SALEM VILLAGE AND CABLE NEWS: The NFL keeps trumping the courts!

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2014

Interlude—Pundits praising themselves:
A funny thing happened midway through Charles Blow’s column this Monday.

His column concerned the Ray Rice case. Blow ended by taking a brave set of stands, as we’ll see at the end of this post.

Midway through, something strange occurred. In one brief shining sentence, Blow actually mentioned the courts:
BLOW (9/15/14): Now, there are many issues here.

How was Rice able to avoid trial on the original charge? Why did it take the second tape for the N.F.L. to act more forcefully in the case? Did anyone at the N.F.L. see the second tape before it was made public? Could anyone have if he’d tried harder to find it? It seems that there were multiple failures here.
For that one brief shining moment, Charles Blow mentioned the courts. He quickly returned to the NFL, the organization whose deeply troubling, presumed-guilty conduct has dominated cable/pundit discussion of the Ray Rice case.

Blow isn’t just an NYT columnist. He’s also a CNN pundit. He has played an active role as his own pair of three-letter corporate entities have pounded away at a third.

On cable, there has been occasional discussion about the way Rice was treated by the New Jersey courts.

That said, there hasn’t been much. In the last sentence of the passage we’ve posted, Blow dismisses the conduct of the New Jersey court as one of the “failures” the rest of us, the very good people, have been forced to endured.

He doesn’t bother asking whether Rice’s diversion into a treatment program may have been a good idea. Bravely, he is soon thundering, as pundits do, saying this:

“We must treat intimate partner violence for what it is: a societal scourge that must be constantly called out and constantly condemned.”

Where do pundits get the stones to offer such challenging judgments?

We’ll return to Blow’s column shortly. Let’s focus on our basic question: Why is so much cable and pundit attention being directed to Roger Goodell? Why is so little attention being directed at the nation’s courts?

A cynic would say the answer is obvious: The NFL is a very famous organization. The organization is full of celebrities. It produces tons of good videotape.

Goodell is the head of the NFL; he was paid $44 million last year. This makes him a perfect target for an entertaining cops-and-robbers, Watergate-inflected tabloid chase.

What did Roger Goodell know and when did Roger Goodell know it? By last Friday, this framework was being widely offered as the focus of coverage on “cable news.”

Whatever motivated the adoption of this framework, we would say that it’s largely an entertainment framework. It aims us at the NFL and away from a range of institutions which are much more far-reaching and important.

Also much more boring, from the perspective of eyeballs and clicks.

How should our nation’s courts treat first-time offenders like Rice? Should the courts throw Rice in jail, the way the Sunny Hostins want? Or should the courts send such people into treatment programs, as was done in this case?

We haven’t seen a lot of discussion of that and related questions. (Blow stated his judgment in one sentence, failing to explain it.)

Instead, the focus went to Roger Goodell, wrapped in the language of the nation’s most famous bad-guy chase. By the end of last week, that chase was built around a “four-source bombshell,” an ESPN report that looks a bit phony right there on its face.

Just for the record, “bombshell” is an exciting word. Its use to refer to that hinky report can of course be seen as an entertainment function.

Out of respect for that dominant framework—What did he know and when did he know it?—we’re going to do you a favor tomorrow. Just this once, we’re going to let you ask us about Goodell’s business!

More precisely, we’re going to tell you what may have happened in that now-famous June 16 meeting. We’re even going to tell you what may have happened in the elevator that night.

We’re going to tell you what may have been said by Ray Rice and by Janay Rice when they met with Roger Goodell. We’ll discuss the meanings of three key words—punched, hit and slapped.

What may have happened in the elevator that night? We’ll even cite the part of last week’s much-discussed AP report which went wholly undiscussed!

In doing these things, we’ll take you outside the confines of the tightly restricted story the Blows have been thrilling you with. That story has been full of sanctimony and simple-minded restrictions.

That story has been all about the NFL. It hasn’t wasted much time on the courts, on or treatment programs, or on the possible role of moral suasion as we seek to convince men that they shouldn’t beat up on people who are smaller and less strong in the physical sense.

(Standard cable pundit drivel, mostly from sports pundits: “A man should never put his hands on a woman!” How about never “putting our hands” on anyone at all?)

For whatever reason, the story you’ve been handed on cable has focused on the NFL, its star running back and its wealthy commissioner. Last night, Chris Hayes suggested the discussion should range farther afield.

Hayes was certainly right on that point. We were struck by the way his pundits reacted.

Hayes played tape of a 911 call from a woman who was being beaten. She was being beaten by her husband, Mark Fuller, a sitting federal judge.

Hayes played that very instructive tape. He then drew an instructive conclusion.

To watch the whole segment, click here:
HAYES (9/16/14): So let’s just not—let’s not mistake here that this is a Ray Rice problem, this is a Baltimore Ravens problem, this is an NFL problem. This is going on across all— I think it’s an important reminder here that folks not allow themselves to feel like, “Oh, it’s the NFL.”

Mike.
We very much agree with Hayes on that point. That said, Hayes and others on his channel had just spent an entire week focusing on the NFL, largely to the exclusion of a wider and richer discussion.

They even ran with that shaky ESPN report as they chased after Goodell, who they had selected as their targeted bad guy. One week into this entertaining chase, Hayes gave an important reminder. He told folks they shouldn’t be misled by this limited framework.

Hayes then threw to Slate’s Mike Pesca, a good decent person who played the pundit role to perfection as he delivered his answer.

It’s bred in the cable pundit’s bones! Our cable pundits are always right. Their targets must always be wrong:
PESCA (continuing directly): Sports is often a lagging indicator of societal opinion but sometimes it can be a leading indicator as well. And what we’re doing now is focusing attention that needs to be focused.

The NFL, especially their board, was behind the times. Now they’re getting right on the issue

I will say that when the NFL defends itself and says things like “I don’t think our players abuse at a higher rate,” I don’t think that’s good enough. Given how many resources they have, they should be abusing at a much lesser rate.

But that said, I think it’s all, cliché or not, a useful conversation.
The night before, Lawrence O’Donnell mistakenly said that NFL players abuse at a rate so high that it is “amazing.”

Was that comment “good enough?” Of one thing we can feel quite certain. It was “close enough for cable!”

Pesca’s reply is a classic example of Pundit Think. Even when they work in clichés, they’re conducting a useful discussion!

Meanwhile, in the first highlighted sentence, we see the classic rule of Pundit Think:

The target must always be found to be wrong, in every possible way. In the cable version of Salem Village, every fact about the target must heighten our sense that he’s guilty.

The very bright Tara Dowdell is one of our favorite cable pundits. After Pesca spoke, she jumped in with additional praise for the job our pundits are doing.

Judge Fuller is in a diversion program too. Is such treatment a good idea? By the way, Fuller’s case went public on August 11.

Why has cable been discussing the running back Rice and ignoring the federal judge Fuller? That audiotape from Fuller’s wife is extremely instructive too.

Back to Blow, who dismissed the role of the courts as a failure in the Rice case, while offering no discussion. Below, you see the way he ended his column.

Blow was painting by the numbers, as cable pundits tend to do:
BLOW: If there is anything to be optimistic about, it is this: According to a Department of Justice report issued in April, “The rate of domestic violence declined 63 percent, from 13.5 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older in 1994 to 5.0 per 1,000 in 2012.”

We can push these numbers even lower, but first we need people like Rice, the Ravens and those in the N.F.L. to behave more honorably than they have in this case.
If we are reading that passage correctly, Blow was willing to criticize Ray Rice, the Baltimore Ravens and executives in the NFL.

Where does a pundit get the stones to voice such daring judgments?

Tomorrow: Just this once, we’ll let you ask us about the NFL’s business

For extra credit only: In our view, Blow toyed with Janay Rice in his column. That starts with his smarmy use of her skirt, extends to his sense that she has had no agency in the various things she has done.

“It is hard to feel anything but sadness for her,” Blow says of Janay Rice at one point.

It’s hard to feel anything but sadness? Has he tried feeling respect?

93 comments:

  1. You know, Bob, you got a point in that heaping the sin of domestic violence on the back of one famous football player is scapegoating at its worst. If that's all that it was.

    But in order to do that, one also has to ignore the very serious discussion about this issue that has been generated by the Rice case.

    And please, stop doing your usual thing and make Ray Rice the "real" victim in all this. After all, the poor boy just needs some "treatment" and he'll be fine. Right. And we used to think we could cure pedophiles, too.

    What is truly interesting is reports that calls to domestic abuse hotlines have spiked with the publicity of this case as more women are seeking help to get out of an abusive relationship.

    And that is a good thing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The only one calling Ray Rice the victim around here is you.

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    2. Ray had at least 4 minutes to go back to the gaming tables.

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    3. Gee, seems to me that this post is all about how Bob's usual suspects are beating up on poor Ray Rice and poor Roger Goodell.

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    4. Are you simple-minded? That isn't what these posts are about at all.

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    5. Then what are they about?

      Oh yeah, about how the media trivializes serious subjects and blunts serious discussion by focusing on Bob's usual suspects and how they are beating up on poor Ray Rice and poor Roger Goodell.

      I see it all clearly now.

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    6. Would anyone disagree that domestic abuse should be treated as a serious social problem and not as a media circus to entertain mindless idiots?

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    7. I would not disagree. Would anyone disagree that Bob's blog coverage of what he labels "Cable Outrage" is about the issue at hand and not about Bob's opinions of media?

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    8. 12:28 are you trying to say Bob is fastened to a dying animal or he is not fastened to a dying animal?

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    9. I disagree that this blog coverage is about the issue at hand and not the media. It is about how the media targets figures of outrage in order to conduct a circus of self-righteousness, for entertainment purposes.

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    10. And in advancing that pleasing tale, Somerby must hone in on a tiny snippets taken out of all context and spoken/written by only his favorite targets, while ignoring the serious discussion of this issue.

      But of course, there has been no "serious discussion." How do we know this? Because Bob says so, and his flock believes him.

      Why this whole thin is nothing more than "a circus of self-righteousness, for entertainment purposes."

      Which can only be accepted if your primary source of information is the trusted and never-wrong Bob Somerby.

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    11. Or we could, you know, judge for ourselves. Personally, I find his description to be spot on. I haven't watched/heard/read everything, of course, but I can confirm that large swaths of the media are behaving exactly as described.

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  2. Nobody in the liberal media speaks out on behalf of the battered and beleaguered Rices of out world.

    Condi. Susan.

    If TDH did not speak up for Ray Rice and hs NFL administration in this case, when the liberal media children are joining, even leading, in the cable outrage spectacular, the next Rice to come along might sleep with the fishes.

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    1. Who did Condi and Susan beat up?

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    2. You obviously don't care about, much less follow, the Rices.

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    3. If you think this commentary constitutes "speaking up for Ray Rice" and the NFL you are a moron.

      Hard to imagine anyone *that* stupid but still able to read, type and recall another famous "Rice" to throw in the mix.

      No. It's much more likely you're a quite ordinary douchebag troll. Thanks for playing.

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    4. Lordy, what would Somerby do without his sheep to deny the ridiculous things he writes that is right in front of their faces.

      I suppose if Somerby pissed on your head and told you it was raining, you'd believe that too.

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    5. *Sheep* "Malala"

      A Somerby Commentary Spectacular

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    6. This Cable Outrage is filled with intrigue, but the dialogue it has provoked is filled with gauche dejunery.

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    7. Domestic abuse is so funny -- ha ha ha. It makes me laugh all the time! Trolls are so funny too!!!!! They may me laugh ha ha ha. The only thing funnier would be abusing the trolls or watching trolls abuse each other -- hahahahahahaha.

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    8. I think that should be spelled "gauche dejeunery," but I still don't know what it is.

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    9. I think Malala would call you a شاوربیگمیں if she were speaking Urdu. I couldn't find out how to say "douchebag troll" in Pashto. But she would also say she doesn't hate you for being what you are, no matter which of her three languages she was using.

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    10. Personally, I don't find domestic abuse funny at all.

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  3. Let us also supply the context to Blow's statement about Janay Rice that Somerby doesn't:

    "His wife said at the news conference: 'I do deeply regret the role I played in the incident that night.' It was a line that caused many to cringe. It is hard to feel anything but sadness for her."

    Bob, go educate yourself and talk to somebody who works with the victims of domestic violence. Then you might understand why Blow would "cringe" and "feel sadness" for her.

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    1. Are you saying that Janay Rice does not deserve respect because she said she played a role in the incident? How can it be controversial to accord respect to her, not just pity?

      You might educate yourself about the psychological effects of imputing victim status to someone, robbing them of agency in their own lives (particularly after that agency has been denied by an abusive domestic partner). You might understand why victims are not pawns in media games but real human beings who do not want or deserve cringing pity from others.

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    2. There is nothing worse than aggravated theft of life agency due to ignorant impute of victim status.

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    3. Are you saying Kay deserved respect? She left a good job teaching children to marry a man she knew was a mob monster even after he left her for years without word after killing the police captain. It was in the papers.

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    4. "Are you saying that Janay Rice does not deserve respect because she said she played a role in the incident?"

      I said no such thing, and neither did Charles Blow. But mind-reading Bob told you that Blow feels no respect for Janay Rice, and you believe him.

      Here's what makes her press conference statement "cringe"-worthy and "sad." It is the same thing that people working in the field hear over and over again from victims of domestic violence -- that it's really their fault, that if they changed their behavior the abuse will stop.

      Sorry, but I don't care what Janay Rice did or did not do on that elevator. No woman deserves having their husband beat them unconscious. Why is that so hard to understand.

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    5. By all means, let's not "impute victim status" to the woman knocked unconscious. We know the real victim here is her professional athlete husband. After all, she told us it was also her fault.

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    6. I thought the real victim here was poor Roger Goodell, who earns every penny he is paid for having to respond to cable outrages and second guess our courts.

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    7. You are correct. Ray Rice is no longer a "victim". He has received "treatment."

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    8. Overlooked in all of this is the fact that Ray Rice's numbers were really off last season.

      Could he have really been treating his fiance as a substitute for those defensive lineman who were abusing his undersized frame and repeatedly demonstrating his football mortality?

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    9. Amateur psychoanalysis -- how jolly.

      Why not leave this to the professionals? That was the impulse of the courts and league before the public stuck its nose into this problem.

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    10. Just this once, just this once the public should keep its nose out of a celebrity crime committed in a public place.

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    11. The public enacted justice by assigning Rice to treatment. The involvement of the public is through the police and courts, which act on behalf of the public. The media might have done a public service when it reported the crime. That is where public interest ends. The rest of this is entertainment and it is not appropriate for the media to use two adults who have not agreed to participate in their ongoing reality show to be the focus of whipped up sentiments that work against their solving their personal problems. Justifying this ugliness in the name of public interest stinks.

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    12. "That is where public interest ends."

      I stand in awe of the ego it takes to appoint one's self the final arbiter of what is in the "public interest."

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    13. There is a difference between legitimate interest and prurient interest. Just because you are interested doesn't mean you have the right to intrude on the privacy of a couple who is getting treatment and trying to work things out -- or not, as is their private concern as long as it proceeds without abuse. But even if abuse is occurring, it is not YOUR concern. It is between them and the police and the courts -- not their employers, family members, neighbors, or anyone else, including you.

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    14. I find it sad that people here seem to think that treatment is useless. I think the counseling profession needs to do some education of the general public about its success rates.

      The idea that criminality or wrong behavior of any kind is innate and cannot be changed is medieval, lingering from earlier times when criminals were never rehabilitated, just hung or transported for their crimes. No sense in incarceration when someone of "bad character" has no prospect of better behavior. Prisons were only for debtors, temporary until their friends or relatives could ransom them out.

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    15. And I feel sad that some people believe that crimes of violence can be solved with a few weeks of "treatment" such as "counseling."

      By all means, we should have given ol' Charlie Manson a few sessions, and we would have fixed him up, good as new.

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    16. "I think the counseling profession needs to do some education of the general public about its success rates."

      I would love to learn the success rate of the "counseling profession" in saving marriages in which domestic violence has occurred.

      I would also like to know the number of times a member of that profession has "counseled" the woman to get out of the relationship before she is killed.

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    17. Google effectiveness domestic violence counseling. You will find several papers with literature review sections describing the state of the field. They are apparently debating whether individual or couples therapy is better, and discussing which approach works with what type of client. Some approaches do treat the woman as victim to be protected, but not all.

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  4. Whenever self-anointed arbiter of cable Bob awkwardly interjects Scripture into a post, his disingenuous inner core is exposed. Recently, in defense of an vainglorious batterer, blogger attempted to add weight to his argument by introducing Bible verse into the discussion. misconstrued Scripture so badly he compared illegal usurpers engendering coalitions in a foreign land – at least not yet.

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  5. "If we are reading that passage correctly, Blow was willing to criticize Ray Rice, the Baltimore Ravens and executives in the NFL."

    But if you are not reading it correctly, is it possible he might have left someone out, or worse, implied criticism of someone else? Then where would we be?

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  6. Q: "Where does a pundit get the stones to voice such daring judgments?"

    A: "It’s bred in the cable pundit’s bones!"

    Since we know the Creator, who took the initiative in creating man in his own image, created woman out of the rib of man, and a rib is a bone, why then don't women have stones?


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    1. So, so literal. Excess literalism is a sign of mental illness or brain injury, perhaps from playing too much football?

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    2. Yes, excessive literalism such as "only" 11.5 percent of women have been forcibly raped including penetration, which was said to minimize the number of women who have been victimized by acts of sexual violence that didn't include penetration.

      Oh, I forgot. Bob later added as an afterthought that 11.5 percent was a "nightmare." That makes everything before that vanish in the wind.

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    3. You don't know what literalism is. It is not the use of numbers to precisely quantify something being measured. It is the interpretation of figurative language in concrete meaning, as when someone takes a metaphor or simile at its face value or superficial meaning.

      There is nothing about Somerby's post that suggests he thinks rape is trivial -- asking that it be better measured does not minimize it's serious nature as a crime.

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    4. NOOOOOO If you say something is less than something else then you're minimizing it. Terrible Terrible thing!!

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  7. Just in case anybody doubted that piety and phony seriousness on this topic had not jumped the shark? Claire McCaskill thinks it would be really helpful if CBS let Rhianna speak her mind on Thursday Night Football. See today's Morning Joe videos.

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    1. Well, anything that puts focus on this issue is a good thing. Of course, you will disagree. After all, haven't Ray Rice and Roger Goodell suffered enough?

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    2. Just in case anyone doubted the ability of television sitcoms
      to debase public discourse, count the times a phrase involving Fonzie Fonzarelli is invoked by phony commenters taking themselves seriously.

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    3. Sometimes putting the focus on an issue is not a good thing.

      I have never seen the point of mindless celebrities trying to promote "awareness" of a cause, as if awareness by itself ever did anything to solve a problem. If you care about this, donate money to domestic shelters and treatment programs. If you do not care, find entertainment elsewhere.

      At heart, the NFL needs to find ways to make football less violent -- to prevent concussions if not domestic violence. No one is interested in having that discussion, however. It is easier to condemn both Rice's, Goodell, the NFL, and the courts, than it is to examine our public fascination with men beating up other men as sport.

      Now we have Meredith Vieira using her pitiful past to attract viewers to her new show, now that the new car smell has worn off her living room. That is truly sad, although no doubt she thinks she is performing a public service by baring the details of her "personal" experiences in order to increase public "awareness" of this issue. Gack!

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    4. Way to much of daytime television involves women sharing their bad experiences with relationships. If it is not men, it is other women. At heart we need to find ways to examine our public fascination with things unpleasant.

      I think a program celebrating people overcoming weight problems might do well.

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    5. Really? "No one" is having a discussion about concussions in the NFL?

      When did you fall off the turnip truck?

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    6. In 50% of the cases of falling off a turnip truck, concussions are a result. In 20% of the cases, the victim apologizes to themselves for their own stupidity and never reports the incident.

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    7. People rarely view the load of turnips as a vegetable of interest even when the person who falls off the truck was alone when the incident happened.

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    8. And "no one" wants to discuss turnip truck injuries because the monolithic media has turned their attention to trivialities like domestic violence.

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    9. Turnips!! Haw haw haw haw. You are so droll about turnips.

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  8. "A funny thing happened midway through Charles Blow’s column this Monday." Bob Somerby

    "It seems that there were multiple failures here." Charles Blow

    Glad Bob Somerby finds multiple failures in a case of battery funny.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. You are the only one using this incident for your own purposes -- trolling.

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    2. What are you using this incident for?

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    3. Since I have read no columns or news reports and watched no shows about this, I would say nothing.

      I do wish you trolls would go away and let this blog conduct its business in peace. No one here thinks Somerby condones domestic violence or finds battery funny. So why are you guys here? Torturing other readers of this blog is not a worthy use of your time.

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    4. There are shelters for blog readers caught in torturous relationships with intimate anonyous partners in the comment box.

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    5. And on one has said Somerby condones domestic violence, so you can get off that high horse.

      What I will say is that Somerby really doesn't give a tinker's damn about any issue, other than how they can be used to beat up his favorite targets some more and advance the pleasing story about how awful the media is and how they misinform all those other dumb "we, the people."

      Can't wait for the thrilling conclusion that the media is treating poor Ray and Roger the exact same way they treated poor Al Gore.

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    6. I think that Somerby doesn't care about any issue is demonstrably untrue.

      You see this as beating up on favorite media figures whereas I see it as defending our democracy by pointing out that our press, an important check on power in our system, is not functioning properly because it has been co-opted by those with money.

      Watch Robert Reich's "Inequality for All" and you will understand Somerby's ongoing complaint. This transcends any single issue because it affects the essence of what our modern press is and how it works. I think Somerby cares very much about that issue. You don't seem to. Why is that?

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    7. Then why is he always going on about "liberals"?
      Liberals have close to zero percent representation in the media.

      Berto

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    8. "I see it as defending our democracy by pointing out that our press, an important check on power in our system, is not functioning properly because it has been co-opted by those with money."

      Oh good Lord! When will Somerby and his tribe ever wake up to the fact that we live in the 21st Century with technology giving more voices the opportunity to be heard than ever before?

      There is no such thing as a monolithic "press . . . coopted by those with money" wielding such power that all other voices are drowned out, and the very existence of this very blog should give the lie to that absurd notion.

      Thank you, but I have already seen Reich's "Inequality for All". Well worth watching.

      And how did I get the opportunity to see it? Because I live in the 21st Century where Reich's voice can be heard and his arguments disseminated in ways that weren't even possible 20 years ago.

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    9. I wonder if our friend saw "Inequality for All" in a dingy basement with the doors locked and guarded against the secret police who were sure to arrest anyone caught seeing it.

      I saw it on Netflix.

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    10. 1:44 you may have given Bob the idea for Houses of Internet County.

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    11. Netflix is but one example of how difficult it is for the "corporate press coopted by money" to keep gadflies like Reich quiet.

      There are, of course, many others in this Information Age.

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    12. Individuals do not have the ability to make movies distributed on Netflix, nor the access and podium of Reich. The press is supposed to do that by proxy. YouTube is no substitute for an effective press.

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    13. Define for me what an "effective press" is and when we ever had a "press" that met that definition.

      Was it those days of long ago when Bob says two people, Cronkite and Brinkley, effectively controlled the information we received which was fine with Bob because, after all, they weren't Dowd and Maddow.

      "YouTube is no substitute for an effective press."

      Never said it was, so you can take that strawman down. But YouTube is one -- and only one -- of many new ways that information can be disseminated despite the control of a "corporate press co-opted by money."

      You see, our friend recommended a documentary in order to better understand the power of this "corporate media" in controlling the flow of information.

      I told him I had watched it. On Netflix. In the comfort of my own living room, at a time of my choosing.

      Netflix is another medium that didn't exist in the time of Cronkite and Brinkley. So are Web sites, blogs, all sorts of things. Don't like the news you are getting in the U.S.A. You can click on to media all over the world.

      If anyone is too lazy to do that, don't blame Rachel Maddow.

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  9. Here's some facts we might consider amid all the hand-wringing about how just awful the media is treating Ray and the NFL.

    One-third of all female homicide victims are killed by an "intimate partner."

    Of those killed by an intimate partner, 80 percent had reported at least one previous instance of battery by their partner to law enforcement. It is unknown how many in the other 20 percent had been battered, but did not report it.

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    Replies
    1. This is like the statistic that 100% of all heroin addicts drank milk as a baby.

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    2. No, 11:43, it is not. Heroin addicts are self abusers.

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    3. I was talking about the statistic not the heroin users. This is a good example of how points just sail over the heads of you guys.

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    4. 75% of commenters caught in an act of stupidity think their captor didn't get it.

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    5. But you didn't get it.

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  10. Why is this an interlude instead of a numbered episode? What makes an interlude different from a supplementary.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Not a "supplementary" but a "supplemental."

      Yes indeed, this is our first "interlude" in quite some time. And Bob has trained all of us to look for the hidden meanings behind the words.

      What is our mysterious blogger trying to tell us by calling this an "interlude" instead of "Part 3"?

      Shall we wait in eager anticipation of the blockbuster that "Part 3 is certain to be?

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    2. I didn't care that Bob's latest post in the Houses of Journalist County was one of his worst posts. But I thank him for both the honesty to recognize it and share a bit of his shame with us.

      I hope he recovers and finishes the work. You know, absent encouragement he has abandoned worthwhile projects before.

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    3. Thanks for correcting me Anonymous @ 11:54.

      I guess when I wrote "supplementary" I was thinking of "suppository." They both end in "y."

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    4. Why do you waste bandwidth with this useless garbage?

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    5. I don't think "Houses of Journalist County" or "How He Got There", regardless of their status as "works in progress" should be categorized as "useless garbage" @ 12:13.

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    6. Your comments are useless garbage.

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    7. I must add that there is a huge difference between "suppository" and "supplemental."

      One is inserted into a particular place. The other is pulled out of a particular place.

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    8. Does one pull it out of that place with one's thumb? If so, does it hurt if the thumb is very rough?

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    9. Do not follow the example of our blogger who frequently pulls supplementals out of his particular place with a very, very rough thumb.

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    10. Crude but typical remark from a troll.

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    11. 1002: I hope you didn't damage either of your 2 remaining synapses coming up with that retort.

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  11. Why has the incidence of domestic violence decreased? Because leaded gasoline was phased out in the nineteen seventies.

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