Friday, April 1, 2016

Calling It Quits

“What’s happened to mainstream journalism?” is the question being asked by millions of thinking people, and more than ever before. Could a real clue be found in what may be termed “sound bite” reporting rather than investigative journalism dug up by investigative journalists? They, like the extinct Dodo bird, are becoming a vestige of the past, especially since most media are owned, controlled, and manipulated by five corporations: Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch’s News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom.

In former years, each issue of Time Magazine used to be voluminous, not the scrawny few pages it is today. Currently, newspapers are anemic renditions of their glorious past, i.e., scaled down from pages packed full of good reporting and reading into a sanitized propaganda versions of the news that spews forth what could be considered “crowd control” for the mind.

An apparent storm of arousal to misrepresentative information from what some call the “lame stream press,” the alternative (alt) media and press have left mainstream news media in their dust....

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Related:

"Nobody likes a liar. Had the corporate media been telling the people the truth all along, the independent media would have never gained a readership ( I wouldn't have bothered starting this site 22 years ago) and the newspapers would still be doing a healthy business. They did it to themselves and I have no sympathy for them."

“The United States is one gentile culture where the Zionist narrative dominates. Key is control of language, controlling thought (…) The more Americans are able to see realities of the occupation with their own eyes, to see routine daily violence, to see repression and humiliation that never make it into mainstream news, the more they will question the image of Israel (…) When that starts to become the dominant perception here in the US, all bets are off.  It all comes down to American popular perception.”

Must be why I'm so sour on the insulting elitism and self-centered supremacism.

"Readership is declining. The business model is failing. Frantic tweeting by clever wordsmiths isn’t changing the reality, but no one in the media should expect an outpouring of sympathy."

Good, because you won't be getting any here.

I don't know how you explain it to kids other than blame Trump.

"It’s time to turn off your T.V. and do your own research if you are curious about what is happening on our planet....

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That's the only alternative.

Now off TV yet always on:

Garry Shandling, 66; comedian starred in groundbreaking sitcoms

Blazed the trail for Seinfeld.

A show I love:

"Earl Hamner Jr., 92; creator of ‘Waltons’ TV show" by John C. Rogers Associated Press  March 26, 2016

LOS ANGELES — Earl Hamner Jr., the versatile and prolific writer who drew upon his Depression-era upbringing in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia to create one of television’s most beloved family shows, ‘‘The Waltons,’’ has died. He was 92.

Although best remembered for ‘‘The Waltons,’’ which aired for nine seasons and won more than a dozen Emmys, that show barely scratched the surface of Mr. Hamner’s literary accomplishments.

He was a best-selling novelist (“Spencer’s Mountain”), the author of eight episodes of the classic 1960s TV show ‘‘The Twilight Zone,’’ and, as a screenwriter, adapted the popular children’s tale ‘‘Charlotte’s Web’’ into a hit 2006 film. He also created the popular, long-running TV drama ‘‘Falcon Crest’’ and wrote for other TV shows such as ‘‘Wagon Train,’’ “Gentle Ben,’’ and ‘‘The Wild Thornberrys.’’

‘‘The Twilight Zone’’ episodes Mr. Hamner did finish included several of the best the classic TV series aired. Among them were ‘‘The Hunt,’’ in which a recently deceased backwoodsman is saved by his beloved hunting dog from accidentally wandering into Hell. Another, ‘‘Ring-a-Ding Girl,’’ tells the story of a young Hollywood movie star who returns to her hometown hours before her death and tricks family and friends into staying away from the site where her plane will crash.

Make that two shows.

Mr. Hamner and the show’s creator, Rod Serling, had been friends since their college days, and when Serling launched the show in 1959 he invited Mr. Hamner to submit scripts. The American folklore element was something he would draw on repeatedly in television’s ‘‘The Walton’s.’’

Like John Boy (played by Richard Thomas), the show’s character he modeled on himself, Mr. Hamner was born in the foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, on July 10, 1923. Also like John Boy, he was the eldest of eight children and named after his father.

It was there that Earl Henry Hamner Jr. grew up in such modest circumstances that his family owned few books other than the Bible and had no telephone. It wasn’t until a high school field trip to the World’s Fair in New York City in 1939, Mr. Hamner once said, that he actually learned how to use a phone. Until that trip, he said, he had never been more than 40 miles from home.

He had decided to become a writer at age 6, however, after getting a poem published on the children’s page of a Richmond, Va., newspaper.

After graduating from Schuyler High School at the top of his class, Mr. Hamner attended the University of Richmond on a scholarship until being drafted into the Army during World War II.

It was in the military, he said, that a fellow soldier named Paul Nusnick exposed him to serious writing, introducing him to the works of Thomas Wolfe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and others.

After leaving the Army, he enrolled at the University of Cincinnati, where he earned a degree in broadcasting while working at a local radio station.

‘‘The Waltons’’ aired for more than 200 episodes, with Mr. Hamner providing brief voice-over narration in each one, telling his audience about his family’s years in the Blue Ridge Mountains and how it had shaped him....

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Now a legend.

"Jim Harrison, 78; authored ‘Legends of the Fall’" by Hillel Italie Associated Press  March 28, 2016

NEW YORK — Jim Harrison, the fiction writer, poet, outdoorsman, and reveler who wrote with gruff affection for the country’s landscape and rural life and enjoyed mainstream success in middle age with his historical saga ‘‘Legends of the Fall,’’ died Saturday. He was 78.

Published in 1979, ‘‘Legends of the Fall’’ was a collection of three novellas that featured the title story about Montana rancher Colonel William Ludlow and his three sons of sharply contrasting personalities and values, the narrative extending from before World War I to the mid-20th century, from San Francisco to Singapore.

The book was a bestseller, and Mr. Harrison worked on the script for an Oscar-nominated 1994 film of the same name starring Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, and Aidan Quinn....

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Also see:

Joe Santos, 84, ‘Rockford Files’ actor

The show, set in and around Los Angeles, starred James Garner as a resourceful if not financially stable private detective who lived in a battered trailer in a beach parking lot and had a somewhat rocky relationship with the local police.

It also had a great car and theme song for an opening.

Joe Garagiola, ex-ballplayer’s charm caught on in booth

Doctor was just IN TIME!

Patty Duke, at 69; attained fame as young Oscar winner

Ken Howard, 71, TV star, president of screen union

In the acclaimed CBS series ‘‘The White Shadow,’’ which aired from 1978-81, he starred as a white coach to an urban high school basketball team. On Broadway, Mr. Howard played Thomas Jefferson in ‘‘1776,’’ a role he reprised in the 1972 film.

All history now.

"In 2011, Miami’s LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh accomplished something that hadn’t been done in more than 50 years: Each had 30-10 nights — James with 33 points and 10 rebounds, Bosh with 31 points and 12 rebounds, and Wade with 30 points and 11 boards — as the Heat beat the Houston Rockets 125-119."

I didn't know it was in 1912 that first lady Helen Herron Taft and the wife of Japan’s ambassador to the United States, Viscountess Chinda, planted the first two of 3,000 cherry trees  given as a gift by the mayor of Tokyo in Washington D.C.

And for that we nuked 'em. 

Twice.

Ah, those were the days of BushHitler (also helped by AP?), and Owens (that's why Jesse was snubbed by the civil rights movement).

And at the end of the road?

"A decade ago he started a blog and kept it going. Now, he’s ending it. “It is simply time to move on to other pursuits,” he wrote in his final post."

I have nothing more to add other than isn't 25,700 posts enough?