inkbluesky

On Markets and the Media

I came across this cartoon. While I’m sure many conservatives think this is brilliant commentary, I actually think it does a beautiful job capturing the self-evident absurdity of the prevailing conservative view of the media.

Notice how many bizarre and contradictory beliefs are embedded in this single image.

On one side of the scale we see virtually every major news organization except Fox News, the implication being that all of them are dominated by liberals in the same way that talk radio is dominated by conservatives. But that’s so patently absurd. MSNBC has primetime shows hosted by Tucker Carlson, Joe Scarborough, and Chris Matthews. The Washington Post’s editorial page is run by Fred Hiatt and hasn’t expressed a liberal view on anything in years.

But the whole “liberal bias” schtick is nothing new and hardly worthy of comment at this point.

The cartoon that TAL refers to is at the link. Satirical cartoons are great, but only when they contain a realistic take on the world. This one is an unintentional self parody of the fringe Right’s mindset, frequently portraying themselves as the ever suffering victims. This chart ( takes a while to load) shows that the media is owned either directly or through subsidiary companies by very large corporations that for years have given most of their financial and ideological support to the far Right. As this Pew survey shows the media in general shares a large part of the blame for why people are so misinformed. It doesn’t help when major political figures like Rudy Giuliani , Mitt Romney and V.P. Dick Cheney insist on repeating false and misleading stories and the media rarely calls them on it.

big bear lake wallpaper

 Wilson: Insects essential to human life

Edward O. Wilson, in Washington for National Pollinator Week, is warning extinctions in the insect world could threaten life as we know it.

….But mass insect extinction could mean no more nematodes and other worms moving soil around, and bees and other pollinators aiding plant reproduction. Agricultural yields would drop, bringing starvation, war and an “ecological dark age.”

A little humbling for some members of the human race to think that we’re dependent on insects and the larger ecologocal web they’re apart of for our existence.