Ocassional Thoughts of an Independent Progressive Atheistic Humanist
Last week, I complained about why I have issues when Humanists use religious words for non-religious activities – like forming ‘congregation’ or meeting in a ‘church’. I spent time ranting about it but I didn’t really expand on why ‘community’ is a better label and why using warmed over religious terms is not productive for Humanists. I wrote an essay over at my iHumanism blog where I talk about that aspect of the issue.
Once again my pet peeve scab has been plucked. A Humanist leader is profiled on the CNN website talking about forming warmed over religious services he calls ‘congregations’. This is my pet peeve because I don’t care for using religious terms with new definitions. It is being abstruse in the least and at most dishonest. A church or congregation without god is not something I need and I wish we would get media coverage that shows how Humanism is totally different than theism.
The last two cheap labor Republican debates have attracted a crowd that is part ugly and douchebaggery in the extreme. In the debate last week the largest cheer was when it was pointed out that Governor Rick Perry oversaw 234 executions. Monday night Ron Paul got applause and someone shouted out “Yes” when he was asked if someone without health insurance should be allowed to die, and Michelle Bachmann tried to claim a cancer vaccine caused brain damage. Is this what we have become? Really?
Teapublicans cheer death for uninsured (09/12/2011)
Reminds me of the summer shark attack reports the media feeds on in the slow news time when Congress is on recess. The Cordoba House issue in New York City is like those sensationalize shark attack stories. It allows the Republicans and their media lap dogs to distract us from the real issues like the economy and two wars we are fighting. Of course it happens all the time.
What ticks me off about this is they do this every election cycle. [Republicans] never want to talk about substance, and they get their way– every election cycle we talk about whatever they want to talk about. Our political system fiddles while America burns, and it’s because the Republican message machine dictates the conversation.
That’s why as of today 08/16/2010 I refuse to watch a single hour of CNN or the major network news programs again.
I don’t have time to waste listening to Republican talking points and some outright lies.
TV Journalism has pretty much failed.
How else do you explain a free pass given to the GOP who now seem to advocate gutting the parts of the Constitution they don’t like?
Ever since the mega corporations took over the main stream media networks, there has been a lack of journalism on them. Outside the celeb-centric, missing white woman, serial killer style tabloid style, the networks have stopped being an advocate of the public. Nowadays, the news, especially the cable talk shows are nothing more than press releases read on the air. There is no follow up, no questioning of what is said. The flacks on the shows are allowed to say their version and we are suppose to believe the “journalists” are being fair and balanced.
That is a bunch of BS.
If someone lies, or gives knowingly false information, it is the duty of the host to call the person on it right away. Facts are not opinions to be debated. They are either true or false.
Here is an example:
The New York Times’ John Harwood wrote that Gov. Sarah Palin “assert[ed] that” Sen. Barack Obama’s “relationship with Bill Ayers, the onetime Weather Underground figure, constitutes ‘palling around with terrorists.’ ” But Harwood did not mention that two days earlier, in an article that Palin herself referenced, the Times itself reported that “the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers.”
or this one
CNN’s Kiran Chetry failed to challenge a McCain campaign adviser’s criticism of Sen. Barack Obama for “claim[ing] that the American military was just air-raiding villages and bombing civilians” in Afghanistan, even though Chetry herself has reported that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has offered “personal regret[s]” to Afghanistan over air strikes that killed civilians.
CNN’s Chetry did not challenge McCain adviser’s misleading attack on Obama’s Afghanistan comments
or this:
On Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough did not challenge Sen. John McCain’s false assertion that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower wrote “a letter of resignation from the Army” in case the D-Day invasion failed, a claim that McCain also made during the September 26 presidential debate.
And this one that just pissed me off:
On the September 28 edition of NBC’s Meet the Press, during his interview with McCain campaign senior adviser Steve Schmidt and Obama campaign chief strategist David Axelrod, host Tom Brokaw did not challenge Schmidt’s false assertion that Sen. John McCain “called for the firing of Don Rumsfeld” as Defense secretary. As Media Matters for America has repeatedly documented, and the McCain campaign reportedly admitted, McCain did not call for Rumsfeld’s dismissal.
Rather than noting the established facts debunking Schmidt’s claim, Brokaw concluded the interview by stating, “In fairness to everybody here, I’m just going to end on one note,” then cited the results of a poll question favorable to McCain.
Brokaw allowed McCain adviser to falsely claim McCain “called for the firing of Don Rumsfeld”
Brokaw not only didn’t call Steve Schmidt on the lie he told, he also quoted an old poll about a question no other national poll asks just because it was favorable to McCain. There is also information that Brokaw has been talking behind the scenes with the McCain campaign which included getting Keith Olberman and Chris Matthews removed from anchoring further MSNBC political events.
Yes, the same Tom Brokaw who is moderating the October 7th Presidential Debate in Nashville.