Bits 'n' Pieces

Friday, July 2, 2004

Legislating patriotism

Among 135 new Florida laws that went into effect Thursday, one mandates that every public school classroom in the state have an American flag no smaller than two feet by three feet.

According to the Tampa Tribune, "The provision was one in a package of new laws that are intended to provide moral and material support to U.S. troops."

Apropos of not much, I first saw this story on the front page of the St. Petersburg Times at Newseum. (If you want a look at how papers around the world package the Big Stories every day, this is a great site.) It was their lead story, with a four-column photo of school kids saluting the flag. Yet when I went to the paper's web site for more info, the story was nowhere to be found. And, oddly, "Florida's best newspaper" was the only one of eight from the Sunshine State at Newseum to run the story on the front page.

Queer Eye for the Hypocrite Guy

From AP:

President Bush used the grand stage of the White House East Room on Thursday to mark the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, praising Democratic heroes like John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson who fought for its passage.

Bush, who has generally received low approval ratings from African-Americans, cautioned that four decades after the landmark law was signed, “the work of equality is not done, because the evil of bigotry is not finally defeated.”

As the person who posted this at Testy Copy Editors noted, W's homophobic slip is showing.

Lib-rul mee-dee-ah

Saddam Hussein on the witness stand, quoted in the New York Times:

"You know that this is all a theater by Bush, to help him win his election."

Saddam Hussein, same place, quoted in the New York Post:

"Everyone knows this is theater by [President] Bush, the criminal, in an attempt to win the election."

When I heard the story of the first day of Hussein's trial on CBS Radio News (always trust a source that doesn't rely on pictures), he was quoted with the "criminal" part.

Use your own judgement. Try not to think of Jayson Blair.

(Sudden thought: What would NYT editors of today do if Daniel Ellsberg brought them copies of the Pentagon Papers?)

Stoo-pid mee-dee-ah

Again from the NYT:

ABC and CNN managed to outhustle their competition Thursday morning and placed the only Western journalists, aside from a news pool reporter, inside the Baghdad courtroom where Saddam Hussein was listening to the charges he will face when he goes to trial as a war criminal.

No network was more red-faced than NBC, which passed up the chance to broadcast, at the same time as every other television news outlet, the first scenes of the former dictator in the courtroom.

NBC chose instead to continue a taped interview with the movie star Robert Redford, followed by a live badminton match between Katie Couric, the anchor of the network's "Today" program, and competitors from the United States Olympic badminton team.

"We made a bad call," said Allison Gollust, the spokeswoman for NBC News.

Y'think?

And finally...

Perhaps you've heard that Michael Moore has accused CNN of doctoring the audio from the tape of his 2003 Academy Award acceptance speech before airing the tape. Then again, perhaps not, so here it is: Blogspot - Fahrenheit 9/11. In either case, you can compare the CNN version to a rip from the original Oscar broadcast on ABC:

ABC: http://www.liberalresurgent.com/abc.mp3

CNN: http://www.liberalresurgent.com/cnn-mooreaiff.mp3

And just for shits and giggles (Who made up that phrase, anyway?), there's also word floating around of two different versions of Howard Dean's "scream." I haven't checked this one -- it irritates the hell out of me -- but you can:

Ambient noise: Los Angeles Times

(If you need a login and password for that one, get it here: BugMeNot)

No ambient noise:Webmasters For America

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