War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
Fear is a soft sounding word, nothing scary about it, at least until some circumstance is attached. Last week, my first post on fear concerned the quiet, unassuming fright in the storing of mega-dangerous spent nuclear fuel at reactor sites — fear without example. Although the message is low key — all that radioactive material piling…
Not! A new Gallup poll indicates a majority of US peoples don’t trust the mass media — Trust in the media is now slightly higher than the record-low trust in the legislative branch but lower than trust in the executive and judicial branches of government, even though trust in all three branches is down sharply…
Once again, and I couldn’t help, another post on Bob Woodward and the state of journalism as it covers national politics and war. As a nit-wit young reporter, in the original viewing of “All the President’s Men” in 1976, I was much-more captivated by Dustin Hoffman playing Carl Bernstein than Robert Redford as Woodward —…
UPDATE BELOW The hard life of a modern journalist. (Illustration found here). In 1976, when the movie, “All the President’s Men,” was released, I’d been on the job about 18 months as a police reporter — a newbie nearly in the world of newspapers — and had discovered I was a natural at it, taking…
Odd is history. What little of history I’ve seen, one truism for sure is that history does repeat itself — what comes around goes around. People who’ve had a strong hand in developing parts-and-parcel the world’s current shit-storm also enjoyed a role in events past — revealing a character study in nasty, carry-a-big-stick-and-use-it warmongering. Even…
Although informative and hilarious, the TV news programs on Comedy Central present a stark, and sad reminder of just how bad journalism in general (or honest-to-goodness news gathering) has become in the last few years. When the best news programs on TV are phony mock-ups — WTF! (Illustration found here). Of course, the massive, humongous…
In keeping with the reality of early morning, it’s always a heart-touching, easy embrace to read Nobel Prize-winner and NYT columnist Paul Krugman, especially on Mondays — in a quiet, peaceful pre-dawn it’s hard to believe the USA and the world is going to shit in a wire basket. A lot of folks don’t like…
What? Me worry? (Illustration found here). Since the last time I’d posted, there’s been a shitload of weird, dangerous and dumb stuff happen, but most of it apparently hasn’t had enough stupidity involved to really get me spiking the old keyboard again — this past week’s adventure via the Internet, though, has caused a return,…
Highlights the desperate plight of news gathering: Editor&Publisher, an authentic cornerstone of journalism will cease publication at the end of this year. The announcement was made Thursday on its online site. An interview today with Greg Mitchell, E&P‘s editor since 2002, on the demise of the newspaper-trade industry/journo-icon can be found at Columbia Journalism Review.…
Nearly 50 years have passed since that fateful day in Dallas when JFK was assassinated, and now some new insights have surfaced into those few precious moments in the abrupt transition of presidential power — and it ain’t macho. In a new book on the November 1963 event, The Kennedy Assassination–24 Hours After: Lyndon B.…