Quotes (Today, all from The Washington Post)
“Which reminds me: Everything imaginable will try to eat your chickens. Depending on where you live, you’ll have to protect your flock from hawks, raccoons, weasels, coyotes, wolves, dogs, foxes and even hungry bears. . . . Continue reading Quotes of the Day: Chickens, Boomers & the Python, and an Astronomer who Sees the End of Our Universe
[NOTE: I have no strong opinions about Harry & his book & the surrounding soap opera. I wish him & Meghan and their kids a happily ever after, which I expect to ignore. If they shake up the UK monarchy along the way, so much the better. But as usual, I find the reactions of renegade independent Canadian journalist Gwynne Dyer informative & intriguing.]
A Shocking Disclosure
By Gwynne Dyer — 8 January 2023
Where do you look when somebody says: “In the age of Apaches and laptops, everything I did in the course of two combat tours was recorded, time-stamped. I could always say precisely how many enemy combatants I’d killed. And I felt it vital never to shy away from that number.
“So, my number: Twenty-five. It wasn’t a number that gave me any satisfaction. But neither was it a number that made me feel ashamed.” Continue reading Likely the Only Post Here About Prince Harry’s Book “Spare” – by Gwynne Dyer
[NOTE: Columnist George Will sets aside his usual reactionary sentiments here, to produce instead a concise and clear breakdown of the case Dominion will attempt to make in pursuit of its $1.5 billion defamation action against Fox News.
Will usefully points out the challenges Dominion faces in proving that the Fox “News” promotion of demonstrable falsehoods about their machines as engines of mass voting fraud constituted actionable defamation. Continue reading The Dominion Voting Machine Lawsuit Goes to Trial soon: Here’s a Good Summary
[NOTE: The Wall St. Journal is paywalled to the eyelids, so this first clip is a quote of a quote from a week ago without a link, but I’m confident it’s accurate. It was written as speculation about the fragility of the narrow incoming Republican majority (about half a dozen) that will occupy the House of Representatives as of January.
The irony here is that it’s the outgoing lame-duck Democratic majority that’s now feeling the sharp point of the Fickle Finger of Fate: Democratic Rep. Donald MacEachin of Virginia died of cancer Monday. His absence abruptly reduces Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s House majority from 220 to 219, only six more than the Republicans’ 213. Continue reading Quotes of The Day: A Double Serving of Irony
No Longer Flush With Cash, TV News Enters Belt-Tightening EraThe Hollywood Reporter — November 16, 2022
BY ALEX WEPRIN
As CNN, ABC News and others grapple with an advertising downturn and lower linear viewership, the new mandate is to trim costs and find savings however they can while staffers weather the storm.
The afternoon email hit some inside CNN like a ton of bricks. The cable news channel, now under Warner Bros. Discovery (its second owner in just a few years) was going to face budget cuts and layoffs. “There is widespread concern over the global economic outlook, and we must factor that risk into our long-term planning,” CNN CEO Chris Licht wrote in a late-October memo.
At a network town hall on Nov. 15, Licht confirmed to moderator Alisyn Camerota that layoffs will hit the division in December. Those cuts are part of an industrywide pivot, as media giants prepare for a difficult winter, seeking to reduce costs however they can. And news divisions will not be spared.
