last night on the daily show, i was pleasantly surprised by what i saw. finally a taste of real, actual journalism in american mainstream media, even if it was an easy target like jim cramer and cnbc.

to be honest, a lot has been made of this “feud”, but i thought the show last night was hardly a fight, even though stewart was clearly playing hardball with cramer. i’ve seen a lot of media reports today claiming stewart skewered, eviscerated, killed, etc. but that’s not the point of the interview, is it?

if you haven’t seen the full, unedited interview, the clips are embedded below(clips 2 and 3 below the fold), and you can see what i mean by that. while stewart clearly takes cramer to task for his own statements and actions, he also makes it clear that “this song ain’t about you” and that his real target is CNBC – an entire news organization that has cornered itself into irrelevance by NOT blowing the whistle and NOT seeing the warning signs. what they’ve done is a great disservice to the public, and truly is as stewart says “criminal at worst”.

ultimately, it comes down to this: journalism is, or at least should be about finding the truth and exposing it, seeking justice for the good of all – the common people as well as society at large. by its very nature, good journalism is often a david vs. goliath fight, to expose corruption at even the highest levels and not just distribute information and sound bites from CEOs and political figures. while that is almost all that we’ve come to expect from our mainstream news organizations, it’s also what the folks at the daily show have not been doing – they may corner their show into relative obscurity by making easy targets of political figures with their punchlines, but as it is now, the entire crew on that show is also proving themselves unsurpassed at researching and disseminating the truth behind the sound bites, exposing corruption, deception, hypocrisies and omissions. this interview should serve as an example of analytic reporting for those in the media, that truth can be found and brought to light, with or without punchlines.

-h
ps: clips 2 and 3 below… also, notice you won’t find anything about last night’s interview on CNBC’s website
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from the tv show penn & teller’s bullshit comes this short clip talking about which biblical commandments so-called fundamentalist christians will pick and choose from. while they make some good points, and i completely agree, two things occur to me: (1) that they’re trying to reason with people who will not be reasoned with, and (2) that they come across as unnecessarily offensive/insensitive. 

so what’s the point in posting this? that many christians i know (and especially the more prominent ones) apparently spend their free time actively looking for something new to be offended by or to declare as an enemy of their faith. but why give them another reason to cry “martyr!” because they feel persecuted? the principle should always be that if you’re going to denounce someone’s religion on the basis of logic and reason, at least employ some basic reason and decency enough to say what you have to say without – for example – kicking a bible at the end of your rant.

the reality is this – that even though they might use their own scriptures as their reasoning for oppressing others even to the point of removing human rights or even committing acts of genocide, you’re only going to incite more hatred and prejudice approaching the situation with insensitivity. while it might appeal to their audience on a sort of childish-humor level, it won’t bridge any gaps or open any dialogues, and shouldn’t that be the point of calling “bullshit” on something?

-h

in honor of the extreme winter weather here in portland and across the northwest, here’s a cool song/music video i found online tonight that i thought i’d share from a band out of washington called fleet foxes. great wintery song, and really pretty stop-motion animation. hope you enjoy it as much as i did! -h

White Winter Hymnal from Grandchildren on Vimeo.

continuing the dialogue about marriage rights for same-sex couples and the repercussions from california’s proposition 8 vote this last week… please take a moment to watch this, and pass it on to anyone you know who should see it. -h