The labor beat
How many news reporters are assigned full-time to labor issues in this entire country? A couple? Maybe? It's no wonder that the media is arriving so late to so many of these stories over the two years, and covering them inadequately, like the transcendent protests of public employees in Wisconsin, the Chicago teachers strike-- with its potential to impact teachers' salaries and employment benefits coast to coast, and even the NFL's lockout of union referees, a high profile labor dispute if ever there was one. Every major U.S. newspaper publishes a full-scale "business" section, daily, with management officials as the targeted consumer, and we have television channels devoted to "business news" 24-hours-a-day, but we get virtually no stories for or about working people in the traditional media. That's what happens when you have six multinational corporations controlling 90% of media.---
Good for President Obama for not meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu at the United Nations. The neocons are angling for that war on Iran again over their nuclear program. Obama said all the right things to Steve Kroft last week when asked about the pressure Netanyahu is applying to Washington, "When it comes to our national security decisions, any pressure I feel is simply to do what's right for the American people. And I'm going to block out any noise that's out there." Billionaire political donor Sheldon Adelson may wind up spending as much as $170 million in this presidential race with the ultimate goal of having the United States attack Iran. That's some expensive noise.
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Major League Baseball has removed Melky Cabrera from eligibility in this year's batting race in the National League-- at his urging. The San Francisco Giants outfielder currently serving a 50 game suspension for violating the league's policy on the use of performance enhancing drugs begged out of the race he was about a week and half away from winning in absentia because he had registered enough plate appearances to qualify prior to his suspension. No doubt that Cabrera's motivations in bowing out are fueled as much by his desire not to be blacklisted from future employment in the league as they are his conscience.
But here's the thing. The batting title is not a subjective award, like the MVP or being elected to the Hall of Fame. It's an end of the season reality. Either somebody with enough plate appearances to qualify tops Cabrera's .346 average or he doesn't. Why Bud Selig (pictured below testifying before Congress) thinks he can change the rules in midseason is a mystery. Stupid, stupid.
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Last night on the Late Show, Steve Martin brought along video of the moment he found out that David Letterman had been chosen to receive the Kennedy Center Honor.
posted by CM @ 8:42 PM
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