And now for the first Daily Bitch:

Did you read about Martha Stewart in the Mercury News (Of course you did, admit it. She's all over in any paper)? Amazingly she made it as the main story on the first page again (that is, I would have considered such a main topic amazing BEFORE I came to the US. I was used to front pages of newspapers being reserved for real news. Anyway, I don't know why I am still amazed at things like that. I've seen it happen so often.). She is guilty, guilty, guilty and about to go to prison, though I am not yet sure why (I've tried my best to avoid reading too much about the case just to protect my sanity). Was it now insider trading or obstruction of justice or what? Don't bother to tell me. Here in the US it seems federal posecutors throw anything they can find at you (including the books), the hope obviously being that something will stick (hey, it worked with Al Capone, didn't it?). Although, you have to wonder about the depth of Marthas' criminal energy if they weren't even sure they could convince a judge and jury of insider trading!

I don't care to discuss her culpability. I rather am still bothered that they made such a point of hunting someone down who might or might not have used inside information to make a little extra profit on some of her stock (a whooping 4000 shares), yet I haven't heard any such good news on the bastards that criminally and fraudulantly ran WorldCom or Enron into the ground, not by making a little extra money but by robbing and ruining a huge amount of people. Oh, things are happening, slowly and quite often buried somewhere deep in the paper, but they don't seem to be getting the same star treatment as the news about Martha Stewart have been getting.
The major role of the press here seems to be to obscure reality, not to give real information.