Sustainability breakthrough

By Jennifer J. Foster

You might have heard a little something this week about how Greenpeace would actually prefer that you drive a Hummer rather than use soft toilet paper. From the You-Can’t-Be-Serious File, we have news of a breakthrough environmentally-friendly product that will change the way Americans do business.

Er, make that, the way Americans do their business.

Warning: This is not for the squeamish.

People are making and marketing reusable toilet wipes. For grown-ups. (Drudge teased this, “Bottom reached.“)

Click here for a discussion on why you should Go Reusable! (In the interest of full disclosure, I should warn you that phrase “sopping disintigration” is employed.)

And if you’re thinking, “Eww! No, seriously, ewww!!“ Then you should click on this link, which details “How to Use Cloth Wipes.“ The author wants to encourage you: “OK, this is not nearly as gross as you might be imagining.“ But then he or she goes on to instruct you with pointers like this one: “Shake, scrape, swish, or squirt off anything you don’t want in your laundry” and mentions breezily that “our wipes have minimal staining.“

Land sakes (pardon the pun).

The author admits that “there is a certain ick factor involved.“

She is right ... though for more reasons than she likely suspects.

ASNE cancelled

By Jennifer J. Foster

In yet another indication of the depth and breadth of the economic crisis that is swallowing entire newspapers and newspaper organizations whole, the American Society of Newspapers Editors has opted to cancel this year’s annual convention—marking only the second time in 87 years the convention won’t be held.

The only other occasion of a cancellation occurred in 1945, near the end of World War II. According to the Associated Press, the newspaper industry has weathered 10 U.S. recessions since that last cancellation.

“The industry is in crisis,“ said Charlotte Hall, president of the trade group and editor of the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel. “This is a time when editors need to be in their own news rooms doing everything they can,“ to help their publications survive.

So much for misery loving company. I guess they’ll all have to come up with a grand scheme for web takeover on their own.

‘Broadcaster Freedom Act’

By Jennifer J. Foster

There was action on the Fairness Doctrine in the Senate yesterday.

As is typical of action in the Senate, the action took place within action on something else that was completely and entirely unrelated. So the action about the Fairness Doctrine actually wasn’t about the Fairness Doctrine itself, and it was done on a bill that had nothing to do with communications oversight and accountability.

But we overlook and even expect this confusion because, you know, the Senate is the more deliberative body.

(And here I thought it was just because they had trouble grouping similar things together. But I digress.)

Anyway, U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) one-upped Fairness Doctrine proponents with his success in attaching the “Broadcaster Freedom Act” to a bill that would give the District of Columbia (“Taxation without Representation!“) sovereignty.

SIDEBAR: Does anyone else find it ironic that D.C. is on the verge of winning its long-awaited sovereignty from Washington just as citizens in so many states are engaging in movements to reclaim the sovereignty they believe they’ve lost to Washington? END SIDEBAR

As U.S. Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), the House sponsor, explains it:

The Broadcaster Freedom Act will prohibit the Federal Communications Commission from prescribing rules, regulations, or policies that will reinstate the requirement that broadcasters present opposing viewpoints in controversial issues of public importance. The Broadcaster Freedom Act will prevent the FCC or any future President from reinstating the Fairness Doctrine. This legislation ensures true freedom and fairness will remain on our radio airwaves ...

OK, so the “Broadcaster Freedom Act” is actually the anti-Fairness Doctrine (I’m beginning to empathize with the nomenclature problem the anti-Federalists had). It passed 87-11. More on that in a minute.

But it wasn’t a clear win for DeMint. U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-That-Place-Where-Roland-Burris-Is-From) managed to tack on an alternate amendment that would order the Federal Communications Commission to encourage radio ownership “diversity,“ according to FoxNews.com.

A DeMint aide said Durbin’s measure will “impose the Fairness Doctrine through the back door by trying to break up radio ownership.“

The aide called the Durbin proposal “an attempt to break up companies like Clear Channel and hurt their syndications and therefore putting many local radio stations out of business that depend on those syndicated shows for revenue.“

The measure passed by a vote of 57-to-41.

OK ... someone explain this to me, please. If 87 senators oppose the Fairness Doctrine, then:

1) Why are we even talking about it like it may happen, and

2) How did the Durbin amendment get 57 votes?

Wait ... maybe I answered the first question with the second: Maybe the senators, in all their deliberative genius and with all their sophisticated legislative maneuvers, have managed to confuse themselves.

Burris, Get Out (Yes, you, but the other one, too)

By Jennifer J. Foster

From the Associated Press:

Gov. Pat Quinn is reviewing how the son of embattled Sen. Roland Burris got a state job as a housing-agency lawyer under ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s administration, just weeks after he landed in tax and foreclosure trouble.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported in Thursday editions that the September hiring of Burris II as senior counsel for the Illinois Housing Development Authority came six weeks after the Internal Revenue Service slapped him with a $34,163 tax lien and three weeks after a mortgage company filed a foreclosure lawsuit on his Chicago home.

You know, I just don’t know what to say about the Burrises anymore. Ordinarily, the thought of someone who had been foreclosed upon serving as “senior counsel” for a housing authority would seem simply ludicrous.

But this guy is a Burris, and he comes from a family of overachievers. Not only is he senior counsel. He got that job THREE WEEKS after falling into foreclosure himself.

And ... the IRS believes he hasn’t paid his taxes.

People of Illinois, again; how long are you going to put up with this lunacy?

The next thing you know, Burris Jr. will be running to replace his father in the U.S. Senate.

Speaking of the father, I never noticed this before, but if you click on that “overachievers” link and look closely at the way Burris Sr. had his name done on his tomb, you’ll notice “Esq.“ following his name.

This guy even wants passersby in the cemetery to know that he was an “Esq.“

Sniff.