Recently, Parade magazine ran their annual report, “What People Earn.”
I want to ask you if you think the salaries listed reflect the values of America and what we hold dear. Because it can be disturbing … or am I simply reading too much into this?
There on the cover of Parade was: a doll [Barbie] earning $3.3 billion; baseball player, $34 million; actress, $27 million; and California math teacher, $66,000.
I turned inside and found more: singer, $80 million; rapper, $82 million; and social worker, $45,800.
Turning the page there was: race car driver, $7 million; radio host, $38 million; TV host, $8 million; and registered nurse, $68,500
And a final group: pro golfer, $110 million; supermodel, $4.5 million; deputy sheriff, $47,800; pastor, $41,500.
Is this just the free market at work? What do you think? E-mail your thoughts to editors@businessreport.com.
Now it’s our guy
Last month I was critical of M&M [Marsha Shuler and Mark Ballard of The Advocate‘s Capitol Bureau] for their biased and unfair reporting in the recent special election for state Senate. I stand by those comments, and I think they should be ashamed of how they covered this race. [If you think the media isn’t biased, read the item below on the “tea parties.”]
But now I have to take to task one of our own freelance writers, Jeremy Alford, who wrote a story in our last issue that was less objective than it could have been. His story claimed that about 250 appointees of Gov. Bobby Jindal, out of about 1,750, had been Jindal campaign donors. That would mean 1,500 appointees, or 86%, didn’t contribute to Jindal. So what?
[As I have in the past, I want to note that I am one of Jindal’s supporters and donors—but I limit my views to this opinion column.]
Alford quotes Carol LeBlanc, a Blanco appointee to the Mineral Board who did not get re-appointed and said, “I was never interviewed.” Is she kidding? When my term expired on the LSU Board of Supervisors, I didn’t get interviewed by incoming Gov. Edwin Edwards about remaining—and didn’t expect to be. I would venture a guess that Gov. Kathleen Blanco didn’t interview the person that LeBlanc replaced either—and LeBlanc didn’t complain then. Did Alford ask her about that?
Another source in the story with a selective memory was Jim Brandt of PAR. He told Alford, “I think this is a continuation of past practices. It shows that there really isn’t a new day in Louisiana. You pay to play—that’s always been the perception, if not the reality. I think this is the kind of information that should be disclosed.” [And it has been, in the pages of this publication.]
But did Alford ask Brandt how much he contributed to be named vice-chairman of Jindal’s transition council on government and fiscal reform? Answer: zero. What? No contribution? How did that happen? Did Alford ask Brandt if he thinks the chairman of that council with whom he served, Dennis Stine, a former state representative and Commissioner of Administration and now successful businessman—and who, I am sure Brandt agrees, did a superb job—should have been disqualified from serving because he supported Jindal and contributed $5,000? Someone help Brandt take his foot out of his mouth.
I am glad Alford was fair enough to include “that in many cases state law requires the governor to select appointees only from a list of nominations submitted by a particular group, such as lawmakers, college officials or local business associations.” Doesn’t this mean the governor chooses from names submitted by others? That doesn’t fit well with the pay-to-play theory the article was hoping to insinuate.
The most outrageous part of Alford’s story was when he wrote, “And Raising Cane’s founder Todd Graves gave Jindal $5,000 just a few weeks after being appointed to the Small Business Entrepreneurship Committee in August.” Whoa! Todd Graves on the Entrepreneurship Committee. God forbid the governor would appoint one of Louisiana’s premier entrepreneurs to a committee on entrepreneurship.
Fact is, the state should pay Graves to sit on the committee because it is the state that will benefit. But let’s say Brandt and Alford want to exclude Graves and instead name a former national entrepreneur of the year, Bill Borne. Sorry, he contributed too. And it could go on and on. Jindal had more than 20,000 contributors, and if you omit all those, the state would lose access to tremendous talent. The sad thing is Alford and Brandt both know this.
Tea parties reveal bias
I am sure you heard about the “tea parties” held across the country on April 15. Some reports said there were as many as 1,000 nationwide. Here on our Capitol steps, organizers said thousands showed up to protest. In the nation’s capital, there were another 1,000 people who came out in the cold rain.
But if you wonder if there is a difference between national media organizations, let me tell you what I found last Thursday online, the morning after the protests. I wanted to read coverage of the event in Washington, D.C., so I clicked on to the New York Times Web site. There were no stories visible on the screen. I had to scroll down to find a mention.
Then I went to WashingtonPost.com. No news stories on the screen, just an opinion piece titled, “A Washout of a Tea Party,” with a description saying, “Conservative protesters served up a rather noxious brew outside the White House yesterday.” I clicked on the column “Washington Sketch” by Dana Milbank, which proceeded to ridicule the protesters and attack Fox News and ended like this:
“Talk-show host Mike Church treated the crowd to a mock fascist salute and said that ‘it’s time to have a little revolution, I think. We don’t have to fire weapons. You should own them, you should have a lot of ammo to go with them, but you don’t have to shoot them.’
“‘Unless we have to!’ somebody called out.
“‘No, you’re not going to have to,’ Church answered.
“That’s because these rebels, unlike the patriots of 1773, have Fox News.”
So I clicked over to CNN.com. Again, nothing on the screen referring to the tea parties. So I scrolled down 6 inches before I found a mention and link.
On the other hand, I visited WashingtonTimes.com and there in sight was the headline “Tax demonstrators teed off.” Then I surfed to FoxNews.com and right there at the top, one of four major headlines, was the tea party story.
Why the disparity in treatment of the news? Why did two news organizations [one TV, one print] have the tax demonstration story at the top of their news Web sites, but three others showed no news stories on the screen? If this had been an anti–Iraq war protest and Gov. Bush was still in office, would a story about it have been at the top of every Web site? You tell me.
One of the best
I was saddened to learn of the tragic death of West Feliciana Parish Superintendent Lloyd L. Lindsey Jr. He had served for more than 16 years and his district is currently ranked No. 2 in the state. He was an educational leader and innovator who impacted this state and the children in it.
I was a fan of his and once encouraged him to apply for the superintendent’s job in East Baton Rouge. But he loved the people of the Felicianas and was committed to the children there. They can all count themselves lucky. I was lucky to call him my friend. Our sympathies go out to his family. We will miss him.
