Hard Times
Not sure that too many outside a small circle of friends cares very much, but the geniuses who run The Los Angeles Times
announced today they will be cutting another, staggering, 250 jobs by Labor Day -- 150 of them editorial positions. The paper will also be cut 15% in the number of pages and "reformatted" in size, presumably.
This latest massacre will bring down the newsroom staff to about 700 -- about half the size of the Times' editorial peak before the last couple of years' cutting frenzy.
There's plenty to criticize about the Times. But spend a few days trying to read just about any other newspaper --apart from the NYTimes, WaPo, WSJ and one or two others -- and you soon realize what an impressive institution the L.A. paper is has been. Indeed, the foreign coverage of the Times has been outstanding -- thanks in great measure to the fine work of foreign editor Marjorie Miller. Make that former foreign editor as Marjorie gracefully departed her position a handful of weeks of go.
The last time anyone looked, the Times made plenty of money. But owner and billionaire (and legendary foul-mouth and all-around putz) Sam Zell ain't satisfied with just plenty. He wants more plenty. If that costs a great city a great newspaper, then WTF? No one should take it personally. It's just business, right?
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:04 pm
I blame the Chandlers. Not Otis and Mommy but all those greedy, right-wing cousins and other hangers on who always considered the post Harry Chandler paper to be a “Commie Rag” and got used to fat dividend checks made possible by a monopoly in LA and 20% plus ROI. When that return slipped from obscene to merely great they howled and forced the sale to Tribune Company. And the rest, as they say is history.
As is the TIMES and its aspirations (under Otis) to be a national voice. Say what you will about the Ochs’ but they treat the NYT as a national treasure which is under their stewardship.
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:07 pm
On a related note I see that KPFK is getting a new GM – from KJAZ at CSULB. What does this mean? A non-”activist” manager at Pacifica? Is this good?
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Contact Michael Moore.
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:21 pm
RLC:
I dont think the KPFK thing is salvageable. The new mgr is, on the one hand a (controversial and mostly failed) pro. On the other hand, he is deeply apolitical meaning, probably, he will get over-run by the loon squad that currently dominates. I heard just yesterday that the loon faction was agitating to take down the station repeater near Malibu because it serves mostly the wealthy. Unreal.
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:32 pm
The Whale has been so dull and so biased forever, it’s hard to force out a tear for it. I hate to see an institution in its death throes, though, even when I despise its politics and its tedium, and I hate to see professionals, whatever their political views, tossed to the wolves.
Newspapers are in trouble for technological reasons as well as the editorial follies of so many (Pinch Sulzberger, don’t bother phoning home).
Like network news, whose advertising is entirely geriatric, the metropolitan daily paper is a buggy whip factory.
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:33 pm
As for KPFK, eventually the maniacs will get rid even of Ian Masters, the only listenable broadcaster left.
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:34 pm
I miss Otis Chandler so fucking much.
I cry every time I think of the Times in the 1970s and most of the 80s.
it rocked.
Well, there’s always a few old warhorses left at the Weekly.
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:58 pm
>As for KPFK, eventually the maniacs will get rid even of Ian Masters, the only listenable broadcaster left.
I’ve ragged on KPFK recently here too, but Suzi Weizman and Jon Wiener both have drive-time shows that are some of the best radio I’ve ever heard. Leila Garrett is too moderate for me, but she does a good job interviewing the likes of Tom Hayden and Jackie Goldberg in prime radio time Monday AM. A lot of the identity politics shows like Riko Matsuda’s are not so much bad shows as just ones that get better air time than is justified by the size of their target audiences. They ought to move the RCP show to midnight Tuesday, though.
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Yet one more reason that USC’s School of Journalism should start a student-run online news service covering City Hall and L.A. news. But the school better move fast, before Arianna Huffington exploits all that free labor and starts her own local news division.
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Stu DeNimm,
Fair enough. Weissman and Wiener are interesting and not crazies. I haven’t listened to them in years, but when I did they were worth a hearing.
I confess, though, I never got why Wiener thought John Lennon was such a big (poliical) deal.
July 3rd, 2008 at 7:03 am
>I confess, though, I never got why
>Wiener thought John Lennon was
>such a big (poliical) deal.
Yeah, that’s baby boomer self indulgence, but it makes good radio
July 3rd, 2008 at 7:11 am
Marc:
July 3rd, 2008 at 7:12 am
something happened… I think I forgot to close the blockquote after “Unreal.” I sure miss the preview button!
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:00 am
PS, there is a midday show flogging “alternative medicine” that is a shameful waste of the left’s piddly resources. Also, despite the jocular tone of my posts about the illuminati/masonic/fluouride conspiracy video they were using as a pledge drive incentive last week, I did describe the video accurately, judging from the Blasdale / Quickly sales pitch. It is obviously a recruiting tool for a Christian cult. Here is a link if you don’t believe me: http://www.talismanicidols.org
This was nearly enough to get me to cancel my KPFK membership.
Now, I’m sure the Pacifica factional struggle will continue, but if the choice is between union-busting centrists and a coalition of new age cults, pomo identity politics vegans, and the RCP, I am really not sure which side is worse.
July 3rd, 2008 at 9:49 am
God. The Weekly keeps morphing into a rich hipster paper with few reasons to keep reading and CityBeat is mostly snark and is basically the late 90s/early 00s OC Weekly moved north.
July 3rd, 2008 at 10:14 am
Mangement and the owners disagree with you. If you think that you can run the paper better and more profitably, then buy the company. Otherwise, tough.
July 3rd, 2008 at 10:32 am
I bet Woody would be happy if comedian Rush Limbaugh would use part of his wad to buy the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:14 am
Only if Limbaugh fired all the left-wing wackos, which would be a substantial number.
July 3rd, 2008 at 1:21 pm
One of the first things I loved about SoCal when I moved here was the LATimes. I had spent my life in a town dominated by the newspaper owned by Dan Quayle’s grandfather. At one point we came close to getting the then-excellent Louisville Courier-Journal to broaden its southern Indiana coverage to the whole state. Barry Bingham, the owner, backed out. The Times has degenerated (and no longer has a San Diego edition but still has Tony Perry covering big local stories). Still, as Marc has said. it is better than almost any other you can lay your hands on.
Btw, has anyone read USA Today this week? I don’t know if it has changed, but in its new smaller format it looks weird in those big TV screen boxes on the street.
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Of course the COURIER-JOURNAL is another example of a paper whose family had disputes and sold out rather than hold on. Aside from the Ochs and the Grahams that is very rare. Note how the family behind the WSJ took Rupert’s money and ran. Yes, Woody, they own it and can do what they want but old Joe Pulitzer’s idea of a paper as a public trust is like the Geneva Convention to the Bushies – “Quaint.”
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:54 pm
The L.A. Times has not written hard hitting news about L.A. politics for years. The L.A. Times is more about kissing ass of local latino politicians to get “inside” stories. The Times would not know how how to investigate a political scandal if it came knocking on it’s door.
I know more about local politics from reading a blog by one lone and homeless activist blogger, Zuma Dogg out works the whole L.A. Times staff covering local politics.
http://ladailyblog.blogspot.com/
July 4th, 2008 at 5:53 am
Ah yes. So much love for the LA Times.
But why then so few willing to pay the freight?
Good journalism is incredibly difficult and, to the vast majority of Angelenos’ estimation, apparently, unaffordable.
Quibble all you want about whether there were too many navel-gazing stories and not enough “straight” news, too much local, not enough global or too much cookies and not enough milk, but that’s all beside the bigger point that the major metropolitan daily is dead as a business model because readers have been tought that journalism is some sort of public service they should be entitled to at 25 cents a pop, or gratis, a la The LA Weekly.
It was merely a quirk of fate, really — specifically the gross profitability of classified advertising — that allowed major metropolitican dailies to exist in the first place.
What was never established was the willingness of readers, not advertisers, to pay for the news product itself.
Maybe someone will start a paper and try to sell subscriptions at $50 a month — on par with what a lot of people spend on cable/tivo/DVDs — on the theory that people, enough people, care more about reading the top-notch newspaper journalism than about watching 300 channels of 95 percent garbage, with lots of expensive gear in place to capture the worthy 5 percent.
If nothing else, it would give all those bemoaning the death of journalism a chance to put their money where their mouth is.
Consider Japan. There are 5 national newspapers, the biggest with just a shade less than 10 million subscribers. Still, they’re not fully advertising driven. They sell on the newstand for something more than $1 a go and subscriptions run to $50 a month or more.
Of course, the massive urban readerships are partly because everyone commutes by train and needs a paper to read on the way in.
That’s part of it, but there’s also the fact that there remains a culture of newspaper readership. Many, if not most, readers even subscribe to a morning and evening edition, so as not to miss out on whatever.
But that may be a curiousity more than a model for the U.S. Whatever you can say about the size of Japanese newspapers, the bottom line is that their content is utter crap by American standards. Stories are universally unsourced. About half are attributed as “It was learned that” or not at all (I always wonder how they decide whether to throw in “It was learned at” as opposed to simply leaving out any attribution. What do they believe the phrase adds? Is it some sort of code?)
As an example of the kind of garbage they front-page, the Yomiuri Shimbun, the largest, published its own recommendations on how to reform the nation’s pension system. Not interviews with independent experts or academics or business people. But their own writers, spewing 3,000 words of ludicrous generalities about how to solve Japan’s social security problem. Absurd.
Worse, Japanese newspapers operate under a sort of oligopoly under which any national newspaper must offer themselves at the same price everywhere.
This is rationalized as a way to make sure rural people have the same access to news as urbanites. But it has the effect of preventing regional papers from becoming national ones and, also, preventing already national papers from making bids for regional supremacy by discount subscription campaigns.
The Internet has made little inroads against these empires in Japan. Indeed, one Web upstart who had the temerity to try and mount a leveraged buyout of one of the bigger TV-newspaper-movie studio conglomerates, was eventually jailed for some creative bookkeeping that while, clearly illegal, was hardly out of the ordinary.
So I guess there’s not much chance that the Japanese model is an adequate one to follow–though there is the fact that Japanese readers do understand that journalism costs money, and they do think it’s important enough to pay for, out of habit, if nothing else.
I have to believe that in the end the destruction of the L.A. Times will be creative. The real journalists are extremely motivated individuals and will continue to produce and will find buyers for their product, though they may face difficult transitions. The others, the floaters who got by on charisma or looks or what have you, will have to find other work.
While at the moment, the Web seems to be making a great sucking sound, vacuuming up all the goodness out of newspaper journalism and replacing it with free — or corporate subsidized, bloviating and a jillion micro-speciality blogs.
That will continue, but eventually there will be a model whereby readers will pay for the good stuff. And I’m confident Americans, on average, know what the good stuff is and will be willing to pay for it, once the finally learn that they have to or go without it.
July 4th, 2008 at 6:41 am
BB: “That will continue, but eventually there will be a model whereby readers will pay for the good stuff. And I’m confident Americans, on average, know what the good stuff is and will be willing to pay for it, once the finally learn that they have to or go without it.”
Well said BB, well said!
July 4th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Happy Independence Day, everyone! One thing we can agree on, through all our differences, is that we are proud to be Americans (jcummings excepted, being a Canadian). May you have a beautiful day with family and friends, thankful for our freedoms.
July 4th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Marc, it puzzles me how you and other local writers so blithely repeat the falsehood that the L.A. Times foreign coverage has been outstanding.
Publishing longwinded, egotistical pieces from places in which readers have a very minimal interest is not great foreign coverage.
I know it’s heresy but I believe the Times is actually getting better. Although Sam Zell is obviously more interested in money than concent, the new people he put in are doing a better job than the old complacent Times crowd.
Witness today’s thoughtful piece today by Peter Nicholas on Obama. He actually acknowledges that Obama is wobbling on his Iraq position, supported by a headline that says: “Obama denies wavering on Iraq.”
The old Times headline would have been: “Obama has not wavered on Iraq,” followed by the obligatory ass-kissing article on Barrack.
Now if only Zell’s henchmen can get the Times to add real inside coverage of Hollywood and get reporters to actually go out on the street for the California section.
July 6th, 2008 at 9:23 am
EVERYTHING has to do with Iraq with you guys, so I’m adding this:
It’s such a shame that any successes and improvements in Iraq fail to get mentioned by The L.A. Times and any of you. Do you think that Obama will express appreciation to our government for this? No, I’m sure the naysayers will say something negative, like we planted it there.
July 6th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
I get it Woody. You’re the guy who burns down his house while having a BBQ. Then after months of denying the fire took place.
Then, without ever explicity admitting there was a fire, you spent the next few months blaming the blaze on fact that your neighbors warned you not to store gasoline near your grill then “distracted” you by screaming warnings as the flames spread from your burgers to the disused McDonalds bags strewn across your yard.
Now you moan that the newspaper account didn’t focus on the fact that after the fire, you successfully roasted a hotdog in your blackened backyard using a series of Bic lighters.
And you left out something from the AP article on Iraq:
“U.N. inspectors had documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said.”
There you have it. The U.N. inspections worked.
More important perhaps, this should put fully paid the shaggy dog tale that Saddam had sent agents to Niger to buy yellowcake. He had 550 tons on hand, so there would have been no need.
July 6th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
And you left out something from the AP article on Iraq:
“U.N. inspectors had documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said.â€
There you have it. The U.N. inspections worked.
What do you expect from Woody. Certainly not the whole story, nor the whole truth.
July 6th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
The U.N. did nothing.
July 6th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
More on this here:
http://tinyurl.com/6zkn6p
Woody continues to prove himself butt stupid and a falsifier.
July 6th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
reg, how stupid can you get? I like the part from your link that it “wasn’t weapons grade,” as though that next step was impossible and we were silly to worry about it. Your left-wing source doesn’t provide substantiation. The U.N. was made to look like fools by Hussein. Don’t give me this after-the-fact U.N. heroics.
- – -
Tim Russert, George Carlin, and now Sen. Jesse Helms. Famous people dying in threes. Where’s the post praising Helms?
July 6th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Here’s a tribute to Helms in his own words.
July 6th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
I will praise Jesse Helms. He did a lot to keep everyone from noticing that Ronald Reagan believed most of the same things he did, but since Reagan knew how to use code language and symbolism, and was better-looking and smilier, most didn’t notice what a Neanderthal Reagan was, and thus did Helms help create one of the phoniest images in American history.
Now, to get back to the LA Times, I always thought of it as bloated and self-satisfied, and thus a true exemplar of the mainstream media. But at least under Otis Chandler’s leadership, it tried to cover the news and provide perspective–and, in Paul Conrad, it had the greatest cartoonist east or west of Herblock. Since Chandler left, and then under subsequent “leadership” (and I include in this the vastly overrated John Carroll and Dean Baquet), it has deteriorated. It remains better than many papers, and especially the allged newspaper I am stuck with in Las Vegas, but that isn’t saying much, is it?
July 6th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Back in the 1990’s, when my oldest son was about ten, Otis Chandler used to write back and forth with him about Chandler’s car collection. I thought that he was a really nice guy to take the time to do that with a kid.
Regarding Jesse Helms, liberals hate anyone who fought communism.
July 6th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Yeah, we liberals hated Vaclav Havel, Alexander Solzhenitysn, Andrei Sakharov, Lech Walesa and the students in Tianamen Square. You’re a zit on the face of common sense.
We just hated racists jackasses and right-wing dictator/nun and priest murderers/torturer enablers like Helms.
July 6th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
“Yeah, we liberals hated Vaclav Havel, Alexander Solzhenitysn, Andrei Sakharov, Lech Walesa and the students in Tianamen Square.”
No Randy. You didn’t hate them. Liberals are all about love. So much love and concern and heartfelt emotion for mankind, they become powerless to do anything to help.
Because talk is benign and harmless and above all else, ’safe’, nobody will get hurt, or worse killed. No principle is worth that. Let them rot forever, and millions like them, because freedom is just not worth a single death, or much more horrifying, risk of war.
Let NATO handle it peacefully ……..forever. The Saddam’s of the world love the peaceful approach.
My guess is Eastern Europe has been saying “Thank God for Neanderthals”, every day they have been lived in freedom.
July 6th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
This is the reason all the despots in the world are routing for the good old days of liberalism again, ie, Obama.
July 7th, 2008 at 5:49 am
Given that Bush’s Iraq invasion is the best thing that’s happened for the Iranian Mullahs in decades – certainly since the days when Ronald Reagan was giving Saddam military assistance in his war crimes against their conscripts sectarian allies within Iraq – one has to assume that you’re not exactly what one would call a student of history.
In 1998, when oil was $11 a barrel, bin Laden protested that it should be selling for $144. Little W Bush certainly helped that cause along with his crackpot and incompetent “stratergies” over these past years…
July 7th, 2008 at 5:49 am
“conscripts AND sectarian allies”
July 7th, 2008 at 6:06 am
That these pricks would invoke Jesse Helms in the cause of “freedom” speaks volumes about either their ignorance or their hypocrisy. Let’s note – as a small example of what a piece of shit he wast – that Helms, under the rhetoric of an “anti-government” conservative” also fought relentlessly for tax dollars to subsidize his beloved tobacco industry. Helms’ hardcore “no trade with Vietnam” agenda softened when he came to a peculiar realization after spending time with some Vietnam government emissaries: “I was with some Vietnamese recently, and some of them were smoking two cigarettes at the same time, That’s the kind of customers we need!”
July 7th, 2008 at 7:43 am
“Let NATO handle it peacefully….”
That was supposed to be the United Nations of course, not NATO.
I would add all the criminals; child molesters, rapists, murders, are routing for the return of liberalism also. They will now get the motherly ‘treatment’ they need in order to live happy and healthy lives again. No more of that cruel and unusual punishment. Funk that.
I’m not a fan of extreme know-it-alls like Helms on the right or the left. They do more harm to their causes than help. But you have to agree there are many more know-it-all pricks on the left Reg. Who roams streets with signs. Who disrupts others speech and meetings. Who assaults others with pies, and worse. Who sounds angry and, quite frankly, emotionally maladjusted when they speak. Who just can’t handle disagreement with their ‘truth’.
July 7th, 2008 at 8:03 am
Good point about child molesters and rapists awaiting the “return of liberalism”. Also impressed that you don’t betray any anger or emotional maladjustment when you speak…
July 7th, 2008 at 8:19 am
Jim,
If you want to jump in the sewer with Woody and defend Jesse Helms, I’ll be happy to speak truth to your nonsense. If you want to trot your usual group of strawmen as it appears you’ve done, please be advised that I’m an adult and won’t engage in strawmen arguments.
July 7th, 2008 at 8:30 am
Three weeks left before Congress takes a month-long break. What will they do about energy and gas prices during that time–nationalize the oil companies or nothing, like they have been doing? That’s the Democrat’s strategy for helping working families and the children.
July 7th, 2008 at 9:36 am
The Weekly Standard – unaccountably but refreshingly – speaks the truth re: the bitter old bigot Helms’ legacy and contemporary “conservatism” :
“Reagan, as candidate and president, was conservatism with a happy face. Helms is conservatism with a stiffened spine. Reagan’s success as a conservative leader, however, wouldn’t have happened without Helms’s bracing him. The Republican party needs another duo like that. What’s missing, obviously, is a new Reagan. Helms is still here, operating at full tilt.”
July 7th, 2008 at 10:11 am
“Reagan’s success as a conservative leader, however, wouldn’t have happened without Helms’s bracing him.”
I don’t care what publication purported to say that, it’s dead wrong and lacks reasoning and substantiation. People weren’t saying that when Reagan was around, so why is it coming up now? Using that logic, Obama couldn’t be what he is without a Rev. Wright.
July 7th, 2008 at 10:59 am
“That’s the Democrat’s strategy for helping working families and the children.”
Indeed? Praytell, what would be the Republican Party’s strategy for “helping working families and the children”? Hmm, maybe another bread-and-circuses rebate check, so we all can buy a big-screen T.V. and prop up the debtor economy championed by Republicans?
The truth is this: the Republican Party has zero “strategy” because it is not the party of average, main-street families. Hasn’t been for many decades. And since we American people are smart when you give us enough time to figure stuff out, you can count on the Republican Party completing the trifecta in November: lose the House, lose the Senate, lose the White House. Maybe in a decade or two we can see true conservatism reborn in a way that actually benefits Jane and Joe American, but it’s going to take either a complete restructuring of the GOP (unlikely anytime soon), a third party, or the fresh re-integration of true conservatism into the Democratic Party (already happening in some ways: e.g., budget balancing, immigration reform through both border-tightening and employer sanctioning, welfare reform (1996), discontinuation of affirmative action programs (UC system), renewable energy (yup, that’s actually a conservative position, in case you’ve forgotten)).
Interesting times ahead, to say the least.
July 7th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Samuel, because the Democrats control Congress, they are the ones in position to take action to bring down oil prices. Just the announcement that we will drill in ANWR and offshore would help.
- – -
The Jesse Helms You Should Remember
But, here’s how liberals feel:
I can’t believe that Marc didn’t have a post bidding this man farewell.
July 7th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Woody,
Defender of racists and those who support right-wing nun and priest murderers.
Perhaps Marc didn’t bid Helms farewell because of his undying support for Pinochet. Add to Helms’ hideous record, then, his support for a man whose secret police committed an act of state-sponsored terrorism in Washington, DC that resulted in the death of a US citizen.
Why do you hate America, Woody?
July 7th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
His undying support being Helms’ undying support for Pinochet. Damn those dangling modifiers.
July 7th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Randy, why do you love communism?
July 7th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Woody,
As usual, you assume facts not on evidence. Grow up.
July 7th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Randy I: Why do you hate America, Woody?
Randy II: Woody, As usual, you assume facts not on evidence. Grow up.
???
July 7th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
For the record, Woody, Helms supported Pinochet. Pinochet’s government committed an act of terrorism on US soil that killed a US citizen. Those are facts.
If you speak highly of someone who supported someone who committed these acts, then you support a terrorist enabler.
Those are facts. Deal with them.
July 7th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Here’s more on Helm’s being key to Reagan’s success from one of your faves, Woody, Townhall:
http://www.townhall.com/blog/g/f748d024-1ee5-4f63-b1fe-790dab8bcd3b
July 7th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Randy, your reach to connect Helms with the death of an American citizen is so stretched that it’s a total joke. Claims of Clinton killing Vince Foster are more reasonable.
- – -
reg, in your original linked quote that I dismissed, “Reagan’s success as a conservative leader, however, wouldn’t have happened without Helms’s bracing him,” you imply that Helm’s less popular beliefs were shared by Reagan. The quote from your latest link, “In 1976, Jesse Helms (then the junior Senator) first helped persuade Reagan to seek the presidency, and then engineered a stunning come-from-behind victory for Reagan in North Carolina, is something entirely different. The first says that Helms guided Reagan while the second says that Helms helped him to win a primary.
July 7th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Woody, I didn’t imply anything – I simply quoted Fred Barnes in the context of his stating the importance of Helm’s legacy to Reagan-era conservatism. You’re just engaging in your usual idiotic yammering, hairsplitting, whining and distortion. God, that shit is tired.
July 7th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
I love it that Woody is spending his afternoon defending Jesse Helms.
July 7th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
From the LA Times Obit: Commentator Patrick J. Buchanan, speaking Friday on MSNBC, put Helms in the company of President Reagan, calling the former senator “the second most important conservative of the second half of the 20th century.”
Helms never saw a murderious rightwing government in Latin America he didn’t like. He was great supporter of the El Salvadorian death squad chief, Roberto D’Aubiuisson, who had Archbishop Romero assassinated. This weekend they met in Hell.
July 7th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Randy, your reach to connect Helms with the death of an American citizen is so stretched that it’s a total joke. Claims of Clinton killing Vince Foster are more reasonable.
Sez you, peckerwood.
July 7th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Helms love affair with Pinochet even upset the Reagan administration as described in Fortune magazine:
Pinochet’s government was responsible for a terrorist act in this country. Helms supported Pinochet to the end.
Facts are troublesome things to liars, Woody.
July 8th, 2008 at 7:24 am
“If you want to jump in the sewer with Woody and defend Jesse Helms, I’ll be happy to speak truth to your nonsense.”
Being one of the few more thoughtful and sporadic (they go together imo) commenters here Randy, I think you were having a bad day in this case. The comment you respond to was in defense of Reagan not Helms silly.
I even gave you a clue in a response to reg here “I’m not a fan of extreme know-it-alls like Helms on the right or the left.” No one is perfect, so I forgive you just this one time.
Now we have established my men were not straw, in your spare time and after some thought, maybe you could address why it is no liberal since JFK have shown any backbone, and is this not the reason most all the depots in the world are routing for the neo-liberal candidate Obama.
July 8th, 2008 at 8:28 am
Now we have established my men were not straw, in your spare time and after some thought, maybe you could address why it is no liberal since JFK have shown any backbone, and is this not the reason most all the depots in the world are routing for the neo-liberal candidate Obama.
Oh please. That has all the intellectual honesty of “have you stopped beating your wife.”
July 8th, 2008 at 10:55 am
You’re so pathetic, Randy. Well, give me your take on deaths caused by dictators hugged by Jimmy Carter.
July 8th, 2008 at 11:04 am
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
July 8th, 2008 at 11:13 am
According to Marc’s buddy David Corn, straight talk by McCain, really just amounts to prescreened softball questioners.
What a wuss.
July 8th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Nothing more objective and reliable than “Mother Jones,” huh? Why, I thought you got your news from Mad Magazinie.
July 8th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
The statement: “Regarding Jesse Helms, liberals hate anyone who fought communism,” is not merely overly broad, it is entirely untrue. I can’t imagine the depth of illness that would conjure up such an idea.
The additional statement: “Samuel, because the Democrats control Congress, they are the ones in position to take action to bring down oil prices. Just the announcement that we will drill in ANWR and offshore would help,” is just as senseless.
The meteoric rise in the cost of oil is not market driven. If it were, there would be long lines at gas stations, as was the case during the oil embargo in the 1970’s. The oil countries have not stopped pumping or shipping. The oil companies are refining oil. They are charging more for what they refine, which is one reason why their profits have been obscene for several years. The other reason is that laws that were passed to give them tax breaks when they were having problems in the past, can’t be changed because the Republicans have the votes to keep them in place. The last reason that the price of gas is high is speculator on the oil futures market. They keep bidding up the price, and there is no regulation on that. It can go as high as it can go. The Saudis have agreed to pump more to help bring it down, but that will help little.
Oil from ANWR won’t appear on the market for at least 8 years, will destroy the area, and won’t help much. We would have done better, and will do better by making vehicles have better mileage. If we had changed the standards a little each year over the last 8 years, we would be in a much better place right now. GM wouldn’t be thinking about keeping only Chevrolet and Cadillac with stock as low as it was in 1954.
We need to act rationally. Woody is having a knee jerk reaction, rather than thinking through this problem. The oil companies already the majority of oil bearing off shore sites under lease, and they haven’t drilled there yet. They don’t need any more leases until they drill there, where nobody objects to drilling. Why open up drilling where everyone objects, when they haven’t drilled where they have leases where nobody objects?
Woody hasn’t thought this problem through, or he just doesn’t know what he is talking about. Maybe, he’s just pulling our cumulative leg.
July 9th, 2008 at 6:43 am
Nothing more objective and reliable than “Mother Jones,†huh? Why, I thought you got your news from Mad Magazinie [sic].
If you know what mr. Corn wrote is false. please provide proof.
July 9th, 2008 at 8:00 am
Now we have established my men were not straw Randy, in your spare time and after some thought, maybe you could address why it is no liberal since JFK have shown any backbone, and is this not the reason most all the depots in the world are routing for the neoliberal candidate Obama?
Stop the intellectual dance.
July 9th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Jim,
To do that I would have to accept your premises. As I don’t accept your premises, what is there to discuss?
July 9th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
I think we (especially readers of the LA Times) are all responsible for its success. It is truly a community treasure as is the ocean and good weather and LA without a robust Times is unthinkable. As long as it is a profit driven business it needs to stay solvent but it is more than just a business.
Let’s think of some constructive ideas to support our paper and not just tear it down. I’m sure most of the staff and management are not happy with the cuts and are trying to do their best–how can we help them improve the paper and do whatever it takes to make it thrive? That is a real challenge in this economy but a necessary one.
JG Studio City
July 11th, 2008 at 12:24 am
[...] flurry of ever more disheartening LA Times/Sam Zell news. First it was announced last week that 150 people would be cut from [...]