Then again...

I owe Meg Kinnard an apology. There is a longer version of the article that presents the information accurately. So the obfuscation appears to have been introduced by whoever chopped the article up for Yahoo.

Article in local paper by Meg Kinnard:

State Rep. Thad Viers, a Republican who represents the Myrtle Beach area, pleaded no contest Thursday to accusations he threatened to beat and sexually assault a man dating his estranged wife.

Viers was fined $500. His lawyer said he was "under the influence of love."
...

Article on Yahoo site by Meg Kinnard:

COLUMBIA, S.C. - A South Carolina lawmaker pleaded no contest Thursday to threatening to beat and sexually assault a man dating his estranged wife. He was fined $500.

State Rep. Thad Viers, 29, left court immediately and declined to comment. The misdemeanor unlawful communication charge carried a maximum sentence of 30 days in jail.
...

The Myrtle Beach Online article leaves no doubt about the political affiliations of those involved. The Yahoo article does (as noted in yesterday's post, the only person in the entire article whose political affiliation is mentioned is the lawyer who represented the defendant). My criticism still stands, it was just misdirected at the author of the piece rather than the anonymous summarizer.

Nice job, whoever chopped and pasted the original article.

Excuse me, your bias is showing

I'm skimming through the headlines at Yahoo news and decided to check out the story, "S.C. lawmaker fined for phone threats." I'm curious because I'm interested in how reporters write about politicians who are in legal troubles (whether or not they bring up their political party, etc.).

Meg Kinnard, the author of the article, doesn't tell us the political affiliation of State Rep. Thad Viers (the man who pled no contest). She does, however, tell us the political affiliation of state Rep. Todd Rutherford who served as Viers lawyer. He's a Democrat. In fact, that's the only political affiliation mentioned in the entire article.

What party does Thad Viers represent? That would be the Republican Party. A fact that Meg Kinnard obscures with her article. She even goes out of her way to leave an inaccurate impression in the readers' minds.

Nice job, Meg.

Television cameras eat IQ

The news tonight was broadcasting footage of the Hollywood Hills fire and they did a regurgitation of NBC4 LA's coverage. First thought, "Damn. Chuck Henry has done some fake bake since I was living in Los Angeles." There's no way that tan came au naturel. Second thought, when you're trying to describe something using a simile it's probably a good idea if your simile is different than what you're describing.

Young man interviewed on camera describing how quickly the fire took off, "And it just started spreading like wildfire."

Um. Duh.

In which I try to figure out my cat... yet again

I'm heading to the bathroom and peek in on the bedroom where S and Rosie are fast asleep on the bed (Rosie is our three year old Yorkshire Terrier). Surprisingly, our six year old cat Tiger is also sleeping on the bed. Surprisingly because he usually doesn't like to sleep close to the dog.

And, rather than thinking how cute this picture is, I immediately start wondering if Tiger is feeling okay. And I think back to his behavior over the past few days and try to figure out if anything is out of the ordinary.

"He did crawl into my lap while I was watching TV earlier. And he doesn't always do that. Does that mean something?"

After going round and round on this train of thought I remember: never try to figure out a cat.

Fitzmas comes early

I started following the Plame story over at Kevin Drum's blog a couple of years ago. But it readily became apparent that the online experts in all things Plame related were working at the lake (http://www.firedoglake.com).

What FDL has done over the past few years is nothing short of amazing. They provide a service that is sorely lacking in the traditional media (detailed exploration and analysis done by content experts constantly being added and improved on by a knowledgeable and engaged community). Their coverage of the Scooter Libby trial was the best out there.

And here's hoping that the firepups are just getting started.

Merry Fitzmas! Salud!

No victory for the grave

Growing up Protestant, it was kind of required that we sang a bunch of hymns. Not surprisingly, I'm partial to them.

One of my favorites is Abide With Me. It's quite a good funeral song (in the way that Pass Me Not was de rigeur at funerals for a while). The money quote:

Where is death's sting
Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still if thou
abide with me.

To see a bunch of castrati singing the song, go here. Not the best version you'll find. But heartfelt, nonetheless.

The Authoritarians

Bob Altemeyer's research on authoritarianism provided much of the meat for John Dean's Conservatives without Conscience. Following the success of his book, Dean asked Altemeyer to put the good stuff down on the printed page.

Here is the result.