The Reason

For all the Fox criticism is because I now work in a government building, and Someone has the channel on all the public screens turned to Fox News, all day, every day. Yes, Propaganda Network is all that plays, and it's pretty rank. They have well-fed White Boyz with high, rude voices who talk over the guest segments. Most of the guest segments are blonde or brunette white women, or the occasional well-fed White Boy with a receding hairline.

It's really kind of appalling. And you can hear them fishing for some way to take Obama apart. So far it's almost all innuendo. I'd love to see them fish and flounder straight into November.

Yesterday Was "Icky Day" on Fox News

Though I suppose that almost every day is pretty bad on Fox News.

With great moral posturing they were discussing the teenage girls who made a pregnancy pact and managed to conceive. When discussing reason, some of the girls mentioned that they wanted someone who would love them. Whaaa? All those girls needed to do was examine how very much they love and honor their parents to see that this is not likely to happen between them and their child, either. Kids grow up, and often have great disagreements with their parents that challenge the myth of total loving.

The Fox anchorman also suggested that the affected school was too permissive, allowing pregnant students to attend classes and even helping them to graduate.

When I was in high school, 14 girls dropped out between junior and senior year. Pregnancy meant the end of school back then -- and the only readily available contraceptives were condoms; the pill wasn't available, nor IUD's; no shots; nothing but condoms. The atmosphere was not permissive, and yet the number of pregnancies was pretty high, even though the consequences included expulsion from school and a world without day care.

There is no way to keep a girl who wants to get pregnant from getting pregnant except a contraceptive shot, regularly renewed. Parents who think otherwise are living in a dream world.

Pain

It absolutely wrenches me that people can hate others because of their skin color.

Believe me, most people are the same -- loves and fears, anger and hope. I can't stand the idea that my friends with dark skin have been scorned, abused and pushed aside because they are dark brown. Most of them are such kind, decent people. I don't understand the wanton evil that is racism.

I still remember the first time someone ever voiced a racist idea to me. It was summer, and I was headed for fifth grade. We were going to have swimming lessons. I walked to the bus stop for the kids from our area. When I got on the bus, there was one kid in every seat, so I went back and sat with the girl with the nicest smile. She was great -- friendly and intelligent.

When we returned to the bus stop that day and got off to walk home, a boy asked me how I could stand to sit with her. I was just stupefied. I said "What is wrong with you? You are Jewish. She is Negro. But nice people are nice people." I suppose I was especially dumbfounded because almost all kids of the 1950's were aware of the anti-Semitism that was played out by Hitler. I just could not get that people felt that way about any group as a group.

Of course, I also think that people who hate blacks also tend to hate women. Racism and sexism seem to go together. Me, I hope Obama chooses Hillary so that the haters have to spread their attention, and so that they feel that they will be no better off if they play out their hatreds.

Fox News: Fairly Unbalanced

I saw a really slimy trick on Fox today. They showed Hillary giving a speech to the Israeli meeting, and she said that we shared foundation values: "Human rights. Women's rights."

When Fox ran the closed caption, thy just happened to leave out the words "Women's rights" -- coincidence? Malice? I report, you decide.

:)