Books, Literature & Ideas
Building a Nation of Know-Nothings
Thu, 09/02/2010 - 14:29 — Dave CulverIt’s not just that 46 percent of Republicans believe the lie that Obama is a Muslim, or that 27 percent in the party doubt that the president of the United States is a citizen. But fully half of them believe falsely that the big bailout of banks and insurance companies under TARP was enacted by Obama, and not by President Bush.
Timothy Egan, New York Times | NY
Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Marsha Aronson
Having shed much of his dignity, core convictions and reputation for straight talk, Senator John McCain won his primary on Tuesday against the flat-earth wing of his party. Now McCain can go search for his lost character, which was last on display late in his 2008 campaign for president.
Remember the moment: a woman with matted hair and a shaky voice rose to express her doubts about Barack Obama. “I have read about him,” she said, “and he’s not — he’s an Arab.”
McCain was quick to knock down the lie. “No, ma’am,” he said, “he’s a decent family man, a citizen.”
Understanding Conservatism
Sat, 08/28/2010 - 12:13 — Dave Culver
Call it an insurrection if you want, but it's not the GOP who is besieged. It's the entire federal government (and, therefore, the country) that is under assault. The post-war consensus was never agreed to by conservatives. And they're coming to try to uproot eighty years of legislating history. That they won't succeed doesn't mean that we want to witness them try.
BooMan, Booman Tribune
Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Thomas Sklarski
Lee Judge | Immigrants Take All the Best Jobs / AmericanProgress.org
Thu, 08/26/2010 - 11:49 — Dave Culver
Less Is Not More
Tue, 08/24/2010 - 16:34 — Dave Culver- Why do newspapers alienate their most loyal readers?
- The American Media Misdiagnosis
- Save the Press
Lisa Anderson, Columbia Journalism Review
Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Will Shapira
When my son’s first college roommate turned out to be from Chicago, I was delighted. His family had long subscribed to the Chicago Tribune, where I worked. I thought it gave us an immediate connection. Less than two months later, they unsubscribed. This was shortly after a drastic redesign at the paper in September 2008. The roommate’s family said there was nothing in the Tribune to read anymore.
That wasn’t quite true. There was still plenty of information in the paper. But there were fewer stories, produced by fewer reporters. The stories were relentlessly local and, increasingly, came in the form of charts, graphs, maps, statistics, large fonts, and large photos—a sort of newspaper-Internet-TV amalgam that seemed more like something to be absorbed than read. For the roommate’s family—professional people who wanted sophisticated stories that included the world beyond Chicago—it wasn’t enough.
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