Oil Subsidies

Oil companies are presenting their case to congress that they need to maintain the current tax subsidies. "Given profits of $35 billion in just the first quarter alone, it's hard to find evidence that repealing these subsidies would cut domestic production or cause layoffs," Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the committee, argued against the oil companies claims. www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-oil-executives-tax-hearing- Congress is looking at cutting $2 billion a year, which would go towards paying down the deficit. That number represents less than two percent of the expected annual profits of the oil companies. I’m surprised the oilmen actually show up to plead their dubious case, and not only because it seems unlikely that Congress will agree on anything. Oil companies spent $145 million dollars and used 798 lobbyists last year to make certain their point of view was heard. There are 435 members of the House and 100 Senators. Do the math – that’s nearly two lobbyists and over a quarter of a million dollars for each and every person in the Legislative branch of government. What? Oilmen have to take time out of their busy schedules to parade in front of Congress? Haven’t they done enough already?

By Sam DelPresto

Oh No! Not the Parks

It is always fascinating to me which portion of a news story is reported in the network coverage. With the threat of a government shutdown imminent, NBC is reporting that “The looming shutdown of the federal government includes the National Parks Service, which could mean events commemorating the start of the Civil War with a Confederate attack on Fort Sumter may have to happen without the fort itself.” www.nbc-2.com/story/14400275/federal-shutdown. Is that really in the top one hundred eventualities that Americans should be concerned about if the government shuts down? The top five hundred? Oh, by the way, NBC (might as well) report, in the Route 95 seven car accident, with multiple fatalities, one of the victims lost their wallet. The 20^th Century English writer, Rebecca West was apparently correct when she asserted, “Journalism is the ability to meet the challenge of filling space.”

By Sam DelPresto

Weather

Oscar Wilde said “Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative”. Normally, I am inclined to agree. A “sure is hot/cold out there” (take your pick) makes the speaker seem, at worst, simple minded and, at best, like one prone to state the obvious. But as the 21^st century roars forward, I might have to re-think my position. Floods, earthquakes, tsunamis et al are forcing themselves into the forefront of many of our lives. For people living in stricken areas, there’s no topic more important to talk about. The recent massive earthquake in Japan that unleashed the latest tsunami appears to have moved the main island of Japan by eight feet and shifted the earth on its axis. www.articles.cnn.com/2011-03-12/world/japan.earthquake.tsunami.earth I’m beginning to look forward to a time when a simple “sure is hot out there” is the only mention of the weather.

By Sam DelPresto

Revolution

The resignation of Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak was truly revolutionary. Not the part where a dictator is overthrown; that happens from time to time. The world-shattering part is that the revolution was achieved with an almost total absence of gunfire. The weapon of choice was the internet. (www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/social.media/02/11/egyptian.president.) The revolution began, at least in part, on Facebook. If the unlikely election of Barack Obama in 2001 did not signal the end of business as usual (his war chest was almost completely funded by small contributors through the internet) then certainly this change of government does. The Egyptian people’s overthrow of Mubarak is a gigantic boulder thrown into a pond with ripples of influence that are so far unimagined, both positive and negative. This form of public oversight sounds radically like a government “of the people, by the people.”

By Sam DelPresto

He Saw This Coming

The Tucson, Arizona shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and other defenseless victims has stimulated a lot of debate about the civility or lack thereof in media and in politics in general. The very suggestion that a connection exists between the two has generated much rancorous dialogue. I find it fascinating that this type of connection was predicted by the 2oth century communications guru, Marshall McCluhan years before the invention of the internet. Forty years before it was even possible, McCluhan warned in The Gutenberg Galaxy that a medium defined by “participation and a multiplicity of inputs” might have dire consequences.( www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/books/review/Carr-t.html?scp) “When people get closer together, they get more and more savage, impatient with one another”, McCluhan wrote before his death in 1980.

What? You don’t believe me? What are you some kind of a liberal, neo-conservative #%/$*?

By Sam DelPresto

Good News

As the year ends, new jobless claims are down, housing sales are up, retail spending exceeded expectations and the stock market remains strong. “There's no denying that the economy is improving," said Wayne Kaufman, chief market analyst at John Thomas in New York. It has been at least two and a half years since any of these things could have been said. (www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40850565/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/) Optimism anybody? Oscar Wilde once said that “the basis for optimism is sheer terror”. There’s no denying that the past few years have brought their share of terrifying developments. After the past two or three years of doom and gloom, however, the newest reports, if not a signal that the worst is behind us, are in the very least, a welcomed respite.

By Sam DelPresto

Who?

If you Google Joseph A. Smith Jr., you will find scant mention of the North Carolina Commissioner on Banks, which is ironic because he has been appointed by the Obama Administration to help decide what to do about the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac crises beginning in January.

www.communityinvestmentnetwork.org/nc/single-news-item-states/

While the media ponders such noble questions like whether the Republican Majority leader cries publicly too much or not, Mr. Smith will be tackling a problem of such magnitude that it is foolish to think his decisions will not affect our children and grandchildren. The government mortgage guarantee system has been in place one way or another since Franklin Roosevelt. Both Presidents Eisenhower and Johnson made changes to the system that still ripple down to us fifty years later. The overhaul of this system, one could argue, has more far reaching consequences in the everyday lives of Americans than the war now going on, but try to prove that based on media coverage!

By Sam DelPresto