The Morning News

Reading • The Chattering Classes

It’s really noisy out there. “Conservative bloggers jab Obama on foreign languages.” (Huh?) Christie is getting divorced. There is a new cell phone. Angelina had twins. Microsoft cut the price of the Xbox 360. Freddie, Fannie, and Bernie Mac are a mess. Brett Favre wants to un-retire. There’s a new Batman movie.

The chattering classes are bleating and ululating. Except for Lou Dobbs—he’s braying. Iraq? Iran? Afghanistan? Forget about it. Mugabe—bad. Darfur—what’s that? Luckily, American political tradition allows for a lack of attention to the upcoming election until after Labor Day. Good luck figuring it out even then.

The problem as I see it is—given the immense amount of effort it would require for aspirants to good and informed citizenship to personally ascertain and verify the shit-stream of what we still call information—is to find voices and visions that one finds reliable and useful. To indulge the still-popular fetish for full disclosure (and lists), here’s a list of those to whom I pay attention:  —Robert Birnbaum, Jul. 21, 2008
SHARE THIS • EMAIL THIS • FILE UNDER: Alma Guillermoprieto, Christopher Hitchens, Frank Rich, Gail Collins, Hendrick Hertzberg, Jon Lee Anderson, Robert Scheer, The Atlantic, The Nation Institute, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Tom Engelhardt, Truthdig, Vanity Fair

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