The response of the major news networks to the New York Times' breaking story on the Pentagon controlled Iraq TV analysts...

Well, actually, there hasn't really been a response.

According to Glenn Greenwald over at Salon.com:

It has now been more than ten days since the New York Times exposed the Pentagon's domestic propaganda program involving retired generals and, still, not a single major news network has even mentioned the story to their viewers, let alone responded to the numerous questions surrounding their own behavior. This steadfast blackout occurs despite the fact that the Pentagon propaganda program almost certainly violates numerous federal laws; both Democratic presidential candidates sternly denounced the Pentagon's conduct; and Congressional inquiries are already underway, all of which forced the Pentagon to announce that it suspended its program.

Still, there has not been a peep from the major news networks at the center of the storm, the integrity of whose reporting on the Iraq war is directly implicated by this story. Even establishment media defender Howard Kurtz called their ongoing failure to cover this story "pathetic."

Like Fox and CBS, NBC News outright refused to answer any questions about the allegations when asked by the NYT's David Bartsow, and its prime time anchor, Brian Williams, has delivered seven broadcasts since the story was published and has not uttered a word to NBC's viewers about any of it. Yesterday, I wrote about an entry on Williams' blog -- which he calls "The Daily Nightly" -- in which Williams found the time to mock one frivolous cultural puff piece after the next in the Sunday edition of the NYT, even as he still had refused even to acknowledge the expose in last Sunday's NYT that calls into serious question the truthfulness and reliability of his "journalism."

Read the rest of Greenwald's story here, as well as some additional commentary from Turkana over at The Left Coaster.

At this point, I guess we can't ever expect to know from the MSM what's really going on in Iraq.

I've never seen news networks sooo liberal and sooo anti-Bush!

(sarcasm intended)

"Liberal media bias"?

Says who?

No wonder so many people still think everything is fine and dandy over in Iraq.

Burn on, big river, burn on...

One of the few Randy Newman songs I actually enjoy is "Burn On". Written in the 1972, it evokes nostalgic feelings about both the charm of Cleveland and all that has gone wrong in that town. It was used perfectly in the opening credits of the sports comedy, Major League. Here it is (slightly cut, unfortunately) coupled with a nice montage of the "city of lights", a delightful phrase of dual meaning that ironically points to both the many lit up buildings at night (part of the charm) and the blazing Cuyahoga river of 1969 (part of the misery):



I came across it in a link from an excellent list of "10 worse things than Joe Borowski to happen to Cleveland". One thing from the list that I didn't know was how silly the reason was for changing the city's name from "Cleaveland" to "Cleveland" in 1831 (see #10):

10. Blame the media — The town's name is misspelled forever when the Cleaveland Advertiser can't fit "Cleaveland Advertiser" all the way across the top of the page, so it drops the first "a" in Cleaveland. Seriously.

9. Earnest Byner, no! — In a football play simply known as "The Fumble," Byner coughs up the ball at the 3-yard line with 72 seconds left in the 1988 AFC Championship game, costing the Browns a Super Bowl berth.

8. "Burn On" by Randy Newman — "There's a red moon rising, on the Cuyahoga River, rolling into Cleveland to the lake." Lyrics immortalizing the river catching fire in 1969 which you also heard on the soundtrack to "Major League."

7. Don King — Many think the Cleveland native's greed as a promoter helped ruin boxing. Wait, is that all?

6. Sam Wyche goes off — Cincinnati fans throw trash on the field at Riverfront Stadium, so the Bengals coach reminds them of something.

5. Red men — The Indians wear these uniforms!

4. Michael Jordan's shot on Craig Ehlo — The Bulls and Cavaliers both tried to be the NBA's next big thing, but Jordan willed his team to the front of the line with a game-winning, series-ending shot on May 7, 1989 that changed the fortunes of both franchises. The Bulls would win six titles; the Cavs would fall into disrepair until LeBron James arrived nearly 15 years later.

3. All that for nothin' — The Tribe wins 111 games and is swept in the '54 World Series.

2. Brother, can you spare a trillion dimes? — It's 1978. Cleveland has no money to pay for anything.

1. Never more — The old, bad Browns move to Baltimore and become the new, good Ravens.

Here's one more video using Randy's song that runs through many of the sports moments just listed and more (however, there is an error -- they show "The Fumble" happening before "The Drive" when it should be after):



*Sigh* Poor Cleveland.

The MSM...Misogynist Sexist Media...err...I mean Mainstream Media

In case people don't think there's any misogyny in the MSM and blogosphere, the first 5 1/2 minutes of this video are pretty revealing...



After that it gets a little too cheesy and pro-Hillary for my taste, even if I am supporting her over Obama in the primaries. Still, it's a good montage of all the crap that the MSM has dished out at her. Of course, the Obama campaign has done much of the same, but that's another story for another day.

(And no, Hillary's not perfect. That's not at all what this post should imply.)

Evolution & Onslaught

Ever since I first saw a video from Dove's Campaign for Real beauty, I've been intrigued by their efforts to raise questions about our social and cultural perceptions of beauty.

Their most famous video is "Evolution", which many of you have probably seen before:



However, their newest is “Onslaught”, which is also really good:



And then there are some older ones. In my opinion, "True Colors" has the best cover ever of Cyndi Lauper's 1986 hit, though unfortunately they've never released it as a full track:



And last but not least, here's a video from Dove's pro-aging campaign:



If only more companies were doing interesting and socially relevant advertising projects like these.