This is in response to an editorial in today's Times.  

These is no real need to amplify on what I wrote to them except to say that I really wish that the readers of the Times who favor stricter gun control would realize that bad guys (or crazy people) do not pay attention to rules.  And that making guns "harder to come by" is only effective in making it harder for honest folks like you and me to obtain them.  

Remember that getting freedoms back from a government is virtually impossible.

• Michael James Cobb
• Reston, VA

I suppose, no shock here, that the administration has laid pipe with the gun hating editors of the times in preparation for this editorial. I trust that no reader doubts that the basic journalistic integrity of the Times (and some other news outlets) cannot be trusted when it comes to issues surrounding firearms. The problem, of course, is that one cannot really know when one is reading objective reporting or biased positioning on any topic where a progressive slant is possible. This trickles down to the selection of stories that appear (and don't appear) on the front page as well as the tone and tenor of any writing that purports to be news.

Very sad.

In any event, supposing that the President uses some extra legal method to add to the 25,000+ gun laws that are out there already, will the editors of the Times be satisfied? What, precisely, would it take to satisfy them? I think that we know but a bit of honesty would be nice.

The rules that are proposed are nice but I think we all also know that bad guys don't follow rules. To give up freedoms for the illusion of safety is cowardly.

HTTP://mikecobbsstuffformen.blogspot.com

Gun Violence and the Media

Since the horrific events in Connecticut, I have been giving a lot of thought to questions about gun control, our media and the future.  

I think that everything that I want to cover is going to take a while to gel in my mind so it will appear somewhat episodically in this blog.  To start, though, I would like to comment on the media's treatment of this event.

We have many killings, many mass killings both here and in Europe and elsewhere in the world. All of these events are covered by the media.  Does such coverage yield more violence?  Of course it does, that is Pathology 101. The monsters perpetrating these outrages are looking to make their pathetic lives more than what they are as they exit them.  At least one professional has commented on the way to treat these events in the media:

• If you don't want to propagate more mass murders...
• Don't start the story with sirens blaring.
• Don't have photographs of the killer.
• Don't make this 24/7 coverage.
• Do everything you can not to make the body count the lead story.
• Not to make the killer some kind of anti-hero.
• Do localize this story to the affected community and as boring as possible in every other market. 

You can check out the credentials of Dr. Park Dietz on Wiki.  He knows what he is talking about.  Having said that (and the truth of what he claims is palpable, isn't it?)  reflect, please on the coverage of the Aurora and Newtown shootings.  

Responsible?  Over done?  You judge but bear in mind that the news media does not generate revenue by being responsible,  they generate money by selling papers or magazines or, increasingly, getting hits on their sites.  If they can be responsible and generate loot, great!.  If they have to fall short, however, they will let dignity and responsibility and common sense fail before they will take a money hit.  So what we see is wall to wall coverage with little regard to content.  As Rush Limbaugh said a few days after the event, not one thing he reported on the day of the event was true.  But every media outlet was reporting!!  

This brings us to my favorite failed media outlet, the New York Times.  Since the day after the Connecticut shootings, the Times has run page one stories on gun control   Every day.  At least one story plus editorial.  Every day.  Their anti-gun agenda is now on full display and they are frothing at the mouth.  It does make one wonder what is not getting reported or how their agenda slants other stories.  Lately they have come out questioning the right of citizens to carry weapons on their persons, legally.  When an intrinsically dishonest entity such as the Times calls for a "review" of existing processes or questions whether something or other ought to be allowed they are, in fact, taking a position that what the current situation is is wrong and they oppose it.  The Times may well be the newspaper of record in the United States but it is also scandalously doctrinaire on certain subjects.  Among these is gun control.  I think that it is fair to say that any article whatsoever that bears, even tangentially, on private ownership of weapons, will be biased.  

In closing, let us take a quick look at the generally dismal stock performance of the New York Times during the week since the Connecticut shootings.

Stock Price for the New York Times

As I said earlier, the business of the media is business and we can see that the blood coverage that the Times has engaged in is correlated with a bit of a bounce in the net worth of old "Bud" Sulzberger (majority shareholder) and his minions.  When the Times sanctimoniously states that gun companies make blood money, remember this chart.  The Times, cynically, is making a fortune on the backs of the people whose misfortune they want you to believe they care about.

Yeah.  And I have a bridge for you to buy.


Later

MJC

Keith "Crybaby" Olbermann

There are a couple of things that get under my skin.  Ticks, chiggers, suppurating sores and Keith Olbermann.


I was really hoping that this whiny excuse for a man was well and truly out of it when he went to that  dumb vanity outlet run by Gore, Current, but, no.  Freddy Kruger like the world of Media is exposed to yet more Olbermann drama.


I don't want to give this sniveling candy ass any more time than he has already clawed from the precious store allocated to each of us by the gods of Oak, Ash and Thorn except to observe that to have the sort of big media manhood that he thinks he should have (and amusingly swings around, to the danger of no one) YOU HAVE TO HAVE AN AUDIENCE!!!!


Jesus Christ perusing a NAD book but this guy really deserves an ass kicking.  He is like the media equivalent of Paris Hilton: famous for being famous with only a modicum of talent and that talent apparent only on a grainy example that you have to squint at in order to make anything out.
I invited Keith's five viewers over the other day to get their opinion.  Even they were about fed up with this crybaby.  So, Keith, hasta la vista and don't let the door hit your fat ass on the way out.


Sorry folks, I had no intention of writing about this jerk, but I saw this column in the Times (NY) and thought to myself "Sandman, Carr has it half right, you better jump in".  Fact, Carr, is that this has nothing to do with pro sports because the number of people who would go to an event to see Olbermann wouldn't fill a damn pisser under the bleachers.  Different.  Just because Olbermann is a whiny liberal dies not give him talent and it sure as hell does not give him an audience.  Actually, the reverse probably.  


Even my liberal friends (yeah, I have a few, I'll tell you about them sometime) would like to kick his ass.  Just for being so damn annoying.


Till next time amigos.


MJ