Anderson Independent Mail fails again

All right, it's a small thing.  Just high school basketball.  But it is the playoffs, so lots of people are interested.

And how exactly did the Anderson Independent Mail fail again? 

How about by fucking up the reporting of a local team's score!

Not only did the idiots reverse the outcome of the game published in the hard copy of the daily rag, but they committed the same error in their digital version.

I pointed it out to them via their website. 

Did they acknowledge their error?  No!

Did they correct the error online or in the newspaper?  No!

To me, the thing is this - when they get the easy stuff, like the winner of a high school basketball game wrong, how the hell are readers supposed to trust that they've got the big stuff right?

You would think that accuracy is just as important as integrity in the newspaper business. 

Apparently that isn't true when it comes to the Anderson (SC) Independent Mail.

Update on Pastor Jonathan Ayers' shooting

Just a short update....a Gainesville, GA jury found a Georgia law enforcement officer liable for the gunning down of Pastor Jonathan Ayers in Toccoa GA in 2012.

The jury awarded Mrs. Ayers a little over 2 million dollars, but, due to some nefarious Georgia laws that reduce jury awards, Mrs. Ayers will be lucky to see 40 to 50 percent of that award.

Still, it may serve to deter other law enforcement officers from being trigger happy in the future.

Pastor Ayers left behind a wife and child when he passed away after being gunned down by Georgia law enforcement officers in the parking lot of a Toccoa convenience store.

Recall the parable about the splinter in one's eye...

as you read this: "As we have said many times before, Mr. Gross is a dedicated international development worker who was in Cuba providing support to members of the Cuban Jewish community," Crowley said. "He has been held without charges for more than a year, contrary to all international human rights obligations and commitments regarding justice and due process." Crowley is the US State Department press secretary, Gross is an American citizen being held in Cuba on charges of crimes against the state and suspicion of espionage. Apparently our own State Department can't see the hypocrisy in this statement. Five hundred miles east of Havana there are hundreds being held without charges for more than a year, contrary to all international human rights obligations and commitments regarding justice and due process. And there is the incarceration of PFC Bradley Manning as well. Our government has drifted far from being a shining light of freedom in the world. More often than not, that light is the explosion of a rocket or bomb. An explosion that more than likely will kill more civilian non-combatants as it does enemy combatants. Gross story and Crowley quote from this Politico article: http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/0211/gross_misjustice_1c473214-5544-4d2b-a4e8-885988bb0eb8.html Palmetto Yankee

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown...a modern political tale

"It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown....a modern political tale"

In the first five minutes of this animated classic, we have a microcosm of America in 2010. Lucy, with her "signed document" is the Republicans and their "Pledge to America". Charlie Brown is America, who, even though deep down knows Lucy's going to pull the football away when he tries to kick it, still succumbs to her entreaty that this time it'll be different because she has presented him with a "signed document." Same old Lucy, same old result. America trusts the Republicans not to do what they've always done, because this time they've given us a "Pledge to America". America ends up flat on its back. Again. That is the definition of insanity.

Sharia Law - No Way! Christian Law - Dat's OK!

While it's not the loudest sound in the right-wing echo chamber at the moment, volume is building among the more fervent Islamo-fascist warning of the impending loss of all of our Constitutional freedoms and protections to Muslims and Sharia.

Somebody should knock these folks up side of the head with a few state law books.

Most states have prohibitions against sales of wine, beer or liquor for off-premises consumption on Sunday. In some states, its a flat-out ban on Sunday sales of wine, beer or liquor.

Now where do you suppose all this No Drinking On Sunday crap originated?

Yeah, that's right. This limitation on our freedom to purchase and consume a bottle of beer on Sunday is brought to you courtesy of The American Taliban - the fundagelicals who would have us all worship their supernatural being or face earthly as well as after-life punishment for not bowing down to them and their mythology.

And their minions are screeching about the Sharia? Get the splinter out of your own eye first, my friend.

A Wise Man Speaks Again

Nothing I say can add to the wisdom of this man.

http://www.desertdispatch.com/opinion/nation-8770-cross-mojave.html

When No One Can Hear You Shouting

The Rom Houben story is getting lots of attention. Sadly, the skeptics who see this as another example of the MSM swallowing whole the discredited practice of "facilitated communication" just aren't getting the same coverage. Damned ironic, isn't it. A man who supposedly has been conscious, but unable to be heard for more than 20 years is now the focus of skeptics, scientists and the medical community, and those who challenge the "happy story" of consciousness restored are themselves unable to be heard.

This brings me to my own story of being silenced this past Veteran's Day. The closest "big city daily newspaper", the Anderson (SC) Independent Mail, in its annual efforts to assuage its guilt over not hiring veterans in any substantial numbers, let alone having many (any?) as reporters, editors, etc. goes out of its way to cover any veteran's event within an hour's drive of their offices. It's the usual coverage - every two bit small town local paper does it.

But nobody does it as bad as the AIM. Because the AIM doesn't know the difference between a soldier mounted on a horse and the place where Jesus, according to Christian history, was crucified.

Yes, the AIM, it's reporters and editors, are so fucking ignorant they cannot get these simple facts clear in their apparently anally inserted heads - The Army has Cavalry Units and Divisions, and Jesus died at Calvary. Over and over again, the pinheads at the AIM write stories of veterans who served with the 1st Calvary Division, or the 7th Calvary. News stories, obits, it makes no difference. The pinheads cannot for the life of them understand its CAVALRY.

And they don't want to be corrected, either. I had occasion to criticize the AIM over a policy change about a year ago, and my Letter to the Editor, while it conformed to their petty and arbitrary rules, was never acknowledged or published. So when this recent wave of journalistic nausea swept over the paper around Veteran's Day, with Calvary this and Calvary that, I spoke up, futile as it might be.

First, I twice called the number listed where, at least in theory, the pinhead powers that be at the AIM will listen and correct errors of fact published in their fish wrap. Silly me. My past experience with the AIM's inability to graciously accept tactfully offered criticism was again unacknowledged and ignored.

OK, let's try another tack - the online edition of the AIM, where one can attach comments to news stories.

Well, guess what. That's right. The pinheads at the AIM didn't take kindly to seeing their hard work criticized by a mere customer on their own website. My entire post, attached to an article where they twice referred to a person as having served in the CALVARY during the Vietnam War was scrubbed/removed/flushed down the memory hole.

Wonder why newspapers are dying? Look no further than the Anderson Independent Mail for the answer. Wrapping a fish in the AIM should be considered animal abuse. Placing it in the bottom of the cage of a large bird suffering from diarrhea is the only possible, responsible use for the Anderson (SC) Independent Mail.