Is this the October Surprise?

Interesting stuff

Fai Mao

The List

My few regular readers will remember that I like to do top ten list. This link is actually much more detailed than a normal top ten list and even has an addendum. I think that one of the reasons that I like a list of things is because I work with adolescents. Kids don't have the attention span or desire to know a whole lot of things in an in depth manner and providing a list like this is an easy way to pique interest in a subject.

While informative and funny something that I find disturbing about these list is that they are too Amero-centric. Holy Cow! if they'd looked at the SCMP what would they have found? The China Daily? The Singapore Straights Time? Both ATV and TVB obviously slant certain news stories in various directions but I doubt either would admit to such.

I agree with the author of these list when he points out that the Internet did NOT make journalist less reliable but actually exposed some of them as liars. Matt Drudge didn't somehow make Bill Clinton ask Monica Lewinski for oral sex and the existence of EastWestSouthNorth didn't cause the movie reviews in Chengdu to be censored. Both these blogs (I'm not sure either of these is a blog. They might more usefully be defined as news aggregation services) simply expose what is already there. I'd have a lot more faith in the mass media if they'd do a better job of policing their own and admit they've had problems with trying to push an agenda. Every field has bad apples.

It kind of makes me uneasy when I read about media moguls and prominent journalist arguing for the censorship of the Internet , and make no mistake, that is exactly what Marvin Kalb was advocating in 1998 in the printed quote at the beginning of these articles. How can they advocate a "Free Press " and a controlled public Internet? I guess it is the old "Free speech for me but not for thee" syndrome.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who doesn't really trust Newspapers

Political Humor

Political humor is a strange beast. When done right it can be the funniest thing in print. I think was Dana Carvy who used to make wicked
fun out of the first President Bush and was invited to the White House to have dinner with the President as a result. The jokes about Ronald Regan
and Jelly Beans, Jimmy Carter's teeth, Gerald Ford's stumbling down steps were all funny and laughed at by the politician as well as their
opponents. Sometimes political humor makes its way into political advertising. With such famous lines as “3500 years ago Moses said 'Load up
your camels and asses and follow me and I'll Lead you to the Promised land Today LBJ tells to smoke your camels and sit on your asses this is
the promised land.”  

Other times political humor can be simply vile and sophomoric. In its worst form it can be seditious. I believe that the ability to laugh government
and to lampoon leaders is one of the most basic of liberties. Martin Luther once said something to the effect of “The best way to defeat the devil
is first to quote scripture to him and second to laugh at him” This is kind of true with politicians as well. Being able to laugh at them selves is
a virtue for politicians.        

More than that, being able to put potentially contentious issues in a humorous format can allow us to discuss and
examine these issues with less rancor is a good thing.  

Being able to allow dissent, especially through humor is something that PRC government needs to learn.
It might also be a good lesson for Hong Kong politicians. Would Sir Bow-Tie look less stiff if we thought
he could laugh at himself?

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who enjoys political humor

A Moment of Silence

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who defers to more eloquent voices

Snicker, Snicker, Snicker

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Non-Political Blogger

Brief Guide to US Newspapers

Somebody sent me this. I don't know where it came from originally.

A Brief Guide to American Newspapers

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the
country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.

4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country
but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like
their statistics shown in pie charts.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the
country -- if they could find the time -- and if they didn't have to leave
Southern California to do it.

6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the
country and did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's
running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat
on the train.

8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the
country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while
intoxicated.

9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country
but need the baseball scores.

10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there
is a country . . or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that
they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are
handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs who also happen to be
illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided of course, that they
are not Republicans.

11. The National Inquirer is read by people trapped in line at the
grocery store.