Every year end article seems to have something about my computer problems, and this year is no exception: my PC is completely down for the count and I am using my old PowerMac 7100 that I upgraded to a G3 some three years ago. This is in lieu of a 13 month old E-Machines PC. Windows ME, you see, is "missing". So much for off brand PCs. If it can't be fixed for under $100, my next computer will be a Gateway. Sorry, dude, I'm not getting a Dell.
This is not an awards-type article. Really, no one in the media has done anything differently this year over last--with one major exception, and it is definitely a big negative, on an order of "worst use of media by a media organ I once praised"--this goes to WorldNetDaily, which has turned from being a defender of anyone's right to express himself (as well as an organ that defended private property, gun rights, freedom of speech, the US Constitution, etc.) to the lambaster of anyone that doesn't support the destruction of Iraq, that doesn't believe in Israel, right or wrong, or who thinks George Dubya Bush isn't leading us down the road into a fascist police state. In fact it is almost impossible to find any other view point on this site that still, hypocritically, calls itself, "a free press for a free people". Just go to editor Joseph Farah's "Between the Lines" column on almost any given day--he is probably "lambasting" someone who doesn't agree with him, and is surely becoming the new Bill O'Reilly. Is Jerry Springer or Howard Stern far behind?
Anyway I've said my last word on WND, and I won't bother anyone anymore with how badly they have changed under the Republicans. I might like them again when the Dems take over--which, if Farah's beloved war on Iraq doesn't go well, they most assuredly will in 2004.
Sorry to say I don't have a "best" award for news media. So I will reiterate my top media-in-the-movies picks.
My top three movies of all time on how the media lies and distorts is still the same (in no order):
1. Running Man--saw that on SciFi's Christmas movie marathon last night. I am convinced that the techniques ICS uses, from changing raw footage to suit their purposes (their turning the Ben Richards character into the "Butcher of Bakersfield" for one) to using imaging to "clone" Richards for the masses in his "fight" with "Captain Freedom (you know, Minnesota gov. Jesse Ventura) when they realized they weren't going to get him, are in use now, which leads us to...
