Category Archives: media news

media news

News boycott continues

Hey, boys and girls, I have an announcement to make, which is that my daytime news boycott is continuing with no sign of letting up.

I mentioned some weeks back that I was turning the TV off for the forseeable future for a number of reasons.

One is that I am sick of hearing Donald Trump’s name mentioned. Two, the news talking heads aren’t telling me anything I don’t already know about or expect to know about him. Three,  I am enjoying the quiet in my North Texas home, with just my puppy Sabol and me making noise.

Truthfully, I have no interest in turning on the Fox Propaganda Channel and listen to those talking heads make excuses for Trump’s behavior or Elon Musk’s bullying of federal employees.

As for CNN and MSBNC, channels I normally tune into to learn the latest and the greatest news of the world, well, those folks are boring me with their repetitious recitals of what I already know about how those folks feel about POTUS No. 47 and his hired gun.

I am able to learn the important news as it develops. For instance, I learned of former heavyweight champion George Foreman’s death online. I learned about the wildfires in the Texas Hill Country and the savage wind that blew in the Panhandle.

So, the news that matters to me the most is getting through. I just don’t have the noise of voices blathering the same ol’-same ol’ through my house.

I’m going to keep it quiet around here for a good while longer.

media news

House turns quiet

This is difficult for me to admit, but the lack of TV noise has served to settle my emotions and provide me needed peace.

I am thinking of keeping the TV off during the day and most of the evening … except to watch an occasional movie on one of the several streaming channels for which I already am paying.

I once was an avid TV watcher. I turned the damn thing on first thing in the morning and kept it on throughout the day. After a time, it got to where I hardly could hear the noise emanating from what Dad called the “boob tube.” Dad had a weird sense about TVs. He sold them for a living, made a lot of money peddling boob tubes to dealers throughout Oregon and much of Washington.

I guess I didn’t inherit his peculiar devotion to an appliance that has become something of a distraction.

We had one of the first TVs in Portland in the early 1950s. Then Mom and Dad acquired one of the first color TVs in the later 1950s. My sister and I would welcome our friends over to watch TV shows “in living color.” We marveled at it.

The climate today has changed dramatically from what I remember as a boy.

These days, I don’t miss the chatter. I don’t miss the background noise. I don’t miss the annoying commercials that seem to be never-ending. I don’t miss, in particular, those ads pushing all those prescription drugs — with names that sound like they’re from another planet — designed to cure everything from diabetes to erectile dysfunction.

I am enjoying the quiet time. Now comes a test to see how long the enjoyment lasts. I am hoping for a long hiatus.

media news

Spared the news of the day

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Times like today fill me with a mixed blessing of sadness and relief.

Sadness arrived about 9 a.m.  when I learned my sister died this morning of heart failure brought on by the acute COPD she suffered. I wasn’t surprised when the call came. It still saddens me beyond all I dare seek to measure.

The blessing? I have zero interest in what’s happening in the world. I have kept my TV quiet and dark all day as I have gone about my personal business here in Princeton.

I do not give a sh** what Elon Musk, the de facto POTJS, wants to slash from the government. Nor do I give a rat’s royal red ass what Donald Trump is bloviating about today. I don’t care about the Democratic response. I don’t give a sh** about the political consequences of all this mayhem.

I care instead about my brother-in-law and the loss I know he is feeling. His best friend has left this good Earth. I am going to worry only about him and I will let the other crap just fester without me.

media news

Media war is a loser

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Presidents of the United States, almost to a man, have acknowledged publicly the value that an independent press brings to the world government.

Many of them have not always liked the coverage they get from the media — be it broadcast, cable, print, radio or Internet — but they accept it as part of governance. The media keep the pols on their toes.

In the age of Donald Trump, though, the media have become the “enemy of the people.” They become targets of the president, of the Department of Justice, of politicians at every level. Trump now seeks to ban The Associated Press from White House press briefings because the AP refuses to describe the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

Trump also has banned from the White House all media outlets that report issues with a critical eye. He wants to shutter networks such as MSNBC and CNN. He wants the public to receive only coverage he deems favorable to his policies.

This is one of the more frightening aspects of Trump’s return to the pinnacle of power. He is unhinged, unfettered, unbound and unambiguous about his disdain for the media.

The nation’s founders sought to provide press protection among the civil liberties they wrote into the U.S. Constitution. The First Amendment guarantees that the government “shall make no law” that impinges on a free and untethered press.

Donald Trump, the ignoramus in chief, needs to understand that a truly conservative government respects what it has identified as the founders’ “original intent.”

And the president should take his lumps just like his predecessors have done. That’s how democracy works.

media news

Trump’s ‘ratings’ are tanking

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Donald J. Trump, when campaigning for the presidency, often has referred to “ratings” in assessing the success he is having with the public.

You’ve heard him boast about the “ratings” he allegedly scored at campaign rallies, or TV appearances, or whatever he did while campaigning.

Well, it appears — if reports are accurate — that the ratings game is petering out for Trump. Some recent polling suggests his approval/disapproval rating is the worst of any POTUS at this stage of his term. It’s good to keep that in a bit of perspective. He wasn’t exactly a newbie when he took office in January. He did an earlier term in which he got impeached twice and got indicted on multiple felonies.

Americans knew what they were getting when they elected this dumbass a second time in November.

Since taking office a little over a month ago, Trump has managed to:

  • Seek to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
  • Discussed openly purchasing Greenland from Denmark.
  • Talked about Canada becoming the 51st U.S. state.
  • Pledged to seize back the Panama Canal.
  • Discussed taking possession of the Gaza Strip and turning it into a Middle East Riviera.
  • Appointed a cast of clowns and crackpots to his Cabinet.

Americans simply cannot believe the nonsense that flows from this individual’s overfed pie hole.

But it does. And polling suggests Americans have had their fill … already. Oh, the fun is just beginning.

media news

Awaiting Trump 2.0

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OK, I’ll have to be candid about the arrival of Donald Trump to the national political scene.

Your friendly blogger is going to seek to exercise some self-control when it comes to commenting on Trump as he assumes the presidency … yet again!

He no doubt is going to blather statements swathed in stupidity. He will display his ignorance of government time and again. He will insult his enemies, heap praise on his pals. My task as a blogger with a keen interest in politics and policy will be … to remain silent on most of that idiocy.

It sounds like a tall order. It has been easy for me to rant, rave and rail against the stupidity that flows from this guy’s pie hole. I have decided to follow a time-honored mantra: What the man does is more important than what he says.

I will just have to accept that he will say a lot of nonsensical things while sitting in the Oval Office. That’s just kinda par for this guy’s way of getting our attention.

When he acts on his idiocy, well, that’s another matter. His first day as a self-proclaimed “dictator” might give me ample grist on which to comment. I’ll be ready for that. Afterward? I intend to keep my powder dry for the things the numbskull in chief actually does.

Oh, it’s going to be a fun four years.

media news

Facebook goes off the rails

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What to do about Facebook, the once ever-popular social media platform that has been prostituted by its zillionaire owner, Mark Zuckerberg?

I guess it’s time to announce a couple of command decisions I have made about the medium.

I am no longer going to purchase anything from it. I did purchase a t-shirt once showing Nolan Ryan pummeling Robin Ventura in that notorious mound-charging incident that Ventura regretted immediately after running into Ryan’s fist.

Nor am I going to engage in anyone purporting to support a political cause.

Zuckerberg announced recently he is doing away with
“fact-checkers,” relying instead on some sort of community watchdog panel. Furthermore, Zuckerberg has sidled up to Donald Trump, joining his cult cabal of MAGAites. Sheesh!

I will use Facebook to distribute High Plains Blogger. I will do so with this post. Facebook does perform a valuable service for me by allowing me to send my blog entries to the 750 or so friends and (mostly) acquaintances I have acquired along the way. Some of them are kind enough to distribute these entries to their friend network.

I joined Facebook around 2009, so I am pretty familiar with how it works.

The truth is, Facebook does allow me to stay in touch with actual friends and family members. I value that part of it, but I find little else of it appealing in any meaningful way.

local news, media news

Remembering final big move

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Thirty years ago this week, I piled most of my worldly possessions into a 1987 Honda Civic and set out for what would be the final stop on my fun-filled career in print journalism.

I had spent nearly 11 years pursuing my craft in Beaumont, Texas, but then an opportunity presented itself in a community far from the Gulf Coast … but still part of this vast state of ours.

I moved to Amarillo. People have asked me over the years when I moved to the Panhandle, and I have been able to tell them the precise date. I reported for work at the Amarillo Globe-News on Jan. 9, 1995. I departed Beaumont on Jan. 6; it took a while to drive from the swamp to the High Plains.

I made one overnight stop in Fort Worth to see some dear friends before trudging northwest along U.S. 287.

But I got to Amarillo. I would learn later of a quip I adopted and have used many times: It is so flat in the Panhandle that if you stand on your tiptoes, you can see the back of your own head. 

It helps, too, that the region is so barren that there’s little tall timber to block that view.

The point of this brief blog? It’s to highlight the flexibility and adaptability I didn’t realize I possessed when I decided to move from my native Oregon to Texas in 1984.

They used to run a tourism ad that called Texas a “whole other country.” How true it is. Beaumont not only is a lengthy mileage distance from the Panhandle, the Gulf Coast possesses a whole other culture. Whereas the Panhandle prides itself on its cowboy tradition, the Golden Triangle takes pride in its Cajun southern culture. Both places appeal to me greatly.

Life took another huge turn in March 2013 when my granddaughter came into this world. My bride and I set about preparing to move from the Panhandle to the Metroplex. It took a while, but we got here.

I guess I want simply to salute the journey my career enabled me to take. Kathy Anne and I saw much of this country and a good part of world on that trek. Texas gave us the opportunity to live a wonderful life.

We have been blessed beyond all measure. My journey continues.

media news

Sharpton goes too far

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I have remained silent about Al Sharpton for too long … therefore, recent disclosures about him compel me to speak out.

Sharpton, an MSNBC commentator, has been revealed to have received $500,000 for the National Action Network — an organization he leads — in advance of an interview he conducted with Democratic Party presidential candidate Kamala Harris just days before the Nov. 5 presidential election.

I’ll get to the point, which is that I do not accept the description of Sharpton as a “civil rights champion” or “activist.” He burst onto the national scene in the late 1980s when he led a crusade on behalf of a young Black woman who claimed to have been beaten and raped by several white New York City police officers.

The case eventually was tossed when authorities learned the woman made it up. The cops didn’t beat and rape her. Yet Sharpton continued to accuse the officers of this egregious conduct. The cops eventually sued Sharpton for defamation and slander … and won!

Has Sharpton ever apologized to the officers? Hell no! He’s gone on to pad his notoriety by forming the NAN and landing the gig on MSNBC.

Sharpton is a strong Democratic partisan. I am fine with that. I favor Democratic policies as well. However, his failure to disclose the payment to NAN from the Harris campaign only demonstrates the fraudulent nature of his standing as a “civil rights champion.”

He is a loudmouth who does not deserve the phony respect he has harvested over these many years.

I am going to catch hell for these remarks. I don’t mind. Just know that I stand on the principle that public figures must earn the public’s trust. Al Sharpton, in my view, fails to meet that standard.

 

media news

Trump can declare a form of victory

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Win or lose when they count the presidential election ballots on Tuesday, Donald J. Trump can declare an important victory in one of the side battles waged in this campaign.

I believe the Republican nominee has managed to bully major newspapers into forgoing a presidential endorsement in this most consequential election.

The Washington Post will be quiet on who it prefers to see elected. So will the New York Times. So will Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper chain. Major metropolitan daily news across the land have made the same decision.

Why is that? I believe that the GOP nominee’s insistence that the media are the “enemy of the people ” has managed to sink in. Publishers and senior editors have sought to explain themselves. No explanation is necessary.

They have been cowed into fearing how readers might react were they to recommend the election of Democrats Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. This election, though, cries out for some media leadership, particularly when we have a major-party presidential nominee who is so demonstrably unfit to serve in the office he seeks.

I take no joy in recognizing what I believe is a tactical victory for Trump. I’ll just have to swallow hard.