31 December 2004
UN-helpful
To address the psycho-social needs of children throughout nearly a dozen countries devastated by the tsunami, selective in-service teacher training will be supported to equip teachers with specific methods and activities, UNICEF said.
While limited in their capacity and depth of the response to shock, teachers can still be trained to carry out activities which allow children, many of them orphaned, to share their feelings and to better cope with the aftermath of the disaster. In addition, teams of child counsellors will be trained and sent to schools.
That’s the UN, striking directly at the desperate needs of people stricken by the tsunamis.
As many votes as it takes
As has been the case since Election Day, much of the attention is focused on King County. Republicans are asking questions about why the county’s list of registered voters who cast valid ballots in the election shows about 3,500 fewer people than the total number of votes certified in the race.
It’s the new super-democracy where the Will of the People is made manifest in ballots from heaven.
P.S. Some other observations on voting irregularities and Old Media coverage.
What do they know? Did they go to J-school?
Q: Sir, how do we win the war in the media? It seems like that is the place where we’re getting beat up more than anybody else? I’ve been here - this is my third tour over here and we’ve done some amazing things. And it seems like the enemy’s Web sites and everything else, they’re all over the media and they love it. But the thing is everything we did good, no matter if it’s helping a little kid or building a new school, the public affairs sends out the message, but the media doesn’t pick up on it. How doe we win the propaganda war?
— A solider in Mosul, asking the big question of Secretary Rumsfeld
Apparently another soldier in Tikrit asked a very similar question. I wonder if any journalists will ask themselves why our troops would consider them a propaganda source for our enemies?
30 December 2004
They're just results oriented
I’m having difficulty with the overwhelming number of mangled dead bodies being shown in the media when reporting on the victims of the Tsunami in SE Asia. While I don’t have a particular aversion to seeing dead bodies per se, I am troubled by the dual standard when it comes to showing dead bodies in general in the media. Specifically, why did TV stations and newspapers take such great strides to not show death while covering the terrorist attacks of 9/11, but are so quick to do so now?
We all know that the decision is made on whether the expected reponse is in line with the prevailing ideology in Old Media, but I’d love to hear what pretext Old Media would use to explain this away.
29 December 2004
Leaders are supposed to be ahead of the curve, not hugging it
[Woops, accidentally cross posted, but I’ll go ahead and leave it up]
The Kerry Spot has an excellent take down of a front page story in the Washington Post. The basic thesis of the story is that President Bush is a bad person because he hadn’t personally acted with regard to the recent tsunami disaster.
Kerry Spot attributes this to the newpaper’s desire to find a down side for Bush in every situation, but I think that the general hair-shirtedness of modern liberalism factors in as well. That is, while I don’t doubt that the newpaper was looking for a shot at Bush, I think that the complaint was (sadly) mostly genuine. As we can see from things like MoveOn.org, the activist liberal mindset has really gone to the personal psychodrama as the touchstone of authentic politics. It’s not about Bush being a leader, or what actions his administration is taking to deal with the disaster. No, it’s about what Bush personally has done, whether he personally has put on the hair shirt and bemoaned cruel fate. Whether this helps those affected by the disaster seems to be a secondary issue. But isn’t that par for the course for modern liberalism?
As for me, what I want in a leader is someone who leads and, if appropriate, gets the $#%@ out of the way of the people who can help so they can do their jobs. A good leader does his job for disaster before the disaster hits by making sure there are people to handle it and that they have the tools to do so. A leader who needs to be personally involved beyond the “this it — get moving!” stage is one who hasn’t spent his time properly beforehand.
28 December 2004
Politics over aid
Update: Via the Brothers Judd, the original source has retracted the story concerning the comments by the Vatican which were mistranslated. The Vatican statement condemned the Sri Lankan decision to reject aid from Israel, not Israeli decision to abide by the Sri Lankan request. One wonders a bit on how this could have been so badly mistranslated.
So apparently, people who write for the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano have limited reading comprehension skills. They’re claiming Israel refused to help Sri Lanka.
The Vatican newspaper has denounced a decision by the Israeli army to deny emergency help to disaster victims in Sri Lanka.The Vatican newspaper has denounced a decision by Sri Lanka to reject emergency aid offered by the Israeli government. Sri Lanka declined the Israeli aid because it would have been furnished by a military team.
Calling for “a radical and dramatic change of perspective” among people “too often preoccupied with making war,” L’Osservatore Romano
singled out Israeli military leaders for declining a request for emergency medical helpchastised the government of the stricken Asian nation for putting unnecessary restrictions on an Israeli offer to furnish medical help. The Vatican paper observed that in what “should be a time for unconditional solidarity,” some world leaders seem incapable of escaping a “small-minded approach that restricts their horizons.”
Here’s the problem. That isn’t what happened. Sri Lanka refused to allow the Israel delegation in.
Contrary to the Vatican report,an Israeli plane carrying 80 tons of food and medical supplies worth $100,000 was set to depart for Sri Lanka Wednesday morning. At the request of the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry, a team of some 150 Israeli medical and security personnel aborted their planned trip to the island nation Tuesday night.The Vatican paper observed that in what “should be a time for unconditional solidarity,” some world leaders seem incapable of escaping a “small-minded approach that restricts their horizons.”
The fact that the devastation swept across different societies, cultures, and nations should help to reinforce the universal perspective, the paper suggested.
Unless you’re jewish apparently. In which case it’s better for people to die in the jungle, eaten by wild animals, than to allow the nation’s holy soil to be contaminated by “them”. Even the rebels in Aceh have agreed to a cease-fire and help for the disaster. But the Sri Lankan government — they’ve got their priorities.
Old Media credibility watch
Via Little Green Footballs comes this list of 13 different errors in a single paragraph of an article in the Washington Post about the forged memos promoted by CBS. I’m not sure I’ve seen a more efficient degradation of Old Media credibility.
Old Media collaboration watch
Junkyard Blog has a couple of examples of how Old Media is either raising bogus objections to USA military efforts or effectively collaborating with our enemies. These include
- Providing details on a plane presumably used by the CIA for anti-terrorist operations including likely locations and the tail number.
- Objecting to the Pentagon stepping up the use of human intelligence against the caliphascists, because what could human spies tell us that spy satellites can’t?
Why can’t Old Media provide this kind of information about the caliphascists to a world wide audience?
27 December 2004
THIS JUST IN: Terrorism not good for poor people either
According to the World Bank, the attacks of September 11th 2001 cost more than $80 billion and pushed 11m people in developing countries into poverty. The economic fallout from a nuclear terrorist attack would dwarf these numbers. Given the relationship between poverty and infant mortality, we would count the cost of a nuclear terrorist attack in a rich country in two terrible death tolls: in the attacked city, and in poor nations all over the world.
The claim that terrorism was about poverty or correcting it was always an obvious sham, but it’s nice to have even the World Bank admit it.
Old Media credibility watch
[source]
The World Press Photo (WPPH) awards are among the most prestigious international prizes for photojournalism. This year’s WPPH Second Prize for ‘News Stories’ was granted to German Kai Wiedenhöfer (at right) for a series of 12 photographs entitled ‘The Wall, Israel Occupied Territories’. The sole caption for the photo essay on the WPPH site:
In 2002 Israel began to construct a 700-kilometer-long security barrier in the West Bank saying that it was designed to stop suicide bombers. Palestinians complained that the barrier was illegal and that its route cut off hundreds of farmers and traders from their land and means of economic survival. [link]
Wiedenhöfer’s entry rode this year’s wave of international criticism of the West Bank security fence. Yet three of Wiedenhöfer’s winning photos labeled as the ‘West Bank barrier’ are not, in fact, anywhere near the West Bank.
[…]
It should further be noted that one of Wiedenhöfer’s photos that does portray the West Bank barrier is the site where, on June 17, 2003, Palestinian terrorists used drainage pipes to access the Israeli side, where they opened fire on the family car of 7-year old Noam Leibowitz, killing her instantly.
Apparently the credibility of Old Media isn’t leaking away fast enough on its own so the WPPH is helping to speed the process.
Elephant in the room watch
Via the Brothers Judd we have this editorial which accuses the Israeli goverment of ethnically cleansing jews from Gaza and parts of the West Bank. Judd writes
There’s a simple enough solution—let these unbigoted settlers, who care only about their homes, stay and be governed by Palestinians.
which perfectly captures the essence, that the real reason for evacuating the jews is that they would otherwise be slaughtered by the Palestinians. Odd how this fact goes unmentioned by Old Media in the articles and public debates on this issue.
26 December 2004
Typical in-depth reporting
Reporters found little to suggest that Islam encourages violence, despite the impression Westerners might have because of exposure mostly to extremists. In fact, its venerable history suggests that Islam, like most religions, promotes peace and charity.
Yeah, those 1400 years of conquest and warfare are just aberrations compared to the time when the borders of Islam have been peaceful, which was … when, exactly?
24 December 2004
Why do these things wear out so quickly?
Addressing the post-election world, the [NEA Today] editorial is headlined “What Now?” Aha, I thought. Introspection! Then came the sub-head: “The post-election bad news: budget woes, vouchers, and a blurred line between church and state. The good news: A golden opportunity to reshape the Republican Party.”
Well, I’ve read dozens of election post-mortems, but NEA is the only one to suggest that the results suggest a golden opportunity to reshape the Republican Party.
[…]
What’s missing from this fantasy is what benefit the GOP is supposed to reap in exchange. What is the NEA sales pitch? “Let us do for you what we’ve done for the Democrats?”
I find it interesting that the editorial is basically about how to effectively infect and colonize the Republican Party the way the NEA has the Democratic Party. It’s certainly a good survival technique for a parasite to get a new host once the old one has been destroyed by the parasite.
22 December 2004
I try to hard to avoid mockery but what can I do?
Writing in his new book, [George] Lakoff—[a linguistics professor at the University of California, Berkeley]—states: “Democrats are shocked or puzzled when voters do not vote their self-interest. ‘How,’ Democrats keep asking me, ‘can any poor person vote for Bush when he hurts them so badly?’ “
Republicans might dispute the “hurt,” but no one is arguing that their party’s base stretches well beyond the rich and powerful these days. Lakoff argues that Republicans are succeeding because they have been carefully choosing words to frame issues around values. The strategy has left Democrats on the defensive in many areas.
Of course, I mocked Lakoff months ago, yet the article cited here is dated today. These Old Media types need to try harder to keep up. On the other hand, if they take this sort of drivel seriously there’s a lack of more than speed.
Offload the responsibility
[source]
With regard to how to handle the re-imporation of pharmacueticals, we have this excellent suggestion:
indemnify the drug companies and importers from after-the-fact lawsuits, so that they can’t be hurt because people are willing to cut corners to save money on their prescriptions.
I completely agree. Set the laws so that if you re-import, you’re on your own.
As they do the same, treat them the same
huckupchuck comments at Right Wing News
Also, in spite of what some blinded liberals might say, Fidel Castro IS unquestionably a repressive dictator. I say this not out of any particular malice towards the people who admire Cuban Socialism and the ideals of the Cuban Revolution, but Castro is an autocrat who persecutes those who dissent with him and his regime. No question.
That said, I rarely see or hear anyone on this site criticize Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, or Augusto Pinochet of Chile, or the House of Saud, or any number of anti-democratic repressive dictatorships of the “rightwing” persuasion. That’s not to say that anybody here, including Hawkins, supports these folks, but it is illustrative that when the subject comes to anti-democratic dictators, the targets on this site are almost always leftist anti-democratic and anti-U.S. dictators and not rightist anti-democratic, pro-U.S. ones.
I’ll tell you what - when Castro steps down voluntarialy, leaving behind a prosperous, democratic nation, I’ll stop criticizing him the same way I do for Pinochet. As for Musharraf and the Saudi Entity, if you don’t see complaints about them on right leaning websites you’re just not paying attention.
19 December 2004
Light of the world
Cuban strongman Fidel Castro is cracking down on the latest enemy of the revolution: Christmas lights.
The dictatorship has threatened the American interest section in Havana with “serious consequences” if it does not remove a Christmas light display around the perimeter of its headquarters.
Wow. I may start to not despite the State Department if this kind of thing becomes widespread.
Peace reporting doesn't get the Pulitzers
Perhaps the reason we are reading comparatively less about “Israel/Palestine” lately is that there is so much real news, and so much of it is astounding, and hopeful. The media are allergic to good news, and run from it as from holy water. The greatest single piece of good news was presented as if it were a tragedy — Arafat is gone. As became immediately evident, he was blocking the only possible way forward to the “two-state solution” that all but the terrorists claim to support.
As to whether Abbas understands that terrorism hasn’t been of net benefit to the Palestinians or he’s just telling Western audiences what they want to hear, I live in hope but not expectation. There’s no doubt, however, that things are looking much less dark than when Arafat was alive. It’s an insightful point that the issue is dropping off the radar of Old Media precisely because things are not as terrible as they once were.
15 December 2004
Disaster of Paris
A strange illness has descended on Japanese living in Paris, tipping many of them in a state of profound culture shock after realising their ideals about the French capital were unrealistic, a study published in Monday’s Liberation newspaper said.
More than a 100 expatriates a year are sinking into a state called “the Paris syndrome” which is characterised by feelings of persecution or suicidal tendencies, according to the mental health facilities of city hospitals.
Part of their clinical depression stems from having to reconcile their romanticism about Paris with reality, psychiatrists said.
“Magazines are fuelling fantasies with the Japanese, who think there are models everywhere and the women dress entirely in (Louis) Vuitton,” Mario Renoux, the head of a French Japanese Society for Medecine was quoted as saying.
After a relatively short period of only three months or so, Japanese immigrants expecting to find a haven of civilisation and elegance instead discover a tougher existence with many problems dealing with the French.
Given my opinion of France and Paris, here is at least one disease I am immune to.
12 December 2004
UN-favorable
The survey found that U.S. voters view the world body as being anti-American by nearly a 2-to-1 margin (52.1% to 27.3%).
The survey found that conservatives believe the U.N. to be anti-American by a margin of 61 percent to 23 percent; moderates held this view by a margin of 52 percent to 27 percent; and even liberals believe the U.N. is anti-American by a margin of 41 percent to 36 percent.
[…]
Among those surveyed with college degrees, 57 percent believe the U.N. to be anti-American while only 25 percent view the world body as pro-United States. People with only a high school diploma shared that view 53 percent to 25 percent. So did non-high school graduates: 43 percent to 22 percent.
Here’s the weird part
The survey also found that a bare plurality of U.S. voters have a favorable opinion (46.1% favorable to 38.1% unfavorable) of the United Nations.
Does this mean that at least 6% of Americans (52.1% - 46.1%) believe that the UN is anti-American and have a favorable opinion of it?
07 December 2004
I try to be cynical but it's hard to keep up
Isn’t if funny how you always have to double check the by line on a Modo column to make sure it isn’t just a clever parody of her actual ‘work’?
06 December 2004
BBC snookered yet again again
BBC World television said on Friday it was investigating how it had been duped into running an interview on the aftermath of the 1984 Bhopal disaster with a hoaxer claiming to be a spokesman for Dow Chemical.
During the interview, a man purporting to work for Dow Chemical claimed the company would take responsibility for the Bhopal tragedy and was setting up a $12bn compensation fund for victims. The interview ran twice on BBC World and was retracted later in the day by the news organisation.
[…]
A person familiar with how the Bhopal interview was prepared by the BBC said a London-based researcher had contacted the fake Dow employee - who called himself Jude Finesterra - after finding his name and number on a puported Dow website that had been either hacked or “mirrored”.
I think I actually heard that interview. I thought the guy sounded much more lucid that the standard corporate flack.
I guess this means that it’s becoming well known what an open door the BBC has for fakes and charlatans as long as they peddle the right anti-American view.
03 December 2004
UN-aware
“He was almost a saint-like character, clearly the most respected UN leader since Dag Hammarskjold,” said Timothy Wirth, president of the United Nations Foundation, referring to the Swedish Secretary General of the 1950s long considered the post’s most distinguished occupant.
Today Annan is the embattled head of an organization at odds with its most powerful constituent, the United States, and the object of such personal scorn that critics of the United Nations - chief among them Senator Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican, whose Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is scrutinizing the scandal-ridden United Nations oil-for-food program - are calling on him to resign.
Diplomats at the United Nations, caught by surprise at the broad assault on the organization and Annan, are alarmed at evidence that a campaign they felt was confined to conservative Republicans angry over UN opposition to the Bush administration invasion of Iraq is spreading so rapidly.
“The danger now is that a group of people who want to destroy or paralyze the UN are beginning to pick up support from some of those whose goal is to reform it,” said Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President Bill Clinton, and an Annan booster.
Annan was considered “saint-like” after presiding over the genocide in Rwanda? And the UN staff thinks that the only reason the UN in unpopular on the American Street is their fecklessness over the invasion of Iraq? Given how rapidly the “campaign” is spreading, shouldn’t the UN be asking itself “why do they hate us”?
01 December 2004
Welcome to the real world
I’m trying to understand the nearly universal lack of outrage coming from Hollywood over the brutal murder of Dutch director, Theo van Gogh, who was shot on the morning of November 2, while bicycling through the streets of Amsterdam. The killer then stabbed his chest with one knife and slit his throat with another.
Some attribute this lack of reaction to rampant cowardice in Hollywood, and that’s hard to dispute. But I wonder if it’s not also a psychological defense mechanism, where in discussing what “silencing of dissent” really looks like would it too obvious what a bunch of whiny posers most of Hollywood is.