When a joke goes bad…

Posted by High Priestess Kang as IJC, Op/Ed, Rants

…but it’s not a joke. Really.

So one of the hens from The View, Sherri Shepherd, decided to make a funny:

She also tells the mag that that it is hard being ‘taken to task about her faith’ on The View:

“Oh sometimes I say, ‘Lord, Juanita Bynum or Joyce Myers (evangelists) would be so good at this table. They could lay hands on Barbara Walters and get her saved. I ask the Lord, ‘Why am I here?’ I have to trust God when He says, ‘Because I said so.’”

Ok. This isn’t a joke. This is an actual, motherphucking, huge-ass, gorilla of a problem.

Why do, “Christians” feel audacious enough that they think they can lead someone to being, “saved?” Furthermore, why do, “Christians” feel like people should be saved? Maybe we don’t want to? Have you ever thought about that, folks?

At first, I was seething because Barbara Walters is a Jewess, like me. Living in The Bible Belt/The South, I hear this shit incessantly. People thinking they mean well but they, ultimately, don’t. They’re just being narrow minded, self-absorbed, selfish and disrespectful.

So disrespectful that a former colleague of mine actually took me out to lunch to address my life of sin. All because she was worried about me. Note: SHE was worried. SHE. It was all about HER. Not me. Not my beliefs. No respect for me - at all. The fact that I’m a Jewess and refuse to accept (let alone acknowledge) Christ as my savior had been keeping her up at night and that just won’t do!

Sherri Shepherd was not joking. She does believe this shit. Any attempt to spin this story any other way is merely that - a feeble attempt to hide her blantant arrogance.

And to her other comment about the bazillions of abortions she had: it’s a good thing. We don’t need the stupid and the arrogant procreating.

Moar abortions and less fundies, kplzthnx!

Racist Piece Of Shit Jesse Helms Is Dead

Posted by Dock Ellis as Celebrations, Guest Author, LOL Douchebags, Op/Ed, Politics

July 4, 2008 was a great day for America- it was the day we were finally rid of the cancer known as Jesse Helms. Helms was an evil, racist man who repeatedly tried to send our nation back to the dark ages with his hypocritical mix of professed christianity, support for big business, and hatred/fear of anyone who wasn’t white and heterosexual. The modern Neocon movement has its beginnings with Helms’ early understanding that scared, angry white men vote in droves.

To give the devil his due, Helms was one of the most effective operators in 20th century American politics. He (along with fellow racist Strom Thurmond) brought the south out of it’s antebellum political rut and helped found the Republican juggernaut that rapes our land today. Helms was in the first wave of politicians that revived the Republican party in the south with a molotov coctail of religion, racism, and good ol’ boy populism.  “White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories?” read a 1950 ad Helms worked on for Senator  Willis Smith.  He also famously referred to the 1964 Civil Rights Act as “the single most dangerous piece of legislation ever introduced in the Congress”.

In 1972,  Helms became the first Republican Senator from North Carolina of the 20th century. Four years later he backed Ronald Reagan in the state’s presidential primary, handing Reagan’s lost cause campaign a victory that revived him enough to pose a serious challenge to  Gerald Ford at the Republican convention that year. Reagan lost the primary, but was positioned to take the party’s nomination in 1980- something that would have been impossible without the 1976 win in North Carolina.

Helms was savvy enough to know that fear and divisiveness alone don’t ensure victory at the polls, so he often resorted to old-fashioned cheating.  Helms’ North Carolina Congressional Club was repeatedly fined by the Federal Election Commission for illegally financing his campaigns. In 1992, the Helms campaign itself was penalized by the FEC for for mailing postcards to 125,000 black voters, threatening them with jail if they tried to exercise their right to vote.

For someone who professed such deep christianity, Helms racked up quite a reputation as a slumlord in Raleigh, even having separate management companies to handle his properties in the white and black sections of town.

It would be nice to believe that the death of Jesse Helms is symbolic of the decline of the politics of fear in our country- that maybe someday raising a boogyman (communists, blacks, muslims, gays, etc) won’t be enough to win elections or push agendas that go against the interests of average, working Americans.

I guess we’ll see in November.

Because we haven’t talked about abortion in a while.

Posted by Ming the Merciless as Guest Author, Ming the Merciless, Op/Ed, Politics, Rants, Religion

In response to a statment that “unborn children” have a right to life:

“But no one has the right to live off another human being against their will either, which is why we don’t have legislation forcing the donation of blood, marrow, and other other organs. One thing recognized in the civilized nations of the world is an individual’s–man or woman (at least in theory)–basic right to physical sovereignty. This is also why we outlaw slavery.

You may find abortion morally reprehensible, unconscionable, and even an offense worthy of eternal damnation, but if the argument is that a fetus qualifies as a person with all the attendant rights and protections thereof, it must also be subject to the same responsibilities and limitations. And one of those limitations is that it may not force the involuntary physical or biological servitude of another, regardless of the cost to the fetus. Just as you cannot force someone else to donate bone marrow to you even if you would die without it.

The choice to allow another person to use your body as a life support system, and to face all the attendant physical dangers that places you in, should always reside with you, and you alone. It’s a decision that you should be able to make for yourself, taking into account your beliefs, your circumstances, and what is physically, mentally, and emotionally the best choice for you without a course of action being forced on you by the state, a religion (and not necessarily your own, at that), or another person.

And approaching it intelligently, that also entails a responsible society that will provide for the needs of a child (including food, shelter, clothing, and education) when the parent or parents are unable to do so, and without removing the child from the parent–the pat suggestion that someone birth children in order to relenquish them for adoption if they are unable to provide for them turns my stomach, especially considering all the unwanted, unloved children already in existence that are suffering in orphanages and foster care systems. Unfortunately the ability to provide for a child often weighs heavily in the decision to have an abortion. I personally find that a terrible affront to the concept of choice.”

(Quoted with permission of the author)

Babyboomers

Posted by High Priestess Kang as Observations, Op/Ed

…also known as the most narcissistic generation of all time.

Because there is absolutely nothing on television tonight, the remote finds itself to the Hitler History Channel. Tom Brokaw’s documentary, 1968, is airing.

As a history buff, I will watch a respectable documentary (hold the dramatic reenactments, kplzthnx) about mostly anything. I qualify that because I really don’t want to watch the Civil War documentary cooking show, “Sherman’s cookin’ with fa-fa-fire!”

Back to the documentary. All you need to know is that it is the usual pandering, self-service drivel that is spoon fed to the Babyboomers. Advertising wonks and bored businessmen do this periodically, typically when they cannot find that extra benjamin in their wallet, to shake down some middle aged, arthritic, weekend warrior. I mean…let’s be realistic…we’re running out of ways to exploit this generation. How much lower can we go than Erectile Dysfunction drugs and therapies for Restless Leg Syndrome?

A commercial break, or reprieve, comes on. Lo and behold, it’s an advertisement catering directly to the Babyboomers; an internet community called, “Boomertowne.com” (and I quote from the commercial, “that’s town with an E!”). Out of morbid curiosity, I load the tripe. It’s cartoonish, a la The Jetsons. It’s geared towards - you guessed it - history’s greatest narcissists and looks to be some sort of irrelevant FaceBook for a quickly becoming irrelevant group of people (much to their chagrin). Naturally this website is supported by advertisements for Levitra.

Throughout the cycles of generations, there is one that typically gets lost. The, “Modern” era’s answer to that is Generation X. Surly. Snarky. Bitter. Pessimistic. Jaded. My generation (No, g-ddammit - not that shitty song by The Who). I’m not jealous that my generation is going to be the one that is overlooked. I’m relieved.

I’m relieved because I’m not going to be a shell of my former greatness, a cartoon, a mockery, a giant cliche, a monument to morphing into what one so bitterly resented as a child.

I could go on about my absolute disgust for the Boomers. I could. I just don’t want to.

But one last thing - Boomertowne, like the people it embodies, slowed down my laptop and caused the browser to crash. How fitting.

What is wrong with us???

Posted by High Priestess Kang as Observations, Personal, The Think Tank

…or what isn’t wrong with us.

I have spent a good portion of the day pondering the commentary left in response to my, “It’s 1984 all over again” post (colleagues, management, etc… I spent a good part of the day pecking away at an RFP). Whilst, “misery makes company” I remain utterly confounded by the fact that this feeling of loathing and doom is shared by many accomplished, professional women. This begs the question, “What is wrong with us?”

Men do not appear to walk around with this secret shame, this fear of failure. Well…not overtly or not that they would ever admit to being a professional impostor, a fraud or an unwanted stuffy. There is a whiff of braggadocio as they saunter through the office, looking like King of Commerce, Lord of the Cubicle, Prince of Fluorescent Lighting, Master of the Blackberry. It may be acceptable for a man to fret when corporate right-sizing is announced, “How on earth am I to be strong like bull and provide for my barefoot and pregnant wife when I’m not earning any cabbage?” It is not, however, acceptable for men to walk around thinking, “Am I out of my league? Will I be exposed? Am I the Peter Principle personified?”

Or do they?

What components of our intrinsic nature make us women not only question our abilities, accomplishments and talents, but vocalize said wonderment? Studies have proven that women, much to the chagrin of men, do not chatter more than men. Although, we are more nurturing which may be the key in our fostering a safe forum for others to vent their spleens.

Who the phuck really knows.

Perhaps I’m not being fair to my male counterparts. Perhaps I’m creating the hackneyed tempest in a teapot in a feeble attempt to cope with my own flaws. Or…perhaps I’m on to something. It’s probably a combination of all of the previous statements. Whatever it is, I remain just as confused by the commentary of exceptionally accomplished women as I remain confused and stymied about my new job.

My friend, the economics whiz, whom I shall refer to as Adam Smith, suggested the, “Impostor Syndrome.” Adam Smith holds two degrees at the tender age of early 30s and is looking to pursue her MBA at a sub-Ivy. She is the embodiment of those women you really want to hate because not only are they truly gifted and talented, they’re nice. So nice that you cannot find it within yourself to hate them and you make sure your eyes and ears are open when in their company in the event that you might actually learn something.

Henrythepenguin, the self-made CFO, feels as if she is part of the unwanted stuffed animal club…group of professional misfits. Henry…the woman who has obtained everything through sheer determination, grit and mind-numbingly hard, hard work.

Not attempting to compare myself with the above, but I’m not exactly a professional slouch. Yes…I could apply myself a little more and not hide behind my, “artistic” temperament but even the worst boss of all time said, “When you’re on your game, there’s no one better.” He said that whilst gritting his teeth, mind you.

How much more validation do we need? From what source do we draw upon? Obviously, looking at sheepskins on the wall and beefy CVs certainly isn’t validation enough. Neither is a glowing review, a big fat raise nor a promotion.

I wonder if men really do suffer from a similar affliction. I wonder if my paragraph above was far too nasty and unfair. Or maybe men are simply preoccupied with the every fifteen second sexual thought? Or fishing. Or football. Or ball scratching.

Again. I’m being unfair. I’m being an ugly, jealous, green-eyed monster (instead of a red-eyed, green monster). I should never think of myself as suffering from penis envy. I do, however, find myself suffering from confidence envy.

This, among many other times (like dating, relationships, marriage, etc…), is one of those times where I wish I could infiltrate the male mind to gain a better understanding with respect to professional confidence. Perhaps they disguise their fears in different ways. Perhaps they fret in different ways.

Then they disappear to the bathroom for a quick wank (is it any wonder why males will not provide feedback to this post).

Alas…I’m off to exert my control through the almighty (or in the case of our currency, the alfeeble) dollar. Somewhere, out there, is a Diane von Furstenburg coat which needs to move into my closet.

Bitch Plz

Posted by High Priestess Kang as News, Op/Ed

What is wrong with this country? What is wrong with our society?

Michael Vick has apparently been persecuted by the man because he’s black. That’s right! Whitey is stickin’ it to Vick because dog fighting is part of the black culture.

You know, folks, there has to be a limit to playing the race card. Just think of the boy who cried wolf too many times, shall we?

It was borderline ridiculous when people said OJ was prosecuted because he is black. It is absolutely hysterical to think that Michael Vick got rail-roaded into the deal. What would the critics say if they saw evidence? Mark Furman was in da hizz-ous?

Note to the NAACP: Quit while you’re ahead. Srsly.

Vick case divides African-American leaders
NAACP rift reported over whether to support quarterback’s reinstatement

The case against Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick has exposed a split within both the NAACP and the larger African-American community, as some activists condemn Vick’s role in the deaths of fighting dogs and others cast him as a victim of a racist justice system.

Vick, 27, is expected to plead guilty Monday to federal charges in connection with a dogfighting operation on his property in Surry County, Va. He could face up to five years in prison. Two associates of Vick’s who have pleaded guilty to conspiracy said Vick helped executed at least eight underperforming dogs.

A spokesman for Vick told NBC News on Thursday that Vick, who is black, was grateful to the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP for a statement of support issued by its president, the Rev. R.L. White. White said Wednesday that Vick should not be barred from playing professional football once he completes his prison sentence.

“It is regrettable to us that Michael Vick had to settle for a plea bargain,” White said. “All of us, the fans of Mr. Vick, had hoped for a more favorable outcome.”

White acknowledged that he had previously used the word “lynching” to describe public reaction to the prosecution of Vick, but he said he “honored” Vick’s decision to seek a plea agreement as the “most beneficial course.” He denied that he was “playing the race card,” saying he simply wanted to make sure Vick was “treated fairly by the public and by the court system.”

National NAACP withholds judgment
NBC’s Kevin Corke reported that White’s comments created a rift within the NAACP, whose national office has taken no position on Vick’s potential reinstatement to the National Football League.

Vick “certainly was in control of his actions at all times and should be held accountable for what he did,” Dennis Courtland Hayes, interim president of the national NAACP, said Thursday in an interview with MSNBC’s Amy Robach.

Hayes rejected the contention that dogfighting was an acceptable part of urban black culture, as celebrated in rap and hip-hop videos like “Grand Champ” by DMX or “99 Problems” by Jay-Z.

“I thinks that’s a product of stereotypical thinking,” Hayes said.

“I’m from the black community. I live in the ’hood when I visit my mother in Indiana. I travel the streets of African-American communities in Baltimore, and this is all news to me,” he said. “I think people should hesitate to conclude that it’s something cultural with the African-American community. It exists everywhere.”

Racial element arose from beginning
Discussion of whether Vick was being singled out for special attention because he was a famous black man erupted almost from the moment the allegations against him arose in April, and much public reaction appeared to split along racial lines.

When several hundred people turned out last month for a rally supporting Vick in Atlanta, only about 50 were white, said Gerald Rose, executive director of the New Order National Human Rights Organization, based in the city. Rose said the overwhelmingly black turnout reflected anger among African-Americans that black men who stumbled came under disproportional public judgment.

Alton H. Maddox, a New York civil rights activist who was disbarred for his role in the Tawana Brawley case, argued that Vick was being targeted because “he is not an assimilationist.”

“No one can mistake Vick for Tiger Woods,” Maddox wrote in an editorial in the New York Amsterdam News, a black newspaper. “In sports, they are both performing a ‘white man’s job.’ Vick, however, is doing it on the Black side. This is like a Black man rubbing salt in the white man’s wound.”

Most recently, the Rev. Al Sharpton, a two-time Democratic presidential candidate, charged that a star white athlete never would have been prosecuted for the same crime.

Like Hayes, Sharpton has denounced images of dogfighting in popular black culture, and he signed a letter along with hip-hop executive Russell Simmons condemning the activity as ignorant and cruel.

But at the same time, Sharpton argued that the prosecution of Vick was overkill.

“If the police caught Brett Favre (a white quarterback for the Green Bay Packers) running a dolphin-fighting ring out of his pool, where dolphins with spears attached to their foreheads fought each other, would they bust him? Of course not,” Sharpton wrote Tuesday on his personal blog.

“They would get his autograph, commend him on his tightly spiraled forward passes, then bet on one of his dolphins.”

Blacks urged to reject ‘street culture’
Other prominent black commentators dismiss that argument, however.

Hayes, of the NAACP, maintained that such sentiments were misplaced, saying African-Americans’ legitimate grievances against the criminal justice system should not excuse the very real crimes to which Vick has pleaded guilty.

“What we have to understand is the backdrop,” he said on MSNBC. “We have to understand that what we’re hearing expressed by some African-Americans is their anger and their hurt, distrust, in a criminal justice system that they feel treats them like animals.”

“Certainly, Mr. Vick was not a victim,” Hayes added.

Bryan Burwell, a sports columnist for MSNBC.com who is black, echoed Hayes’ assessment, arguing that it is impossible to claim that “Michael Vick was unjustly persecuted.”

“The negative images that are embraced by too many young (black) men in our society needs to be changed to make them understand that intelligence is right and ignorance is wrong,” Burwell wrote this week. “We need to alter the perception so that it’s cool to be smart and the thug and gangster lifestyle is wrong. When your friends can’t understand that, they aren’t your true friends.”

And in an open letter addressed to “young, black men,” ESPN columnist Jemele Hill, who also is black, wrote:

“I caution you not to make Vick a martyr. Do not applaud him for taking his comeuppance like some modern-day gangster. Do not blame others for Vick’s predicament when he alone should be held accountable for his actions.

“Let this historic unraveling be a wake-up call for the young, black men caught up in the same lifestyle that claimed Vick. Let his prison sentence send the message that a continued allegiance to street culture successfully keeps young, black men frighteningly behind in American society.”

Fatally Flawed

Posted by High Priestess Kang as News, Observations, Op/Ed

…to borrow a term from Turdblossom, himself.

Finally!  It appears that the brain of the average, American worker-bee is showing signs of life.  Them synapses are a firin’, y’all!

I am thrilled to see a backlash against corporations who are making mandates on employee health.  This setting of standards is not only entirely unrealistic (how, exactly, are you going to ensure that someone who collected her $150.00 incentive for quitting smoking isn’t going to run out, cash the check and buy a carton of fags, after all), it invades privacy and puts limitations on how people can live their lives.

I appreciate an employer’s concern regarding skyrocketing healthcare costs.  The average is, at minimum, an increase of 7% annually.  Acting like big brother isn’t necessarily the answer.

What is?  Haven’t really a clue at this point (other than my typical, beat up the source of the cost, the supplier).  At least the workforce is beginning to take umbrage at corporations’ attempts to legislate off-duty hours and activities, though.

Privacy is true price of healthy worker discounts
Even fit folks should resist the temptation of lower deductibles

The latest fad in American health care is to give discounts to workers who are healthy. Many corporate CEOs and their benefits department managers are showing enthusiasm for the idea that workers who don’t take care of themselves ought to pay more for health insurance.

Like a lot of temptations, this one is attractive. Why should you pay the same rate for insurance as that bloated, pasty oaf of a co-worker down the hall?

But cupcakes, beer and cheeseburgers are not the only temptations you should try to resist. Paying less for being healthy is an enticement you ought to oppose as well.

The plan just announced by the giant HMO UnitedHealthcare is a good example of why some bosses are licking their chops at the fad. Workers can lower their annual deductible (the amount you pay each year for health care or drugs before insurance kicks in) if they take company-administered tests every year to check blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and weight and to see if they smoke. For each health goal employees meet, $500 is knocked off their deductible.

This bright idea comes all dressed up in the attractive language of personal responsibility. Who could possibly be against that? If your boss wants to pay you to stop unhealthy behavior, how could that be bad? You win, the boss wins, the insurance company wins. So what’s the problem?

A dumb idea
The idea that your boss or insurance company wants you healthy just because they care is, upon serious reflection, dumb. What your boss cares about is that you get to work, work hard, stay late and don’t jack up the price of the health plan. And the insurers may just be looking for a way to shift exploding health care costs.

Sure, it’s great that companies are starting to jump on board the movement for a fitter workforce. Access to fitness equipment, a less stressful workplace and an office that is designed to protect your health would help employees meet important health goals. But you may ask, “Wouldn’t that require turning the workplace into a health club?” My point exactly. So unless employers offer you time to get to the gym, forget it.

It’s also unlikely that your boss will tell you to stop working through lunch or to quit moving heavy objects to protect your back. And it is also pretty doubtful that you want your boss to hire people to poke and prod you and to find out what you’re doing when you’re not at work.

Think about it. Do you really want your bosses and the insurance company giving you physicals and snooping around in your health care records to find out the most intimate details of your mental, sexual and physical health? It’s a pretty high price in terms of privacy to pay for a discount.

No end to policing
The emerging movement toward corporate health fascism is no friend to the chubby and wheezy among us. But, if allowed, corporate health policing won’t stop there.

How long will it be before slackers will be told that discounts are over, and instead, surcharges on them will begin? Who will be next? The guy who skis on the weekends? The woman who wears high heels? What about the family that decides to have a baby, knowing the child may have sickle-cell disease or cystic fibrosis? Will companies be willing to put up with that sort of personal “irresponsibility”?

At least one employer is already headed down the punishment path.  Clarian Health, an Indianapolis-based hospital system, recently announced that starting in 2009 it will fine employees $10 per paycheck if their body mass index, blood pressure or glucose levels are too high.

HMOs and insurance companies have proven completely unable to contain rising health care costs. This is mainly due to the fact that costs are fueled by an aging population using more services, an increased reliance on technologies and drugs whose prices are out of control, topped off by a massive dose of error, fraud and administrative waste.

Unless we address those problems, it is only a matter of time before the smiling hand of management takes away the discounts and starts raising deductibles and issuing fines on the grounds that no employee who is sick or has a sick spouse or kid is blameless.

If you ski, fly a private airplane, drive go-karts, ride a motorcycle without a helmet, engage in risky sexual behavior, forgo a flu shot, sunbathe, eat rare meat, kayak, scuba dive or own a gun, you are defying medical wisdom and choosing to engage in unhealthy behavior.

Admittedly, no HMO or corporate health plan is going after those behaviors — yet.

So lose weight. Stay active. Get enough rest. Wear your seatbelt. Don’t do drugs. Don’t drink too much. Stop smoking. Do these things not because your employer is ready to slap a higher deductible on you if you don’t. Do them because you and your doctor know these are the healthy things to do.

Thoughts on Immigration

Posted by High Priestess Kang as Op/Ed, Politics

Yeah…it hasn’t been in the news much lately.  Kinda hard to worry about illegal immigrants when Chertoff has gut feelings, isn’t it?

Last night, before bed, I was reading PJ O’Rourke’s, “Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence and a Bad Haircut.”  Basically, it’s a compendium of articles he has written based on his wild youth, his lust for cars and his deep belief in the ideals of true conservatism.  Note:  not neoconservatism.

One of the chapters I read was titled, “The Caribbean Refugee Crisis” which appears to be a reprint of an article written for The American Spectator in 1994.  I cannot be arsed to contact The American Spectator or PJ O’Rourke to request permission to write the entire thing.  Therefore, I’m just going to highlight some passages which struck me as interesting.

Ed Crane, president of the Cato Institute, the redoubtable libertarian think tank, and I were having a cocktail hour chat about whether the Clinton administration should be sewn up in a sack full of cats or locked in a small, warm room with Michael Dukakis.  …Ed made a perpicacious comment about Cuban rafters and Haitian boat people currently being persecuted by our Coast Guard on order from the commander in chief.  “Damn it,” he said, “these people get onboard things made out of oil drums, orange crates, balsa wood, and cardboard boxes; the cross hundreds of miles of shark-infested ocean, suffer hunger, thirst and exposure, and brave treacherous currents, high seas, and storms just to come to America.  I say they’re citizens.  …These are the kind of people we want in America!”

The article goes on to make statements such as:

“…these are not the kind of people our infinitely compassionate, sharing and caring, hug-mongering sop of a president wants in America.  Bill Clinton has blocked the only exit from the totalitarian nation of Cuba, closed an escape route held open by every US Administration - *Democratic and Republican - for thirty-four years.”

“Clinton’s excuse for refusing sanctuary to the Haitians and Cubans is that they are economic refugees.”

The article continues with the indictment of the Liberal belief that society should help those that cannot help themselves.  The article continues to state that those who don’t need help are the enemy of the Liberal code of law.

What utter bullshit.

I deeply adore and respect PJ O’Rourke.  I do not always agree with him, but I can appreciate his point of view.

Until last night.

Let’s look at the current state of immigration in the United States.  It is still deeply flawed.  The system is broken beyond any sort of immediate repair.  Our only option is to grant amnesty and start over from scratch.  It is all we can do, folks.

What strikes me as the most aggravating, most upsetting bit is the extreme disgust and loathing for the Democrats.  Back in 1994, the Democrats were the purists.  The Democrats were the racists.  Bill Clinton didn’t want those foreign speaking, black and brown folks coming on to our shores.  Because…heaven forbid…as PJ O’Rourke says, “They will open business and vote Republican.”

What if we simply inverted the two political parties referenced in the snippets I referenced above?  Would we not have the exact representation of modern day politics.  Yes.  Yes we would.  And it goes to show…most Republicans obviously fear anyone who is not male, white and christian.

Many thanks to PJ O’Rourke for this gem of an article.  It made proving my point about why Republicans need to go to hell in a hand-basket all the easier.  Not that the Democrats are any better, mind you.  But the Democrats don’t exactly run around with labels like, “Moral Majority,” do they?  You don’t hear Democrat think tanks coming up with bullshit like, “Family Values.” 

Nope. 

We Democrats, we Liberal Elites, are far too busy stepping on our own dicks and throwing tantrums over a sociopathic president who refuses to listen to the body electorate to come up with snappy little catch phrases which seduce the dumbest of Mid-Western and Southern voters.

*another thing.  It really grinds my gears to hear the Democrat party referred to as, “Democratic” in descriptive form.  A process is democratic.  A society is democratic.  The party is, “Democrat.”  Dammit.

“Socialism”

Posted by High Priestess Kang as Op/Ed

What springs to mind when the average, free-market toady hears that word?  The Soviet Union?  Che Guevara?  Radical, White Hate Groups?  Any sort of oppressive regime that has been entrenched in our “democratic” minds as children?  Basically, when Americans or any other member of a democratic society hears the word, “socialism” we run for cover.  We seek safety in the bomb shelter.  We think someone is going to try to invade our precious soil and make us conform to something we normally eschew.

The problem is, the term socialism has been skewed, twisted and altered to such a significant extent that anyone growing up in the modern, western world will immediately take up arms and wait for the next world war.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of watching Michael Moore’s, Sicko.  Fantastic movie.  However, it was entirely not earth shattering considering the amount of time I spent as a Purchasing Agent Extraordinaire in a public healthcare facility.  Perhaps everyone else in the movie theatre had their collective jaws drop to the sticky, candy and spit covered theatre floor.  Not me.

In Sicko, Michael Moore explores several government sponsored and control medical systems.  The United Kingdom, Canada and Cuba.  Yes.  Cuba.  Home of the evil communists.  These three examples all have universal healthcare.  Something that the American, free-market economy shuns.  Why?  Because, as I have oft mentioned, Pharma companies and Insurance companies have far too much to lose in the spirit of gross profiteering.

Gone are the days of a benevolent society that places value on every living being.  Gone are the days of a benevolent society that wants the simple, basic needs of its citizens accommodated.  When pushed for change, when the citizens act up and speak up, they are slapped with the label of, “Socialist.”

I am happy to say, with respect to universal healthcare, I, High Priestess Kang, am redder than red.  Bleeding all over my keyboard.  I, High Priestess Kang, am a Socialist.

Let’s consider this.  Sweden is a Socialist-Capitalist society.  Swedes are welcome to earn as much income as they wish.  Contrary to popular belief, not all of their income is directly the property of the government.  Yes, they are taxed out the wazoo.  Not only are their income taxes high, but the sales tax would make any good, free-market loving American sob and refuse to spend another penny.  What the free-market loving American fails to understand is the concept of ROI, though.

ROI is a term used in procurement and other financial disciplines.  It means Return on Investment. 

Now, let’s explore this with respect to universal healthcare.  If you were given the option to pay a few more points on income tax and a few more points on sales tax, yet you no longer had to pay health insurance premiums, copays, deductibles, co-insurance and any other stupid profiteering demand, would you do so?  What if the end result was the same healthcare you were receiving today? 

Furthermore, what if the costs decreased to the customer and the care increased?

If the government was able to collectively negotiate for all therapies, devices, treatments and office visits, imagine the volume discount.  Imagine…your costs would go down because the volume from one buyer would be significantly higher.

Hmmmmm.

Those who actually understand the business model will run screaming, “Ok…but we’ll have to wait forever!  Just look at the wait time in Canada and Sweden!  Look at the wait time for the NHS in the UK!”

To that, I say, “shut the phuck up, chicken little.”

Those who scream about waiting periods have obviously never tried to visit a specialist in the United States.  Where I live, there is an approximate lead time of six to nine months to see a rheumatologist.  And I live in an area with four major hospitals within spitting distance.  In an area where there are two very highly regarded university medical centers.

My friend, Kate, had to wait approximately three months to see an endocrinologist.  In Atlanta.

I have oft explained that we will have to wait to see a physician, not because of the financial model of healthcare, but because the demand for physicians out numbers the amount of available physicians to provide care.

What?  No responses from the libertarian-esque peanut gallery?  Usually, those examples shut those voices of dissent up.

There is no perfect system, no perfect model.  However, examining our model, we must admit that it is beyond flawed.  It has failed.  It has failed every single American, regardless of social financial standing.  It is going to continue to fail.  Even worse, we have a large group of retirees who will soon be drawing on the government sponsored, insurance known as Medicare and Medicaid.  Why is it…most Americans oppose government sponsored and supported systems until *they* need them?

Socialised medicine, universal healthcare, medicine for everyone, whatever you want to call it, works effectively.  It serves the sole citizen well.  It serves the society well.

It is high time we take the stigma from socialism and flush it down the toilet.  It is high time we demand more from our government.  It is high time we rely less on profiteering, privately held businesses.  It is high time we take care of not only ourselves, but our fellow citizen.

The results, otherwise, are tragic.

So…run along, when you have the chance, and watch, “Sicko.”  Please.  For your own sake, see this phucking movie.  Now.

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

Posted by High Priestess Kang as News, Op/Ed, Politics

Perhaps I have a romanticized view of the Fourth Estate.  Ok…I must have a romanticized view of the Fourth Estate because this story has me so angry, I would kick the dog if he wouldn’t look up at me with those giant Labrador eyes once I finished with the kicking.

Granted, Journalists are people and citizens.  But this sort of behavior taints any sort of neutrality they should possess in order to effectively do their jobs.  Their job of informing the public without some sort of political slant.

Boo hiss!

Journalists dole out cash to politicians (quietly)
News organizations diverge on handling of political activism by staff

BOSTON - A CNN reporter gave $500 to John Kerry’s campaign the same month he was embedded with the U.S. Army in Iraq. An assistant managing editor at Forbes magazine not only sent $2,000 to Republicans, but also volunteers as a director of an ExxonMobil-funded group that questions global warming. A junior editor at Dow Jones Newswires gave $1,036 to the liberal group MoveOn.org and keeps a blog listing “people I don’t like,” starting with George Bush, Pat Robertson, the Christian Coalition, the NRA and corporate America (”these are the people who are really in charge”).

Whether you sample your news feed from ABC or CBS (or, yes, even NBC and MSNBC), whether you prefer Fox News Channel or National Public Radio, The Wall Street Journal or The New Yorker, some of the journalists feeding you are also feeding cash to politicians, parties or political action committees.

MSNBC.com identified 144 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 17 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.

The donors include CNN’s Guy Raz, now covering the Pentagon for NPR, who gave to Kerry the same month he was embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq; New Yorker war correspondent George Packer; a producer for Bill O’Reilly at Fox; MSNBC TV host Joe Scarborough; political writers at Vanity Fair; the editor of The Wall Street Journal’s weekend section; local TV anchors in Washington, Minneapolis, Memphis and Wichita; the ethics columnist at The New York Times; and even MTV’s former presidential campaign correspondent.

‘If someone had murdered Hitler …’
There’s a longstanding tradition that journalists don’t cheer in the press box. They have opinions, like anyone else, but they are expected to keep those opinions out of their work. Because appearing to be fair is part of being fair, most mainstream news organizations discourage marching for causes, displaying political bumper stickers or giving cash to candidates.

Traditionally, many news organizations have applied the rules to only political reporters and editors. The ethic was summed up by Abe Rosenthal, the former New York Times editor, who is reported to have said, “I don’t care if you sleep with elephants as long as you don’t cover the circus.”

But with polls showing the public losing faith in the ability of journalists to give the news straight up, some major newspapers and TV networks are clamping down. They now prohibit all political activity — aside from voting — no matter whether the journalist covers baseball or proofreads the obituaries. The Times in 2003 banned all donations, with editors scouring the FEC records regularly to watch for in-house donors. In 2005, The Chicago Tribune made its policy absolute. CBS did the same last fall. And The Atlantic Monthly, where a senior editor gave $500 to the Democratic Party in 2004, says it is considering banning all donations. After MSNBC.com contacted Salon.com about donations by a reporter and a former executive editor, this week Salon banned donations for all its staff.

What changed? First came the conservative outcry labeling the mainstream media as carrying a liberal bias. The growth of talk radio and cable slugfests gave voice to that claim. The Iraq war fueled distrust of the press from both sides. Finally, it became easier for the blogging public to look up the donors.

As the policy at the Times puts it: “Given the ease of Internet access to public records of campaign contributors, any political giving by a Times staff member would carry a great risk of feeding a false impression that the paper is taking sides.”

But news organizations don’t agree on where to draw the ethical line.

Giving to candidates is allowed at Fox, Forbes, Time, The New Yorker, Reuters — and at Bloomberg News, whose editor in chief, Matthew Winkler, set the tone by giving to Al Gore in 2000. Bloomberg has nine campaign donors on the list; they’re allowed to donate unless they cover politics directly.

Donations and other political activity are strictly forbidden at The Washington Post, ABC, CBS, CNN and NPR.

Politicking is discouraged, but there is some wiggle room, at Dow Jones, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report. (Compare policies here.)

NBC, MSNBC and MSNBC.com say they don’t discourage or encourage campaign contributions, but they require employees to report any potential conflicts of interest in advance and receive permission of the senior editor. (MSNBC.com is a joint venture of NBC Universal and Microsoft; its employees are required to adhere to NBC News policies regarding political contributions.)

Many of the donating journalists cover topics far from politics: food, fashion, sports. Some touch on politics from time to time: Even a film critic has to review Gore’s documentary on global warming. And some donors wield quiet influence behind the scenes, such as the wire editors at newspapers in Honolulu and Riverside, Calif., who decide which state, national and international news to publish.

The pattern of donations, with nearly nine out of 10 giving to Democratic candidates and causes, appears to confirm a leftward tilt in newsrooms — at least among the donors, who are a tiny fraction of the roughly 100,000 staffers in newsrooms across the nation.

The donors said they try to be fair in reporting and editing the news. One of the recurring themes in the responses is that it’s better for journalists to be transparent about their beliefs, and that editors who insist on manufacturing an appearance of impartiality are being deceptive to a public that already knows journalists aren’t without biases.

“Our writers are citizens, and they’re free to do what they want to do,” said New Yorker editor David Remnick, who has 10 political donors at his magazine. “If what they write is fair, and they respond to editing and counter-arguments with an open mind, that to me is the way we work.”

The openness didn’t extend, however, to telling the public about the donations. Apparently none of the journalists disclosed the donations to readers, viewers or listeners. Few told their bosses, either.

Several of the donating journalists said they had no regrets, whatever the ethical concerns.

“Probably there should be a rule against it,” said New Yorker writer Mark Singer, who wrote the magazine’s profile of Howard Dean during the 2004 campaign, then gave $250 to America Coming Together and its get-out-the-vote campaign to defeat President Bush. “But there’s a rule against murder. If someone had murdered Hitler — a journalist interviewing him had murdered him — the world would be a better place. I only feel good, as a citizen, about getting rid of George Bush, who has been the most destructive president in my lifetime. I certainly don’t regret it.”

Conservative-leaning journalists tended to greater generosity. Ann Stewart Banker, a producer for Bill O’Reilly at Fox News Channel, gave $5,000 to Republicans. Financial columnist Liz Peek at The New York Sun gave $90,000 to the Grand Old Party.

A few journalists let their enthusiasm extend beyond the checkbook. A Fox TV reporter in Omaha, Calvert Collins, posted a photo on Facebook.com with her cozying up to a Democratic candidate for Congress. She urged her friends, “Vote for him Tuesday, Nov. 7!” She also gave him $500. She said she was just trying to build rapport with the candidates. (And what builds rapport more effectively than $500 and a strapless gown?)

‘You call that a campaign contribution?’
Sometimes a donation isn’t a donation, at least in the eye of the donor.

“I don’t make campaign contributions,” said Jean A. Briggs, who gave a total of $2,000 to the Republican Party and Republican candidates, most recently this March. “I’m the assistant managing editor of Forbes magazine.”

When asked about the Republican National Committee donations, she replied, “You call that a campaign contribution? It’s not putting money into anyone’s campaign.”

(For the record: The RNC gave $25 million to the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004.)

A spokeswoman for Forbes said the magazine allows contributions.

Briggs also is listed as a board member of the Property and Environment Research Center, which advocates “market solutions to environmental problems.” PERC has received funding from ExxonMobil, and tries to get the industry’s views into textbooks and the media. The organization’s Web site says, “She exposes fellow New York journalists to PERC ideas and also brings a journalistic perspective to PERC’s board. As a board member, she seeks to help spread the word about PERC’s thorough research and fresh ideas.”

Americans don’t trust the news or newspeople as much as they used to. The crisis of faith is traced by the surveys of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. More than seven in 10 (72 percent) say news organizations tend to favor one side, the highest level of skepticism in the poll’s 20-year history. Despite the popularity of Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann, two-thirds of those polled say they prefer to get news from sources without a particular point of view.

‘My readers know my views’
George Packer is The New Yorker’s man in Iraq.

The war correspondent for the magazine since 2003 and author of the acclaimed 2005 book “The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq,” Packer gave $750 to the Democratic National Committee in August 2004, and then $250 in 2005 to Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett, an anti-war Democrat who campaigned unsuccessfully for a seat in Congress from Ohio.

In addition to his reported pieces, Packer also writes commentary for the magazine, such as his June 11 piece ruing Bush’s “shallow, unreflective character.”

“My readers know my views on politics and politicians because I make no secret of them in my comments for The New Yorker and elsewhere,” Packer said. “If giving money to a politician prejudiced my ability to think and write honestly, I wouldn’t do it. Fortunately, it doesn’t.”

His colleague Judith Thurman wrote the New Yorker’s sympathetic profile of Teresa Heinz Kerry, published on Sept. 27, 2004. Ten days later, the Democratic National Committee recorded Thurman’s donation of $1,000. She did not return phone calls.

Their editor, Remnick, said that the magazine’s writers don’t do straight reporting. “Their opinions are out there,” Remnick said. “There’s nothing hidden.” So why not disclose campaign donations to readers? “Should every newspaper reporter divulge who they vote for?”

Besides, there’s the magazine’s famously rigorous editing. The last bulwark against bias slipping into The New Yorker is the copy department, whose chief editor, Ann Goldstein, gave $500 in October to MoveOn.org, which campaigns for Democrats and against President Bush. “That’s just me as a private citizen,” she said. As for whether donations are allowed, Goldstein said she hadn’t considered it. “I’ve never thought of myself as working for a news organization.”

Embedded in Iraq, giving to Kerry
Guy Raz does work for a news organization.

As the Jerusalem correspondent for CNN, he was embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq in June 2004, when he gave $500 to John Kerry.

He didn’t supply his occupation or employer to the Kerry campaign, so his donation is listed in federal records with only his name and London address. Now he covers the Pentagon for NPR. Both CNN and NPR forbid political activity.

“I covered international news and European Union stories. I did not cover U.S. news or politics,” Raz said in an e-mail to MSNBC.com. When asked how one could define U.S. news so it excludes the U.S. war in Iraq, Raz didn’t reply.

Margot Patterson not only covered the war and gave money to stop it — she also signed a petition against it.

Covering the war, opposing the war
Patterson has covered the Iraq war and anti-war movements for the National Catholic Reporter, an independent weekly newspaper in Kansas City.

She gave to anti-war Democrats: $2,100 to Sen. Claire McCaskill, $1,000 to Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, $250 to Howard Dean and $800 to the Democratic Party.

And she signed a petition and paid to have it published as “KC Metro Citizens Oppose War On Iraq!”

Patterson said the danger isn’t the journalist who reveals a bias by making a campaign contribution, but journalists who quietly hold to their biases.

“I feel my responsibility as a journalist is to be fair to the people and issues involved and to be as accurate as possible,” she said. “When I see my country embark on a course of action that I think disastrous to its future and fatal to its citizens, I think it my duty to do my utmost to stop it.”

She didn’t disclose her political activities to her readers, or her editor, Tom Roberts. He said he wasn’t sure about campaign contributions, but “a reporter signing a petition crosses the line to activism.”

‘The Ethicist’
At this point, we need a journalism ethicist. How about Orville Schell? He favorably reviewed Eric Alterman’s book “What Liberal Media?: The Truth About Bias and the News.” And this Feb. 9, while he was still dean of the journalism school at the University of California, Berkeley, Schell gave $1,000 to Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Or we could ask Randy Cohen, who writes the syndicated column “The Ethicist” for The New York Times. The former comedy writer gave $585 to MoveOn.org in 2004 when it was organizing get-out-the-vote efforts to defeat Bush. Cohen said he understands the Times policy and won’t make donations again, but he had thought of MoveOn.org as no more out of bounds than the Boy Scouts.

“We admire those colleagues who participate in their communities — help out at the local school, work with Little League, donate to charity,” Cohen said in an e-mail. “But no such activity is or can be non-ideological. Few papers would object to a journalist donating to the Boy Scouts or joining the Catholic Church. But the former has an official policy of discriminating against gay children; the latter has views on reproductive rights far more restrictive than those of most Americans. Should reporters be forbidden to support those groups? I’d say not.” (Update: The newspaper in Spokane, Wash., The Spokesman-Review, decided today to drop Cohen’s column, which was scheduled to begin running in the paper on Saturday. The editor explains that if Cohen had been employed by the paper when he made the donation to MoveOn.org, he would have been suspended, at least.)

Tom Rosenstiel hasn’t given anyone a dime. The former media critic for The Los Angeles Times and director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, he co-wrote the classic book “The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect.”

Journalists have sometimes gone too far, Rosenstiel said, in withdrawing from civic life. “Is it a conflict of interest for the food editor to be the president of the PTA? Probably not,” he said. “You don’t want to make your journalists be zoo animals.”

Planet Journalism
But giving money to a candidate or party, he said, goes a big step beyond voting. “If you give money to a candidate, you are then rooting for that candidate. You’ve made an investment in that candidate. It can make it more difficult for someone to tell the news without fear or favor.

“The second reason,” Rosenstiel said, “it would create — even if you thought you could make that intellectual leap and not let your personal allegiance interfere with your professionalism — it creates an appearance of a conflict of interest. For journalists, that’s a real conflict.

“Giving money, you’re not doing the profession of journalism any good. All of the ethics of journalism are about trust. They don’t come from Planet Journalism. They come from the street.”

Rosenstiel said that even opinion journalists, such as columnists and arts critics, should not make donations, because there’s a difference between having opinions and being captive of a particular party or faction. Major newspapers, he said, have mostly gotten the message. You won’t find any journalists in the recent FEC records from The Washington Post, where executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. is so famously politically agnostic that he doesn’t vote, though he doesn’t prohibit his reporters from doing so. At least, you’ll find no Post journalists other than Stephen Hunter, the Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic, who gave to the Republican Party in 2004. (The film critic at The New York Times, Manohla Dargis, gave to Democrats when she was at the L.A. Times. She finds Michael Moore’s new film “persuasive.”)

Is it legal for companies to restrict donations? After all, the U.S. Supreme Court has classified campaign contributions as a form of speech. In the best-known case, in a state court, the News Tribune newspaper in Tacoma, Wash., reassigned to the night copy desk its education reporter, socialist and gay-rights activist Sandy Nelson, after she helped launch a ballot initiative for a nondiscrimination ordinance. In its 1997 decision (Nelson v. McClatchy Newspapers), the Washington state Supreme Court said the newspaper can enforce conflict-of-interest codes to preserve “the appearance of objectivity.” The reporter’s right to free speech, the court wrote, was trumped by the newspaper’s right to freedom of the press, to control its own news operations.

The San Francisco Chronicle transferred the editor who handled letters to the editor, William Pates, after his donations to Kerry were disclosed by a Web site in 2004. The Newspaper Guild objected, and after a time on the sports copy desk, he’s back in charge of deciding which letters get published.

Networks of influence
Fox News Channel is alone among the four major TV networks in placing no restrictions on campaign contributions. But there were surprises in the records for those who think everyone at Fox is a Republican. Researcher Codie Brooks, of Brit Hume’s “Special Report,” gave $2,600 last year to the Senate campaign of Harold Ford Jr., the Memphis Democrat. She said she raised much of the money from friends. “A lot of Fox employees have contributed to Democratic candidates,” she said. “I know I’m not the only one.”

At the Fox station in Washington, WTTG, anchor Laura Evans gave $500 in August to Democrat John Sarbanes, who was elected to the House from suburban Maryland. She initially told MSNBC.com that the donation was made by her husband, lobbyist Mike Manatos.

But the records show that her husband had already given the legal limit to Sarbanes. When asked about those records in a follow-up interview, she said, “I hadn’t talked to my husband. He reminded me that he had actually talked to me about this, because he had maxed out, could we write a check in my name. I said, sure. Now I remember having this conversation. It’s within Fox policy, it was OK for me to do it.”

Evans has also taken stands in line with Rep. Sarbanes’ votes opposing President Bush’s troop buildup in Iraq. On her blog on WTTG’s Web site, she commented recently on the congressional debate: “Everyone’s trying to save face here … all the while people are dying. Didn’t voters in November speak loud and clear, saying they’re tired of the fighting and want an end in sight?”

At ABC News, “Primetime” correspondent Mary Fulginiti gave $500 this February to Bill Richardson, a Democratic presidential candidate. The legal correspondent had been a white-collar defense attorney until she joined ABC in November. She said the donation “is not a reflection of my political views,” although she had given regularly to Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry. “Look, I’ve made a mistake here,” she said. “I’m a legal analyst — this is all new to me. I have been politically active in the past. This is when I was just starting out at ABC. I was still thinking as a lawyer.”

At NBC News, which says donations require approval of the senior editor, “Dateline” correspondent Victoria Corderi gave $250 in 2005 to Democratic Senate candidate Josh Rales in Maryland. “In a word, yikes!” she said when asked about the donation. Her husband wrote the check, she explained, when a friend threw a fundraising party. “I’d not even thought to consider that since my name is on our checks that I would appear in public records as a contributor.”

MSNBC TV host Joe Scarborough, a former Republican member of Congress from Florida, gave to a Republican congressional candidate from Oregon last year. In addition to anchoring an evening newscast, “Scarborough Country,” and a morning talk show on MSNBC, he provides political commentary for MSNBC, CNBC and NBC’s “Today Show.”

At CBS News, “Sunday Morning” correspondent Serena Altschul gave $5,000 to the Democratic Party in 2004. And producer Edward Forgotson gave $1,000 to Patrick Kennedy last June, two weeks after the Rhode Island congressman pleaded guilty to driving under the influence. Until September, the CBS policy discouraged, but allowed, contributions; now it forbids them, a spokeswoman said.

An ABC anchor in Wichita, Susan Peters, gave $600 to America Coming Together. At the CBS station in Memphis, anchor Markova Reed gave to a Democratic House candidate. And in Boston, host and former anchor Liz Walker gave $4,000 to Hillary Clinton and other Democrats; the station said this was allowed, because at the time she was hosting a public affairs show. Now that she’s back doing news segments, she can’t donate.

At the Fox TV station in Omaha, reporter Calvert Collins learned that there’s no such thing as a private, personal donation. And there’s no such thing as a personal page on Facebook, either.

‘Vote for him Tuesday, Nov. 7!’
Collins, a 23-year-old reporter for Fox station KPTM in Omaha, said that her father actually wrote the check for $500 to Jim Esch, the Democrat who lost a House race last fall.

“I had told my dad that I was friends with this man. He said, ‘Would you like me to make a donation?’ I said, ‘That’s up to you, but don’t do it in my name.’”

The reporter also posted a photo of herself with Esch on her Facebook page, with the note, “Vote for him Tuesday, Nov. 7!” After the photo was posted on a Nebraska political blog, she apologized but explained that “it is part of my job to build rapport with candidates and incumbents during election season.”

“I foolishly wrote, in jest, to vote for him, and forgot completely that that was on there,” Collins told MSNBC.com. “When my boss heard about it, I immediately removed it.”

“In a way, I’m glad this happened to me at age 23, and not 33,” Collins said, “and I will learn from it.”

‘I would never qualify what we do as journalism’
If you don’t trust the mainstream media, perhaps you prefer to get your news from, say, MTV.

The concept of staying off the field of battle was a completely new one to MTV’s “Choose or Lose” presidential campaign correspondent in 2000 and 2004. Gideon Yago, whose first appearance on MTV was on the game show “Idiot Savants,” gave $200 to Wesley Clark’s 2004 presidential campaign, $500 to the Democratic Party, and $500 to America Coming Together. MTV advertised his reports as unbiased.

“I don’t understand. Things that I do as a private citizen?” Yago asked. ” I mean, what the f—, man?”

Yago said he always tried to be fair. “We’re not a traditional news network in the sense of NBC or Fox or CBS,” he said. “I would never qualify what we do as journalism. But we’re sensitive about equal time or fairness.”

He said his reporting in Iraq for MTV prompted him to give $250 to VoteVets, which is running ads criticizing President Bush’s handling of Iraq. “After my second trip to Iraq in 2004, I felt the conventional news media was not doing a good enough job of conveying the horrors and the failures of the war in Iraq,” Yago said. “I was never told by my boss or anyone that we couldn’t give to a campaign.”

‘People I don’t like’
Although donations are banned for journalists at Dow Jones — if they would be considered newsworthy, the policy says — several staffers at The Wall Street Journal made donations. Senior special writer Henny Sender said she was just back from Asia and didn’t know the Journal’s rules when she gave $300 to Kerry in 2004. The editor of the Weekend Journal, Eben Shapiro, gave $1,000 to Democratic Victory 2004. He said the donation was actually the purchase of art at a fundraiser, and when he was reminded of the paper’s policy, he got a refund. Credit markets editor Billy Mallard at Dow Jones Newswires gave $200 to MoveOn.org in October and said he “thought MoveOn.org was OK because it wasn’t the Republican Party or Democratic Party.” Once MSNBC.com called, Mallard said, he realized that it was a partisan group and asked for a refund.

The tally of donors doesn’t include a group that gave money to defeat President Bush by paying to hear the Boss. In 2004, Bruce Springsteen and other musicians raised money for MoveOn.org and America Coming Together at a series of 34 concerts billed as “Vote for Change.” The ticket buyers included an MSNBC.com producer and more than 20 other journalists. Although all of the purchase price went to the effort to defeat Bush that fall, the intent may have been entirely musical, so those donors are not on our list unless they made other contributions.

One of the Springsteen fans appears to be a blogging editor at Dow Jones, Samuel J. Favate Jr., who gave $1,036 to America Coming Together in 2004. He didn’t return phone calls. Favate rewrites press releases for Dow Jones Newswires in New Jersey, which may explain his views that corporate America is “really in charge.” On his personal blog, Favate rails against the Iraq war, for gun control and for a tax audit of Christian psychologist James Dobson. After MSNBC.com left him a message asking about the blog and his donation, Favate’s name disappeared from the blog. A previous blog listed Favate’s “people I don’t like,” starting with George Bush. (”You can be sure that I will be adding to this list from time to time, so try not to piss me off.”) That blog went dark the day after MSNBC.com called.

Dow Jones spokesman Howard Hoffman said it doesn’t monitor employee blogs, “and we’re not overly concerned about what Sam did or didn’t do on his blog exercising his free-speech rights.”

On the job at Newsday, which forbids donations, section designer and artist Rita Hall tried to slip an anti-Bush line into a personal column she wrote. Hall gave $210 to Hillary Clinton in March 2006. “Dig deeper,” she said. “I gave $2,000 to Kerry. I’m not allowed to do this. I know it’s against the rules. I’ll probably get fired. They’re looking for any excuse to cut staff here.”

Hall said she wrote a column about her son, who won the “Top Chef” competition on the Bravo network. “In passing I mentioned that I was interested in finding people who hated Bush as much as I did. They took that out. My view is: You’re still going to have an opinion whether you admit to it or not. If you don’t admit to it, you’re being dishonest. Let’s be transparent.”

Hall didn’t disclose her donations to her editors — or the readers of Newsday.

The new bumper sticker
Several of the journalists reasoned that their activism is acceptable precisely because the public would not know — unless they go to the trouble to search the FEC records.

“A lot of us want to be politically active. But marching in a war protest isn’t an option, being a recognizable person, so we give with our checkbook,” said Alix Kendall, the morning anchor for Fox station KMSP in Minneapolis, who gave $250 in September to the Midwest Values PAC, which passed the money on to Democratic candidates. “I don’t think that working for a news organization I give up my rights. I interview plenty of people that I don’t agree with, but I also ask questions to get the other side.”

Senior editors, who every day are accused of a bias one way or another, may be more sensitive to appearances. Several editors said they are thinking of tightening their policies, lest they keep handing ammunition to critics.

At the Muskegon Chronicle, a daily newspaper in Michigan, reporter Terry Judd gave $1,900 to the Democratic National Committee in six contributions from 2004 through 2006; and $2,000 to Kerry in March 2004. “You caught me,” Judd said. “I guess I was just doing it on the side.”

His editors said they’re not sure there is an “on the side.”

“This information makes us want to think farther and more deeply about what we encourage and discourage in reporters,” said the metropolitan editor, John Stephenson. “We have always historically said, you guys can have any political beliefs you want. Just don’t wear your hearts on your sleeve or your bumper.

“Truthfully, this sort of thing may be the new bumper.”