Some have said that the stimulus hasn't saved any jobs, but here is a case where at least one job was saved.Oregon State University Athletic Director Bob DeCarolis was considering firing their basketball coach, Craig Robinson, after an 8-11 start (2-5 in the Pac 10 conference). When word of this reached Washington, Undersecretary of Education Martha Kanter was dispatched to Corvallis with $17 million in stimulus money for the university. Craig Robinson's job is safe for this year. For those of you unfamiliar with Coach Robinson, he just so happens to be Michelle Obama's brother. Just a coincidence I'm sure!
Of course as most of these go, it was immediately suspect. In the first place colleges rarely replace their coaches in the middle of the season. After checking out Oregon State's basketball program I found that this season was Craig Robinson's second one at OSU. He inherited the program after an 0 - 18 season. It then became very clear that he had no where to go but up and would not have been fired after but one season. After all, he won 18 games his first season.
In the second place it is highly doubtful that 17 million dollars would have been quietly given to a college to save a basketball coach's job. I am sure there are enough Republicans in the state college system in Oregon to find out about such a move. It would have hit the news outlets big time. I further doubt that 17 million dollars could have saved a coach's job, if the alumni wanted him out. Finally, stimulus money would very doubtfully have gone straight to a school without a middle man somewhere along the way.
After this bit of research and thought, which took a couple of minutes at best, I went over to truthorfiction.com to see what that site had to say about the situation. As I suspected, it put the email in the "fiction" category. No surprise. It is scary to see how these silly emails get passed along by people who want to believe this nonsense. The friend who sent it to me responded to me that he was glad that he sent it on because it was so "heart warming." In other words he wanted to believe it and he wanted others to believe it.
Just another example of the lack of thought and consideration about the plethora of misleading information on the internet and on the airwaves. If it is written, they believe it. If it is spoken, it is the truth. After all it is passed on by such trusted sources as FOX Noise, the Washington Post, unfortunately now, the Wall St. Journal, Rush, Sean, BillO, and their ilk.
6 comments:
A lie travels all around the world before truth gets its shoes on. Thanks for exposing this email lie.
When I get an e-mail forward, I always Snopes or TruthorFiction it. Even though under-the-table deals like this are the norm in Washington with all parties, I found it to be suspect for the reasons you cited.
About your last paragraph, you have to include the Associated Press. They once put something out to all the media outlets as fact based on nothing more than a fax to them. The fax turned out to be a fake, complete with fake letterhead. Add in also NBC News. They once showed fish floating in the water & reported it as a fish kill due to an industry dumping into the water. It later turned out to be footage of fish that had been electrocuted for tagging purposes and were not dead. And then there were the many falsehoods put out by ABC, CBS, & NBC about the Vietnam War.
We all need to stay on the alert. The truth seems harder to find each year.
Dirk's right. The fact you only listed conservative news outlets shows your own bias. I suspect you forwarded the email about George W Bush's false military record (remember CBS) and any war atrocity (because that's what Republicans' are you know - a bunch of white hick world dominating killers).
Well anonymous, whoever you are, in the first place this post is about Obama, and the news outlets that I mentioned are the ones who have been promoting the falsehoods about him. I wasn't referring to Bush or Vietnam as Dirk mentioned. In addition I guess you must have received an email about Bush. I didn't. We moderates don't pass trash between ourselves like you so-called "conservatives."
GMM:
David Remnick's great bio of President came out last
Tuesday after fascinating interview with Charlie Rose last Monday night.
I've read good bit of it; entirely fascinating. Get your Library to get a copy and put yourself at the top of the waiting list.
Lot of very good stuff in there; review of the SC Primary pretty much a page turner.
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