With Gary Hart (formerly Hartpence) looking to make another run for the Democratic nomination for President, I though I’d beat the rush and post links to some gratuitous pictures of the Senator and a certain Donna Rice, with whom he sailed on the good ship “Monkey Business.” While technically the story was broken by the Miami Herald, as usual you can count on the National Inquirer, which informed readers that the married candidate had asked her to marry him. Here’s the 29 year old “model and actress” getting a nice tan.
Just to be fair, here’s a link to a list that includes Republican indiscretions.
posted at 3:53 PM
Another classic New York Post front page headline
The New York Post is famous, some would say infamous, for its headlines. For example, there’s Headless Body in Topless Bar, The Hunk Flunks and, of course, Gotti’s Greatest Hits.
Taking a clue from Scrappleface, The Post has produced another classic.
via cut on the bias
UPDATE: The Dissident Frogman has new, interesting wall paper
posted at 1:37 PM
Mikey Update
Exposing the Exposer’s Zachary takes issue with What Really Happened’s Michael “evidence links Israeli spies to 9-11” Rivero, who asserts that "Who wants peace? The Palestinians."
posted at 12:00 PM
Anti-war demonstrations and “listeners” who give “NPR a piece of … someone’s mind"
Despite extensive, and I might add very positive, coverage of the recent anti-war demonstrations, NPR ombudsman Jeffrey A. Dvorkin reports that the website www.democrats.com incorrectly accused NPR of giving only “5 Minutes to Massive Anti-war Protests, and 4 Minutes to the Queen's Trousers," which prompted “more than 500 outraged ‘listeners’” to give “NPR a piece of their -- or someone's -- mind.”
No word on whether NPR mentioned that the demonstrations were organized by a Stalinist group that has favored the Soviet invasion of Hungary, and such brutal despots as Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il and Slobodan Milosevic. Or, for that matter, why causes such as freeing cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal have anything to do with opposing a war against Saddam Hussein.
posted at 10:58 AM
More on the significance of the Workers World Party organizing the anti-war movement
Responding to my debate, with Blog on the Run’s Lex Alexander, about the significance of the Workers World Party sponsoring anti-War demonstrations, Lex Communis’s Peter Sean Bradley observes that:
There is nothing admirable about the Communists that you can't also find in Nazi ideology. Wear a swastika and you're walking leprosy; wear a red beret and it's a fashion statement. You know, I have never met a Nazi or a Klan member, but I went to law school with a card-carrying Communist. Nobody harassed him. He fit right in. But - jeez - the Gulag, the Katyn Massacre, the Ukraine famine, Stalin.....you know, that stuff. Nonetheless, you have to hope that this weekend perhaps saw the start of a healthy process which will result in consigning the Communists to the moral plague ward with the Nazis and the Klan.
Meanwhile, at Front Page Magazine Stephen Schwartz asks who foots the bill for The Workers World Party, “a minuscule Stalinist group” with some rather expensive programs. He observes that Nazi Germany subsidized the American peace movement prior to Pearl Harbor and the Cold War-era peace movement was covertly funded by the Soviet Union. Of the Workers World Party, he inquires:
Who stands behind them? Americans have a right to know, and if these phony peaceniks really desire respectability, they should be willing to publicly account for their financing, especially for air travel and hotel hospitality enjoyed while they serve as camouflage tourists in states committed to terrorism.
Friday, January 24, 2003
Thursday, January 23, 2003
To what extent does it matter who organizes the anti-war protests?
Responding to my post on Sheltering readers from what happens in the world, Lex Alexander, proprietor of Blog on the Run, writes that:
I agree that because ANSWER was the main organizer for the march, its background should have been explored in more detail. Absolutely no argument there.
But I have to wonder how much difference doing so would have made to those who had chosen to be there.
This is sounding familiar -- perhaps you and I discussed this before -- but I think a lot of people who participated in the march did so for reasons that had little or nothing to do with ANSWER's larger agenda. I also think that even participants who agreed in their opposition to attacking Iraq fell at many different places along a spectrum of reasons, terms and conditions. (For one example, see Mary McGrory's column in today's WashPost; the Valerie Lucznikowska quoted therein was my employer in 1982-83.)
We've only got one national capital, and the fact that people felt a need to assemble there in numbers to express their viewpoint does not mean, and should not be taken to mean, that every participant agreed with every other participant, or with the main organizer, on every detail. Besides, how many people do you think a rally consisting only of ANSWER and its sympathizers would have drawn? Surely nowhere near as many as marched this past weekend.
To which I responded:
Yes, but I think that misses the point. Don't you think that conservatives would be justly criticized if they held large demonstrations organized by a front group for the Klan or for the American Nazi Party?
To my mind, the anti-war movement deserves all the opprobrium it is getting for allowing itself to be organized by an odious group. Moreover, the message of speakers at the demonstrations appears to be as much, or more, anti-Americanism than anti-war.
By allowing itself to be co-opted by the Workers World Party, the anti-war movement discredits itself.
I’ll allow Lex the last word:
But -- and we're wandering a bit far afield of journalism here, but I can't help asking -- EVEN IF the whole country had been properly informed about the background and views of the organizing group, is it not possible that many participants might not have cared? I think it is. For one thing, I suspect that many marchers, and perhaps many who did not march and would not have, probably would consider the American Nazi Party and the Klan much closer to being a clear and present danger to the public than ANSWER is or ever has been.
For another, the specific viewpoints of the participants were so varied that I doubt many of them felt it logical or rational to speak of "the anti-war movement" as an entity so cohesive that it could or should worry about its associations. Just among people I know who participated, the viewpoints include:
--No attack on Iraq, period.
--Rebuild Afghanistan and keep after bin Laden and al-Qaeda first, while monitoring Iraq for possible future action.
--Attack Iraq if needed, but only with UN sanction.
--Atack Iraq if needed, but only with UN sanction AND allied military support.
My point is not that the motives of some organizers aren't questionable. But I suspect that a big chunk of the participants didn't know and wouldn't have cared if they had known, because they were there for their own reasons, with their own messages for the government and public.
posted at 2:55 PM
NNNNobody expects the Danish Committee for Scientific Dishonesty!!!
Responding to the Pythonesque holding of the Danish Committee for Scientific Dishonesty (shouldn’t they be against dishonesty?), that his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, is “clearly in violation of the norms for good scientific behavior," Bjorn Lomborg defends himself in today’s OpinionJournal.
What makes the committee's holding truly Pythonesque are the procedural irregularities committed by the committee in order to issue its denunciation. To summarize points originally made by statistician Iain Murray:
1. The committee did not reach a consensus on the premise that Lomborg’s book was a work of science. Hence they should not have proceeded to apply standards applicable only to works of science and should have stopped right there.
2. In order to label conduct as “scientifically dishonest,” the committee’s guidelines state that “it must be possible to document that the person in question has acted deliberately or exercised gross negligence in connection with the activities under consideration.” Instead the committee invented a new standard, finding that they had “not found-or felt able to procure-sufficient grounds to deem that the defendant has misled his readers deliberately or with gross negligence.” As Iain observes, the committee ”cannot find him guilty of scientific dishonesty. They therefore invent a distinction between objective dishonesty and subjective dishonesty, thereby inventing a category of unconscious dishonesty.” Iain coincludes that this is “such a blatant contradiction in terms [that the committee’s] work should be referred to the Danish Committee on Philosophical Dishonesty.”
The good news is that rather than burying Lomborg, the committee appears to have done the opposite. He has been defended, inter alia, in the pages of The Economist and, as he notes:
The baseless denunciation by the Danish committee--which some have called Orwellian--has led to an academic outcry. In Denmark alone, 280 professors have signed a petition rejecting the decision.
Seeking to punish an apostate, the Danish committee has instead given him greater prominence than ever. Lomborg's reputation survives the denunciation. The question is will the committee's?
posted at 1:15 PM
Proofread that bill!
One clue that proposed legislation isn’t to be taken seriously is when it’s obvious that no one has proofread it. I count no fewer than four instances in which Rep. Charles Rangel’s bill to reintroduce the draft (HR 163) refers to “reverse” when it should read “reserve.” For example:
DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) The term `military service' means service performed as a member of an active or reverse component of the uniformed services.
via The Edge of England's Sword
posted at 10:11 AM
Smug and ugly at the BBC?
Cut on the Bias reports on a BBC article on the recent shooting of two Americans in Kuwait. She observes that “It was a fairly straightforward piece, until you get to the very last paragraph,” which she describes as “so flagrantly biased, so clearly opinion, so disgustingly smug and ugly. And it doesn't even make any effort to portray itself as anything but that - it's not a quote, not even an extrapolation from what anyone else said. It's just editorializing in the guise of a hard news story.” The paragraph in question?
Whatever they decide, the expat communities of both countries will chew on the irony that they were probably safer before their nations decided to fill up their adopted homeland with tanks and soldiers.
The tacit assumption the BBC makes is that terrorism against westerners is a result of our buildup in the Middle East, as opposed to a consequence. Yet there is a history of increasing violence against westerners (particularly Americans) in the Middle East that substantially predates the events of 9/11/01 and the subsequent military buildup and showdown with Iraq, so that assumption is questionable at best.
Good catch Susanna!
I agree that because ANSWER was the main organizer for the march, its background should have been explored in more detail. Absolutely no argument there.
But I have to wonder how much difference doing so would have made to those who had chosen to be there.
This is sounding familiar -- perhaps you and I discussed this before -- but I think a lot of people who participated in the march did so for reasons that had little or nothing to do with ANSWER's larger agenda. I also think that even participants who agreed in their opposition to attacking Iraq fell at many different places along a spectrum of reasons, terms and conditions. (For one example, see Mary McGrory's column in today's WashPost; the Valerie Lucznikowska quoted therein was my employer in 1982-83.)
We've only got one national capital, and the fact that people felt a need to assemble there in numbers to express their viewpoint does not mean, and should not be taken to mean, that every participant agreed with every other participant, or with the main organizer, on every detail. Besides, how many people do you think a rally consisting only of ANSWER and its sympathizers would have drawn? Surely nowhere near as many as marched this past weekend.
To which I responded:
Yes, but I think that misses the point. Don't you think that conservatives would be justly criticized if they held large demonstrations organized by a front group for the Klan or for the American Nazi Party?
To my mind, the anti-war movement deserves all the opprobrium it is getting for allowing itself to be organized by an odious group. Moreover, the message of speakers at the demonstrations appears to be as much, or more, anti-Americanism than anti-war.
By allowing itself to be co-opted by the Workers World Party, the anti-war movement discredits itself.
I’ll allow Lex the last word:
But -- and we're wandering a bit far afield of journalism here, but I can't help asking -- EVEN IF the whole country had been properly informed about the background and views of the organizing group, is it not possible that many participants might not have cared? I think it is. For one thing, I suspect that many marchers, and perhaps many who did not march and would not have, probably would consider the American Nazi Party and the Klan much closer to being a clear and present danger to the public than ANSWER is or ever has been.
For another, the specific viewpoints of the participants were so varied that I doubt many of them felt it logical or rational to speak of "the anti-war movement" as an entity so cohesive that it could or should worry about its associations. Just among people I know who participated, the viewpoints include:
--No attack on Iraq, period.
--Rebuild Afghanistan and keep after bin Laden and al-Qaeda first, while monitoring Iraq for possible future action.
--Attack Iraq if needed, but only with UN sanction.
--Atack Iraq if needed, but only with UN sanction AND allied military support.
My point is not that the motives of some organizers aren't questionable. But I suspect that a big chunk of the participants didn't know and wouldn't have cared if they had known, because they were there for their own reasons, with their own messages for the government and public.
posted at 2:55 PM
NNNNobody expects the Danish Committee for Scientific Dishonesty!!!
Responding to the Pythonesque holding of the Danish Committee for Scientific Dishonesty (shouldn’t they be against dishonesty?), that his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, is “clearly in violation of the norms for good scientific behavior," Bjorn Lomborg defends himself in today’s OpinionJournal.
What makes the committee's holding truly Pythonesque are the procedural irregularities committed by the committee in order to issue its denunciation. To summarize points originally made by statistician Iain Murray:
1. The committee did not reach a consensus on the premise that Lomborg’s book was a work of science. Hence they should not have proceeded to apply standards applicable only to works of science and should have stopped right there.
2. In order to label conduct as “scientifically dishonest,” the committee’s guidelines state that “it must be possible to document that the person in question has acted deliberately or exercised gross negligence in connection with the activities under consideration.” Instead the committee invented a new standard, finding that they had “not found-or felt able to procure-sufficient grounds to deem that the defendant has misled his readers deliberately or with gross negligence.” As Iain observes, the committee ”cannot find him guilty of scientific dishonesty. They therefore invent a distinction between objective dishonesty and subjective dishonesty, thereby inventing a category of unconscious dishonesty.” Iain coincludes that this is “such a blatant contradiction in terms [that the committee’s] work should be referred to the Danish Committee on Philosophical Dishonesty.”
The good news is that rather than burying Lomborg, the committee appears to have done the opposite. He has been defended, inter alia, in the pages of The Economist and, as he notes:
The baseless denunciation by the Danish committee--which some have called Orwellian--has led to an academic outcry. In Denmark alone, 280 professors have signed a petition rejecting the decision.
Seeking to punish an apostate, the Danish committee has instead given him greater prominence than ever. Lomborg's reputation survives the denunciation. The question is will the committee's?
posted at 1:15 PM
Proofread that bill!
One clue that proposed legislation isn’t to be taken seriously is when it’s obvious that no one has proofread it. I count no fewer than four instances in which Rep. Charles Rangel’s bill to reintroduce the draft (HR 163) refers to “reverse” when it should read “reserve.” For example:
DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) The term `military service' means service performed as a member of an active or reverse component of the uniformed services.
via The Edge of England's Sword
posted at 10:11 AM
Smug and ugly at the BBC?
Cut on the Bias reports on a BBC article on the recent shooting of two Americans in Kuwait. She observes that “It was a fairly straightforward piece, until you get to the very last paragraph,” which she describes as “so flagrantly biased, so clearly opinion, so disgustingly smug and ugly. And it doesn't even make any effort to portray itself as anything but that - it's not a quote, not even an extrapolation from what anyone else said. It's just editorializing in the guise of a hard news story.” The paragraph in question?
Whatever they decide, the expat communities of both countries will chew on the irony that they were probably safer before their nations decided to fill up their adopted homeland with tanks and soldiers.
The tacit assumption the BBC makes is that terrorism against westerners is a result of our buildup in the Middle East, as opposed to a consequence. Yet there is a history of increasing violence against westerners (particularly Americans) in the Middle East that substantially predates the events of 9/11/01 and the subsequent military buildup and showdown with Iraq, so that assumption is questionable at best.
Good catch Susanna!
Wednesday, January 22, 2003
Sheltering readers from what happens in the world
Michael Kelly takes issue with the left's embrace of islamofascism and tyranny, and the failure of the media to report that the so-called peace marches are organized by International ANSWER, a front for the Stalinist Workers World Party, which isn't so much pro-peace as anti-freedom and anti-American. He observes that:
Last weekend, the left held large antiwar marches in Washington, San Francisco and elsewhere. Major media coverage of these marches was highly respectful. This was "A Stirring in the Nation," in the words of an approving New York Times editorial, "impressive for the obvious mainstream roots of the marchers."
There is, increasingly, much that happens in the world that the Times feels its readers should be sheltered from knowing. The marches ... were chiefly sponsored .. by a group the Times chose to call in its only passing reference "the activist group International Answer."
via The Corner
UPDATE: Providing another example of "sheltering readers," Thor Halvorssen writes, in The Washington Times, that:
Reporters have so controlled the flow of information and disfigured the truth that their coverage of Venezuela is a caricature of what conservative critics call the "liberal media bias." What we are seeing in media coverage of Venezuela is not liberal bias, but totalitarian bias.
He provides plenty of examples.
via the ever vigilant PostWatch
posted at 1:15 PM
The BBC profiles The United States
# The BBC’s description of America “stinks,” notes Biased BBC reader Monica Law, who describes herself as a “Brit living in France.” Here are some lowlights from the description:racial violence, discrimination and segregation have been and continue to be a feature of American life.
# Without the levels of social welfare enjoyed, for example, in western Europe, this wealth gap could translate into a potential for social unrest
# American foreign policy has always mixed the idealism of its "mission" with elements of self-interest. The latter is exemplified in its international record on the environment
# the US has taken the pre-eminent role in the war on Afghanistan and in attempts to isolate and mobilise its allies against countries which it claims are havens to terrorists.
Last weekend, the left held large antiwar marches in Washington, San Francisco and elsewhere. Major media coverage of these marches was highly respectful. This was "A Stirring in the Nation," in the words of an approving New York Times editorial, "impressive for the obvious mainstream roots of the marchers."
There is, increasingly, much that happens in the world that the Times feels its readers should be sheltered from knowing. The marches ... were chiefly sponsored .. by a group the Times chose to call in its only passing reference "the activist group International Answer."
via The Corner
UPDATE: Providing another example of "sheltering readers," Thor Halvorssen writes, in The Washington Times, that:
Reporters have so controlled the flow of information and disfigured the truth that their coverage of Venezuela is a caricature of what conservative critics call the "liberal media bias." What we are seeing in media coverage of Venezuela is not liberal bias, but totalitarian bias.
He provides plenty of examples.
via the ever vigilant PostWatch
posted at 1:15 PM
The BBC profiles The United States
# The BBC’s description of America “stinks,” notes Biased BBC reader Monica Law, who describes herself as a “Brit living in France.” Here are some lowlights from the description:racial violence, discrimination and segregation have been and continue to be a feature of American life.
# Without the levels of social welfare enjoyed, for example, in western Europe, this wealth gap could translate into a potential for social unrest
# American foreign policy has always mixed the idealism of its "mission" with elements of self-interest. The latter is exemplified in its international record on the environment
# the US has taken the pre-eminent role in the war on Afghanistan and in attempts to isolate and mobilise its allies against countries which it claims are havens to terrorists.
Tuesday, January 21, 2003
Take the The WildMonk War Personality Test!
The OmbudsGod is either a Capitalist Stooge or a Realist depending on your point of view.
via The Truth Laid Bear
posted at 9:16 PM
Mikey update
That’s Mikey Rivero, not Mikey Moore, for any OBG novices out there. Michael Rivero is a Free Republic outcast who has apparently found his new calling by spreading anti-American conspiracy theories. Need a "source" to prove that Washington knew about what was going to happen on 9/11/01 ahead of time, or that the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center were the work of Zionist agents, then Mikey's your man. Needless to say, he's picked up an eclectic following on both the left and right.
S. Boyle continues his exposure of Mikey. This week we’re back to the recurring theme of Mikey’s anti-Semitism. Responding to a Holocaust denial letter posted on his website, Mikey repeats the discredited claim that Anne Frank’s diaries are a forgery. He also links to a hidden story on Indymedia that “Zionists associated with the Mossad have applied for and now work at Indymedia,” but that “don't let it deter you from your pro-Palestinian activies. The cat is out of the bag! Israel will soon fall like a house of cards…”
Okay, I didn’t know that there are “hidden stories” on Indymedia, either, but apparently if you click on the button labeled “View Hidden Stories” on San Francisco IndyMedia – that’s where they’ve hidden it. Given the crap they often run, I’m surprised that they hide this piece, but then maybe even the Indyidiots are embarrassed by it.
posted at 2:03 PM
Scott Ritter update
According to CBS affiliate WRGB and MSNBC, former weapons inspector, turned Saddam apologist, Scott Ritter was caught twice trying to pick up underage girls through the Internet. In 2001, he tried to lure what he thought was a 16 year old girl to meet him, but the jailbait turned out to be just that – a cop. The charge was dismissed and the case sealed. Four months before that, he was arrested for trying to meet a 14 year old girl he met online, but the cops let him go.
So, not only is Ritter an Internet sexual predator, but an idiot as well, having been nailed not once but twice. The only thing more reprehensible is that he was never truly held accountable for his actions.
via Drudge Report
UPDATE: Tim Blair thinks that "Ritter would fit right in with the UN's present Iraq inspection team..."
posted at 1:06 PM
Banned in Europe!
No stories about German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's affair, please. The "Audi chancellor" (4 wedding rings, get it?), has obtained a German court order barring publication of information by a British newspaper, the Mail, that he is having an affair, on the grounds that such information about the high government official violates his right to privacy. The British press is naturally flouting the order and going to town with the story, which is setting the stage for a showdown on the efficacy of transnational censorship in Euroland.
The penalty for violating the German court’s order is a whopping €250,000, if, of course, it can be enforced.
Considering that, for example, Germany has one of the worst records for honoring foreign child custody decrees, including those from Britain, despite being a signatory to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, a finding that European national courts have transnational jurisdiction could have profound consequences for other areas of the law.
via The Truth Laid Bear
posted at 9:16 PM
Mikey update
That’s Mikey Rivero, not Mikey Moore, for any OBG novices out there. Michael Rivero is a Free Republic outcast who has apparently found his new calling by spreading anti-American conspiracy theories. Need a "source" to prove that Washington knew about what was going to happen on 9/11/01 ahead of time, or that the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center were the work of Zionist agents, then Mikey's your man. Needless to say, he's picked up an eclectic following on both the left and right.
S. Boyle continues his exposure of Mikey. This week we’re back to the recurring theme of Mikey’s anti-Semitism. Responding to a Holocaust denial letter posted on his website, Mikey repeats the discredited claim that Anne Frank’s diaries are a forgery. He also links to a hidden story on Indymedia that “Zionists associated with the Mossad have applied for and now work at Indymedia,” but that “don't let it deter you from your pro-Palestinian activies. The cat is out of the bag! Israel will soon fall like a house of cards…”
Okay, I didn’t know that there are “hidden stories” on Indymedia, either, but apparently if you click on the button labeled “View Hidden Stories” on San Francisco IndyMedia – that’s where they’ve hidden it. Given the crap they often run, I’m surprised that they hide this piece, but then maybe even the Indyidiots are embarrassed by it.
posted at 2:03 PM
Scott Ritter update
According to CBS affiliate WRGB and MSNBC, former weapons inspector, turned Saddam apologist, Scott Ritter was caught twice trying to pick up underage girls through the Internet. In 2001, he tried to lure what he thought was a 16 year old girl to meet him, but the jailbait turned out to be just that – a cop. The charge was dismissed and the case sealed. Four months before that, he was arrested for trying to meet a 14 year old girl he met online, but the cops let him go.
So, not only is Ritter an Internet sexual predator, but an idiot as well, having been nailed not once but twice. The only thing more reprehensible is that he was never truly held accountable for his actions.
via Drudge Report
UPDATE: Tim Blair thinks that "Ritter would fit right in with the UN's present Iraq inspection team..."
posted at 1:06 PM
Banned in Europe!
No stories about German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's affair, please. The "Audi chancellor" (4 wedding rings, get it?), has obtained a German court order barring publication of information by a British newspaper, the Mail, that he is having an affair, on the grounds that such information about the high government official violates his right to privacy. The British press is naturally flouting the order and going to town with the story, which is setting the stage for a showdown on the efficacy of transnational censorship in Euroland.
The penalty for violating the German court’s order is a whopping €250,000, if, of course, it can be enforced.
Considering that, for example, Germany has one of the worst records for honoring foreign child custody decrees, including those from Britain, despite being a signatory to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, a finding that European national courts have transnational jurisdiction could have profound consequences for other areas of the law.
Sunday, November 24, 2002
Lou’s corner
This week, ombudsman Lou Gelfand addresses the issue of bias in The Minneapolis Star Tribune. The column appears to have been pulled from the website, but here’s what remains:
Lou Gelfand: Coverage of West Bank hostilities leaves some readers seeing red
Israeli and Palestinian loyalists agreed last week that the Star Tribune's coverage is biased. For different reasons, of course.
I love that language of moral equivalence. Change it slightly and you can see how bizarre it is.
Lou Gelfand: Coverage of Final Solution leaves some readers seeing red
Jewish and NAZI loyalists agreed last week that the Star Tribune's coverage is biased. For different reasons, of course.
Let’s take this a little further. Here’s a quote from the The Star Tribune’s assistant managing editor, Roger Buoen, earlier this year:
We also take extra care to avoid the term “terrorist” in articles about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because of the emotional and heated nature of that dispute.
Applying that same philosophy to another era, we get:
We also take extra care to avoid the term “genocide” in articles about the Jewish-NAZI conflict because of the emotional and heated nature of that dispute.
Eric Olsen took apart a similar argument used by NPR:
Sadly, rather than appearing neutral, which may or may not be their actual goal, NPR appears to favor the Palestinians because there is no definition in any language on the face of the earth that doesn't conclude that ‘terrorism’ is the purposeful killing of noncombatants to frighten said populace into changing policies the ‘terrorists’ don't like. When one appears to be bending over backwards to achieve ‘neutrality’ and said ‘neutrality’ requires contortions, evasions and moral blinders to be maintained, that very ‘neutrality’ becomes evidence of the opposite.
There is no moral equivalence between those who desire to live in peaceful co-existence with their neighbors and those who wish to “drive them into the sea” because of their religion and ethnicity. The inability to recognize the distinction is strong evidence of bias, or worse.
UPDATE: Lou's column is back online.
UPDATE: Here's an Opinion Journal from February making much the same point.
the Minneapolis Star Tribune is willing to call al Qaeda a terrorist organization. But if you murder only Jews, you are not a terrorist--at least in the eyes of those who edit Minnesota's largest newspaper. We wish we were making this up, but it's right there in yesterday's column by Star Tribune ombudsman Lou Gelfand.
Front-page graphic detail of the rape of an 8-year-old
Mike Needs, ombudsman for The Akron Beacon Journal, reports that:
[S]everal readers thought the Akron Beacon Journal crossed [The boundary line that separates reality reporting and reader sensibilities] with a Nov. 16 front-page story that described the rape of an 8-year-old Akron girl. The information provided was far too detailed and far too unnecessary, they said.
One reader wrote: “I am completely outraged at your reporting of the most private details of the young girl's rape. You have moved beyond the realm of decency and human compassion.”
Needs doesn’t say if the girl was named in the article, but regardless her friends and acquaintances will be able to figure out who she is. The Beacon Journal’s story seems to fit into a modern trend of providing more detail about rapes under the rationale of removing “stigma.” Or, as another reader said:
...newspapers need more reporting on rape, not less. “Maybe the publication of such details will assist in educating the public as to the reality of rape as a power/dominance matter rather than a sexual one.”
There are two problems with that argument. First, rape is not merely a “power/dominance matter rather than a sexual one.” Poynter.org’s Bob Steele quotes from author Helen Benedict’s Virgin or Vamp: How the Press Covers Sex Crimes:
Rape is best characterized as torture that uses sex as a weapon. Like a torturer, the rapist uses sexual acts to dominate, humiliate, and terrorize the victim," Benedict writes.
"To deny the role of sexual humiliation in rape is to deny victims the horror of what they have been through. As long as people have any sense of privacy about sexual acts and the human body, rape will, therefore, carry a stigma, not necessarily a stigma that blames the victim for what happened to her, but a stigma that links her name irrevocably with an act of intimate humiliation."
"To name a rape victim is to guarantee that whenever somebody hears her name, that somebody will picture her in the act of being sexually tortured. To expose a rape victim to this without her consent is nothing short of punitive."
Second, while it may be courageous for a 24-year-old victim to come forward with her story, an eight-year-old lacks the maturity to make such a decision. Publishing the graphic details of the young girl’s rape does little to remove stigma, and links “her name irrevocably with an act of intimate humiliation.”
A reader sums it up best. “The Beacon Journal has merely added to the continual degradation of our societal norms. . .”
Lou Gelfand: Coverage of West Bank hostilities leaves some readers seeing red
Israeli and Palestinian loyalists agreed last week that the Star Tribune's coverage is biased. For different reasons, of course.
I love that language of moral equivalence. Change it slightly and you can see how bizarre it is.
Lou Gelfand: Coverage of Final Solution leaves some readers seeing red
Jewish and NAZI loyalists agreed last week that the Star Tribune's coverage is biased. For different reasons, of course.
Let’s take this a little further. Here’s a quote from the The Star Tribune’s assistant managing editor, Roger Buoen, earlier this year:
We also take extra care to avoid the term “terrorist” in articles about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because of the emotional and heated nature of that dispute.
Applying that same philosophy to another era, we get:
We also take extra care to avoid the term “genocide” in articles about the Jewish-NAZI conflict because of the emotional and heated nature of that dispute.
Eric Olsen took apart a similar argument used by NPR:
Sadly, rather than appearing neutral, which may or may not be their actual goal, NPR appears to favor the Palestinians because there is no definition in any language on the face of the earth that doesn't conclude that ‘terrorism’ is the purposeful killing of noncombatants to frighten said populace into changing policies the ‘terrorists’ don't like. When one appears to be bending over backwards to achieve ‘neutrality’ and said ‘neutrality’ requires contortions, evasions and moral blinders to be maintained, that very ‘neutrality’ becomes evidence of the opposite.
There is no moral equivalence between those who desire to live in peaceful co-existence with their neighbors and those who wish to “drive them into the sea” because of their religion and ethnicity. The inability to recognize the distinction is strong evidence of bias, or worse.
UPDATE: Lou's column is back online.
UPDATE: Here's an Opinion Journal from February making much the same point.
the Minneapolis Star Tribune is willing to call al Qaeda a terrorist organization. But if you murder only Jews, you are not a terrorist--at least in the eyes of those who edit Minnesota's largest newspaper. We wish we were making this up, but it's right there in yesterday's column by Star Tribune ombudsman Lou Gelfand.
Front-page graphic detail of the rape of an 8-year-old
Mike Needs, ombudsman for The Akron Beacon Journal, reports that:
[S]everal readers thought the Akron Beacon Journal crossed [The boundary line that separates reality reporting and reader sensibilities] with a Nov. 16 front-page story that described the rape of an 8-year-old Akron girl. The information provided was far too detailed and far too unnecessary, they said.
One reader wrote: “I am completely outraged at your reporting of the most private details of the young girl's rape. You have moved beyond the realm of decency and human compassion.”
Needs doesn’t say if the girl was named in the article, but regardless her friends and acquaintances will be able to figure out who she is. The Beacon Journal’s story seems to fit into a modern trend of providing more detail about rapes under the rationale of removing “stigma.” Or, as another reader said:
...newspapers need more reporting on rape, not less. “Maybe the publication of such details will assist in educating the public as to the reality of rape as a power/dominance matter rather than a sexual one.”
There are two problems with that argument. First, rape is not merely a “power/dominance matter rather than a sexual one.” Poynter.org’s Bob Steele quotes from author Helen Benedict’s Virgin or Vamp: How the Press Covers Sex Crimes:
Rape is best characterized as torture that uses sex as a weapon. Like a torturer, the rapist uses sexual acts to dominate, humiliate, and terrorize the victim," Benedict writes.
"To deny the role of sexual humiliation in rape is to deny victims the horror of what they have been through. As long as people have any sense of privacy about sexual acts and the human body, rape will, therefore, carry a stigma, not necessarily a stigma that blames the victim for what happened to her, but a stigma that links her name irrevocably with an act of intimate humiliation."
"To name a rape victim is to guarantee that whenever somebody hears her name, that somebody will picture her in the act of being sexually tortured. To expose a rape victim to this without her consent is nothing short of punitive."
Second, while it may be courageous for a 24-year-old victim to come forward with her story, an eight-year-old lacks the maturity to make such a decision. Publishing the graphic details of the young girl’s rape does little to remove stigma, and links “her name irrevocably with an act of intimate humiliation.”
A reader sums it up best. “The Beacon Journal has merely added to the continual degradation of our societal norms. . .”
Friday, November 22, 2002
Taxpayer-funded sex discrimination
PostWatch is exposing institutions that discriminate on the basis of sex, yet receive Federal funds.
I'm shocked, shocked!
Blackface, the new anti-establishment protest?
According to Erin O’Connor, there appears to be a sort of mini-epidemic of blackface-related incidents on campus:
…I want to stress the highly stylized pattern that surrounds the wearing of blackface on college campuses. It's almost always fraternity brothers who do it; they almost always do it at Halloween; they always incur the righteous wrath of the campus; that wrath doesn't distinguish between dressing as tennis stars and dressing as Sambo; there is always some kind of discipline; often, in the process of doling out the discipline, administrators violate the offenders' constitutional rights; there is also always talk of institutionalized racism--the history of minstrelsy is always invoked, as are the less-than-optimal numbers of black students on the campus in question. To say that blackface episodes signify the presence of unreconstructed racism on campus is to miss the wider picture, which is that the donning of blackface is one scene in a complex campus-wide dramatization of the racial tension built into the multicultural agenda that presides over an increasing number of college campuses.
Fraternity members wear blackface not because they don't know that it will be seen as racist, but because they know it will. They are deliberately flouting campus convention with their costumes; I would argue that blackface says less about the racial awareness of its wearer than it does about his rejection of politically correct codes of conduct. The white male fraternity brother is the emblematic oppressor on campus today--he symbolizes all that the many speech codes, harassment policies, sensitivity workshops, and diversity requirements cluttering up his campus most revile. To use the phraseology of oppression theory, blackface as it is worn on campuses today might more rightly be understood as a form of resistance than a sign of neanderthalism. That doesn't make it right. But it might help explain it.
Study Finds Sex, Pregnancy Link
If you want to read some funny material, go to Bob Levy’s column in today's The Washington Post.
via Media Minded
Life repeats Woody Allen, only without the laughs
In his campy comedy Bananas, Woody Allen goes to the fictional country of San Marcos where there's a revolution. The country's new president soon becomes drunk with power and decrees that the official language of San Marcos is Swedish, that everyone must change their underwear every half-hour, and that they must wear it on the outside of their clothes so the government will be able to check. Eventually San Marcos is invaded by everyone from Americans troops to the Jewish Defense League.
If Joel Soler, director of the documentary Uncle Saddam, is to be believed, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein is a real-life version of the leader in Bananas. While the people of Iraq are not required to wear their underwear on the outside (yet), Saddam instructs his subjects on how often to bathe (once a day for men, twice for women) and how to brush their teeth. His sycophants greet him by kissing him on the shoulder in a spot about halfway between his armpit and his nipple. He maintains an elaborate art museum containing only portraits of himself. His office must be maintained at a specified temperature determined by his doctors and he is deathly afraid of germs. And this only scratches the surface.
It would be funny if Saddam’s rule weren’t so tragic for his people, and if his military adventures and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction didn’t make him a threat to the rest of the world. He may not be clinically psychotic, but he’s definitely nuts.
I'm shocked, shocked!
Blackface, the new anti-establishment protest?
According to Erin O’Connor, there appears to be a sort of mini-epidemic of blackface-related incidents on campus:
…I want to stress the highly stylized pattern that surrounds the wearing of blackface on college campuses. It's almost always fraternity brothers who do it; they almost always do it at Halloween; they always incur the righteous wrath of the campus; that wrath doesn't distinguish between dressing as tennis stars and dressing as Sambo; there is always some kind of discipline; often, in the process of doling out the discipline, administrators violate the offenders' constitutional rights; there is also always talk of institutionalized racism--the history of minstrelsy is always invoked, as are the less-than-optimal numbers of black students on the campus in question. To say that blackface episodes signify the presence of unreconstructed racism on campus is to miss the wider picture, which is that the donning of blackface is one scene in a complex campus-wide dramatization of the racial tension built into the multicultural agenda that presides over an increasing number of college campuses.
Fraternity members wear blackface not because they don't know that it will be seen as racist, but because they know it will. They are deliberately flouting campus convention with their costumes; I would argue that blackface says less about the racial awareness of its wearer than it does about his rejection of politically correct codes of conduct. The white male fraternity brother is the emblematic oppressor on campus today--he symbolizes all that the many speech codes, harassment policies, sensitivity workshops, and diversity requirements cluttering up his campus most revile. To use the phraseology of oppression theory, blackface as it is worn on campuses today might more rightly be understood as a form of resistance than a sign of neanderthalism. That doesn't make it right. But it might help explain it.
Study Finds Sex, Pregnancy Link
If you want to read some funny material, go to Bob Levy’s column in today's The Washington Post.
via Media Minded
Life repeats Woody Allen, only without the laughs
In his campy comedy Bananas, Woody Allen goes to the fictional country of San Marcos where there's a revolution. The country's new president soon becomes drunk with power and decrees that the official language of San Marcos is Swedish, that everyone must change their underwear every half-hour, and that they must wear it on the outside of their clothes so the government will be able to check. Eventually San Marcos is invaded by everyone from Americans troops to the Jewish Defense League.
If Joel Soler, director of the documentary Uncle Saddam, is to be believed, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein is a real-life version of the leader in Bananas. While the people of Iraq are not required to wear their underwear on the outside (yet), Saddam instructs his subjects on how often to bathe (once a day for men, twice for women) and how to brush their teeth. His sycophants greet him by kissing him on the shoulder in a spot about halfway between his armpit and his nipple. He maintains an elaborate art museum containing only portraits of himself. His office must be maintained at a specified temperature determined by his doctors and he is deathly afraid of germs. And this only scratches the surface.
It would be funny if Saddam’s rule weren’t so tragic for his people, and if his military adventures and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction didn’t make him a threat to the rest of the world. He may not be clinically psychotic, but he’s definitely nuts.
Thursday, November 21, 2002
This is just plain gross
My counter keeps track of the last twenty inquiries to The OmbudsGod. It's not protected so anyone can look at it -- the button is just below the Powered by Blogger button on the left. Some inquiries are interesting, some not, and some are weird. For example, someone from Tehran just found OBG by Googling "decapitating sex women pictures." Now I'm not usually one to criticize a person's sexual proclivities, but this is just plain gross.
What’s up, Joe?
I like to follow up on former National Review senior editor Joseph Sobran from time to time just to see what new frontiers of idiocy he’s exploring. Here’s the latest from his website -- he’s taken a stand on Democracy. Apparently, he’s agin it:
When the media find a Senate contest involving Walter Mondale the most exciting race in the country, it’s time to admit that democracy hasn’t quite lived up to its billing. Why is this a system we should impose on the rest of the world, when it isn’t even serving us very well? Maybe regime change should begin at home.
Conspiracy theories in the news
John Chappell posts an interview from Vanguardia with former Adjunct Secretary General of the UN, Denis Halliday. I wonder how many other Europeans think like this? Example:
Q. Why is [the United States] going to [attack Iraq]?
A. Iraq is the second-largest oil producer in the world. It's simply that. The United States wants absolute control of the oil market.
Q. Oil is an obsession of the Bushes.
A. And Bush is ready to do whatever it takes to get control over it. And once it has absolute control, you can be sure that Europe will pay a very high price for that oil.
Q. So why didn't they take over Iraq after they won the first Gulf War?
A. Bush Senior pulled back at the possibility of an explosion of the Kurdish powder-keg and an Iranian intervention. It's a very complex area, very much so.
John speculates Denis is receiving messages in his tooth fillings. If so, he and Mikey Rivero must be tuned into the same frequency.
Actually, that’s not fair. Halliday probably believes this nonsense.
UPDATE: The Blogspot link doesn't work, so I've linked to the top of John's main page. It's the piece posted at 15:55 today.
Don Wycliff on strident hyperpartisan pro-Bush zealots
While admitting that an unflattering picture of President Bush, obtained from Agence France-Presse, “amounted to a Page 1 editorial in which George W. Bush was being labeled an idiot and a clown, unsuited to the presidency,” The Chicago Tribune’s ombudsman still manages to lash out at the “strident hyperpartisanship of those pro-Bush zealots who live to hate Clinton and find evidence of media bias. The zealots probably relished 'that picture' because it confirmed their conviction that the media are against them.”
If the picture didn’t confirm the bias, Wycliff’s column certainly did.
What’s up, Joe?
I like to follow up on former National Review senior editor Joseph Sobran from time to time just to see what new frontiers of idiocy he’s exploring. Here’s the latest from his website -- he’s taken a stand on Democracy. Apparently, he’s agin it:
When the media find a Senate contest involving Walter Mondale the most exciting race in the country, it’s time to admit that democracy hasn’t quite lived up to its billing. Why is this a system we should impose on the rest of the world, when it isn’t even serving us very well? Maybe regime change should begin at home.
Conspiracy theories in the news
John Chappell posts an interview from Vanguardia with former Adjunct Secretary General of the UN, Denis Halliday. I wonder how many other Europeans think like this? Example:
Q. Why is [the United States] going to [attack Iraq]?
A. Iraq is the second-largest oil producer in the world. It's simply that. The United States wants absolute control of the oil market.
Q. Oil is an obsession of the Bushes.
A. And Bush is ready to do whatever it takes to get control over it. And once it has absolute control, you can be sure that Europe will pay a very high price for that oil.
Q. So why didn't they take over Iraq after they won the first Gulf War?
A. Bush Senior pulled back at the possibility of an explosion of the Kurdish powder-keg and an Iranian intervention. It's a very complex area, very much so.
John speculates Denis is receiving messages in his tooth fillings. If so, he and Mikey Rivero must be tuned into the same frequency.
Actually, that’s not fair. Halliday probably believes this nonsense.
UPDATE: The Blogspot link doesn't work, so I've linked to the top of John's main page. It's the piece posted at 15:55 today.
Don Wycliff on strident hyperpartisan pro-Bush zealots
While admitting that an unflattering picture of President Bush, obtained from Agence France-Presse, “amounted to a Page 1 editorial in which George W. Bush was being labeled an idiot and a clown, unsuited to the presidency,” The Chicago Tribune’s ombudsman still manages to lash out at the “strident hyperpartisanship of those pro-Bush zealots who live to hate Clinton and find evidence of media bias. The zealots probably relished 'that picture' because it confirmed their conviction that the media are against them.”
If the picture didn’t confirm the bias, Wycliff’s column certainly did.
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