Harper's bizarre cover

While I continue to struggle with how to express my contempt for Newsweek and its apologists, I will for now settle for passing along a tidbit I picked up in Michelle Malkin's May 18 column. The item is a splendid example of how the mainstream media are not only biased, but increasingly clueless as well.

Malkin pointed out the March cover of liberal rag Harper's Magazine, which had a photo of seven military recruits under the headline "AWOL in America: When Desertion is the Only Option." One tiny problem with this cover is that none of the seven is a deserter.

Incredibly, Harper's doesn't see any problem with this whatsoever. In an interview with the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, Harper's flak Giulia Melucci justified this outrage thusly: "We are decorating pages."

And that's from the magazine's vice president for public relations. I can only wonder what we would hear from the Harper's editors who don't have highly specialized training in dealing with the public in a thoughtful, diplomatic manner.

An interesting tidbit that Malkin doesn't mention, but that the blog The Daily Whim does, is that the photo isn't even Harper's own, but a stock photo it bought from a photo agency. Ha! The great Harper's used a stock photo on its cover?! But wait, there's more! The Harper's version of the photo was manipulated to show one of the recruits disappearing (cleh-vur!) even though altering the agency's photos is a violation of said agency's rules.

Yeah, that Harper's is a real class act.

Now, when was the last time I heard about a shamelessly deceptive photo on a magazine cover? Oh, I remember; it was when Martha Stewart got out of prison, and a magazine cover had a photo of Stewart with her own head but someone else's better-looking body. What was the name of that magazine again? Oh, wait, it's coming to me ... it was Newsweek! Fancy that!

Tuning out, continued

What great timing. My previous blog entry was still fresh on my mind earlier this week when I happened to catch Brian C. Anderson, Ph.D., on The O'Reilly Factor. Anderson was on the show basically to plug his new book, South Park Conservatives: The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias. Anderson was a great guest, and I plan to read his book when I finish Ann Coulter's Slander. For those media apologists from Testy Copy Editors who claim they can't find any examples of liberal media bias, here's a whole book on the subject. Hope that helps.

If reading a book is too much to ask, then at least check out Bill O'Reilly's "Talking Points" of April 19, 2005. O'Reilly focuses on what the Jayson Blair Times, Washington Compost and other rags are saying about Pope Benedict XVI. Some highlights: The Times called the Holy Father "uncompromising, bland, upsetting, divisive and an enforcer." The Times' shrew-in-residence, Maureen Dowd, said Benedict is "a 78-year-old hidebound conservative ... who once belonged to Hitler Youth." Dowd apparently doesn't know or care that joining the Hitler Youth was mandatory for young Bavarians at the time Benedict was a member. And soon after the then-16-year-old Joseph Ratzinger was drafted into the German army, he deserted. In fact, he was barely 18 when Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allies.

That's so typical of vitriolic windbags like Dowd to portray the pope as a Nazi. Ironically, when present-day American adults who signed up to serve in their country's armed forces become deserters, then liberals and their media lapdogs are falling over themselves in their rush to portray those losers as heroes. In the world of U.S. liberalism, you get credit only for deserting the army of the United States of America — not the one of Nazi Germany. Someone should ask Ms. Dowd why that is.

Tuning out a self-evident truth

About a year ago, when I was still a regular on the Testy Copy Editors bulletin board, several of its members began a collective rant about how silly it was to suggest that the media are biased. One of the indignant posters scoffed that those who make such claims can't produce proof of such biased if pressed.

Set aside for the moment that such unabashed displays of partisan cluelessness eventually led me to leave this intellectual Romper Room. I find it hard to believe that anyone, especially a journalist, can contest this axiom.

If anyone needs proof of the shameless way the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, CBS, CNN ad nauseam distort the news to please the liberal establishment, they need only read the respective weekly columns of John Leo or Ann Coulter. Or read Coulter's book "Slander: Liberal Lies about the American Right." You can stick to Chapters 4, 5 and 6 if you're pressed for time. If reading is too challenging an intellectual exercise, just watch The O'Reilly Factor for a week. For most liberals, the experience would be a real eye-opener.

Of course, denials of press objectivity seem silly in the aftermath of Memogate. As CBS itself reports, an independent panel concluded that "CBS News failed to follow basic journalistic principles in the preparation and reporting of the piece" and that "CBS News had compounded that failure with a 'rigid and blind' defense of the 60 Minutes Wednesday report." And don't forget, you had Memogate segment producer Mary Mapes running around trying to get John Kerry campaign guru Joe Lockhart to call Bill Burkett, the guy who supplied CBS with all those fake memos. Outrageous. I hope Ms. Mapes is using some of her well-deserved time off to take a few refresher courses in journalistic ethics.

But the media aren't content to make up stories that reflect unfavorably on the candidate they don't like. Sometimes they simply bury the news. Take Sandy Berger, for instance. Earlier this month, Clinton's former national security adviser pleaded guilty to taking classified 9/11-related documents from the National Archives. As U.S. News & World Report wrote: "What he had initially charaterized as an 'honest mistake' he admitted in federal court involved intentionally putting papers in his jacket and pants. Some documents he subsequently destroyed."

Now let's be honest. If Berger had been a former Reagan official, or a former Bush the Elder official, then the New York Times, Washington Post, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the rest of the Pravdas for a new millennium would have plastered this story all over their respective front pages. But they continue to ignore this story. Why? (That was a rhetorical question.)

Well, there you have two examples of journalistic bias. I would share it with my old friends at Testy Copy Editors, but I get the sense that it would be a waste of time. Some people prefer remaining blind to the truth. What a shame that some of them are journalists.

New name, fresh start

I'm back.

My apologies to those who accepted my invitation last fall to check out this space, only to find nothing posted here for nearly five months. I'll try not to let the blog go unattended for so long in the future.

The first post of 2005 is as good a time as any to introduce the blog's new name, which may require some explanation. Fans of SpongeBob SquarePants may recall "the open-window maniac" from the episode "Hall Monitor." Without fail, I always break up during the scene in which the vigilante title character, wearing a ski mask, bursts into a couple's dining room during their meal and shrieks: "I'm the open-window maniac!" If you haven't seen this episode, trust me, it's hilarious. I guess I picture myself as an "open-window maniac." I'm "on patrol," if you will.

Later.

Roger Ebert has lost it

I go the movies to enjoy myself. I don't go expecting to have a rollicking good time, and so when I do have one, I consider myself fortunate. And I was indeed fortunate to catch "Team America: World Police."

What a riot! The movie is near the end of its prime run and so only 12 people, including me, showed up at Erie's Tinseltown last Sunday to watch it. And as far as I can tell, we all were laughing our butts off.

"South Park" co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have created a brilliant piece of parody. The targets are so many, one can barely keep up: Campy, formulaic action pics with their syrupy subplots; foolish U.N. officials; gung-ho patriots; and annoying, whiny, liberal Hollywood types who think they have the insight and moral authority to dictate politics to us peasants in flyover country.

The last example is a "South Park" staple. So is that TV show's crudeness, vulgarity, gore and political incorrectness, all of which are evident in the movie. But while "South Park" uses crude animation, "Team America" has "Thunderbird"-type puppets. That was a stroke of genius. The platform allowed Parker and Stone to create a surreal world populated with fictionalized real-life characters in a way that's fresh while keeping the movie loyal to its "South Park"-influenced roots.

So imagine my surprise to see that the great Roger Ebert had given it only one star out of four. One star, for a laugh-out-loud satirical farce! Even the viewer ratings on his Web site give it three stars, suggesting that someone here is missing something. And I don't think it's the other viewers.

Ebert's snarky review seems most offended that the film doesn't take a political position, and that "the White House gets a free pass." Ah, so that's it! "Team America" isn't anti-Bush enough! That explains a lot.

For those who've missed it, Roger Ebert saw fit during the presidential campaign to use his position as a Chicago Sun-Times film critic to lecture us nonliberal yokels about how evil the war in Iraq is, and how incompetent President Bush is. One would think that anyone making $500,000 a year to write movie reviews would stick with doing what he's paid to do. But Ebert seems to have fallen into the same trap of the Hollywood types he reviews, believing that an Important Man such as himself needs to use his celebrity, such as it is, to further his partisan political agenda.

That assessment may sound harsh, but I'm at a loss to explain Ebert's dismissive review for a great movie that doesn't portray terrorism and the war as he sees fit, while giving three and a half stars to that sleazy propoganda film that his hero Michael Moore put out earlier in the year. Maybe Ebert didn't appreciate the "Team America" caricature of Moore as a hot dog-guzzling, mustard-stained, slogan-spouting slob. Maybe Ebert didn't appreciate the symbolism of Moore's action and his ultimate fate in the film.

Who knows? But really, who cares what Roger Ebert thinks? I had already started losing respect for him even before he started moonlighting as a left-wing political pundit. The disenchantment began soon after Gene Siskel died, and Ebert replaced his late, great TV-show co-host with a nobody. Hey, Richard Roeper may be a fine Sun-Times columnist, but does anybody really care what he thinks about a movie? Ebert's show used to be no-miss TV. It's not anymore, is it?

Hey, Roger, nobody except your Hollywood pals cares what you think about the war, or President Bush. I hope that fact sinks in, so that now the election is over, you can get back to reviewing movies. You know, something you're qualified to do, and what you're paid to do. I suggest you get your act together before your public gets fed up with your arrogant preachiness and politically tainted movie reviews, and stops listening to you entirely.

Curse's demise ends a great season

Everyone who follows baseball by now has heard all he wants to hear about the Boston Red Sox and their "curse," now finally broken. I certainly count myself as "everyone" in this case, so I'll keep my comments about Boston brief.

I was rooting for the Cardinals, but I'm happy Boston won. The Red Sox had a great team this year, and they deserve the place in baseball history they're going to get. Not only did they break the Babe Ruth-era "curse," but they did it as if they were blessed, making a miraculous comeback against the Yankees in the American League Championship Series and then sweeping the World Series with four straight wins against the team with the most regular-season wins. Incredible.

Indeed, all the playoffs were entertaining this year. So was the regular season, at least until the Indians collapsed in mid-August. I honestly can say I haven't enjoyed a major league baseball season this much since I was a teenager. I can think of several reasons why this is, but near the top has to be the fact that Jacobs Field is such a fun place to visit. Of the six major league parks I've been to in my lifetime, the Jake is my favorite. Even more so than the original Comiskey Park, where I spent so much of the '80s. Also keeping me entertained this season was the Cleveland team itself, an interesting rebuilding franchise on the rise. I look forward to seeing this team in the playoffs in a year or two.

I'm glad to have a breather from baseball for now, but I'll be counting the days till spring training soon enough!

George Carlin is a foolish old man

Tonight on the comedy-oriented, Internet-based DefCon Radio Network, I happened to catch some of George Carlin's stand-up routine. I don't mean his stuff from 30 years ago, when he was funny. I'm talking about his recent moronic "humor" on the war in Iraq.

The first thing I hear is Carlin spewing that the United States bombs only "brown people." Oh, really, Georgie? You mean, like the Serbs? We all remember what a threat to national security Yugoslavia was 10 years ago, though, so an undeclared war without U.N. approval (gasp!) was justified there, though. Plus, France approved, and that's all that matters when the issue of protecting U.S. security comes up. Besides, French government officials weren't getting any kickbacks from Belgrade, so they weren't motivated to play pacifists back then.

Anyway, Carlin goes on about how he doesn't trust anything the government said. No, Carlin's too smart for that. He thinks for himself, he says. Apparently, he believes only what Michael Moore, Al Franken, George Soros and others like them tell him, and we all know how much they respect the truth. Hey, Carlin, speaking of Soros, maybe you should work into your act the irony of the neo-communist MoveOn.org's being funded by a billionaire currency trader. You want people to think for themselves, right? Put that out there, and let the tree-huggers chew on that for a while.

The last part of Carlin's "comedy" that I could stand to listen to was Carlin's proud assertion that he is unmoved by yellow ribbons and flags because they're symbols, and he leaves symbols to the "symbol-minded." Yuck, yuck, yuck. Hey, George, I could tell that the stoners who comprised your audience got a big kick out of that. Well, your aversion to symbols is ironic, George, since you are a symbol yourself. You symbolize the aging hippy liberal moron who is clueless about how the world really is.

Grow up, George. It's about time, don't you think?