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- from a neoconservative perspective! - Keeping an eye on the communist-left so you don't have to!
The story talks about David Rockefeller's grandson, Michael Quattrone (pictured), who manages the David Rockefeller Fund. The senior Rockeffer is said to have given away at least $2 billion to charity in his lifetime, and philanthropy's become the raison d'รชtre of the entire family. The younger members of the family convinced some of the family's biggest charitable funds (they are numerous, apparently) to divest from fossil fuels, the irony of which just kills me.
Alex Tizon, a journalist and professor who won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting while at The Seattle Times and spent decades exposing untold stories of marginalized communities, has died at age 57.
Mr. Tizon died unexpectedly Thursday, of natural causes, at his home in Eugene, Oregon, according to his family and the University of Oregon, where he was working as an assistant professor of journalism.
Mr. Tizon was one of three Seattle Times reporters to win the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, for stories that exposed widespread corruption and inequalities in the federally sponsored housing program for Native Americans. The series, which documented how billions of dollars in taxpayer funds were helping wealthy people across the country live in mansions while tribes were housed in decrepit shacks, inspired reforms to the program.
Friends, colleagues and family members said Mr. Tizon was known as a deep listener who preferred to dive headfirst into complicated, long-form stories that are becoming rarer in today’s fast-paced media cycle. An introvert who spent hours alone brooding over deep issues like the meaning of his life, he would often take on seemingly simple stories and come back with complicated tales about humanity.
“He was very curious about other people — and learning about other people helped him learn about himself,” said his wife, Melissa Tizon. “That’s what journalism did for him. His whole life quest was about trying to understand who he was, as an immigrant growing up in a largely white community.”
Born in the Philippines, Mr. Tizon immigrated to Seattle with his family when he was 5 years old and bounced around the country before he settled back here.
He spent 17 years at The Seattle Times before becoming the Seattle bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times from 2003 to 2008. He also contributed to publications like Newsweek and programs such as “60 Minutes.”
He then spent two years in Manila, where he helped track efforts by the government to eliminate poverty in poor communities, and taught workshops in far-flung locales like Romania. And he wrote a memoir, “Big Little Man: In Search of My Asian Self,” about the challenges of being an Asian-American man in the United States.
He turned to teaching in 2011, but his passion for writing still burned.
A year ago, he revived a story he began working on at the Los Angeles Times a decade before, about an Alaskan family whose son had disappeared. People go missing there all the time — about 3,000 a year at one point — but in the remote corner of the world, it garners little attention or news coverage.
The family had learned that authorities had found remains that might provide closure to their grief. Mr. Tizon flew to the tiny town to write a lengthy magazine piece for The Atlantic on the family’s struggles and the broader phenomenon of why so many people vanish in that state.
Those who worked with Mr. Tizon said the story was emblematic of his career — the way he spent so much time deeply reporting the piece, and the fact that he chose a topic that others in the media likely would have ignored.
“He had a real interest in marginal characters and people who had not been in the spotlight,” said his editor on The Atlantic piece, Denise Wills. “He almost became a member of the extended family for these people.”
In an interview last year, Mr. Tizon told the Harvard journalism program: “The stories I work on, especially for any length of time, do tend to become personal to me.”
Jacqui Banaszynski, a University of Missouri journalism professor who was Mr. Tizon’s editor for two years at The Seattle Times, echoed others who said his death was a loss to the journalism community. She recalled Mr. Tizon as “an almost philosopher essayist” in his approach, and that the paper would send him on stories that were complex and needed to be told at a deeper level than the standard news story...
I've watched O'Reilly now for years. When I first started watching him regularly, at least ten years ago, I was mindful of the stereotypes, from critics both right and left: You know, how he's a blowhard, and not really conservative, and all that.
That's all true, of course, But he's a patriot who works hard. He loves the country and he models our values, especially individualism and fairness. I suspect he actually has sexually harassed women at some point. He's an old school kind of a guy, and some of the old school brusque "locker room" kind of banter and being is bound to slip out once in a while. He's wealthy, though, so million dollar payouts here and there, without conceding allegations, just make problems go away.
About $13 million has been paid out over the years to address complaints from women about Mr. O’Reilly’s behavior. He denies the claims have merit.
For nearly two decades, Bill O’Reilly has been Fox News’s top asset, building the No. 1 program in cable news for a network that has pulled in billions of dollars in revenues for its parent company, 21st Century Fox.
Behind the scenes, the company has repeatedly stood by Mr. O’Reilly as he faced a series of allegations of sexual harassment or other inappropriate behavior.
An investigation by The New York Times has found a total of five women who have received payouts from either Mr. O’Reilly or the company in exchange for agreeing to not pursue litigation or speak about their accusations against him. The agreements totaled about $13 million.
Two settlements came after the network’s former chairman, Roger Ailes, was dismissed last summer in the wake of a sexual harassment scandal, when the company said it did not tolerate behavior that “disrespects women or contributes to an uncomfortable work environment.”
The women who made allegations against Mr. O’Reilly either worked for him or appeared on his show. They have complained about a wide range of behavior, including verbal abuse, lewd comments, unwanted advances and phone calls in which it sounded as if Mr. O’Reilly was masturbating, according to documents and interviews.
The reporting suggests a pattern: As an influential figure in the newsroom, Mr. O’Reilly would create a bond with some women by offering advice and promising to help them professionally. He then would pursue sexual relationships with them, causing some to fear that if they rebuffed him, their careers would stall.
Of the five settlements, two were previously known — one for about $9 million in 2004 with a producer, and another struck last year with a former on-air personality, which The Times reported on in January. The Times has learned new details related to those cases...
That "on-air personality" is Juliet Huddy, who's no longer with the network.
I gave up on Boot last year, when he published his notorious screed at the L.A. Times, about changing his party registration after Donald Trump won the GOP nomination.
He still blogs at Commentary as well, which is one reason I don't read the magazine as much as I used to. (That, and Noah Rothman, who I like, turned into some kind of angry, middle-aged, and very unpleasant curmudgeon.)
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The United States launched more airstrikes in Yemen this month than during all of last year. In Syria, it has airlifted local forces to front-line positions and has been accused of killing civilians in airstrikes. In Iraq, American troops and aircraft are central in supporting an urban offensive in Mosul, where airstrikes killed scores of people on March 17.
Two months after the inauguration of President Trump, indications are mounting that the United States military is deepening its involvement in a string of complex wars in the Middle East that lack clear endgames.
Rather than representing any formal new Trump doctrine on military action, however, American officials say that what is happening is a shift in military decision-making that began under President Barack Obama. On display are some of the first indications of how complicated military operations are continuing under a president who has vowed to make the military “fight to win.”
In an interview on Wednesday, Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the commander of United States Central Command, said the new procedures made it easier for commanders in the field to call in airstrikes without waiting for permission from more senior officers.
“We recognized the nature of the fight was going to change and that we had to ensure that authorities were down to the right level and that we empowered the on-scene commander,” General Votel said. He was speaking specifically about discussions that he said began in November about how the fights in Syria and Iraq against the Islamic State were reaching critical phases in Mosul and Raqqa.
Concerns about the recent accusations of civilian casualties are bringing some of these details to light. But some of the shifts have also involved small increases in the deployment and use of American forces or, in Yemen, resuming aid to allies that had previously been suspended.
And they coincide with the settling in of a president who has vowed to intensify the fight against extremists abroad, and whose budgetary and rhetorical priorities have indicated a military-first approach even as he has proposed cuts in diplomatic spending...
The massive recent civilian causalities are extremely regrettable, and totally unacceptable. Otherwise, I'm really liking the growing footprint.
And interestingly, articles like this one, as true and tragic as they are, tend to perpetuate Native American stereotypes. Devon Mihesuah's work attempts to dispel such stereotypes, while others have argued that the reservation experience is the template for understanding the structural epistemology of American Indians.
WHITECLAY, Neb. — This town is a rural skid row, with only a dozen residents, a street strewn with debris, four ramshackle liquor stores and little else. It seems to exist only to sell beer to people like Tyrell Ringing Shield, a grandmother with silver streaks in her hair.
On a recent morning, she had hitched a ride from her home in South Dakota, just steps across the state line. There, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, alcohol is forbidden. In Whiteclay, though, it reigns supreme.
“You visit, you talk, you laugh, you drink,” said Ms. Ringing Shield, 57, as she stood on the sidewalk with friends, chain-smoked Montclair cigarettes and recounted her struggles with alcoholism, diabetes and cirrhosis. “It makes you forget.”
Now many residents of Nebraska and South Dakota are pushing for the liquor stores of Whiteclay to be shut, disgusted by the easy access to alcohol the stores provide to a people who have fought addiction for generations. The Nebraska authorities, in turn, have tightened scrutiny of the stores, which sell millions of cans of beer and malt liquor annually. Last year, for the first time, the state liquor commission ordered the stores’ six owners to reapply for their liquor licenses.
The fate of the stores could be decided next month, when the three-member commission holds hearings in Lincoln, the state capital.
The issue has left people in South Dakota and Nebraska deeply divided. Most agree that alcohol abuse on the reservation is an entrenched problem, but they are unsure of the solution — and who is responsible.
The grim scene in Whiteclay has scarcely changed for decades. Particularly in the warmer months, Native Americans can be seen openly drinking beer in town, often passed out on the ground, disheveled and ill. Many who come to Whiteclay from the reservation spend the night sleeping on mattresses in vacant lots or fields.
Even under the chill of winter, people huddle outside the liquor stores, silver beer cans poking from coat pockets. The street, busy with traffic from customers, is littered with empty bottles and scraps of discarded clothing.
“It promotes so much misery, that little town,” said Andrea Two Bulls, 56, a Native American on Pine Ridge, who added that she hoped the state would revoke the licenses. “My brother used to go to Whiteclay all the time, and we’d have to go look for him. People sit and drink until they pass out. They just succumb.”
Over the decades, there have been frequent protests outside the stores. Lawsuits against the retailers and beer distributors have been filed. Boycotts of brewers that sell to the stores have begun with enthusiasm. All those efforts have sputtered, though, and little has changed...
Here's another faux racist incident, featuring another far-left nutjob, Rep. Maxine Waters of Los Angeles.
Apparently O'Reilly's apologized, but he shouldn't have had to. It's not racist to make a funny remark about someone's wig. And it is a "James Brown wig." He's absolutely right.
This is leftist thought control at its finest (or worst, depending on your perspective).
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