Ain’t No Turning Back ‘Cause I’m Walking A Line

My favorite thing is to connect press with politics and how they conspire to keep us barefoot, pregnant and stupid.

So I was pleased to see this blog post from Peoria blogger, Bill Dennis about how a Peoria local media entity had decided to run for office in the 18th Congressional District.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Baker, Zinga? Where is the line?

The truth is there ain’t one.

Our local press is in bed with the local politicians. Haven’t you ever wondered why

Phil Hare and Lane Evans got a pass for 24+ years? Why only Mike Boland gets negative stuff reported about him?

The line separating press from politics is very narrow—we need to be sure the press isn’t in bed with the politicians.

Or rather, we need to acknowledge and accept the fact that the press and politicians are forever intertwined.

UPDATE 01/28/08: Ed Felker is mad as hell and he’s not gonna take it any more! After months of abuse, Felker took umbrage at my characterization of him as “a former Democrat operative” and emailed me to set the record straight. According to Ed, he has never worked for a candidate or political party and won’t even vote in primaries.

So I guess my theory as to why local reporting on the 17th CD is so poor has just been shot to hell.

My apologies to Ed Felker and the offending, incorrect paragraph has been deleted. 

It’s The Pictures That Got Small

For several years, Mr. Examiner and I have been doing movies and dinner as a return to our earlier dating habits (the 70s).

As a result, for better or worse, we have seen a majority of the movies up for Oscar nominations. I must say here, that in almost every event, we find the movies of the 2000s inferior to the movies of our dating years (the 70s).

But plunging ahead, we have seen the following Oscar nominated movies:

There Will Be Blood

Atonement

No Country For Old Men

Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Sweeney Todd

The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford

Into the Wild

Gone Baby Gone

None of these were our favorite. That would be Kite Runner.

But if I had to choose among the nominees, I would pick:

Johnny Depp-Best Actor

Cate Blanchett - Best Actress

Atonement - Best Picture

Casey Affleck - Best Supporting Actor

Amy Ryan - Gone Baby Gone

Both us are in despair about the current crop of movies—-if you aren’t a nihilist, you ain’t in the movies. 

Quote Of The Day

From Rep. Pat Verschoore (D-Politburo) in an article in the Dispatch today, about Jerry Lack;

It’s always hard to run against an incumbent…

I wonder how in hell Verschoore would know. Verschoore never ran against an incumbent in his life. In ‘03, in the usual Politburo fashion, he was appointed to serve out the term of Joel Brunsvold.

It’s no wonder Verschoore is financing Lack’s campaign against Boland. Mike Boland is the only person in the area who began his political career by VOTERS deciding rather than the powerful Politburo. Such independence must be punished, and Verschoore, who is himself the beneficiary of Politburo dirty back-room dealings, is just the guy to lead the attack.

It really is a pity that Boland didn’t return the favor by financing a challenger against the free-rider Verschoore.

The Boland v. Lack race had me in a quandry since neither represented change. Boland has been my Rep. since ‘94, but Lack is just another puppet of the Politburo, which is the anti-change agent in RICO.

Ultimately, on Tuesday I decided to go with Boland. I’ve never been a big fan of his, but at least he isn’t a representative of the culture of corruption which Jerry Lack certainly is.

It was a tough call.