Reader feedback from this past week in posting.
Tom adds his commentary on why supposedly nonpartisan newspapers feel the need to make endorsements of political candidates:
Your take on editorial endorsements reminded me of something your Patriot colleague Michael Medved had said regarding public funding of the arts and broadcasting (like PBS or NPR). (I'm very liberally paraphrasing here, so you might want to chat up Medved in the Patriot's locker room sauna regarding this issue.)
The "artists" would often claim that taxpayer support was minimal. When Medved would ask if they could do without the support, the artists would say that the support wasn't so much necessary as the funding implied that they were the arbiters of what was art and what wasn't. They were providing official public sanction that the crass private sector and uninformed proletariat could not.
I would submit that the Strib editorial board and the media in general see themselves in the same light. They give the endorsement as a way of being the official arbiter of what is good policy for "the masses".
Rush Limbaugh used to end his Friday programs with the admonition "not to worry about the news over the weekend - he'd be back on Monday to tell you what happened and what to think about it. It would set the unbiased dominant media culture off on a tirade against right wing hate radio and the dim bulbs who were led about by the nose ring listening to it.
But I would argue that editorial endorsements are really no different than telling Joe Sixpack or Sally Stenopool (read Lori Sturdevant and tell me she doesn't think of "working people" that way) what to think. Since they are sanctioned to do so (at least in their own minds) by their role as the establishment media, telling the people what to think is acceptable (to them).
Also, Dan writes in to tell us what he thinks is acceptable in male friendship behavior:
Regarding the Warrior Princess comments of a few days ago:
"I don't want female friendships to deteriorate to where the majority of men's friendships operate; where to prove to strangers they are heterosexuals all men can talk about is sports, women and beer."Sorry, but it's not a front for strangers. That's all men talk about, because that's all men care about (although I'd add in cars and power tools, as well). The only stupid thing I can think of that (some) men do to prove they're not homosexuals is to sit apart from one another when they go to a movie together.
Dan is quite correct. For the record, let me state that on Friday night, the Nihilist in Golf Pants and I went to see Team America, World Police at Willow Creek and we did not feel it necessary to leave a neutral zone of theater seat between us. However, our arms never utilized the common arm rest at the same time. Because that would be fruity.
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