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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 11, 2019 13:57:33 GMT -5
My view may be affected by the fact that I had to to protect confidences in my line of work. Not every communication relating to government should be public. Among other things, keeping conversations confidential allows for a free exchange of views without having to worry about how a comment might look in a headline. Drawing the right boundary between secrecy and opacity can be difficult at times. But nobody elected this guy to do it. Appointing yourself as the arbiter of such issues is more than a little arrogant. I'm not a fan. That neatly sums up my view. I'm not crazy about letting just anybody decide what should be kept secret and what shouldn't, with the potential of ruinous effects on our country. Of course, Assange brings up the question of whether the media should publish whatever unauthorized material falls into its hands. I could argue both sides of this issue with passion, national security vs. free speech, and all that, but generally I believe the media should err on the side of disclosure. Otherwise, for example, we never would have found out, through the Pentagon Papers, about the years of flat-out, bald-faced, politically motivated lying to the American people that marked the Vietnam war era. As gray an area as gray can get, to be sure. Certainly, common sense should prevail. If a piece of information would unquestionably cause Americans to lose their lives, or put the nation's security at risk, it should be voluntarily withheld. Yes, that puts a lot of power in the hands the the media to make such decisions, and there's the who-elected-them argument,. But at some point you just have to answer the question, what would a reasonable person do. All that said, we're now in a new era of media where Just Some Guy sitting at his laptop in his drawers theoretically could come to have such secrets, and the choice of whether to publish or not. Which raises the larger question, what do you do about the Internet? No easy answers.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 10, 2019 12:58:24 GMT -5
Yeah!
I like the way they start "Blues in my Heart" with (if I'm not mistaken) The St. James Infirmary Blues, as if to say, this is what we're talking about, then morph into the main song.
Like VI, I don't routinely listen to this kind of jazzy blues, but I do love it when I hear it. I'd always go out of my way to listen to Maria Muldaur.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 9, 2019 21:38:29 GMT -5
My anti-virus/malware program tells me every so often that the site is not secure.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 7, 2019 21:06:56 GMT -5
Sorry, but when you see a slow ball coming your way, you swing.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 7, 2019 21:05:01 GMT -5
Sorry, but I wouldn’t connect anything important to your security or business to a Chinese made network. Well, not unless you want the Chinese to have your information in real time. Well, if you can't trust the Chinese, who can you trust? Mike Well, in the area of trustworthiness, there's always Trump.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 7, 2019 15:10:25 GMT -5
Was that one of those things that are funny only in retrospect?
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 6, 2019 17:09:27 GMT -5
Interesting piece. Magnetic North has always seemed mysterious to me because of the way it wanders around. Of course there's an explanation for its travels, but such a phenomenon on such a global scale just seems spooky. In the early 90s when I was at Resolute Bay (in Nunavut) to write about people who trek to geographic North (which stays put and behaves itself), I ran into an adventurous middle-aged couple who were setting off to reach the magnetic version on foot. At the time MN was (as I recall) about 300 miles west of us. Even at that distance, my compass was acting like it was on tranquilizers. Very lazy movements.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 5, 2019 15:46:29 GMT -5
Observations:
Now we know how to pronounce it, we need to be able to remember how to spell it.
CNN reported a poll the other day showing that 70% of Americans would accept a gay president. To which I say it's about time; but as a product of my generation, and in this era of Trump, with his support from people who believe homosexuality is a mortal sin, I find this as astonishing as it is welcome.
I still need to know more about boot-edge-edge and his convictions and visions for America, and to see how he holds up in a debate, but as of now he's definitely on my list of acceptable candidates.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 4, 2019 11:37:56 GMT -5
And I will also add that it's kind of hilarious that USA Today is bitching about this. Like most modern media, much of their content is written by activist groups and others who have nothing to do all day but send out propaganda pieces tailor made to fit in whatever blank space is available with minimal editing. That's the pot calling the kettle black if ever I've seen it. I haven't yet read the USA Today article, so maybe there's something I'm missing, but, having written for and/or been employed full-time by a number of said modern media (Washington Post, New York Times, Esquire, The Atlantic, NPR, etc.), I believe I can just flat-out state that that is wrong.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 4, 2019 11:11:06 GMT -5
A do-nothing Congress is can be a blessing. I agree with this statement as edited. When I was doing my daily radio show in D.C., "Report on Congress with Donald Smith," I always had to smirk when I saw other media reporting something like "the Senate today failed to pass the [such-and-such] bill." The Senate didn't fail to do anything. It rejected something. My report would say something like, "The [such-and-such] bill failed on the floor of the Senate today." Big difference.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 3, 2019 15:51:50 GMT -5
I'm mostly sympathetic with Biden on this. I also take note that Lucy Flores is an avowed Bernie Sanders supporter. She endorsed him in the 2016 primaries, Sanders has raised money for Flores, and she's on the board of Our Revolution, a political action committee affiliated with Sanders. It wouldn't surprise me to find out she let loose this little bombshell at this particular time in hopes of helping clear the field of old white guys to make space for Bernie.
But I have to say Biden should know better than to go around sniffing women's hair and kissing then on the head without their approval. It's just not acceptable behavior in any context. Biden does have a track record of gaffery, a fact I think a lot of people have lost sight of since he's been out of the public eye for a while. As much affection as I hold for him - his political leanings (for the most part) and his personal story - the Democrats need the most bullet-proof candidate they can possibly field to vanquish the orange dreadnought. Having Biden head the ticket robs them of the issue of respectful treatment of women. For that reason, I'm guessing he'll be talked out of running; for will be bumped off in the primaries.
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Maggie
Mar 29, 2019 19:18:57 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by Chesapeake on Mar 29, 2019 19:18:57 GMT -5
And so, the mysterious folk process works its transformative magic with yet another song.
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Maggie
Mar 29, 2019 15:41:36 GMT -5
Post by Chesapeake on Mar 29, 2019 15:41:36 GMT -5
I agree, fine delivery. I don't always go for unusual phrasings, but I thought these were just right, and added to the emotional wallop this song packs. It reminds me of "Lorena," another ode to a love affair that did not prosper.
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Post by Chesapeake on Mar 28, 2019 15:21:37 GMT -5
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Post by Chesapeake on Mar 28, 2019 14:25:55 GMT -5
Sixty-nine? You call that old? HAH.
Anyway, happy birthday Mike.
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Post by Chesapeake on Mar 25, 2019 11:41:15 GMT -5
I await your usual tedious rebuttal. Well, there's certainly nothing I can say to that. How tedious.
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Post by Chesapeake on Mar 25, 2019 11:25:29 GMT -5
Instead of blaming the press for covering the news, I think a good case can be made that if Trump hadn't obsessed about the investigation so relentlessly, hadn't kept raising the subject himself on an almost daily basis in speeches, press gaggles, and Tweets, media attention would have withered away. The scoundrels would have been left with little to cover except the economy, jobs, the Middle East ... boring old stuff like that. That's a rather shocking take, right there. Are you seriously suggesting that the media would have largely ignored the Mueller probe absent Trump's provocations?
Surely you can't believe that.That's exactly what I'm saying. Without a serving of fresh meat every so often, the press has nothing to gnaw on. EDIT: That fresh meat could take the form of activity on the Hill, or news from other investigating agencies (e.g. the Southern District of New York, the NY state attorney general, etc.). Such would have helped keep the story alive absent Trump's ruminations. But Trump bears a large part of the responsibility/blame for perpetuating the story just by obsessing about it in public every day. Surely that's not in dispute.
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Post by Chesapeake on Mar 25, 2019 11:11:33 GMT -5
Instead of blaming the press for covering the news, I think a good case can be made that if Trump hadn't obsessed about the investigation so relentlessly, hadn't kept raising the subject himself on an almost daily basis in speeches, press gaggles, and Tweets, media attention would have withered away. The scoundrels would have been left with little to cover except the economy, jobs, the Middle East ... boring old stuff like that. Don't think I agree with you there, my friend. IMHO they weren't "covering" the news. They were the other side of an echo chamber with the rabid Democratic Trump haters on the other seeing who could get the biggest echo. COLLUSION...collusion...collusion.. collusion TREASON...treason...treason...treason.... STOLE THE ELECTION....election...election...election... If he hadn't hit back every damn day it's obvious what they would have shouted. SEE! HE KNOWS HE'S GUILTY....guilty...guilty...guilty.... No way in Hell media attention would have withered away. The mainstream media reported on Trump critics tossing such terms around. If one wants to call that an echo chamber, I guess that would be one way of putting it. But let's see what kind of world we would have if such reporting were not done. Democracy thrives on public debate, and airing controversial things public figures - including the president - say is part of the media's role in maintaining a free and open society. I'd love to see a single instance where the mainstream media itself accused Trump of collusion, treason, or election-stealing. "No way in Hell media attention would have withered away"? I guess we'll never know, but as one who's spent a career in those trenches, I can tell you that without some new development in a story, there's nothing to say other than what was said yesterday. The story goes cold, and media attention goes away.
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Post by Chesapeake on Mar 25, 2019 9:56:35 GMT -5
The result of all this is that they've taken the most flawed man to be president since probably ever and effectively made him bulletproof. And may have ensured his reelection. Worse than that. We have only their word to trust for the idea that he is the most flawed man to be president since probably forever. Nobody will rethink that. Nobody will ask themselves, "If the press was SO wrong about the results of the Mueller investigation -- if they were willing to propagate lies about the investigation for two years, why do we still believe all the other stories they tell us about Trump?" What other source beyond them do we have to know how good or flawed Trump is? We have to take them at their word....and they've now proven that their word is not trustworthy. Instead of blaming the press for covering the news, I think a good case can be made that if Trump hadn't obsessed about the investigation so relentlessly, hadn't kept raising the subject himself on an almost daily basis in speeches, press gaggles, and Tweets, media attention would have withered away. The scoundrels would have been left with little to cover except the economy, jobs, the Middle East ... boring old stuff like that.
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Post by Chesapeake on Mar 24, 2019 22:45:48 GMT -5
What fascinates me are the guys at the opposite end of the scale of who gets PTSD: the ones who get off on combat. I don't know if there've been any studies about this, but I read a memoir some years ago written by a soldier who just said right up front that he loved fighting, and he knew others who did too. The closest I got to a battlefield when I was in the army was manning a field of fire at a model firebase during a night exercise during basic training at Ft. Jackson, S.C. I knew perfectly well there wasn't anybody out there in the dark lining me up in their sights, but it was just spooky as hell. But who knows? Maybe I would have been Audie Murphy if the occasion had ever arisen. Doubtful, but I guess you don't know until you're put to the test.
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