by Michael Tracey

It isn’t just that there is an appetite for scandal, sex, sleaze, death narratives, it is also that feeding such appetites can be very profitable. The fact is that an essential problem with today’s media, one that has been gestating for many years, even decades, lies with the families and trust-funders that own media chains, and with the media moguls that, like great beasts, roam the landscape of a new grim cultural ecology, gobbling up this and that tasty morsel, a television station here, a newspaper there, forever seeking to sate their own insatiable appetite. Full story »

So some Hollywood insiders are sick of the decidedly liberal MSNBC, according to a report. One “liberal Democrat” actually said at a Beverly Hills luncheon “that she would prefer a lunch date with right-leaning Fox News star Sean Hannity over left-leaning MSNBC star Keith Olbermann.” Egad. I wouldn’t eat lunch with Sean Hannity unless it involved dining on his freshly-excised heart in front of him, though given its smallness I doubt it would make much of a meal.

But this woman’s not alone, apparently. A very liberal friend of mine hates Olbermann too, saying “he’s too brash,” while another colleague has grown tired of the pontificating. I’m seeing the complaints piling up in the lefty blogosphere.

There’s been a backlash against Olby steadily brewing and it’s hard to argue that he hasn’t brought it on himself Full story »

Elizabeth Dole, wife of former Senator and presidential candidate Robert Dole, and Republican Senator from North Carolina (or “Nawth Ca’lina” if you prefer the proper pronunciation), was possessed today by Jesse Helms’ twisted, gangrenous, suppurating soul.  Channeling Helms’ mavericky energy, Dole released an ad accusing her opponent in this year’s senatorial campaign, Kay Hagan, in what has to be the most … well … just watch it.  It’s only 30 seconds.

Full story »

With all the excitement of this historic election, it is normal to overlook other news that normally would not have been missed; especially, the flagrant abuse of power by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Throughout Chertoff’s tenure as Homeland Secretary, I have said countless of times, as long as Homeland Security and ICE continues their “round them all up, ask questions later” policy, it will always be an open season on all Latinos/as, regardless of their citizenship.

It is ironic with less than a week for the election, I am proven correct again. According to the Los Angeles Times, ICE once again mistakenly detained a US citizen. Guillermo Olivares Romero, 25, was held in a detention center for two weeks.

Federal authorities have released a Los Angeles man from immigration detention after acknowledging that he is a U.S. citizen.

Guillermo Olivares Romero, 25, was held at an Otay Mesa detention center from Sept. 25 until Oct. 9, when an American Civil Liberties Union attorney presented his birth certificate, school and vaccination records to immigration authorities. He was released that day.

In an interview with HOY (h/t to el profe of Latino Like Me), Olivares said “No me creyeron. … Me decían que yo era mexicano porque me parecía a los mexicanos.” (They didn’t believe me. They told me I was a Mexican because I looked like a Mexican.) Full story »

Mountaintop removal coal mining at Kayford Mountain, Boone County,
W. Va. Photo: Vivian Stockman, courtesy of SouthWings Air

Part II: Almost Heaven Level: The Mechanics of Moving Mountains

In the heart of Appalachia, knobs, gaps and hollers define the undulating green landscape. Life is old, travel is slow, and it’s a daunting job to get a bus full of journalists up the steep, rutted dirt road through Cabin Creek Hollow to Larry Gibson’s cabin on Kayford Mountain. But no photos or descriptions of the devastation we are about to witness can do justice to a close-up look at a mountaintop removal mining operation. That is why we are here. That is what Larry wants to provide for reporters on this Society of Environmental Journalists field trip to the coalfields of southern West Virginia in October 2008, in hopes that we will be a conduit for the story he spends his life telling. Full story »

Conventional wisdom in presidential elections is that they almost always tighten near the end.  Today’s Rasmussen Reports tracking poll, which shows Obama’s lead shrinking to +3, 50% to 47%, not only reflects a tightening, but may reflect deeper trouble for Obama, as well.

Or maybe not.

The Rasmussen Reports poll has been the steadiest of all the polls during this election, primarily because of its methodology.  Unlike most polls, Rasmussen’s is automated, meaning that the questionnaire items are always delivered in exactly the same way.  In addition, Rasmussen’s sample size is larger than most, reducing its margin of error, and this large sampling allows its weighting by Republican vs. Democratic responses to be more statistically meaningful.  Since my last post on the polls, Rasmussen has shown very little movement from the +5 to +7 or so for Obama that it’s been showing for over a month.  Full story »

• Carbon offset markets hurt tropical forests
• Salt water marsh restoration may efficiently sequester carbon
• Shallow ground water modeling shows effects on climate
• Electronics manufacturing compound a strong greenhouse gas
• Deutsche Asset Management: climate and financial crises may work together

When you put a price on the “services” that forests provide, deforestation costs the world economy between $5 and $7 trillion every year. But when you put a price on those services, and use that financial incentive to provide so-called carbon offsets, the law of unintended consequences reigns supreme. A new study reported in the Guardian shows that those unintended consequences may themselves be hazardous to the environment in other ways than just carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions or deforestation. Full story »