Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist

Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist
Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Md Troopers Assoc #20 & Westminster Md Fire Dept Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist
Showing posts with label Journalists Ham-Mary Katherine Ham. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Journalists Ham-Mary Katherine Ham. Show all posts

Monday, November 30, 2009

A reprint of Living and loving in the age of asparagus from Oct 2 2007

Living and loving in the age of asparagus

or

Mary Katherine Ham to Alicia Silverstone: Go Hunting

October 3rd, 2007

Although I have spent a large portion of my life as a vegetarian; as I grew older and life got particularly hectic, I gave it up – for now anyway. Who knows, tomorrow, I may go back. Whatever.

A number of years ago, as I was attempting to reason with an unreasonable person and losing miserably, a colleague said to me:

“You know what your problem is?”

“Ugh.” I really did not need advice at that particular moment; however, I prized his friendship and sheepishly asked: “What?”

“It's a dog eat dog world out there, and you're a vegetarian!"

We solved that by going out to a sub shop where I gave up the anorexic bliss of salads and voraciously scarfed down a cheese-steak sandwich.

It was a road to Damascus experience

I still lose miserably with folks who accept narcissistic fiction as fact, however, I am bigger now and I figure that if I am to be eaten alive, I might as well give folks a flavorful super-sized meal.

Then again, to be candid, I was never good at being a vegetarian. I never stopped eating animal crackers and every once and awhile at Moms, I’d dive into a steak – and I can rarely remember missing turkey at Thanksgiving.

I have a number of colleagues and some family members who are, at the moment, practicing vegetarians - and I respect that choice. Besides, I really like vegetables. Then there are folks who don’t like vegetables or are otherwise broccoli intolerant. To them I say, ya really ought to “give peas a chance.”

A member of my family, who is an avid vegetarian, recently gave some seafood a try.

Bold.

Writing for the Washington Post, Joel Achenbach says:

“Certain kinds of seafood, such as lobster, clams and crabs, are honorary forms of meat, but a small filet of a low-fat white fish should be viewed as essentially a vegetable. Raw oysters are manfood, as is any fish served with the head on and the mouth gaping in horror.

Me, I could live off of Dr. Pepper, coffee and grits. Hey, don’t knock the cooking with Dr. Pepper book. There are some great recipes in there.

I never tried the “vegan” approach. I often wondered how the term came about. When I was quite young I had a great deal of confusion over the term “vegetarian.” If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?

Mr. Achenbach calls to our attention a savior for vegans, who every once in awhile, go Jonesing for a milkshake – “soy cows.”

In the column he was initially singing the praises of his new “Fabulator 5000.”

What is a “Fabulator 5000?” I am so glad you asked. I was fascinated about this development since I am still using the Fabulator model No. 1953.

I’ll let Mr. Achenbach ‘splain:

“I love my new food printer, the Fabulator 5000, which makes the previous food printers look not just clunky but positively medieval. There's no more click-and-point nonsense on the screen, no more waiting five or six interminable minutes for the food to print. You just tell the Fab 5 what you want. The food comes out in about three or four seconds, complete with garnish and a complementary wine.”

Oh, the “soy cows?” Apparently Mr. Achenbach recently “took the kids … to Homewood Farm to see a good old-fashioned agricultural enterprise…”

“I got a look at the new soy cows, grazing in the large field just north of the orchard. The USDA apparently felt that soy milk could be produced much more efficiently if it came from cows made of soy. These cows are so green they nearly blend into the landscape. They say the soy milk is a lot better tasting (not as beany, somehow) than the stuff derived from plants, and the soy burgers are more tender. But you've probably read about how the soy cows dry up badly in drought conditions -- they literally wilt -- and even catch fire. Bored teenagers have been blamed for setting some of the cow fires.”

There is much to be appreciated by the vegetarian lifestyle; nevertheless my goal was to not be evangelical about it all.

But – and ya know there was going to be a “but” in here soon – I’ve never been fond of PETA’s Strindbergian gloom and bleakness approach to advocacy.

When I was a practicing vegetarian, invariably, some folks would suggest some linkage to me, a vegetarian, with PETA’s in-your-face humorless lactose intolerant militancy. An approach which often seems more oriented to being obnoxious and annoying instead of being compelling and persuasive to what is otherwise, a perfectly fine lifestyle, vegetarianism, for which PETA routinely does an injustice....

At a local government - social event, a local elected official’s wife was horrified that I was a vegetarian. “How can a big strapping former Marine be a vegetarian,” she gasped.

I solved that in quick order. She was a dog lover and the owner of a huge dog. I mean huge – about the size of a water buffalo.

I asked her if she had ever eaten dog. When I was in the Marines, a South Vietnamese ranger once cooked-up a mess of dog.

It tasted like chicken.

I suggested to my scowling friend that her St. Bernard could feed an entire village… And one wonders why I lost my last election?

Recently Alicia Silverstone did an ad for PETA that has garnered a great deal of attention. I can’t believe that it is winning over any converts to vegetarianism, but it has attracted attention to PETA.

Whether it is really the sort of attention that an advocacy organization wants is a bigger issue for which there is not right or wrong, it just isn’t my cup of tea.

Nevertheless, in age of so much strife and discord, I yearn for a time when peas will rule the planets, and love won’t be such a fuss. I long for the dawn of the age of asparagus.

Enter stage right, Mary Katherine Ham. Ms. Ham has done a spoof on the Ms. Silverstone ad that is a real crack-up.

Please enjoy it:

####

No animals were hurt in the writing of this column.

Kevin Dayhoff writes from Westminster Maryland USA.

http://www.kevindayhoff.net/

E-mail him at: kevindayhoff AT gmail.com

His columns and articles appear in The Tentacle - http://www.thetentacle.com/; Westminster Eagle Opinion; http://www.thewestminstereagle.com/ and Winchester Report.

*****
Kevin Dayhoff Soundtrack: http://www.kevindayhoff.net/ Kevin Dayhoff Art: http://www.kevindayhoffart.com/ Kevin Dayhoff Westminster: http://www.westgov.net/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevindayhoff Twitpic: http://twitpic.com/photos/kevindayhoff Kevin Dayhoff's The New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/

Saturday, November 08, 2008

A Few Things You'd Have to Believe to Believe What McCain Staffers Say About Sarah Palin

A Few Things You'd Have to Believe to Believe What McCain Staffers Say About Sarah Palin by Mary Katharine Ham on November 6, 2008

Related:
Sarah Palin on "Small and Bitter" McCain Aides Trashing Her The Blog home page Obama's White Evangelical Outreaching

Let's add some context to the
Carl Cameron and Newsweek airing of rumors from anonymous McCain/Palin staffers. The most controversial claims, all of which come without names attached because the purveyors are apparently determined to stick around to undermine future campaigns and candidates, are that Palin didn't know that Africa was a continent as opposed to a country, and that she didn't know who the members of NAFTA were.

Let's start with NAFTA. If folks want to believe Gov. Sarah Palin did not know even the most basic facts about NAFTA, they have to believe a couple other improbable things.

Before she became governor, Palin's husband Todd's commercial fishing business on Bristol Bay accounted a decent percentage of the family's income. The couple reported about $46,000 from the business last year on a license Todd purchased from his grandfather in the 1970s. He has been a lifelong commercial fisherman and she has often been his partner both in the business and literally on the boat.

Surely while the two were working in the commercial salmon fishing industry in post-NAFTA Alaska, they would not have missed the effect farmed-salmon imports from Canada had on the industry, causing the number of fisherman, the size of the harvest, and the value of permits to go down significantly in Alaska. According to a 2003 AP article:


Read the rest of Mary Katherine Ham’s blog post here: A Few Things You'd Have to Believe to Believe What McCain Staffers Say About Sarah Palin

20081106 M K Ham In order to believe what McCain Staffers Say About Palin

Saturday, June 07, 2008

20080607 HamNation: Obama on your shoulder

Mary Katherine Ham - HamNation: Obama on your shoulder

June 7, 2008

Yesterday, Mark Tapscott wrote in an email: If you watch no other video this month, this is the one to watch. Mary Katharine's first day at The Washington Examiner as online editor is June 10.

It’s a great video but I guess my two all-time favorites are:

HamNation... Not Vegetarian!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTAHyd_2SL8

And:

HamNation: Sopranos DC Edition

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULlxwoWMcDM

Meanwhile here is the video called to our attention by Mr. Tapscott:

HamNation: Obama on Your Shoulder

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BtJG0BonMQ

And finally, since I am a geek for economic history and I like to eat – let’s throw in this video for extra measure… Ummm – collard greens…

HamNation: Hold Onto Your Collards!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX_hXDxQgR8

####

20080607 HamNation: Obama on your shoulder

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

20080528 The Tentacle: Ham Nation by Kevin Dayhoff

Ham Nation

May 28, 2008 Kevin E. Dayhoff

Newspaper junkies learned last week that Mary Katherine Ham is joining The Washington Examiner as the online editor of “the publication’s forthcoming new web site.”

The announcement came by way of an email alert from The Washington Examiner’s editorial page editor, Mark Tapscott.

The news comes as excitement grows among those in the central Maryland area, who are Washington-oriented and get much of our national news from online publications, especially The Washington Examiner. Many are looking forward to the paper’s launch of its new web site – “dcexaminer.com.”

It is also welcome news for those who have followed the career of Ms. Ham on Fox News and Townhall.com and understand that she is just what is needed to bring online publications into the new millennium.

[…]

Moreover, the fresh new approach to an online publication is more likely to be achieved with an editor with a background in Internet media. Moving an aging dinosaur print media editor over to the online world and re-labeling their job description, and the sign on the door, isn’t going to work.

This is where someone like Mary Katherine Ham, a 2002 graduate of the University of Georgia with a degree in journalism, has a running start and advantage over any print media refugee assigned to an online publication. For starters, she is 28 years old and is a second-generation journalist.

As The Examiner press release notes, she “grew up in a newspaper family, as her father was managing editor of The Durham Herald-Sun (NC) for 13 years and four as director of digital publishing.”

Furthermore, Ms. Ham is currently a blogger, columnist, and managing editor for the web site Townhall.com. Many have enjoyed her regular appearances on “The O'Reilly Factor” on Fox News, where Bill O’Reilly introduces her as an “Internet Cop.” Others have enjoyed her work in an award-winning video blog series titled “HamNation.”

[…]

It was actually no surprise that The Washington Examiner hired Ms. Ham. Mr. Tapscott has stayed on the cutting-edge of the integration of news reporting into the technological age.

Apparently he did not need a lesson in computational complexity theory, or a “qualitative, anthropological study of young media consumers,” to understand that the future of newspapers is found in the increased integration of video, interactive ability, depth – with “path to the back story,” and honest news reporting.

Mary Katherine Ham is scheduled to begin working at The Examiner’s downtown Washington newsroom on June 10.

Read the entire column here: Ham Nation

Related: Art Writing Essays and articles, Dayhoff media The Tentacle, Media journalists Ham - Mary Katherine Ham, Media journalists Mark Tapscott, Media Newspapers, Media Newspapers Washington Examiner, Media Commentary

20080528 The Tentacle: Ham Nation by Kevin Dayhoff

Kevin Dayhoff writes from Westminster Maryland USA.

His columns and articles appear in The Tentacle - www.thetentacle.com; Westminster Eagle Opinion; www.thewestminstereagle.com, Winchester Report and The Sunday Carroll Eagle – in the Sunday Carroll County section of the Baltimore Sun. Get Westminster Eagle RSS Feed

www.kevindayhoff.net

http://www.youtube.com/kevindayhoff

http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/

http://gizmosart.com/dayhoff.html

E-mail him at: kdayhoff AT carr.org or kevindayhoff AT gmail.com

“When I stop working the rest of the day is posthumous. I'm only really alive when I'm writing.” Tennessee Williams

20080528 This week in The Tentacle


This week in The Tentacle

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Ham Nation

Kevin E. Dayhoff

Newspaper junkies learned last week that Mary Katherine Ham is joining The Washington Examiner as the online editor of “the publication’s forthcoming new web site.”


Beach Ladies

Tom McLaughlin

I love women and now that the Memorial Day weekend has just passed, they are parading on the beach in as little clothing as possible. And I am sitting in my sand chair watching.


Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Joe's Bench

Roy Meachum

It took place in front of Joe Cohen's cigar store; the one with the walk-in humidor - although these days not a lot of folks walk in. Uncle Joe, as he is called, also maintains a bench against his North Market Street window.


The “Invisible” Road Not Taken…

Nick Diaz

The annual “Ride to the Wall” just took place yesterday, and judging from the amount of publicity about this annual event, you have probably heard about it.


Monday, May 26, 2008

Elementary, My Dear Watson – Part Two

Richard B. Weldon Jr.

Last week, we covered the symbols and name recognition in Maryland. This week, we look at how to make a speech about how a legislator works interesting to a fourth grader. No small feat, that!


Short Takes

Steven R. Berryman

Here are some short takes on happenings and observations from the last few weeks. From a Diversity Festival, to an Air Show, to English as a national language, to the proposal for 2300 new Beazer “green” homes, things are happening at a fast and furious pace!


Friday, May 23, 2008

The Banished War

Roy Meachum

The war does not take up very much time on the presidential campaign trail. Emphasis rests on the economy. In rooting around for the causes of the recession, few politicians will finger the real culprit. It is, of course, the war, stupid.


Thursday, May 22, 2008

Maryland’s Pulse

Chris Cavey

About two weeks ago I started my fascination with “gas station politics.” We have all encountered this brand of political wisdom, spewed from the innocent perspective of the common citizen normally at too high of a volume and in a public place.


End The Charade; Open The Books

Joan McIntyre

The Board of Education Budget Begging Parade is nearly completed for yet another year. When is this humiliating practice of parading parents, students and teachers before the public - begging for funds - going to stop? Are we just so used to it that we don't even notice anymore?


Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Another Lock-Step Decision

Kevin E. Dayhoff

Last Friday, Westminster Common Councilmember, and Democratic National Convention superdelegate, Greg Pecoraro endorsed Senator Barack Obama. His endorsement comes as the Democratic primaries draw to a close and presidential historians are looking to a very busy summer.


Decoration Day

Tom McLaughlin

Even when he was deep into his Alzheimer’s state, Dad always seemed to know when it was Memorial Day – Decoration Day, as he called it. I guess it might have been the war movies that showed constantly on the television that clued him in, or maybe he just knew.


Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Negative Ladies

Roy Meachum

Much has been made in recent politics about gender, nationally and locally. The chase for the Democratic presidential nomination has been reduced to the candidates' personal plumbing. For the thrill of seeing a woman elected, Hillary Clinton's supporters are prepared to use any weapons at hand.


One Problem, No Single Answer

Farrell Keough

When we were last together, we discussed a presentation given to the Farm Bureau on nutrient problems in the Chesapeake Bay. Since that time, a number of rebuttals have been made with respect to the comments. Here is a brief commentary on some of those points.


Monday, May 19, 2008

Elementary, My Dear Watson – Part One

Richard B. Weldon Jr.

No, not the off-handed comment famously rendered by the brilliant English detective Sherlock Holmes to his trusted companion, Dr. Watson. I’m talking about that generation of learners who fill our elementary schools, our next generation of leaders, scientists, entertainers, and thinkers.


Energy Absurdities

Steven R. Berryman

How does one gage the pain level of rising energy prices on a household budget? When the price at the pump for gas at Sheetz hits $3.79 for unleaded regular, does that do it?

Sunday, May 25, 2008

20080523 Mary Katharine Ham joins The Washington Examiner as online editor


Mary Katharine Ham joins The Washington Examiner as online editor

Related:

20061122 Meet Mary Katharine Ham Bull City native

20031007 In Defense of Rush by Mary Katharine Ham/Richmond County Daily Journal

20071003 Living and loving in the age of asparagus

20070608 Mary Katherine Ham – HamNation: Sopranos DC Edition

The Washington Examiner issued this news release this afternoon:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Mark Tapscott

May 23, 2008

Mary Katharine Ham joins The Washington Examiner as online editor

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) --- Townhall.com managing editor and regular Fox News guest Mary Katharine Ham is joining The Washington Examiner as online editor for the publication's forthcoming new web site, dcexaminer.com, the newspaper announced today.

As online editor of dcexaminer.com, Ham will be responsible for overall management of the site's news and editorial content and staff, as well as working with Examiner and outside resources on creative development of new features and functionality. She will work from the Examiner's downtown Washington, D.C. newsroom and will start June 10.

"We are especially excited and proud to have Mary Katharine Ham join The Washington Examiner because she among the most respected young stars of online journalism and is also well-known to cable television and talk radio audiences through her regular appearances on 'The O'Reilly Factor' on Fox News," said Vivienne Sosnowski, editorial director of Clarity Media, which publishes The Washington Examiner, The Baltimore Examiner and The San Francisco Examiner, as well as the Examiner.com web site.

"Her hiring demonstrates again our commitment to building a great news and information company that excels in three channels, including newspapers, online and video," Sosnowski said.

Prior to joining Townhall.com as an editor in 2005, Ham was an online editor for The Heritage Foundation think tank. Before that, she was a sports reporter and features writer for a North Carolina daily, winning two awards for excellence for features and sports columns from the North Carolina Press Association.

She is a 2002 graduate of the University of Georgia with a degree in journalism. Ham grew up in a newspaper family, as her father was managing editor of the Durham Herald-Sun for 13 years and four as director of digital publishing. He is now vice-president for communications of the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh, NC.

####

Thursday, October 04, 2007

20071003 Living and loving in the age of asparagus

Living and loving in the age of asparagus

or

Mary Katherine Ham to Alicia Silverstone: Go Hunting

October 3rd, 2007

Although I have spent a large portion of my life as a vegetarian; as I grew older and life got particularly hectic, I gave it up – for now anyway. Who knows, tomorrow, I may go back. Whatever.

A number of years ago, as I was attempting to reason with an unreasonable person and losing miserably, a colleague said to me:

“You know what your problem is?”

“Ugh.” I really did not need advice at that particular moment; however, I prized his friendship and sheepishly asked: “What?”

“It's a dog eat dog world out there, and you're a vegetarian!"

We solved that by going out to a sub shop where I gave up the anorexic bliss of salads and voraciously scarfed down a cheese-steak sandwich.

It was a road to Damascus experience

I still lose miserably with folks who accept narcissistic fiction as fact, however, I am bigger now and I figure that if I am to be eaten alive, I might as well give folks a flavorful super-sized meal.

Then again, to be candid, I was never good at being a vegetarian. I never stopped eating animal crackers and every once and awhile at Moms, I’d dive into a steak – and I can rarely remember missing turkey at Thanksgiving.

I have a number of colleagues and some family members who are, at the moment, practicing vegetarians - and I respect that choice. Besides, I really like vegetables. Then there are folks who don’t like vegetables or are otherwise broccoli intolerant. To them I say, ya really ought to “give peas a chance.”

A member of my family, who is an avid vegetarian, recently gave some seafood a try.

Bold.

Writing for the Washington Post, Joel Achenbach says:

“Certain kinds of seafood, such as lobster, clams and crabs, are honorary forms of meat, but a small filet of a low-fat white fish should be viewed as essentially a vegetable. Raw oysters are manfood, as is any fish served with the head on and the mouth gaping in horror.

Me, I could live off of Dr. Pepper, coffee and grits. Hey, don’t knock the cooking with Dr. Pepper book. There are some great recipes in there.

I never tried the “vegan” approach. I often wondered how the term came about. When I was quite young I had a great deal of confusion over the term “vegetarian.” If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?

Mr. Achenbach calls to our attention a savior for vegans, who every once in awhile, go Jonesing for a milkshake – “soy cows.”

In the column he was initially singing the praises of his new “Fabulator 5000.”

What is a “Fabulator 5000?” I am so glad you asked. I was fascinated about this development since I am still using the Fabulator model No. 1953.

I’ll let Mr. Achenbach ‘splain:

“I love my new food printer, the Fabulator 5000, which makes the previous food printers look not just clunky but positively medieval. There's no more click-and-point nonsense on the screen, no more waiting five or six interminable minutes for the food to print. You just tell the Fab 5 what you want. The food comes out in about three or four seconds, complete with garnish and a complementary wine.”

Oh, the “soy cows?” Apparently Mr. Achenbach recently “took the kids … to Homewood Farm to see a good old-fashioned agricultural enterprise…”

“I got a look at the new soy cows, grazing in the large field just north of the orchard. The USDA apparently felt that soy milk could be produced much more efficiently if it came from cows made of soy. These cows are so green they nearly blend into the landscape. They say the soy milk is a lot better tasting (not as beany, somehow) than the stuff derived from plants, and the soy burgers are more tender. But you've probably read about how the soy cows dry up badly in drought conditions -- they literally wilt -- and even catch fire. Bored teenagers have been blamed for setting some of the cow fires.”

There is much to be appreciated by the vegetarian lifestyle; nevertheless my goal was to not be evangelical about it all.

But – and ya know there was going to be a “but” in here soon – I’ve never been fond of PETA’s Strindbergian gloom and bleakness approach to advocacy.

When I was a practicing vegetarian, invariably, some folks would suggest some linkage to me, a vegetarian, with PETA’s in-your-face humorless lactose intolerant militancy. An approach which often seems more oriented to being obnoxious and annoying instead of being compelling and persuasive to what is otherwise, a perfectly fine lifestyle, vegetarianism, for which PETA routinely does an injustice....

At a local government - social event, a local elected official’s wife was horrified that I was a vegetarian. “How can a big strapping former Marine be a vegetarian,” she gasped.

I solved that in quick order. She was a dog lover and the owner of a huge dog. I mean huge – about the size of a water buffalo.

I asked her if she had ever eaten dog. When I was in the Marines, a South Vietnamese ranger once cooked-up a mess of dog.

It tasted like chicken.

I suggested to my scowling friend that her St. Bernard could feed an entire village… And one wonders why I lost my last election?

Recently Alicia Silverstone did an ad for PETA that has garnered a great deal of attention. I can’t believe that it is winning over any converts to vegetarianism, but it has attracted attention to PETA.

Whether it is really the sort of attention that an advocacy organization wants is a bigger issue for which there is not right or wrong, it just isn’t my cup of tea.

Nevertheless, in age of so much strife and discord, I yearn for a time when peas will rule the planets, and love won’t be such a fuss. I long for the dawn of the age of asparagus.

Enter stage right, Mary Katherine Ham. Ms. Ham has done a spoof on the Ms. Silverstone ad that is a real crack-up.

Please enjoy it:

####

No animals were hurt in the writing of this column.

Kevin Dayhoff writes from Westminster Maryland USA.

www.kevindayhoff.net

E-mail him at: kdayhoff AT carr.org or kevindayhoff AT gmail.com

His columns and articles appear in The Tentacle - www.thetentacle.com; Westminster Eagle Opinion; www.thewestminstereagle.com and Winchester Report.

Monday, June 25, 2007

20070608 Mary Katherine Ham – HamNation: Sopranos DC Edition

Mary Katherine Ham – HamNation: Sopranos DC Edition

HamNation: Sopranos DC Edition

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULlxwoWMcDM

June 8, 2007

Description: Townhall.com's Mary Katharine Ham takes a special tour of Washington, home to total secrecy, ethically questionable transactions, and heavy-handed vengeance for perceived slights. Doesn't that remind you of something?

####

Friday, November 24, 2006

20061122 Meet Mary Katharine Ham Bull City native


Meet Mary Katharine Ham, Bull City native, TownHall.com blogger and darling of the right wing by Fiona Morgan, Indy Weekly from Durham, North Carolina

Ham dishes on Durham, journalism and women with guns

BY FIONA MORGAN Indy Weekly from Durham, North Carolina

A couple of months ago, Mary Katharine Ham started getting calls from producers at Fox News and Larry King Live, inviting her to represent the right-wing point of view on the air. Ham, who grew up in Durham and now lives in the Washington, D.C., area, is a full-time blogger at TownHall.com, a conservative multimedia Web site, where she has worked since 2005 (www.townhall.com/blog/MaryKatharineHam).

In the run-up to this year's election, she also gained notoriety for her video blog entries, including a Republican Get-Out-the-Vote campaign ad done as a spoof of late-night phone-dating ads.

In her early 20s, with long brown hair and a broad smile, Ham is a rising media star. On election night, she was among some 30 keyboard scribblers invited to CNN's "blog party" at a Washington nightspot. (She was joined there by fellow Durhamite Pam Spaulding, whose Pam's House Blend blog addresses race and gay and lesbian issues from a decidedly liberal perspective—though neither was aware they shared a hometown.)

Ham occasionally relates anecdotes of her experiences in Durham, which she describes as a liberal college town where she frequently finds herself the only conservative in the room (or at the bar).

After attending Riverside High School and the University of Georgia and working at a small-town N.C. newspaper, she joined the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank.

Her father, Jon Ham, the former managing editor of The Herald-Sun, is now a vice president at the conservative John Locke Foundation, where he writes a column for Carolina Journal.

We spoke with Ham by phone and e-mail from her office.

Indy: Besides blogging for Town Hall, you've recently become a bit of a TV personality. How did that happen?

Mary Katharine Ham: [Prominent conservative blogger] Michele Malkin has been very kind to me and sort of promoted me and been someone to look to for advice. I guest-blogged for her and shot a couple of video blogs for her site. She's on a couple of shows, and I had another friend who's been on CNN for a while, and both of them ended up not being able to do various gigs and they recommended me.

You started your career at a newspaper in North Carolina, is that right?

Yes, I worked for the newspaper in Rockingham. Because it was a small paper, I did pretty much everything: I laid stuff out and I reported, mostly sports and features, and then I got to do a little bit of opinion. They needed the columns filled and they were very nice to let me give it a shot even though I was right out of school. A couple of opinion pieces got picked up online by bigger Web sites, so I thought, maybe I could take a shot at that.

What were they about?

The first one was a column in which I defended Rush Limbaugh for the Donovan McNabb dustup. [In 2003, Limbaugh resigned from ESPN after saying the Philadelphia Eagles player had been promoted because he's black.] So few writers took that tack that [Limbaugh] put all of them on his Web site, every column that defended him. And my line was, basically, the media likes to call out racial insensitivity, but usually only on one side. You've got [Chicago Cubs manager] Dusty Baker going on and on about how white boys can't play in the heat, and that's fine, but if you're Rush Limbaugh you're going to get crucified. So basically I was saying, if you're going to call it, call it both ways.

How did you end up at the Heritage Foundation?

I was looking around at different newspaper jobs and I decided I could either do opinion journalism or sports journalism. I thought that was where I'd be most comfortable in the newsroom. I went up to D.C., interviewed at The Washington Times and the Heritage Foundation. At the Heritage Foundation, everybody was really excited and pumped about what they were doing. I had never met so many like-minded people in my entire life, so that was kind of exciting.

You say that your experience of Durham is that it's a very liberal town. That's interesting because my experience is that it's a very mixed town, politically.

I grew up in Trinity Park, which has a lot to do with it. I grew up in the Duke professor community, which, especially in my neighborhood, is overwhelmingly liberal. If you go to certain parts of town, certainly things are different. But my impression has always been that the conservatives, if they're in Durham, are certainly the silent minority.

What formed your political philosophy?

Our family was a bit more conservative than the folks in our neighborhood were, but we were never overtly politically conservative until later in the Clinton years.

I'm more of a fiscal conservative. I grew up in public schools, largely minority public schools—I was always one of several white kids from the neighborhood. And I just noticed in those settings that—and it took me a long time to figure out what was going on—that federal programs for fixing problems such as poverty and social ills and these kind of things were not working exactly the way they were supposed to. Not only that, but they looked to me as if they were harming the people they were meant to help.

In what way?

Just sort of breeding a kind of dependence on government, it occurred to me somewhere around high school, was not a good idea because you want people to have more potential than that. You always want to give people a helping hand, which is why I support private charities, which I think are more efficient at actually helping people than the government is.

And you observed this in your classmates?

Right. I watched families that had come undone and kids that weren't getting support at home, and it occurred to me later that a lot of that could probably be attributed to the fact that many of them were dependent on government instead of their families making their own way and taking ownership of their own lives.

What other experiences formed your political views?

I'm strongly pro-gun. The idea of gun control never made sense to me, since it only leaves law-abiding citizens without the means to protect themselves while all the criminals persist in owning illegal guns. It's also a bit of a women's issue for me. There is no better way to equalize a fight between a male attacker and a woman than a 9mm. Armed citizens who know what they're doing with a firearm can be a great crime deterrent.

Violence against women is a huge problem, and one I've been concerned about since the days of the Trinity Park rapist. I just take a different tack than liberals when it comes to deciding how to defend women. I occasionally collect news stories into columns about everyday women—grandmothers, moms, sisters—protecting themselves and their families with their guns. I think they're inspirational.

As far as other things that I'm passionate about, my father served in the military and both my grandfathers did, and that's always been something that we're very proud of. Not to say that that's only a conservative thing, but growing up in Durham that was always something I was sort of outspoken about.

I'm a Christian, so I'm a social conservative, but I'm much more focused on fiscal issues.

Do you consider yourself a feminist?

I do consider myself a feminist in that I want an equal playing field and equal rights with men. I have been discouraged by the modern feminist movement's tendency to campaign for "special" rights and extra help for women through government programs. It seems to me the opposite of empowering to tell women they need a particular political party or government program to succeed instead of encouraging them to create wealth and opportunity on their own, when they're perfectly capable of doing so.

Every time I tell a modern feminist—and I know many of them—that I'm a conservative or a Republican, I get the same response: "But, but, you're a woman. How can you be a woman and a conservative?" This is usually just a proxy for asking me how I can side with the generally recognized pro-life party. Well, thank you very much, but my entire political philosophy is not defined by the issue of abortion, and I think it's rather sad that many of my fellow women assume it should be. How myopic is that?

For most of your childhood your father worked at The Herald-Sun. Did that put stars in your eyes about media?

Starting in my early teenage years, my dad would take me to the courthouse on election night. Frankly, at the time I probably didn't even know what people were voting for. But it was very exciting. A newsroom on election night is one of the coolest places to be. I got really into that, the late-night pizza, everybody working on a deadline. That struck me as cool. And I've always been able to do very little other than write. [Laughs]

You really felt like newspapers were too liberal? Or you felt that you were too opinionated not to have it be part of your work?

Even in the very little exposure I had to the newsroom, it was overwhelmingly liberal. I was always having to, instead of writing my story, which had nothing to do with politics at all, I'd be defending my beliefs to editors who were having a political conversation in the room. Since I was the only conservative there, I would speak up and say, this is what I think and this is the other view on this. It just became this constant battle. I was always having to worry about, are they going to ask me to do some story that I feel like is slanted in such-and-such a way?

Did you ever feel that you were asked to do a story that was slanted?

Yeah. At one point, there was a Wal-Mart coming to the town, and everyone was very excited about it because it was going to be the coolest thing to hit Rockingham in quite some time. And we were going to do this exposé series on how horrible Wal-Mart was, with very little balance on how it was going to bring millions of dollars to the county and all of these goods and products that people could buy. It worked out fine, but that was one of those situations where I was like, I think I'm going to run into this a lot.

What is it like to be a public face representing conservative views?

It's very odd. I didn't imagine I'd be doing this. It's certainly fun. What I've actually been struck by is how little you get to say on TV. I'm used to an unlimited medium—I write on the Internet, so I can write forever. On TV, you just have to be on your toes, very succinct.

I've been very lucky to get to do a job that's a ton of fun and fight for things I believe in every day. Not a bad position to be in, whether you're liberal or conservative.

http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A40489

Friday, October 24, 2003

20031007 In Defense of Rush by Mary Katharine Ham/Richmond County Daily Journal


Editorials: IN DEFENSE OF RUSH: The media need to call it both ways

By Mary Katharine Ham/Richmond County Daily Journal

Tuesday, October 7, 2003

All right, hold on to your hats, folks, because this white girl's about to write about race and Rush Limbaugh.

If you haven't heard already, Limbaugh resigned from his position as a commentator for ESPN's "Sunday NFL Countdown" after being lambasted by the media for remarks he made Sept. 28 about Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb.

His comments went a little something like this: "I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve. The defense carried this team."

Now comes the part where the media get to shake their collective head and tremble with manufactured outrage over Limbaugh's "incendiary" remarks, as they like to call them.

Limbaugh's "insensitive" remarks have been plastered on every sports page, sports show and newscast in the country for the past week. Newspaper coverage of his comments has been paired with "it serves that bigot right" columns from sportswriters giddy with the chance to jump on the Rush-bashing bandwagon.

So, why the rush to hang Rush? Does the punishment fit the crime?

First, it is certainly true that McNabb has not shined recently, even according to McNabb.

Whether the media give him too much credit for his team's performance is debatable, but it's certainly a valid sports opinion open to discussion on any sports show. So Rush is safe so far.

Now, here's where Limbaugh did the unthinkable. He mentioned McNabb's race.

Limbaugh claims McNabb is overrated because the sports media are concerned about the status of black quarterbacks in the NFL. Are they?

Of course they are. If there wasn't social concern for the status of black athletes and coaches in the NFL, there would not have been such a stink over the Detroit Lions hiring Steve Mariuchi (a white coach) before interviewing any black candidates.

Any guess who that stink was raised by?

That's right, the nation's sports media - the same media which now claim to be socially un-concerned with the performance of black QBs and coaches in the NFL.

Whether you agree with Limbaugh's comments, they're neither totally off the wall nor racist. Limbaugh mentioned McNabb's race, but didn't disparage it. I can't count the number of times I've heard mainstream sports journalists refer to McNabb's race, so what's the difference?

Make no mistake about it, the problem is not what was said, but who said it.

Limbaugh is a conservative, white man who, in the eyes of the overwhelmingly liberal media, has no right to talk about race. As soon as the word "black" comes out of his mouth, he's a racist.

On the other hand, if you're a minority or a liberal, you can say pretty much whatever you want and the press, ever the rooter-out of racism, has nothing to say about it.

Take Dusty Baker, who is black. The Chicago Cubs manager made some gross ethnic generalizations in July when he said:

"Personally, I like to play in the heat," he said. "It's easier for me. It's easier for most Latin guys and easier for most minority people.

"Your skin color is more conducive to the heat than it is to the light-skinned people, right? You don't see brothers running around burnt and stuff, running around with white stuff on their ears and nose and stuff."

And what did the press do? It didn't demand an apology; it didn't call Dusty a bigot.

In fact, very little was written about the incident. Conservative critics roared that white men would have lost their jobs for comments like that.

In fact, two white men already had.

In the late 80s, sports commentator Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder and Dodger executive Al Campanis were both fired for making racial statements very similar to Baker's.

And it's not just sports where racist remarks from minorities are treated with kid gloves.

New York City Councilman Charles Barron attended a reparations rally in Washington, D.C., in August 2002. The black councilman addressed a crowd of several thousand, including many reporters, saying: "I want to go up to the closest white person and say 'You can't understand this, it's a black thing' and then slap him, just for my mental health."

You probably never even heard this before I wrote it, did you?

That's because only Reuters news service wrote a story on it. Evidently, the other reporters didn't think it was a story, even though it was an elected official, speaking in a public forum, making violent threats based solely on race.

Barron's response to criticism from conservative radio broadcaster Steve Malzberg was that he was using a form of humor called "black hyperbole" that "y'all wouldn't understand because you're uptight and you're gonna take it where it was not intended." (WABC Radio, Aug. 18, 2001.)

Maybe Rush should try that.

But the double standard doesn't stop there. As long as you're liberal, you're safe it seems.

Take Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), a white man and former member of the Ku Klux Klan who used the "n-word" twice in one interview on Fox News in March 2001.

Did you hear about that one? Probably not.

The New York Times ignored the story. CNN did one report, according to Newsmax.com, a conservative news Web site.

California's Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante addressed the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists in 2001 using the "n-word." The press has yet to publicize the incident during the California recall race, in which Bustamante is the Democrats' best hope to defeat Republican front-runner Arnold Schwarzenegger.

If the press is going to cast itself as racism's biggest enemy, it should fight it on all fronts instead of creating it where it doesn't exist.

But the liberal press is on a witch-hunt.

Not for racists, but for white conservatives it can portray as racists. Limbaugh has made that point many times and now the media are clamoring for all they're worth to prove him right.

If you want a witch worth hunting, start looking for corrupt journalists. You won't have to look very hard.

Contact reporter Mary Katharine Ham at 997-3111, ext. 19; e-mail mkham@yourdailyjournal.com

http://www.yourdailyjournal.com/articles/2003/10/07/news/editorials/oped02.txt