So much for the anti-war Democrats who vowed to stop the appropriation:

(WAPO) House Approves $106B Supplemental War Spending Bill

Legislation will fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan over coming months.

NEWSING: A MORE PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE
RUSSIA-CHINA MEETING DOES NOT CALL FOR DUMPING DOLLAR
RESPONSES TO THE COLBERT LETTER CONTINUE

I have been sharing my dissections in the same way every day for years now, and fear that these blogs may have become a bit predictable, a formulaic survey of news with a range of often critical perspectives. I got a lot of response to the Open Letter I wrote to Stephen Colbert —the industry Trade Mag TV WEEK is now going to pick it up which should set off some fireworks among the non-brain dead in the industry.

So after talking to my colleague, Cherie, a big believer in “less is more, I decided to try something new–a more personal shmooze on events with fewer links and articles. (I am still over her word count but as every wordaholic knows, it takes time for withdrawal to set-in.)

Here goes:

NEWSING: Meditations On What It Is

I was at the doctor yesterday getting a check-up and I asked about Swine Flu. Is he seeing cases, I wondered?

His response startled me: yes we are, he confided, many, many cases. It’s now all over. So far, he said, they are not that serious but since this virus mutates, it could become very dangerous by the Fall.

He was very concerned because they do not have an effective flu vaccine widely available.

Yet, despite the proclamation by the World Health Organization that Swine Flu, excuse me pork producers, I meant H1N1, is at pandemic levels, the media has been backing away from the story. At first, when it was new and novel, when it seemed as if the apocalypse was on the way, it was all over the press. But after just a handful of deaths, they downgraded the sense of urgency. The story seemed to be on its way out. Old News.

The media moved on to other topics.

In the real world, this flu actually has been spreading, from one School to a hundred, from young to old, from city to city and country to country. Remember that one sick kid in Mexico and how so many dismissed the suggestion that this one case could turn into a major health threat? As of yesterday, The World Health Organization said that 76 Countries had reported a total of 35, 928 cases with 163 deaths.

This is serious, with no end in sight.

“It was strange,” said my physician, “as soon as the media stopped discussing it, it started emerging all over. It is now spreading rapidly.”

I am sure that didn’t happen by design but it does lead us to rediscovering a seeming truth: that there is a gap between reality and media, that the people supposedly in the know often aren’t, whether on issues of war or finance or health.

Media wants quick answers, provocative sound bites, and easy truths. Did any of you see Joe Biden trying to hold off the aggressive questioning by David Gregory on Meet The Press —imagine, he is now considered THE PRESS—who demanded to know how Obama could fall so short on his plan to create more jobs and promote economic recovery.

Gregory hurled statistics and quotes at him—what Obama said, what the Washington Post says etc etc to try to show we are being lied to. It was an attempt at GOTCHA showmanship, not really designed to get at the complexities of the issues. Biden’s attempts to explain that it takes time to create projects, let contracts, shape plans, hire workers, implement strategies met a hostile reception. It as if he was saying, don’t confuse me with reality.

It was all a game of course but so emblematic of the kind of polarizing politics that seems more intended to agitate viewers than inform them. That show always moves from right to center in a knee jerk way, taking itself seriously as the voice of Establishment Washington.

You see this all over the tube. Olbermann has Bill Mahar on as his expert—a comedian—who tells him that Obama should become more audacious. His quote on the subject saying that the “audacity of hope phase” is all over (and was in my blog) but I didn’t know that his understanding of audacious is that he should force his programs on those resisting them.

Here we have MSNBC, aping Fox in the righteousness department. The problem is that this advice skips over the divisions that remain in Washington, not just between right and left but with the Democratic majority. A lot of people are in the middle, ready perhaps to be persuaded but not told what to do

Again, simplicity is the enemy of reality. Media heat does not lead to media light.

And then there is Iran. I was thinking about the uprising there about voting irregularities that send tens of thousands into the streets in protest forcing the government to do a recount. And then I thought about what happened here in the aftermath of the rigged 2000 and 2004 elections. A few protests, almost nothing. Have yet to see that parallel explored in the TV coverage which also seems to forget that the last popularly elected leader there, Mosadegh, was overthrown by the CIA after nationalizing the oil. That in turn led to The Shah seizing power with our help and support and finally to the reaction, The Iranian Revolution which most Americans understood only as OUR hostage crisis..

President Obama referenced this history vaguely in his speech in Cairo but few if any our media explained what he was referring to, So here too we had a chance to educate the American people on why many Iranians distrust us and it was blown in favor of more street fighting coverage, Even as our media frame focused on the opposition protests—a Daily Show report yesterday was just silly—few tried to explore a more nuanced approach captured in this quote from a young person there.

Finally, we have the Korea crisis, If you read the New York Times story carefully you will find in the bottom, not on page one but on the jump page, a report that the OBAMA administration is adopting get tough policy recommendations proposed by—I can’t even write this—DICK CHENEY and his neo-con superhawks.

Ask yourself, “what do you know about Korea, about how it was divided after World War 2, about how the Japanese retained control in the South, about the lack of democracy in both halves of the country, about the massive US military presence 60 years after the Korean war?” What do you know its history and many conflicts? Probably nothing.

Has there ever been a non-cold war, promoting TV program explaining North Koreans side of things? Clearly, to understand it is not to embrace it, but we are kept in the dark substituting the satire that Colbert offered us last night on how idiotic their leaders are–the way they dress, etc.– for any real knowledge.

Bear in mind this could still blow up into a war, even a nuclear war.

Do you want a DICK CHENEY approach in command in Washington? I don’t.

That gives me the creeps.

Can this be happening? It gets worse:

The Huffington Post: Obama Blocks Visitor List Access, Echoing Bush

“The Obama administration has denied requests from both reporters and government watchdogs to reveal the names of White House guests, echoing Bush administration policy. MSNBC.com reports that their attempt to get visitor logs was denied.”

Oh, and this just in:

TOKYO (AP) — The youngest son — and reportedly heir apparent — of North Korea’s ailing leader Kim Jong Il secretly visited China last week and was urged by President Hu Jintao to have the North halt additional nuclear tests, a top Japanese newspaper said Tuesday.

During the trip around June 10, Kim Jong Un asked China — its key ally and biggest aid donor — to continue its energy and food aid to the North, the Asahi newspaper said, quoting unnamed North Korean sources in Beijing.

I could go on, but I will stop now. Is this approach interesting, or too personal?