PBS--who should judge information for children

This is why PBS does not have my support. They fear "right wing" but not "left wing" influence on education. To them, right wing is telling the truth about the universality of slavery, or using the words of the founders. I've watched hundreds of Prager U videos and usually have learned more in 5 minutes than hours/years in the classroom. But this article itself is narrow, one sided and just ridiculous. My opinion is just as valid as the "actors" in this script. Unlike the author of the article, I've actually watched them. Leftists rule our culture from education to entertainment to the judicial system, from sea to shining sea. Name the critics. I'm not alarmed if children see a Prager Video. Who are these "critics" and what is their political affiliation? What is the writer's standard? The 1619 project?  As far as not being a "real" university, would that be the ones rioting and not allowing Jewish students in the classrooms and libraries while screaming Free Palestine?

      https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-critics-are-alarmed-about-the-influence-of-pragerus-educational-videos

https://www.prageru.com/videos/dennis-pragers-reaction-to-charlie-kirks-memorial?

The Right to Fail—PBS

Pro-Publica and Frontline reporting on moving high functioning mentally ill people out of managed homes to supportive “independent” living. The reporter Joaquin Sapien  focuses on Nestor Bunch who at 52 was living on his own for the first time. He was in and out of supported housing, hospital, had roommates, and a 4 hour a day aide.

The complexity of care—and caring—really surprised me.  The reporter had access to boxes of medical records.  Everything was recorded—successes, failures, medications, roommates.

I’ve seen a lot of criticism from Democrats of Ronald Reagan when he was governor of California for signing the law that closed the institutions for the mentally ill, and they say, no accuse, that he is the reason for California’s terrible homeless problem.  However, it was an idea about “rights” for the mentally ill that came from academics.  So I was shocked to see the same reasoning still applies today, as NYC tries to reduce its population of seriously mentally ill from protective, and even locked, housing for many adults, and turn them lose in the name of “right to fail.”

None of the people in this film appear to be “high functioning” to me, however, I don’t know to whom they are compared. They are desperate, lonely,  afraid, wandering the streets, getting into fights, eating poorly, with no socialization. Nestor Bunch was one of the fortunates in that a friend of his deceased mother still cared and looked out for him through the machinations of the huge bureaucracy.

“People with severe mental illness can be difficult to track: some wind up on the street or in psychiatric hospitals; phone numbers often change. After a series of dead ends, I was elated when I found Bunch — until I realized he could not reliably narrate his own life. As he jumbled the timeline of his addresses and experiences, it became clear he had a traumatic story to tell. It involved finding his first roommate naked and dead, landing in the hospital with a serious injury and being sent to the trash-strewed apartment of another roommate who died.”

https://www.pbs.org/video/right-to-fail-fz7iaq/

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/behind-right-to-fail-a-propublica-frontline-collaboration-to-overcome-roadblocks-and-privacy-restrictions/?

Charlie Rose and me go way back

I used to watch Charlie Rose back in the 90s when he was on PBS and he'd interview notable people. I was a liberal then, so of course, I never noticed political bias on PBS or broadcast news, and there wasn't any Fox or internet access. And although I watched him, I didn't like him. Why? It was the way he interviewed women, although most of his guests were men. He would frame his questions in such a manner and be so detailed, that all she could do was answer Yes or No. He hogged the limelight and diminished his female guests. With men, he was more respectful and seemed to think they could tell their own stories. Was it just Charlie or is this a guy thing?

I also never cared for Bill O’Reilly’s interviewing techniques, but he was rude to everyone—showed no bias toward women.

Amanpour on PBS

I’ve had a cold, so my sleeping is a little off, and I happened to be awake at 11:30 last night and caught Amanpour on PBS, which is a half-hour replacement for Charlie Rose who left in disgrace. It’s a CNN program, so not sure how that works, but it is apparently shown in other venues, probably Europe.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/04/media/pbs-charlie-rose-replacement/index.html

Anyway. It’s an interview show, not news.  Definitely not news.  She interviewed the Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. (or maybe England)  and tried to trap him into saying something negative about Trump.  I didn’t have a pen and paper, but I do recall her using the phrase several times, “do you fear. . .” rather than “do you think.” The Ambassador, however, was more careful and professional than President Trump or Ms. Amanpour and delicately stepped over her trap. Yes, he used a lot of weasel words, but he definitely had been coached.  Also his English was so good, I was then not prepared to try to figure out what the next guest, a Brit, was saying.

https://www.truthrevolt.org/news/christiane-amanpour-brags-about-bias-i-insist-being-truthful-not-neutral

Her next interview was with two women, one a Brit with mid-chest length stringy gray hair and the other with shoulder length stringy dark hair, but a lovely smile. It was about the MeToo movement and whether there is now a backlash. 

So Amanpour felt “led” as we say in prayer groups of sharing intimately to bring up Anita Hill and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas back in fall of 1991. I was a Democrat back then—didn’t change my party for another nine  years.  I distinctly remember being sickened by the way Democrats treated a black justice—he was at that time a member of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. By that time we knew all about the sexcapades of the Kennedys and if any woman starlett or aging movie star had been brave enough, the whole “Weinstein me too” story would have tumbled out 25 years ago instead of late 2017. 

In 1991 I was horrified when I heard other liberals on the OSU campus deride his qualifications and say Bush had only nominated him because he was black. As if Democrats would NEVER do such a thing—play games with race or sex.  It was definitely a “high tech lynching” and I think Justice Thomas has done a fine job.  I also read his very moving autobiography.

But then Amanpour commented that the cases Justice Thomas as been a part of have actually led the women’s movement backward.  She cited no case, just threw it out for the self righteous liberal head nodders.  Hill was the only woman to bring this charge, which as I recall was an off-color joke.  Perhaps I didn’t take it seriously because I’d heard worse, and the world didn’t collapse. Obviously, if so many women have kept quiet all the years since of current women’s rights movement of the early 70s, many people were ignoring work place chit chat.

The identified sexual assault/harassment/rape/tighty whities cases—including Charlie Rose whom she was replacing--are currently identified as about 150.  All but 3 or 4 of the charges are against high profile Democrats in politics or media/entertainment. Yet, the only case she can find to recall a historical precedent is from 25 years ago? And this is the drip dribble of biased information Americans and Europeans get every evening.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/437603/christiane-amanpours-daniel-hannan-interview-exposes-her-leftist-bias

Here’s the NYT account from 1991 and it is also biased and negative toward Thomas.

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/16/us/thomas-confirmation-senate-confirms-thomas-52-48-ending-week-bitter-battle-time.html?

PBS and NPR funding events

Although I don't contribute to the fund raisers, it is my understanding the locals have done very well this spring. People fear loss of funding under Trump.  I think that's great. Sort of like the huge increase in gun sales under Obama. The issue of NPR PBS funding has never been about the paltry amount, but about the amount of bias in the coverage of the culture from news, to arts, to literature to politics. If it’s funded in part by taxes, then there should either be better representation of the whole population, or no funding. On the other hand, if most of the support is from left of center (don’t know which comes first, the coverage or the consumers), then that should be their direction, but without our funding it. I have certain shows I watch like the British dramas and comedies (now mostly reruns) and Antiques Roadshow, but never the news coverage. I can get that on broadcast.

7-up and antenna TV for 5 days

Five days in the guest room with antenna TV and 7-up. But it wasn't all bad. On "Decades" channel I watched an old documentary (PBS Nova 1999) "Lords of the Mafia: Russian Mafiya" about the Russian criminal network and how it had spread throughout the world after the break-up of the USSR. It had long existed and wasn't Communist, but sure weren't nice guys either. At that time they had infiltrated almost every industry and level of government of the U.S. The documentary was old enough that cyber-hacking wasn't part of the scheme--just the old fashioned spies, moles and criminals, theft, torture and death. Not hard to see it in the DNC or RNC, or any of our intelligence agencies. No Putin necessary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HueP4vj28v0

North America, PBS

I was watching a PBS program on. . . possibly fossils, but it was all over the map on topics (I googled it an I think it is called Making North America).  Anyway, they were examining marine fossils in Kansas, so the narrator who had been deep sea diving looking at bacteria in an earlier segment was describing with nice graphics how oceans and seas came and went, rose and receded over millions of years across North America.  In the next program he'll probably be telling us that humans, especially American capitalists with global investments, are to blame for climate change.

Why does PBS offer apologetics for Islam?

“One can start by concentrating on just two items: a film entitled Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet, currently available on DVD; and a website of the same name based around it. Both the documentary and the materials on the PBS website are more or less pure apologetics about Muhammad and certain aspects of Islam.  . . .  inadequate monitoring of textual content, interviewee selection, and association with external agencies. . . . religious propaganda in place of balanced educational, instructional, and public information material. . .

The film Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet premiered on December 18, 2002, to wide praise across America. . . . The documentary has since been rebroadcast on more than 600 individual PBS stations. The U.S. viewership is estimated at more than 10 million. . . The film is used in thousands of communities, schools, universities, religious congregations, and civic organizations throughout the United States to increase Americans' "understanding" of Muslims and Islam. . . .

There is much to be gained from better knowledge and superior information as a route to community integration within America's melting pot. Such a project is exactly the sort of thing PBS should be broadcasting. But with Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet, PBS lost its way and created not a balanced and educationally sound approach to that purpose, but an explicit piece of Islamic propaganda that presses all the buttons of Muslim missionizing (da'wa) and apologetics.”

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5211/pbs-islam

http://www.pbs.org/muhammad/muhammadand.shtml

Why does the left defend Big Bird—he’s wealthier than Mitt Romney!

NPR and the Democrats

Republicans aren't stupid. If they thought for a minute that funding NPR would represent their viewpoint even once in awhile, there's no way they would defund it. But of course, if you've ever listened for any period of time to NPR or watched PBS television you'll see the reason--that is, if you are conservative. Liberals don't see it, which is why President Obama is opposing H.R. 1076. It has nothing to do with rural areas, which in case Obama hasn't noticed, seem to be well served by many forms of media. When I visit Mt. Morris, Illinois, 100 miles west of Chicago with a population about 2,500 and decreasing after the closing of several important industries, I can get AM and FM radio and broadcast and cable stations from Chicago, Rockford, Freeport, DeKalb, Sterling, etc. and probably some Wisconsin stations if I tried--ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, Fox and the internet with its vast array of programing.

"The Administration strongly opposes House passage of H.R. 1076, which would unacceptably prohibit Federal funding of National Public Radio (NPR) and the use of Federal funds by public radio stations to acquire radio content. As part of the President’s commitment to cut spending, the President’s Budget proposed targeted reductions in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which provides a small amount of funding for NPR, and the Administration has expressed openness to other spending reductions that are reasonable. However, CPB serves an important public purpose in supporting public radio, television, and related online and mobile services. The vast majority of CPB’s funding for public radio goes to more than 700 stations across the country, many of them local stations serving communities that rely on them for access to news and public safety information. Undercutting funding for these radio stations, notably ones in rural areas where such outlets are already scarce, would result in communities losing valuable programming, and some stations could be forced to shut down altogether." Link

No it has nothing to do with rural areas, and everything to do with another mouthpiece for Obama's hope and chains. He's got millions for his next campaign chest, so I really don't think this is a problem. Just advertise on the "new" public radio which won't be taxpayer supported and let the choir listen.

Pine Ridge Reservation Wind Power FM Radio KILI

More on media bias

At least "Media Bias" was the title of the following piece. Actually, we knew Obama would do this, because he promised during his campaign, so I don't think the media can take all the credit/blame--unless of course, you see them as a doormat under his feet, which I do.

The Public Broadcasting Service recently announced it will not allow new religious programming on their taxpayer-subsidized airwaves. The handful of stations that have shown a Catholic Mass or Mormon devotions will be allowed to continue, but the other 300-plus stations have been instructed to avoid any kind of evangelism. Welcome to Barack Obama’s new world order. News reports explained that the PBS station services committee insisted on applying a 1985 rule that all PBS shows must be "noncommercial, nonpartisan and nonsectarian." To everyone who’s watched a pledge drive or contemplated a toy store stuffed with "Sesame Street" toys, the idea that PBS is following any "noncommercial" policy is absurd. To everyone who’s watched two minutes of "Bill Moyers Journal," with its panels unanimously screaming for Bush’s impeachment, or more recently, for a single-payer socialist health-care system, the idea of PBS being devoted to a "nonpartisan" stance is several miles removed from ridiculous. But the atheists and secularists who want all traces of sectarian "proselytizing" for Jesus banned from PBS do have something to say about PBS public-affairs programming. Read the rest of the story.

Since you can't keep PBS out of the tax coffers, at least don't make a donation. I've always thought Bill Moyers, the left's biggest shill, was the best reason to turn off those fund drives (notice they play the doo-wop and Irish dancing lasses shows for the drives, not Bill Moyers) and drop an extra $10 or $20 in the collection plate next Sunday.

Gwen Ifill needs to recuse herself

The public's trust in the news media is maybe a few notches higher than Congress, but not much. Why the Commission on Presidential Debates needs someone selected from the news media is a mystery to me. They read and write text for a living--they are no better informed than a blogger from Ohio who reads and writes for fun, their faces and voices just are recognizable. Why not someone who doesn't make a living catering to politicians at the local, state and national level? It's OK for them to go out and explain weather to the kindergartners or cut ribbons at the opening of new nursing homes, but let's give them a night off during the debates. She has a serious conflict of interest, and McCain is a wimp for not objecting. There would be no reason for Obama to object--he knows the press is in his hip pocket wallet.

PBS sure gets their shorts in a knot over someone else's perceived conflict of interest.

In Sickness and in Wealth is sickening

This week the OSU College of Public Health presents as part of Public Health Week socio-economic marxist propaganda in a film produced by California Newsreel called, In Sickness and In Wealth, which I mentioned last week I saw on WOSU. It would make Michael Moore proud--my public library will probably buy dozens of copies when it is on DVD. Unbelievably one sided--at least the 10 minutes I saw before turning it off in disgust. The news blurb reports, ". . . state and local public health leaders will participate in a panel discussion, “In Sickness and In Wealth:” at 3 p.m. on Tuesday (4/8) in 160 Meiling Hall, 370 W. 9th Ave. The event, which is part of Ohio State’s College of Public Health’s celebration of National Public Health Week, is based on a new PBS series called “Unnatural Causes,” which explores America’s racial and socioeconomic inequities in health. “In Sickness and In Wealth” is the title of the first installment of the series. The episode investigates how a person [sic] a person’s work conditions, social status, neighborhood conditions and lack of access to power and resources can actually altar [sic] their human biology and, similar to germs and viruses, make them sick."

Yes, I'm white, middle-class, college educated, married, never collected unemployment, worker's comp or welfare, saved my money, tithed my income, invested in a private pension, had married parents, married grandparents, paid a ton of taxes over my lifetime, purchased private health insurance, kept my weight down, exercised, don't smoke or drink--therefore, I'm causing someone else to be a victim of poor health? I'm altering their biology! They aren't responsible at all! Check out California Newsreel; where do they find these people? California, our proud and loud left coast, of course.

3756

Why older Democrats left the party

This looked like a pretty balanced explanation of what has happened to the Democratic Party since the early 1960s. The author is wondering why there aren't Moslem Methodists, i.e., mainstream. If you've watched the flap about PBS using our tax money to create a film on moderate Moslems, then refusing to show it, this explanation starts to expose some of the bizarre behavior of liberals. Still, it was written in September 2005, and since then the Democrats in Congress have gone completely over the edge, groveling before their New Left, socialist party leaders.

"The biggest problem in analogizing Democrats to Moslems is that the former did have other voices surrounding them, voices that were pointing out the radical nature of those organizations [Matt] Barr mentioned (NOW, the unions, and the teaching establishment): first, the Republicans, of course; in our republic, the critiques from the GOP could not be entirely shut out, even back in the 60s and 70s.

But second and more important, we need to bear in mind what Barr himself noted: Democratic leaders and organizations were not always so insane. The switchover (I'm using Judge Bork's timeline here from, I think, Slouching Towards Gomorrah) was when the New Left began to arise following the Port Huron Statement, released by the SDS in 1962 (the Students for a Democratic Society was the group from which the radical faction the Weathermen later spun off).

Most older Democrats never particularly embraced the New Left -- which was radicalized, hard-core, and Stalinist, inexplicably combined with feverishly anti-science, anti-technology, Luddite "environmentalism" -- and the New Left didn't take over the Democratic Party until, to be blunt, the older generation died off.

Thus, there has been reasoned resistance to the radicalization of the Democratic Party from the very beginning, coming from sources with unassailable liberal credentials, such as Hubert Humphrey and Pat Moynihan. Many Democrats retained their basic love of America... and unfortunately for the new radicalized Democratic Party (but fortunately for the country), that meant a lot of people left the Democrats and joined the Republicans, bringing the two parties into rough parity (during World War II, I would guess the Democrats enjoyed at least a 2-1 advantage over the GOP)." Big Lizards Blog, Where are all the Moslem Methodists?