Mr. Ravenstahl said he will dedicate his $2,473 raise to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank next year. He said he will invite his staff to do the same, which would bring the total to $25,000, and would welcome council members doing the same, bringing it close to $40,000. (P-G, Rich Lord)Eat your heart out, Joe Mistick. This move is what you might call shrewd and decent.
Council put the brakes on its budget process because of concern over a proposed shift of $37.8 million to a "restricted fund" meant to reduce the city's debt. That transfer, and other moves, are supposed to set the stage for a $45 million effort to pay off debt, and reduce payments by a total of $51 million through 2013.
Somehow, that is the crux of Dowd's major present malfunction with the budget.
Yet even the relatively minor ways it got marked up yesterday has stirred controversy...
The mayor said he is wary of the budget amendments council approved.
Council members voted to approve hiring an attorney to represent City Council in 2009 for $66,552 and to spend $133,448 on "education and training" for employees in various city departments
The mayor said he might use his line-item veto power.
"It's my hope that (City Council) will understand their role and responsibility and approve the 2009 budget in the form that it was originally submitted to them," Ravenstahl said. (Trib, Jeremy Boren)
That seems like an overly aggressive standard. If the Council indeed has a role and a responsibility to approve the budget, you'd think that entails a role and a responsibility to try to improve it. This isn't a competition.
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This is a competition:
Mr. Lamb said his office expects to begin posting all city contract awards online in the first quarter of next year. He said he believes the city can create a separate system for posting campaign contributions online before the primary.
Contracts are subject to state open records laws, but are not easily available to the public.
Campaign contribution information is filed on paper with the Allegheny County Elections Division. Mr. Lamb said he would like to require city candidates to provide his office with electronic campaign contribution records, but if necessary, he will have staff type in the information. (P-G, Rich Lord)
Might as well put both the contracts and the donations on the same website. That's what people are so curious about, it's no outrageous secret.
What we like about Michael Lamb's initiative is that he gives us a firm timetable for action and results. Makes it seem like he thought it out and feels seriously about it of his own accord. In some fairness to Mayor Ravenstahl, his 2-month old pledge seemed to be taken up operationally by the URA board instead of his own ways and means.
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Matt H has a new list of notes for us. We especially like his take on this, which we missed.
Maria and I got into a stupendous row. In the end it got me thinking about the idea of equivalencies between different types of social offenses. Is there really an apt analogy to be drawn between groping cardboard cutouts and burning crosses? Meanwhile, Maria and John hash it out on related subjects.
Burgher Jon points out that shares of Burghshire-Hathaway are trading up sharply.
I was expecting Ruth Ann Daily's prayer for the newspaper to veer into economics and the business model. Instead, she stayed focused on the apparent decline of wholly disinterested, Voice of God journalism (is how I would describe it), until...
This polarization is bad for business: A biased outlet eliminates at least one-third of its potential audience -- a terrible reality for newspapers (and for the broadcast and Internet outlets that rely on them).
But, even worse, it's bad for democracy. There is a strong correlation between newspaper readership and voting -- between staying informed and participating.
I'm not at all sure "polarization" (what I would call "differentiation") is bad for readership or inherently bad for democracy. Certainly I think more people are much better informed now than they ever have been because more media is catering to their specific desires -- including the desire of a liberal Obamaphile to read The Corner regularly.
However, polarization / differentiation is bad for business, which left unchecked can be bad for democracy. Unless the newspaper industry, without quite realizing it, is suffering from a kind of Detroitism.
I had thought about writing a note to Ms. Dailey pointing out that her suggestion that this nation would not have come into existence without an impartial press is wildly inaccurate, but then I realized that would be pointless. When the voice of God speaks, we can't reply, we can only listen. Another reason why, for better or for worse, newspapers are following an outdated model.
ReplyDeleteWow, Jerry, that's a thought that should have occurred to all of us. Nobody took a statement from the King and worked it into their Boston Massacre story.
ReplyDeleteDaily's argument is so problematic I couldn't fit all my objections into a single blog post. (Which is saying something, given the interminable length at which I write them.) And at the end of the piece, she blows up her own premise by asserting that movable type "reinforced the anti-hierarchical ... notion that each man can read and determine the truth for himself."
ReplyDeleteWell, that's the shooting match, then isn't it? Ruth Ann's idea, I guess, is that people just want "The Truth." All they need is for the priest class -- the pre-Reformation punditocracy -- to get out of the way. Then we'd all have an objective, nonpartisan set of facts to agree on. But if that were the case, all those Bible-reading Protestants would have stuck together once they got out from under the thumb of the papacy. Luther would have been the beginning and the end of the Protestant Reformation.
Instead, the Protestants began splintering from each other. Even when they read from the same text, they brought their own interpretations and judgments. Communities of like-minded believers joined and disagreed with each other -- and no doubt fretted about the lack of "objectivity" in everyone's camp but their own.
Today's media technology works the same way, allowing people to find a niche that caters to them. (And is "differentiation" REALLY bad for business? If so, what explains the presence of all those stores in the mall, each catering to a different demographic? Differentiation is a problem if you're running K-Mart, perhaps. But if you're running American Eagle, it's the focus of your business plan.)
Anyway, a claim like "68 percent of us would prefer a neutral news source" is utterly meaningless, unless you know what people's idea of neutrality is. I know people who think FOX News is the only unvarnished source of truth. I'm sure they'd be among that 68 percent. But I can't imagine they're the dispassionate seekers of truth that Daily has in mind.
In other words, the problem with this column isn't just the vox dei. It's also with its naive conception of the vox populi. The readers are biased too ... and often have a much harder time admitting it.
-- Chris Potter
"Is there really an apt analogy to be drawn between groping cardboard cutouts and burning crosses?"
ReplyDeleteNo, there isn't. Which is why I never made that particular analogy, but thank you for playing.
Maybe Ruth Ann's problem is that, as she said, her family subscribed to two newspapers when she was a child but they both had the same owner. Whereas when I was a kid, my family subscribed to both The Greensburg Tribune-Review and the Pittsburgh Press so I never had any illusion about objectivity in the print media.
ReplyDelete"When I was a kid, my family subscribed to both The Greensburg Tribune-Review and the Pittsburgh Press so I never had any illusion about objectivity in the print media."
ReplyDeleteWhich brings up another point: The very presence of choice, which Daily celebrates, inevitably results in public suspicions about bias, which she decries. Unless CNN and FOX are saying the exact same thing, the existence of both demonstrates the presence of "biased media" SOMEWHERE in the system. They can't BOTH be true.
Sometimes there really IS bias, of course. But sometimes situations are simply complicated, and different reporters -- all acting in good faith -- can choose different angles to emphasize. In that case, "media bias" is the narrative AUDIENCES impose, to help them sort out all the information bombarding them. ("How can you believe what you see on FOX?")
Daily writes: "A 2006 Pew Research Center report traced the public's declining trust that coverage is bias-free -- from 62 percent in 1987, to 53 percent in 1996, to 48 percent in 2000, to 38 percent in 2004."
Personally, I highly doubt that the media actually became more biased in that period. (Anyone who thinks the media has gotten more biased should look at papers from a couple decades ago.) I think what has increased is people's SUSPICION (or consciousness, if you like) of bias. And it's probably no accident that the increased suspicion was accompanied by an increase in the number of media outlets -- the rise of cable, and the internet.
It's also been associated with the rise of "media watchdog" groups across the spectrum, and with the rise of figures like Rush Limbaugh. Ruth Ann Daily seems not to have considered that maybe, just maybe, her shifting poll results have been affected by right-wing radio hosts -- people who have audiences in the millions and who've complained about "media bias" every week for the better part of 20 years. Somehow, it's all the REPORTERS' fault, because of how they referred to Reagan's budget cuts 20 years ago. The more you think about it, the more ludicrous the whole thing is.
-- potter
Ruth Ann isn't a very critical thinker. I recall when she was celebrating the building of the Wal-Mart mega store out on Rt. 65...and saying it wouldn't hurt small businesses, 'cause they could still open "little boutiques." Yea, right.
ReplyDeleteAs Chris has noted, the degree to which she hasn't thought this out is astounding.
And yea, perhaps she's never actually seen a paper from the "golden age," back when NYC had a couple of dozen papers, all catering to different constituencies. As a conservative, Ms. Dailey is surely a proponent of allowing market forces to run free -- which is exactly what has happened with newspapers. They have coalesced into large, corporate organs, where the quest for ever-shrinking profits (and changes brought on by the Internet) has squeezed the news side into near oblivion.
And I agree completely with Chris that the Pew study is nearly meaningless, since it is driven by the very media it is supposed to be researching. The louder the chattering classes (mostly talk radio, but also political campaigns) shout about bias, the more the public is likely to perceive it as a problem. Like Ruth Ann, a great number of them aren't critical thinkers, either.....
I'm not even going to weigh in on the whole battle of wether the media is liberal or conservative or what, except to agree that a variety of sources is always best.
ReplyDeleteAll I really wanted to do is thank Bram for the shout out!
Sorry, Maria, I got swinging nooses confused with burning crosses.
ReplyDeleteRe-reading Ruth Ann's column, I think a big part of what she misses in the old media is the common experience -- when Everybody (so to speak) does read your paper, there is a bit of an obligation to ape the Voice of God and try to gather an independently verifiable collection of facts in exclusion of others. Yet the argument in favor of gathering this Everyone together is not so much economics or democracy but rather sentimental -- "I remember we'd all sit around reading the Post."
I still think we can have that sentimentality about "I remember all sitting around reading The Media, circa 2008. And Joey sent me this link and Sasha sent me that one, and we'd sit around for hours poking holes in their assumptions, in our big Christmas sweaters."
Bram,
ReplyDeleteFunny thing is I never mentioned a noose either.
The only person mentioning a noose in the comment thread was someone doing the exact same thing you did: claiming that I made an analogy that I never made.
Look, you have any number of mostly women on the blogs saying this is extremely offensive and deeply upsetting and definitely sexist and you have any number of mostly men saying no biggie and it's not sexist.
So, who should decide what is sexist to women? Men? Do whites get to decide what blacks should consider to be racist?
What is most upsetting is the this:
"...there is a larger issue at stake. At what point does sexist behavior get taken seriously? At what point do people get punished in ways that suggest this kind of behavior, this kind of thinking, is unacceptable? At what point do we insist there will be consequences?"
But of course first there would have to be an actual acknowledgment that the sexism exists and what chance do we have of that when we can't even count on support from fellow progressives who are male?
[sigh]
You wrote: "It's even better if you take pictures so you can make sure others see the humiliation. That's why we have photographs of naked "Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze" from lynchings."
ReplyDeleteI see you were comparing the Sarah Palin cartoons to this stuff, in a fashion -- through 'humiliation'. But not the Hillary photo.
You wrote: "Or if it were a Barack cutout and the staffers were shoving a watermelon in his face?"
This was about the Hillary photo. Not as bad as crosses & lynchings; I owe you an apology obviously for some inaccuracy.
But you do make a couple equivalencies between acts of racism and acts of sexism -- which is in itself a legitimate project, but you do compare low-magnitude transgressions with high magnitude ones.
Lust for watermellons is an attribute assigned to the stereotyped ... it is the black person's call to eat watermellon, out of ignorance. (Why is this a negative stereotype, again? I don't know, whatever). Portraying them so says, "They are like this." With the cardboard cutout (this was not a drawing or Photoshop of Hillary getting groped, for example), our heroine was neither portrayed enjoying nor horrified by the behavior (no matter what you imagine). It just happened to her, and she (being a cardboard cutout, this will come into play later) was oblivious. Even the expression on the cutout was neutral. It says nothing about her.
Regarding the lynching and the cartoon (masturbation with a firearm), I am coming around to your position that that photo constitutes a subtle kind of hate crime -- but again, *nooses with naked bodies* is evidence of a violence committed and an expression that further atrocities will follow. The cartoon, for all it's shamefulness, is just saying "I hate you."
So, Maria, I guess what I'm saying is your arguments suffer from inflation more than anything. The sarcasm also is not helpful.
What I will say is that we disagree fundamentally on the specific point of cardboard cutouts -- I view them as representative, at least when presented like that, as cardboard cutouts in themselves. A prop. "Look at what I'm doing to this cardboard cutout!" You apparently view them as intentionally representative of an individual in a dramatic scene; again, like drawing or photoshopping someone to recreate an event.
So you think Obama'a speechwriter was trying to convey something about Hillary, or about women; something ugly. I think he was conveying nothing but, "Look how goofy I am, horsing around with this cardboard cutout of Hillary".
Thank you as always for continuing to remind me there are some legitimate equivalencies between racism and sexism, and causing me to wonder to what degree I must view them in proportion.
I see you were comparing the Sarah Palin cartoons to this stuff, in a fashion -- through 'humiliation'.
ReplyDeleteI was specifically talking about stripping someone naked against their will as a means to make them vulnerable, break them down, control them and humiliate them. As in 'you'd think it'd be enough to hang someone and burn their body, but, no, they still felt the compulsion to strip them first,' (perhaps knowing that that is always a good first step in domination or perhaps just going on pure animal instinct).
With the cardboard cutout (this was not a drawing or Photoshop of Hillary getting groped, for example), our heroine was neither portrayed enjoying nor horrified by the behavior (no matter what you imagine). It just happened to her, and she (being a cardboard cutout, this will come into play later) was oblivious. Even the expression on the cutout was neutral. It says nothing about her.
See, this is the crux of the problem. Let's just go with groping for the moment. I'm thinking of myself, my female relatives, and my close friends and 50% of us have been groped by strangers, the other 50% I don't know if they've ever been groped by strangers -- the subject never came up. Hell, I didn't even know my youngest sister had been groped in a laundromat until we were talking about this photo.
And it's something that just happens to you. It says nothing about you. And, you feel like you might as well be a cardboard cutout or any other prop when it does. Just some guy on a train, or on the street, or in a laundromat who treats you like some convenience for their pleasure. You are completely dehumanized because some guy feels like grabbing a breast or an ass. You may as well be a dummy, or a picture in a magazine, or a cardboard cutout because the guy obviously doesn't give a shit what your feelings will be.
What I will say is that we disagree fundamentally on the specific point of cardboard cutouts -- I view them as representative, at least when presented like that, as cardboard cutouts in themselves. A prop. "Look at what I'm doing to this cardboard cutout!" You apparently view them as intentionally representative of an individual in a dramatic scene; again, like drawing or photoshopping someone to recreate an event.
So if a cutout is just a cutout, would they have done the exact same pose with a cutout of Barack Obama? Of course not. Would they have even done the exact same pose with the cutout of a generic man?
No.
He would not have cupped the breast of a man, now would he?
I'm sorry, but you are defying all credibility here. If a cutout is just a cutout would they have been kissing and groping a cutout of a Christmas tree or a British phone booth (you can buy those too).
Of course not.
Why even have representations of people or things on cutouts at all -- why not just hold up a blank piece of cardboard?
Of course it represents and stands in for the image on it's face!
I am not being sarcastic. I am saying that in your defense of this guy you are defying all logic. They have eyes. They could see it was a cutout of Hillary Clinton. They groped her like any jerk would grope any woman on a train, or on the street, or in a laundromat.
And, when you're a woman and have been made to realize that while you're just minding your own business that at anytime in public you can be so disrespected and humiliated by some guy who decides that he can just grope you at will, you think that maybe, just maybe, if you climb to the heights that someone like Hillary Clinton has -- which is as high as any one woman has ever reached in the US -- you might be safe from that kind of crap.
But then you see this piece of shit picture of two punks mimicking your average 'drive-by' grope and having the nerve to have their picture taken doing it and at first you feel more sad than anything else, and then, yeah, you feel RAGE.
And, you know what, Bram? Grabbing someone's breast can get you arrested for sexual assault and that is what they were mimicking. That's what this woman and all the women I've spoken to see when they see that photo.
And, let's go ahead and talk about nooses because I almost used that analogy for this photo.
If cardboard is just cardboard, then a noose is just hemp. And, if African Americans see a noose as a threat of violence, then many a woman sees a grope as violence and as a possible threat of more violence to come. Because in a way, you're lucky if you get groped in public -- at, say, a party -- because if you have the misfortune to be in a less crowded environment you know that you can be beaten or raped or killed because just as African Americans have been lynched with nooses, women have been beaten and raped and killed by men who think that they have some god-given right to grope or rape or kill.
You can say that it's OK because Cardboard Clinton wasn't portrayed as enjoying or being horrified by their actions as if that somehow makes it all right. So if I found a "neutral" looking cutout of Obama and groped his groin I would be equally all right?. No disrespect there! No, we'd assume that the real Obama would not want me to molest him and would never pose for that picture just as we assume that the real Hillary would not want those two to do the things that they are doing to her and would certainly not pose for it.
But I'm guessing the reaction of someone mimicking molesting Obama would not be quite so visceral for you because I think it's safe to say that men don't have random women grab them on the street and they only ever think they'll be raped if they go to prison.
I get that you do not see what I and other women see in that picture.
I am really trying to explain it to you because I assume you're a good person and a smart person. I am saying that even if you can't grasp the feelings that this photo evokes for women, you should know why it is so enraging to so many of us.
I am telling you that if you read the women's blogs, you will see that I am far from alone. You will see anger and that anger is now turning from Favreau and turning to Obama for not firing Favreau.
It is poisoning the well.
Can we at least agree that that is a bad thing?
I think I agreed from the get-go that it was a bad thing. I've just been maintaining that it was private behavior, it was clearly intended to remain private behavior, and it was not necessarily revealing of any serious character flaws or abusive behavior traits. It was a mistake, I would even say a slip-up.
ReplyDeleteI do think Favreau needs to make some kind of statement of contrition already.
I do not expect very many female bloggers (in the scheme of things) view this as a major outrage, much less females in general. Many of the bloggers that do I expect are outraged are the same ones that manufactured outrage when that female Obama policy advisor called Hillary a "monster", which is an entirely reasonable, middle-of-the-road thing to say about a determined opponent during a frank moment. So I think an element of Don't Cry Wolf enters into this.
Also, yes. Although a cardboard cutout of Barack Obama likely wouldn't have had its breast groped, it would have been very likely to be figuratively abused or humiliated in some way at a Clinton staffer party. Because that's why they manufacture cardboard cutouts -- to have fun at people's expense.
"Slip-up" was a little overly dismissive. I'll stand pat at mistake.
ReplyDelete