Back in the day when city rooms had butts on the floor, even the women reporters cussed like drill sergeants, and you could believe a great deal of what you read in almost any newspaper, public relations people thought it would enhance the chance of getting their press releases published if they delivered them in person.
If a flack came in with a handout when my friend Tom Houston was running the Detroit Free Press city desk, Tom would accept the manuscript, ceremoniously open a desk drawer, take out a rubber stamp, press it on an ink pad and stamp the paper "WGAS."
He'd nod to the flack and say, "Take care of it right away."
Never mind that the initials meant "Who gives a shit?"
Can we please put WGAS stamps on:
Anything more about Sarah Palin, her stupid book, her idiotically named kids or her cockeyed views?
Jock talkers' views on Bill Belicheck's decision to go for it on fourth and two?
Any celebrity's latest diet?
Why Lou Dobbs left whatever worthless network he left, where he's going (if anywhere) and his political ambitions (if any)?
What Joe Lieberman says -- about anything?
Sports writing that calls rebounds "boards," asserts that a team "looks to" a particular outcome or refers to "student athletes" without quotation marks?
Any so-called news story that containes the phrase "moderate Democrat" and the names Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana or Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas? They're as moderate as cottonmouths in a swimmin' hole.
Any quotation of the mouthings of Mitch McConnell? Who writes this guy's lies for him? Who taught him to deliver them with a straight face?
The punditry of Charles Krauthammer?
"Don't tell Momma I'm a journalist; say I play the piano in a whorehouse."
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Tax Political Religionists
It is high time to rescind federal tax exemptions for the Roman Catholic church and other religious groups that scorn the constitutionally ordained separation of church and state.
The Roman church's high-handed interference in secular affairs is unrelenting and unlawful. Consider the recent revelation that the top bishop in Rhode Island has instructed his priests not to give communion to Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) because he supports keeping government out of the private realm wherein women make decisions about their reproductive health. Kennedy said the bishop told him "that I am not a good practicing Catholic because of the positions that I've taken as a public official," particularly on abortion.
During the 2008 presidential election, voters in heavily Catholic southern New Mexico were bombarded with robo-calls from "Bishop Ramirez" telling them that Catholics in good conscience could not vote for any candidate (read Obama) who supported a woman's right to choose.
The anti-woman Stupak amendment to the health care bill in the house -- which prohibits health insurance payments for abortion -- was inserted at the insistence of the powerful Roman Catholic bishops' national organization, in alliance with other powerful fundamentalist religion groups.
These blatant intrusions into secular affairs must be punished under the law. The Roman church and its fundamentalist allies, as they persist in violating the law that gives them exemptions from taxation, must be made to pay the appropriate penalty: loss of those exemptions.
The religious lobby has become too powerful in our political system and must be curbed, along with the military-industrial lobby, the gun lobby and all the other lobbies that send overpaid sleazes in designer suits into every legislative office in Washington with bags of money and veiled threats.
The founding fathers intended ours to be a secular government representing "we the people." Let's begin to restore that ideal.
The Roman church's high-handed interference in secular affairs is unrelenting and unlawful. Consider the recent revelation that the top bishop in Rhode Island has instructed his priests not to give communion to Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) because he supports keeping government out of the private realm wherein women make decisions about their reproductive health. Kennedy said the bishop told him "that I am not a good practicing Catholic because of the positions that I've taken as a public official," particularly on abortion.
During the 2008 presidential election, voters in heavily Catholic southern New Mexico were bombarded with robo-calls from "Bishop Ramirez" telling them that Catholics in good conscience could not vote for any candidate (read Obama) who supported a woman's right to choose.
The anti-woman Stupak amendment to the health care bill in the house -- which prohibits health insurance payments for abortion -- was inserted at the insistence of the powerful Roman Catholic bishops' national organization, in alliance with other powerful fundamentalist religion groups.
These blatant intrusions into secular affairs must be punished under the law. The Roman church and its fundamentalist allies, as they persist in violating the law that gives them exemptions from taxation, must be made to pay the appropriate penalty: loss of those exemptions.
The religious lobby has become too powerful in our political system and must be curbed, along with the military-industrial lobby, the gun lobby and all the other lobbies that send overpaid sleazes in designer suits into every legislative office in Washington with bags of money and veiled threats.
The founding fathers intended ours to be a secular government representing "we the people." Let's begin to restore that ideal.
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