If a tree falls...

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

And if a story lands on the front page of the New York Times, but other reporters and news organizations ignore it, does it still count? That's the question asked in this From the Frontline blog post, What No Inquiry?

I've been asking myself the same question. After all, in the past month we've heard some startling news.

• We found out that the Bush administration had enlisted a group of retired generals to shill the Iraq War for them all these years...without disclosing their "special relationship," of course. (See Behind TV Analysts, See Pentagon's Hidden Hand, NYT, 4/20/08. Also see this 2003 NYT story, which foreshadows the larger story.)
  
• We found out that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Tenet, Powell and Ashcroft sat around on multiple occasions discussing exactly how to torture detainees. And that our dear president approves of their decisions. (See Cheney, Others OK'd Harsh Interrogations, ABC News, 4/11/08)
  
• We learned that military justice apparently is an oxymoron, as the former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay told how he was pressured to convict someone...anyone...because it wouldn't look good to admit that most of those being held and tortured all these years were innocent. (See Guantanamo Prosecutor Says Why He Quit, Philadelphia Inquirer, 4/4/08, and Former Guantanamo prosecutor says trials tainted, Reuters, 4/28/08)
  

Real news...all buried under a barrage of "horse race" campaign coverage, speculation about Reverend Wright, and heavy breathing over the Texas polygamy raid.

Ah, yes, the mainstream media has so many more important things to do.

Where's the beef?

Take one unresponsive government agency, hobbled by years of Bush budget cuts and misdirection, add some big meat companies with minimal federal oversight, plus a dash of YouTube...and what do you get? The largest beef recall in history and a big fat scandal that exposes just how badly the Bush administration has eviscerated the Department of Agriculture's food safety division in favor of making life easier for businesses.

Huzzah for the Humane Society, which took undercover video of the abuse of sick and disabled cattle at a Chino, Calif., meat packing plant and posted it on YouTube, where it has created such a furor that Agriculture officials had to respond. Boos and hisses for the U.S. officials who tried to downplay the problem by saying they thought it was an isolated incident (if they're not stationed at these plants, how can they know?) and that most of the recalled meat had already been eaten.

As you read the New York Times story, Largest Recall of Ground Beef is Ordered, consider that "downer" cattle are banned from our food supply to keep us from contracting mad cow disease, a fatal brain-wasting disease that has killed people in Great Britain and Canada. Then consider that "of the 143 million pounds that were recalled, 37 million went to make hamburgers, chili and tacos for school lunches and other federal nutrition programs...."

Just one more reason why we need change in Washington.

(Author's note: In the 1980s, I worked for a livestock industry trade association.)

Bad blogger!

Yeah, that's me. A bad blogger.

Reading the really excellent blogging advice offered on Ryan Sholin's latest brainstorm, the Wired Journalists network -- in response to the question, "What advice would you offer a journalist looking to start their own blog?" -- made me realize what a bad blogger I am.

I post irregularly. I started this blog with a focus...info related to my classes, targeted to my students...but I got tired of being focused and tired of censoring myself. I mean, periodically Bush does something so appalling that I just wanna rant. And you can't do that on a blog you're asking students to read.

I decided it was my blog, it has my name on it, and I could do whatever I wanted with it. So I did. I also started keeping separate class blogs.

Now I write about whatever strikes my fancy, whenever I have the time and the inspiration. I don't worry about readership, because I'm mostly writing for my own entertainment and satisfaction.

Of course, my personal blog is not my only blog. I maintain blogs for my classes (such as this one for my online news writing class) and contribute to the J-School's blogs (both of which I started). So I end up doing quite a bit of blogging...it's just kind of spread around and unfocused...kind of like me.

Good for a laugh

I was on my way to a Sunday evening get-together when I heard it, on the top-of-the-hour NPR news.

The story was about President Bush's Middle East trip, where he was busy hobnobbing with his oil buds in Abu Dhabi and giving speeches on freedom and democracy. He used the occasion to once again denounce Iran and generally try to ignite World War III.

But the part that made me burst out laughing was a clip of Bush attempting to directly address Iranians, telling them, "You have a right to live under a government that listens to your wishes...."

Hah! If Bush really believed that...well, we'd be out of Iraq by now and he would have signed the S-Chip bill to provide health care for low-income kids. Hell, we might even be doing something about global warming.

Too bad Bush doesn't believe his own propaganda.

Here's a link to Bush's speech. For another perspective on his trip, read NYT columnist Maureen Dowd's Faith, Freedom and Bling in the Middle East. Just to whet your appetite, here's an excerpt:

Puddle jumping through Arabia, the president saw his share of falcons in little leather hoods — presumably not a Gitmo reference — and Arabian stallions, including one retired stud from Texas — presumably not a W. reference. But there was a distinct dearth of wives and dissidents....

The dreaded "L" word

Someone finally said it. Someone in the news media...on air, and for the record.

Yes, it's the dreaded "L" word...and perhaps not the one you think. Not liberal, not lesbian. LIE. LIAR.

"We are surrounded by people who lie to us," said Daniel Schorr, NPR senior news analyst, in his Week in Review on NPR this morning.

And then he pointed to President Bush, who keeps saying that Americans don't torture people, even as his recently revealed memos make it clear that we do...to Blackwater, whose representatives keep saying they don't kill Iraqi civilians, even as recent news reports and congressional reports make it clear that they do...and to Olympic gold-medal winner Marion Jones who recently confessed that she lied when she insisted -- repeatedly and publicly -- that she had not used steroids to win.

After years of beating around the bush, it's about time people in the media started telling it to us straight, instead of using "give-'em-a-pass" euphemisms like "misspoke." After all, a lie is a lie is a lie. And those who tell them are liars. Even when that person happens to be the president.

Another Bush speech, another slogan

So now it's "Return on Success," a slogan vague enough to need it's own official government fact sheet.

"The principle guiding my decisions on troop levels in Iraq is 'return on success,' " Bush said in his televised speech last night. "The more successful we are, the more American troops can return home."

Judging by our level of success to date, that won't be anytime soon.

"Return on Success" replaces a long list of previous upbeat slogans, including "Victory," which replaced "Plan for Victory," which replaced "Stand Up, Stand Down," which replaced "Freedom is on the March," which replaced "Stay the Course," which replaced our all-time favorite, "Mission Accomplished." Nothing like a good slogan to get the patriotic juices flowing.

Of course, I'm sure a missed some of them. There have been so many. These days, it's as hard to keep up with Bush's changing slogans as it is to keep up with his changing missions in Iraq. The more recent ones seem less memorable, probably because they're running out of ways to rephrase the same old, same old.

In last night's speech, Bush also described our mission in Iraq as "evolving"...an interesting choice of words, I thought, for a guy who doesn't seem to believe in evolution. But if he's looking for signs of "intelligent design" in our Iraq policy, I think it's safe to say he might as well give up.

As Peter Scheer notes on the blog, TruthDig, "The mission is “evolving” because it is the best way to conceal that there is no longer a coherent mission, if there ever was one."

While the president keeps changing his slogans and redefining our mission in Iraq, one thing doesn't change: his determination to keep us mired in Iraq through the end of his term in office...what better way to postpone the day of reckoning for his many failures and to try to blame the mess he's made on someone else.

Oh, and if you're wondering who he plans to blame next...just look in the mirror. You've heard the recent rumblings about the only way we can lose in Iraq is if Americans give up by giving in to their frustrations and impatience with the war? Well, I know a set-up when I see one.

P.S. If you're actually thinking maybe we should just be patient just a bit longer, I urge you to review this War Room blog post, and to remember the Iraq War is costing us approximately 100 U.S. lives and between $2 billion and $3 billion per week. Yes, you read it right -- that's per week.

500 days

The Bush countdown has reached a landmark: just 500 days left in office.

Of course, it's daunting to think how much he can still screw up in the next 500 days.

Too bad we couldn't just move up the election to this fall and get on with it. The 2008 presidential campaign is in full swing already, so what have we got to lose?

P.S. Thanks to Dona for giving me this nifty keychain so I can track the countdown.

Peter Pan politics

John McCain says we can't leave Iraq now. Referring to Vietnam, he says he's "seen this movie before."

So have we. Maybe he forgot the ending?

Of course, this is the same guy who, after losing some key campaign staffers because he's out of money, says, "I'd describe the campaign as going well...I think we're doing fine."

Yeah, right.

Reminds me of a couple other big-name politicians who are in denial. First, there's Joe Leiberman, who's still running around saying we're winning in Iraq (what's he been smoking?).

Then, of course, there's the irrepressible George W., who's now taking a "Peter Pan" approach to the war...if he just "believes" hard enough (and gets the rest of us to say we believe too), his "Tinkerbell" war will come back to life...and he'll be remembered as a war hero, not as "the goat."

Fat chance. Baah!

Wanna read more?
SF Chron: Bush fights growing chorus for exit
NYT: McCain campaign drops top aides; new doubts rise

The court's circular logic

Let me see if I've got this straight...the Bush administration's NSA secret wiretapping program is so secret that nobody can find out whether or not they've been secretly spied on, or prove whether or not they've been injured by being secretly spied on. That's the reason two of the three appeals court judges gave for dismissing the case, saying none of the plaintiffs has grounds to sue.

Sounds like circular logic to me.

Link to NYT coverage of this decision.

Censoring Iraq

If it starts to seem as though things aren't going quite so badly in Iraq, for a change, maybe it's because of Bush's surge...

...or maybe it's because Iraq's interior ministry "has decided to bar news photographers and camera operators from the scenes of bomb attacks," as noted in this ABC News Online article.

...or maybe it's because the Pentagon is now limiting web access for troops stationed in Iraq, as noted in this AP news story by reporter Lolita A. Blador. (If our enlisted men and women can get to an internet cafe, they're okay, but they can no longer use the Defense Department's computer network to access sites like MySpace and YouTube.)

If you want to get a more accurate picture of the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, one good place to start is the news releases link at the Department of Defense web site.

Here's what I found today:

Here's a link to the news release at the top of the list -- it announces the death of "Spc. Rhys W. Klasno, 20, of Riverside, Calif., [who] died May 13 in Haditha, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle."

And, as you can see, there's lots more where that one came from.

The real reason Gonzales won't step down

You have to read to the very last sentence of the NYT story to find the answer, but it's there -- the real reason why U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales won't step down, despite the growing scandal. Here it is:

...If Mr. Gonzales were to step down, officials argued, it would wrongly lead the public to conclude that he had done something wrong.

Essentially, it's same reason why the president will never agree to set a pull-out date for Iraq. To do so would be to admit he'd made a mistake, that he was wrong...and that is clearly one thing this president cannot abide. Much better to close his eyes and repeat ad nauseam,

"This is an honest, honorable man, in whom I have confidence.”

If that is the case, his standards are incredibly low. But, of course, we've heard this all before...Bush said the same thing about Brownie, Harriet and Rummy...just before they went down the tubes.

We can only wish for Gonzales a similar fate.

Threats 'n fightin' words

I don't know if you've read about the death threats made against blogger Kathy Sierra and the blogosphere's response, including discussions about the need to foster a culture of web civility.

If not, you can catch up with this post and link from Sierra's blog, this joint statement by Sierra and Chris Locke (some of the threatening comments and images were posted on Locke's meankids.org blog, in addition to on Sierra's blog), and this NYT article, "A Call for Manners in the World of Nasty Blogs," that discusses the issue and offers links to some suggested codes of conduct.

This morning, I read "Bloggers, Don Imus and free speech," a column in today's Salon.com by Joan Walsh, who earlier wrote this thoughtful piece about the Sierra threats, "Men who hate women on the web." It got me thinking about it all again.

I don't know how I'd react to such threats online. However, I do clearly remember getting a nasty, anonymous note in response to a "letter to the editor" I'd written (criticizing some Bush administration policy) that was published in the Mercury News a few years ago. It was unsettling to think that some warped individual was angry enough and motivated enough to look up my home address and send me an obscene, threatening note. It made me feel like I should be looking over my shoulder; it made me wonder if this nutcase was motivated enough to show up on my doorstep someday. It was kind of scary.

Clearly, that note was meant to intimidate me...to shut me up. Unfortunately, I have to say it did...at least for a while. It made me think twice about submitting any more letters to the editor. It didn't totally stop me, but it did give me pause...and if I'm completely honest, it probably deterred me from writing a few times...before I got over it.

And that was just one threatening letter. I really don't know how I'd deal with an onslaught of nastiness and threatening comments on one of my blogs.

None of that has stopped me from blogging. And if you've read my blog, you know I don't shy away from criticizing the Bush administration. But, hey, my blog isn't exactly well-known or popular, so it's not exactly an issue at this point.

What I do know is that I'd have no qualms about deleting blog comments that are offensive, or blocking comments from mean, nasty or threatening individuals...on this blog or any of my class blogs. Maybe it's the teacher in me; maybe it's because they're my blogs.

I've never had to remove a student post, although I have talked to a student about a post that I felt was inappropriate. I explained why, and I asked the student to modify the post. That took care of it.

I hope that's the most I ever have to do.

Oh, if you have a moment, please check out Kathy Sierra's blog, Creating Passionate Users. Right now she's put up a "best of" series of posts that's simply fascinating. She's an original thinker, and it would be a loss to the rest of us if we let nasty web trolls knock people like her off the web.

(A version of this post is cross-posted on one of my class blogs.)

Commemorating four years in Irag

If you want to see how far we haven't gotten in Iraq, read today's post by Jonathan Schwarz on the This Modern World blog.

Schwarz lets two quotes from President Bush tell the story -- one from the start of the war four years ago, and one from today. That says it better than I ever could.

by Tom Tomorrow is one of my favorite political strips. You can read the latest one on Salon.com.

Flashback to a war protest

I'd just scanned an article about the Iraq War protests, and moved on to an article about a student free-speech case, when I ran smack-dab into a flashback.

What set it off? It was this paragraph in the NYT article, Free-Speech Case Divides Bush and Religious Right:

Mr. Fredericks’s ensuing lawsuit...pits official authority against student dissent. It is the first Supreme Court case to do so directly since the court upheld the right of students to wear black arm bands to school to protest the war in Vietnam, declaring in Tinker v. Des Moines School District that “it can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

I remember that. I remember wearing a black arm band at school, and I remember Mr. Day, the conservative civics teacher, angrily challenging me and another student in the hallway. "Do you know what you're doing?" he asked, sure that we were just following the crowd, thoughtlessly aping the college crowd whose protests were then making headlines.

I may not have know exactly what I was doing, but I knew this: the Vietnam War was still raging, the draft was still in place, and a couple of my good friends had just drawn low numbers in the draft lottery...which meant that if they weren't accepted into a college, they'd have to decide whether to enlist, wait to be drafted...or make a run for Canada.

Tough choices, especially for young men who hadn't even finished high school yet. Beyond the mounting death toll and our growing awareness of the utter futility of the war, that one thing was enough to warrant black arm bands...a visible sign of mourning for all the lives already lost, and for the next crop of young men about to be thrown into the war's relentless maw.

Today marks four years and counting for the Iraq War. Is the situation really any different now (except for the draft, of course)?

Maybe it's time to start wearing those black armbands again.

Already Missing Molly

We lost one of the country's sharpest and funniest political writers yesterday: Molly Ivins.

When it came to skewering mean, vapid and greedy politicos, there was no one like Ivins. You could always count on her to knock the high and mighty down a few pegs, and make you laugh and feel outraged at the same time. It was a hellava combination.

The Chronicle carried a wonderful tribute to her, written by her long-time friend and editor Anthony Zurcher, as well as an obituary.

Do yourself a favor and read her last column, Stand Against the Surge. As Ivins put it,

We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we're for them and trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush's proposed surge.... We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, "Stop it, now!"

Then do our country a favor and take her advice.

Surge...schmerge!

I spent the morning after Bush's speech calling my elected representatives to tell them I oppose the president's plan to send more troops to Iraq. As far as I can see, the only result of a surge in soldiers will be a surge in casualties.

I also told my reps that a non-binding resolution against the troop increase is not enough...it's too little, too late. It's time to stop funding this war. (You know the old saying...when you know you're in a hole, first stop digging.)

Before the fall elections, I thought Bush might listen if it was clear that most Americans no longer support his war. I thought talk of impeachment was a waste of time and energy. But no more. I think it's time to remove Bush from office. That's what he does to people who don't agree with him, so maybe it's the only language he understands.

Want to take action too? Here are three toll-free numbers you can use to call your members of Congress: 800-828-0498, 800-459-1887 and 800-614-2803.

For once, Bush is right

President George W. Bush spoke honestly about the situation in Iraq this week. "This business about a graceful exit just simply has no realism to it," he said.

No shit, Sherlock. At this point, it's hard to picture any way we can exit Iraq gracefully. No doubt about it...it's going to be a mess.

The BOBs: Best of the Blogs

The U.S. blog Sunlight Foundation won the top award for Best Weblog in the third annual Deutsche Welle Best of the Blogs (BOBs) Awards. The international blog competition is sponsored annually by Deutsche Welle, the German international broadcasting service.

The 2006 BOBs jury members said they admired the Sunlight Foundation blog for its work to increase transparency in government. They called the project "a positive example of how blogs can shape political discourse" and praised it for its potential to be adapted for use in other countries.

Here's one example cited of what that blog has accomplished:

The [Sunlight] Foundation helped bridge the ideological divide in the blogosphere by bringing together liberal and conservative bloggers in its "Exposing Earmarks" project. Volunteers tried to find more information on 1,800 earmarks -- or hidden funding -- inserted into a Labor bill. This effort led to a new transparency law in Congress mandating a publicly accessible online database with detailed information on all future spending bills in Congress.

BOB Awards were also presented for the best blogs in several different languages, including English, German, Spanish, Arabic and Chinese. PaidContent.org, which won the award for Best English Weblog, tracks the different business models being tried and tested in the realm of digital media.

In the Reporters Without Borders category, the BOBs first prize award was shared by two Persian-language blogs, the photo blog Kosoof, which publishes photos of Iranian dissidents with their families after their release from prison, and Hamed Mottaghis' Weblog Tanine Sokut, which focuses on human rights violations in Iran and issues not covered by Iran's national media.

The BOBs also named a top podcast, Mezumei Studio of China, and gave its coveted Blogwurst Award to Aref-Adib, an Iranian photo-commentary blog that I've already bookmarked for posterity.

For just a taste of Aref-Adib, a recent post shows a noose labeled with the names of Mideast nations and the caption: "Saddam verdict didn't give Bush the big swing he was hoping for!"

More than 5,500 blogs in 10 languages were nominated for this year's BOBs by internet users from around the world. That's double the number nominated last year.

Nominees were first vetted by an international jury of bloggers, independent journalists and media experts, who created a shortlist of 10 nominees in each of the contest's 15 categories. Then the nominations were opened up to the public for three weeks of voting. The BOBs includes both jury awards and user awards.

One of this year's jurors was from the Bay Area: Lisa Stone, an organizer of the locally based BlogHer conference. She gives her take on the BOBs, including the user-named favorite English Weblog, Black Looks by Sokari Ekine, on a post on the BlogHer site.

Words and their consequences

“Anybody who is in a position to serve this country ought to understand the consequences of words,” said the man who just last week insisted that he hadn't just spent the past year telling us to "stay the course" in that growing disaster known as Iraq. Did he forget about TV cameras?

Bush also spent yesterday campaigning, insisting that we are going to win in Iraq. He also praised Donald Rumsfeld, asserting that his secretary of defense is doing a fine job. Yeah, right.

Do we need any more reasons to send the president a strong message (a.k.a. a Democratic majority) in the upcoming election?

Category of Duh!

A News Flash from today's New York Times:

"Americans increasingly see the war in Iraq as distinct from the fight against terrorism, and nearly half believe President Bush has focused too much on Iraq to the exclusion of other threats, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

"The poll found that 51 percent of those surveyed saw no link between the war in Iraq and the broader antiterror effort, a jump of 10 percentage points since June. That increase comes despite the regular insistence of Mr. Bush and Congressional Republicans that the two are intertwined and should be seen as complementary elements of a strategy to prevent domestic terrorism."

Maybe you really can't fool all the people all the time. I was beginning to wonder.