I often enjoy watching Sean Hannity of Fox's Hannity & Colmes and listening to his podcasts. Almost every walk to work goes by faster listening to Hannity chat with Dick Morris, Rudy Giulianni and others. But I must say, he does often sink to hyperbole and misdirection when discussing topics and it bothers me.
The latest is the immigration reform bill. He is dead against it. Keeps talking about the death of American and Mexicans coming here to raid our entitlement programs. What bothers me, though, is his constant painting of this bill as the result of a "smoke-filled back-room meeting" between U.S. Senators who have lost their way. As though only Sean Hannity can decide what is in the heart of men. "The Republicans have been swindled," he says, as though Ted Kennedy cast some powerful spell over the Republicans who are supporting the bill. It's the nonsensical misdirection like this that gives guys like Hannity and O'Reilly a bad name. I just wish they'd stick to the facts and their beliefs rather than sinking to the tactics of the divisives.
I have listened religiously for the last few months to KCRW's "Left, Right & Center." It is a lively conversation between four well-read people: Tony Blankley, Arianna Huffington, Bob Scheer and Matt Miller.
In those few months of listening, I've realized that the show is simply no longer "left, right and center." I have no doubt it was when it debuted years ago. Blankley was on the right; Scheer was on the left, and Huffington and Miller were in the center, though each leaning a different way. But, Scheer got to Huffington and she is now WAY left; and Miller is a registered Democrat who, when he's not correcting Scheer on his constant manipulation of the facts or outright lying about the facts, is on the left.
Regardless, it's a pretty strong show because of the personalities, their relationships with one another, and the lively discussion. It's on itunes if your local NPR station doesn't carry it.
Last night I guest-co-hosted Derek & Romaine on Sirius OutQ with my friend Derek Hartley (right). Derek is a GREAT guy. I met him four years ago when they were just launching their show and he wanted to have someone come talk about sports. We struck up a friendship from there.
It was four hours, which is a long time to talk if you haven't done it before. But I got to talk to some really cool people from all over the country who had such positive attitudes and seemed so fun. There was one guy from Philadelphia (or was it Jersey?) who insisted on asking us Broadway musical questions - and I somehow got two of the three right!
The highlight for me was talking with Chad Allen (left, from chadallenonline.com). I had a huuuuuge crush on him when I was younger. I met him about 10 years ago in the Roosterfish in Venice, Calif. He wasn't out at the time, and I nearly spilled my beer (which I drank at the time) when I saw him walk in the bar. I had heard then that he was struggling with alcohol, and he joked about it last night. What a cool guy. He even SCUBA dives, which made me love him even more.
Kim Stolz from America's Next Top Model was in last night, too. She really impressed me. Very smart, very fair, very together. She wants to host political radio and TV shows, and I think she will be some day.
I just love the medium of radio. It allows so many people to share so many stories and ideas. I've been a guest on many dozens of radio shows, but hosting was more amazing than I had anticipated. Derek said he may have me back again this summer while Romaine is on maternity leave. I hope so.
How offensive I found Don Imus' remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team is irrelevant. And whether I think he "should" or "should not" be fired for his comments are irrelevant. What is important here is that the beauty of the free market is playing out exactly how it should: The people are having a say.
The decision of MSNBC to discontinue Imus' show on their network has nothing to do with free speech. The protection of free speech in the U.S. Constitution pertains to the government. No one has a right to a TV show or a newspaper column. MSNBC's decision is a business decision. Several advertisers have pulled their support of Imus' show after his remarks set off crazy Al Sharpton and angry Jesse Jackson and sent them on a campaign to rid the world of Don Imus. And I can understand why those advertisers pulled their campaigns. No business wants to be swept up in a storm of hate politics; their money can be spent elsewhere.
And all of this comes from the people. Sharpton has said he wants the big-brother FCC to step in and make new rules about blah blah blah. There's no need: The free market has taken care of it.
The unfortunate thing in all of this is that hatemongers like Sharpton and Jackson have gotten their way. There is just no good left in these men; they are spew lies and hate and simply set out to promote themselves, even if it means deceiving people (see their nonsense regarding the Duke lacrosse case). But, in this particular case, I personally think they happen to fall on the right side of things: Imus simply went too far, more in calling these women "hos" than "nappy-headed." There's just no need for that crap.
Last night I attended an annual fundraiser for NLGJA and had a lot of fun. I'm usually not very much into those kinds of events, but I knew so many people, and met so many other interesting people, it was very cool.
The thing I came away from the evening with was how gay people are all, at the end of the day, in the same boat. We may criticize each other and bite at each other sometimes, but at the end of the day most of us are just trying, in our own way, to make the world a better place for ourselves, our friends, and the young gay kids who have yet to feel homophobia. It's something I will have to keep reminding myself.
Some of the people there last night: Sebastian White, who invited me and who has been all over the media today; John Amaechi, who really is an incredible guy, so special; Andy Towle, whose blog every gay person should know about, and who is launching a new site soon that sounds quite fun; LZ Granderson, who writes for ESPN and who is moving to Michigan next month to be near his son; NY Times advertising columnist Stuart Elliott, who had written about Amaechi just two days before but had never met him; Court, Jason and Itay from CBS News on Logo; my old boss Steve Weinstein, who just wrote a book about Fire Island; Kenneth in the 212, whom I had never met; and many other great folks. Martina Navratilova was there, or so I hear, but she left before I got to say hello (I still have never met her, darn it!!).
Dan was just excited to see Meredith Vieira, whom we had watched on Martha just a couple days prior (and who seemed like she had never seen the inside of a kitchen).
One of the most divisive media outlets out there right now is The Huffington Post. I used to have so much respect for Arianna Huffington (who gets her name from now-openly gay former husband Michael Huffington, for whom I campaigned for Senate in 1994). But, she made a great business decision and decided to become a divisive. She didn't have much traction with the media when she was a conservative inclusive, but now that she's a liberal divisive, she's the toast of the left.
That's not the lesson. Here it is. They have a great service on The Huffington Post called NewsRanker. It tells you how many times a particular person has been mentioned in the media recently. I typed in the top three Democrat candidates and the top three Republican candidates . . . and wasn't remotely surprised by the result. The three Democrats were mentioned more than any of the three Republicans.
Media bias isn't just indicated by the opinions offered in editorials and opinions inserted into "news" stories; It's also reflected in the decisions about what the media outlets report. And, shocker, the news media wants to talk about the Democrats.
It's been educational watching the public reaction to Ann Coulter calling former senator John Edwards a "faggot." First, my reaction. Faggot is not a good word to use in the way she used it. She didn't have to do it, it makes a lot of people cringe, and she shouldn't have. Should we make a big fuss about it and protest and boycott? No. We should all understand that Ann is an over-the-top lightning rod who is little more, at this point, than a far right comedienne.
With that said, it is totally appropriate for companies to stop advertising on her Web site and for newspapers to drop her column, if they wish. They are businesses whose sole purpose is to make money, and associating themselves with Coulter at this time could certainly raise public ire against them and reduce their bottom line. It's a business decision for most of them, nothing more; just as I'm sure Ann's choice of "faggot" was a business decision.
However, let's be clear. Coulter's use of "faggot" is no worse than all of the liberals who call conservatives "idiots" and "morons." Those are pretty hateful words, said pretty hatefully, as well. I don't hear many people get upset when Bill Maher, the left's equivalent of Ann Coulter, calls the president an idiot. So, their screaming about Ann's "faggot" comment seems more political than progressive.
Actually, I think calling someone an "idiot" is worse than calling a straight person (and Ann has said she wouldn't use the word to describe a gay person) a "faggot." A straight person isn't a faggot the way gay activists want us to think of the word; John Edwards is married with children, and there's no reason to believe he's gay. But calling someone an "idiot" is a personal attack that has no place.
HRC's top divisive, Joe Solmonese, wrote an op-ed piece for liberal The Huffington Post slamming Ann Coulter for her thoughts, and slamming her press syndicate for not saying how horrible Ann is (God forbid someone lets the public exchange take its course without jumping into the fray). But my favorites are the first two lines of his hateful op-ed:
Ann Coulter is clueless and callous. She has built a career out of demonizing other people and dividing our country.
Solmonese attacks Coulter for calling names . . . by calling her names. He then accuses her of demonizing other people . . . by demonizing her. Socialist divisives like Solmonese are so focused on "ridding the world of intolerance" that they can't even see how intolerant they themselves are of political thought that's contrary to their own.
I will definitely give Solmonese credit for this, though: using the word "faggot" in his op-ed, Instead of the intellectually offensive f***** that we have to suffer through so much. His use of it is totally innocuous and it makes it very clear what he's talking about. So kudos to him for that.
It's been a crazy last 10 days for me. The day following the Super Bowl was full of some gay people jumping up and down, screaming about how homophobic a Super Bowl commercial for Snickers was. I thought it was funny when I saw it during the game, and I think it's funny now. It just seems to me that, with all of the work we have to do for equal marriage, adoption and employment rights, that leaders of gay groups shouldn't be overreacting to a candy bar commercial. Of course, I got plenty of hate mail about it. John Aravosis of Americablog had some terrible things to say about me in an email to my Outsports business partner: "My opinion is that you've got a self-loathing gay Republican Bush-lover as a business partner, and I think mainstream community thought is that that stinks."
Thankfully, Aravosis is dead wrong. Yes, I am a Republican, but I am neither "self-loathing" or a "Bush-lover." Unfortunately for simple-minded people like Aravosis, life is black and white; You're either the tiny percentage of people that agree with him 100% of the time, or you are against him. Because I see him for what he is, and because I'm not afraid to expose his hatred-filled comments, I am a pariah. If I've pissed of John Aravosis, I'm doing something 100% right.
He's also wrong about his second assertion. While he and his far-far-far-far-far-left gay chronies may think it stinks that a Republican owns anything, the large majority don't care. I do my damnedest to help improve life for the gay "community," and that's all that matters to most.
Since their inception, blogs have simply stolen photographs and text, posting them almost without limitation. They have claimed that they are able to use them, without permission and without payment, because of the "Fair Use" clause of U.S. Copyright law. Most photographers and copyright holders have opted to not target blogs because they don't make a lot of money. Not anymore.
PerezHilton.com has made a nameby posting photographs other people have taken, without any permission or payment or even credit! Now he's being sued for it. He claims that he can do it because he isn't affecting the value of the photograph by posting it, and because "every other blog does it." Of course, the latter isn't an argument at all. And the former is only one quarter of the standard. The law says:
"In determining whether the
use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be
considered shall include —
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether
such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; [PerezHilton is making money hand over fist, and there's no education going on there; it's clearly commercial.]
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work; [The photos are of celebrities to be sold to gossip publications; PerezHilton is a gossip publication using them without permission, payment or credit.]
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; [It certainly looks like PerezHilton is running the photographs in entirety.] and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. [This the lawyers will have to decide.]
On this blog, I am very picky about what pictures I use. I never use pictures from AP or Reuters, or any from a current event. And I try to use photographs that I have permission to use or that have no distinct nature to them, making them (essentially) valueless. Of course, if anyone has the copyright to any photo on this blog, and they want me to remove it, please email me.
It will be interesting to see what happens out of this. I don't think Hilton (his real name is Mario Lavandeira, actually a pretty cool guy whom I knew long before he was Perez) has a legal leg to stand on, and it will be very interesting to see how he handles a $7.5 million lawsuit. I can only imagine other copyright holders are waiting on the sidelines with lawyers at the ready.
While most major news outlets will be downplaying this just days before the election, the unemployment rate went down, the average wage went up, and the number of jobs increased in the month of October, according to the Department of Labor. That's all good news for the Republicans, who have watched the economy grow every month in the last three or four months.
Instead, most news media outlets will take the lead of the New York Times, which is declaring that "Jobs statistics report offers fuel for both sides." The lead sentence of the story: "Job growth in the United States slackened last month" - though by all accounts the numbers point to positive growth. And in a story about Bush commenting on the unemployment drop today, the New York Times editorialized considerably (shocker), arguing in the news article with Bush's claims.
I often enjoy watching Sean Hannity of Fox's Hannity & Colmes and listening to his podcasts. Almost every walk to work goes by faster listening to Hannity chat with Dick Morris, Rudy Giulianni and others. But I must say, he does often sink to hyperbole and misdirection when discussing topics and it bothers me.
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