The Problem with Palin

Another four years, another presidential election, another case of media bias. Or in this case, another case of Hollywood bias.

Ever since Republican John McCain selected Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, the self-proclaimed hockey mom has been subjected to an endless barrage of media probing. It's probing that is not only characteristic of this country, but has become symbolic of everything that needs to change in this country.

For the third week in a row, Saturday Night Live continued its focused attempts to humiliate and degrade Palin. Actress Tina Fey once again portrayed the vice-presidential hopeful, this time during the one and only debate with Democrat Joe Biden.

The only difference was that this week's performace lost it's luster. Fey recycling nearly all the "Palinisms" she'd been doing for the past month.

We all know the media is controlled by liberals. The public was barely able to deal with news personalities interjecting their misguided political opinions. Now, the infected entertainment industry is trying to force-feed us Democratic dog food.

Even Fey herself is sick of playing the Alaskan Governor. A recent interview quoted the star of 30 Rock as saying she doesn't want anything to do with Palin as of Nov. 5.

But as we know now, the Hollywood liberals unfortunately have different plans.

They are plans that need to be ignored by the American public. Saturday Night Live will continue to broadcast their left-wing dribble until the Nielsen company tells them otherwise.

Thus, the best way to fight off the onslaught of a biased entertainment industry is to turn off the television and catch the skit the following day on a website.

Wesleyan Incident Sparked by Student Ignorance

There are few things that get me boiled to the point of screaming uncontrollably. One of them is the absent minded ignorance of partying college students.

Early Friday morning, a group of about 250 students from Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT felt the need to spill their incoherent and drunken blunders into the public streets.

As a result, Wesleyan Public Safety called Middletown Police for help in dispersing the crowd. When the PD showed up and asked the highly intoxicated crowd to move along, they were met with a barrage of flying bottles and rocks from a few of the more intoxicated revelers.

That's when police took the riot approach by breaking out pepper spray, pepper balls and K-9's to aid and protect them in dissolving the volatile situation.

Wesleyan students responded with an outcry of misinformed rhetoric on the Internet and in local television interviews, denouncing the police response.

Middletown Police, however, tell a different story.

They say the use of force was warranted for their protection... and the protection of the students themselves.

After listening to the frantic chatter of police on their scanners, I heard the out-of-control drunken bursts of the crowd myself before police took action. Like it or not, officers responded with the appropriate action.

Students, in their drunken stupor, acted totally out of control and brought force upon themselves. Intoxicated college students are like hyper 5-year-old children. The only way to get through to them in that state is to respond with physical coercion.

But of course, students, in their own world of inexperience, don't see it that way. They view it as police brutality and excessive force.

Nevermind the fact that no one was injured, and five students had to be arrested for confronting officers.

College students seem to like the idea of creating riot-like havoc so they can criticize the authorities for responding too harshly. We saw it on the UMass-Amherst campus after the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, when students felt the need to flip over cars and light them on fire.

It's amazing how students can be educated on facts needed to excel careers, but not how to apply common sense.

It's also amazing how in this post 9-11, post Virginia Tech and post Northern Illinois world, students like to push the envelope.

We can teach them to be lawyers, doctors and business owners; but we can't teach them the common sense of what needs to be done for public safety.

Maybe that is the solution. A general education class that focuses on how not to provoke a forced police presence. Obviously it's a skill that has to be taught along side reading, writing and arithmetic.

It's simple. If you're drunk, you're loud and you're with 250 of your loud, drunk friends in the middle of a public street, you deserve whatever's coming to you. Is it really that hard to think before you hurl that glass bottle?

Giving him the Power

With more and more details coming in about Virginia Tech shooter Cho
Seung-Hui, it seems the media can’t get enough.

NBC New York received a package from Cho yesterday that included a video manifesto and several photos.

According to NBC, the video was mailed in between the first and second shootings. In it, he blamed what he was about to do on “rich” kids. The photos were of him brandishing the very weapons police believe he used to carry out his killings.

"You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option" he said in the recordings. "You have blood on your hands that will never wash off."

Cho’s massacre of 32 people has gone down in history as one of the worst single-person shootings. But what NBC and other media outlets did with Cho’s manifesto is just as appalling.

As soon NBC received the package, it was on the air before police could even look at it. Not only that, but at a press conference, NBC told other media outlets that they would have to watch their newscast to see what the manifesto included.

It was here that the insensitivity of at least one media giant was exposed. NBC basically told parents, investigators and other media outlets that they would have learn the big question of “why?” on NBC’s terms.

But that was only the tip of the iceberg.

Once the other media outlets obtained the video and images, it was drilled into the heads of viewers and listeners with all of the insensitivity one would expect from big corporations trying to boost ratings.

NBC’s nightly news anchor Brian Williams even said “this was a sick business tonight, going on the air with this.”

It was not just NBC either. CBS and CNN were just as guilty. Ratings have turned our own media against us.

There was no need to broadcast the gun-brandishing images. There was also no need to broadcast Cho’s messages. By doing so, the media fell right into his trap.

All that was accomplished by broadcasting those images was strengthening Cho’s message. He effectively turned the media into his tool and they fell for it, hook, line and sinker. And by watching it, we gave him the power.

It’s already been established that Cho Seung-Hui was a sick and twisted individual. He even demonstrated the warning signs of someone who needed help.

But we ignored him and allowed him to grow into a merciless monster. And it’s only now that we listen.

And as I’ve said before, it is we who decide what appears on television. We made that monster and we gave power to his message. The only reason his pictures and words were aired is because we lend the media our ears.

We need to start listening in real life and stop listening to what corporations tell us we should hear. Then those corporations will be forced to pander to the real news.

Campus Crisis Boils Down to Negligence

It’s finally happened. Columbine? The University of Texas? They are nothing compared to what happened yesterday.

Thirty-three people dead, including the shooter, in two separate shootings at Virginia Tech. And for what?

That’s something that investigators will have to figure out.

But anyone who’s been a college student knows there are two possible reasons for a shooting of that caliber.

One is political protest. But given that the shooter was Asian and not of Arab or Muslim descent, that is unlikely. However, it can not be ruled out.

The second, and more common reason for violence of that magnitude, is classmate ridicule or injustice. The shooter was either mocked by fellow students or had some kind of discrepancy with the staff.

But in either case, this incident highlights the rather lax security on college campuses across the country, not just VA Tech.

The first shooting occurred shortly after 7 a.m. in a dorm and was considered to be a domestic dispute by officials.

The Virginia Tech campus was not put into lockdown until two hours after two people were killed in that shooting.

Then, 15 minutes after that email was sent out, the carnage erupted in Norris Hall across campus at 9:45 a.m.

For 30 minutes, the 6-foot tall Asian gunman walked calmly in an out of classrooms, leaving an uninterrupted trail of carnage. 30 people were killed before he took his own life. He even chained the exits to prevent escape, according to police.

As a former campus-dwelling student, I was horrified at the way the Virginia Tech staff responded to this travesty. And honestly, I believe the same lackluster police response would have happened on my campus at Central Connecticut State University as well as several other campuses across the country.

Warning students two hours after any kind of shooting is unacceptable; and the fact that the shooter was able to continue his rampage for a half an hour is absurd.

By waiting that amount of time, campus officials allowed the rest of that brutal rampage to take place. Their efforts to contain and handle the case themselves lead to the deaths of over 30 people.

What’s to stop this from happening at other colleges? Nothing. And believe me, most college campuses are ripe with disturbed students waiting for something to push them over the edge.

There is absolutely no security in many classroom buildings and few alternate exits, which makes those buildings a shooting gallery for any disturbed individual with a gun. This is generally because most classroom buildings are old and are low priority to campus revitalization efforts.

Thus more security measures need to be put in place there. But beyond that, the true resolution to a crisis like this resides within the student body.

I’ve seen students ridiculed by other students to the point of uncontrollable anger. Though none of them actually harmed anyone, the seeds of a potential disaster were there.

It seems officials look toward preventing extreme circumstances like a shooting, but never look to head the problem off at the source.

A couple of things can be done to aid avoid these circumstances.

College applications, like job applications, should be denied if a student has a criminal record or a history of psychological problems. True, this would prevent a perhaps redeeming education to certain problematic individuals. But how else are we to protect ourselves from the otherwise corrupt? How long before the next disgruntled student turns one of our educational institutions into a graveyard?

Granted not all problems are caught by a simple application screening; but it’s a start.

The other thing that needs to be done is an increased security presence, especially in classroom buildings. These are the most used buildings on the entire campus and virtually anyone from off the street could walk into them.

Though more security measures are unpopular with the student body and relatively seen as a restriction to rights and freedom, the only other alternative could be to end up in a body bag.

But perhaps the most important thing students could do themselves is think twice about relentlessly ridiculing students. That will never happen; but all it takes is a little kindness.

It could be all that stands between life and death.

A Victim of a Nation's Hypocrisy

An infamous radio talk show host was canned in a hypocritical frenzy of shameful finger pointing.

Don Imus, who has received more than his fair share of criticism and verbal abuse over this issue, was fired by CBS and MSNBC Thursday.

Imus referred to the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos" during his April 11 broadcast.

He met with Rutgers team members and their coach, Vivian Stringer, Thursday night at the Governor's mansion in Princeton, NJ.

After the meeting, Stringer told reporters that it was very productive and that "hopefully, we can put all of this behind us."

She did not say whether her team forgave Imus; but that statement implies it. She, like most people interviewed on the issue, feels that everyone makes mistakes and are entitled to forgiveness.

That is a sentiment that the gatekeepers of media are not willing to accept.

Imus said he was an "equal opportunity offender" and has proven that on more than one occasion.

So what was so different this time?

Somewhere along the line, someone all of the sudden decided to take offense. Just by chance, the wrong person was listening. And all it took was that one circumstantial listener to bring the legendary shock jock down.

It's unfortunate that all it takes is one individual or a small group to bring down a proud giant who has been doing the same thing for over two decades.

What he said was inexcusable, racist and just plain wrong.

But to oust the man over that particular issue is also wrong. One, because he's been saying similar, if not worse, things on the air during his long broadcast career. And two, other shock jocks like Howard Stern have said and done far worse, yet they are still on the air.

Granted, Stern made the move to Sirius Satellite radio to avoid such fiascos. But before that, his CBS radio programs featured naked women performing indecent acts, sexual and often offensive behavior and all sorts of discriminitory remarks in the name of humor.

Yet he remained on traditional radio for years, and still remains on the air with Sirius. Yes, the FCC has tried to bring him down. But he's still alive and kicking.

So how is it that someone like Don Imus, who has done far less offensive radio, gets brought down in course of week?

Because it's a hypocritical world where people are quick to point out other people's mistakes and not acknowledge their own.

Take the hypocrisy of the Reverend Al Sharpton. Last year, Sharpton said that the three Duke Lacrosse players were guilty of raping a stripper at a team party. He said there was no doubt in his mind that they did it.

But Thursday, the charges were dropped because there was no evidence to support the prosecution. North Carolina's attorney general stated in a public address that those players were innocent.

Where was Sharpton's apology to them?

He was quick to leap down Imus's throat at the blurting of three simple words. Yet he can't own up to his own mistake of publicly accusing three innocent college students.

Both Imus and the brave athletes from Duke University are victims of a hypocritical nation.

It's just a shame that ignorant people, especially those in the public eye, do not have the ability to see how their words can strip an individual of their life.

The truth is, we are all guilty of passing judgement where we should not. But it takes courage to admit when we are wrong.

Don Imus did that; and the Duke Lacrosse athletes have had their innocence proven. Yet people like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson continue to nail them to the cross in the name of racism.

It's easy for Sharpton and Jackson to blame flaws on racism because they can't see past the color of their own skin.

Who's to blame for Media Coverage?

If there's one thing there's been too much of in the news, it's Anna Nicole Smith.

Since her death on February 8, virtually every newscast, newspaper, and online publication has featured regular updates on the various debacles caused by the former playmate. It can't be avoided. Furthermore, it's not the media's fault.

First it was the anticipation leading up to the cause of her death, which was ruled an accidental overdose from sleeping pills. Story after story gave updates almost every second. If people did not like the story, like the weather in New England, all they had to do was wait a minute.

Then it was the inquest of her son Daniel's death. He died September 10, three days after Smith gave birth to baby Dannielynn. Officials say he died from a combination of methadone and antidepressants, but an inquest was launched to determine whether the death was accidental, a suicide or even a homicide.

Now the media paints the picture of a fierce battle waging in the Bahamas over the real father of baby Dannielynn. Howard K. Stern and Larry Birkhead have been facing off in court and the results of a DNA test could be revealed today.

And even after the results are released the media frenzy will continue as another battle wages over the proper guardian of Dannielynn.

While this circus continues, hundreds are dying in the Middle East, hundreds more are dying on the streets of our own cities from senseless gun violence, and the United States is in all sorts of economic trouble.

But what America can't get enough of is Anna Nicole Smith. The whorish lifestyle of the former playmate has mesmerized viewers and readers across the country.

And it's not the media's fault. News stations tend to pander more toward the popular topics among their audience in order to maintain that audience. In this case, people would rather hear about who had sex with an untalented southern hussy than the deaths of our sons and daughters in a foreign land.

The scapegoat for this coverage has always been the media. But the media only airs what people will watch or read.

So the next time you get fed up with the coverage on the 6:00 news, you don't have to look far to place blame. Just look in the mirror.

What We Call The News...

What We Call the News
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