Come on.  The Sun-Times’s Mike Thomas doesn’t see Fox News as a corrective to the left– and Dem-leaning (fallen over) CNN?  Not to judge by his 10th-anniversary story with its headline that has Fox News “shooting from the lips” and asking, “Right making might?”  The story is chatty and eminently newspaper-journalistic but with head in sand.

The way critics body slam Fox News Channel, which turns 10 on Saturday, you’d think it’s the spawn of Lucifer himself — a swaggeringly jingoistic, missing-white-females-fixated, George W. Bush-toadying curse loosed upon the earth to wreak havoc. And maybe that’s true

is the lede ‘graf, with a “then again” follow-up says it may have “simply found a formula that sets it apart from the pack” etc. — without giving the formula.  The formula is its willingness to depart from the Dem-lib line.  Has Thomas looked in on Lou Dobbs lately?

The story is quick to note Fox ratings are falling faster than “its cable rivals,” without saying how far behind they are:

FOX – Aug 2005 — 1,001,000 — Aug 2006 — 933,000 – 7% drop
CNN – Aug 2005 — 433,000 — Aug 2006 — 584,000 – 35% increase
MSNBC – Aug 2005 — 220,000 — Aug 2006 — 277,000 – 26% increase

The writer asks around.

“They’ve found their audience,” says Jon Petrovich, sector head of broadcast and electronic media at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. “The proof’s in the pudding, right?”

The pudding?  “As Fox famously claims, [it’s being] Fair and Balanced.”  It’s a “much-lambasted” claim, “especially” (only? mostly?) by libs.  Example?  A glitch the other day when Mark Foley was labelled a Democrat.  That’s what drives libs nuts?  The occasional glitch?  Come on.

There’s nothing here about giving people what they want, just a sort of dancing around and mystification at success achieved by Roger Ailes, who “positioned Fox to the right of center,” per the Medill man, and thus supplied a gaping hole in coverage, say I; and in the process “poked a slumbering lion,” CNN. 

Poked a sleeping giant makes more sense, namely viewers who wanted a straighter version than is available from CNN, whose man in Baghdad, by the way, played along with Sadaam before the invasion, did he not, admitting it after the war.

Sun-Times talks sense about price-setting by government:

Freeze on electricity rates could leave us all in dark

Tempting as it may be to jump on the rapidly accelerating bandwagon calling for our electric rates to remain frozen, count us out. Sure, it’s good politics — cheap power for everyone!

more more more

Phila. Inquirer, Frank Wilson book editor, reviews a blog:

If you’re tired of negative media reporting coming out of Iraq (and, increasingly, Afghanistan), Matthew Currier Burden’s The Blog of War: Front-Line Dispatches From Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan will be a welcome respite.

A first for a mainstream daily?  One of the first?

Fr. Donald McGuire went to jail after being “evicted from a Jesuit nursing home,” according to the Wis. state Department of Corrections, says Janesville Gazette.  It was Terrace Nursing Home in Waukegan, Ill., whose “charter does not allow it to house a convicted felon.”  The home is described in part as a “religious nonmedical health care institution.”  It has 115 beds.  It is not listed on a “map” of Jesuit installations and so is probably not a Jesuit nursing home as such.  The nearest Jesuit installation is the men’s retreat house in Barrington.

McGuire’s probation, which he is serving during his appeal, will apparently be in Illinois.  Sent back to Wisconsin from the nursing home, he lived at a Lake Geneva motel but then was returned to jail Sept. 25 for refusing — on his lawyers’ advice — to take a lie detector test whose results could be used in a new trial if his conviction is reversed.  They cited his Fifth Amendment right to silence.

“The only way we can protect our client’s rights is by instructing him to refuse to participate or answer,” reads a letter from defense attorney Steve J. Watson to McGuire’s probation agent.

He has been meeting with Wis. probation officials but would not “participate fully in sex offender classes, sign related documents and take a lie-detector test,” according to a motion filed Tuesday by his appellate attorneys.

If he complied with the requirements, information from the sex-offender class or from a lie-detector test could be used against him in a new trial if his appeal is successful, the motion says.  A hearing is set for Oct. 10 to stay the probation, in addition to the prison sentence, pending appeal.  A stay would relieve him of the requirements which have led him to jail.

The suit claims the Chicago Province of Jesuits, Loyola University and Loyola Academy all “have information about a number of suspected child molesting agents that it has never disclosed to law enforcement or the public at large, causing people such as the plaintiffs to be harmed as children or vulnerable young adults.

. . . .
The suit alleges that the Jesuits received reports of McGuire’s alleged sexual abuse of minors from 1970 through the 1990s, but they failed to report this information to the police or the public.

. . . .
The suit seeks to have the defendants release the names of any agents of the order or the two schools who have been accused of sexual abuse of minors, and to share that information, as well as any other documents that are evidence of sexual abuse of minors, with law enforcement and the public.

The terrible, awful news from Lancaster area led me to recall what I saw of the Amish in a 2003 trip.  They were part of the scene at the Green Dragon:

. . . Back to Pennsylvania, which in its SE corner is quite traversible. Last night to a small-animal auction at the Green Dragon market near Ephreta, where Amish men and boys in straw hats, some of them black fedoras, others in usual straw, and a wide assortment of other citizens watched the chickens, doves, furry critters, etc. went to the highest bidder.

We sat in the bleachers and were careful not to scratch nose during bidding, lest we end up holding some hamsters at a price low but not low enough to justify the purchase. Mennonites and Brethren and even some apparent Yuppies there, women wearing lace beanies tied under chin, not bonneted like out and out Amish. Not Yuppies, who had their own uniforms but did not flaunt their circumstance.

Some of these Mennonites, Brethren, etc. apparently use the birth control method recommended by our family doc for many years, the late, great Gregory White MD, namely breast feeding. Yes, I know you call people using that method parents, but so what?

Much sobriety and serenity and indeed relaxation seen among all such folks I have seen on this trip. This Green Dragon market is Fridays only. There are at least three others in the general neighborhood, including Roots Market, near Manheim, to which vendors repair on their given days. We had root beer floats and (one of us) a hot dog at the round-stool winding counter where we might also have gotten a variety of hash house food.

And all over the place, families with kids, stopping at dozens of various counters for food, flea market items, antiques, clothing, you name it. It closed down about nine-thirty, with families who run booths sitting in back of theirs sampling the ice cream or pina colada drink, for instance. Friday night out in the great American boonies.

Into this idyl strode a demon.

“I missed this when it came out last week,” says John Hinderaker at Power Line,” referring to this from an Al Qaeda leader, admitting, “The path is long and difficult, and the enemy isn’t easy, for he is great and numerous and he can take quite a bit of punishment as well, which the PL editor notes “is very different from how al Qaeda wrote about the U.S. after the flight from Somalia.  It’s in

a new document at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center . . . a letter from a high-ranking al Qaeda officer named Atiyah, who passes on criticisms of Zarqawi that apparently originated with bin Laden, Zawahiri, or other top al Qaeda leaders. The document was found . . . in Zarqawi’s “safe” house after he was terminated with extreme prejudice by an American bomb.

He shouldn’t feel too bad about missing it.  So did Chi Trib, while featuring these stories that tell how bad things are:

Frist Says Afghan War Can’t Be Won

Frist says Taliban can’t be defeated

CIA chief warned Rice, records show

White House counters `Denial’

You can’t blame the Trib, which knows the real news is the latest from Bob Woodward.  The heck with Al Q admitting it’s in trouble.

As for the entire Sun-Times group (your source for AP), not even the Winnetka Talk reporter has unearthed the message in Zarqawi’s house.  His bosses are busy with those screaming headlines, apparently.

Chi Trib catches up to Janesville Gazette from Saturday, supplying a good deal more detail. Zilch, however, from entire Sun-Times Group (your source for AP):

Molester priest is jailed twice Probation violated, authorities say

A Chicago Jesuit priest convicted in Wisconsin earlier this year of molesting two boys in the 1960s has been jailed for the second time in a month for violating the terms of his probation, said a spokesman for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.

Rev. Donald McGuire, 76, violated a 20-year probation sentence by failing to “complete programming needs” set forth in the terms of his probation, John Dipko said.

Dipko declined to elaborate . . . but said the department was preparing to ask an administrative law judge to revoke McGuire’s probation. If his probation is revoked, Dipko said, McGuire could face up to 30 years in prison for the violation.

. . .

The Wisconsin online sex-offender registry listed McGuire’s current address as Walworth County Jail. But Barbara Blaine, a spokeswoman for Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said that until last week, the Web site had listed his address as 300 E. Main St., Lake Geneva, a Comfort Suites hotel.

Dipko said McGuire had been staying at the hotel while the county searched for housing for him. McGuire had been staying at a Waukegan nursing home as a condition of his probation. But the home evicted him in July because the nature of his conviction violated its policies, Dipko said.

. . . .

McGuire’s first probation violation occurred in late August, when he came to Chicago to attend the funeral of a Jesuit priest at St. Ignatius Church in Rogers Park, according to church officials.

He attended funeral services Aug. 30 and was given permission by his probation officer to stay in Evanston that night on condition that he register with the local police department, Dipko said. But McGuire never informed police he had arrived in Evanston, thus violating his probation, Dipko said. He spent three days in the Walworth County Jail for the violation.

Rev. James Gschwend, the Jesuit province’s delegate for conduct inquires, said McGuire remains a Jesuit priest, though his status is under review. The review board’s decision depends on the result of McGuire’s appeal.

Mark Brown offers “man law” contributions a la the beer commercial from “Pittsburgh John,” a friend:

• If it’s not broken, don’t fix it (not just a law, a commandment.)

• If you can’t stretch out all the way, it’s not a couch.

• If you’re not a professional bike rider, don’t wear the shorts.

Etc.  “Let me hear from you,” he tells male readers.  Hmmm.  This is today’s column, Oct. 1.  Smart fella, Brown.  That closing request will be good for another column.  And if he doesn’t hear from anyone, he can go to Lipstick Chronicles for Sept. 22, where Rebecca the Bookseller has a bunch of suggestions from “several men from varying backgrounds and geographic locations,” with helpful commentary:

* Man Law on Food:  Regardless of weather, the grill is always the cooking appliance of first choice.  A Man from the midwest contributes: further, salmon is a fish, and not a color.  And a Navy Man serving overseas reminds us that No Man shall use a utensil of any kind to eat ribs.

Etc.  Such a deal.  Brown has his second column written already.  Rebecca asked for more laws too.  Maybe she and Brown can collaborate.  If this doesn’t work out, he can fish around in REO Horror Story: Man Law – Don’t Let Beer Cans Pile to the Ceiling, also of Sept. 22.  I’ll bet there are other places too.