A memo

Harold Meyerson on how Fox News' hauling of truckloads of troglodyte garbage to its flock has come back to bite its preferred party in the ass.

On a related note, Jonathan Freedland suggests that the Republican party look to the Tories' example and get with the program.

Gail Collins is hilarious and insightful as always.

On a creative source of internet rumors.

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Meyerson's column is fitting in its own right but it's especially timely for me, as I've been thinking in the last week or so that I resent Fox News not only for its lowering the public discourse and basically peddling misinformation, but specifically for turning mom into a rabid, hateful, fear-based political thinker--or perhaps fanning the flames that were already there in that respect. But if they were there, they weren't overwhelming. She is not a hateful person. But as discussed in a previous post (and link to a fivethirtyeight.com entry), people, and those with influence over the public discourse or even the people around them, have a choice when managing their message during hard times: they can deliver sometimes hard truths, or they can blame others and sew divisions and fears. Fox chose the latter, mom chose Fox, and for her sake--for the sake of her soul--I have no choice to stray from my non-intervention policy of in-one-ear-out-the-other and do what I can to undo the damage.