Pen-Elayne on the Web

Overload City

A teaser for a local news broadcast this evening asked something like, "Could you turn your TV off for one day with the war going on?" I'm thinking, easily. In fact, the war going on makes it much easier to stay away from the corporate-controlled media; it even gets me out of the house earlier in the mornings because I'm not sticking around to watch Matt and Katie slavishly parrot the official line. (And the sheer jumping-the-shark idiot plots of the Whedon shows I used to love tend to keep me away from TV fiction as well.) It's just all too much; I haven't managed to get through my blogroll since the invasion began. And I implore you again, read all the wonderful stuff these fine people listed on the sidebar have been writing. Mary Beth Williams fights the good fight against Bill Frist and his slimy pro-Lilly legislation; Mark Evanier explains why the boos that viewers heard greet Michael Moore during his Oscar speech might not have reflected actual reaction; Dave Johnson lays into the Democrats' tax cut vote; Tish Parmeley prepares to go before the City of San Francisco's Rules Committee as they hear a resolution to create a task force on child obesity; Ampersand examines "The White Guy's Fallacy" - or as my husband likes to call it, "taking offense on behalf of other people"; Lisa Rein has been keeping track of new protest songs and links to all sorts of MP3s, as well as presenting some great demonstration pictures; Devra sings Sean-Paul's praises and deservedly so; Jeanne's just brilliant Jeanne as she always is, and the list goes on and on...

And Daniel Patrick Moynihan has passed away. Although he'd often been the center of controversy, particularly regarding what's come to be known as the Moynihan Report, in his later years he seemed quite the respected elder statesman, and campaigned hard against President Clinton's welfare "reform" even while endorsing Hillary for the NY Senate seat he was vacating. I had a lot of respect for the guy, even if I didn't always agree with him, because it always seemed to me that he treated others with respect. He was a very genteel gentleman.