The Past Week: July 19-25, 2009 (The Journalism School Named after Walter Cronkite; Poor Economy, Cash-Strapped Families = Unclaimed Bodies of Loved Ones)

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

The passing of Walter Cronkite resulted in lots of solemn eulogies in TeeVee-land, and I have to say that woman I saw one afternoon on CNN exclaiming that he “wasn’t just a newsreader” made me chortle…she obviously thought SHE wasn’t a newsreader and spoke with some authority on the matter as she conversed with somebody who was reminiscing about Cronkite’s tremendous experience.  What a joke!  This young chippy chit-chatted her way through the “news” as if she were doing an infomercial…

Cronkite, of course, was the man everyone watched during the moon landing back in 1969.  And, I’m also old enough to remember his reporting on the Kennedy assassination (and Dan Rather, who was local in Dallas back then.) By accident, while noodling around the web during the moon landing anniversary, I came across the website of the Cronkite School New Media Academy | The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication which is at Arizona State University.

It produced Aaron Brown, among others. But who knows if it is really living up to the expectations espoused in the “Welcome” message. For example, the connection to ABC news doesn’t exactly inspire.  And where do really good journalism students go lately even IF they do get a decent education in journalism? (And that’s a big IF, to assume any really good journalists are coming out of journalism schools these days.)  Do they go MSBNC? CNN? NBC? FOX? etc., etc.

Don’t think so…

***

Signs of the times… From the Los Angeles Times:

More bodies go unclaimed as families can’t afford funeral costs

According to the story, “The poor economy is taking a toll even on the dead, with an increasing number of bodies in Los Angeles County going unclaimed by families who cannot afford to bury or cremate their loved ones.”

The victims of homicide and suspicious deaths are being cremated at taxpayer expense because people can’t afford services, so are leaving bodies of loved ones unclaimed.

And the L.A. county  is so much busier that they are no longer accepting bodies from the coroner. That office is now contracting private crematories to handle the load.

Apparently the situation in L.A. isn’t unique:

Coroners and funeral directors around the country say they are seeing the same trend as cash-strapped families cope with funeral costs. Just claiming a body from the L.A. County coroner costs $200. Once a body is claimed, private cremations usually run close to $1,000, Smith said. Funeral homes charge an average of $7,300 to transport and bury a body in a simple grave, according to the National Funeral Home Directors Assn.

…Can’t even rest in peace these days…

THE PAST WEEK

*By KenoshaMarge

*VOTING IN LOCKSTEP IS NOW A GOOD THING? (Not According to SOME Democrats in Congress…)

Chicago Suburb Hosts Hizb ut-Tahrir Conference; Organization Aims to Re-Establish an International Islamic State (Caliphate), Supports Jihad

The Past Week: July 12-18, 2009 (Energy-Saving Porch Project; “Full Plates Full Lives” Food Campaign; JFK, Jr.)

HULU — “An evil plot to destroy the world”: A Mainstream Media Creation (FOX, NBC et al) to Squeeze Out Independent Media Content

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

If you any doubts about how the mainstream media is playing us, then here’s the proof that they indeed are.  It’s easy to see when you take a look at Hulu. Most of the uniformed world think FOX (News Corp.) and NBC/GE are “enemies”  but we see that they’re working together to suck the air out of independent media content available on the web.

Hulu–“An evil plot to destroy the world.”  I didn’t originate this description; Hulu did. It’s in their ad which features the obnoxious Denis Leary jabbering away about TV content turning your mind to mush and snarking at a “brain dead” (those are the ad’s words) geek who’s getting a stream of green stuff passed into his ear.  Before he’s through, Leary says that the folks at Hulu are  “aliens” and then winds up with the tag line, “Hulu…an evil plot to destroy the world…Enjoy.”

The ad is up at the company blog under the title “The Evil Plot Continues.”  Go see for yourself…(and be sure to “click” to see the full ad after the initial clip is over or click here for the video without the blog post.).  This week, Hulu has released a “Video Panel widget”:

To continue to deliver on our mission to connect audiences with their favorite content wherever they are — or, as Denis Leary would say, on their “bliggety blogs, facey spaces and tweety pages” — we are releasing a new embeddable product this week: the Video Panel widget.

The ad is supposed to be a cool joke aimed at the younger crowd, but in reality, it may not just a joke!  A couple of weeks ago I happened to be watching CNBC and caught an interview with the young CEO who was talking about how successful Hulu had become and how it would be even more successful as it closes in on YouTube, which is currently the top video site.

And who’s behind Hulu?  According to Hoovers (with my bolding):

Hulu Company Description

When the rich and famous name their offspring, anything is possible. NBC and FOX had a digital baby. And they called it Hulu. Initially formed as a joint venture between NBC Universal (a unit of GE) and News Corp. (the parent of FOX), Hulu.com is a video site that features video from more than 100 content providers. Offerings include TV shows from FOX and NBC, as well as from subsidiary cable channels such as Bravo and the SCI FI Channel. Hulu also shows films from studios including Sony and MGM. Content — all total, some 900 TV series and full-length movies– is streamed on demand, free of charge the day after its broadcast debut. After a nearly five-month long beta version, Hulu.com was launched in 2008.

And, there’s another player now: Disney/ABC.

Disney Buys Into Hulu. YouTube Should Be Worried.  (4/30)

As the initial exclusivity for NBC and Fox content expires, Hulu will be adding Disney/ABC videos and TV shows to its distribution mix as well. Hulu is becoming the preferred distribution channel for the big media companies. And it is succeeding in attracting the fickle Web audience. This should worry YouTube, which is still casting about for a business model that will pay for its enormous storage and bandwidth costs. The media companies cannot ignore YouTube just yet, but by strengthening Hulu they can give it their best content first.

A couple of days earlier, this article provided some extra background:

Hulu Now The Number Three U.S. Web Video Site. Soon To Be Number Two.  (4/28)

Just last month, we wrote that Hulu had gained some 10 million viewers to become the fourth largest video portal on the web. Now, it’s slain another rival to the list: Yahoo, to move into #3 — at least in terms of videos viewed.

To be clear, the new March U.S. numbers released by comScore show that Hulu is still slightly behind Yahoo’s video properties when it comes to unique viewers. But the NBC and Fox-backed Hulu should pass it any day now in that category as well. Meanwhile, the number two player, Fox Interactive Media (which runs MySpace), is slipping just as quickly as Hulu is rising in videos viewed. It could well be as soon as this month when Hulu moves into the number two web video position.

Needless to say,  I wondered about the name. Silly me for thinking it was a take-off on “hula” or something Hawaiian. NOOOOOOOOOO, it’s actually a Chinese name! From Wikipedia:

The name Hulu comes from two Mandarin Chinese words, hulu (simplified Chinese: 葫芦; traditional Chinese: 葫蘆; pinyin: húlú; Wade-Giles: hu-lu) “calabash, bottle gourd” and hulu (simplified Chinese: 互录; traditional Chinese: 互錄; pinyin: hùlù; Wade-Giles: hu-lu) “interactive recording.”

The company blog explains:

In Mandarin, Hulu has two interesting meanings, each highly relevant to our mission. The primary meaning interested us because it is used in an ancient Chinese proverb that describes the hulu as the holder of precious things. It literally translates to “gourd,” and in ancient times, the hulu was hollowed out and used to hold precious things. The secondary meaning is “interactive recording.” We saw both definitions as appropriate bookends and highly relevant to the mission of Hulu. ^[4][5]

(Here’s the link to the above-mentioned blog post at Hulu with a picture of the young group (mostly of Chinese background?) who worked on choosing the name: http://blog.hulu.com/2008/05/13/meaning-of-hulu/.) (Note: For all their care, it seems that “Hulu” has some unusual meanings in other languages anyway. For a sampling, see:  Hulu Translates To “Cease” and “Desist” in Swahili. Oops.)

My next stop was a visit to the Hulu site at http://www.hulu.com/.  The “News” channel has a few sub-sections, but I just looked at the Politics section closely. Of course, it varies day to day, but it certainly is NOT a comprehensive news site…an awful lot of clips featuring unchallenged spin from the Administration and cable talk shows on the day I looked.  Hulu is entirely commercial content, so you won’t see any original “ads” or political discourse from the peons here, like you see at YouTube.

Who’s running Hulu for NBC, FOX, and Disney?

The CEO is one Jason Kilar. From Business Week:

Jason Kilar serves as Chief Executive Officer of Hulu, LLC. Mr. Kilar has been Chief Executive of online video joint venture of NBC Universal, Inc. and News Corp., since July 9, 2007. He serves as Special Advisor of KBL Acquisition Corp. IV*. He served as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Application Software at Amazon.com Inc. since May 2003 and was responsible for Amazon’s Marketplace business. From February 2002 to May 2003, Mr. Kilar served as Vice President of Worldwide … Application Software of Amazon.com Inc., where he joined in May, 1997 as a Product Manager. From October 2001 to February 2002, Mr. Kilar served as Vice President of Marketplace of Amazon.com Inc. and served as its Vice President of Books, Music, and Video & DVD from February 2001 to October 2001 and serves as its Vice President. He began his career with The Walt Disney Company, where he worked for Disney Design & Development. He serves on the board of Management Leadership for Tomorrow. He has been Director of AdReady, Inc. since November 28, 2007. Mr. Kilar received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School…

The company is providing  investment capital for Hulu is Providence Equity. Of course, there’s a “global presence”:

Working collaboratively from offices in Providence, New York, London, Hong Kong and New Delhi, our 74 investment professionals pursue opportunities as a unified team across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. Our sector focus and international mandate enable us to dedicate our full resources to building global leaders in the media, entertainment, communications and information industries, regardless of location.

The large “team” running this firm has some interesting names on the roster.

Michael K. Powell, now a Sr. Advisor for PE, formerly FCC chairman during the Bush Administration

In addition to Kilar, there are a lot of people with Harvard ties, work history with some of the large investment banks (with a number of them with a history at Morgan Stanley), and other interesting backgrounds. Here’s a sampling of some of the names I peeked at…there are many others with similiar ties on the long list of “the team”:

• Senior Managing Directors  Glenn M. Creamer and Paul J. Salem both come out of Harvard and Brown with interesting director backgrounds over and above the Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, J.P. Morgan, and Prudential experience.  Others I took a peek at include:
• COO  Gary S. Weinstein …Lehman Brothers
• Managing Director Julie A. Fisher … The World Bank  &  J.P. Morgan
• Managing Director Christopher P.  Halpin …Goldman Sachs

• Chief Compliance Officer Fred Franklin (who “served for ten years as Assistant Director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement”)… from Bear Stearns

So, it looks like the total capture of the minds of the younger generation by the mass media will be complete if most of them gravitate to Hulu.  If YouTube can’t survive, will the creative video we see there dry up or become fragmented across many smaller sites?

Hulu is just another piece of the puzzle as the media “clamps down” to control what media content users see.  Scary, very scary indeed.

***

*KBL Acquisition Corp. IV is involved in “miscellaneous”  investment services but is a big player in the healthcare industry (also KBL I, II, III)

Hulu Company Profile.

GE media holdings (From Columbia Journalism Review site)

News Corp. media holdings (From Columbia Journalism Review site)

Disney media holdings (corporate site)

Post-Obama TV Orgy OPEN THREAD for Watchers/Non-Watchers and THE CHICKEN BUTTON

This is our first-ever OPEN THREAD.  After the response to Grail Guardian’s post yesterday warning about what Obama would be trying to do, we’re interested in hearing comments from those who took heed of her call not to watch…and from those who braved the performance!!  And feel free to discuss anything else that’s on your minds….

Go for it…

PS…did you see the CHICKEN BUTTON ad??? GO to http://www.neverfindout.org/ and look down to the second line of videos from the bottom…the one on the far right of that line!

It’s a fabulous ad calling out Obama on his “Present” votes….AKA…the CHICKEN BUTTON!

Part 3–Independent Thinking: STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

Editor’s Note: This post concludes a three-part series. For previous posts see Part 1–Independent Thinking: PARTISAN NO MORE and Part 2–Independent Thinking: THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY/LATRINE NEEDS THE TY-D-BOL MAN .

Strange Bedfellows

~~By Grail Guardian

I met some great new friends the other day over at Uppity Woman’s place, courtesy of Hang Right Politics. Republicans. Republicans that think PUMAs are brave and patriotic. Many of them came to Uppity’s site and commented about our struggle of country before party, and it started me thinking about how much things have changed over the past political season.

I live in a rather conservative area of upstate NY, and frequently find myself at odds with many neighbors, co-workers, and family members when it comes to politics. This year, for the first time in, well, ever, I find myself having comfortable, agreeable conversations with these former opposites. I can sit in a restaurant and actually discuss the election and the economy without getting into a heated argument (just getting heated up in anger). I even watched the VP debate with my father, a long-time Republican who cringed when I registered as a Democrat in my 20’s.

Conversely, I find myself at odds (and often holding my tongue) with friends and associates I used to agree with almost all of the time. We used to mock conservatives and blame George W. Bush for just about everything. We believed in the same things, or so I thought, until this year. I find I risk a friendship here, a working relationship there by being honest about how I feel, yet these people who I had so much in common with have not the slightest compunction about offending me or even calling me a racist. Me! Can you believe it? Me, who has always had minority friends; me, who has always been tolerant of everyone, no matter how off the wall; me, who has defended the rights of others at my own expense and fought to make those who felt outcast welcomed and loved.

But I’ve also been noticing that I’m not the only one experiencing this phenomenon. The world has gone topsy-turvy with no real explanation. People blog that they’ve lost lifelong friends over this election. Twenty, thirty, even forty year Democrats have left the party and registered as Independents or even Republicans. People that had diaries on Daily KOS and other liberal sites long before I’d ever visited a blog were thrown off for stating the most innocuous of truths. The media I’d depended on for my entire lifetime for news suddenly offered nothing but commentary and opinions. Places like NBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN became mouthpieces for a single candidate long before it was prudent to do so, and I found myself unable to trust anything they reported. I was basically raised on broadcast media, and now I barely even watch TV or listen to radio other than music. (I lunge for the station buttons in my car whenever a DJ starts to speak, because I know they cannot avoid discussing politics.) I found myself reading Lyndon Larouche and agreeing with some of what I read. The Fox network became the least partisan news on TV. Conservative web sites featured stories I agreed with and often quoted.

Then the unthinkable happened. It became crystal clear that the Democratic Party had sold the country for a few shekels and didn’t want my vote anymore. They violated the rules (and I felt the law) on May 31, 2008 and didn’t care that their constituents didn’t like it. They bulldozed over Hillary Clinton like she was an unqualified poseur, and started to sound like Republicans of old when they attacked her and demanded she quit the race. Then on one life-altering day in early June, Hillary abandoned me and 18 million of my closest friends and quit. Worse still, she began to actually campaign for the evil she had sworn to defeat, namely Barack Hussein Obama. Well, I guess she had to keep her promise to campaign for him, but I can always count on the Big Dawg, right? Holy crap! Is that Bill Clinton, the man Barack Obama labeled a racist for the rest of his life, campaigning for this sham of a Democrat too? WTF? Wait, the next thing you’ll tell me is that Karl Rove is giving advice to Obama. Aw, come on now! This can’t be real! What’s that you say? The Republicans have selected a female Vice Presidential candidate that’s got more experience than the Democrat’s Presidential candidate? The Republicans are going to put the first woman in the White House? Huh? Wait, what do you mean the Democrats are calling her a C#$%???? Well at least we can count on the Republicans to launch all kinds of nasty 527 ads, right? What do you mean there aren’t any? But good old Bill O’Reilly will tear Obama to shreds, right? Right? What? O’Reilly shilling for Obama, McCain saying there’s nothing to fear with an Obama presidency??? What now, Democrats rigging the elections like the Republicans did in 2000 and 2004? What?? Who the hell is ACORN, anyway?

Suddenly there was a crisis on Wall Street. Isn’t this the one Hillary was talking about months ago? The one John McCain tried to fix years ago? Well that won’t go well, since we all know Bush caused the crisis, right? What? It was the Democrats that sank the economy and caused the sub-prime problems? And Hillary was tanking her own solution to the housing crisis just because McCain used it? Exactly what is going on here?

But I truly began to realize that I had somehow been transported from Kansas to Oz when I started to look at my former candidate (and current Senator) Hillary Clinton. Ok, at first I understood her fulfilling her campaign promises to “work my heart out” for the Democratic nominee. Heck, I even defended her. All any one had to do was watch her body language and read between the lines to see she was just doing her duty. But damn, does she have to keep doing it? She raised money for him; she stopped the roll call vote at the convention (which really pissed me off) to keep her own name out of nomination, and appeared wherever he asked her to go. Why is she still pushing for him? Why can’t she just support the down-ticket candidates? I agonized day after day, wanting to be loyal to the woman I felt was the most qualified Presidential candidate in years (if not decades), but she certainly wasn’t making it easy on me. Or any other PUMAs.

On Not Your Sweetie commenter Diana said:

What is Hillary doing? McCain gave her credit for the plan. She’s going to start chasing her own supporters off with this kind of stuff. Out and out lying for Obama? I can understand her having to campaign for Obama, I know she’s afraid of loosing her seat in the Senate, but this? Her supporters all know this was her plan. Most of us have seen the video.

Which caused Lee M. to note:

This is not the Hillary that I knew and loved.

And Cookiegramma observed:

It may not be the Hillary you knew and loved lee M., but it is now typical of the Democratic party that I am glad I quit.

Back at Uppity Woman, Typewriterstreaming said:

…After watching Hillary Clinton, (a women I have held in the utmost esteem) this morning on Fox TV stoop lower than ever and lecture PUMAS on the great qualities of Obama and to go further and say she is “disappointed” in Dems. who refuse to back the One,(she’s disappointed????)this post was really needed. I worked hard for Hillary’s campaign and after this morning will not vote for her next Senate bid. It is about Country first and I am shocked to see how far the Clinton’s can put themselves before everything. I am sorry to the people on this post that are Hillary supporters. I mean no offense to anyone. But I am stunned and outraged at what flies for the good of this country in Clinton land.

snip

And the nail in the coffin came from Deadenders:

Hillary Clinton has done the 18 Million that voted for her a great disservice. This is a disgusting display of party before country.

She was lying in the primaries or lying now. Take you pick either way she is supporting a fraud and trying to get him elected.

I’m sick of fellow pumas trying to decipher body language and vocal tenor to say that she is just acting. Well the casual political observer doesn’t see that, and believes only what they hear in the past 5 mins.
They hear Hillary saying he’s the one, and will vote for the bastard because of it.

Hillary has failed us.

Hillary has failed us. Wow. Now I was starting to hear the self-reproaching words of people like Kathy from Hang Right Politics:

Because today, I’m taking myself to the woodshed. I’m kicking my @$$. Why? For being foolish, for getting distracted, for forgetting that my country comes first.

And our own Kenosha Marge

Partisanship forces people to hang onto the most outrageous nonsense in an effort to avoid admitting they’re wrong. Some will refuse to see what is indisputable simply because they don’t want to see.

As much as I don’t want to believe it, I have to start questioning Senator Clinton’s motivations here. She started a movement, and then refused to leave the Democratic Party to lead the millions that gathered in her name. She promised to fight for us, and she did for a while, but then she didn’t anymore. Not even for me, a resident of New York (she voted for the Wall Street bailout fiasco, even though she knew it wasn’t the right solution). She fought misogyny in the primaries, and while she refused to be Obama’s attack dog on Sarah Palin simply because McCain selected a woman, did she really do enough to denounce the treatment her own beloved party gave to Governor Palin? The party she loved more than me and my 18 million friends?

This is a difficult call for me. I’ve supported Hillary vigorously since she was First Lady. I was thrilled when she came to New York for her Senate run. I defended her voraciously throughout the campaign, despite personal attacks and being called a racist until the word lost its meaning. But the words of Deadenders keep echoing in my head. “She was lying in the primaries or lying now.”

So here’s the million-dollar question: Can I vote for Hillary Clinton again?

I can only think of one answer: Country before personal loyalties.