Go buy more pills, bunky

It should come as no surprise that CVS profits were up 10% at the end of last year. All you have to do is watch pharmacists there struggle to keep pumping out enough pills to cure a tidal wave of “sicknesses.”

Consider when you pass any pharmacy just how many genuine ailments there can be for what percentage of the local population. It appears that everyone in town has at least a few reasons to order pills, and I’m betting that real sicknesses are not among the great majority.

The sickness in this country is too many ads by the drug industry, telling people they are sick and urging them to “talk to your doctor” about imaginary symptom du jour.

It isn’t supposed to work like that. Your doctor doesn’t need to be talked to if he’s genuine. He knows if you need pills or not.

Will he, however, play your game to get repeat office visits? Apparently there are many local doctors who willingly listen to patients whine for this pill or that, then contribute their credentials to this legal and socially acceptable trafficking in drugs.

Health care reform should begin here: Outlaw mass media ads for drug sales directed at consumers. Likely this can be done by executive order or by the FDA. Likely that is a very long shot.

Birth of the Fifth Estate

The Washington Post publisher recently planned to sell seats - for as much as $250,000 each - at a private meeting between lobbyists and federal government officials with some of the paper’s journalists attending.

The thought of such an affair is abhorrent to principled journalists. It guts the concept of the “Fourth Estate,” which is the notion that because the press keeps an eye on government officials they will conduct themselves honorably.

That the Post would stoop to such depths says much about the reality of Big Publishers being in bed with Big Government which has for many decades already been in bed with Big Business. It magnifies the degree to which the news organizations have abandoned consumers, and explains why readers and viewers are jumping ship. We already could sense that Washington and Columbus press corps is a con job under direction of corporate money managers. Here’s Exhibit A.

Exposure of this fiasco was a media milestone, but it has gone virtually unreported. A search of the Advocate and Dispatch archives came up blank. Nor was much if anything made of it anywhere that I saw except Editor & Publisher reports. No big deal to the media.

Once it was so exposed the Post called it off and surprising to me were on-line commenters to follow-up reports (in E&P, I think). Many were media people concerned not by degree of self-serving arrogance in the Post affair, but with advice to the Post about damage control.

Perhaps the most important thing about this is that it was exposed not by the establishment press, but by Politico.com - by bloggers. The 7/2/09 report is at this link.

This apparently means that now we have a Fifth Estate - a machine to keep us aware of how worthless the Fourth Estate has become.

Citizen journalists, please step forward

This morning’s E&P report that Gannett is set to lay off another 1,000 employees could bode badly for Advocate readers. Local managers likely won’t/can’t announce who’s to get axed, if anyone, and what that will mean to its already-bare-bones but ever-more-costly printed product.

I sympathize with middle managers and staffers, and I get no pleasure from writing about how the Gannett machine has strangled a once-fat, family-owned, rock-solid community newspaper. Maybe the Spencer family couldn’t have dealt today’s economy either, but their money would have stayed here, not gone to feed demanding stockholders and expensive corporate machinery.

Will the Gannett/Advocate survive? Or will we see a replay of local shops cranking up small presses and peddling them on Main Street? Whatever the outcome, I believe the urge to report and read printed local information will never diminish.

Meantime, there has never been a better opening for citizen reporters with on-line journals. I am reminded of that by bloggers who already write informative - albeit biased - reports on public meetings. The information provided is often the only report available and almost invariably adds dimension, whether you like that particular dimension or not.

Though it may not be likely, it’s not impossible for a cadre of civic-minded writers to arise and fill the cracks where professional reporters can’t go. County Commissioners’ meetings, court proceedings, township trustees’ meetings, school board meetings, city council committee meetings, Heath council and its committee meetings, public hearings of all categories, and the list extends to the boundaries of public affairs.

Such a movement could be facilitated by adult-education-level courses designed to help would-be citizen journalists learn to sift fact from opinion while building confidence.

Advocate closes gate on masturbators

My own comment to my own essay entitled “Advocate rubs our noses in homosex” published at the Advocate site was strangely offensive to the moralistic editors who routinely publish lush homo-promos as family fare.

I had responded to the comment of NerkBuckeye when he suggested that the Advocate should publish “sexual preference announcements. Then anyone could contact the Advocate and they can announce whether they are gay or straight - or if they are ‘switching teams.’”

My response took that idea to a new level when I suggested that such announcements should also include masturbators - who is and who isn’t. Further, I opined, that if we happened on a Newark City Schools board president who masturbated openly as a means to “new freedom” (in the manner of the former NCS board president who came out of the closet on Page One) then the Advocate could likewise feature the masturbating school official in another Page One story.

Does anyone find it telling that this comment was trashed by Advocate gatekeepers?

Advocate rubs our noses in homosex

In commemoration of the Advocate’s recent 28 column inches about a former Newark City Schools board president finding new freedom by announcing to the community that yes, indeedy, he really is a homosexual; in commemoration of the Advocate’s 20 column-inch very-biased report about homosexuals getting too few tax-supported benefits from President Obama; in commemoration of the Advocate’s 56 column inches of poorly written garbage promoting a homosexual parade in Columbus - and in honor of this once-long-ago family newspaper that has gone belly-up homo-wise, I give you a view from the other side, reprinted from Observations 7/8/08:

Pride Parade: Flaunting raunchy junk
The Columbus, Ohio "gay pride" parade has been accurately defined as a "burlesque show" which lacks "consideration of the general public" and "emulate(s) mostly false values about the gay community."

That was written by a homosexual as a letter to the editor of the Columbus Dispatch, published 7/5/08.

The letter of John A. Rovenolt demonstrates that not all homosexuals believe it necessary to shove into society's collective face the implications of what homosexuals do with their sexual organs. Folks like me who are puke sick of reading about people flaunting their sexual preferences and who object to having this raunchy junk showcased where children can see it, will find a lot to agree with in what Rovenolt says.


Consenting adults can do as they will in private, and I certainly don't care what it is, but homosexuality as such is neither news nor is it important nor is it to be celebrated in public, and it's past time when the Dispatch and other mass media understand that.

Questions on gasoline prices for Obama

What determines the price of gasoline is a question that for years I've been asking media representatives, public agencies, and government officials, including the Bush administration. I have yet to receive an answer or a show of interest.

I hope President Obama's policies of government transparency don't stop where the interests of energy profits begin.

If they don't, I will receive answers to the questions I asked of him today:

What and who determines oil prices?

How does lack of anti-trust-law enforcement affect those prices?

Who is in charge of setting prices at the pump?

What influences traders in the futures markets and who is guarding against price manipulation at that level?

Who owns public information?

Journalists love to thump their stumps with self-righteous proclamations about “the public’s right to know.” They consider themselves the fourth arm of government (legislative, administrative, judicial and - journalism) - because, supposedly, they use their journalistic power on behalf of citizen-taxpayers. They hammer home at every opportunity that their freedom to pry facts from government equates to citizens’ right to know what government is doing and that better government is the result.

A few decades ago this was true; today it is not.

A few decades ago, for instance, the Advocate maintained, as best it could, an extensive file of clippings. A long and impressive row of filing cabinets occupied an entire back wall of the newsroom and it was the job of the clerical section to keep news articles clipped, mounted to cardboards, and indexed. Along another wall were large cabinets for the storage of microfilm.

These were tools of journalists, a prehistoric forerunner of the computer search engine. Additionally, all this information was available to the public. Anybody could enter the newsroom and, with the assistance of an employee if needed, use these files for research. We considered it their right to use it and our duty to facilitate it.

But then along came corporate “journalism” and today access to the Advocate’s morgue bears a price tag. An obscenely high price tag, as advertised on its web site:

The Advocate Archives Pricing Options
To allow for greater flexibility and ease of use, we now offer article packs, in addition to the single-article purchase option. You will be offered payment options only after you select to download the full-text of any article.

Single-article purchase - $2.95
Future purchases will require a separate charge to your credit card.
24-hour pass, 10 articles - $9.95 (65% discount)
3-article pack - $6.95 (20% discount)
Good for one week from purchase.
10-article pack - $21.95 (25% discount)
Good for one month from purchase.
25-article pack - $49.95 (30% discount)
Good for one month from purchase.
40-article pack - $79.95
Good for one month from purchase.
Doing long-term research?
500-article pack - $995 (33% discount)
Good for one year from purchase.
1,000-article pack - $1,995 (33% discount)
Good for one year from purchase.

.....

The archives contain most, but not all, of the articles published by your newspaper, and cover only the more recent years of publication. These archives are a self-service system. Currently, our staff does not provide a service to help locate articles. If you need to find an article which you believe was published but is not in the database, your newspaper may provide additional search service at an hourly rate. Please contact your newspaper for details.

Gannett, while it calls itself “your newspaper” and while it may espouse “freedom of the press,” and “the public’s right to know,” and while it seems to expect readers to come to its aid in these causes, assumes ownership of this information and tries to turn an obscene profit for access to it. The public’s right to know is now predicated on the public’s willingness to pay Gannett stockholders for the right to use it.

Nothing is farther from the spirit of the public’s right to know, nothing is farther from the spirt of the Internet, nor is anything farther from service to the community Gannett claims to serve.

Garish ads strike out

Blinking, screaming, annoying, trashy web-site ads finally drove me away from my customary pursuit of the morning’s news. 

Attempting to read through the firestorms set up by the Advocate and by MSNBC was like trying to read while looking into the lighting effects of a rock band. In spite of that, I wasn’t the least curious about the brassy advertisers or their messages so, in addition to annoying me, they also wasted a lot of money.

Here’s a perfect example of greed defeating itself. If they keep it up, if they improve on the crassness, maybe they can drive readers back to print and TV screens.

Big Brother, stop trying to be a parent

When are newspapers editorialists and legislators going to learn you can't legislate morality?

The latest media darling - “sexting” - is today’s excuse for more government interference into private lives and government control of the masses.

What the media herd is calling “sexting” is the fault of parents who won’t control their kids’ activities. The cure is for parents to confiscate their kids’ phones, not try to get laws to determine what kids may or may not do with their cell phones.

Anyway, why should a youngster believe that seeing nude pictures of anyone of any age is a bad thing? On television they see nude pictures with only the nipples, penises and butt cracks fuzzed out; on television see women preaching that “size DOES matter;” in magazines see older adults patting each other down because Viagra rules, also with ads for videos teaching the “art of oral sex;” and they’re only a mouse click away from reading about the “top lesbian sexual fantasies.”

All this government and media involvement should be aimed, instead, at the huge and all-pervasive sex-oriented industries which are in everyone’s face at every turn. As for children, they are still the responsibility of parents, not government.

Kids don’t need cell phones. Recognize that and you’re halfway there.

Butt out, Big Brother.

Is this the death spiral of newspapers?

Gannett’s second round of furloughs is the lead story in today’s on-line Editor & Publisher (also reported in today’s Advocate). E&P’s home page listed serious financial woes of Advance Newspapers, Newhouse Papers, Charlotte Observer, San Antonio Express, Lexington Herald-Leader, Star Ledger, Tucson Citizen, Memphis Commercial Appeal, and the Champaign News-Gazette. All that reported today.

When the apparent death spiral bottoms out, what will be left? Among those who say nothing will be left of newspapers except their on-line mortuaries is one of the E&P columnists who stopped his newspaper subscription months ago.

I disagree. Printed news will survive, perhaps in a way I suggested 12/30/08 (Newspapers, dump the herd mentality and save thyselves).

It may be too late now, but had newspapers changed their “business model” a few years ago to accommodate the obvious differences between on-line offerings and that which is sold on newsprint, I believe they’d be much better off.

I feel sorry for Gannett’s local employees, particularly news staffers who seem to be working at local news reportage in what must be a very difficult, anti-productive environment. Nobody told me that, but I’ve weathered similar newsroom situations and I think they are recognizable from afar.

But I don’t feel sorry for Gannett, the giant that sucked the blood out of truly successful newspapers like the Advocate so that it might use the money to buy up what remained of its competitors - and expand the empire at what appears to have been reckless speed.

I wrote 2/19/07 (A level field is bad for newspapers) “... the local Gannett-owned newspaper has been doing the exact opposite of what is normally preached to advertisers: if business is down, spend more to get it back. Instead, Gannett in Newark has killed off its daily television schedule and TV column. It has all but dismantled entirely its weekly "Booster," a once-beloved paper whose history goes way back before Gannett bought its way into Central Ohio. The Advocate is skinnied down, some days, to newsletter size.

“Gannett is getting beat. Gannett is getting beat because it is a corporation headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. In spite of its 46% gross margin in 2005, it can't afford pretense at full news coverage.

“Gannett is getting beat because its real interests are in a far-off corporation and not this or any other particular community. It gets no allegiance because it gives none.”

One might hope for the day when all the media-holding companies will go under, opening the way for lots of little guys with ambition and guts to open little newspapers which have to compete for customers of news and advertising. But no. If it ever got to that point, big government will bail out big media with taxpayer dollars, just has it has for banks, automakers, insurers and others.

Death spiral or not, newspaper readers are - and will remain - patsies of the system.

Media racists can't ignore the color of skin

Today's achievement by Barack Obama is lessened considerably by racist overtones painted upon it by the media herd that refuses to let go of the fact that our President's skin is not white.

Consider the lead on this morning's AP inaugural wrap-up: "Stepping into history, Barack Hussein Obama grasps the reins of power as America's first black president..."

But at the mention of Bush, five paragraphs later, failed to identify him as white, though he's about as white (on the outside) as anyone can get.

Anyway, Mr. Obama is not "black" and only half "African American." If AP really cares what Mr. Obama is, it would take a few seconds to find, as I did, exactly what he is at Wikipedia where AP might be surprised to learn that of his parents, Mr. Obama said: "my father ... was black as pitch, my mother white as milk."

Kind of disappointing, huh, racist media?

I wrote 8/30/08 about the inequitable treatment between skin colors of blackness and whiteness as the racist media reported on the affairs of Obama and McCain. Here's a little part of that essay (The whiteness of McCain eludes media):

"Will the Advocate have a story on the whiteness of McCain? How proud whites are that he's a candidate? Nobody is whiter than McCain. Do you think you're doing blacks a favor by keeping the race issue up front? Will there ever be a time when media will let America forget the various colors of skin, none of which, by the way, are black or white?"

That America is as race conscious as ever is not the fault of you or me, not the fault of the NAACP nor any number of idiot white supremacists. It is the fault of that ignorant herd of racists in the media that simply cannot get past the color of skin.

Jean Carrelli - special in every way

Another once-close-to-me reporter has joined the growing heavenly corps of old-school journalists from Newark. Jean Carrelli, whose name was for years a familiar byline, died yesterday, 1/13/09, after one of those wretched, heart-breaking illnesses.

Jean was diminutive (5 ft. 1 in.) and humble, but she reached far and deep with her humanistic-oriented newspaper reports and spoke to the multitudes - many times, over many years, for the Advocate, Ace News, Our Town, and maybe others.

Jean migrated from England to the U.S. as the wife of Al Carrelli when he was in the Air Force. I loved her accent; maybe it was Cockney, I'm not sure, but it was one of the sweet fringe benefits of my job.

I hired Jean away from her job at the (Heath) Ace News in April, 1977, where she had been making $2.50 per hour. We paid her $130 a week. Two years later, she confided to me that John Ashbrook, a publisher of local weeklies, offered her $200 a week, but she preferred to work for the Advocate.

She covered the Heath beat, wrote various columns, worked the copy desk, did general reporting and edited the Church Page. She was respected by her news contacts, people like Bill Mason, a Newark Schools administrator, who wrote that she "is the nicest, most personable school reporter we've had in 10 years."

Jean loved and lived her job - early, late, whatever it took. She was a news horse like few others I've known and special in every way. She's earned her rest and my most heart-felt thanks for a job well-done.

Gary Smith, old-school photojournalist - admired by many - dies at work

Gary Smith is the kind of guy you could never say enough good things about - among them, his dedication to photojournalism. Gary was at his newspaper job when he died of an apparent heart attack at age 62 after being in the trenches about 37 years.

Anybody who was reading the Advocate during the years of 1972 (when I hired him as an intern) and 1986 (when he took a job with the Maryland Independent) will remember the photographic excellence he brought to the paper. In '72, Gary was working on a master's in photography at Ohio University. We hired him as intern for $95 a week, and later he came on full-time, likely at not much more money.

The years that followed were the glory days for local photojournalism because we had not only Gary, but two other top gunners - John Allee and Joy Ream.

I've kept bits of information about former employees on file, and I found in Gary's folder this morning a note to me from Jim Underwood, who was in 1977 the Advocate news editor. It praised Gary's coverage of late-breaking news on a fire at Newark Convalescent and Nursing Inn.

The fire broke out about 10:35 a.m. and our final deadline was 11. Jim monitored fire runs and police calls on an old annoying CB radio by his desk and beeped Gary who was on the scene within minutes.

"Right after arriving on the scene, Gary phoned in the first report, and the first draft was in the typewriter before the firemen had the situation under control," Jim wrote. "We went to work on the initial story before the 11 a.m. deadline. Three graphs into the rewrite, I received a follow-up report from Joy (Ream), who had somehow managed to shoot the pictures, grab some more details, and even get a statement from Chief Bader.

"As a result of their fast work one of the major breaking stories of the day made it down to the shop around 11:45 - a little over an hour after the Fire Department received the call from the nursing home.

"I bring this to your attention because I believe it demonstrates the kind of people we have working here. Gary and Joy's handling of the situation was exemplary. They have demonstrated once again what real professionalism can mean to a newsroom."

That's just one little story among many that Advocate co-workers and readers could tell about Gary's dedication and hard work.

He was held in similarly high regard by the people he served in Maryland, judging by the Independent's report on his death.

Gary grew up in Zanesville, was Vietnam veteran, a dedicated family man and a devout Christian. He's the kind of guy who made the world a better place, and I'm proud that he remained my friend through all these years.

Newspapers, dump the herd mentality and save thyselves

The Advocate yesterday proved itself willing to take a bashing in the name of free speech when it published my blog entry "Newspaper customers deserve better." I doubted Gannett managers would be so First-Amendment oriented, but they proved me wrong. Some really good comments were added by readers too.

Something about contemporary print journalism that I don't think anybody understands is this: Why are publishers attempting to profit from a product they are throwing at my doorstep for $26.86 per three months, while, with the other hand, they are giving me without charge most of the same info on the Internet?

How long will it be before they understand they now have two products to SELL, each with distinct advantages?

I have for several years spent a good chunk of change (currently $25 per year) for a subscription to LiveJournal, which, before I started "blogging," I used as a creative writing outlet and an Internet meeting place with people who interest me. I scarcely write anything there anymore, but I still read about my friends and sometimes comment. So how much more valuable would be such a meeting place among local folks, assuming the web site were as skillfully designed and as convenient to use as LJ?

Then what if you added to that web site a truly well-designed, 24-hours-per-day news report with constant updates that would keep folks returning throughout the day and evening?

Then what if you added a good search engine to that site, one that would pull up local names and previously reported items?

And what if you offered many more useful databases than is being done already?

And a complete an easily searched library of back issues of the print edition?

And links and e-mail addresses to local government offices, agencies, and businesses?

And what if you promoted all of these features and gave the url's throughout the articles and ads in the print edition?

And what if you provided for advertisers in the print edition links to the web site where shoppers could go for detailed information and more pictures of individual retail products? Think of the advantage advertisers would have over those blinking annoying pieces of crap presently being stuck in web readers' faces.

If offered only that much on their web sites it would be worth a good chunk of change for a subscription - at least $50 a year to me.

On the other hand, my wife would pay nothing. She's not a computer person, but gives the printed Advocate a thorough read, while I scarcely give it a good skim, except for the classifieds and photos. So there's the rub for publishers. How do you serve - and profit from - both types of audience? And what can the print edition do that the web will never do, beside serve people like my wife?

A renaissance in classified advertising would greatly add to reader interest. Classifieds should be the common man's marketplace and it would be if they again became affordable. Publishers should use them as loss leaders for print versions only.

Other advertising that can be handled only by print versions is legal advertising and delivery of inserts which is also a readership a draw for shoppers like my wife.

Something else that cannot be handled on the web is photojournalism - words and pictures used in combination to add dimension to the subject matter. There isn't - and never will be - enough room on the computer screen to display good photos and layouts.

Then there are certain types of reading matter that don't have a timeliness and can be deferred to the print version and only there. 1) Well-conceived and well-written and tightly edited and interesting feature items, local and syndicated; 2) Daily TV schedule; 3) The day's community calendar; 4) State and national government coverage to include each vote by local senators and representatives - plus synopses of bills passing though the statehouse and congress and state and federal courts; 5) News analysis; 6) Editorials; 7) Columnists - to include columns by local reporters and editors; and 8) Comics - and likely much more that could be used in schools as teaching tools.

All of these are basic to newspaper reader interest and worth money if professionally conceived and presented.

Newspaper profitability is a matter of getting rid of herd mentality that says newspaper web sites should be a free version of the print edition.

Blogging from the bushes is better than not at all

Yesterday I wrote here to promote feedback to government by bloggers and commenters, no matter their allegiance to truth - and to praise all such stuff as a tool for government Deciders. But I think there are some bloggers and commenters who would be interested in making themselves more believable. To those folks I have some ideas:

1 - Don't hide your identity. If you speak about facts and truth why should you care who knows your name? If you offer your opinion, that's all it is. Just say "in my opinion" or something like that. Nothing to be ashamed of and everything to be proud of. I personally am very pleased to have Mayor Diebold and Superintendent of Newark Schools Keith Richards know what Bruce Humphrey thinks of their job performances.

2 - If you're talking about facts, tell us how you know these facts. Where did you read or hear this? Provide a link if it's something we can access from the Internet. Provide a name and a context to the people you write about so that what you say can be verified.

3 - Give us an anchor to you as a real person, some inkling of your background/education/profession.

4 - Tell us how to communicate with you, to ask you questions in private as opposed to "messaging" on somebody's (e.g. Advocate's) website, preferably your e-mail address. At least set your Advocate blog profile to allow messages from everyone.

Writing under your own name and with open identity will be infinitely more effective than shooting from behind the bushes. Likely, too, it will encourage more care in what and how you write.

On the other side ...

There are many ways in which government Deciders hide from - and tip-toe around - truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. A few of my favorites are "everyone wants this," and "we have to do this," and "everyone I talk to says ..." And they never say WHO wants, or WHY WE HAVE TO, or how they know EVERYONE WANTS and of course, none of the other government Deciders asks but, worse, no reporter ever does either.

There are many ways by which government Deciders sneak around in the bushes like that. If bloggers and commenters call them on it that's sure to sting. Better, it's sure to add to the quality of government over the long haul. And if bloggers and commenters will only speak out under anonymous names, then that's far better than not speaking at all.

A blog, even wrong, is good feedback to government

The recent Advocate article describing the angst of the city law director over misinformation in blogs is significant for a couple reasons.

Number one: this is the first official public admission to my knowledge that anybody in government cares what bloggers think.

Number two: It behooves those who claim to be serving the public to monitor, as best they can, what commentors/bloggers are saying. There has never been a more efficient system for feedback than responses being written to Advocate news reports or in blogs - and feedback is exactly what officialdom should cultivate, not attack.

Whatever misinformation is being written is what folks truly believe; I don't think many folks deliberately lie in their comments or blogs. Instead, they just don't get it. Whatever is not understood does need to be factored into responses by the Deciders in government and quasi-government such as schools.

Though the law director would instruct us on "the proper way to get involved in city government,” he ought to be thankful that government is getting a lot of feedback, anonymously or otherwise.

Sports writers live in the Land of Oz

Loosey-goosey thinking was never more loose than in the recent work of Heisman-maker sports writers in Central Ohio. Consider:

Beanie Wells was a Heisman contender before he stepped on the field this year, at least in the commentary of the regional Heisman-maker press corps.

First game, Beanie gets bumped, fumbles, carted off the field, and media drama knows no bounds. Incredible. Their descriptions - perhaps inspired by the truly boring nature of the game - were heart-rending and hinted of the last apocalypse. Never mind that Wells WALKS back to the field from the doctor's exam.

If I remember correctly, this is the guy who got "injured" time after time last season, yet has lived in the mind of Jon Spencer and Dispatch and Advocate cheerleaders as the one individual the Buckeyes must have to succeed.

Even with such a boring start to OSU football, Beanie is just one player on a truly outstanding team. He did what he could to jack up the drama, but hey, I doubted the gravity of it from the beginning, remembering his history of "injuries."

I hope he does well and I hope he wins the Heisman. But if he never gains another yard for OSU, I predict others will step up and gain those yards anyway. Proving again my theory that sports writers live in journalism's special Land of Oz, and they - even more than Beanie - need help.

The whiteness of McCain eludes media

It isn't just Advocate staffers who are fascinated with Obama's race. Consider the lead on the Washington Post's racist report on his nomination:

Sen. Barack Obama, the first African American to lead a major-party ticket, accepted the Democratic nomination for president Thursday night, sharply criticizing Republican John McCain and casting the election as "our chance to keep, in the 21st century, the American promise alive."

In the interest of balance, it should also mention McCain's whiteness - for instance: "... criticizing John McCain, life-long white person, and casting ..."

On Thursday 8/28/08, Associated Press referred to Obama's color in the first sentence of its racist report on his nomination. On Friday a report by GNS, whatever that is, ran at the top of the Advocate's page one. The first sentence of that racist report referred to Obama's color.

In that same edition on page one is where the Advocate published its racist article on how "black community members" feel about Obama.

I asked in Advocate on-line comments: Will the Advocate have a story on the whiteness of McCain? How proud whites are that he's a candidate? Nobody is whiter than McCain. Do you think you're doing blacks a favor by keeping the race issue up front? Will there ever be a time when media will let America forget the various colors of skin, none of which, by the way, are black or white?

If media can't let go of the race issue, let them at least be fair enough to mention whiteness at every opportunity. News reporters obviously feel the need to keep people aware of how important is the issue of skin color, but they should have the decency to direct their racism at more than just "blacks."

EDIT: Here's a comment I added in my Advocate blog to the above text:

I don't think this is a conscious attempt to be unfair. It is a tradition that needs to be broken so we can become Americans, rather than folks who supposedly belong to "black communities" and the remainder of citizens who don't. Just this kind of media blather is what keeps "black communities" separate and somehow different. The inspiration for the news reports I quoted, I think, is to sort of praise Obama for his achievement in spite of his "blackness." He doesn't need that crap and neither should anyone els

Sites for sore eyes

If you like to look at photos, or if you study photo-editing techniques, the very best of the best galleries are, in my opinion, those at the Washington Post site. From this web page you can link to various galleries. The "Day in Photos" gallery is a place I visit daily.

What sets these galleries apart from almost all other photo displays you see on the web or in print is the selection of interesting photos that are well-composed and cropped to perfection. This is a textbook photo site produced with uncommon expertise.

Also, for web-site-building expertise, and for editing copy for web readership, visit the site of The Week Magazine.

This one has broken free of the box in which other news sites seem confined because they can't quit copying one another - and they invariably are difficult to read and navigate. The Week site should be on copy writers' editors' and web designers' must-read list.

You'll find an amazing and visually riveting photo display at Jumping Boy web site. I mentioned this site a couple years ago when this young fellow was being photographed by his dad in a series of 365 jumping poses - one each day.

You'd think that project would have worn him out, but he kept on jumping and his web site has grown even more interesting. Likely if you visit, you'll get hooked too.

Guess who's not running for vice president today?

No matter how hard we coax him, Governor Strickland is not going to run for vice president.

He denied in a September USA Today story that he would run for vice president; in May, the Columbus Dispatch "reported" (how about parroted?) that he would reject any request by Clinton to be her running mate; and guess what happened yesterday? Strickland "unequivocally ruled out being Barack Obama's running mate," said the Washington Post.

I think it's time for somebody to tell Governor Stickland that nobody is asking him to run for vice president. Nobody.

NO. BODY.

If "reporters" are making a list of who's not going to run for vice president, they can add my name. Quit pestering me. No.

If I have to read one more time that Governor Stickland says he will not run for vice president, even if someone should be stupid enough to ask him to run for vice president, I am going to puke.