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. . .”

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.

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.

Michael Rivero and the Toronto Star

I first encountered Michael Rivero in the late ‘90s when he was a common nuisance at FreeRepublic.com, which at that time was the locus of anti-Clinton activity on the web. Rivero seemed a little brighter than your average wingnut, and I always suspected that he was more a con artist than a true believer. Rivero ran a website named Rancho Runamukka to promote his conspiracy theories. He would see a U.S. government plot behind every tree, but didn't seem to share the anti-Semitism of much of the conspiracy crowd.

Rivero has since abandoned Rancho and has another website, whatreallyhappened.com. Whatreallyhappened is a sort of clearinghouse for the conspiracy crowd, and following the terrorist attacks of 9/11 he began promoting increasingly anti-Semitic material. The material is similar to much of the material currently popular with elements of the anti-American Left, and may in fact be a source for them. It has also grown more sophisticated, such that someone inclined to believe the worst about the U.S., and not familiar with Rivero’s reputation, might easily be sucked into treating it as a credible source – at least at first.

Rivero recently hit the jackpot when media columnist Antonia Zerbisias endorsed his website as “carefully considered, well crafted and very compelling” in her column for the Toronto Star, causing something of a stir. Canadian blogger Damian Penny keeps track of Rivero and has the details on his website, but suffice it to say that Zerbisias was alerted to the anti-Semitic nature of Rivero’s site and issued a sort-of apology.

Zerbisias also denounced Bnai Brith for not contacting her before issuing a press release that said, in part:

According to sites recommended by the Toronto Star’s media columnist, Antonia Zerbisias, F. D. Roosevelt orchestrated Pearl Harbour, George W. Bush was part of a Jewish conspiracy to destroy the World Trade Centre, and the Jews were behind a rash of anthrax letters.

Zerbisias reports that:

Today [Bnai Brith] applied direct pressure on me and The Star to retract my column, to criticize the anti-Israeli portions of the site, to take my column off our web site etc.

I refused.

And The Star's ombudsman stands by this decision.
As far as I am concerned, this matter is now finished.

Note that my original column is still on The Star's web site.

The ombudsman is Don Sellar, and in his most recent column he admonished his newspaper not to use the word “crusade” because the “Canadian Islamic Congress and many Muslims” are offended.

Draw your own conclusion.

UPDATE: Check out Rivero's Letters section. His responses to his readers are a font size larger, and it's hard to tell who's nuttier. Sample:

EMAIL FROM A READER:
I just read a letter on your site, from one of your many readers concerning the non-existent Israeli casualties in the WTC buildings following the attack on 911. Like many, I also found this highly suspicious, so I checked web sites with the official casualty list. Sure enough, one Israeli and he was a passenger on one of the Aircraft.

I speak German quite well and had some Jewish friends as a schoolboy, so I am able to discern 'Jewish' names better than most. I took a long, hard look at the names of nearly 3000 persons listed as casualties in the actual buildings. In all there were 76 persons with 'Jewish' names like Birnbaum or Goldstein (actually, there were three persons killed named Goldstein who may have been related) while others had less obviously 'Jewish' names.

But I could come up with no more than 76. I would say those are 95% likely to be accurate. I am aware that some Jewish people, to avoid discrimination Anglicised their names generations ago so I will have missed a few, but not too many.

Equally, It is possible the ones I missed will be offset by those I mistakenly included. Names like Morris are not always Jewish but I included a man named Morris. 76 out of 3000? I'm not an actuary, but it seems to me that a 'random sample' of 3000 persons on a New York STREET one would find a greater percentage of Jews than just 76 in every 3000. That's about one in 40.

Taken on the percentage of New York's Jewish population, 1000 in every 3000 would seem more likely. But a 'random sample' of the percentage of Jews in buildings like the WTC is far more likely to to reflect Jewish domination of the Banking and Finance industries, so it is VERY ODD that the numbers should be so low.

To be frank, there is no doubt in my mind that someone knew something was afoot and they have done everything possible to draw a veil of deceit over the truth. 3000 people murdered in cold blood.

If I'm right, take a moment to think about it and what it means for the American people.

The initial claims made by Israel and Bush referred to "Israeli" victims, meaning citizens of Israel. Use of that term specifically excluded American citizens of Jewish ancestry, and it is important to remain consistant in studing the question why died in the World Trade Towers and who may have received an early warning.

The Odigo case proves beyond all dount that early warnings were sent to Israeli owned companies, and Zim Shipping, an Israeli shipping line that enjoys a close relationship with the Israeli government, broke its World Trade Towers lease, and incurred extra charges for a high-speed move out of the building just weeks before the attacks. Rudy Giuliani also moved his offices out of the World Trade Towers just weeks before the attacks.

A tale of two newspapers

Toronto Star ombudsman, Don Sellar, reports that the “Canadian Islamic Congress and many Muslims” have complained that the word “crusade” is offensive, even though in common usage it has no religious overtone. Given the prevalence of anti-Semitic and anti-Christian hatred commonly found in Islamic publications, you’d think they’d make an attempt to clean up their own back yard before worrying about their neighbor’s, but apparently that’s not the case. Not to worry, though. Sellar advises the newsroom that “With religion, you can't be too careful. Don't crusade.”

Followers of Islam have no monopoly on hypocrisy, however. Sellar also reports that “the Ontario Press Council last summer upheld an Evangelical Fellowship of Canada complaint that an opinion column in the Star had targeted evangelical Christians in a way that tended to engender bias and hatred toward them.” It determined that in “the context of the column — a spirited rant about intolerance against gays — the term [evangelical] was ‘an unnecessarily hurtful reference to an identifiable group,’ i.e. evangelical Christians.” Yeah, we all know how tolerant evangelical Christians are to that other identifiable group, “sodomites.”

In a splendid display of moral equivalence, “the Star's policy manual walks on tiptoes. ‘Never hold up one religion or set of beliefs as superior to another. In other words, don't be judgmental,’ it advises. ‘Never single out a religion or religious practice for ridicule. In other words, be respectful.’”

Or in other words no religious practice, no matter how odious, may ever be criticized. Requiring women to wear Burqas, or to leap on the burning funeral pyre of their deceased husband, may not be ridiculed or regarded as inferior to taking communion at your local Church. “[D]on’t be judgmental.”

Meanwhile 235 miles away, ombudsman John X. Miller, of the presumably family-friendly Detroit Free Press, faces reader criticism about a prominent, front-page headline, "Warren Santa is charged in killing." The version on their website was even more direct, “Santa's a killer, cops say.” The story was about “why a man who'd dressed up as Santa since 1995 in Warren's holiday parade was charged with killing his daughter in a dispute over Christmas decorations.”

Miller explains that this wasn’t just a last minute slip; “There was discussion among editors about the print version of the story and headline the night it was published, out of concern that the newspaper not go overboard.” The good news is that, “While most of those editors didn't think the newspaper overplayed or sensationalized the story, they said the reactions will make them more carefully consider the sensibilities of our readers.”

Next time maybe they’ll place it on page two.



On pop-up ads and linking
The links on the left side of my website constitute endorsements. I don’t necessarily agree with or approve of the content of a site I’ve linked to, but I consider it interesting or useful enough to merit inclusion on my list. I frequent all the sites on a regular basis.

I’ve removed links before, primarily when a site became inactive, but today I’ve removed one because I can no longer in good conscience refer readers to it. The problem isn’t the content, which continues to be quite interesting, but that clicking on the link triggers multiple pop-up ads, including one that tries to reset the home page on my browser.

Blogs and bloggers come in many different flavors, some more commercial than others. While The OmbudsGod is strictly non-commercial (no donations requested or accepted), I do on occasion make small tips, especially on sites run by professional journalists. I consider blogging to be the best thing that has happened to journalism since the abolition of the Fairness Doctrine, and tipping is a way to encourage the new medium.

If you must use pop-up ads, limit them to no more than one per session, and stay away from anything that would attempt to change a reader’s computer settings. Anything more demonstrates an inexcusable lack of courtesy toward the reader.

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics about people without health insurance

The great justification usually trotted out to justify some form of national health insurance, in addition to Medicare and Medicaid, is that there are 40 million Americans without health insurance. As Iain Murray points out, it is a misleading figure:

that includes people temporarily uninsured for a brief period. The number of chronically uninsured, which is what matters here, is roughly a quarter of that figure. Moreover no-one is ever refused emergency treatment because of a lack of insurance. It is chronic illnesses that cause the most trouble for the chronically uninsured and, need I remind you, the British system of universal health coverage does not do well with chronic illnesses either. Can there be any better indication of the true state of the NHS than the fact that the BBC offers private health insurance to its employees?

Life imitates Monty Python

In the old Monty Python movie Life of Brian, the Romans and the Judeans had a sort of working arrangement. The Roman’s would always give enough notice of a search so that the Judeans could hide, and would then conduct the most ludicrous of searches, not finding Judeans hiding in the most obvious places.

Substitute UN weapon’s inspectors for the Romans and Iraqi weapons for the Judeans and you have pretty good idea of what the upcoming regimen of disarmament inspections, under UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, will be like in Iraq.

While the Bush Administration is pushing for “intrusive inspections,” Blix has stated that inspection teams should never be "angry and aggressive." And since Iraq is, according to Saddam Hussein, "devoid of weapons of mass destruction," the U.S. has called for a policy of “zero tolerance.” Nothing doing say Blix, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and such dependable U.S. “allies” as France. Iraq will be held accountable only for serious violations.

Presumably anything short of a UN inspector tripping over a hydrogen bomb labeled “serious violation, destination Paris,” will fail to make the standard. A little weaponized anthrax or aflatoxin that the Iraqis have forgotten to hide would be no big deal.

Annan previously distinguished himself in 1994 when, as head of the UN’s peacekeeping department, he dismissed warnings of impending genocide by the commander of peacekeeping troops in Rwanda and prevented searching the Hutu militias for weapons. The UN peacekeeping force was then reduced and an estimated 800,000 additional Rwandans died in the resulting Hutu-perpetrated massacres.

The whole thing would make for a delightful comedy, except that millions of innocent lives hang in the balance while the bureaucrats at Turtle Bay continue to impede the war on terrorism.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan nails the problem with UN weapons inspections much more succinctly than I did -- "I think I have as much confidence in Hans Blix as I do in Jimmy Carter." Exactly.