As my more surroundings-aware readers may remember, my wife (TMBWitW) works for a newspaper here in the Valley of the Sun. She is not responsible for any of the content, but she is responsible for telling the corporate leadership about the numbers generated by the newspaper – she is, after all, an accountant. She also doesn’t share information with me, so don’t go asking about numbers, because I simply do not know.

Those same readers who remembered the first part might also remember this: at one point in time, I was delivering the paper, in bundles, to businesses who would then re-sell the papers. You know, like convenience stores, supermarkets, and even paper machines (which, to tell the truth, pay the best, but you run the greater risk of having some psycho follow you from machine to machine and break into it, stealing either the papers, or the coin, or both. either way, it’s broken and you have to get a replacement machine.).

At one point during my time delivering the papers, there was a meeting (a lunch meeting) for the contractors (who all worked between midnight and 0700) in order to have a question and answer session. Of course, the first question some smart aleck asked was why they would schedule a lunch meeting for a bunch of people who were essentially vampires. That question was ignored, and the ignoring of the question pretty much answered what would have been my follow-up question of “Why don’t you listen to what is being said, instead of just giving the company line for anything?”

I digress.

The people putting on the lunch meeting, after getting over the disappointment of only having nine people show up from a group of over sixty (see “vampire”), welcomed us all and asked a question of their own, in order to get input.

The question was “How do you think we can increase sales?” and the answers were many and varied. Tossing aside the use of naked models to have strategically placed section of the paper covering them, (no imagination in these sales types. marketing would have gone for it in a flash. so to speak.) they instead focused on the answers we gave them with some serious thought. For example, it was pointed out that constantly telling people they can get more information on the paper’s (free) website would tend to drive people toward the web and away from the paper.

After looking at it from a distance now, I think the answer is more subtle. You see, the print media is leaning more and more to the left. More often than not, the current crop of journalists and editors are coming from the bastions of liberal learning, and starting to have a profound effect on the content of the nation’s media outlets. This is very evident in the larger broadcast media outlets, but let’s concentrate on print media for a moment.

Think back to what Air America tried to do. Seeing the success of conservative talk radio (filled with ‘proud to be an American’ thoughts words and deeds) Air America wanted to copy the business plan and create a liberal talk radio offering that could be syndicated and shared everywhere, uniting the left-thinking in the same way the right-thinking were uniting. The problem is that the liberal talk radio filled up with what the liberal think about – how terrible the United States is, how awful that we are so successful while other countries are stuck in their Third World status, and criticizing the country with all it’s failings. Let’s face it, people don’t want to hear doom and gloom all day, even if they are liberals. The conservative talk radio was supporting the country, giving constructive advice and lifting one another in praising the good things that the country is doing. In the end, Air America failed because it couldn’t keep it’s listener base (along with the money that listener base uses for purchasing and advertising) from being scared off by it’s attacks on the very country that allowed it to exist.

Translate that to the print media. With the liberals writing, editing, and publishing America-bashing articles (even subtly), people don’t want to hear it. Or, in this case, read it. With papers urging their readers to get more information on the web, their readers actually had the audacity to go out and get independent confirmation of the information presented – but not from the paper’s website. They went straight to the sources, and read the straight facts before the facts went through the prism that is present in every newsroom today. Sales start to slide, and then to fall. The paper starts wondering what went wrong, all the time struggling to stay afloat. Reorganizations are tried, services are centralized, and all the while those pesky customers keep taking the paper’s advice of finding more information on the web and, as a result, stop paying for slanted stories.

The papers, meanwhile, are confounded by the fact that they are still telling themselves they are fair and balanced. Refusing to admit you have a problem will prevent you from ever solving that problem. The editorial boards are slowly being taken over by journalists who have slowly advanced to their new positions after graduating from a college system that thinks Noam Chomsky is a patriotic centrist. The new editors are products of a school system that has eliminated as “biased” anything that smacks of conservative or patriotic values – prayer in school, the Pledge of Allegiance, respect for elders – and replaced them with more “inclusive” values – allowance for any religion but Christianity, the display of any flag not associated with the dominionistic policy of the United States, everyone is equal and worth the same – and their world view reflects it. But, the paper is still “fair and balanced” in it’s coverage.

Until the Mainstream Media wakes up to the fact that their business model of reporting with such a slant is what is killing them so softly and quietly, the values of the media outlets will continue to fall. It may take the complete and utter failure of a media giant like Gannett to wake the rest of the industry to facts.

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Let’s hope that they have finally quit hitting the snooze button and are in the process of waking up to reality.

Thank you for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, God bless you all, Time, Inc. is a bunch of weasels, listen to The O Word on BlogTalkRadio, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

I love this entry over at Shootists’ Scribblings by Lewis Burwell:

I find it infinitely amusing, and somewhat disturbing, that liberals will condemn the use of labels and stereotypes out of one side of their mouths, while labeling conservatives as racists, bigots, islamophobes, homophobes, religious zealots, and intolerant, out of the other side of their mouths.

Conservatives usually label liberals as….well…liberals.

As my loyal reader knows, I usually take the weekend and spend most of it with TMBWitW and our daughter, MEG, only occasionally checking e-mail and what not.

On Saturday, Texas Fred posted about Tyson Foods in Shelbyville, Tennessee, and their union’s new contract, which drops Labor Day in favor of the islamic or muslim holiday of eat al’s fart eid al-fitr, which marks the end of ramadan.

The discussion is lively, as usual, over at Fred’s. There is a rumbling of mostly “How dare they start capitulating to the muslims” and a general air of boycott is permeating the area.

My take? I think that Tyson (and the union) is setting a bad precedent – this is a nation founded on Christian ideals, and allowing an aggressive cult like islam to start dictating how the people of this nation should act is the start of a slippery slope to allowing muslims to insist that sharia law be implemented here.

As long as I have breath, that ain’t gonna happen without protest and defense of our system of law.

I think a boycott is a good idea. Add Tyson Foods overall to the list, along with Citgo (Chavez-run oil), and this list of Tyson products in particular. If you happen to know of subsidy holdings of Tyson, let’s hit them there, too.

Well, it’s otherwise a gorgeous morning (barely in the high 80’s this morning, bit of a cold-snap dontchaknow) and MEG was up early. We’ve had breakfast, and she is watching her favorite clown fish. I think I’ll cruise around the ‘net a bit and then see what she wants to do next. Maybe we’ll work on the letters again today.

Thank you for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, God bless you all, Time, Inc. is a bunch of weasels, listen to The O Word on BlogTalkRadio, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

Well, maybe not that fine. Texas Fred has a post up concerning the big, fat line that was crossed by the El Lago Apartments in McKinney, Texas.

Seems a couple of Texas National Guard folk had to vacate their premises due to being called up to active duty. Their apartments (controlled, by the way, by a trust located in California to run a trust to run a company that owns the company that owns the apartments…) do not “participate” in the Texas Apartment Association and therefore do not have a TAA specific clause concerning military personnel and the possibility of being moved on orders prior to the end of a lease.

The specifics are in the article here. From a legal standpoint, the apartments are within their rights to penalize tenants who terminate their lease early, but this is no way to treat the men and women of the American Armed Forces.

I’m gonna have to throw a big BS flag on this play, no matter how strong the apartments’ legal ground.

On a side note: Our thoughts and prayers are with Chris and Chessa Horvath as they leave on their second deployment to Iraq.

Thank you for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, God bless you all, Time, Inc. is a bunch of weasels, listen to The O Word on BlogTalkRadio, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

I would like to extend a big “THANK YOU” to all who have communicated their support and encouragement. I will keep you posted.

I thought today would be a good day to urge you all to make a difference. Somewhere. Anywhere. I’ve got a few suggestions:

GiGi, from the DFW area, e-mailed this little tid-bit:

Let’s go POSTAL!!!! Payback is fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You may have heard in the news that a couple of Post Offices in Texas have been forced to take down small posters that say ‘IN GOD WE TRUST.’

The law, they say, is being violated.

Anyway, we heard proposed on a radio station show, that we should all write ‘IN GOD WE TRUST’ on the back of all our mail. After all, that’s our National Motto, and it’s on all the money we use to buy stamps.

We think it’s a wonderful idea. We think it’s such a good idea that we think you should write it on the FRONT of the envelope, too!

We must take back our nation from all the people who think that anything that offends them should be removed. If you like this idea, please pass it on and DO IT. The idea of writing or stamping ‘IN GOD WE TRUST’ on our envelopes sounds good to us. Some people are having stamps made, others are adding it to their e-mail signatures.

It’s been reported that 86% of Americans believe in God. Therefore, we have a very hard time understanding why there’s such a mess about having ‘In God We Trust’ on our money and having God in the pledge of Allegiance. Could it be that WE just need to take action and tell the 14% to ‘sit down and shut up’?

This does not require you to do anything – but not doing anything is one reason why this country is in the mess we’re in now. Don’t sit back and let it happen anymore!

IN GOD WE TRUST

I’ve added it to my e-mail signature block. After that, head over to Free Rice to do two things – test and build your vocabulary skills, and build up grains of rice (20 for every correct word) to be sent to areas needing food staples. In most cases, the sponsoring partner will purchase the rice locally to where it is being provided, to offer a double benefit. (I spent five minutes on the site and sent 2500 grains out. My best level to date is 43 [out of 60], what’s yours?) Do not go there during work hours – it is rather addictive.

Third on the list is a little something from a friend of mine. Something to think about, when someone tries to tell you that this country was not founded on Christian values:

Whether the founders followed the Christian faith or not, they understood that Biblical values formed the basis of the not only the republic but English Law, and that the republic would be destroyed if the people’s knowledge of those values should ever be lost.

This brings me to the head of the spear, so to speak. Understanding that our constitution is man’s interpretation of God’s divine law, one must assume that at times the constitution will fall short of providing adequate solutions to humanistic transgressions. When this occurs, such as the recent ruling against capital punishment extending beyond murder, and the California Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn the vote of the people regarding gay marriage, the solution is not to interject one’s opinion or to seek a populous consensus as was done in both cases, but to go to the source of our constitution; divine law.

Because secularism has pervaded our society and our nation has become mostly agnostic, our appointed judges are ruling based on a popular opinion rather than using fundamental principles of interpretation. It is very clear that in both cases, the decisions would have been exactly opposite had they adhered to the basic truths and applied biblical principles to each case. Thankfully, we are still ‘One Nation, Under God’; but that is slowly slipping away.

Hope you all have a great couple of days. Remember I won’t be around tomorrow, since TMBWitW will be working from home and I will not have access to the computer. Unless, of course, one of you wants to send me a laptop, then I can be on line all the time…

Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Time, Inc. is a bunch of weasels, listen to The O Word on BlogTalkRadio, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!