Lighter Side of Depression Economics

If you read Sunday's Pensacola Newsless Journal -- and there must be someone else out there who did -- you might have noticed a curious coincidence. Three out of three opinion columnists on the same day held forth on their optimistic views of the current economic mess. Two with measured optimism, one with what can only be called premature nostalgia.

Here's what we understand to be the central point of each column:

Carl Wernicke: Carl supposes, since he wasn't there at the time, that only "a few people died of starvation" during the Great Depression and some people "even enjoyed it at times." Not seeing any signs that birds are falling out of the sky or clouds have stopped scudding, he's loving the present economic troubles, too.

Carleton Proctor: Hectored by readers to find some "good news" in the economy, Proctor says "things could be worse." One might suppose he means this to be a comfort, not a prediction. One could be wrong.

Mark O'Brien: Looking backward, Mark wants us to know he had a terrific time during the recession of 1982, and since a New York Times headline he read says this one isn't (yet) nearly as bad, he thinks a lot of younger people some day will look back on today's recession and realize that they had a great time, too. Do we detect a note of future envy?

We don't know what they're putting in the water cooler down at the PNJ, but they ought to share it with the rest of us.

Independent Minds Answer...

... Michael Stewart is gone, alas.

From the Independent News (Aug. 28, 2008):

My name is Michael Stewart and I was an investigative reporter with the Pensacola News Journal.

News Journal Executive Editor Dick Schneider and Publisher Kevin Doyle fired me today.

To my many colleagues at the News Journal, I wish you the best.

I have also met many people I admire and respect in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties during my years at the News Journal and wish you the best of luck as well.

I just wanted to set the record straight on what happened before the spin machine kicks in gear.

I was fired for applying for another job and telling the truth about it.

For those of you who do not know me, some of the stories I’ve broken in the recent past include the ones on County Commissioner George Touart, Front Porch Community Liaison Thelma Manley and Santa Rosa County Tax Collector Robert McClure’s late payment on property taxes.

Anyway, here’s what happened:

I had applied for a job out of town and got a call last Friday asking I come in for an interview at 8 a.m. Wednesday.

I would have to leave Tuesday to make it to the interview in time.

I knew this would be a problem because Tuesday night was primary election night — a busy time at the News Journal.

I asked the agency I was interviewing with if they could postpone the interview but they said that was not possible.

My only concern was the impact this would have on the News Journal election night.

Management at the News Journal was aware my father, who lives in northern Alabama, has been in the hospital.

One solution would have been to simply call in to work Tuesday and tell my supervisors my father’s condition had worsened and I needed to leave immediately. No one would have been wiser and the issue would have dropped there.

I thought about it but felt it would not have been right.

I wanted to give them as much lead time to prepare for my absence as possible. I knew it wasn’t in my best interest to tell them but felt it was the honorable thing to do.

Anyway, on Friday, right after I got the phone call, I approached management and told them the truth — that I was sorry about the inconvenience but I would be out of town for an interview.

Schneider threatened to fire me if I went.

I went.

When I returned to work today, he made good on his threat.

Their official version is that they fired me because I left them in the lurch on election night.
Not so. I offered to work the morning cop shift Tuesday. I could have made it to my interview on time and the morning cop reporter could have covered the election that night.

Still concerned and not wanting the job to fall to someone else, I stayed late Monday night and pre-wrote my two election stories. I correctly guessed who would prevail in both races and wrote the stories accordingly — including quotes.

All the reporter who picked up the races had to do was get a quick quote from the victor — I left cell phone numbers for all candidates — and fill in the vote totals.

The job fell to reporter Carlton Proctor (bless you Carlton) and I suspect it took him all of 10 minutes to polish off the two stories.

So, the News Journal was not inconvenienced at all. Schneider and Doyle were mad I applied for another position.

When he wasn’t busy threatening me, Schneider questioned my loyalty to the News Journal but could not guarantee I would not be laid off anyway given the cutbacks at the paper.

The job is a good opportunity for me. (I am one of three finalists for the position and won’t get word from the company until late September.)

Schneider, Doyle and everyone else at the paper in upper management got where they are today by moving up the ladder by applying for jobs at new locations with more responsibility.

I’ve worked hard at the News Journal to be a good reporter and have always had a strong work ethic.

A few of my accomplishments include:

* 2008 Florida Society of Newspaper Editors third-place winner for investigative reporting .

* 2007 Gannett Publisher’s Ring nominee, the company’s highest award for individual contributions.

* One of principal writers for Pensacola News Journal insurance tab, which took second place in the Best of Gannett 2006.

* Gannett 2005 runner-up for best beat-series coverage.

* Northwest Florida Daily News “Journalist of the Year” for 2002.

* Graduated Magna Cum Laude from Augustana College.

* Graduated Summa Cum Laude from Pensacola Junior College.

* All American rating for the college publication, “The Corsair,” during my tenure as co-editor in chief.

Anyway, if there are any employers out there looking for a hard-working, honest employee, I am in the job market. As for the rest, my best advice to everyone else is, lie when it is in your best interest.

Best wishes.
Michael

We'll give Michael the benefit of doubt. His exemplary past service warrants it.

He can't mean it when he says "lie when it''s in your best interest." He probably means, "You may be better off lying to Gannett executives. They can't handle the truth."

Inquiring Minds Want to Know....

... where's the star -- indeed, the only -- investigative reporter for the Pensacola News Journal?

Channeling Russert

"Nepotism among the Beltway whores is a time honored tradition which should not be confined to the likes of the cretinous Cokie Roberts."

-- The Sturdy Beggars

This is too funny. The Sturdy Beggars, as Jerry and Joe Long are known, comment on media star Brian Williams commenting on what dead media star Tim Russert might comment about if he were suddenly to pop up from the grave and wing it to Denver.

Okay, we know there aren't enough news makers in Denver for Williams and his like-minded Tee-Vee media hair-dos at the other networks to interview. They'd much prefer talking to each other than actually televise, much less interview, convention speakers. But now they're reduced to channeling dead Tee-Vee media hair-dos?

Jerry and Joe play along, snarkily:

What would Tim think? Gee Brian that's a toughy... he'd probably think what you think and Stephanopoulos thinks and Gibson thinks and Brokaw thinks and Couric thinks and Blitzer thinks... you know... somewhere safely inside the parameters of debate. Maybe for divergent views there'd be a round-table with David Broder drooling fossilized idiocy and Jon Meacham spouting biblical idiocy and Matalin and Carville encapsulating idiocy at the genetic level.

Joe and Jerry's last line, about Hunter Thompson, is a killer. Please read it.

John McLiar

UPDATED BELOW
Steve Benen, the new blog host at Washington Monthly, outright calls John McCain a "liar" today for "approving" his newest political ad. Tough words. Is he right?

You be the judge. Here is what Barack Obama actually said last May:

Strong countries and strong Presidents talk to their adversaries. That’s what Kennedy did with Khrushchev. That’s what Reagan did with Gorbachev. That’s what Nixon did with Mao. I mean, think about it: Iran, Cuba, Venezuela — these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying, ‘We’re going to wipe you off the planet.’ And ultimately, that direct engagement led to a series of measures that helped prevent nuclear war and over time allowed the kind of opening that brought down the Berlin Wall.

Here is how the latest ad that McCain approves misquotes those remarks:

Obama says Iran is a 'tiny' country, 'doesn't pose a serious threat.' Terrorism, destroying Israel, those aren't 'serious threats'? Obama -- dangerously unprepared to be president.

As for us, we say "McCain -- shamefully, dangerously, dishonestly scraping the bottom of the latrine in an attempt to become president."

UPDATE
8-27 pm

ABC's "Fact Check Desk" agrees. Jake Tapper says, "This is a dishonest representation of Obama's words. * * * That is not even close to Obama saying Iran is a 'tiny' country that 'doesn't pose a serious threat.'"

Gopher Shooter

Montana state governor Brian Schweitzer "fired up a partisan crowd Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention in Denver," the estimable Billings Gazette reports this morning. Schweitzer was the ninth of nine Democratic governors to precede Hillary Clinton's well-televised call for unity.

Characteristically, Schweitzer "downplayed the importance of his appearance," the Gazette comments. "If you look at the list, you can see that anyone who's ever shot a gopher's got a speaking engagement here," he said.

Below is an entertaining excerpt, pure Montana. The whole can be viewed on C-SPAN, the only Tee-Vee outlet to carry the full speech in all of its High Plains glory. What the others gave you was the usual line-up of chattering TV commentators.

Feeding the TV Beast

We remember when political party conventions were hard work. There were delegates to be won over by the candidates, party principles to be articulated in writing, legislative proposals to be melded into a comprehensive party platform, and, yes, compromises to be struck, alliances to be forged or broken, disloyal or dishonest -- and sometimes just plain disgusting -- party members to be de-credentialed, and so on.

Those of you old enough to remember may recall one of the most exciting events in national political conventions occurred in 1956 when Adlai Stevenson threw the Democratic nomination for vice-president open to the floor and a nail-biting 3-ballot fight developed between Estes Kefauver and a young, upstart first-term senator by the name of John F. Kennedy. (Kefauver won the nomination but the ticket lost in November.)

Today, it's all just a stage show choreographed for TV. Choreographed none too well, we might add. Neither network nor commercial cable television really cares much, oddly enough, except for the fact it is free to produce. The only TV source covering the whole of the convention is C-SPAN.

Changing the rules for an event to accommodate the TV beast has consequences. Major league baseball learned that lesson when it invented the odious designated hitter rule to answer TV's demand for more hits and runs. Professional basketball learned it when it agreed to the "TV time-out" which more often than not kills team momentum on the floor just when it might make a difference in the outcome. Pro football learned it when it sold its soul to television and the game became interminable, losing much of its "pace and tempo."

As the Museum of Broadcast Communications candidly observes, the "soap opera" demands of television exact "concessions" from "the real world" like sporting events that can profoundly change the very nature of the "real world." So it is, too, with "real world" events like political conventions.

What changes in political conventions can we see? No one seems to ask anymore what principles does this candidate stand for? How smart is he or she? How effective is this candidate likely to be in public office? How consistent has he been in the past? How honestly is he depicting himself -- or his opponent?

Television thinks we want to know, instead, does his wife love him? Are his kids cute? Is he somebody I'd like to have a beer with? And, as always, the TV beast wants to showcase its own commentator stars, not the players themselves.

Little wonder that we're in the fix we are internationally, militarily, economically, and even constitutionally. Over three-fourths of the nation knows the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction. What to do about it? The TV beast says, Find out if Michelle Obama can "connect" with you.

We have nothing against Michelle Obama. We're happy for her that she "flourished" last night. For that matter, we have nothing against Carol and Cindy McCain, either. May they, or at least whichever one of them attends the Republican Convention, flourish just as much.

And it will be the same with the Republicans. Television, especially commercial television, homogenizes everything, even our national discourse, into an insipid soap opera to the point where it all looks like an Olympic competition, at best, and at worst like just another installment of As The World Turns.

The TV beast would respond, of course, that it's only giving us what We the People demand. Ratings are everything; judgment counts for nothing. In so far as that is true, as scholars have noted about the ancient games of the Roman Coliseum, television surely does serve a "purpose" but it's worth considering what that purpose might be:

While there is no doubt that the games were barbarous, sadistic, and, to say the least, reprehensible, it must also be admitted that they served their purpose. By the dawn of the Empire, the Romans had relinquished almost all their political rights to an autocratic government. This was the one place where they still had power--even if it was only over the life of one or a few miserable slaves. In a very real sense, then, the games served as a valuable outlet for pent-up frustrations.

History books also tell us that the more autocratic became the (former) Roman Republic -- the more political rights the people lost -- the more elaborate, bloody, and distracting the emperors made the games.

We're not arguing here that entertaining the plebes isn't a clever strategy. We're merely suggesting that the way television covers the conventions, and conventions mold themselves to meet television's demands, are not consistent with America's democratic values and the duty of every citizen to become informed about what really matters before Election Day.

ABC-TV Covers the Lincoln-Douglas Debate

Obsidian Wings has the scoop:

LINCOLN: Thank you very much, Charlie and George, and thanks to all in the audience and who are out there. I appear before you today for the purpose of discussing the leading political topics which now agitate the public mind.

We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I’m sorry to interrupt, but do you think Mr. Douglas loves America as much you do?

LINCOLN: Sure I do.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But who loves America more?

LINCOLN: I’d prefer to get on with my opening statement George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: If your love for America were eight apples, how many apples would Senator Douglas’s love be?

And there's more hilarity...

Our Obsequious Press

Glenn Greenwald has the proof.

Live! From Detroit, South Carolina

We were there once. So, observing the ethical standards of Maureen Dowd and the New York Times, we'll be blogging the South Carolina primary from Charleston and the Michigan primary from Detroit -- simultaneously.

Don't Cry For Thee, Maureen Dowd

Jon Swift plagiarizes the vile Maureen Dowd.

Inside the MSM

Maureen Dowd unintentionally spills the beans on what "objective" New York Times reporters really think of Hillary Clinton. Atrios has it right: "These people are all broken. Complete monsters."

A Christmas Necktie Tale

Every few decades around the holiday season we go through the closet to cull unfashionable neckties. It's a thankless job, but federal law requires men to do it. (This is part of the same statutory scheme making it a felony to rip that tag off your mattress.)

"What's a necktie?" the young'uns are asking. Well, it's a piece of cloth with no known practical function this side of Alex Comfort's Joy of Sex. In the Dark Ages, about 30 years ago when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, every male in America was required to wrap a tie around his neck in the morning before heading off for work, in case he needed a napkin at lunch or suddenly had to sneeze.

There was a time when all fathers, husbands, and uncles could count on getting at least one new necktie for Christmas. Some unfortunate wretches even received two or three. Of course, this was before T-shirts were invented.

The tie almost always came wrapped in a shallow, rectangular box that left no doubt about its contents. Nothing else could fit inside that distinctively shaped box except the dreaded Christmas Necktie. Certainly not the tackle box or that new sand wedge you really wanted.

"Oh, what a surprise," the man was expected to exclaim as he opened it. To lend verisimilitude to this fib he would add, as if the thought had just occurred to him, "You know, I really needed a new tie." Men of a certain age know these words better than the lyrics to Deck the Halls.

At the first opportunity, all new neckties would be transferred to the deepest recesses of a storage closet never to be seen again. Before that, however, Emily Post or some other government official mandated that every adult male in the nation had to wear his new Christmas tie at least once -- no matter how hideous it might be.

We were reminded of those ancient customs the other day when we noticed by the neolithic calendar on our wall that it was time once again to sort through our neckties and see how many we could safely throw away. For most men, every excursion of this kind into the necktie closet is like a bad trip on the dangerous drug of nostalgia. What we found this time brought flooding back memories of someone else's very special Christmas tie.

Back in the '70s, after the Watergate scandal when Gerald Ford was serving out Nixon's remaining term as president, the only U.S. president never elected to national office made an otherwise-routine appearance before the White House press corps during the holidays. It must have been in late December or early January of 1975 or '76.

The next day's news reports mentioned that Ford stepped up to the presidential podium wearing a "predominately" brown necktie he had received for Christmas. One sharp-eyed reporter immediately noticed that the brown swatch hanging down Ford's shirt-front was, in fact, a joke tie cleverly masking a blatant obscenity.

Remember, this was the 1970's, a decade known to modern historians as "the '60s." Blatant obscenities were the order of the day.

According to our mental transcript of the event the reporter asked, 'Where did you get that tie, Mr. President?'

'It was a gift from my children,' President Ford replied proudly.

'Sir, did you notice what the tie says?'

This puzzled the president. 'What it says?' he asked doubtfully, looking down his chest. 'It's just a design. Nice, don't you think?'

The reporter doggedly persisted. "Mr. President, isn't that an obscene word woven into your tie?"

"Not that I know of," the president replied.

The press corps twittered. A few guffawed.

This may strike the modern reader as unkind and disrespectful of the White House Press Corps, but you must remember the times. It was before Fox Cable News. Beltway journalists were still flushed with their success in ferreting out the ugly truths behind that "third rate burglary" at the Watergate. They had not yet learned the avuncular art of dutifully transcribing any ol' thing a president might say, regardless of its patent ridiculousness, and repeating it in print or on television with utter credulity.

How times have changed. The press back then recognized reality even when the president wouldn't. They knew what all men at home that day knew, too, and probably for the same reason. That particular Christmas season every man in America, even professional journalists, had received the same damn gift tie.

Having thoroughly confounded the president -- though it must be admitted he was an easily bewildered man -- the White House reporters moved on to a different topic, and that was the end of that.

Newspapers the next day reported on the press conference. Several mentioned that President Ford had worn "a Christmas tie" his children had given him. Many published photos of the president, although taken at such a distance that the only thing to be seen clearly was the faint suggestion of squiggly diagonal lines. But a number of more intrepid reporters, as we recall, went so far as to add that embedded in the tie was "a common four letter word" about which the president seemed oblivious.

There are perhaps ten thousand web sites that offer old neckties for sale. Google them and you will be astounded. Amazingly, however, none -- at least, none that we could find -- displays President Ford's Christmas joke tie. Perhaps it's now hanging in the back of some archival closet at the Gerald Ford Presidential Library.

Our own copy of the same tie inexplicably surfaced the other day while we were rummaging through a rarely used closet at home. It's a good guess that all over the United States this Christmas season other men will be doing the same. After all, it's that time of the century: get rid of those vintage neckties, men. Make room for new.

Click the tie to read it, if you dare. But don't take it personally. Soon, you'll be seeing thousands of them for sale on Ebay.

CLICK IMAGE TO READ

Superficial Campaign Coverage

It's no secret that journalists are scared to death their jobs may be headed in the same direction as bicycle repairmen after the horseless carriage was invented. One reason may be that so many readers frequently have to ask, 'Why, oh why, can't we have a better press corps?'

Eric Boehlert has some thoughts.