Young Reporters, Steeped in Social Media, Accustomed to Digital Speed and Always-On World, Grab Spotlight on U.S. Campaign Trail

This is really fascinating, although, except for Time's Zeke Miller, it's all women.

And it's weird, because when I first really started following politics back in the early 1980s, it was the old-timers who were all the most prolific, and authoritative. That's when shows like "This Week with David Brinkley" were the rage. Even CNN was still catching on back then.

Nowadays, fresh out of college and you're reporting from the presidential campaign trail? Pretty amazing.

At NYT, "Millennial Reporters Grab the Campaign-Trail Spotlight":

Had a total fan girl moment seeing the ever fabulous @katieglueck grace the cover of today's @NYTStyles: pic.twitter.com/jyRE36ojfY

— Caitlin Huey-Burns (@CHueyBurnsRCP) March 6, 2016

When the last presidential race was in its early stages, Katie Glueck was a senior at Northwestern University. Now covering the Ted Cruz campaign for Politico, Ms. Glueck, 26, belongs to a select group of millennial reporters who have a front-row seat to the greatest political show on earth.

While youth is a virtue for those covering the turbulent 2016 campaign, it has been known to get in the way now and then. Caitlin Huey-Burns, 28, who covers primaries and caucuses for the website RealClear Politics, said, “I often get asked by voters if I’m writing for the school paper.”

Rosie Gray, 26, who covers the campaign for BuzzFeed, said that her age is only occasionally a factor. “Honestly, the times I feel the most young is when I’m talking to a voter on the trail and I sound like a pipsqueak saying, ‘Excuse me, ma’am, can I ask you a question?’” she said. “A lot of that had to do with how you present yourself and how you act. You can either act like a young little thing or not.”

And she disputed the notion that her age is much of an issue. “I’m not that young,” she said. “I’m 26. Thirty is staring me down the barrel of a gun.”

But Maralee Schwartz, a former longtime political editor at The Washington Post, said that the rise of these correspondents is new indeed.

“They’ve become much more prominent,” Ms. Schwartz said, adding that 2012 “was the first year that you saw how many younger reporters were on the trail. One veteran reporter called me from the bus, stunned, saying: ‘I am the oldest person here. One of them brought brownies.’ They may lack experience, but they can keep pace with the changes and demands and responsibilities of the web.”

*****

Unlike some of their more experienced colleagues, the reporters under 30 also seem to accept the notion that they are always on the clock, that keeping up a running patter with news-hungry audiences via Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat is as much part of the job as filing a 550-word dispatch.

“There are points where I have to remind myself, ‘You haven’t tweeted all day,’ because it is an important part of building our brands and sharing our work, and that doesn’t come to me naturally,” said MJ Lee, a 29-year-old politics reporter for CNN. “But there’s no going back.

“You have no excuse,” continued Ms. Lee, who is married to Alexander Burns, who covers politics for The New York Times. “You have to be up-to-date on everything, because you can be. You have your iPhone and you have Twitter. Why aren’t you up-to-date on the latest thing that happened two minutes ago? When I get on a plane and it’s a small plane and there’s no Wi-Fi, I get uncomfortable.”

Ms. Lee, a 2009 Georgetown University graduate who majored in government and Chinese, said: “Yesterday, we went to dinner, and for some reason I stopped getting email on my phone. And that made me really nervous. And it was maybe 17 minutes.”

The energy required to maintain a constant online presence is just part of the challenge. To write or broadcast anything connected with politics in 2016 is to be exposed to instant backlash. Even a deeply reported and elegantly written campaign story is likely to draw malicious attack.

Well, I'm getting a kick out of the "always-on" digital culture reference, although I hate it, since to me it implies that these young cub reporters don't really know anything. They don't have a personal wealth of political knowledge, and should they come up short, well, there's always Wikipedia.

But then, I'm online much of the time myself, reading the news, and blogging. So, I can't gripe too much about that without being hypocritical.

So, it's all good.

RTWT.

David Weinberger, Too Big to Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren't the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room

I attended the iFalcon Student Success Conference at Cerritos College the Friday before last, and organizers gave away copies of David Weinberger's Too Big to Know.

A great read. Grab a copy on Amazon.

Electronic Eitquette in the Classroom

On the first day of classes I post the department's policies on electronic equipment on the projection screen during classes. (I didn't write the policies and I don't make students apologize to class if their cellphones ring.) It helps keep kids focused, or at least for a time. I've already had a few of the more "popular type" of young ladies texting and goofing off in class. And it's only been two weeks!

Last semester I had a woman who looked at her phone all semester, had it stashed right behind her purse on the top of her desk. I don't think she was doing well in class, and I probably docked her some "progressional points" on her semester grades (which are basically freebie extra credit points for students who behave themselves).

In any case, technology in the classroom's a net negative in my experience. Some students will used their laptops appropriately, taking notes and accessing their textbooks during lectures. But otherwise I've long railed against the distractions of cellphones. It's interesting how many students have to "go to the bathroom" these days, or those who just step out routinely to take a call. Most of all, though, the focus of the students is not on what's being taught but on their social lives. And for young students around 18 and 19 years-old, that social life obsession --- fueled by ubiquitous social media applications --- is the bane of their personal and professional development.

In any case, there's more on this from Evan Selinger, at the Wall Street Journal, "Should Students Use a Laptop in Class?":

There's a widely shared image on the Internet of a teacher's note that says: "Dear students, I know when you're texting in class. Seriously, no one just looks down at their crotch and smiles."

College students returning to class this month would be wise to heed such warnings. You're not as clever as you think—your professors are on to you. The best way to stay in their good graces is to learn what behavior they expect with technology in and around the classroom.

Let's start with the million-dollar question: May computers (laptops, tablets, smartphones) be used in class? Some instructors are as permissive as parents who let you set your own curfew. Others are more controlling and believe that having your phone on means your brain is off and that relying on Google for answers results in a digital lobotomy.

Professors are united, though, in the conviction that the classroom is a communal space and that students share the responsibility for ensuring that nobody abuses it by diminishing opportunities to learn. An instructor who lets you squander your tuition by using class time to fuss with your iPhone is likely to have zero tolerance for distracting activities that make it hard for the rest of the class to pay attention.

One of my colleagues has resorted to a severe policy that he calls the "Facebook rule," which turns the classroom into a wild west of bounty hunters and social media outlaws. Students are encouraged to earn extra credit by busting classmates who use their computers for activities like social networking, shopping or gaming during his lectures.

Other professors prefer imposing the scarlet letters themselves. One colleague became so fed up with a student who played games whenever the class went to a computer lab that he installed speakers on the offender's machine. Halfway through the class, the speakers got turned on and everyone stared as the post-apocalyptic sound track started blaring.

Ultimately, rule-breakers are their own worst enemies. Students may be savvy enough to text the occasional query to partners-in-crime during exams. But it is only a matter of time before the mute button isn't pushed and the whole class gets to hear your "I'm sexy and I know it" ringtone.

This guy's a riot.

Continue reading.

The part about student emails is hilarious, but I cut my students a lot of slack there. Learning professionalism takes time. I just draw the line on excessive distractions and disruptions in the classroom.

More Offices Offer Workers Alcohol

Back when I was working at Western Medical Center in Santa Ana --- when I was 21-years-old --- we had beer one time with lunch at Togos.

Other than that, I don't think this is within my experience, and certainly not at the college.

At the Wall Street Journal, "As Workday Expands, Alcohol Flows More Freely, but Practice Can Be Risky, Exclusionary":

The keg is becoming the new water cooler.

At least, that's the case at such firms as the Boston advertising agency Arnold Worldwide, where workers cluster around a beer-vending machine—nicknamed Arnie—after the day's client meetings are done. As they sip bottles of home-brewed beer, employees exchange ideas and chitchat, often sticking around the office instead of heading to a nearby bar.

Plenty of offices provide free food to their workers, but as the workday in many tech and media companies stretches past the cocktail hour, more companies are stocking full bars and beer fridges, installing on-site taverns and digitized kegs and even deploying engineering talent to design futuristic drink dispensers.

The perk, firms say, helps lure talent, connects employees across different divisions and keeps people from leaving the office as the lines between work and social lives blur.

But employment lawyers worry that encouraging drinking in the workplace can lead to driving while intoxicated, assault, sexual harassment or rape. Plus, it may make some employees uncomfortable while excluding others, such as those who don't drink for health or religious reasons.

Drinking on the job has long been part of work life in the U.S. and abroad, whether it's a beer with colleagues in the United Kingdom or Japanese salarymen entertaining clients at sake bars. But holding happy hour in the office is different, experts say, because it brings after-hours activity into the professional space.

Nope. Definitely not in my experience, but continue reading.

Lawyers Behaving Badly Get Dressing Down From Civility Cops

At the Wall Street Journal, "Adversarial System Grows Obscenely Nasty; 'Get More Results With Sugar'":

In New York one night recently, U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan donned his robes, walked onstage and belted out to his colleagues this heartfelt plea for lawyerly politeness (to the tune of "If I Were a Rich Man"):

"If lawyers were more civil

Daidle deedle daidle daidle daidle deedle daidle dum

They'd treat their breth-er-en with more respect

Wouldn't always yell, 'object.' "

The ditty struck a nerve—and brought down the house, a largely pinstriped crowd of 80 or so lawyers there for a musical refresher course on the virtues of civility.

But it is no laughing matter to those who fret that a tide of rudeness has engulfed the legal profession.

From courtroom yelling matches to insulting letters and depositions that turn into fistfights, some lawyers and judges worry that the adversarial system of justice has gotten a little too adversarial.

To rein in "Rambo" litigators, the politeness patrol is pushing etiquette lessons, and even seeking to have civility included in attorney oaths.

The well-mannered caution that lawyers who shout, lie and shoot off vulgar emails don't merely alienate judges and juries. They also slow the wheels of justice and cost clients money.

"Lawyers already have a bad enough reputation," said Stewart Aaron, a litigator and head of Arnold & Porter LLP's New York office. He performed alongside Judge Sullivan in the revue.

Continue reading.

This is professional civility, not political civility, or what Althouse calls the "civility bullshit."

Members of Law-School Class of 2011 Had Little Better Than 50-50 Shot of Landing a Job

But if you graduated from one of the top 14 law schools you were sitting pretty.

See the Wall Street Journal, "Law Grads Face Brutal Job Market":

Members of the law-school class of 2011 had little better than a 50-50 shot of landing a job as a lawyer within nine months of receiving a degree, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of new data that provides the most detailed picture yet of the grim market for law jobs.

Under pressure from disillusioned graduates and some professors, the American Bar Association for the first time released a tally of the previous year's graduates who have secured full-time, permanent jobs as lawyers. Until recently, the ABA required law schools to report only general data about how their graduates fared, such as how many were employed full-time or part-time in any kind of job, whether or not it required a law degree.

The numbers suggest the job market for law grads is worse than previously thought. Nationwide, only 55% of the class of 2011 had full-time, long-term jobs that required a law degree nine months after graduation. The ABA defines "long-term" jobs as those that don't have a term of less than one year.

Of course, it isn't uncommon for people to attend law school to advance their career without practicing law. Several law-school deans cautioned against placing too much emphasis on jobs requiring a law degree.

Nationally, 8% of 2011 graduates were said to be in full-time, long-term jobs for which a law degree was preferred but not required, according to the Journal's data analysis. Another 4% were employed in full-time, long-term positions for which professional training was required but for which a law degree offered no advantage....

debate about the value of a law degree. More than 40,000 students enter the law-job market annually. In the past year, law-school graduates have filed more than a dozen lawsuits around the country alleging that some schools misled students with job-placement statistics.

The 2011 data reinforce the notion in the industry that students from the top 14 U.S. law schools have little trouble finding work. The top-ranked schools sent graduates into long-term legal jobs in high numbers, but 87 lower-tier schools had placement rates of 50% or less.

More at the link.

RELATED: Glenn Reynolds keeps linking to this Brian Tamahana piece at the New York Times, so here you go: "How to Make Law School Affordable."

Sometimes I wish I'd gone to law school, mostly for the intellectual enrichment. But more often I think about it now since political science has become so sucky. See Timothy Burke, "Should You Go to Graduate School," and more recently, PM at Duck of Minerva, "Should I get a Ph.D.?"

Obama Pushes Radical Gay Rights Agenda Internationally

Moonbattery has the bullseye headline: "Obama Using Foreign Aid to Advance Homosexual Depravity Throughout the World."

But see New York Times, "US to Use Foreign Aid to Promote Gay Rights Abroad."

And then check CNN, "Candidates quick to pan Obama foreign aid decision," and Reuters, "Conservatives bash Obama for gay rights stand." Also at ABC News, "Rick Perry Says Human Rights for Gays 'Not in America's Interests'."

And for the record, the United States can promote human rights without making a push for the radical homosexual agenda. People should be protected against threats to their dignity, period. The gay extremist agenda is a pet project of Western elites and won't do a damn for the billions of the world's poor living on less than $2 a day. What a disgrace.

CDC's Dr. Kimberley Lindsey Charged With Bestiality and Child Molestation

At London's Daily Mail, "Female scientist charged with child molesting and bestiality is back at work at the Centers for Disease Control."

And at iOWNTHEWORLD, "The World is Being Shaped By the Morality of the Left":

All calls for tolerance and understanding and the creeping acceptance of this kind of crap comes from the left. They are despicable.

Exactly.

As I always say, it's freakin' live and let live with these reprobates. There are no moral indecencies. The bastards.

Getting It Right: Dean of George Mason Law Sets Excellent Example

At FIRE:

Recently, two student groups at George Mason University School of Law, the Federalist Society and the Jewish Law Students Association, have taken heat for inviting controversial activist Nonie Darwish to campus for a lecture. Specifically, the Council on American-Islamic Relations called on the school to disinvite Darwish because of her past statements regarding Islam. (Above the Law has more.)

So what happened next? Did GMU cancel the speech, as other institutions have done when faced with calls for disinvitations of unpopular or controversial speakers? Did it impose heavy security fees on the student groups, a sadly common tactic for campus censors looking to silence outside speakers?

No. Instead, GMU School of Law Dean Daniel Polsby got it exactly right. In a statement sent to students and faculty late last week, Polsby issued a stirring defense of free speech on campus.

I'm very pleased to reprint his statement in full...

Check that top link to RTWT.

Plus, "Victory at UW-Stout: Chancellor Folds after Censorship of 'Firefly' and Anti-Fascism Posters."

Progressives Desperate to Discredit Texas Economic Success

At WSJ, "The Texas Jobs Panic: Liberals Progressives Try to Discredit the Lone Star State's Economic Success":

Rick Perry is not the subtlest politician, but he looks like Pericles next to the liberals falling over themselves to discredit job creation in Texas. We'd have thought any new jobs would be a blessing when 25 million Americans are looking for full-time work, but apparently new jobs aren't valuable jobs if they're created in a state that rejects Obamanomics.

Read it all at the link.

I touched on some of these themes earlier. See: "Rick Perry Touts Downhome Résumé."

Hate-Blogger™© W. James Casper and the Pro-Pedophilia Movement

W. James Casper = RACIST = REPSAC3 is all about live and let live and if it feels good do it. When conservatives express traditional moral values he attacks them as bigots. Like the endless progressive claims of "racism," W. James "Barebacker" Casper screams "BIGOTRY!!" like a headless horseman charging along full-steam until the word is denuded of all meaning. It's just an epithet for attacking folks because they find, say, male-on-male anal intercourse deviant and they don't believe that marriage can be defined outside of its essential meaning as biological union of man and woman for the lifelong purpose of love and regeneration of family. Same-sex partners cannot do that. And society is being forced to change the normative and legally accepted practice of marriage and turn it into something that it's not. And as we've seen in recent posts, today's truly extremist hatred and demonology is the exclusive domain of the progressive left. And W. James Casper is right up there as among the worst of the worst radical hate-bloggers in the world. No facts can get inside that warped mind. No outrage is evil enough to make W. James Casper speak up and cry, "Enough!'' Hate envelops all sense and meaning and moral right. Decency has been obliterated. Frankly, the dude's insane, so obsessed with this blog that it's consumed him. He's been warned of his perversion, and he's even admitted he can't stay away. It's a clinical derangement, no doubt. A sick stalker and hate-blogger, God help him. And while that's just sad, even worse is how badly he's being used by the netroots progressive fever swamp goons, who'd put a bullet in his head faster than sharing their last crust of bread. That's what communists do. They've driven God from their realm. Death and excoriation of the good is all that's left for them. It's pathetic.

In any case, considering that no social perversion is out of bounds for W. James Casper's sick socialist rim-station ideology, I'm putting money on it that he's down with the APA's push to legalize pedophilia. All American Blogger has a big write-up, "The Shadow Sexual Revolution – The Push To Legalize Pedophilia."

The current movement to legalize and normalize pedophilia may seem unrealistic to some. I have yet to have someone agree with me when I claim that it will be legal in the next 25-30 years. But there are many, as I have detailed here, who see pedophiles as an oppressed minority. They see the road to freedom as being the same road homosexuals marched down. The first step would be the removal of pedophilia as a mental illness, a move the APA has already considered. Then, using the research of Kinsey and others mentioned above, the move would be made to abolish the age of consent. With the seeming support of science, this could be possible and it would effectively legalize pedophilia. With the legal burden lifted, the effort would then shift to normalization and acceptance. This is done by pedophiles casting themselves as a minority, a victim of a culture that rejects them. March after march makes the sight of a fifty year old man giving a six year old boy a deep tongue kiss nothing more than a sign of America’s tolerance, regardless of who gets hurt.

There are some things we should not tolerate. The legalization and normalization of pedophilia is one of those things.

W. James Casper repeatedly claims that we shouldn't object to consenting homosexual couples engaging in any sex acts they see fit. Well, 5'll get you 10 that W. James Casper will offer the same kind of weaselly moral-free logic on the legalization of pedophilia debate. Hey, gay men knitting? Fine and dandy! Rim-station partying between CONSENTING adult homosexual extremists? No problemo!! Man-boy CONSENTING relations? Well, for Hate-Blogger™© W. James Casper, the more the merrier, right??!! Whoo hoo!! Nihilists of the world unite for some rough man-boy action!!

Rick Perry Touts Downhome Résumé

Barely 48-hours into the race and virtually the entire Democrat-Media-Complex has the hit in for Governor Rick Perry. For example, from Paul Krugman, "The Texas Unmiracle." And more at NYT, "In Texas Jobs Boom, Crediting a Leader, or Luck." Los Angeles Times piles on, "Rick Perry's big donors have fared well in Texas." Then there's all kinds of gotcha reports at Memeorandum. Perry questioned Obama's patriotism? OOH!! Wouldn't want to do that now, would we?

In any case, for a less antagonistic piece, see Wall Street Journal, "Touting a Downhome Résumé."

DES MOINES, Iowa—Rick Perry became an Eagle Scout and Air Force pilot after growing up as the son of a cotton farmer "from a little place called Paint Creek, Texas," whose house had no indoor plumbing. As Texas's longest-serving governor, he says he cut taxes and red tape and helped boost job growth.

Mr. Perry is betting heavily on that biography and his charm as he introduces himself to voters in the early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

With the GOP race suddenly shaping up as a contest pitting him and fellow conservative Michele Bachmann against the front-runner, Mitt Romney, Mr. Perry hopes to distinguish himself as the humble farmer who now runs the state with the country's briskest job-creation results ...

Sounds pretty good. More at the link.

Extremist NOH8 Campaign Exploits Christina Santiago Death for Crass Political Gain

This is disgusting.

They couldn't have just given her a beautiful commemoration. They had to turn Ms. Santiago death into sick sympathy shakedown:

Tragedies like this just illustrate how important it is for couples to have the rights that allow them to celebrate their love and their lives now.

Christina and Alisha were one of the first couples to get a civil union in Cook County when civil unions became legal in Illinois earlier this year. Those who claim the issue of same sex marriages and civil unions can "wait" should think hard about that idea after reading stories like these. This beautiful couple only had a short few months together to celebrate their civil union -- but we take solace in the fact they at least had that opportunity to prove their love to the world, however brief.

A beautiful young woman is dead. And LGBT ASFL NOH8 couldn't simply commemorate her life with dignity. These idiots had to turn it into some kind of epic guilt trip about "only" a few months to celebrate a civil union.

People die. And always, every death reminds us for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.

A much more reserved article at Chicago Tribune, "Health center mourns staffer killed in Indiana State Fair stage accident."

Ross Douthat, Political Scientist

Douthat draws on political science research at New York Times, "Waiting For a Landslide." And for a second I thought he'd blow it, because "realignment theory," which he discusses, hasn't accurately explained, much less predicted, partisan trends for decades. But Douthat adds this, which is just right:

In reality, the next election may be no more transformative than 2008 turned out to be. The next Republican president may find himself as hemmed in and frustrated as President Obama has become. Meanwhile, America will still have a credit rating to fix, and a deficit to close.

More at that link at top, and Douthat had a great piece a few days ago on the debt deal, "The Liberals’ Dilemma." Note especially:

... American liberalism risks becoming a victim of its own longstanding strategy’s success. Because yesterday’s liberals insisted on making universal programs the costly core of the modern welfare state, on the famous theory that “programs for the poor become poor programs,” today’s liberals find themselves defending those universal (and therefore universally-popular) programs at the expense of every other kind of government spending — including, yes, programs for the poor. It’s a classic example of putting liberal political interests ahead of liberal policy priorities. In the short term, the insistence on ring-fencing Medicare and Social Security has left Democrats defending a system that often just ends up redistributing money from the younger middle class to the older middle class while accepting caps on programs that might do more (both directly and indirectly) to help downscale Americans get ahead. In the long term, by postponing any reckoning with the cost of entitlements, it’s making it more likely that the inevitable crunch will hit the poorest recipients of Medicare and Social Security harder than it should.

Read that whole thing. Basically, progressives will never cut entitlements because gargantuan socialist welfare states form the core of socialist existentialism.

Douthat's coming of his own as a New York Times columnist, by the way. He had cold feet or something after leaving The Atlantic, but he's been more consistent in posting some excellent commentary of late.

Diagnosing the Left

A must-read, from David Solway, at FrontPage Magazine, "Diagnosing the Left."

It should be clear by this time that there is no medium of intellectual exchange with the left, that facts do not matter, that logic is helpless to convince or to prompt even the slightest reconsideration, and that practically every counter-argument can be turned on its head and interpreted as confirmation of the original idée fixe. As I wrote in The Big Lie, this is a tendency or disposition that bespeaks the resurgence of a political romanticism wedded to motives rather than consequences, unachievable ideals rather than practical values. It consists largely of the cryogenized remnants of an antique crusade for unperturbed happiness and tranquility, actuated by a child-like desire for transcendence that is the curse of liberal political civilization, and that, in various spiritual and revolutionary forms, has caused untold harm and suffering in the past.

Ultimately, it amounts to a prepossession that resembles a species of clinical paranoia, associated with symptoms like unbridled hostility where disagreement is perceived, extreme sarcasm often rising to livid vulgarity, an intense need for control and the belief in personal infallibility. It is, in effect, a squalid amalgam of hubris and the herd mentality. Obviously, the disorder is not exclusive to the left, but it is on that side of the political spectrum where it manifests most prominently and insistently.

RELATED: "W. James Casper is a Coward, a Fraud, and a Liar."

And a perceptive reader, from out of the blue, comments on clinical progressive W. James Casper:

Suzie Q said...

Has it occurred to you ... that you are a stalker??

Seriously. This is pure sickness.

RELATED: "British Progressives Allege Melanie Phillips Took 'Part in the Norway Massacre'."

'The Left hasn't been this giddy since Rep. Giffords was shot'

That's Darleen Click, at William Jacobson's entry, "My challenge to Charles Lemos."

Along the same lines, Darleen has her interesting entry at Protein Wisdom, "Kind of sums up what passes for principle on the illiberal Left."

And more of this at POH Diaries, "Tragedy In Norway Compounded By Left-Wing Glee."

Plus, Mollie Hemingway writes a beautiful essay, "The Atlantic has this terrorist all figured out."

And then check this post from Power Line, "IN DEFENSE OF BLOND NORWEGIANS":

The relief–not to say glee–with which many liberals greeted the news that the Oslo mass murderer was a “tall, blond Norwegian” was palpable. Liberals pilloried those who ostensibly leaped to the conclusion, in the first minutes after the massacre began, that it was probably the work of Islamic jihadists. Scott noted earlier such attacks on Jennifer Rubin.

As far as I know, liberals haven’t attacked me for the post I did while the attacks were in progress. But what I wrote was, I think, typical:

The perpetrators of these attacks have not yet been identified, but they likely were Muslim terrorists.

Was that wrong? Not at all. Any time mass murder attacks take place, it is not just likely but highly probable that they are the work of Muslim jihadists. Over the last several decades, jihadists have launched hundreds if not thousands of terrorist attacks. They dwarf, in numbers, similar outrages perpetrated by anyone else. That is why, whenever a bomb kills innocent bystanders or an armed man guns down children, the first thing everyone thinks is that it likely will prove to be another instance of Islamic terrorism.

See also: "SOMEONE IS PUTTING WORDS IN JEN RUBIN’S MOUTH." (Via Memeorandum.)

MSNBC's Ed Schultz Suspended After Attacking Laura Ingraham as 'Right-Wing Slut'

Here's this from the network: "STATEMENT FROM MSNBC REGARDING ED SCHULTZ." (Via Memeorandum.)

Brian Maloney broke the story, "DEPRAV-ED: Libtalker Ed Schultz Uses Vulgarity to Attack Conservative Host":

Michelle reported on Schultz this morning, before he was suspended, and she's updated, "More misogyny at MSNBC: Neanderthal host attacks Laura Ingraham as a “slut;” Update: Schultz off air one week, apologizes":

In January, I published “The progressive ‘climate of hate:’ An illustrated primer, 2000-2010.”

Review it here.

Part IV was a section on anti-conservative female hate, with tons of links on the sexist rhetoric of the Left.

You’ll recall that the “M” in MSNBC stands for misogyny.

Here’s a new entrant in the race to the bottom, from syndicated radio host and MSNBC talk show host Ed Schultz, via Radio Equalizer Brian Maloney ...

RTWT.

Also, Ingraham's responded quite succinctly on Facebook.

Typical progressives. At least Ed Schultz isn't anonyomous, like the cowards at Sadly No!, who match this misogyny on a daily basis, "sick fuck adult losers."

Outing Tintin at Sadly No!

I'm on the verge of obtaining the mother of all tips on Tintin's identity. So until that information becomes available, and since Carl Salonen is threatening punitive retaliation against those looking into his shady activities, I'm temporarily pulling my previous posts in the series. Still available is "Excavating Pure Evil — Failed New York Actor Carl Salonen Revealed as 'Tintin' at Sadly No!??"

Interestingly, Tintin has agreed to delete any mention of Carl Salonen at Sadly No! The scrubbing conspiracy is complete:

For the record: Links to the mentions scrubbed from Brendan Keefe's (here), Lawyers, Guns and Murder (here and here), and Whiskey Fire (here and here).

Updates forthcoming.

The End of Family Practice

Or, at least the end of the neighborhood family practitioner who knows everyone's name, some of the same folks he spends time with out on the lake.

This is one more of those reports on the decline of traditional America, at New York Times, "Family Physician Can’t Give Away Solo Practice." It's Dr. Ronald Sroka in Maryland, who's been in practice for 32 years. He was looking to sell the practice, but no buyers. Sheesh, he couldn't give it away:

He tried to sell his once highly profitable practice. No luck. He tried giving it away. No luck.

Dr. Sroka’s fate is emblematic of a transformation in American medicine. He once provided for nearly all of his patients’ medical needs — stitching up the injured, directing care for the hospitalized and keeping vigil for the dying. But doctors like him are increasingly being replaced by teams of rotating doctors and nurses who do not know their patients nearly as well. A centuries-old intimacy between doctor and patient is being lost, and patients who visit the doctor are often kept guessing about who will appear in the white coat.

The share of solo practices among members of the American Academy of Family Physicians fell to 18 percent by 2008 from 44 percent in 1986. And census figures show that in 2007, just 28 percent of doctors described themselves as self-employed, compared with 58 percent in 1970. Many of the provisions of the new health care law are likely to accelerate these trends.

“There’s not going to be any of us left,” Dr. Sroka said.

RTWT at the link. And there's a video as well, at NYT's homepage.

When my wife and I moved to Orange County, in 2000, to get resettled for my new job at LBCC, we ended up looking through a big fat book of doctors who were part of our Blue Cross HMO. We picked a doctor just by the sound of his name, and we've been happy ever since. It's been just like the family doctor we had as kids. The doctor gets to know you. He's friendly and even offers his own personal counseling if necessary. It feels like the old days.

Yet it's been quite different with the pediatricians. Our oldest son was 5 when we moved down here from Fresno, and the first doctor we found --- also looking in the HMO physicians catalog --- was a prick. When my son was referred to a specialist for breathing problems, we ended up going with the new doctor, who had a large practice in Newport Beach, with about a half-a-dozen doctors. We're still visiting that office. Our youngest son is 9 and he's had a couple of different doctors from that medical group, but for a while it was just one women who was a specialist on learning disabilities. She helped us with some attention issues my son was having, and it worked out really well. But it's definitely a crap shoot if you don't have good references. You're picking names out of a book and ending up with these fancy, modern multi-physician practices where you'll be lucking if the doctors remember your kids' names. It's a nightmare, frankly, especially with a baby. So I can relate to this story about Dr. Sroka in Maryland. It's just him at the office. Unless he has some other local doctors to fill in for him on call he's screwed. That's why no one wanted to buy his practice. Here's the quote from NYT:

Indeed, younger doctors — half of whom are now women — are refusing to take over these small practices. They want better lifestyles, shorter work days, and weekends free of the beepers, cellphones and patient emergencies that have long defined doctors’ lives. Weighed down with debt, they want regular paychecks instead of shopkeeper risks. And even if they wanted such practices, banks — attuned to the growing uncertainties — are far less likely to lend the money needed.

That's interesting. It shows again how social changes --- especially affluence and the pursuit of leisure --- have influenced the way coming generations view traditional occupations.

In any case, what can you do I guess?

More later ...

Islamic Supremacists and Pro-Terror Thugs Protest King Hearings in New York

Okay, here's an update to my previous entry, "Barack Hussein Works to Reassure Muslims Ahead of House Hearings on Homegrown Islamic Terrorism."

See the reports at Atlas Shrugs, "How about .... "I am an American!" Rally Islamic Supremacists and Useful Tools Protest Counter Terror Efforts," and Vigilant Squirrel, "Imam Rauf Rally Times Square."

Check Jihad Watch as well, "Useful idiots rally against King hearings," and "More protests on King hearings: Muslims feel "unfairly singled out" over jihadist terrorism."