Don Singleton

Friday, July 29, 2005

London is bombed. Protect Muslims!

JWR reported Desperation has again led Muslims to commit suicide bombings, this time in London. Brits still bewildered by the attacks, protesting, "But we're not Jewish!" need to get out of their cocoons and start asking the relevant question: Why is this happening?

Sarcasm mode on

To stop terrorism, one must remove the root causes of terrorism. To that end, maybe it's time England pulled out of occupied Londonistan. Only then will this cycle of violence end. With the unemployment rate among British Muslims at 10 percent above the national average, perhaps a divestment campaign, as well as an academic boycott of England, would help England figure out what it's been doing wrong. Either way, our favoritism toward this colonial power at the expense of Muslims must end. "Polls of British Muslims show a considerable sense of anger," reports the NY Times. "Eight out of 10 believe that the war on terrorism is a war on Islam, while a poll conducted last year…found a surprising 13 percent who said that further attacks…on the United States would be justified." This is worrisome, considering that Muslims in Europe and America are picking up electoral strength as their numbers grow. In fact, we can expect soon to see a new addition to the bumper sticker genre of "I'm a woman and I vote," or "I'm retired and I vote": "I'm Muslim and I bomb." Within a day of the 7/7 attacks on British civilians, which naturally resulted in a surge of worldwide concern for Muslim welfare, headlines began streaming in, such as "Muslim Leaders Fear Revenge Attacks from the Extreme Right." ("And Therapy from the Left.") Other headlines have been hailing Britons for their stoicism in the face of terror. The UK Guardian reported that London's pubs were full — a response that sharply contrasted with American "hysteria" over such massacres. Then again, it's not like the Islamofascists have defeated the Brits on the soccer field yet. Experts have said it's likely the explosives used in London came from Muslim Bosnia — eliciting another huge sigh of relief from the world that we got rid of that Serbian dude. Meanwhile, Reuters reports that Muslims are leaving European countries to blow themselves up in Iraq, confirming that living in Europe is so yucky that people would rather be dead in Iraq than alive in Europe.

Can anyone read Arabic? I am curious to know what is written on the girl's green headband.

Columnist Off The Air After ABC/Disney Is Intimidated By CAIR

JWR reports Yesterday Michael Graham wrote in his column: "I take no pleasure in saying it. It pains me to think it. I could very well lose my job in talk radio over admitting it. But it is the plain truth: Islam is a terror organization." And then his fears came true. Hours after his column appeared here, Graham, a mid-morning talker at WMAL in Washington, D.C., was suspended without pay pending an investigation. Graham's column and previous on-air comments were not the first time he's had a run-in with CAIR. In an April, 2004 column, he details other attempts by the Muslim group to silence him. But as late as this week, a WMAL executive, Randall Bloomquist, told the Washington Post that despite CAIR's protests about some of Graham's on-air utterances, the station had no intention of reprimanding him. Describing Graham's rhetoric as "amped up", he said, according to the paper, it is justified within the context of the program.

To write a polite but passionate letter to WMAL radio, CLICK HERE.

London attacks: turning point for US Islamic community

Shadi Hamid wrote in CSM It was all too familiar. Part of me felt a tinge of desperation, a feeling of inevitability. But this time, there was something else - a feeling that we, the American Muslim community, were now ready to take the steps we should have taken long ago.

You are right, you should have done it long ago, but I am happy to see you recognize that fact.

Where we had slowly become desensitized by the endless reports of slaughter in Iraq, 7/7 came unexpectedly, forcing our community to finally confront an uneasy reality. On that day, something clicked inside me and so many other Muslims who, in focusing primarily on the threat to Muslim civil liberties, had not paid enough attention to the threat of religious extremism in our own communities.

And you are in the best position to help expose the religious extremeism in your own communities.

July 7 will haunt us for the foreseeable future - as it should. As American Muslims, we had seen terrorism as something uniquely foreign - relevant, but remote. But the London attacks were a frightening reminder that if anti-American anger and jihadist sentiment were left unaddressed in our communities, the consequences would be devastating. Too often, in the face of nearly daily terror attacks abroad, American Muslims had wiggled and equivocated. Past condemnations of terrorist attacks have been sincere, no doubt, but they've sometimes had the appearance of being forced. This time around the response from the national Islamic organizations has been more forceful and resolute but that, alone, isn't enough.

I agree. We need you to help expose religious extremists in your communities.

First, the July 7 bombings reaffirmed what already should have been obvious - Islam has been hijacked by a band of murderers. It's imperative that Muslims, instead of waiting for others to remedy the situation, offer a stronger, more systematic response to terrorism. Mosque leaders must begin by instituting a policy of zero-tolerance for terrorism. In practice, this means that anyone caught advocating violence against the US government or its citizens should be, first, expelled from mosque grounds, and then reported to the appropriate authorities. Second, national Islamic organizations and local mosques must do more to encourage political integration of young American Muslims. Most Muslims will continue to oppose the Bush administration's policies abroad, especially its unbalanced approach to the Palestinian conflict

You may find this hard to believe, but Bush has said he clearly supports the idea of a Palestinian state, but it must be a democratic, law abiding state, prepared to live in peace with its neighbors, including Israel.

and its continued support for various Arab and Muslim autocracies. Yet, at the same time, an effort should be made to convince young, easily impressionable Muslims that the key to change lies not in a return to some idealized notion of an Islamic state, but rather in a pragmatic, nuanced approach to involvement in the American political process. Finally, Muslims must rediscover their religion's deep respect for the sanctity of human life - whether the lives in question are British, Iraqi, or Israeli.

I agree

The Muslim community's inability or unwillingness to speak out against suicide bombing in Israel is reflective of the moral depths to which we've so tragically sunk. Some things in life are morally ambiguous. The killing of Israelis in cafes and pizzerias, however, is not one of them. When we argue that the immorality or illegality of suicide bombing is contingent upon political considerations, we're on a dangerously slippery slope.

Friday, July 29

This Day In History

1588 The English soundly defeated the Spanish Armada in the Battle of Gravelines.
1890 Artist Vincent van Gogh died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Auvers, France, at age 37.
1914 Transcontinental telephone service began with the first phone conversation between New York and San Francisco.
1957 The International Atomic Energy Agency was established.
1957 Jack Paar made his debut as host of NBC's ''Tonight'' show.
1958 President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which created NASA.
1967 Fire swept the USS Forrestal in the Gulf of Tonkin, killing 134 servicemen.
1968 Pope Paul VI reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church's stance against artificial methods of birth control.
1975 President Gerald R. Ford became the first U.S. president to visit the site of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz in Poland.
1993 The Israeli Supreme Court acquitted retired Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk of being Nazi death camp guard ''Ivan the Terrible,'' and threw out his death sentence.
1997 Minamata Bay in Japan once a worldwide symbol of industrial pollution was declared free of mercury 40 years after contaminated fish were blamed for deaths and birth defects.
1998 Choreographer Jerome Robbins died at age 79.
1999 A day trader opened fire in two Atlanta brokerage offices, killing nine people and wounding 13 before shooting himself to death; he had earlier killed his wife and two children.
2003 Boston Red Sox batter Bill Mueller became the first player in major league history to hit grand slams from both sides of the plate in a single game in a 14-7 win at Texas.

Happy Birthday To

1905 Clara (Gordon) Bow (actress)
1907 Melvin Belli (‘King of Torts’: attorney)
1913 Stephen (Horace) McNally (actor: Dear Detective, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, A Bullet is Waiting, The Black Castle; died June 4, 1994)

Thursday, July 28, 2005

U.S. Muslims issue anti-terrorism 'fatwa'

Yahoo reports Top U.S. Muslim scholars issued a "fatwa," or religious edict, against terrorism on Thursday and called on Muslims to help authorities fight the scourge of militant violence.

It's about time.

The fatwa was part of efforts by U.S. Muslims to counter perceived links between Islam and terrorism and avert any negative backlash after this month's bombings by suspected Islamic extremists in London and Egypt. "Having our religious scholars side by side with our community leaders leaves no room for anybody to suggest that Islam and Muslims condone or support any forms or acts of terrorism," said Esam Omeish, president of the Muslim American Society, one of the groups which announced the fatwa. Ibrahim Hooper, spokesperson for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said it was the first time Muslims in North America had issued an anti-terrorism edict, although they had repeatedly condemned such acts of violence. American Muslims this month launched a nationwide advertising campaign in which they declared that those who committed terrorism in the name of Islam were betraying the teachings of the Koran.

US jails Yemeni al-Qaeda backer

BBC reported A Yemeni cleric who claimed to have ties with Osama Bin Laden has been sentenced to 75 years in prison in New York. Sheikh Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad was convicted on charges of conspiring to support the al-Qaeda network and Palestinian militant group Hamas. At a meeting with two FBI informants in Germany, he was recorded promising to funnel more than $2m (£1.1m) to Hamas. He was arrested by German police in January 2003 and extradited to the US. For each of five counts, Moayad received 15-year sentences, each to be served consecutively. He was also fined $1.25m in a federal court. He was convicted of conspiring to support al-Qaeda and Hamas, supporting the Palestinian group and attempting to support al-Qaeda. The judge in the case, Judge Sterling Johnson, said videotaped evidence used to convict him was "chilling". "He did provide material support, money, weapons and recruits to Hamas and al Qaeda," the judge said.

Gee, why just 75 years? <grin>

British Request Fails to Stop ABC Report on Bomb Investigation

NYT reported The British police asked ABC News on Tuesday to withhold a report showing images of what were said to be unexploded bombs found in a car used by the July 7 bombers and of the inside of a subway train mangled in the attacks, a network official said yesterday. But on its "World News Tonight" program on Tuesday, ABC went ahead with the report, which said the attacks might have been part of a wider plot, said the official, Jon Banner, executive producer of "World News Tonight." He said the account was cut from the program when it was broadcast later in Britain by the BBC. The Metropolitan Police sent an e-mail message yesterday that asked news organizations "in the strongest possible terms" not to replay the images "because they may prejudice both the ongoing investigation and any future prosecutions." The police called the images "unauthorized." Mr. Banner said that Scotland Yard learned that ABC News was going to broadcast the story and asked it to hold back. "We checked with other police sources here and in London, checked with our own security consultants," before making a decision to go forward, he said. "We thought it was newsworthy."

And I suspect that if the police were right, and ABC's broadcast of the image prejudices both the ongoing investigation and any future prosecutions they will also find it "newsworthy" to blame the police, but I suspect they will not admit that they were at fault.

Truly Muslim, fully American

Fatina Abdrabboh wrote in CSM "I condemn terrorism." Lately, because I'm a Muslim, these are the only three words people seem to want to hear come out of my mouth. Beyond the words themselves, the way I proclaim them is measured for sincerity. Perhaps even more than the days immediately after 9/11, I as a Muslim feel now that many of my fellow Americans believe that Islam and its adherents are evil, pure and simple.

That is because the only Muslims they see on the news are evil, pure and simple.

I can't help wondering if the fact that I'm identifiably Muslim through my hijab, or scarf, is so potent that the only response I evoke is anger.... Why is my stance on terrorism my only defining feature? Casual conversations at the grocery store, the gym, the dry cleaner all seem laser-guided, by the way I look, to Islam and terrorism - and never to those everyday conversations that might revolve around other aspects of my life like how I like my Harvard classes, my training for the Boston Marathon, or my recent obsession with my stock portfolio....

That is because we have not seen stories of Harbard students, Boston Marathon runners, or stock market investors blowing themselves and others around them up.

Terrorism is not about Islam; it is about a perverse agenda being paraded through the Muslim world under the banner of my faith.

I agree, but people would believe it a lot more if more Muslims spoke up and said it.

Why then should Muslims in America have to condemn it all the time? Just because we don't wear T-shirts that say "Muslims condemn terrorism" doesn't mean we don't abhor such acts.

If you are going to wear your hijab, which identifies you as Muslim, it certainly would help if you alwo war a T-Shirt that says "Muslims condem terrorism"

Yes, there's an increased obligation for Arabs and Muslims to fulfill their responsibility as American citizens to integrate with the broader community, and most undoubtedly have.

Adding Items to My Shopping Basket

Dan Gillmor blogged Suppose you were shopping at the supermarket and the checkout clerk pulled an item from under the counter, scanned it and put it in the bag -- and only then mentioned that you could, of course, remove it from your purchase. Most people would frown on such a move. So why do software and other companies think they can get away with doing this when you're shopping online? And why do they think that brazenly calling it a "convenience" makes it any more acceptable? The item pictured here offers me a backup CD of the software I'm about to purchase, along with the quick-start guide. Well, I downloaded the software and can easily make my own CD for way less than a dollar. And the quick-start guide -- all six pages of it -- were part of the download. I like Macromedia and its software. I don't much like this approach to doing business.

I must agree with Dan, I am shocked to see this. I have never had it done to me, and if it ever was, I would not shop at that site again.

Struggle for a British Islam

csm reports Rahim Jung glances nervously upward and brushes water from his beard as raindrops begin spattering the small crowd of demonstrators gathered along busy Park Lane, which runs alongside Hyde Park. Around him, women pull their hijabs closer as the assembly raises aloft homemade placards reading "Not in the Name of Islam," and "We love Britain." "Our message is that it's perfectly possible to be a practicing Muslim and abhor the atrocities that happened," says Mr. Jung, a social worker from London who helped organize the demonstration.

Of course it is possible, and it is good to see Muslims like Rahim Jung standing up and speaking his mind.

"We are part of Britain." Jung is part of a small but increasingly vocal number of reformists who aim to counter the radical ideology behind the 7/7 and 7/21 bombings with a peaceful and distinctly British Islam. Notably, they're not taking their cues from Britain's leading Muslim clerics.

Many of whom should be ejected from Britain.

Rather, their effort is largely spontaneous - a grass-roots phenomenon that is emerging to bridge the disconnect between faith and nationality that, for some Muslims, ends in violence. "We believe that we are as British as anyone, if not more, because we are British by choice," says Dr. Akmal Makhdum, a psychiatrist who organized the gathering. "The way of life here does not mean you have to give up your culture, because the British way of life allows you to keep it." Polls taken since the bombings, however, show that men as unabashedly pro-British as Mr. Makhdum face a daunting challenge. Nearly two-thirds of Britain's 1.6 million Muslims have considered leaving the country, a Guardian/ICM poll this week showed. Between Makhdum and the rejectionists opposing him, the bulk of ordinary Muslims have been thrown into the thick of the debate by the Islamic terrorists who struck London twice in a fortnight. "The bombers are throwing away everything our parents have done for us," laments Wasif Khan, who works for global professional services firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu in London. "It's so frustrating." "It's only been in the last 10 years that we've been able to say we are British," says his wife Ayesha, a third-generation Muslim who remembers the lingering racism her elders had struggled against. "All [the bombers] were thinking is that they, personally, were going to heaven," she adds bitterly. "They'd been brainwashed for a larger cause, but individually they were completely selfish. They need to figure out what true Islam is."

The roots of Islamic terrorism

International Herald Tribune reports Most commentators argue that Islamic terrorism is a fanatical perversion of Islam which deviates from its true teachings. They call for a Western-style modernization of the Muslim world, hoping thereby that radical Islam will be tamed. This analysis misses the point. The nature of the terrorist threat is unambiguously Islamic and is not so much a deviation from Muslim tradition as an appeal to it.

But does that mean that we should react with an appeal to the use of Knights going off to fight in the Crusades?

Al Qaeda's ideology draws on two traditions to legitimize itself: one classical, the other modern. Regarding classical Islam, the oft-quoted remark that Islam is a religion of peace is false. It is historically illiterate to claim that war is foreign to Islam and it is theologically uninformed to argue that jihad is merely a personal inner struggle with no external military correlate.

Not really. Violence is the way Islam was spread back in the time of the Prophet, but that does not mean it should resort to it today. And I really doubt that the Prophet ever encouraged people to kill innocents, including innocent Muslims, to achieve their victories.

On the contrary, Islam is linked from the beginning with the practice of divinely sanctioned warfare and lethal injunctions against apostates and unbelievers. Islam experienced no period of wandering and exclusion; from its inception, Islam formed a unitary state bent on military conquest.... Islam, with good reason, will never embrace Western secularization. But it could begin to develop a critique of its history by recovering some of its aborted traditions. Islam must place true religious conversion (like that of Sufism) over territorial conquest. Islam needs to restore the legislative authority of communal consensus to allow Muslims to develop along with, rather than against, the future.

Amen

In Bush Win, House Narrowly Approves CAFTA

SFGate reports President Bush insisted that the small trade agreement with six Latin American nations would pay big dividends for security, stability and freedom in the Western Hemisphere. After persistent lobbying by the White House, Congress finally agreed. It took personal visits from the president and vice president, along with strenuous arm-twisting from Republican leaders, before the House passed the Central American Free Trade Agreement early Thursday by a two-vote margin, 217-215. The Senate approved CAFTA last month 54-45, and it now goes to the president for his signature. It was a major victory for the Bush administration, which had to fend off claims by critics that the pact would harm American workers.

This is good news, not just for the economic impacts, but because the Dems were fighting it hoping that a defeat would mean Bush would be treated as a Lame Duck.

To end Islamic fanaticism, solve the Israeli-‘Palestinian’dispute?

Larry Elder wrote in JWR The prime minister's statement angered Israelis and comforted Palestinians. What caused all the ruckus? According to the Associated Press, Prime Minister Tony Blair, in a radio interview, said the solution to Islamic terrorism turns on solving the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. One slight problem. Blair never said it.

Never confuse the MSM with facts, or expect them to print the truth.

The AP retracted the story, calling it "erroneously reported." Here's the con: Murderous Arab extremism either results from, or will be solved by, the failure or success of "resolving" the Palestinian-Israeli dispute. Arab scholars, intellectuals, writers and politicians join with many Americans in reciting this nonsensical mantra. But do Palestinians and Arab Muslims honestly and truly want a two-state solution?

There certainly are a lot of peaceful people in that area that would love to be at peace with Israel, because a peaceful Israel would help its neighbors. The question is do they want peace with israel enough to stand up to those in their countries that want violence, and the destruction of Israel.

After all, Egypt and Jordan signed peace accords with Israel. And Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries do not abut Israel. Israel, of course, continues its territorial disputes with Syria and Lebanon, but much of the Arab world claims no land from Israel. So why do they care? The customary answer is that Muslims feel a keen solidarity with their Palestinian brothers, who reside in a "Holy Land" with "Holy sites," thus making Palestinian statehood a cause for Muslims everywhere. Indeed, Judea Pearl, the father of murdered reporter Daniel Pearl, wrote about a mid-May World Economic Forum in Jordan. "According to The Economist," wrote Pearl, "speaker Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, barked: 'Palestine!' every time Liz Cheney, an assistant secretary in the U.S. State Department, mentioned the vision of an 'Arab democratic spring.'"

It is something I would like to see, but they must first gain control over those wanting violence, and disarm them.

It's the Hateful Ideology, Stupid

Anne Applebaum wrote in JWR Only two senators were in the room when Karen Hughes testified at her confirmation hearings. When it came time for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to vote on her nomination Tuesday, she was easily approved. And thus with no discussion and no debate, Hughes takes over the least noticed, least respected and possibly most important job in the State Department. Her formal title is undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs. In plain English, her job is to fight anti-Americanism, promote American culture and above all to do intellectual battle with the ideology of radical Islam, a set of beliefs so powerful that they can persuade middle-class, second-generation British Muslims to blow themselves up on buses and trains.

And I believe that GWB selected well, because I believe that Karen is a good person for that job.

Presumably, President Bush selected Hughes for this task because she was very good at running his election campaigns. And indeed, in the testimony she gave last week to a nearly empty room, she sounded like she was still running an election campaign. Like Hillary Clinton, she said she wanted people around the world to know that she would be "listening" to them: "I want to learn more about you and your lives, what you believe, what you fear, what you dream, what you value most." Like Jesse Jackson, she deployed alliteration, alluding to the four "E's": "engagement, exchanges, education and empowerment." Unfortunately, Hughes's most important constituents aren't going to respond to engagement and empowerment, let alone exchange and education, unless the latter involves those flight schools where they don't teach you how to take off or land. It has become clear in Iraq, if it wasn't already, that what we call the "war on terrorism" is in fact a small part of a larger intellectual and religious struggle within Islam, between moderates who want to live in modern countries, and radicals who want to impose their extreme interpretation of sharia , or religious law.

That is true, and it is the moderates that Karen will be focusing on with "engagement, exchanges, education and empowerment" as she seeks to strengthen their backbones to stand up to the radicals.

So far, most of the money, and most of the "public diplomacy," has been channeled to the radicals. Consider, for example, an extraordinary report published this year by the Center for Religious Freedom, a division of Freedom House, which surveys more than 200 books and pamphlets collected at mosques and Islamic centers in U.S. cities. Most were in Arabic. All were published by the Saudi government or royal family, and all promote the extreme form of Wahhabi Islam found in Saudi Arabia. The books reflect contempt for the United States, condemn democracy as un-Islamic, and claim that Muslims are religiously obliged to hate Christians and Jews. Most insidiously, the documents denounce moderate Muslims, especially those who advocate religious tolerance, as infidels. If a Muslim commits adultery or becomes a homosexual, one pamphlet — published by the Saudi government's ministry of Islamic affairs — advises that "it would be lawful for Muslims to spill his blood and take his money."

We need to sic the ACLU on them. While I don't approve of either adultry or homosexuality, I think their solution is a bit extreme. Perhaps not as extreme as stoning a woman to death because she was raped, but extreme none the less.

I am citing this study not merely to finger the Saudis, but also to show what we are up against. The Saudi king's own Web site boasts of his support for mosques and schools in Lagos, Islamabad, Madrid, Buenos Aires and elsewhere. A friend reports recently seeing a new Saudi mosque in Kosovo. We have to assume that the materials found in the United States exist in all of those places, too.

The Tragedy of Islam

Michael Graham wrote in JWR I take no pleasure in saying it. It pains me to think it. I could very well lose my job in talk radio over admitting it. But it is the plain truth: Islam is a terror organization.

That is not true. Islam is a religion, which has been hijacked by a Terror Organization. There are violent verses in the Holy Bible, but there are no Christian Organizations suggesting they justify wholesale killing of innocents. There are violent verses in the Koran, but thee are many Muslims that realize that they do not call for the wholesale killing of innocents. Unfortunately there is no central Muslim authority (no one like a Pope), and they dont have organized councils like the Southern Baptist Council, United Methodist convention, etc. and the Imams of the moderate mosques are afraid to speak up too loudly against what the violent ones are doing, for fear they will be targeted.

For years, I've been trying to give the world's Muslim community the benefit of the doubt, along with the benefit of my typical-American's complete disinterest in their faith. Before 9/11, I knew nothing about Islam except the greeting "asalaam alaikum," taught to me by a Pakistani friend in Chicago. Immediately after 9/11, I nodded in ignorant agreement as President Bush assured me that "Islam is a religion of peace." But nearly four years later, nobody can defend that statement. And I mean "nobody." Certainly not the group of "moderate" Muslim clerics and imams who gathered in London last week to issue a statement on terrorism and their faith. When asked the question "Are suicide bombings always a violation of Islam," they could not answer "Yes. Always." Instead, these "moderate British Muslims" had to answer "It depends." Precisely what it depends on, news reports did not say.

It depends on whether they fear they may become taragets if they speak out too loudly.

Sadly, given our new knowledge of Islam from the past four years, it probably depends on whether or not you're killing Jews. That is part of the state of modern Islam. Another fact about the state of Islam is that a majority of Muslims in countries like Jordan continue to believe that suicide bombings are legitimate. Still another is the poll reported by a left-leaning British paper than only 73 percent of British Muslims would tell police if they knew about a planned terrorist attack.

If 73 percent will tell, that is a very good thing.

The other 27 percent? They are a part of modern Islam, too. The Council on American-Islamic Relations is outraged that I would dare to connect the worldwide epidemic of terrorism with Islam.

I have my doubts about CAIR

They put it down to bigotry, asserting that a lifetime of disinterest in Islam has suddenly become blind hatred. They couldn't be more wrong. Not to be mean to the folks at CAIR, but I don't: Care, that is. I simply don't care about Islam, its theology, its history — I have no interest in it at all. All I care about is not getting blown to smithereens when I board a bus or ride a plane. I care about living in a world where terrorism and murder/suicide bombings are rejected by all.

Mainstream media suppress Iraq optimism

Michael Fumento writes in Townhall Editorial page associate editor Mark Yost at the Knight-Ridder newspaper the St. Paul Pioneer Press committed a major boo-boo. He penned a provocative column on media coverage of the Iraq war, observing that from what his contacts there told him – with apologies to Johnny Mercer – the mainstream media are accentuating the negative and ignoring the positive.

This is something I have said many many many times.

Yost couldn’t have imagined he was bathing in blood and throwing himself into the shark pen. His media colleagues were merciless. “With your column, you have spat on the copy of the brave men and women who are doing their best in terrible conditions,”

It is not the reporters fault, who are working in those conditions, that they dont turn in stories they know their editors, who are safe at home, won't run, because they only want to run the bad news.

reporter Chuck Laszewski at the same newspaper charged in an open letter. “You have insulted them and demeaned them,” he wrote. “I am embarrassed to call you my colleague.” Knight-Ridder D.C. Bureau Chief Clark Hoyt devoted a column to a Yost roast, taking time out only to slam U.S. progress in Iraq. To read it is to know exactly why so many Americans believe we can’t trust the media to fairly cover the war. OF COURSE the war coverage is slanted: The adage "If it bleeds it leads" doesn’t halt at the Iraqi border. That's why when two small shells land in a barren section of city the size of Boston CNN.com blares: "Blasts rock Baghdad near coalition headquarters" whereas the completion of an electrification program or water main gets not a column inch. It was the very obviousness of Yost’s observation that led to vicious attacks attempting to either show there is no bias or that alternatively there is a bias but it’s justified. One reporter claimed on the Poynter Institute’s Romenesko open blog for journalists that Yost "must not be watching the network nightly newscasts," yet that's exactly what Yost was criticizing. David Hannners, another Pioneer Press reporter, insisted the media have no obligation to present positive stories because war itself is a negative thing. Come again?

That is exactly the problem. These Left Wing media masters dont like war, and the don't like Bush, so they run only things which indicate the negative side of the issue, and they bury the positive stories.

Thursday, July 28

This Day In History

1540 King Henry VIII's chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, was executed. The same day, Henry married his fifth wife, Catherine Howard.
1750 Composer Johann Sebastian Bach died in Leipzig, Germany, at age 65.
1794 Maximilien Robespierre, a leading figure of the French Revolution, was sent to the guillotine.
1821 Peru declared its independence from Spain.
1866 Although its use was not required, the metric system was legalized by the U.S. Congress for the standardization of weights and measures throughout the United States. And we still don’t have it figured out. How many yards in a meter or quarts in a litre?
1868 The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing due process and the equal protection of the laws to former slaves, was declared in effect.
1896 The city of Miami, Fla., was incorporated.
1929 Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, first lady from 1961 to 1963, was born in Southampton, N.Y.
1932 Federal troops forcibly dispersed the so-called ''Bonus Army'' of World War I veterans who had gathered in Washington, D.C., to demand money they weren't scheduled to receive until 1945.
1945 A U.S. Army bomber crashed into the 79th floor of New York City's Empire State Building, killing 14 people.
1951 The Walt Disney film "Alice in Wonderland" was released by RKO pictures.
1959 In preparation for statehood, Hawaiians voted to send the first Chinese-American, Hiram L. Fong, to the Senate and the first Japanese-American, Daniel K. Inouye, to the House of Representatives.
1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson announced he was increasing the number of American troops in South Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000.
1976 An earthquake devastated northern China, killing at least 242,000 people.
1995 A jury in Union, S.C., rejected the death penalty for Susan Smith, sentencing her instead to life in prison for drowning her two young sons.
1998 Bell Atlantic and GTE announced a $52 billion merger that created Verizon.
1998 Monica Lewinsky was given blanket immunity from prosecution in exchange for grand jury testimony in the investigation of her relationship with President Bill Clinton.
2002 Nine coal miners trapped in the flooded Quecreek Mine in Somerset, Pa., were rescued after 77 hours underground.
2002 Speaking publicly on the church abuse scandal for the first time, Pope John Paul II told young Catholics in Toronto that sexual abuse of children by priests ''fills us all with a deep sense of sadness and shame.''
2002 Cycling champion Lance Armstrong won his fourth straight Tour de France.

Happy Birthday To

1866 Beatrix (Helen) Potter (children’s stories author: Peter Rabbit books; died Dec 22, 1943)
1929 Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (First Lady: wife of 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy; wife of Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis; editor: Doubleday Publishing; died May 19, 1994)
1948 Sally (Ann) Struthers (Emmy Award-winning actress: All in the Family [1971-72, 1978]; Five Easy Pieces, The Odd Couple; promoter of the Christian Children’s Fund)

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Blogs 101

NYT has an interesting article called "Blogs 101". It has plenty of useful links for Collections & Rankings, General, Technology & Media, Technology Toys & Cool Things, Politics & Government, 'Traditional Media', Business, New York, Food, Design, and Miscellany.

Map Tips

Institute for Analytic Journalism blogged about PC World columnist Steve Bass's article Maps for Fun and Business. The blog article seems to imply that the new Google Earth, which we talked about here was no longer available, but I just tried it and it worked fine.

Steve's article raises an issue about apparent bluring of some buildings

but discussion on AboveTopSecret reveal they are weather balloons.

There are several interesting sites listed in the article, such as Google Sightseeing

Kinsley Plans to Change Jobs

NYT reported Michael Kinsley, the provocative editorial and opinion-page editor of The Los Angeles Times, said yesterday that he would be changing jobs in the next few months and most likely would no longer be running the department. He will not necessarily leave the editorial page, he said, but his new role is still being worked out.

Nikki Finke writes in LA Weekly All day Monday, the offices of the LAT’s editorial, Op-Ed and newly christened Current sections swirled with water-cooler talk that boss Kinsley would be leaving now that he has to report to the commercial, and not the editorial, side of the newspaper. His staffers were already reeling from that under-the-radar bombshell: the announcement that LAT Editor John Carroll would be moving out of, and Managing Editor Dean Baquet into, the Spring Street power office, and that, “as part of the leadership transition,” Kinsley would report not to Carroll but to recently installed Publisher Jeff Johnson.... In typical Kinsley fashion, self-serving and self-righteous, he beat his own paper to the punch and on Monday gave the news of his stepping down to the LAT’s arch-rival, The New York Times....

I wonder what the LA Times thinks. The first article is from the NYT, this one is from LA Weekly. I checked the LA Times, and all they had were some of Kinsley's columns.

“It’s a very complicated arrangement I have, and not all aspects are working as well as others,” he told the NYT. “This living in Seattle and editing the editorial page is not an ideal arrangement. It’s not ideal for me and it’s not ideal for the paper. I don’t think it’s terrible. I think I’m doing a pretty good job. But that’s the one thing that is not working out, so we’re going to try to fix it.”

A pretty good job? On what planet? A more accurate description of his tenure at the LAT would be a pretty horrible job that’s proved disastrous both to Kinsley’s persona and to the paper’s prestige

It is just a guess, but I suspect Nikki Finke does not like Michael Kinsley. I recall some time ago that Michael Kinsley seemed to be at war with Maureen Dowd. I wonder if Nikki and Maureen were friends.

.... One minute he was announcing with great fanfare a new feature of regular “wikitorials” as if he’d reinvented the Internet; the next minute he was deleting comments filled with porn and swear words. He declared this obvious failure a wild success even if in his eyes only.

It was a major failure. Wikis are good way to develop opinions from many knowledgable people on non-controversial subjects, but that is the antithesis of an editorial

That’s because his primary purpose was to attract attention to himself on the East Coast among those journalism peers and political pundits he’d carefully cultivated in New York and Washington over three decades of schmoozing and sucking up.... The one-time New Republic and Slate editor brought to the party an old-school liberal penchant for placing witty banter ahead of serious argument. An example is that recent Kinsley-penned LAT commentary downplaying the significance of the so-called Downing Street Memo concerning the timing of the decision to go to war with Iraq and the Bush administration’s distortion of the related WMD intelligence. He had the arrogance and audacity not just to pooh-pooh the memo’s contents but also to poke fun at the progressive movement for pumping up the volume surrounding it. “I don’t buy the fuss. Nevertheless, I am enjoying it, as an encouraging sign of the left’s revival. Developing a paranoid theory and promoting it to the very edge of national respectability takes ideological self-confidence,” Kinsley ridiculed. Rush Limbaugh couldn’t have been more dismissive.

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