Chatterbox

Central Illinois' number one terrorist, and the inspiration for racial serial killers, Matt Hale, was featured in an August 30 New York Times op-ed lamenting the inadequacy of murdering African-Americans: "'Suppose someone goes out and kills 10 blacks tonight,' he shrugs impatiently. 'Well, there are millions more.'"

The August 30 Pantagraph featured an editorial cartoon attacking their favorite punching bag: environmentalists. It asked, "Which method of thinning out the forest is best?" A: smoking stumps in the ruins of a forest, or B) a few carefully cut trees in a healthy forest. The answer: "If you choose option A, you may be qualified to be a member of the Sierra Club!" Actually, the reverse is true: it's the Sierra Club that wants careful thinning of forests, while the Bush Administration is proposing clear-cutting as the "solution" to forest fires. There is a certain logic here: if we just get rid of all the forests, forest fires will be substantially reduced. The cause of forest fires was never the Sierra Club, which has long advocated sensible environmental policies that would prevent fires. The problem is a decades-old policy of putting out every fire to protect homeowners, but doing nothing about the undergrowth that provides fuel for bigger fires today. Considering the Bush Administration's disastrous environmental policies, it's no surprise to learn that it's wrong about fires, too. Whether it's erroneous cartoons or Cal Thomas and Dennis Avery's loony ramblings about greens killing us with organic food, environmentalists are a favorite target of the punditocracy. But one wishes the Pantagraph could find cartoonists and columnists who weren't so gullible and willing to take cheap shots at environmentalists.

Everyone thought Rod Blagojevich would lose the race for governor because of his tough-to-pronounce name. Instead, it's his Republican opponent, Jim Ryan, who is suffering from name drag. Ryan is trails in the polls by 17 points, mostly due to the fact that many voters confuse him with the scandal-plagued governor George Ryan.

Other politicians fear name mania. U.S. Sen. Durbin is afraid that he might be confused with his Republican opponent, state Sen. Durkin. And if anybody in Washington, D.C. actually knew who our U.S. Rep. Tim Johnson (R-Ill.) was, they might confuse him with South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson. (Speaking of our Tim Johnson, he announced plans to break his pledge made two years to serve only three terms in office, confessing his own ineffectiveness: "In all candor, I found that effectiveness as a Congressman is affected by seniority.")

Clearly, what these politicians need is a goofy nickname, like State Senate president "Pate" Philip. For Tim Johnson, "Liar" and "I paid 600 grand for this job" are nickname possibilities. But Jim Ryan is the one who really needs a nickname. Since George Ryan is infamous for his moratorium on the death penalty, which Jim plans to overturn immediately, Jim ought to announce his plans to reinstate the electric chair and adopt this clever nickname: "Fryin' Ryan."

Last week's Indy story on the baseball strike was featured on www.alternet.org, but the players apparently weren't reading it: they caved into public and media pressure on Friday, giving the owners expanded revenue sharing and a luxury tax for the first time. With near-assured profits and pay limits on the top-spending teams, the baseball cartel probably added $1 billion to its collective value for the multimillionaire owners. Now the question is, how many small-market teams will take the extra revenue and pocket it rather than trying to compete?

Noam Chomsky's bestselling book, 9-11, attracted almost no US media attention despite selling hundreds of thousands of copies. Chomsky's critique of American foreign policy was deemed too dangerous for the public to see. One "exception" was CNN on May 9, 2002, when Paula Zahn had a special guest to analyze the book: right-winger William Bennett. Bennett denounced the book's "preposterous and ridiculous claim" that the US supports terrorism. He suggested that anyone who agreed with Chomsky had psychological problems from "some deep hatred of America." Zahn even allowed Bennett to leave the (false) impression that CNN had invited Chomsky to appear on the segment about his own book. Bennett said, "I'm sure you guys have asked him to come on." In fact, Chomsky noted about the incident, "It's typical. CNN International interviews me a lot, but the US channel doesn't dare." Later that month, CNN did finally allow Chomsky on the air, with Bennett there to attack him.

"Anyone who claims the US media didn't censor itself is kidding you. It wasn't a matter of government pressure but a reluctance to criticize anything in a war that was obviously supported by the vast majority of the people. And this isn't just a CNN issue - every journalist who was in any way involved in 9/11 is partly responsible." - Rena Golden, executive vice-president and general manager of CNN International.