Letters to the Editor
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Maher is Mainstream?
In exactly which river is Bill Maher mainstream? He has a part time late night gabfest on HBO. That doesn't make him Bill Cosby. He has some edge, and has some interesting discussions on his show, which is more than I can say for most of this thread. Oh, and I'm still favoring Edwards/Obama in '08. Gore can be Secty.of the Interior. Hillary could be Secty of Health and Human Services. Big Bill and His Big One can be Secty. of State- and what an amazing one he'd be, the best ever. He's forgotten more than the whole fookin' Bushista administration has ever known about foreign policy.
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Ugh
I am so over phrases like "so over" in professional journalism.
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maher's new rules from huffpo --
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/new-rule_b_41444.html
This reminds me that Maher supports dividing Iraq into 3 parts ... afaict, he just wants to get our personnel home ...
From what I've read, a tripartite Iraq is a very bad, region-destabilizing quick-and-dirty "solution" (favored by Challabi and the Kurds, our old friends, opposed by the Saudis -- and the Turks and the Syrian -- so it's not gonna happen) ... oh, and it's likely also a VERY TEMPORARY "solution", lasting only until the regional powers step-in to try to stop the resultant ethnic cleansing and genocide ...
Bill isn't what I consider a "deep thinker" .... amusing, sometimes ... studious, not really... and let's not talk about his corn fixation (about which, while he is not wrong, he is unrealistic, at least until the ethanol subsidy program is fully funded and up and running -- Big Agra rivaling the military industrial complex in the red state "heartland") ...
enjoy
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JazzGrrl is correct
Salon interviews are usually very pitched one way or another. A subject the interviewer likes, Bill or Camille say, is given a free pass without any serious questioning. A subject the interviewer dislikes is hassled.
We should be as critical of our opinions and supporters as that of our opponents - if not more so.
"While priding itself on its independent journalism, and certainly still providing a good deal of it via Tim Grieve and many others, I think Salon seems to be focused more and more on writers & commentators themselves and less about the subject ostensibly at hand."
That is the transformation that has taken place in journalism. We started with a fake pure objectivism. Then we moved to the acknowledgement that the reporters are part of the process, injecting their own biases. Now we are at the point where reporters inject themselves into stories innapropriately, or simply write thinly-veiled stories about themselves. There is a place in journalism for personal stories but it has gotten out of control.
If Salon is doing this today, it is only catching up to the curve.
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Infomercial for a Meanie
1) I am saddened by the vacuous smacking of chops over the child of Anna Nicole Smith.
This infant girl will one dayhave acres of print to read and tape to view of sidewalk
gawkers taking cheap shots about her paternity, when her maternity is dead and she'll
never know her mother's love. I find it sad, not titillating.
2) This article seems to be an infomercial for Bill Maher, given that HBO sponsors the
site pass. That...well, I was going to say "doesn't feel like Salon."
But then.
He's clever, but he is a bully, and a sexist one. He's sneered his way up while we swoon.
I miss Dick Cavett.
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It's a blessing in disguise...
...that he was forced out of "Politically Incorrect" when the advertisers pulled out. The guests, while famous to varying degrees, often were just celebrities that many times had even less in-depth knowledge of events being discussed than I did. I usually turned the channel but not anymore. HBO has enabled him a better forum and the hour-long format with no commercial breaks and often very intelligent guests on the panel has me actually staying home this Friday night.
Well...that and the -25 degree wind chill outside here in Wisconsin anyway. I respect that he will on occasion state on his show in hindsight when he feels that he's made a mistake(his vote for Nader in 2000 among them). It's a breath of fresh air for me to see someone in his position at peace with not trying to appear perfect to everyone watching. It might have even been Joan Walsh herself as a guest on his show who said that if one walks around and is never offended by anything they see or hear, then they aren't really living in a free society. It was a great comment on a great show and I'm glad it's back!
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Mischaracterizing the Pope's words
Maher should know that the Pope did not apologize for the statements that so offended the Muslims (that Islam was not novel in anything beneficial, that everything new in Islam was regressive, and that Islam was not amenable to reason.) There is a very good reason for that, since the Pope was quoting a previous Pope, whose comments by the way are extremely insightful and just as true today as when they were spoken.
One can hardly apologize for words not one's own. Should I quote Mussolini and then apologize for him? It's absurb, and it's unfortunate that Maher is swallowing the lie that the Pope bowed to the violent, fascist Muslims.
What really happened is that after Muslims rioted and murdered, the Pope said that he was sorry that were offended. In other words, he was sorry that the words he quoted were true! It was a delicious comment by the Pope and penetrated to the heart of the matter. Maher grossly mischaracterized it, although it was probably in ignorance.
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Real Talk with Joan Walsh?
How about a little more Maher and a little less Walsh?
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I like Maher
Unfortunately, I can't affort premium cable any more than I can afford a premium Salon membership. And since the topic is current events, I don't think a DVD release would work (that's how I've caught The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, and Curb Your Enthusiasm).
Politically Incorrect floundered on ABC. It had lost its guts until right at the end there, and rumers of cancellation were in the air before the final controversial statements. At least Maher went out with a bang. It was better on Comedy Central, especially since each episode was re-run later that night, and the following afternoon. You didn't have to sit and watch attentively as celebrities (often) blathered on in ignorance. You could just channel-surf, and over a couple of days pick up the few good comments.
I'm glad Maher's found a better format. The few episodes I've caught seem stronger than the old series. I wish him luck.