TIME MAGAZINE TELLS CRITICS OF LA TIMES FRONT PAGE ADVER-NEWSI-TISEMENT TO GET A GRIP
James Poniewozik of Time Magazine said, in effect, “Oh, piffle!” to the flood of criticism of yesterday’s LA Times front page column one ad for the new NBC series, Southland. Most everyone else said, “What the hell were they thinking”—like the WSJ….the NY Times….AP…..even New York Magazine …..and so on.
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CIA FINALLY CLOSING SECRET PRISONS
As of Thursday it was official: The CIA is snapping shut its secret prisons, its “black sites” announced Leon Panetta. He also said the agency will no longer use contractors to conduct interrogations or to provide security for remaining detention sites.
Here are stories from the WaPo, the NY Times, the LA Times and McClatchy.
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ARIANNA AND AP CEO TOM CURLEY DEBATE NEW MEDIA & PAYING FOR CONTENT ON “CHARLIE ROSE”
In a follow-up to the AP’s announcement that it is going to sue those who use its stories on line without paying, Ariana Huffington and AP’s head guy debated the complexity of the issue and both made excellent points—and came to no conclusion.
For us Future of Newsmedia /strong> junkies, it’s very much worth watching..
Here’s the video
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LA Times front page ad
So, what? It makes perfect sense. Maybe people who oppose that would prefer to fire some more LA staff whom these ads help to employ.
This reminds me of the discussions about Atlanta’s mass transit, MARTA, which had refused to put ads on the buses and subways for appearance sake, letting that financial opportunity go untapped for years–yet, they were increasing fares on people who could least afford it. Today, MARTA accepts ads, but are having a budget crisis that could have been softened with all of that past lost revenue.
But, I strongly oppose this: LA Times Columnist’s Farewell: ‘Bail Out Journalism’ Newpapers would be as independent from government as is GM, and they would start supporting Democrats and bashing Republicans. (What? They already do?) Well, it would only get worse. Who knows, Bill Ayers might be the next editor.
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CIA FINALLY CLOSING SECRET PRISONS
All of them? No new ones? No work-arounds? Are you sure? Are you really sure? Really, really, really sure? Ignorance is bliss.
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AP sue those who use its stories
Maybe AP could hire some organization to act like a Gestapo to force people to pay like…. Wait, we already had that discussion? Okay, maybe AP could hire some organization to act like the mafia.
Just posted on their website, the L A Times has a story by (Roger? — posting this on the skim and run) Simon that California is finally stepping up its effort to recoup more of our actual cost for imprisoning illegal immigrants, an amount this article conservatively puts at $1 Billion/ year.
Simon says (he must be sick of people riffing on that) that California is currently getting a mere 12c on the dollar back on that cost from DC! And that under Bush, our rate of reimbursement was actually cut by about half the last decade, instead of increased, while some states got our share by seeing their reimbursements double. (Wonder WHY California was stiffed under Bush? Woody, any clues?)
This is something I’ve been harping on, as the first step toward fixing our prison problems. We have a judge ordering California to spend an additional $7 billion/year to rectify crowding problems that border on inhumane (or are depending on whom you ask), but the far left like our hostess here (correct me if I’m wrong) has dismissed this point as somehow racist and illegal-bashing. And now it’s under Obama and the impetus of liberal Latino pols among others that we may finally see some positive movement on this issue.
WBC, why? It could be that Bush didn’t want to reward inefficiency and lax law enforcement. It’s stupid for taxpayers to give California more money when the state welcomes illegal immigrants rather than tosses them out.
“It’s stupid for taxpayers to give California more money…”
When California has more taxpayers than any other state who pay among the highest taxes to the fed per capita and Californians get less Fed largesse back on their tax dollars than most ? Woody’s comment gets Five Teabags !!!!!
Uh…ignorance is bliss.
WBC, am running off to teach at Irvine but will check it out. Thanks for the link.
I don’t think you’ll find too many accusations of racism from me. (This is not to say there haven’t ever been any at all. God knows what I’ve said here that could be dug up with a search.) But I do get extremely vexed at the desire among many to blame illegal immigrants for everything short of the drought. Demonizing one particular group—which is quite the fashion these days with CA’s undoc. immigrant population—is never good for anyone. Nor does it solve problems.
Border states have a big fiscal burden on account of a US immigration policy that is wildly inconsistent. I think we can all agree on that.
Anyway, I’ll check out the piece when I get home.
Texas, incidentally, has the fastest growing population of illegal immigrants. Despite the fact that the wise and benevolent Mr. Junior Bush is back there keeping an eye on things…
Given the junk ads that hit you almost immediately when reading web-based news, I can’t really argue with a print news source struggling to survive offering more choices of ad space to keep afloat. In fact, I’d applaud it if it would work. Unfortunately, putting ads on the front page isn’t going to do the trick… Some of the opposition to this is on the same order as being aghast at short skirts or wondering why the kids play their music so loud. Maybe readers of the LA Times are better served being reminded up front of exactly what the business model is and who is paying the tab for their news.
The federal government should also charge santuray cities (Los Angeles) for all the cost of illegal immigration, there are schools, health-care, welfare and etc. for the kids of illegal immigrants. I know of a few kids of illegal immigrants who are costing me thousands a year on welfare and juvenille hall, placement homes and health care.
Who should I send the bill to?
“Who should I send the bill to?
James Monroe ?
The CA government has the right idea about billing the federal government for every illegal it has in prison, but I think we are missing out on the big cash. A simple TAX bill that would easily balance the budget in CA and that many republicans would vote for.
CA should levy a separate payroll tax on the hours wroked by illegal aliens of $2/hour and a stiff penalty if the tax was avoided.
Say we have 2 million illegal’s working in California at about 2000 hours each per year which amount to 4 billion hours worked. We simply TAX every company $2 per hour for each hour an illegal alien works and another $10 per hour penalty for any employer who forgot to pay their Un-Documented Alien Tax.
This new tax would collect about $8 billion a year in new taxes, which would likely still fall short of paying the cost of social services used by the illegal’s.
When California wants to have military bases throughout the nation to stop protecting them, then apply for a refund.
Have a happy and blessed Easter.