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(Stan Kenton - his new directions in jazz puzzled a lot of people)
Something almost completely different tonight. A live broadcast from The Steel Pier in Atlantic City, New Jersey on September 14, 1953. Stan Kenton and His Orchestra. Kenton was one of the pioneers of "New Jazz", taking the traditional big band concept and elaborating on it in a way that converted a dancing audience into a listening one. To some people it was considered strange and inaccessible (though no stranger than the experiments of Sun Ra, for example). But Kenton won a large number of followers during his two+ decades of popularity and he was responsible for helping launch the careers of several musicians, including singers Anita O'Day and June Christy.
Pretty tame by today's standards with many listeners wondering what all the fuss was about. And mostly shoved into the background by the contributions of other innovative musicians of the Jazz idiom from the period. Still, he made some interesting music during a period of time when music was heading into many different directions all at once.
And this broadcast of a live gig was a typical example.
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(On December 10, 1999 - this guy was big news)
December 10, 1999 - another one of those days where seemingly nothing earth shattering happened. Bill Bradley was temporarily sidelined from his Presidential bid owing to a recurring heart problem.
Bill Whitney (CBS News): “Presidential hopeful Bill Bradley has cancelled campaign appearances until Sunday. Spokeswoman Anita Dunn says he suffered a recurrence of a heart irregularity
Anita Dunn: “Senator Bradley in 1996 was diagnosed as having Atrial Fibrillation which is an irregular heartbeat. It’s a condition that’s shared with over 2 million Americans and that his doctor really describes as an inconvenience rather than a problem.”
Chinese spy charges were flying around, Rick Danko of The Band died and a woman claiming to be 114 years old was celebrating a birthday.
One of the reasons Fox News has become such a serious problem is that journalists as a profession have utterly failed in their traditional role of self-policing their colleagues. Journalists need to be speaking out about the truth that Anita Dunn pointed out in October: That Fox has ceased offering even a resemblance of a news organization and has become a propaganda channel 24/7.
Fox has largely been able to get away with it because its money and influence are so sizable that it has silenced with profession with a combination of threats and bribes: If you call them out, you get blackballed. On the other hand, if you play along, you get invited on their shows and get a fat contributor's paycheck.
Among the most disturbing examples of this have been NPR's Mara Liasson and Juan Williams, who have become such regulars on Fox that their identities are increasingly that of a typical Fox commentator. And in the process, they've deeply marred NPR's hitherto-sterling reputation as a reliable source of accurate and unbiased news.
A classic example of this took place in early September (see the video above), when Liasson, in a discussion on health care with Fox's Brett Baier, agreed to go along with the new Luntz-approved Fox talking point that it wasn't a "public option" in the health-care reform package, but a "government option.
Executives at National Public Radio recently asked the network’s top political correspondent, Mara Liasson, to reconsider her regular appearances on Fox News because of what they perceived as the network’s political bias, two sources familiar with the effort said.
According to a source, Liasson was summoned in early October by NPR’s executive editor for news, Dick Meyer, and the network’s supervising senior Washington editor, Ron Elving. The NPR executives said they had concerns that Fox’s programming had grown more partisan, and they asked Liasson to spend 30 days watching the network.
At a follow-up meeting last month, Liasson reported that she’d seen no significant change in Fox’s programming and planned to continue appearing on the network, the source said.
... Liasson defended her work for Fox by saying that she appears on two of the network’s news programs, not on commentary programs with conservative hosts, the source said. She has also told colleagues that she’s under contract to Fox, so it would be difficult for her to sever her ties with the network, which she has appeared on for more than a decade.
I find it comical that Liasson reportedly thinks that because she's on two 'serious' Fox News shows that that means she's no way associated with the rest of channel's nutty and hateful programming. Apparently, Liasson is able to magically cocoon herself within the confines of two programs. And even though she cashes those Fox News checks she's not really, y'know, part of Fox News.
Gimme a break.
You can't be half pregnant in a situation like this, which means Liasson needs to forcefully defend Fox News in its entirety. But if she can't do that and she still cares about her reputation as a journalists, than she ought to walk away from Rupert Murdoch's money, because the glaring truth is that Fox News jumped the rails many, many months ago.
Any news organization that took its responsibilities seriously would take pains to cover presidential criticism fairly. It would regard doing so as itself a test of integrity. At Fox, by contrast, complaints of unfairness prompt only hoots of derision and demands for "evidence" that, when presented, is brushed off and ignored.
There is no need to get bogged down in this phony debate, which itself constitutes an abuse of the fair-mindedness of the rest of the media. One glance at Fox's Web site or five minutes' random viewing of the channel at any hour of the day demonstrates its all-pervasive slant. The lefty documentary Outfoxed spent a lot of time mustering evidence that Fox managers order reporters to take the Republican side. But after 13 years under Roger Ailes, Fox employees skew news right as instinctively as fish swim.
... Whether the White House engages with Fox is a tactical political question. Whether we journalists continue to do so is an ethical one. By appearing on Fox, reporters validate its propaganda values and help to undermine the role of legitimate news organizations. Respectable journalists—I'm talking to you, Mara Liasson—should stop appearing on its programs. A boycott would make Ailes too happy, so let's try just ignoring Fox, shall we? And no, I don't want to come on The O'Reilly Factor to discuss it.
Liasson can't sit there on a panel on a "news show" -- whose tea-party promotions and slanted attacks on the White House are a matter of public record -- as the token "liberal" with Stephen Hayes and Charles Krauthammer every few days, and more often than not go along with their right-wing characterizations of events, and promulgating the right-wing narratives that are the basic fabric of these shows, and not be tainted by the association.
If Liasson wants to pretend that Fox is unbiased so she can keep collecting it paychecks, then let her. But NPR should move on to someone who actually displays real journalistic standards.
Obama officials went on the offensive on the talk show circuit last Sunday, reminding America and the corporate media that Fox News is not a legitimate news organization.
Staying true to their entertainment format, on Monday Fox News responded by putting up a poll on their website and what do you know...all of the choices are incorrect and none of them allow for the possibility that Obama is right.
What a knee-slapper! Feel free to re-write your own reality-based poll for them in the comments.
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White House communications director Anita Dunn has said Fox News "often operates as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican party." Karl Rove, former senior advisor to George W. Bush, responded by saying "the White House is engaging in its own version of [Nixon's] media enemies list" Sunday.
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(h/t Heather)
David Axelrod backed up Anita Dunn on ABC's THIS WEEK by saying that he believes FOX Noise is not a news station. It's taken a while for them to say this publicly and at least Axelrod didn't back off her comments.
“I’m not concerned, Mr. Murdoch has a talent for making money,” Axelrod said.
“The only argument that Anita was making is that they are not really a news organization, if you watch even its not even their commentators, but a lot of their news program. It’s really not news, it’s pushing a point of view and the bigger thing is that other news organizations like yours, ought not to treat them that way. And we’re not going to treat them that way, we’re going to appear on their shows and participate, but understanding that they represent a point of view.”
It's much more than a point of view. FOX News should be considered a right wing PAC. They actively set up rallies and protests. When will they start raising money for republican candidates? Will FOX advertise a big network special and take a full day out of their schedule and raise money for the 2010 mid terms? Hannity already does republican fundraisers. I might have given them an idea...
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Glenn Beck ended his show with another his patented weepfests yesterday. It was special. And not just because it was about as sincere as the last time we saw Beck cry.
No, this one was special because it was accompanied by a loopy rant about how "life was simple" in the Golden Days of America, and then rambled into a weird metaphor comparing the nation to teenagers who innocently get stuck at a party and have to come home to mom and dad and face the music.
No, really. I'm not exaggerating.
Apparently the straying behavior for which we have to face the consequences now has something to do with having elected Barack Obama as President. Because the entire preceding show was a rant attacking the White House as riddled with "radical Marxists" who want to transform America into a communist state.
What got him especially worked up was this video featuring White House Communication Director, Anita Dunn:
