[B5JMS] B5 revival rumors in latest Jerry Doyle interview

[b5jms at cs.columbia.edu]

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From: Robert Perkins <rob_perkins at hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 06:59:52 +0000 (UTC)
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On Wed, 3 Sep 2003 12:30:24 +0000 (UTC), jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
wrote:

>I just want to drop into this discussion about Fox a hearty plug for Al
>Franken's new book, Lies and the Lying Liares Who Tell Them.  The book is
>relentlessly researched, and is a massive indictment of some of the falsehoods
>that have been perpetrated by those with a vested interest in doing so.  The
>section on Fox News is worth the price of admission all by itself.

OK...

We're getting our facts from satire? How can I be sure, reading from
that genre, that the conclusions aren't hyperbole? The emotion not
demagoguery? (I suppose it's better to see that stuff in satire than
in some kind of serious book, tho, and we *do* get our best
observations from the court jester...)

Even so, done, and done. I've gotten in line at the library for it.
But I'm 56th in line and all four copies are still on order so it
could be awhile...

Rob




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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 04:21:04 +0000 (UTC)
Lines: 28

>We're getting our facts from satire? How can I be sure, reading from
>that genre, that the conclusions aren't hyperbole? The emotion not
>demagoguery? (I suppose it's better to see that stuff in satire than
>in some kind of serious book, tho, and we *do* get our best
>observations from the court jester...)

Actually, though Franken is a satirist, he's also a cogent observer, and more
to the point, a relenteless researcher.  He knows full well that if he got
*anything* wrong, the other side would be all over him in a second.  So he (and
his graduate class of helpers) went into excruciating detail to get their facts
right...which is why they weren't able to go after the Rush book.  

It doesn't take much to be able to point to a person making definitive
statement A, then to proof positive that A never happened.  But it takes a
satirist to make us laugh along the way...otherwise there'd be blood in the
streets.

 jms

(jmsatb5 at aol.com)
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