O'Reilly evidence

No, not even before this topic came up. I have never liked the way he treats his co-hosts (Lis (sp?} Wheel and that other lady; what are they even doing on there?), and that kind of thing matters very much to us. Overall, that sort of involvement in politics would not suit us at all, though we have had local and state political candidates come out to our festivals and meet with us at our cafe. We feel more like a family than a community, and we know each other's business pretty thoroughly. I don't think we get tired of it. In fact, it's pretty great. People have been living in villages/tribes for tens of thousands of years, and it's the most normal way for us to live, I think. Of course, there's a unity and joy here that comes from the Spirit of God and is beyond the Mayberry experience, but I can't imagine anyone's going to believe that without seeing it.As far as the limited environment, I think we've managed to avoid that. I personally have been to California on business, Utah on a Tae Kwon Do team, and Dallas with 35 young people that make up our Celtic band and dance troupe so far this year. I got passport photos taken last night, because we received an invitation to come visit a fellowship in India. In addition to all that, we're busy right now doing public events with several churches, the majority of them black churches, in an effort to shatter long held patterns of disunity among churches in general and white and black churches in particular.This is still off topic, but this short story is worth telling, off topic or not. The last couple months, our house (two families with fifteen children total) has had a household meeting once a week to let the children recite poems, sing, or whatever. One week, my 11-year-old son read Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" speech. It totally captivated me. I'd never heard the whole thing before.The best part was "I have a dream that even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering in the heat of injustice and oppression, shall become an oasis of freedom and justice." Two days after that household meeting, at which I'd had no idea my son intended to read that speech, I went to a breakfast in Corinth, MS, with pastors and members of four or five black churches, where "the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners sat down at a table of brotherhood."We have a young lady in our village who is a terrific photographer, and has been asked to take photographs for Selmer's little weekly paper. She puts up a "photo of the week" each week in our cafe. This week, it's the picture of a "little black boy and a little white boy" hugging, with one of them holding a ball.If you're from the North of the US, it may seem sad that such efforts are even still needed. It is sad, but it's true. Business in our cafe has dropped about 30% (thirty!) since our picnic in the park, though we can't prove the picnic is the source of the dropoff. Last week, a customer did ask one of our waitresses whether we were worried about blacks "taking over," and then proceeded into a defense of his prejudice.So, no, we're not getting tired of the limited environment. One of our favorite sayings, at least around my house, is "I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes they all gang up on me at once."

This isn't really an answer to you, Frog. It's just general.Hey, as long as we're chiming in here, I had a thought that I have to follow up on. Maybe someone can find the answer faster than me.The "misperception" survey that is referenced earlier is kind of a one-sided thing. Someone who is against the war on Iraq would be much more likely to say that the world was against Bush, that Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 or al Qaeda, and whatever that 3rd thing was. So, that survey, while proving that Fox listeners are moved by bias and believing things aren't true, really doesn't prove that NPR listener's don't have a liberal bias. A liberal bias would make them almost immune to such misperceptions.We have to find a survey where something the conservatives like is the accurate scenario and see whether NPR listeners are just as aware in that area.It's hard to imagine there's such an other-sided survey available, but I haven't had a chance to look yet.

I don't think I'm making that presumption. I think that's exactly the question I'm asking. Perhaps. I think it unlikely, however, that Diogenes' limited his search to the politically conservative.

Hmm. Most, or perhaps even all, of the staunch Republicans I have known were church people, and the abortion issue by itself pretty much sealed their party for them. Some were Rush listeners (Rush is on during the day, not at night, so this wouldn't be a large percentage of the Republicans I've known), and those tended to be defenders of the Bush's no matter what. That was rarely true, however, of non-Rush listeners. They had their own issues, and they were not the same as Rush's, and Republican congresses & presidents were judged on those issues.Admittedly, though, this would have been a pretty radical crowd, probably not representative of the Republican party as a whole, but nonetheless a pretty large group of people that could easily have been won to the Libertarian party had it ever had a viable candidate.Couple more things, but that's for the next post...

1.) What's happening to that cat in your picture?2.) We went to the bookstore today, and what should be out on the sidewalk at a major discount but Al Franken's Liars book. I got it and bore with the sore disappointment at leaving behind Dean Karnazes biography, which was four times the price. Sigh...I think the most astonishing I managed to read at the store and on the way home is that Sean Hannity is so popular or that Rush spoke highly of him. I've only heard him three or four times, and his intense confidence makes him somewhat interesting, but everything about him--voice, inflection, style, content--says he's a tabloid reporter, a wannabe at best. I was surprised even last week when I saw that clip of him interviewing Howard Dean. How'd he get into the Democratic Convention?It felt a lot like the time I was in Germany in the mid-80's and this famous, top-rated American show was going to come on AFN for the first time. We went to a friend's house so we could see what this acclaimed comedy was. It was Rosie, and our jaws hit the floor. We wondered what had become of our beloved home country while we'd been in Europe, that such mindless drivel was a top-rated show.Sean Hannity is a real, honest-to-goodness reporter??? Now that's a surprise.If you'd really wanted to get me to cave in on Fox News, you should have told me he's one of their top guys on TV. I'd have been speechless.I read several chapters of Franken's book with a very non-open attitude. I have to admit, though, the only thing I could fault him on was his suggestion that O'Reilly's 37% figure on blacks in Florida universities came from nowhere, when it is indeed the correct figure for minorities. Nonetheless, Franken's point was the way O'Reilly shut down his guest's statistics, when the guest was right and O'Reilly was wrong, and that point was valid.I appreciated Franken referring to his own style as honest but vicious at one point. I was also utterly shocked at his quotes from O'Reilly's book (can't remember the name) when he got on O'Reilly about O'Reilly's attacks on Ludicrous (I'm spelling that wrong, but I can't remember the right way). Of course, a young lady, a friend of ours, chose that page to look over my shoulder to see what I was reading. I had to tell her, "You don't want to read this page."And I SURE appreciated his comments on end notes, which irritate the daylights out of me.I'm going to find more info on liberal and conservative bias and come back to this. Franken does a good job addressing the non-existence of the liberal bias in the media. A very good job.

One more note on the book. I read a little more late last night so that I would have something to do while I enjoyed a 2nd bowl of cherry vanilla ice cream mixed approximately 70-30 with chocolate syrup after the kids had gone to bed (if it had been real Hershey's in a can, it would have been 50-50).Franken quotes a survey group (PEW something) for the 2000 election showing that media stories were more negative towards Gore than towards Bush. (The same group shows the opposite during the Kerry/Bush campaign.)What a shock to find out Gore really did "invent" the internet.LOL! (There's some exagerration and facetiousness in the above statement, but it's true!)That was right up there with finding out that J.R.R. Tolkien the Great (I think LOTR was divinely inspired...really) agreed with Gore that the combustion engine was the worse thing that ever happened to man.

Hi, Monk...I have a video at home about Tolkien, that's called, uh, uh...shoot...Maybe it's called "Creating Middle Earth." I'll check.Anyway, it talks about the area around Tolkien's home town and how he hated seeing it become industrialized, and it says that's the reason that all the bad guys in LOTR destroy everything that's green for the sake of factories. In that video they say he hated the combustion engine. I don't remember the exact quote. I just remember thinking it interesting that Tolkien agreed with Gore on that point.

Yes, it is. 37% is exactly the right figure for minorities. O'Reilly applied it to blacks. In that he was wrong. Franken suggests the number is simply pulled from nowhere. It is not pulled from nowhere. It is the number for minorities. It's not a lie. It's a very simple little fact, not hard to figure out. Why do you persist in being both obnoxious and stupid?That would be an ad hominem attack, but since you don't actually debate anything, I can't see why that matters.

I gave you the source for the 37% in the other thread. Finding a new percentage for the current year is irrelevant. 37% did not come from nowhere, just as I said it didn't.Worse, not only is your last post irrelevant (and thus inaccurate, no matter how accurate any of the individual figures might be), but the only possible effect any of this could have is to take the focus off what ought to have been a pretty rousing recommendation for a book that slams Bill O'Reilly pretty thoroughly (which I mention, because O'Reilly is still in the title of this thread). If that's your purpose, fine.