Rebane's Ruminations
August 2008
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George Rebane

Jeff Ackerman, publisher of The Union (sometimes aka The Onion), finally vented his spleen this morning against the doings in Sacramento which have been going on for some time now, but apparently Jeffa_2 in the tolerable region of our local paper’s radar.  I was happy to see Jeff step out and paint a picture of California that most mainstream media (MSM) outlets continue to shun.  His editorial covered almost all of the waterfront, but did leave an important part out – namely CARB’s Scope Plan to implement AB32.  I’m sure the readers of Jeff’s paper will eventually discover how that bombshell will sink California even lower in the national ratings.

After a laundry list of pretty sad statistics about California, in my view, Jeff’s outstanding statement in the piece was –

“Yes, but at least we’re smarter than the other states,” you might be muttering. Actually … we’re not as smart as we think, which might explain why we keep voting for incompetent candidates. In fact, there are 46 states that are smarter than California, according to the booklet. Vermont is ranked number one and Massachusetts is ranked second, thanks to Harvard, M.I.T. and a few other brainy institutions. Even the so-called Okies are smarter than the average Californian.

He deserves a tip of the hat for stating what the MSM have been hiding under the rug for years.  (for the bigger picture, please see ‘How Elections Really Work’)

The point here is that readers of RR and several other local blogs (e.g. NC Media Watch, CABPRO Report, YubaNet, …) were apprised of these outrages months ago.  This was at a time when broad-based appeals to our representatives and state leaders might have done some good.  Now California’s annual budget bomb is about to go off and it’s too late to snip the fuse.  Across the country local bloggers are more and more becoming the timely source of news that the MSM either miss, avoid, or drag their feet.  All bloggers have an unabashed and individualistic view of the world, and don’t need to make nice with their advertisers or corporate offices.  With almost everyone now on the internet, there is little excuse for limiting your knowledge of what’s going on to any one source, especially one from the traditional MSM.

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5 responses to “Local Publisher Alerts Readers to Government Excesses”

  1. jeffpelline Avatar
    jeffpelline

    the Union has been reporting about the state government’s problems for two years. a better question is what would bloggers blog about without depending on the reporting of the union and its trained/seasoned jouranlists?

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  2. George Rebane Avatar
    George Rebane

    It’s important to understand the difference between The Union being used as a source or conduit for news as opposed to being the object of news. Since the paper is a major NC news outlet, its stance and performance as such is often newsworthy of itself. The posts of the referenced blogs speak for themselves as to how little, if at all, they are dependent on The Union for news.

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  3. Jeff Pelline Avatar
    Jeff Pelline

    Sorry. I was under the impression that the words “in today’s Union,” “according to the Associated Press,” “in this morning’s WSJ,” “in a Wired article,” “today’s New York Times” appeared in this space regularly. A lot of people wonder what many bloggers would blog about if it wasn’t for the MSM journalists to generate the news. Let’s not forget that MSM are bloggers too — sometimes generating original reporting, not just commentary upon layer of commentary. The world is a complex place, that’s for sure.

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  4. Drew Avatar

    Local Readers Alert the public to TheUnion Excesses
    Yep, the world is a complex place. TheUnion is even more complex. Maybe someone can shed light on why Pat Butler (former Editor and recent reporter) recently left, Kevin Garrity (Director of Sales & Marketing) left, and the word on the street is that in TheUnion Ad Sales meetings it was suggested that sales persons bad mouth start-up NevadaCountyMall.com.

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  5. Douglas Keachie Avatar

    If you want to save money on the schools, elect Obama. He is already causing children without hope in ghetto communities to look up, and to work harder. If he actually is elected, every teacher in the country will be able to flip on the news and say, “see, he did it, you can do it too.”
    Role models are important. Ryghtys will at least reap this silver lining, should Obama be elected.
    BTW, I offered a $100 donation on his website, if he could get his spell checker, The Union’s spell checker, and sfgate’s spell checker to stop underlining his name in red. Seems like a simple request from a simple school teacher, and he’d certainly have the law on his side, but, so far, no action. I’m gonna support http://www.tractortractor.org instead, if he doesn’t act on this. If he loses the election by $100……???
    The other sites I can excuse, but his own????

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