Tag: liberals

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Smith vs. Merkley

We received our ballots in the mail over a week ago but I still haven’t opened mine. The primary reason for this is that I’m not sure how to vote for the U.S. Senate race between Gordon Smith and Jeff Merkley. I’m not a huge fan of Smith (and I seem to remember some pretty nasty campaign tactics when he ran against Ron Wyden in his first Senate race) but I have a huge respect for his early opposition to the Iraq War. Oregon Senators have been centrists as long as I have lived here and most consider Smith to fit that description. I don’t know much about Merkley other than the first Senate debate I watched between him and Smith. Merkley came across as a hack Democrat who fits all the liberal stereotypes and is riding on the coattails of Barack Obama. From what I understand, both have waged an incredibly negative television campaign but I have been spared from that by the grace of Tivo.

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This American Life coming to Portland

A couple of days ago I read this post at Metroblogging Portland which described an impending controversy over the venue that our local public radio station, OPB, chose for an upcoming episode of This American Life. You can read more about the show here, but This American Life is an NPR radio show hosted by Ira Glass. Each episode has a theme that is illustrated via the telling of several real-life stories. I’ve long been a fan and, judging from the content of the show, it would not be a stretch to imagine that Mr. Glass is sympathetic to gay/lesbian political issues.

Thus, many were surprised that OPB chose New Hope Church as the venue for Mr. Glass’ visit to Portland. You see New Hope actively supported the campaign to pass Ballot Measure 36 which outlawed gay marriage in Oregon. New Hope not only donated $5000 to the campaign, their pastor actively preached from the pulpit in support of Measure 36. Therefore, it is not hard to imagine that those of us who support equal rights for gays and lesbians might consider New Hope to be “the enemy”, as it were.

So many were surprised, in fact, that the news was posted all over the local “progressive” blogs including the influential BlueOregon. Local newspapers also picked up the story including The Oregonian, who reported that OPB had no intention of changing the venue. Now their actions had moved from “unwitting” to “intentionally unreasonable” and the blogosphere reacted accordingly. Many people emailed Mr. Glass’ management and one weekly newspaper, the Portland Mercury, successfully contacted his management and informed them of the situation. Undoubtedly, Mr. Glass was completely oblivious to the situation prior to this because he simply trusts the local NPR affiliates to do the right thing. Unfortunately, OPB had not done the right thing this time.

It did not take long after that for OPB to post this on their blog explaining that OPB and and Mr. Glass had jointly decided to dump New Hope in favor of the Oregon Convention Center. Putting aside the question of whether this was an actual joint decision, OPB further antagonized the blogosphere by accusing them of “spreading the usual blogosphere load of rumors, misinformation and hype.” Since I wanted to judge for myself whether their accusation had merit, I followed their link to the original blog post that first brought the controversy to public attention. What a surprise to find that the blogger in question was a woman that I met this summer at a very small blogger BBQ hosted by PAgent. Tina and I had a tremendous time at that BBQ and really enjoyed Lelo and her partner’s company. They also had their delightful dog, Wink, with them as well as his litter mate, whom they were dogsitting.

The fact that I knew this person made the controversy personal for me but I had not yet become involved, preferring to just read about it but abstaining from commenting either here or on the other blogs. That came to an end when my favorite conservative blogger, Rob Kremer, decided to take the opportunity to blast the left for being “intolerant” because of their actions in the matter. I read Rob’s blog whenever he updates it (I have an RSS feed for it) and have long considered him a reasoned conservative voice. I personally dislike the unconstructive tone that most of the right and left take in the blogosphere. Ultimately, my goal is to seek the truth although I won’t deny that I will often try to sway others to my side during the search. The point is that the goal must be the seeking, not the swaying. Too often both sides are too concerned with “winning” the argument and resort to all sorts of logical fallacies in order to succeed. Mostly I try to ignore that aspect and pay attention to the meat of the argument. And that’s also why I try to find reasoned arguments on both sides so that I can make an intelligent choice. Rob’s blog has often been the reasoned argument on the right for me and that is frankly why I was so disappointed that he chose to depart from his normally constructive approach.

So I left him a comment on how I felt on the matter and expressed my extreme disappointment in him. He responded respectfully enough and again referenced the argument he was getting over at BlueOregon. I’m not a big fan of BlueOregon, particularly for their treatment of Oregon Senator Smith, but I didn’t really see anything approaching intolerance. I did, however, agree with the point Rob made there about calling someone a bigot who disagrees about this issue and posted a comment on BlueOregon indicating so. I continued on with the conversation on both blogs before deciding that I had enough to say that I should just post it here.

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Watch Keith Olberman

Last fall while I was following the Hurricane Katrina disaster, I stumbled upon quite a few excellent resources for the liberal-minded thinker. One of these was Countdown With Keith Olbermann, a news and commentary show on MSNBC with a liberal slant. One of the features that attracts me is that the format is very Tivo-friendly.

As the name implies, the show counts down the top five stories of the day, providing a summary followed by analysis by Keith, staff reporters and guest commentators. Each story is covered in one of the show’s six segments over the hour that it is aired (twice a night):

  • The first two segments are usually political stories and, although numbered “4” and “5” in the countdown, are generally the most important stories of the day.
  • The third segment is called “Oddball” and features quirky stories from around the world including the “Top 3 Newsmakers” for the day.
  • The fourth segment features the #3 story followed by the “Top 3 Soundbites” of the day.
  • The fifth segment has the #2 story followed by “Keeping Tabs” which features celebrity news and gossip. This is followed by the “Top 3 Worst Persons in the World.”
  • The final segment, which Keith often calleds “The story my producers are forcing me to do”, is usually about some lighter subject matter and often brings in a guest commentator to make funny for three minutes.
  • Keith signs off with “Keep your knees loose.”

If I’m not in the mood for the political stories, I go right to “Oddball” in the middle of the show and then proceed to the “Worst Person in the World” award which very often goes to Bill O’Reilly. O’Reilly presumably has gotten sick of this and recently called for MSNBC to fire Keith and bring back Phil Donahue, who used to occupy the time slot on MSNBC. Although Keith does throw out an occasional reference to the sexual harrassment lawsuit against O’Reilly, mostly he merely quotes O’Reilly’s words in order to show how he is the worst person in the world for that day. I totally dig it.

Olbermann was a favorite of mine when ESPN started out and now I often find myself in agreement with his political sensibilities. I recommend the show highly for all my readers, right or left, conservative or liberal.

Here’s a few related links:

Update 2/28/06: Someone started a petition to replace O’Reilly with Donahue. Here’s what bloggers are saying: