The Past Week: April 12-18, 2009 (Newsweek Death Spiral?; Anti-Abortion Wars; Susan Boyle and Human Grace)

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

Last week we had a story up about the media censorship in Fiji, but this story courtesy Kenosha Marge about the decline of Newsweek is so much more satisfying.  OK, it’s by Brent Bozell, but facts are facts and some of them are pretty scary–for Newsweek.

The Decline and Fall of Newsweek

Brent Bozell

Newsweek greeted the coming of Easter with a black cover, and the headline “The Decline and Fall of Christian America,” spelled out in red in the shape of a cross. Inside, it was more declarative: “The End of Christian America.” Why? Because they found that the percentage of self-identified Christians had fallen 10 points since 1990. OK, then let’s compare. How much has Newsweek’s circulation fallen since 1990? Just since 2007, their announced circulation has dropped by 52 percent. It would be more plausible to state “The End of Newsweek.”

At the end of 2007, Newsweek reduced its “base rate” (or circulation guaranteed to advertisers) from 3.1 million to 2.6 million, a 16 percent drop. At the end of 2008, the Wall Street Journal reported that Newsweek, faced with an estimated 21 percent decline in ad pages, could soon drop that circulation number by another 500,000 to 1 million readers. In February, the magazine confirmed the million-issue drop, saying it would drop to a base of 1.9 million in July and 1.5 million readers by January 2010.

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Where will the Obot writers at Newsweek go if it sinks?  They all can’t squeeze into the MSNBC studios, can they?

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Well, it’s time to brace yourselves…the abortion wars are simmering nicely…Again, courtesy Kenosha Marge:

Obama boosts anti-abortion efforts

The first hint of a stir came just after Election Day, when the computer servers at Americans United for Life crashed. People were swamping the Web site to sign a petition urging President-elect Barack Obama to stand firm against abortion.

“I got a call from one of our guys, ‘We have a problem,’ ” said Charmaine Yoest, the group’s president and chief executive officer. “And I was like, ‘The problem would be what?’”

Obama’s first 84 days in office have been like an extended recruiting drive for the anti-abortion movement, reinvigorating a constituency he sought to neutralize during the campaign. Activists report a noticeable spike in activity as Obama moves to defend and expand a woman’s right to choose an abortion – causing anti-abortion voters to mobilize in ways never needed during the Bush administration.

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Did  you know that there was an anti-abortion group called “The Susan B. Anthony List”?

Aren’t you getting tired of all this crap always being used as a wedge issue??

***

By now practically everyone has seen Susan Boyle, the “unlikely” talent that wowed the cynical judges and audience in the UK.

Well, it’s such a wonderful story and the BBC story on contains a few wonderful quotes:

How Susan Boyle won over the world

SNIP

Lisa Schwarzbaum, writer for US celebrity magazine Entertainment Weekly, said the performance was a powerful reality check.

She wrote: “In our pop-minded culture so slavishly obsessed with packaging – the right face, the right clothes, the right attitudes, the right Facebook posts – the unpackaged artistic power of the unstyled, un-hip, un-kissed Ms Boyle let me feel, for the duration of one blazing showstopping ballad, the meaning of human grace.

“She pierced my defences. She reordered the measure of beauty. And I had no idea until tears sprang how desperately I need that corrective.”

Her post has been followed by comments from scores of readers saying they watched the clip repeatedly, with the same emotional response.

“I cried SO hard,” read one. “There’s something so beautiful about reaching your dreams… and knowing that age means nothing.”

Another wrote: “I cry because she reminds us to hope, to never lose track of our dreams, to keep putting one foot in front of the other no matter what others say or think. She gives us hope.”

Hope…of the real kind?

For me, I came away with a sense of the courage and sturdiness that so many “plain” people…especially women…have and which are qualities that are so overlooked.

Link to the You Tube video (full version, complete with  the sole woman judge on the panel addressing Simon Cowell’s attitude…catch his rather “deflated” look at the very end)

THE PAST WEEK

*By Grail Guardian

**By  American Lassie

***By Kenosha Marge

Saturday Sanity: The Antidote to the Madness (April 18, 2009) Glorious Organ Mountains; Apricots; Quail on the Wall; Sneaky Slick the Min Pin

Welcome to “Fiji on the Potomac”…

*Report From the Rochester, NY Tea Party (With Pics)–April 15, 2009

**Sharia Finance: Rapidly Increasing Inroads Via American Banks…With the Help of Our Treasury Department

***A Nation of Nincompoops

The Past Week: April 5-April 11, 2009 (”President Panytwaist”; A Split Among Progressives over War Spending Plan?; Smear Campaign in Britain; “Sageism”)