Great, now we have three days of Senate debate about amending the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage, even though few if any lawmakers think the amendment will pass.
Setting aside concerns about using the Constitution to restrict rights, rather than to protect and expand them, there is a fundamental reason to oppose this amendment: Marriage is a state issue, not a federal one. Yet with only a few noteworthy exceptions, Republican senators who champion federalism and local control seem happy to override states’ rights on marriage — especially if it energizes the religious right before the upcoming elections.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Like it or not, marketing is part of the news business. So it’s to be expected that local TV stations and The Eagle will trumpet when they have a big news “exclusive.” But these promotions are easily overdone — especially when they are for news that isn’t that significant, or when the drive to be first causes media to shortchange their reporting.
Todd Spessard, news director of KSNW, Channel 3, compared such excessive marketing with football players doing a touchdown dance. “I look at that dance and think, ‘Act like you’ve been there before,’” he told The Eagle in an “exclusive” report.
And speaking of excessive marketing, how about the Super Digital Doppler High Definition Viper 3D weather alerts?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
As broken as the two-party political system can appear, its cracks still never seem big enough to allow a third party to break through. Could Unity.08.com be different? The new Internet-based effort is being led by seasoned operatives — Democrats Hamilton Jordan and Gerald Rafshoon (Jimmy Carter ’76), Republican Doug Bailey (a media guy for Gerald Ford) and former independent Maine Gov. Angus King. Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter writes, “Their hope: to get even a fraction of the 50 million who voted for the next American Idol to nominate a third-party candidate for president online and use this new army to get him or her on the ballot in all 50 states. The idea is to go viral — or die.” The site is optimistic and interesting, even offering a “Frogger”-like game called “DemocracyLand.” But can it lead to victory, especially without a known candidate or cause to rally behind?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
President Bush has said that he doesn’t pay attention to polls, so he probably doesn’t pay much attention to the Billboard charts. But the fact that the Dixie Chicks’ new album opened at No. 1 may reflect that Americans, including Republicans, are getting more and more fed up with the situation in Iraq. As Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson wrote: “It’s not yet clear whether the new album is being bought by country music fans who are ignoring the industry’s party line because they like the music or by non-fans who are using their credit cards in support of free speech. It is clear, though, that both Bush and his war have become unpopular, even in communities where, as the joke goes, they like both kinds of music: country and western.”
Posted by Melissa Cooley
School districts across the country, including USD 259, are adopting policies that limit access to sugary drinks and unhealthy foods. But Harriet Brown argues in this op-ed piece that these plans are “misguided and red herrings, based more in conjecture and politics than on solid research-based solutions.” She warns that these policies — along with the near-hysterical rhetoric that often accompanies them — could end up exacerbating the exact problem they’re trying to solve. What we could end up with, she says, are more weight problems and eating disorders.
Posted by Melissa Cooley
