And posting is likely to be very sporatic for the next week. I have a midterm in Macroeconomics coming up soon, and Econ is a subject I’m finding somewhat of a challenge to get a handle on. Plus, in a case of lousy confluence of timing, we’re about to move to a new apartment. In other words, there won’t be much time for blogging.
However, I’m sure I’ll indulge in some schadenfreude should Fitzgerald come down with a cartload of indictments.
So I missed the very first episode of “The Colbert Report” (it is still on the TiVo), but caught the next two. And so far I’ve enjoyed it. Last night, Scott & I watched the episode together and I laughed more. This is very unusual in our household. Generally I find stuff less funny that he does.
Ezra has a point, though:
It is much tougher to sustain. What’s great about Stewart is..well..Stewart. He seems like our voice in the media. A sane, intelligent, skeptical, well-meaning paladin for the people. We like to watch him because his interviews and humor bring us in on the jokes. Colbert, on the other hand, is the joke, trapped in a self-consciously disagreeable persona for the duration of his program.
And this is very much why I was worried for the show before it aired. But so far he has not laid it on as thickly as he did in his “Daily Show” segments. Color me pleased and hopeful.
Woe betide the high school radio station that has a broadcast frequency coveted by Christian broadcasters. The Boston Herald reports:
Maynard High School’s radio frequency, 91.7 FM, is being seized by a network of Christian broadcasting stations that the Federal Communications Commission has ruled is a better use of the public airwaves.
“People are furious,” said faculty adviser Joe Magno.
Maynard High’s WAVM, which has been broadcasting from the school for 35 years, found itself in this David vs. Goliath battle when it applied to increase its transmitter signal from 10 to 250 watts.
According to Magno, that “opens the floodgates for any other station to challenge the station’s license and take its frequency.”
Using a point scale that considers such factors as audience size, the FCC ruled the Christian broadcasting network the better applicant. WAVM is given 30 days to appeal, and has done so.
If the FCC refuses to overturn its decision, WAVM will fall silent.
You’d think providing an educational experience for high school kids would be considered valuable, but I suppose given the FCC we’ve got, that would be asking too much.
I’m guessing Markos isn’t snowed under with his book anymore, because he made some excellent points over at dKos today:
I wrote above that most progressives “agree on most things”, but there are probably few issues, if any, in which 100 percent of progressives agree. And such disagreements are not necessarily born of ignorance, or “using Rove’s talking points”, or being a “DINO”. But disagreements born from research and exploration and each individual’s varied life experiences. This is a reality in which we must operate and thrive, and it can’t be by forcing a party line on every single issue. Because really, who will set the party line? Who will enforce it?
I need to start a new category called “WTF?” to cover those achingly jaw-dropping loads of garbage unloaded onto an unsuspecting public by key political figures. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pulled one this morning on Meet The Press. No, I was not awake for it, but (un)fortunately my East Coast blogger bretheren were.
The fact of the matter is that when we were attacked on September 11, we had a choice to make. We could decide that the proximate cause was al Qaeda and the people who flew those planes into buildings and, therefore, we would go after al Qaeda
I’m sure the station management is justifying this by saying they’re afraid they will lose their license if they deny the Klan access to public TV, but this seems wrong: