For The New York Times, daily circulation fell 4.51%...
Daily circulation at The Washington Post was down 3.2%...
Daily circulation at The Boston Globe tumbled 6.6%...
Both The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News experienced deep declines -- over 10%...
Of the top 25 papers in daily circulation (see chart, separate story), only four showed gains.
Every writer's first question should always be: who is my intended audience? When you forget that, you'll miss the mark. If editors begrudge the falling numbers, then the bias in their company's product has to give way to the need for an larger audience. Personally, if I felt that I could trust the newspaper to provide me with an accurate and comprehensive picture of the news, I'd subscribe and read. In the meantime, I'll save my money.
Think of all that you did yesterday... from getting up in the morning and getting ready for the day, to the chores and things you did, to the people you met and the conversations you had, to the things you wrote and said and thought... so much gets packed into a day.
I've lived 15,705 of those.
I am incredibly grateful.
I live in the best nation that's ever graced the earth. I'm free to say what I like, work in the job that I choose, go home to the family I love... thank God for this United States of America.
I have the best wife, who loves me and cares for me in ways that heal me from previous hurt I've endured - some self-inflicted and some inflicted by others. I'm grateful that relatively little of it was inflicted out of malice.
I'm grateful that my children are the amazing people they are and that I have the privilege of knowing them and being close to their lives as I am.
I'm thankful for the work that I get to do and for my boss, a genuinely good man.
Somehow, I got the gene for big time persistence, and so I get to work on entrepreneurial side projects. Not everyone is wired that way and you can't do that in some places on the planet, but I can. How wonderful to do this...
Where I live is a wonderful place, surrounded by good neighbors and trees and bike paths and a park nearby. Sitting on my back deck and playing cribbage with Tamara is my every evening's joy, diggin' the scenery and laughing.
Every day is worth so much. I pray that I never waste one day, and that I work to make the most of each precious day.
And thank you... to everyone who has touched my life in the way you have.
Finally, a big thank you to all of the people who've visited this web site, for whatever reason. I hope you got something from it that made it worthwhile.
ETC: Mom got me a perfect present - it's what I'm wearing below:
Democrats are not only favored in the tone of the coverage. They get more coverage period. This is particularly evident on morning news shows, which "produced almost twice as many stories (51% to 27%) focused on Democratic candidates than on Republicans."
The most flagrant bias, however, was found in newspapers. In reviewing front-page coverage in 11 newspapers, the study found the tone positive in nearly six times as many stories about Democrats as it was negative.
Yep - I knew this back when I did my own research on it during the 2004 presidential campaign. Kerry got more coverage and he also get more favorable coverage.
And the Democrats have the gall to float the Fairness Doctrine. As if...
I have no problem with newspapers and TV stations and other outlets having their slant toward Democrats. I just won't watch them or read them. As many other Americans aren't, these days.
Circulation for newspapers is dropping because newspapers, consciously or unconsciously, decided to niche themselves as a voice for the Left. If the owners of these companies are comfortable with a smaller audience, then that's their business, and frankly, their choice. But I don't want to hear any boo-hoo'ing about it. Just like Hollywood these days... putting out anti-war films that few people care to watch. And then they wonder why these things bomb.
The radio and TV are awash with ads for the uninsured in our country. And it's not just healthcare they're pitching. A new initiative from the AARP, Divided We Fail, says, "We're asking Members of Congress to commit to working in a bipartisan way to provide Americans with actions and answers on health and lifetime financial security." Emphasis mine.
Since when is it the job of Congress to provide actions and answers on "lifetime financial security" for anyone?
Or maybe that's what Hillary means when she says that she wants to take $10 billion away from US industries.
I'm going to take $10 billion away from a lot of these industries, starting with money from the HMOs that are getting too much out of Medicare, starting with the no-bid contracts for Halliburton; starting with the defense industry that needs to be pared down and reined in.
I've been very clear about that. And I intend to implement that.
Since when is that the job of the president of the United States - to take money away from US industry? That's what she would do as president, she promises.
Good lord, that is frightening stuff. My kids' tax rate when they reach middle age will be well over half their income to support all this. I have no respect for the "Me Generation."
So, how did the "Me" generation do for itself? Have the boomers prospered as much as they could have, or did they miss key opportunities to better their nation and their lives?
It depends on whom you ask.
Some experts say the boomers did not plan well for their future, especially their financial futures, relying instead on the whimsy of a historically rosy economic era to carry them along.
"I think they've been baby bummers," says Suze Orman, a personal finance expert and host of her own financial advice television and radio show.
"We are a fascinating generation," she says, admitting that she's a boomer herself. "We're really independent and free-thinking," but from a financial perspective, "we did not save money, and we loved to spend money. Many of (the boomers) were saved by the real estate markets, and their wealth was created for them; they did not create it themselves."
It's one thing to borrow money with the intention to pay it back. That at least leans in the direction of responsibility.
But it's something else altogether to have the expectation to pull money from others because you think you deserve it just because you breathe.
Boomers, the AARP, and Hillary Clinton and company don't have any right at all to take money from people. If we allow that to happen, us parents and grandparents will devastate our children financially. It's not their job to take care of us, but that's what we assert by supporting these policies. All that money will have to come from tomorrow's wage earners, since we tax income and not wealth. (Think about that for a bit...)
It's one thing to ask for benefits for children, age 18 and under. It's another to expect for benefits for adults. How utterly selfish of the Me Generation.
Shame on those who desire, support, or push this agenda.
I spent a lot of time this weekend working on the big project and getting closer. My partners came back with a logo and I reworked the web site to match the logo. It's coming together well.
This is a collateral effort, but it is not the big project. But here's how it came together...
Two years ago I pitched an idea to a company where I knew the principals pretty well. I'd done business with them before and I like them a lot. Their integrity is well-known and they run a great company. So I pitched the idea and they said, "Hmm... interesting. We'll think about it."
I didn't hear from them for 18 months.
At that time, they asked me to pitch it again. I met for lunch at Legends in downtown Des Moines and went through the model, adding a few new thoughts.
Two months later, they decided to move on it. It would be a significant addition to their current web site, and be a new direction by building on to their existing business model and enhancing it.
We reached an agreement where I don't earn any money unless this makes money for them. I've received no money up front... it's a pure venture for me. They get to try it for no monetary risk. They pay as they go. Which gives me a ton of incentive to make sure it's got everything I can put into it to make it user-friendly and valuable to give people the desire to return to it again and again.
And so, today I'm polishing up the 60% of the web site that's built so that we can preview it for clients. I also built the collateral site, which for now is just a static bookmarker until we release the big project.
This is the eighth company I'm building. About half have done well enough to feed my family while they were in operation. I can't help this sort of thing. It's in my blood. I figure the more at-bats I have, the more likely I am to hit a home run. This is one more time at the plate.
It's a rare event that I utter the words, "I told you so," but I'll do that now. I get no credit for it, really; I'm just standing on my very firm belief in a universal craving for freedom.
To believe that Iraq is a failure is to believe the White Flag Democrats and the American media who propel such myths... and yet, Iraqis vote once again, this time in the election of parliament members. Democracy is blooming, regardless of how dour the left makes it seem.
As an American, I am enormously proud of my president, our military, and those Americans who've had the backbone to stand up in the face of hard pressure to give up this fight long ago. We didn't back down, and that resolve serves the Iraqi people well today.
Why exactly did we go into Iraq? To go after Al Qaeda, the organization responsible for 9/11. Have we been effective? In the words of Osama bin Laden, absofrickinlutely, which is what prompted this post.
In yet another sign of trouble for al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden publicly conceded that his like-minded militants in Iraq "made mistakes." In an audiotape broadcast by Al Jazeera this week, he sounds deeply anxious about the survival of al Qaeda in Iraq.
Bin Laden's troubles transcend Iraq. Prominent clerics and former militants call into question the very legitimacy of bin Laden's authority as a spokesman for Islam and Muslims. And last month, one of bin Laden's most prominent Saudi mentors, the preacher and scholar Salman al-Odah, wrote an open letter reproaching him for "fostering a culture of suicide bombings that has caused bloodshed and suffering and brought ruin to entire Muslim communities and families."
Bin Laden's al Qaeda was dealt another shattering blow from within when one of its top theorists, Abdul-Aziz el-Sherif, renounced its extremes, including the killing of civilians and the choosing of targets based on religion and nationality. In the past few months, El-Sherif - a longtime associate of Zawahiri, who crafted what became known as al Qaeda's guide to jihad - called on militants to desist from terrorism and authored a dissenting rebuttal against his former cohorts.
It's difficult to keep a ship from sinking after being thrown overboard.
Thrown overboard is right. The people of Iraq watched all this violence being done in their country by their "fellow" Muslims (the terrorists that the media likes to call "insurgents") and saw it as the despicable crap that it is. The people of Iraq wanted peace and freedom. I also said in the comments back then:
I can give you over 10 million reasons why democracy is not only wanted in Iraq, but will succeed. Each one of those is voting today.
If introducing democracy to them is a bad idea, they'd stay home. No one is making them go. And if you read their own accounts of how they feel about it, it's very much what they want.
Democracy is not an American concept. It's a human concept. It's about freedom, which has great appeal to every person on the planet. Which is exactly why it will succeed.
It's a gross mistake to underestimate the power of the desire for freedom. Given a taste of freedom, no one wants to step backward from it. But most of the left in America bet heavily against that desire and instead believed that religious oppression and fanatical homocidists would win the day.
Never bet against the innate burning desire that we all have for freedom. It's a loser when you do.
In my last My America installment, Annette wrote this in the comments:
I take care of me and mine, so I won't be looking to my government to help me. These hands are busy working. I don't have time to hold one out.
Amen. The government should not avail itself as a source of assistance in living life, and we shouldn't reach out to it to help us.
And just as people shouldn't reach out to the government to live, we should not allow the government to reach out to us to tell us how to live. That's the focus of this installment: my life is my private life and not the business of the government.
There is a well-known phrase in the Declaration of Independence: "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." You knew it before you even finished reading it - that's how well-known it is. Where did that phrase come from? What does it mean?
John Locke believed that "that property is a natural right and it is derived from labor." Locke believed that liberty meant the right of individuals to do as they pleased with their own lives and their own property. You work for it; you earn it; it's yours. You get to decide what to do with it.
Some in the government would tell you how to live. They would determine for you what you can do, and what you can't do. Be it the religious zealots who despise homosexuals and what they do in the privacy of their own home, or the environmental zealots, who demand that a person cannot cut down trees on their own property for fear of harming an "endangered" animal. Laws are enacted to tell us how to live. This nanny-ish quest for - and acceptance of - power is in direct opposition to a "Declaration of Independence."
Annette also commented:
I think it was Dennis Leary who said something about Americans' unalienable rights to be assholes. I might not help a neighbor start their car, for no other reason than I just don't want to. I certainly wouldn't want my government telling me I had to do so.
And you know what? She's right. What independence do we have when we allow - no, encourage - the government to tell us how to live? We don't.
If a person chooses to be stingy with the property they've earned through their labor, that's their right. And if we choose to look down our noses at such a person, that's our right. We might abhor such behavior according to our own personal morals, but it is not our right to tell others how to live their own lives, spend their own money, or determine how to occupy their own time. The government should not be the convenient vehicle it's become to mandate how others should live.
Liberty, if we truly prize it, means what Locke said it meant: the right of individuals to do as they please with their own lives and their own property.
If they want to have consensual gay sex, have lots of consensual gay sex.
If they want to drive by the stranded and not help people out, then drive on by.
If they want to cut down a tree on their property that harbors a spotted owl, then rev up that chainsaw.
If they want to despise the way that others live, then despise all you like.
But don't use the government as a means for dictating lifestyle to others. That's not freedom. That's not liberty.
It's a rare event that I utter the words, "I told you so," but I'll do that now. I get no credit for it, really; I'm just standing on my very firm belief in a universal craving for freedom.
