Wednesday, March 25, 2009

A Vote of No Confidence

Most news media outlets (tv, radio & internet) lack any credibility and foster destructive transitory pop culture, encouraging 'info-tainment' within the context of no context. Whether biased or balanced it's all still blather. Yesterday, a Fox News Reporter actually said of Obama's latest address: "I hope there are no more of these five-minute answers. It's hard to stay awake." Looking at unemployment numbers it's more than disheartening to see that THESE people HAVE jobs and even worse... Platforms.



Media find Obama news conference insufficiently entertaining

Summary: Several media outlets echoed the assertion of a Drudge Report headline that President Obama's March 24 press conference was "boring."

Discussing President Obama's then-upcoming press conference on the March 24 edition of Fox News' Special Report, when asked what he was looking for, Fox News contributor Fred Barnes stated: "I hope there are no more of these five-minute answers. It's hard to stay awake." Subsequently, during the press conference, Internet gossip Matt Drudge posted the headline "Being Boring" below a picture of Obama on his website. Drudge's headline initially did not link to an analysis by Drudge or to any articles but instead linked back to the Drudge Report homepage. After the press conference ended, Fox News hosts Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity echoed Drudge, with O'Reilly calling Obama's performance "dull and repetitive," and Hannity calling it "boring and dull and uninspiring and unconvincing."
Full article at:
- mediamatters.org

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UPDATE (3/26)



Reporter Asks Gibbs About Question Selection And Teleprompter

from wonkette.com

Hey does anyone know what the hell is going on with the media? Did all professional journalistic reporters catch idiot cancer overnight? Here we have the Washington Post’s Lois Romano, a fine reporter usually (we guess?), landing an interview with Robert Gibbs. A GOOD JOURNALISTIC OPPORTUNITY. And the two questions she asks immediately… well you know what those are going to be, don’t you?

First this Washington Post reporter asks why Obama did not call on any “major newspapers” during his press conference, GAHHH! Wait. No! She says, “President Obama turned the longstanding press conference tradition on its head last night by, uh, bypassing the major newspapers. What do you think about the reaction to that?”

Just no self-awareness at all, no idea how this looks, no idea that no one, except the political reporters for four newspapers in the United States, in any way cares about this. And this is just going to get so, so much more grating over the next few years as more people stop reading 24-hour-old news physically printed on oversized sheets of tree pulp.

Anyway, Gibbs more or less tells her that no one cares, fine.

Then, Romano’s second question, actual quote: “The teleprompter changed last night. What was that about? It’s a big Jumbotron now.”

WELL LOIS THERE USED TO BE TWO SMALLER SCREENS ON EITHER OF HIS SIDES, AND THEN ON TUESDAY THERE WAS JUST ONE BIG ONE STRAIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM. HE WANTED TO LOOK STRAIGHT AHEAD INSTEAD OF SIDE-TO-SIDE. WE KNOW IT’S HARD TO UNDERSTAND BUT THAT IS WHY.

Robert Gibbs also yells at her, for asking stupid questions. This teleprompter stuff, and the fact that every level of reporter is talking about it… really, just how does that happen? There is no more controversy in the use of a teleprompter than there is in the use of a microphone. “Did you hear that Obama uses a microphone, because his supposedly ‘great speaking voice’ isn’t LOUD enough, like an IDIOT?” That’s going to be a New York Times front-pager in a few months at this rate, just you watch. Even believing the chain e-mail Muslim conspiracy rumors is more valid than finding controversy in a teleprompter. Really! - wonkette.com


Let's end this with a bang...

Have you ever wondered how much your government was like the mob? No, you haven't? You think that's a ridiculous analogy and that you'd have to be a complete moron to make it in the first place? Well, let me ask you this: Does the government make you fear for your life? No, again you think you'd have to be an insane person to think that's a legitimate question? Well of course you do, you're sane. Questions like these belong on the interwebs and message boards and ron paul forums right? No one in their right mind would say, intentionally bring a guest onto a prime-time cable news show to ask them these kinds of questions, right? Wrong. Guesssss whoooo???



I love that Fox brings on a mobster to give their narrative credibility. I hope that irony isn't lost on all of their viewers. Actually, I'm sure it was.

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Sunday, March 22, 2009

Everything's Amazing, Nobody's Happy

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Thursday, March 19, 2009

The Evangelical Collapse... quickly come

"The Coming Evangelical Collapse"
An anti-Christian chapter in Western history is about to begin. But out of the ruins, a new vitality and integrity will rise.


By Michael Spencer
from the March 10, 2009 Christian Science Monitor


Excerpt:

...the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close. Why is this going to happen?

1. Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society.

The evangelical investment in moral, social, and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses. Being against gay marriage and being rhetorically pro-life will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of Evangelicals can't articulate the Gospel with any coherence. We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith.

2. We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we've spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.

3. There are three kinds of evangelical churches today: consumer-driven megachurches, dying churches, and new churches whose future is fragile. Denominations will shrink, even vanish, while fewer and fewer evangelical churches will survive and thrive.

4. Despite some very successful developments in the past 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can withstand the rising tide of secularism. Evangelicalism has used its educational system primarily to staff its own needs and talk to itself.

5. The confrontation between cultural secularism and the faith at the core of evangelical efforts to "do good" is rapidly approaching. We will soon see that the good Evangelicals want to do will be viewed as bad by so many, and much of that work will not be done. Look for ministries to take on a less and less distinctively Christian face in order to survive.

6. Even in areas where Evangelicals imagine themselves strong (like the Bible Belt), we will find a great inability to pass on to our children a vital evangelical confidence in the Bible and the importance of the faith.

7. The money will dry up.

FULL ARTICLE HERE: http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0310/p09s01-coop.html


Great article and I agree almost entirely, (especially with his list 1-7) but with a few exceptions. The largest being this:
The ascendancy of Charismatic-Pentecostal-influenced worship around the world can be a major positive for the evangelical movement if reformation can reach those churches and if it is joined with the calling, training, and mentoring of leaders. If American churches come under more of the influence of the movement of the Holy Spirit in Africa and Asia, this will be a good thing.
This movement is primarily devoid of the very things the author says Evangelicals problematically lack in #2
2. We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we've spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.
...so I don't see how the author thinks that movement will sustain or be a "good thing." It is growing in poverty-ridden areas because it often preaches a false gospel of self-improvement, holiness and works-based righteousness benefits and wealth according to "faith". So it preys on the praying poor, but it is NOT Christianity, in fact it's the antithesis. In my line of work we've seen vibrant growth in healthy faith in Africa that eclipses some of the best the Western church has produced, but we've also seen growth in bastardized faith with a false gospel and most of it has come from these very Charismaniacal circles.

The Christian "church" as a whole is bigger than it's ever been and the center of Christianity is no longer Europe, nor the U.S., but South America, Africa, & Asia. People talked the "death" of the church many many times before and they will continue to do so. The author is primarily correct about his evaluations of the Western church and the resurgence of Orthodoxy. Orthodox faith (not Eastern Orthodox, but Biblical based traditional faith) is growing slowly, especially in Europe and centers of education rather than declining as popular opinion suggests.

What is true and troubling is that as the American "Evangelical" church declines, which it is, it will not die out but rather become more troublesome and hard-lined. Like a dog in a corner (literally, because as the author suggests correctly, these groups will retreat further and further into their subcultures) it will lash out and become more hateful and destructive and entrench itself further into its culture wars of irrelevance and continue to serve as fodder and a red herring for critics of Christianity.

Finally, I do also agree with the author that this is all mostly GOOD news for the Church. True Christianity has stood strongest and most in line with its own teachings when it acts as counterculture and in opposition to the lies and destruction of its particular place in time (the irony is that now it needs most to be those things to its own adherents!). The Church was most successful when it stood against the Hellenists and the Romans and offered its alternative even in the face of persecution. It was then most successful again when it stood against its own co-option with the State and the abuses of the Catholic heads during the Reformation. It will be so again if it will stand against is new idols and false leaders and actually teach the Gospel instead of social conservatism, prosperity theology, and numerous other distractions (at best) and murderous lies (at worst).

The author says, "The integrity of the church as a countercultural movement with a message of "empire subversion" will increasingly replace a message of cultural and political entitlement." Let's hope so, because that will not be the legacy of our parents, but maybe it can be ours.

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Thursday, March 12, 2009

Stewart & Colbert matter.

"It’s the most ruthlessly honest, sobering conversation — from both sides — you’re likely to see on any show. Good. And note the lack of shouting." - Jim Newell

"I couldn't help but wonder why it takes a comedian on Comedy Central to do the kind of interview the non-fake news shows ought to be doing. When the media establishment marvels at Jon Stewart's popularity, they tend to think it's his humor. It's not. It's because he calls "bullsh*t" when most major media players won't. He did so last night, and it made for important viewing." - Steven Benen



From Washington Monthly:

"Cramer seemed anxious to avoid getting skewered. Before the interview, he was lowering the temperature, making self-deprecating jokes, and talking about how he patterned his own show after Stewart's. On the "Daily Show," Cramer continued to try being nice, telling Stewart what a "fan" he is. He even agreed with Stewart on the whole Santelli rant.

But that didn't stop Stewart from saying what needed to be said. It was like watching a trained prosecutor destroy a fumbling defendant on the stand.

Jon Stewart hammered Jim Cramer and his network, CNBC, in their anticipated face-off on "The Daily Show," repeatedly chastising the "Mad Money" host for putting entertainment above journalism.

"I understand that you want to make finance entertaining, but it's not a f@#king game," Stewart told Cramer.

Cramer apparently went on the show to make nice and end the "feud." Stewart apparently had him on the show to expose how ridiculous and irresponsible CNBC is as a network. The result wasn't pretty, but as Alex Koppelman noted, it was "a riveting half-hour, something almost completely unlike anything else ever seen on television."


Not leaving out Colbert:



The Word - Rand Illusion -
Stephen wants to live on an island with the CEOs, hedge fund managers, House Republicans and TV pundits where the poor can't selfishly tax them. Conservatism is just so Biblical. I can't see how I've missed it all this time.

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