What if Juan Williams had been in a union?

October 29, 2010 at 4:14 pm (Media Reform)
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This is a little follow up to the whole Juan Williams bigoted comments leading to his firing by NPR.

For those comic lovers out there, you may remember the comic series What if….?, so here is the real world version.  As the movie Waiting for Superman (see comic connection) is raising the issue of bad teachers who are protected by unions from firing.  The question has to be asked, what if Juan Williams was in a union at NPR?  Would NPR be able to just fire him like they did?  Would Williams had the ability to go to his union rep to challenge the firing?  Would he still be working at NPR, albeit under tighter guidelines of his employer?

Of course, if he were in a union, would Fox News ever taken him on as a commentator since their unbalanced and often very unfair ideology is decidedly anti-union.

-Josh

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Juan Williams firing

October 22, 2010 at 5:34 am (Racism)
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Here are some interesting thoughts about NPR’s firing of Juan Williams.

First, conservatives tend to put the rights of the employer above the rights of the worker. But, this fits into the narrative of Muslim bashing and claims of political correctness/victimization, which trumps employers rights, especially when the employer is a “liberal” bogeyman.

Second, Williams prefaced his comments by saying he is not a bigot and talks about his authorship of civil rights books as an example. Yet, don’t conservatives often claim the reverse racism of African-Americans towards white Americans? But since this bigotry is not directed at whites, it isn’t really racism, especially since Muslims are increasingly the target of hatred in America (which unfortunately makes it seem acceptable and mainstream).

Just seeing Juan Williams on Fox and Friends he admitted what was painfully obvious to anyone who has a clue about the range of the liberal-conservative spectrum, that he isn’t that liberal. Yet on Fox News he is portrayed as the “liberal” point of view.

But before you get too upset over Williams treatment by NPR, keep in mind that he just got $2 million contract over three years. Which works out to $55,555 per month, which is more than I make in a year.

I am not saying they should hire me, but I would be willing to put up with the frustration of talking to many of the pinheads on Fox News at that pay scale. Plus, I would give them a more liberal point of view than Williams normally does.

-Josh

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Erik Paulsen the math guy??

October 3, 2010 at 9:34 am (Uncategorized)

Erik Paulsen is running an ad claiming to be a math guy

Yet his June 17, 2009 press release makes this claim,

The President’s budget calls for the public debt to double within five years and to triple within ten years.

Now I realize that journalists may not be good at math, as they consistently fail to question this lie (see my math here, and example of failure of the media here).  Yet we have Paulsen making the claim that he is good at math in the ad, but he didn’t do the math because it doesn’t add it up.  Not only that, but he is not good at accounting, because he is only looking at one side of the balance sheet, spending, not at revenue (taxes).

Paulsen is not good at math, and he only sees one side of the balance sheet.  Hope the 3rd district realizes he is no Jim Ramstad and try a Democrat for a change.

-Josh

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