of the daily rag, up until now the R-G's long-term, full-text archives have only been accessible on a fee basis. But if you have a Eugene Public Library card, you can gain access to the paper's full-text archives for free, along with other newspapers and magazines ....

Er ... I'll pass on the fundamental churlishness, and obvious jealousy of the first piece (ironically in the Valentine's issue, entitled the "Love" issue and featuring two banana slugs copulating on the cover in the "69" position), and address the second.

My second piece in AVA OREGON! was researched entirely at the library, using the microfilm archive of the paper, so it's been there for at least three months. This isn't unusual, frankly: I used to read all the back issues of the Santa Fe NEW MEXICAN at the state library in SF, and spent many an hour reading back issues of LIFE, TIME, The Laramie DAILY BOOMERANG and the NEW YORK SLIMES (sic - see yesterday's blog entry) at the Coe Library of the University of Wyoming, using their microfilm readers when I was in grade school and junior fucking HIGH SCHOOL, man!

Wow! Advanced technology! Public libraries! Archived newspapers! Amazing! What a tool for journalists! Congrats to the FEEBLY for having dug up this important piece of information!

You gotta hand it to the WEAKLY for only discovering this week that the old issues of the local paper are archived at the library and that you can (gasp) READ them on the microfilm machine! What perspicacity! What journalistic integrity! What deep-digging for truth!

Sorry:

What horse shit!!

And they have the temerity to rag on US for having threatened their (evidently illiterate) 98,000 readership (as touted) with AVA OREGON!'s what, one THOUSAND? I guess it's just sour grapes.

[In case any of the "investigative journalists" with the FEEBLY are reading this, you can find "sour grapes" in Aesop. They probably even have a copy at the library. I'm glad to learn that you've finally discovered it.]

In fact, their "ace" reporter, Alan Pittman (a misspelling, evidently, of "Piltdown") might just learn the difference between "site" and "cite" and "reign" and "rein," -- as pointed out in a letter in this week's paper. Unfortunately, the reader failed to notice Pittman's greatest spelling error: the consistent error of confusing "reportage" with "vicious gossip."

Sadly, the Emperor hath no clothes, and the FEEBLY hath no couth.

But they gots lots of "journalistic integrity" (even if they hadn't ever been to a public library until last week). Oh yeah.

"Carp globally; kvetch locally."
. . -- my new bumpersticker

"JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY"

I have always maintained that the ONLY time this hoary cliche is evoked is when somebody has fucked up royally. It has always been true in my writing career. Whenever an editor has gone beyond the pale, or done something utterly corrupt and unethical -- usually with your humble correspondent as the victim -- the phrase is trotted out. Watch for it this week.

Why do I say that?

Well, first, FAIR.ORG caught the New York Times (hereinafter "SLIMES") not only killing a report on the President's "hump" in the debates, clearly showing the White House's explanations to be lies and establishing fairly convincingly that it WAS a receiver so that Bushie Boy could cheat -- the problem NOT being that he didn't do it effectively; the problem being that he DID it at all. No: they caught the SLIMES covering up the report.

Disgusting and MUST reading. Go to:

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2012

The Emperor's New Hump
The New York Times killed a story that could have changed the election-because it could have changed the election

Second, it turns out they've had a press shill in the White House Press Room for a long time now, a bogus "reporter" who was called on at opportune times to foist the party line or ask the question McClellan/Rove and Fleischer wanted asked. I received this from democrats.com today:

Sign the petition and spread the word! http://democrats.com/gannon

To: George W. Bush, Alberto Gonzales, Congress, and the Media

We demand the appointment of a Special Prosecutor to investigate the "journalist" using the pseudonym "Jeff Gannon" (James Dale Guckert) who attended daily press briefings at the White House and was regularly called upon by Scott McClellan.

Obviously "Jeff Gannon" is not a bona fide journalist and should never have been given White House press credentials.

In 2003, top White House officials gave "Jeff Gannon" exclusive access to an internal CIA memo that named Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a covert CIA agent.It is obvious that there was a conspiracy between "Gannon," McClellan, and other top White House officials to run "smear" campaigns against White House "enemies" and to interfere with tough questions by real White House reporters.

This is unacceptable in a Democracy. In addition, "Jeff Gannon" may have dabbled in male prostitution rings (through registration of sites like Hotmilitarystud.com, Militaryescorts.com, and Militaryescortsm4m.com) which raises the possibility he was bringing male prostitutes into the White House or other institutions of our government.

These issues go infinitely beyond the charges involving Monica Lewinsky and therefore demand immediate investigation and prosecution.

To which I respond: Good Fucking Luck.

No: the point I wanted to raise was my letter to my "friend" at the WASHINGTON POST (never responded to, by the by) about the use of professional shills at the State of the Union and other speeches.

Do you NOW think that such a suspicion is beyond the pale?

Not damned likely.

But the Washington POST will, like the New York SLIMES, pretend that nothing happened and go back to reporting the abduction of action figures with all the sobriety of a 1940s judge in a cunt-lapping case (ask me to tell the story sometime). Imagine the Foghorn Leghorn voice, and insert appropriate dialog.

Journalistic integrity, above all.

NOW YOU KNOW WHY IT'S CALLED A "BLOG"

Because that's the sound it generally makes when this wet, squishy mental ... er ... STUFF hits the gray matter of the brain.

Last night, for the first time in about five years, I played an open mike.

It was great. I was rusty, but it's always an amazing feeling to walk into a bar a complete stranger, charm them out of their socks from the stage and leave everybody's friend with promises to return next week.

I miss the stage. I spent years learning my chops, and like,riding a bicycle, your body doesn't forget them: covering the lapses between songs with snappy banter, intros, outros, and even getting the audience to sing my traditional cheesy Country & Western Zen closing song.

And then tax returns until 8 AM. Middle of season, now, and I'm the "math and theory" person, a glorified term for a hybridized proofreader.

When I was in college, I graded math papers for my work study. When I was a young editor, I supplimented my income as a proofreader (and often as a typesetter, proofing was part of the duties, as well).

So I proofread tax returns, which is, basically, both.

And the sound that makes in my brain is ...

BLOG.

Glug.

Back to M + Th. See ya in the mourning (sic).

SPACE GRAVEL REVISITED

Here's some interesting info on Chiron that I didn't know until Sunday night:

"There are also a few "asteroids" (designated as "Centaurs") in the outer solar system: 2060 Chiron (aka 95 P/Chiron) orbits between Saturn and Uranus; the orbit of 5335 Damocles ranges from near Mars to beyond Uranus; 5145 Pholus orbits from Saturn to past Neptune. There are probably many more, but such planet-crossing orbits are unstable and they are likely to be perturbed in the future. The composition of these objects is probably more like that of comets or the Kuiper Belt objects than that of ordinary asteroids. In particular, Chiron is now classified as a comet."

(from: http://www.nineplanets.org/asteroids.html )

And this:

"Finally, there is the case of 2060 Chiron, discovered in 1977 by Charles Kowal at the Palomar Observatory near San Diego, Calif., U.S. This object was originally classified as an asteroid, but in 1989 the American astronomers Karen J. Meech and Michael J. Belton observed a dusty coma surrounding it, and in 1991 Schelte J. Bus, also of the United States, and his colleagues detected the presence of cyanogen radicals, a known constituent of the gas comas of comets. Chiron travels in an orbit that lies wholly outside of the asteroid belt, having a perihelion distance of 8.43 AU (between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn) and an aphelion distance of 18.8AU, which nearly reaches the orbit of Uranus at 19.2 AU. Because Chiron moves in a chaotic, planet-orbit-crossing orbit, astronomers believe that it will eventually collide with a planet or be permanently ejected from the solar system."

(from: http://www.space.com/reference/brit/debris/asteroids_index.html )

So this whole Chiron "astrological" bullshit is just fakir snobbery from the last 20 years or so.

Oh, and here's the "Real Scoop" from some moronic Astrology site. Now that you know that real deal about Chiron, read and laugh. It IS to laugh:

"CHIRON Chiron, discovered in 1977, was named after a centaur (half human, half horse) who was healer and teach (sic) to many gods. When he died he was place (sic) in the sky as the constellation Sagittarius*. Chiron appears to rule philos0phy and healing, and represents the principalof holistic understanding. In a chart is (sic) can indicate an open-minded perspective and the ability to look beyond the limitations of current views. Chiron seems to add a spirit of uniqueness and enthusiasm as well as some self-righteous tendencies to natal charts. A keyword associated with Chiron is "maverick".

Examples: Anita Byrant, Martin Luther King, and Jerry Brown all
have Jupiter-Chiron aspects while Timothy Leary has Chiron square Pluto."

(from: http://www.astrology3d.com/educenter/asteroids.html )

* NOTE: Sagittarius is NOT Chiron in mythology. Sorry, pal. And don't you mean that Leary HAD that aspect? And King is, as well, in the past tense. (OK. Now I'm past being tense.)

(Dumbasses).

Aargh.

"Fools must pretend to be wise/ we've a faith that we wear as a heavy disguise."
-- Hudson/Ford (formerly of Strawbs)