U.S. tourism may be casualty of war on terror

"Go Fig" wrote in message
...
In article , PTravel
wrote:


That he hasn't tried to obtain one? I assume if he had and was refused
he'd
have made it public knowledge.

Perhaps, but you don't really know, but yet stated it as a fact.

You're right, I don't really know. However, I'm not aware of any radio talk
show personalities who have attended White House press conferences, much
less obtained press passes. This is true not only of the right but of the
left as well, I'd be equally shocked if Al Franken or Janene Garofolo showed
up to ask Bush questions at a press conference. As I recall, Franken had a
press credential for the Republican Convention though, of course, it was
entirely up to the Republican Party as to whether one should be issued or
not.


What if he got one, wouldn't it be reported like all the successful
airplane landings that occurred today ?

Believe me, it would be national news if talk show hosts of either political
persuasion suddenly started getting press credentials and showing up at the
White House.



That he's not a journalist? Even he has
said so -- he's the first to admit that he's an entertainer, not a
reporter.




What I find particularly disturbing is that YOU don't understand the
difference between a journalist and Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh doesn't
report
news. Pundits don't report news. Gannon, whatever he is, is not a
journalist and doesn't report news.


And neither does Helen Thomas, she is a NOT a reporter.

According to you. Not according to Hearst Newspapers


If you continue to make clearly false statements, there is no point in
continuing.

What false statement? Thompson is a columnist for Hearst Newspapers. She
was a correspondent for UPI for 57 years. She was the White House Bureau
Chief for UPI.

A few minutes on google will verify this.


She is NOT a reporter, and it clearly indicates that at the end of her
columns:

Helen Thomas is a columnist for Hearst Newspapers. E-mail:
. Copyright 2004 Hearst Newspapers.

Yes, now she's a columnist and not a reporter. She's also rather unique in
the journalism profession and, indeed, is frequently called "the Dean of
White House reporters." Again, you're not comparing Helen Thomas to Jeff
Gannon, are you?

I don't have much of a problem if real journalists, even if columnists, are
issued press credentials, and that would apply equally to someone like Cal
Thomas, too. You don't put Cal Thomas in the same league as Jeff Gannon, do
you?


LAST TIME: Helen Thomas is NOT a reporter.

She isn't now. She certainly was for nearly 6 decades. She is, however, a
journalist.



and United Press
International (for whom she was White House Bureau Chief as well as a
correspondent for 57 years). She was the first woman officer of the
National Press Club and the first woman officer of the White House
Correspondents Association.


So what! When a Black Panther is born, it has spots.

Hunh?


Her position NOW is that of a pundit, your failure to acknowledge this
is very telling.

On the contrary, I do acknowledge it. However, there's punditry and
punditry. As I said, I have no problem with her or Cal Thomas having press
credentials. Rush Limbaugh or Bill Mahr would be another story. Jeff
Gannon isn't a political pundit at all, and not in any way comparable to
either Thomas, or to Limbaugh or Mahr.



You're not seriously comparing Helen Thomas to Jeff Gannon, are you?

It is her own 'statements' in the White House Press Room that make that
comparison.

Really? Who told her to obtain press credentials under a false name by
pretending affiliation to a non-existent news service? Who writes her
questions?





If you want news, read newspapers, listen to newsradio, or watch
programs
called "News" on most television networks (Fox has a lot of trouble
separating opinion/editorials from news -- this, by the way, isn't
simply
my opinion, but is proven fact based on in-house memos that have
been
made
public.

You seem to be the one confused between news and opinion. Fox airs a
nightly News cast at 7pm EST... that is their News Hour...

And, per the corporate memos which have been made public, the news that
is
reported, as well as the slant given to it, is dictated by Murdoch.
See,
for example,


http://www.russbaker.com/CJR%20-%20Murdoch's%20Mean%20Machine,%20by%20Russ%20B
aker.htm
(an article from the Columbia Journalism Review).

And clearly from their Opinion section.

So what?


BTW: is russbaker.com a News source ?

No, it's not. However, it had reprinted the Columbia Journalism Review
article.



Fox can air whatever opinion pieces it wants. It is cynically
irresponsible, however, to present opinion as "news."

Your gonna need something more than your "word" on it... in this thread
alone, you have made false statements repeatedly.

Really? You haven't identified one.


Please be specific about your comments on Fox's "Fox Report with
Shepard Smith"!

I haven't made any comments about Fox' "Fox Report with Shepard Smith." I
have no idea what you're talking about.



the rest of
their shows are described as:Commentary/debate. In fact, when
O'Reilly
makes his 'commentary', that is what the 'crawler' says underneath
him... something the Networks use to do... but haven't for decades.

If Fox confined it's opinion programming to that which it labels
"Commentary/Debate" I wouldn't have any objection.

Please state your specific objection !

My specific objection is slanting news reports as a matter of corporate
policy.



On the other hand, CNN spent some 10 years in Bagdad concealing the
butcher's atrocities, BY AGREEMENT, so they could maintain a bureau
their.

And even CNN admits that this was a mistake.

"And even" Good Grief !

However, CNN's motivation was
to maintain access to news,

what were they reporting, the weather ?


rather than to subvert public opinion -- quite
different from Fox.

Nice unsubstantiated rhetoric.

Re-read the Columbia Journalism Review article.



My point remains the same, though. "Bert Hyman" thinks that Limbaugh is
a
journalist. You don't think that, do you?


He could be loosely described as a journalist, but what he is not, is a
reporter.

Limbaugh could loosely be described as a journalist? In what universe? Has
Limbaugh ever described himself as a journalist or, for that matter, as
anything other than an entertainer? There's not much about Limbaugh that I
like or respect, but he's never been dishonest about what he does for a
living.

jay
Tue Feb 22, 2005





This was reported by most of the news media, though, of course, not
Fox).

You do not get news from Rush Limbauh, Hannity, O'Reilly and the
rest of
that crew anymore than I would get news from John Stewart or Bill
Mahr.
Opinion is just opinon. Do you understand that?

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 10:48:22 -0800, Go Fig wrote:


snipped

PTRAVEL:

It isn't any use to try to discuss anything with GO FIG.

When Gannon's name is brought up, he tries to change the subject.

On one recent exchange I had with him:

I said:

"Do you think Congress should investigate why and how Gannon got
a press pass?'


GO FIG responded:

"Consistent with this, the Congress has not called for an
investigation as to why, Helen Thomas, an Opinion Journalist, has a
permanent seat in the White House Press Room."




I then asked him:

"Would you also think that Congress should investigate why a male
prostitute who is not a reporter and using an assumed name can get a
daily press pass?

Maybe Congress can find out:

Who OKed Gannon for a press pass?

Who did a background check on Gannon?"


GO FIG tries to side step my question by asking if Congress shouldn't
investigate Helen Thomas.

When I asked GO FIG if Congress shoul investigate Gannon, he was
strangely silent.


Do you notice the use of the word "consistent" in GO FIG' s response?

GO FIG's reasoning must be Congress must investigate Thomas if
Congress wants to investigate Gannon.

Isn't that great reasoning

"Gregory Morrow"
gregorymorrowEMERGENCYCANCELLATIONARCHIMEDES@eart hlink.net wrote in
message ink.net...

AJC wrote:

Ugh, yes, I've been to Atlanta. I didn't enjoy it, but I'm glad I've
seen it. Everyone should be exposed to such horrors at least once!


Yeah it's a ghastly place. I really despise the South, too bad they
don't
secede so that the rest of the US can again rise to the level of a
First
World country...

Georgia especially is a backwater. There is only one time in my life
when I
felt my life was in danger, it was about 30 years ago when I had to
pull off
the interstate in rural Jaw - ja to change a flat tyre. People were
actually swerving to *hit* me and yelling "Yankee go home!" (they were
tipped off by my Illinois licence plates). It really *is* like the
film
_Deliverance_ down there, except that the hillybillys in the movie
have
progressed to the point where they have real power and influence in
this
country, e.g. Newt Gingrich...

SHUDDER/

People were cringing when Atlanta got the '96 Olympics. Gawd that was
a
whole big white trash fest...

The South sucks up HUGE amounts of money from the rest of the country,
it's
mostly for pork barrel defense expenditures. So not only is the South
a
backwards place, but it is also sucking the lifeblood out of the more
advanced parts of the country.

--
Best
Greg
========

Greg, sorry about your bad experience in Georgia. (Reminds me of the
night I got stranded in the mountains in northwestern Haiti, complete
with voodoo drums!) Please set your stereotypes aside and remember that
there are a lot of Blue people in Red states, and we don't appreciate
being tarred with the same brush as some of the rednecks we live around.
Some of us actually read and think. There are some Blue folks who plan
to expatriate, and some (like me) who plan to stand and fight.

Re Atlanta (and Georgia in general): It ain't Europe! My wife
motivated us to move to the Netherlands six years ago to escape the
rampant religiosity in Georgia. What a breath of fresh air! I
discovered that our U.S. "political spectrum" is extremely truncated,
going only from "right" to "extreme right." That includes the "liberal"
Democrats! Now I have to chuckle when some poster talks about "the
Liberals." In the context of European politics, U.S. "liberals" are
about in the middle of the spectrum.

We're back in Georgia now, loving parts of the experience and disliking
other parts (like the marriage of religion and politics, or the fact
that yesterday's yellow-dog anti-Washington Democrats are today's
Republicans.) What do we miss about Europe? The cheese, the Trappist
beer, the lack of a need for constant "political correctness," the
opportunity to walk around town without getting run over, the
better-trained drivers, the sense of history, the things to see -- the
list goes on. But there were things about Georgia that we missed when
we lived in Europe, too. The elbow room. The mountains. The food.
The friends. The music.

When you get down to it, whether it's Europe or Georgia, it's just
people living their lives and raising their families the best they can,
given their circumstances. There are good people in both places -- not
to be confused with the governments that supposedly represent them.

Best regards,

Tom Bellhouse
Alto, Georgia, USA

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 14:35:18 GMT, "Gregory Morrow"
gregorymorrowEMERGENCYCANCELLATIONARCHIMEDES@eart hlink.net wrote:


AJC wrote:

Ugh, yes, I've been to Atlanta. I didn't enjoy it, but I'm glad I've
seen it. Everyone should be exposed to such horrors at least once!


Yeah it's a ghastly place. I really despise the South, too bad they don't
secede so that the rest of the US can again rise to the level of a First
World country...

Georgia especially is a backwater. There is only one time in my life when I
felt my life was in danger, it was about 30 years ago when I had to pull off
the interstate in rural Jaw - ja to change a flat tyre. People were
actually swerving to *hit* me and yelling "Yankee go home!" (they were
tipped off by my Illinois licence plates). It really *is* like the film
_Deliverance_ down there, except that the hillybillys in the movie have
progressed to the point where they have real power and influence in this
country, e.g. Newt Gingrich...

I too have spent some time in Atlanta, and given my personality, I
didn't fit in very well. Those folks look at like your stupid if you
try any subtle humour at all, like sarcasm with the appropriate over
exaggerated voice tones. Everytime I said something, they all got this
stunned expression on their faces, like I had just divided them by
zero or something!

And as for the deliverance thing, it's true! I went looking for a big
mountain to climb, and this full on hick I came across asked me where
I was going. I told him, and he drawls "awww, thats roool purty up the
there".

*shiver*
--
---
DFM - http://www.deepfriedmars.com
---
--

In article , john
wrote:

When I asked GO FIG if Congress shoul investigate Gannon, he was
strangely silent.


Do you notice the use of the word "consistent" in GO FIG' s response?

GO FIG's reasoning must be Congress must investigate Thomas if
Congress wants to investigate Gannon.

Isn't that great reasoning


Helen Thomas has a permanent seat, making "statements" on a daily basis
in her capacity as a pundit from the White House Press Room.... and has
done so for years now. Gannon, on a few occasions, has been granted a
day pass.

The U.S. since its inception has had a Free Press, it is not the job of
the Congress to regulate, quantify or judge the Press. That is why
there is no investigation for either of these pundits.

jay
Tue Feb 22, 2005

"Go Fig" wrote in message
...
In article , john
wrote:

When I asked GO FIG if Congress shoul investigate Gannon, he was
strangely silent.


Do you notice the use of the word "consistent" in GO FIG' s response?

GO FIG's reasoning must be Congress must investigate Thomas if
Congress wants to investigate Gannon.

Isn't that great reasoning


Helen Thomas has a permanent seat, making "statements" on a daily basis
in her capacity as a pundit from the White House Press Room.... and has
done so for years now. Gannon, on a few occasions, has been granted a
day pass.

The U.S. since its inception has had a Free Press, it is not the job of
the Congress to regulate, quantify or judge the Press. That is why
there is no investigation for either of these pundits.

The First Amendment which, among other things assures a free press,
precludes the government for electioneering among other things. Helen
Thomas works for Hearst Newspapers, not the government. Who does Gannon
work for? We know how Thomas got her permanent seat. How did Gannon get
his pass?



jay
Tue Feb 22, 2005

In article , PTravel
wrote:

"Go Fig" wrote in message
...
In article , PTravel
wrote:


That he hasn't tried to obtain one? I assume if he had and was refused
he'd
have made it public knowledge.

Perhaps, but you don't really know, but yet stated it as a fact.

You're right, I don't really know. However, I'm not aware of any radio talk
show personalities who have attended White House press conferences, much
less obtained press passes. This is true not only of the right but of the
left as well, I'd be equally shocked if Al Franken or Janene Garofolo showed
up to ask Bush questions at a press conference. As I recall, Franken had a
press credential for the Republican Convention though, of course, it was
entirely up to the Republican Party as to whether one should be issued or
not.


What if he got one, wouldn't it be reported like all the successful
airplane landings that occurred today ?

Believe me, it would be national news if talk show hosts of either political
persuasion suddenly started getting press credentials and showing up at the
White House.



That he's not a journalist? Even he has
said so -- he's the first to admit that he's an entertainer, not a
reporter.




What I find particularly disturbing is that YOU don't understand the
difference between a journalist and Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh doesn't
report
news. Pundits don't report news. Gannon, whatever he is, is not a
journalist and doesn't report news.


And neither does Helen Thomas, she is a NOT a reporter.

According to you. Not according to Hearst Newspapers


If you continue to make clearly false statements, there is no point in
continuing.

What false statement?

"According to you. Not according to Hearst Newspapers"


Please point me to the Hearst site that indicates she is a reporter for
them ?


Thompson is a columnist for Hearst Newspapers. She
was a correspondent for UPI for 57 years. She was the White House Bureau
Chief for UPI.

Is this some mantra ? What does it have to do with this ? Bill
O'Reilly was a reporter for CBS... but he is not today.


A few minutes on google will verify this.


She is NOT a reporter, and it clearly indicates that at the end of her
columns:

Helen Thomas is a columnist for Hearst Newspapers. E-mail:
. Copyright 2004 Hearst Newspapers.

Yes, now she's a columnist and not a reporter.

She has been for 5 (long) years!!

Given your pronounced education, how can your argument be anything but
a fraud

She's also rather unique in
the journalism profession and, indeed, is frequently called "the Dean of
White House reporters." Again, you're not comparing Helen Thomas to Jeff
Gannon, are you?

We are not comparing Curriculum Vita, we are comparing current behavior.


I don't have much of a problem if real journalists, even if columnists, are
issued press credentials, and that would apply equally to someone like Cal
Thomas, too. You don't put Cal Thomas in the same league as Jeff Gannon, do
you?

No, he has a long distinguished career as a opinion columnist, who
happens to have a weekly Fox News show.



LAST TIME: Helen Thomas is NOT a reporter.

She isn't now. She certainly was for nearly 6 decades.

Is this the standard you would use for the seats? How bout Robert
Blake, he was a beloved hollywood icon... does that preclude him from
being a murderer in his new career ?


She is, however, a
journalist.



and United Press
International (for whom she was White House Bureau Chief as well as a
correspondent for 57 years). She was the first woman officer of the
National Press Club and the first woman officer of the White House
Correspondents Association.


So what! When a Black Panther is born, it has spots.

Hunh?

People's capacity change, clearly her's has... for almost 5 years now.



Her position NOW is that of a pundit, your failure to acknowledge this
is very telling.

On the contrary, I do acknowledge it.

When confronted... like CNN....


However, there's punditry and
punditry.

So let me get this straight, you want the gov. to go into the mind of
the pundit and approve the motive or manner ?


As I said, I have no problem with her or Cal Thomas having press
credentials.

That is not consistent with the established criteria for a WH press
seat.



Rush Limbaugh or Bill Mahr would be another story. Jeff
Gannon isn't a political pundit at all, and not in any way comparable to
either Thomas, or to Limbaugh or Mahr.



You're not seriously comparing Helen Thomas to Jeff Gannon, are you?

It is her own 'statements' in the White House Press Room that make that
comparison.

Really? Who told her to obtain press credentials under a false name

Did you know that Benjamin Franklin wrote under a "false name" ?

by
pretending affiliation to a non-existent news service?

http://www.talonnews.com/



Who writes her
questions?





If you want news, read newspapers, listen to newsradio, or watch
programs
called "News" on most television networks (Fox has a lot of trouble
separating opinion/editorials from news -- this, by the way, isn't
simply
my opinion, but is proven fact based on in-house memos that have
been
made
public.

You seem to be the one confused between news and opinion. Fox airs a
nightly News cast at 7pm EST... that is their News Hour...

And, per the corporate memos which have been made public, the news that
is
reported, as well as the slant given to it, is dictated by Murdoch.
See,
for example,


http://www.russbaker.com/CJR%20-%20Murdoch's%20Mean%20Machine,%20by%20Russ%20B
aker.htm
(an article from the Columbia Journalism Review).

And clearly from their Opinion section.

So what?


BTW: is russbaker.com a News source ?

No, it's not. However, it had reprinted the Columbia Journalism Review
article.



Fox can air whatever opinion pieces it wants. It is cynically
irresponsible, however, to present opinion as "news."

Your gonna need something more than your "word" on it... in this thread
alone, you have made false statements repeatedly.

Really? You haven't identified one.

Above, but "Bribes" and breaking the law, also.



Please be specific about your comments on Fox's "Fox Report with
Shepard Smith"!

I haven't made any comments about Fox' "Fox Report with Shepard Smith." I
have no idea what you're talking about.

Then you shouldn't comment on the validity of Fox News, News, if that
makes no sense to you.





the rest of
their shows are described as:Commentary/debate. In fact, when
O'Reilly
makes his 'commentary', that is what the 'crawler' says underneath
him... something the Networks use to do... but haven't for decades.

If Fox confined it's opinion programming to that which it labels
"Commentary/Debate" I wouldn't have any objection.

Please state your specific objection !

My specific objection is slanting news reports as a matter of corporate
policy.

Specific example?

You asked for one for Helen, I served it up !!!!




On the other hand, CNN spent some 10 years in Bagdad concealing the
butcher's atrocities, BY AGREEMENT, so they could maintain a bureau
their.

And even CNN admits that this was a mistake.

"And even" Good Grief !

However, CNN's motivation was
to maintain access to news,

what were they reporting, the weather ?

Alas... silence....




rather than to subvert public opinion -- quite
different from Fox.

Nice unsubstantiated rhetoric.

Re-read the Columbia Journalism Review article.



My point remains the same, though. "Bert Hyman" thinks that Limbaugh is
a
journalist. You don't think that, do you?


He could be loosely described as a journalist, but what he is not, is a
reporter.

Limbaugh could loosely be described as a journalist? In what universe?

In the world of selling books, which he does at a impressive rate.

jay
Tue Feb 22, 2005



Has
Limbaugh ever described himself as a journalist or, for that matter, as
anything other than an entertainer? There's not much about Limbaugh that I
like or respect, but he's never been dishonest about what he does for a
living.

jay
Tue Feb 22, 2005





This was reported by most of the news media, though, of course, not
Fox).

You do not get news from Rush Limbauh, Hannity, O'Reilly and the
rest of
that crew anymore than I would get news from John Stewart or Bill
Mahr.
Opinion is just opinon. Do you understand that?

In article , PTravel
wrote:

"Go Fig" wrote in message
...
In article , john
wrote:

When I asked GO FIG if Congress shoul investigate Gannon, he was
strangely silent.


Do you notice the use of the word "consistent" in GO FIG' s response?

GO FIG's reasoning must be Congress must investigate Thomas if
Congress wants to investigate Gannon.

Isn't that great reasoning


Helen Thomas has a permanent seat, making "statements" on a daily basis
in her capacity as a pundit from the White House Press Room.... and has
done so for years now. Gannon, on a few occasions, has been granted a
day pass.

The U.S. since its inception has had a Free Press, it is not the job of
the Congress to regulate, quantify or judge the Press. That is why
there is no investigation for either of these pundits.

The First Amendment which, among other things assures a free press,
precludes the government for electioneering among other things.

You would have standing under that charge, put your reputation on it....

Helen
Thomas works for Hearst Newspapers, not the government. Who does Gannon
work for?

He was terminated from http://www.talonnews.com/, the firm he had his
DC column with at the time of the incident.


We know how Thomas got her permanent seat.

But is she not the only columnist with a permanent seat ?

How did Gannon get
his pass?

again, he asked I would presume.

jay
Tue Feb 22, 2005






jay
Tue Feb 22, 2005

Deep Foiled Malls wrote:

What I said was:
---------
What I admire is the way the Democrats supported the war in Iraq, yet
Bush's re-election was interpreted by him as the electorate approving
of his decision.
---------

I know that you're an American and all, but how could you NOT see that
as sarcasm?

None the less you still inferred a particular meaning regarding the way
Democrats supported the war. I asked if you admire that. Can't you see
that as sarcasm?

Deep Foiled Malls wrote:

Exactly the same as the Swedes, Chinese, and South Africans with their
governments. And yes, EXACTLY the same as the Republicans. Care to
name one government that does NOT do this?

You missed the point as evidenced by bringing up other countries.
Liberalism as it exists as in reference to political tendencies in the
USA is vastly different than liberalism in other countries. I realize
this is an international NG but the threads subject references the USA.