Parking Lot Wars

If you think it is difficult to park at the mall during the holiday season, try to find a parking place anytime at the West Los Angeles Veterans Administration Medical Center. Now that's difficult.

I am a veteran, proud of my ten years on active duty and as the result of a service-connected disability, entitled to free medical care from the V.A. However, I have not availed myself of that medical care for 14 or 15 years, due to the wonderful health insurance benefits provided by my employer of almost 17 years.

I had no plans to go back to the V.A. for care either, but I recently quit that aforementioned job and next summer my employer will stop paying for my health insurance benefits. So, unless I find another job with benefits in the interim, next July I will once again need that free medical care the V.A. provides me.

That is why I drove over to the West L.A. facility the other morning. I went by to visit the two Veterans service organizations that I am eligible to join, to get information on what steps I need to take to get my V.A. coverage turned back on.

The last time I had been to that facility, parking had not been a problem. Well, times have changed. In the main lot, there were at least seven cars circling around like vultures, waiting for someone to emerge from the big building and get into a car and vacate a space. I was almost afraid to try and join the circling mob, for fear one of the other drivers would take exception to my presence. So instead, I headed for one of the overflow lots.

Of course, there were drivers circling in that lot too, but not as many. Only two and one of those thought he was quite clever, parking at the end of a long row of vehicles in a space that was clearly painted "No Parking". I wonder how clever he thought he was when he eventually returned to his car and found the parking ticket that a V.A. Police Officer left on the windshield about five minutes after the car had been parked there illegally.

I did eventually find a space, in yet another lot on the far side of the building, in the row furthest from the building. As I pulled into the slot, I felt as though I had just won the lottery. I got out, locked the door and went into the building, sure that everything was downhill from there. It wasn't.

I was there to see two different people, in two different offices that fortunately for me are located right next to each other, and are quite easy to find. When I arrived at those offices, both were closed and locked. Both of the doors had notes on them that indicated that the occupants were out and would be back later. One, an hour later, the other, two hours later.

There were comfortable chairs there, and a cafeteria down the hall and I could have just waited, or gone and eaten. For a brief moment, I even pondered the possibility of leaving and returning in an hour, after running a much needed errand. Then I realized that returning in an hour would mean having to try once again to find a vacant parking space and there was no way I was going to deal with that nightmare again anytime soon, let alone again on that day.

So I wrote down the phone numbers of the people I was there to see and decided that I would try to get them on the phone and get my questions answered that way, even though it may take weeks to finally get through.

Then I walked back to my car. Of course, someone circling in the lot saw me emerge from the building and followed me back to my car. In fact, two different cars followed me back to my own vehicle, from two different directions. As I got into my car, the two drivers sat there, glaring at each other. Both were waiting to see which way I would back out, each waiting for the slightest opening to race forward into the newly vacant parking spot and cut the other off in doing so.

Not wanting to witness a parking lot accident, I backed out slowly and deliberately, blocking one of the two cars from moving forward into the now open space. Maybe I was unfair and should have just let the two of them fight it out. But I had seen enough fighting among veterans for one day. So, for that one brief moment, I forced peace into the parking lot wars. Then, mission accomplished, I headed home.

Why No One Remembers Allie Brandt

We all tend to think of technology as a good thing and it almost always is. But there are exceptions and I believe that bowling is one of them. It is the advancing technology of bowling and bowling equipment that has caused people to forget who Allie Brandt was.

My father started my career in bowling when I was only four years old.  I had to roll the ball with both hands and if I was lucky enough to hit the pins twice a game, I considered myself fortunate. Of course, this was long before one of the good technological advances of bowling, today's "bumpers" that allow kids of small size and age to bowl without ball after ball going into the gutter. But as my career advanced into junior and ultimately adult competition, I was there as the technology advanced as well.

When I returned from a tour of duty in South Korea in the mid 1980s, I was greeted by the first revolution, the urethane bowling ball. Prior to that, bowling balls were made of rubber or plastic. Urethane, a new age material, was better. It hit the pins harder, grabbed lanes better and made for higher scoring. It was soon followed by something called reactive resin, and then a change in the pattern of oiling the bowling lanes known as "short oil" and nowadays the bowling scores are out of sight.

To verify this one only need take a quick look at the record book maintained by the American Bowling Congress (ABC). The four highest season averages for league competition were all set after the development of reactive resin and short oil, and are averages of 261, 256, 251 and 250. Those are season averages for a game in which a perfect score is 300.

That same record book shows that six men are tied for the record high game series of 900, three consecutive perfect games. All six were accomplished after 1997, long after reactive resin and short oil hit the scene. There are other recorded examples of the 900 series being accomplished, but the ABC refused to sanction those scores. To Mr. Glenn Allison, wherever you may be, you deserved to have your achievement of 900 acknowledged. You were robbed sir, and the ABC should right this wrong.

Another example of the astronomical scoring that technology has created can be found in the record books having taken place on April 1, 2004 at New Castle, Delaware. A team called Limo Exchange with 5 players on it shot 3,934 for three games. Let's do the math. That's 1,311.3333 per team game, divided by five players equals 262.2666 per game per player. Now this may be a team with five really good bowlers on it. Hell, it may have five members of the Professional Bowlers Tour on it. But I submit that without the technological advances like reactive resin and short oil, scores like that just would not happen.

I was a pretty good bowler back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, before technology changed the game. My friends and family wonder why I won't bowl anymore. The answer is simple. Technology has ruined the game. It has taken the skill element out of it. Anyone can buy a great ball, learn to take advantage of the easy, high scoring conditions that lane owners are putting out there and learn to average 200. I averaged 200 and over before short oil, before reactive resin and before urethane. I see no point in continuing and scoring higher using this new technology. The challenge and therefore the fun are gone.

As to the legacy of Allie Brandt, back in 1939, he did something amazing. He bowled a three game series of 886, games of 297, 289 and 300, setting a record that would stand for more than 50 years. It was an incredible accomplishment and it is a shame that technology has caused his fine achievement to be overshadowed by these artificial records.

Around two years ago, AMF Bowling Centers went into Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. At the time, people were saying that bowling was dying. Now they are out of bankruptcy and have recently sold off their centers in the United Kingdom to focus on their core operations in the United States. Maybe bowling is dying and maybe it isn't. I don't know for sure. All I know is that for me, it isn't what it was and never will be again.

RIP Allie Brandt. RIP Bowling.

Do I Feel A Draft In Here?

The goal of registering voters, particularly young ones is a worthwhile one but Rock the Vote is using fearmongering to do so.

Next April will mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and yet if there is one word that can frighten people, that word is "draft". President Bush and Senator Kerry have both made it clear that they have no plan to reinstitute a draft, if elected. Yet the non-partisan Rock the Vote organization is promoting the idea that the return of the draft is a likely possibility and their campaign is working.

And, for the most part, until this morning, I felt that there was nothing to the notion that a draft would return. Until I read the story of John Doe. That's the name attached to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court by a California National Guard soldier who is being forced to remain in the Guard beyond his contracted period of service.

The soldier in question, who is not being identified while his suit proceeds through the legal system, had enlisted in the Guard in a program for veterans where they can join for one year, bypass basic training and immediately begin serving and receiving the benefits of service on a one year trial period. However, before his one year trial period ended, the soldier was called up to active duty for an eighteen month period of training and deployment to Iraq under a program called "Stop-Loss".

Since the end of the draft, the United States military has been an all volunteer force. The question I have, and which will be examined by the courts, has to do with the enlistment contract that John Doe signed. Does that contract contain language that allows the military to force him to remain on active duty beyond the one year trial period? If it does, then John needs to do his 18 month tour and be done with it. If not, then the military needs to live up to the terms of the agreement and release Mr. Doe from service.

I can clearly remember my recruiter rolling his eyes as I sat there reading my own enlistment contract word for word. Those rolling eyes widened as I asked about the section of the enlistment contract that required me to serve for a total of eight years, four years longer than what I had thought I was enlisting for. The recruiter explained that the added years were in the inactive reserve and that the chance that anyone in that group would be called back to serve were remote. Remote back when I served in the all volunteer force, not so remote now.

However, even if the contract that John Doe signed would allow the military to keep him on active duty beyond the one year trial period, there is the moral question of a Commander-in-Chief who left the Guard prior to the end of his own commitment using such contracts to force the men and women he commands to serve longer than they believed themselves committed.

Yo Ho, Yo Ho, Pirates Vie With the FCC

Free Radio Santa Cruz's transmitter and other equipment was taken by the FCC in a recent raid and the operators of the Pirate Radio station are claiming their free speech rights were taken as well.

Sorry, but the operators of FRSC are wrong. The FCC and the Federal Marshals who seized the FRSC equipment were doing the lawful and correct thing. No one's free speech rights were violated because nowhere in the Constitution or anywhere else is the right to seize a radio frequency and use it without first going through the proper legal channels given to anyone.

Skidmark Bob, whose real name is Robert Duran disagrees with that notion. In a story in the Los Angeles Times, Duran is quoted as saying "We decided to take this frequency because we felt the public airways belong to the people." They do. The problem for Mr. Duran is that the representative government of the people has established a process for licensing the use of these public airways and if you want to make use of them, you need to utilize that process. Now that process is time consuming, expensive and not easy. But those factors do not excuse seizing the property of the public for your personal use and then crying "Free Speech Foul" when you are caught violating the law.

Free speech is not absolute, particularly when it comes to the platform for said speech. Never mind the tried but true example about how you can't shout "Fire" in a crowded theater. Think about it this way. You can go to the park, mount the stage and give all the speeches you want to. As long as you haven't seized the stage when someone else happens to have a permit to use it, go for it.

Now move the location to the sidewalk outside of a department store. Give the same speech. As long as you don't block traffic, everything is just fine and dandy. But try and step inside the store, step up on the menswear counter and interrupt the shopping to give your speech. You'll be in handcuffs before the rack of ties you knocked over on your way up hits the floor, and rightly so. Your right to speak freely ends where the rights of the owners of that store to conduct their business free from your interference begins. It is exactly the same with the public airways. The regulations that require licensure for usage of the public airways exist to protect the rights of everyone, not just those with a desire to speak and the willingness and technical ability to buy and set up a transmitter.

The station is still available to its listeners, as long as they have access to the internet. They are streaming audio on the net, which is a form of broadcast that is not subject to FCC regulation and so their free speech rights seem remarkably intact. Only their ability to hijack the 101.1 FM frequency has been inhibited.

Their website has audio of the raid and they describe the Federal Marshal in charge as a "Feminzai". Hard to believe that a liberal bastion of broadcasting would borrow a term from the lexicon of Rush Limbaugh, but perhaps they were hard-pressed to come up with a better epithet for the woman who led the attack on their studio. The station's supporters certainly weren't at a loss as to how to respond to the attack when it comes to government property, the tires of five federal vehicles were reportedly slashed while agents were inside the home that housed the equipment. The federal agents complained of a lack of support from local law enforcement, butis that a surprise? The mayor of Santa Cruz, Scott Kennedy called the raid "...a gross distortion of priorities" and a member of Congress, Sam Farr, wrote a letter to FCC Chairman Michael Powell, expressing his regrets at the FCCs actions in the raid.

Well, the FCC has my support. I think it is just great for a group of people, in Santa Cruz, or anywhere, that wants to get together and spread a message is a wonderful thing. But if they want to do it on the public airways, they need to get a license first.

My Kingdom for a Source

Is the Bush Administration attacking the press by having a federal judge hold New York Times reporter Judith Miller in contempt for failing to reveal a source?

That's the spurious allegation raised in Saturday's Los Angeles Times by Tim Rutten. Let's be fair and quote Mr. Rutten accurately. "When a federal judge Thursday held New York Times reporter Judith Miller in contempt for refusing to answer questions before a grand jury investigating the leak of a covert CIA agent's identity, the Bush administration's war against the press entered a chilling new phase."

The problem with this silly allegation is that it makes no sense. The Bush administration has been under fire since the day that the story that leaked the covert CIA agent's identity was printed. Everyone within shouting distance of the Beltway is convinced that the leaker is a key member of the administration. So, how can the Bush Administration be attacking the press by having the Justice Department pursue an investigation when if the investigation is successful in revealing the identity of the leaker it can only harm President Bush?

Now when it comes to Mr. Rutten's argument that the need for a free press to be able to protect its sources is of more importance than the needs of this investigation to move forward, I am in total agreement. The right of a journalist to be able to offer confidentiality to a source is critical and protected by law in a number of states. Unfortunately, such protection doesn't exist at the federal level.

But you can't have it both ways. You can't attack the Bush administration for leaking the woman's name and then attack them again for pursuing an investigation to punish the leaker.

Stolen Honor or Stolen Access??

If you happen to live in a television market with a tv station owned by the Sinclair Broadcasting Group, sometime later this month you will have an opportunity to view a documentary film titled "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal". Question is, should that film be beamed into your home on the public airwaves in the weeks before an election?

In a story in today's Los Angeles Times, the Sinclair Broadcasting Group stands accused of planning to force its 62 stations, 14 of which are in key swing states, to broadcast this documentary film which is a scathing attack on Senator John Kerry's anti-war activism following the end of his service in Viet Nam. Until this upcoming broadcast, the documentary, produced by Pulitzer and Peabody award winning journalist Carlton Sherwood was only available via internet download or on DVD.

I haven't seen this film. I don't know if this is truly a documentary, unlike the docutainment films of Michael Moore, and so I cannot comment on the factual content of "Stolen Honor". But that isn't important, the issue here is that what Sinclair Broadcasting is doing is a violation of its responsibility as a trustee of the public airwaves. The very television frequencies that it has been issued licenses to broadcast over belong to the people of this nation and not the executives of Sinclair and their politican agenda.

The Times article says that Sinclair claims that they will classify the broadcast as "news" which would relieve them of their responsiblities under the infamous Equal Time Doctrine. In case you've forgotten about that little rule, it's the reason we didn't get to see any of Der Gubinator Scharzenegger's movies on television during the recall election campaign here in California. Not that I minded the pre-empting of yet another airing of "Terminator", but when they put "Hudson Hawk" on in its place, for a moment I almost wished that Der Gubinator wasn't running in the recall. However, I digress.

Sinclair is wronging the public in showing this documentary and classifying it as news. It is attempting to do the same thing that Michael Moore is doing in showing his "Farenheit 9/11" film anywhere and everywhere that someone will allow him to show it. The difference is that Moore isn't showing his film on the public airways. Now it is true that he is attempting to negotiate a pay-per-view cable deal for his movie to be shown just before the November election, but that still isn't the same thing. Cable is not the public airwaves. Plus if people are lemming-like enough to want to put even more money in Moore's pockets, why should I speak out to stop them. Even if he isn't totally factual, he is entertaining.

There is a simple, easy answer to Sinclair Broadcasting's attempt to hijack the public airwaves for their own political purposes. Protest. If you agree that this is wrong, take a moment to sit down and write a letter. Then email it to the link below (that's the email address for the FCC Chairman, Michael Powell).

http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/powell/mkp_email.html

If you want to complain to Sinclair directly, their President and CEO is named David D. Smith. Contact information for him follows.

Corporate HeadquartersSinclair Broadcast Group, Inc.
10706 Beaver Dam Road
Hunt Valley, Maryland 21030
410-568-1500 (Main Telephone)
410-568-1533 (Main Fax)

If "Stolen Honor" is aired by Sinclair, someone should file a protest against the renewal of Sinclair's licenses for broadcast, every time they come up for renewal. Good thing for them I don't live in a market they serve, or that would be one license down the drain.

Baby You Can Drive My Car, Or My SUV

Shakespeare's "To be or not to be" becomes "To Own or Not to Own" when it comes to vehicle ownership and Presidential hopeful John Kerry.

I am not going to criticize Senator Kerry for flipfloping political positions, at least not in this particular blog. I can certainly understand the need to change positions on major issues. What I can't understand and would love to have explained for me is the Senator's flipflopping on whether or not he owns an SUV.

This is a story that has been beat to death, but I'll regurgitate the facts here anyway, before making my point. In the Congressional Record, Senator Kerry said "My wife drives an SUV. My stepson drives an SUV. My daughter is currently driving an SUV." 3/12/2002, pS1758. At a Michigan campaign stop in February of this year, the Senator bragged of owning several SUVs. But during an April 2004 conference call to reporters discussing a jobs tour through key swing states, including Michigan, Kerry said "I don't own an SUV". Later on he modified his statement by saying "The family has it, I don't have it."

Never mind his other statement about the importance of buying American made cars which was made about 12 hours before some smart newsie pointed out that his wife drives an expensive foreign purchased Audi. I think a man who wants to sit in the Oval Office should know whether or not he, and/or his family owns a gas guzzling SUV before, not after he goes on the record about the importance of raising fuel economy standards.

Saying you don't own something after you say you own it and justifying your earlier misstatement by saying that your family owns it sounds awfully familiar. It reminded me of a claim by someone that he "...did not have sex with that woman..." a claim that later turned on the fact that he didn't define a particular act as sex. Never mind that 99.444444% of the world disagreed with his interpretation of the act of fellatio not being a sexual act, but we are talking some serious prevaricating here.

Therein lies my point in raising this issue. I haven't made up my mind one way or the other about the two stumblebums who are unfortunately the only two men who have any chance of being elected President on the first Tuesday in October. The point is that Kerry is like the last Democractic President, a serious prevaricator.

Proof of this can be found on his website. In his biography, it says "John Kerry served two tours of duty". A seemingly harmless statement, even though it is buried in the middle of a paragraph that begins by saying "As he was graduating from Yale, John Kerry volunteered to serve in Vietnam, because...". Now when you read that first line about two tours of duty following that first line, it makes it sound like he served two tours of duty in Vietnam. But he didn't. His first tour of duty was on board a ship that never got within 150 miles of combat.

However, the real prevarication here is far worse. In the aforementioned paragraph from Senator Kerry's bio on his website, it claims that he volunteered for service in Vietnam because "it was the right thing to do." The truth of the situation is much, much different. After graduating from Yale, John Kerry petitioned his draft board for a fifth student deferment. His request was to engage in post-graduate studies in Paris, France. His request for a fifth deferment was denied by his draft board. So, he joined the Naval Reserves in order to avoid ground duty, hoping that this would avoid him having to serve at all. In point of fact, his original enlistment in the USNR was in an INACTIVE status. Unfortunately for then Mr. Kerry, his reserve unit was activated.

By the way, in yet another interesting prevarication, the Democratic National Committee has omitted any reference to the fact that both John Kerry and George Bush received four student deferments during their attendance at Yale. President Bush's deferments are mentioned by the DNC in their chart, but Senator Kerry's are not. That is just plain silly.

I strongly suspect that the reason that Senator Kerry refuses to sign Standard Form 180, to allow the release of his entire military record, including his military medical records, is directly related to his prevarications about his military service record. I don't doubt for a moment his accomplishments in combat and his bravery. What I do wonder about are all the unanswered questions. Questions like why did someone who was wounded three different times, seriously enough to receive three Purple Hearts never spend the night in a military hospital in Vietnam? Why does Senator Kerry continue to allow others to attack President George W. Bush's military record when Kerry himself is on the record as saying this should not be an issue?

Wait a minute you say? How in the world can Kerry be on the record saying that Vietnam service should not be an issue? The following are excerpts taken from a speech Senator John Kerry made on the floor of the United States Senate:

The race for the White House should be about leadership, and leadership requires that one help heal the wounds of Vietnam, not reopen them; that one help identify the positive things that we learned about ourselves and about our Nation, not play to the divisions and differences of that crucible of our generation.We do not need to divide America over who served and how. I have personally always believed that many served in many different ways. Someone who was deeply against the war in 1969 or 1970 may well have served their country with equal passion and patriotism by opposing the war as by fighting in it. Are we now, 20 years or 30 years later, to forget the difficulties of that time, of families that were literally torn apart, of brothers who ceased to talk to brothers, of fathers who disowned their sons, of people who felt compelled to leave the country and forget their own future and turn against the will of their own aspirations?"

"I would like to make a simple and straightforward appeal, an appeal from my heart, as well as from my head. To all those currently pursuing the Presidency in both parties, I would plead that they simply look at America. We are a nation crying out for leadership, for someone who will bring us together and raise our sights. We are a nation looking for someone who will lift our spirits and give us confidence that together we can grow out of this recession and conquer the myriad of social ills we have at home.We do not need more division. We certainly do not need something as complex and emotional as Vietnam reduced to simple campaign rhetoric. What has been said has been said, Mr. President, but I hope and pray we will put it behind us and go forward in a constructive spirit for the good of our party and the good of our country"

The man who spoke those words should not let others attack the service record of George W. Bush in his stead without vehement protest. Unless of course, he was prevaricating even then, in defense of an even greater prevaricator, in the form of Bill Clinton.

For those of you who want to question or attack the military service record of George W. Bush, whether or not you yourself served, bear in mind that your attacks are on behalf of a man who refuses to take a step that the man you're attacking did. He signed SF Form 180. Kerry didn't. Ask yourself why. Ask yourself why not?

A Bad Gamble for Everyone

Der Gubinator Ahnold has won half of the gambling proposition battle as the backers of Prop 68 will spend no more money on advertising for their proposition.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the backers of Proposition 70, the second of the two really bad idea gambling propositions on the typically overcrowded California ballot. Indian tribes are advancing this idea to lock the State of California into a 99 year long vise grip that prevents the state from trying to negotiate a better deal in order to get a "fair share" of the huge revenues being realized from casino gambling on Indian Lands.

Governor Schwarzenegger has been working hard to get more tax revenue from Indian tribes since he first won the recall election that changed him from actor to politician. It isn't a bad notion either, even though technically the Indian tribes are sovereign nations by Federal Law and not subject to state regulation or taxation. But with the huge amount of revenue being realized by the California Indian tribes from casino gambling, it is in their own best interest to find a way to pay some amount of those revenues to the state in order to remain popular with the citizenry upon whom they depend when it comes time to negotiate pacts with state government.

How big are those revenues? An Associated Press review of court documents shows that at least 1,160 people are fighting to retain membership in some 14 different tribes. The Pechanga Indian tribe recently ousted 11 members from their roles and those 11 have pursued legal action, claiming the tribal council violated tribal law in ousting them. Their claim also points out that each of the 11 stand to lose $120,000 per year that is their individual share of casino revenues.

$120,000 per person?? Holy Eagle Feather Batman, this puts a whole new spin on the concept of impoverished Indian tribes and poor Indians living lives of poverty on the reservation, doesn't it. If those casinos on the Indian lands are generating so much profit that every member of the tribe is earning more than $100,000 as their share, then they are doing quite well indeed and it is no wonder that a budgetarily challenged Governor is looking at Indian Gaming to help balance California's books.

Prop 68 was and is a bad idea and even its backers and supporters now realize it. Poker dealers at California Card Rooms in those cities that permit poker are probably happy about this, as maybe now they can stop getting into trouble for not wearing the "Vote Yes on 68" buttons.

Prop 70 was and is still a bad idea and I urge everyone to go out and vote No.

I received no funds for this blog, although if der Gubinator wants to send me a check, he can email me for my snail-mail address.

Vote Early, And Often!!

The biggest debate in the Presidential and Vice-Presidential Debate series appears to be about who was the winner of each session. After the one debate between Vice-President Dick Cheney and Senator John Edwards, it appears that someone may have been trying to prematurely influence the outcome.

In yesterday's Los Angeles Times Op-Ed section they printed three letters to the editor on the debate, from Andy Taylor, Peter Blue and Shay Enan. All three, along with several dozen others among the more than 1,500 emails the Times received on the debate made it clear that they felt Edwards had won the debate. Nothing unusual there. But all three, along with the aforementioned several dozen others were all sent to the Times BEFORE the debate actually began.

The Times made it clear that all of the "early" emails favored Edwards. Interesting that none of the Bush/Cheney fans felt it necessary to send in their emails until after they'd actually viewed the debate. Now, if the emails had all originated from Chicago, the origin of the mantra "Vote Early and Often" as witnessed during the presidential election of 1960, one could just easily dismiss it as some political machinery at work. I doubt it is anything as sinister. It was probably nothing more than some fans of the Kerry ticket who had already decided in their minds that their candidate for Vice-President was going to win the debate no matter what happened. So they chose to weigh in with their opinions without actually viewing the debate. Maybe there was a movie on cable they wanted to see and they do not yet have Tivo at their disposal. Maybe they were going out to dine and felt they would not return home in time for their email to the Times to have any influence in deciding who the debate winner would be.

Whatever the reason, they gave their opinion about an event before seeing the event. Kind of like an umpire calling the runner safe at first before either the ball or the runner arrives at the base. A very bad call. Should you offer an opinion about a specific performance in a specific event before the event takes place? I think not.

History offers a great, now mostly forgotten example of why you don't do this. The late Ralph Pearl, author of "Las Vegas is My Beat" was a show business columnist for the Las Vegas Sun. He went to the New Frontier Hotel to cover a concert by famed singer Mario Lanza. The beginning of the show was delayed several times and finally, with a promise from management that Lanza would be on stage in fifteen minutes and a hard, fast deadline due before those fifteen minutes would tick off of the clock, Pearl dictated a glowing review of Lanza's performance to his editor for printing in the following morning's edition. Problem was, Lanza was too drunk to go on and didn't show up fifteen minutes later, or ever.

Let's hope, as we wait for President Bush and Senator Kerry to take to the debate podiums again tonight, that those on both sides of the political aisle can wait until after the debate before they start their email campaigns on behalf of their candidates.

Has Rathergate Been Quietly Closed?

It Looks Like Someone Swung the "Rathergate" Closed While No One Else Was Looking

As a former broadcast journalist who once used the lockout "...for CBS News", I felt a sense of shame when I saw the fiasco now commonly referred to as Rathergate.

But the story isn't the swarm of conservative based websites (www.ratherbiased.com or www.rathergate.com) or the fact that Dan Rather is a liberal who has time and again let his bias show through in his management of the network newscasts at CBS in his role as "Managing Editor". The story here is what happened to the investigation and why all of a sudden, other news outlets have lost interest in covering the story. The question is, why?

The answer may well be found in the support offered for Rather by his colleagues Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings during a recent panel discussion in New York City. Jennings said "I don't think you ever judge a man by one event in his career". Brokaw called the internet discussions of Rather a "kind of demagoguery".

What can we make of this? I think the answer is quite simple. All of these other news organizations who have stopped giving us coverage of Rathergate aren't doing so because they share a liberal bias. They may or may not, but that isn't why they've stopped covering the story. They've stopped because the people in charge are thinking something along the lines of "There but for the grace of God, go I".

The news biz, as it is referred to is just like every other business on this planet, at this point in our evolution, run by humans who by nature are imperfect. Humans make mistakes. What those news outlet managers are failing to realize in refusing to continue to cover Rathergate is that it wasn't just a mistake in running the story. Rather and the producer involved, Mary Mapes were clearly duped by the forged documents and by Bill Burkett, who has his own axe to grind against the Texas Air National Guard. All they had to do was to admit their mistake in rushing to air a story without first having verified their sources and the authenticity of the documents.

But they didn't, and herein lies the real story. Rather's feet of clay are found here, not in the error in judgment in airing the story. Mr. Rather, for all of his claims of impartiality has a bias here and it impacts his decision making. CBS News was the only network that refused to run the story of the disappearance of Chandra Levy, because it involved a Democratic Member of Congress. Their defense at the time was that it was a non-story, too involved in a tawdry mix of sex and politics that was all too reminiscent of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. But I have a funny feeling that if the late Ms Levy had been working for a Republican Congressmember, Mr. Rather would not have engaged in a refusal to run said story.

Another example of Mr. Rather's bad decision making and his bias was his attendance in March of 2001 at a Democratic Party Fundraiser in Texas. The event, held in Austin, raised around $20,000 for the Travis Democratic Party and Mr. Rather said afterwards that he was "...responsible and I'm accountable." Of course, CBS News never did tell us publicly how he was held to account for this total mockery of impartiality.

Finally, in looking at Rathergate, one cannot overlook the documentary film "The Wall Within", a CBS News Reports one hour special aired on June 2, 1988. Mr. Rather interviewed several men who claimed to be combat veterans of the Viet Nam conflict who told tales of civilian massacres, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and in one horrific claim, the skinning alive of 50 Vietnamese men women and children in one hour. Great documentary reporting, except that Mr. Rather and the other psuedojournalists working on the project never bothered to take any action at all to verify the claims of their interviewees. They should have, because it turned out that those men they interviewed were lying. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests submitted by one B.G. Burkett, author of "Stolen Valor: How the Viet Nam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History" (www.stolenvalor.com if you want to know more) revealed that the men Rather interviewed for "The Wall Within" did not do the things they claimed to have done when they spoke on the record for Mr. Rather.

I make no judgment of Mr. Rather, but offer these facts so that the reader can make up their own mind about whether or not Rathergate is a story that is worthy of continued coverage. I think it is. But I also think it needs to be covered by other media organizations and journalists, not by bloggers and websites with their own biases.

The stupidity of baseball fans

Will all of you idiots who insist on calling post-game DodgerTalk and being critical of Manager Jim Tracy for the failure of the Dodger offense to produce more runs do us all a favor and just shut up already??????

I was on my way home tonight after watching yet another in the seemingly endless series of post-season playoff losses by my beloved Los Angeles Dodgers and dialed into their radio post-game programming just in time to hear some nimrod criticizing Jim Tracy for playing Alex Cora even though Cora has been struggling a bit at the plate lately. Never mind the FACT that Cora tripled in one of the three Dodger runs in Game 1's losing effort on Tuesday morning.

Tonight's loss had nothing to do with Tracy's managing and everything to do with the Dodger players and their inability to make key plays and good decisions at the critical junctures. Milton Bradley, who is already in trouble for temper issues, and who according to today's Los Angeles Times called Dodger beat writer Jason Reid "...an Uncle Tom" made a bad decision in the second inning. Rather than let a ball drop in front of him for a single, he dove for it when he had no chance to catch it, in a vain attempt to look good in trapping it. The ball got by him and a routine single became a double. Pitcher Jeff Weaver, after throwing away a pickoff throw, later hit a lead-off batter with a pitch. Simply unforgivable. You don't hit the lead-off batter in an inning..., nor should you be walking him.

Steve Finley swung from his heels at a 3-1 pitch, trying to hit another heroic grand slam home run. Wonderful, except that if he'd just driven the ball into play, a clean single would have scored two very big runs and kept the inning alive for Adrian Beltre. Meanwhile, Beltre, who has carried the Dodger club on his 48 home run hitting back all season popped out in a key two man on, two out situation.

All those things had nothing to do with Jim Tracy's managing and that's why the idiots who call in and rant about his shortcomings need to catch a clue and just shut the hell up.