Bearcastle Blog. Cerebral Spectroscopy / Nullus pudor est ad meliora transire

"We're all in this alone."

"The administration likes to talk about the ownership society," Assistant Senate Minority Leader Dick Durbin of Illinois said at a news conference in Chicago's Union Station. "Well, the motto of the ownership society that we can see in this budget is the following: `Just remember, we're all in this alone.'"

[Quoted in the Chicago Tribune: Democrats see budget as game of `bait, switch'.]

Posted on March 5, 2005 at 15.39 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Common-Place Book

Uncle Sam: Majority Shareholder

In an earlier post, I implied that my main reservations about social-security privatization came not so much from th more-talked-about issues like its incredible cost, its anti-middle-class attitude, it guaranteed income for brokers only, but instead from concern about what whould happen if the US Government entered the stock market. If Uncle Sam is the one controlling the investments in the "personal accounts", I haven't yet been able to imagine what it would do to the dynamics of the stock market to have Sam as by far the single largest investor going.
I'm still thinking about it. Meanwhile, Marc Perkel gives his view on the matter in his blog entry "Government Control of the Stock Market Coming".

Posted on March 4, 2005 at 13.25 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All

The Object of Loyalty

Today I finished reading a crime novel, A Bitter Feast, by S. J. Rozan. Her main character, PI Lydia Chin (or Chin Ling Wan-ju), enters a room (on p. 276) and listens in on the conversation of an elder in her family association:

His position, as I stood respectfully listening, seemed to be that no government could be trusted….

A good notion, but I would change "could" to "should".
By saying that no government should be trusted, I'm not advocating an instituional distrust, but something more along the lines of continual skepticism — I am a scientist, after all, and skepticism is a fundamental and positive part of the scientific process.
Giving limited power to our elected officials is necessary if they are to perform the administrative tasks that we assign them, but giving any power is a perennial invitation to corruption, and must be vigilantly guarded against.
Much is made on occasion, as it is in the current political landscape, of "loyalty". There are innumerable attempts at government-imposed and peer-group-imposed tests of "loyalty" (one of the most annoying is the current fad for the yellow "Support Our Troops" faux-ribbons that adorn the rear of so many automobiles), and they are all misguided. Calls for displays of loyalty to our government attempt to shore up the powers of government against possible erosion from the skepticism that is the obligation of the electorate.
The electorate loans the power to govern over it, but owes nothing to the government. It is the government that owes the electorate. Indeed, informed dissent is a patriotic obligation. Sedition and treason exist, but they are rare.
"Loyalty" does describe a characteristic exhibited by a person or group towards another person or group; it can, in the right circumstances, be an admirable and honorable trait.
In times of tyranny and widespread corruption, calls for demonstrations of "loyalty" are popular: it is mistakenly thought that "loyalty" should be shown by the grateful electorate towards the government that condescends to protect it. This is wrong.
In a democracy, it is the government that shows its loyalty to the electorate. We, the people, must not let them forget it.

Posted on March 3, 2005 at 21.23 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Splenetics

Not Fair, Governor

IN ATTEMPTING to make points with national conservative audiences, [Massachusetts] Governor Romney is denigrating gay families, practicing divisive, mean-spirited politics. He is also peddling ignorance.

To say, as he did last week in Utah, that gay marriage is "a blow to the family" misrepresents the commitment lived by same-sex couples here and all over the world. To say, as he did in South Carolina two weeks ago, that gay couples "are actually having children born to them" castigates a loving relationship as somehow shameful.

Romney has taken a page from President Bush's illogic by insisting that every child "has a right to a mother and a father," implying that two women or two men could not possibly do the job. But many studies have shown that, while children fare better having two parents, the sexual orientation of those parents is inconsequential. […]

[From Not fair, governor, an editorial in the Boston Globe.]

Posted on March 3, 2005 at 17.20 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: Common-Place Book

Investigation by The Press?

I didn't think that I was becoming a big cheerlearder for blogging, but I found that I was rather put off by the following, which may say something to the contrary.
Here we find Frank Rich (writing in the "Arts" section, of all places, in the NYTimes — why is that?), in "Gonzo Gone, Rather Going, Watergate Still Here"

Given an all-Republican government, the only investigation [of the Gannon affair] possible will have to come from the press.

But wait for the context: this comes after he has recounted the story of the uncovering [as it were] of Gannon, carefully resorting where necessary to passive verbal constructions in order to avoid making any mention whatsoever of the bloggers who did the bulk of the "investigative journalism" on the story and force-fed it to the MSM.
I have to admit, I felt slightly insulted — not on my behalf, of course, but on behalf of those bloggers and their compatriots who did all the actual investigation.
In light of that, it sound to me like a big bit of pompous, self-righteous bullshit (not that bullshit has a "sound", but my metaphor machine is in the shop at the moment) to suggest that the "only investigation possible will have to come from the press."

Posted on March 3, 2005 at 15.19 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Splenetics

Stretch Out the Privatization "Debate"

"Chris in Paris" at AMERICAblog wrote

It's time to take this Social Security issue over the top and make sure Bush is licking his wounds on this issue. It's yet another boondoggle for his friends on Wall Street at the expense of average Americans so do not let him get even a small victory on this.

It depends on what "over the top" means. I agree that it would be nice to deliver up a major defeat to the President on this one, but I don't really want to see it happen quite yet. The reasons:

So, the more that we can be certain that stretching out the "debate" on SS privatization will lead to its resounding defeat, the longer I'd like to see that process take place.
Admittedly, chances are high that when the privatization scheme clearly becomes a liability that the Administration will launch a diversion by launching a war in Iran (or Syria, perhaps?), so I suppose while they're arguing for privatization we should be preparing for more war-mongering foolishness. And on the small-fires front, don't forget all those left over, wacko judicial nominees.

Posted on March 3, 2005 at 11.10 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Splenetics

On Top

BuzzFlash interviewed Stephen J. Ducat, author of The Wimp Factor; this as the excerpt that caught my eye:

Stephen J. Ducat: Absolutely. In the world they [Republicans] live in, you’re either a top or a bottom. Mutuality, democracy, equality–that makes no sense to them.

BuzzFlash: Well, as Jon Stewart said recently in the context of the John Gannon/Jeff Guckert scandal in Washington, if you’re on top, you’re not gay. That may explain the inner circle acceptance of gays within the Republican Party, in spite of the gay-bashing national political line they give to their followers.

Stephen J. Ducat: The Republican homosexuals are not only honorary heterosexuals; they become honorary homophobes, as the most recent scandal illustrated.

BuzzFlash:
Well, you know, Matt Drudge is gay and yet engages in homophobia. Ken Mehlman, who is the head of the RNC, is reportedly gay and was a leader of the homophobic charge. There are numerous Congressman who have been outed and Senators who are known as gay, and yet who stick to the homophobic line. It’s a strange permutation of anxious masculinity, but maybe, as Jon Stewart said, if you’re on top, you’re not gay.

Stephen J. Ducat: He has intuited something that is actually pervasive across cultures and across historical time–that in male-dominant cultures, homosexuality is only taboo when it’s perceived as feminizing. This has its foundation in ancient Greece, where it didn’t really matter who you had sex with. What mattered was what position you occupied in the relationship of domination. If you were a penetrator, you were an unambiguous guy. If you were penetrated, you were virtually a woman. That dynamic operates in American prisons, and it operates in Middle Eastern cultures. It’s really a question of domination.

Posted on March 2, 2005 at 18.00 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Common-Place Book

Rational Orgasm

Continuing with what seems to be today's look at Big-Brotherism and conservative sex-obsession, herewith an excerpt from "Toying with Your Freedom", by Dimitri Vassilaros, in the Tribune-Review [Pittsburgh, PA]:

Alabama had outlawed the sale of what some call "marital aids." The U.S. Supreme Court last week declined to review the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Williams v. Alabama that upholds the 1998 ban.

Sell "any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs" and risk a $10,000 fine and a year in jail.
[…]
Alabama argued its sex-toy ban " … and related orgasm stimulating paraphernalia is rationally related to a legitimate legislative interest in discouraging prurient interests in autonomous sex." And that "it is enough for a legislature to reasonably believe that commerce in the pursuit of orgasms by artificial means for their own sake is detrimental to the health and morality of the State."

"Rationally related"? What would non-prurient "interests in autonomous sex" be? Since I write fiction for adults, do I participate in "commerce in the pursuit of orgasms by artificial means", or is masturbating "natural" provided one doesn't use anything that requires batteries?
I wish that the Supreme Court had chosen to clarify some of these issues; it sure would make questions about "gay marriage" look easy.

Posted on March 2, 2005 at 17.39 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Common-Place Book, Raised Eyebrows Dept.

When Are We Ever Ready?

An editorial excerpt from the Yankton [SD] Press & Dakotan:

No matter the outcome of this particular issue at this time, there is a gnawing little feeling about how future generations will look back on this matter. A century from now, will people look back on this issue the same way people now look on, for instance, how the concept of interracial marriage was viewed 150 years ago?

On the other hand, the fact that we have such heated debate over the matter also brings into question whether our society as a whole is ready for such relationships.

It would seem that the Yankton Press is aiming for balanced opinion in this piece, but bases it on a faulty view of history.
One could ask even about views on interracial marriage as little as 30 years ago, since Loving v. Virginia was only decided in 1967, easily within living memory for many of us. As I've mentioned before, even when I was in graduate school (c. 1980), students on campus were discussing the "appropriateness" of interracial dating. It seemed incredible to me then, and even more incredible now. Somehow, taking the right course on interracial marriage caused the objections of society to fade so quickly that it seems like something that happened long, long ago.
The heated "debates" now over marriage equality for gay people reflect only poorly on whether society will be ready, or when. History shows that society will never be ready, but that society will adjust to changes for the better.
Interracial marriage is but one example. Integrating the military is another. Integrating schools in the south. All of these seem so normal now that they barely deserve comment, but at one time they were controversial. Was society every ready?
There is no transitional phase here, no "partial gay marriage" that will serve to ease society into a new era of greater liberty either. Domestic partnership is not training-wheels for marriage equality, it's a side show. Remember this: Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell was hailed as a brilliant compromise that would help the military transition, but it has failed horribly, being neither transitional nor a brilliant compromise.
What would it take for society to be ready to do the right thing? The best suggestion appears to be that we should go ahead and do the right thing, and then society will adjust. Sure enough, in 2027 or so, we'll have forgotten what the fuss was all about, and reactionaries will have thought of a new outrage to "mobilize their base".

Posted on March 2, 2005 at 17.23 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Splenetics

The Big-Brother Thing

Reuters (in a story by Jeremy Pelofsky) reports on the latest efforts of Republicans to "protect" something from something else:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two top U.S. Republican lawmakers on Tuesday said they want to apply broadcast decency standards to cable television and satellite television and radio to protect children from explicit content.

This reminds me that, in addition to various other irrational obsessions one can find in the minds of reactionaries, there is this hysterical posture about "decency". Can anyone explain this to me? Since decency advocates are stereotypically the biggest secret embibers of indecent material, is this really some sort of uncontrollable Dr-Strangelove syndrome at work? Recall that I, myself, tend to like indecent things quite a bit, and I tend to believe, along with quite a few other people, that the power switch is one of the best guards against indecency that modern-day parents can find: sort of an abstinence-only approach to broadcast naughtiness.
Oh, and can we move on past that do-it-for-the-children rhetoric? Does anyone really believe that their primary purpose is to "protect the children"?
I have to go along with John Aravosis of AMERICAblog on this when he says:

The Republican's just can't talk enough about sex. They are obsessed. Their obsession is dangerous. […]
This Republican Big Brother thing gets creepier every day.

Posted on March 2, 2005 at 14.46 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Splenetics

Comrade FDR

I usually avoid mentioning this pseudo-commentator by name, but this item from the top of the Editor and Publisher story "Campus Group Tweaks Coulter with Book Titles", by Dave Astor, gave me a good chuckle:

NEW YORK The liberal Campus Progress group held a contest to name columnist Ann Coulter's next liberal-bashing book. The winning entry — "Roosevelt: Wheelchair-riding, America-hating Terrorist" — was submitted by Baltimore-based Ryan Sniatecki, who will receive a talking Ann Coulter action figure.

I'm sure this is so funny partly because it must be what's one the mind of so many God-fearing, American-loving Republicans these days: that FDR was a closet communist. Witness their irrational hatred of Social Security, the landmark New Deal program.
But just the idea of that action figure is scary.

Posted on March 2, 2005 at 14.27 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept.

Everyday Homophobia

Big acts of homophobia, like the President's call — half-heartred though it is — for a Constitutional ban on marriage equality, are certainly awful. They are visible and they incite large numbers of people simultaneously to look for ways to renew their thoughtless hatred. I take them personally, and I get tired of endless "debates" (worse than people talking about you while you're in the room) over whether I should have rights that every other US citizen takes for granted.
It's tiring, but at least with the really big acts of homophobia, one usually has the feeling of not being alone. There are plenty of people around who will raise their voices in concert with mine. This is vitally important: every homosexual who ever was in the closet knows that desperate feeling of lonliness, the powerlessness of being the "only one".
But then, what to do about the everyday, little acts manifestations of homophobia, the countless ways in which individual gays and lesbians encounter anti-gay attitudes, overt or subtle, one at a time, person by person?
To laugh or to cry, that is the question. It can all seem so absurd sometimes, but ridiculously silly, too.
Jim Buzinski, in a story called 'Gay' is a Naughty Word, at Outsprts.com, reports on this little controversy:

To the NFL it's naughty to be "GAY" but OK to be "BIN LADEN." You can be a "NAZI" but not a "LESBIAN." Even a gay man with the last name Gay can't buy a jersey.
This rather bizarre conclusion is reached when trying to order a personalized jersey from the NFL Shop, the online merchandise site run by the league. Anyone trying to buy a jersey with the single word "GAY" or "LESBIAN" or "GAY PRIDE" on the back gets a rejection message that states: "This field should not contain a naughty word."

He goes on to detail the problems that one Barry Gay had in trying ordering a jersey with his name printed on it. Barry wasn't pleased to find that the NFL thought his name was "naughty", but customer services is quoted as saying: "I am sorry for the inconvenience. Unfortunately there is no way around this issue." (How fortunate that the customer service rep can't write english: "However, the NFL reserves all rights to what can and can not be printed on one of it's Jersey's [sic]", since it gives one a small piece of moral superiority to cling to.) I think it's unfortunate that Barry has to go through this, although he's no doubt faced it all his life, but there you go. Just another little bit of everyday homophobia, wearing down one person at a time.
It's tiresome.

Posted on March 2, 2005 at 14.03 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Splenetics

Number Phase-Out

I was pondering the deservedly lackluster success of the current administration's attempts to sell its privatization/"personalizing" scheme for Social Security. My train was running smoothly along these tracks, thinking that perhaps an approach that used annuities, perhaps initially delivered with the baby, might meet with more success and might even be sensible. Then, in a near whiplash moment, my train crossed some points at high speed and switched in the problem of identity theft that I've been thinking about for the last couple of days.
Eureka! The perfect Republican sales pitch, so obvious I don't know why it hasn't been used yet: the administration could claim that it is simply proposing to phase out the use of Social Security numbers as a bold counter-measure in the war against identity theft. Brilliant!
(Don't blame me if, in their desperation, they start using it; however, since I'm still currently without gainful employment, I wouldn't mind being paid for the idea, regardless.)

Posted on March 1, 2005 at 21.15 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Eureka!

Society Evolves

I heard today, via radio headlines, about the very interesting decision from the US Supreme Court striking down the use of the death penalty for those under 18 years old (previously, it had protected only those under 16 years old). I realize that the report was necessarily sketchy; nevertheless, there was a surprise.
Apparently, Justive Kennedy surprised not only me with his finding (writing for the majority) that

[in my words:] Our standards of what constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" clearly evolve over time.

Not surprisingly, this was reported to have outraged Justice Scalia, who is a self-proclaimed fundamentalist in things constitutional, believing that the document's meaning is immutable and fixed in time, although he may admit that we have not discovered all of its hidden meaning.
This is an important precedent. It makes explicit what most clear-thinking people have always known: that the US Constitution works best when it is interpreted in the light of changing — one hopes improving — societal standards. It is a brilliantly conceived procedural guideline, but inadequate as a chiseled stone tablet of commandments.
This opens up important new paths to arguing for the wide-spread application of guaranteed liberty, and is another big setback to those (among others) who oppose marriage equality for gay people by claiming that it's "not traditional" and that the founding fathers surely didn't intend to allow it.
Those crafting their constitutional arguments now have additional tools, and are no longer limited to discovering somehow "rights" that have inexplicably been overlooked up to now among the liberties guaranteed in the founding document.
Instead, one is now invited to notice that society's values do change over time and can therefore come naturally to embrace greater liberty for all Americans.

Posted on March 1, 2005 at 16.10 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Splenetics, The Art of Conversation

"Science Day" Lesson

Today is Tuesday, and Tuesday is "Science Day." Last Tuesday we learned how Charles Darwin spent the early part of his life sailing around to different places in the world, killing small children and stealing their Bibles. And that's not the half of it. In his later years, the bloodthirsty madman developed a diabolical plan to subvert and destroy the voluminous and irrefutable evidence proving that the entire universe, from neutron stars to dung beetles, was created in less time than it takes to watch a Ken Burns documentary. And to think he almost got away with it!

From "Teaching science in the anti-empirical empire", by Mark W. Bradley.

Posted on March 1, 2005 at 13.52 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Common-Place Book

Imagine That

Imagine the kind of nation America would be if the people who love fought as hard for their beliefs as those who hate. Allow yourself to dream of how much good would be accomplished if the rational citizens were as adamant as the superstitious ones, and how much bad would be avoided.

Imagine if living humans were considered to be at least as important as frozen embryos. This approach would permit research to cure many dread diseases, thereby alleviating great suffering. And the best part is that we wouldn’t have to hurt the embryos even one little bit, because they are already dead. Those Americans who are alive would enjoy an improved quality of life, while those who are dead would maintain a constant quality of death. This is known as “win-win”.

Imagine if family values meant loving your relatives instead of hating homosexuals. Fundamentalist ministers who were a little less obsessed with intra-gender affection would finally have time to rail against real abominations, like spousal abuse. One out of every four American women has been beaten by her husband, so here’s a new family value worthy of consideration: Don’t hit Mom. Honoring this avant-garde principle would fortify our collective moral fabric infinitely more than discharging gays from the military.

By David Podvin, excerpted from "Imagine".

Posted on March 1, 2005 at 11.48 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Common-Place Book

Identity Theft

The problem of identity theft, a topic newly current after revelations about ChoicePoint and a "breach of security", was the subject of dueling opinion pieces today in USA Today.
First, a few excerpts from the editorial piece that sets the context and says something that I think is a little more complicated than the editors seem to think:

The company is a data broker that boasts a collection of 17 billion public records. The records span everything from birth dates and addresses to driver's license and Social Security numbers — just enough information to cause trouble if it gets into the wrong hands.
And it did.
The company, duped by criminals masquerading as business owners, gave up personal information on 145,000 people last year. For months, as police investigated, the consumer-victims weren't told.

Thus, we have a company in the business of collecting "personal information" and then selling it; other companies are convinced that they must have this information to be competitive.
The editors say it in so many words, but don't recognize this basic problem: how can one distinguish the "criminals" from the [legitimate] "business owners"? What happens when they are the same?
My point would be that, to the company selling the data, there is no real difference. What does it mean to "masquerade" as a legitimate business, and how is it operationally any different from "real" businesses?
The root of the problem, and the source of the solution, is not with enhancing safeguards on the data, since potential clients and potential thieves are indistinguishable. Either the data must not be collected in the first place — that battle was probably lost in the past decade or more — or it must be made somehow less useful to "masquerading bussinesses".
In a response Fred H. Cate says:

A California law requiring businesses to notify consumers when the security of their personal data is breached is a poor substitute for real action to address the scourge of identity theft.
[…]
The problem at the heart of most identity theft isn't access to information or consumer inattention, it is the lack of will and effective tools to verify the identity of consumers, especially when granting credit.

Mr. Cate certainly recognizes that the problem is not going to lie with enhancing "safeguards" on the data, nor with giving consumers notice of "security breaches". (Talk about refusing to take responsibility by doing nothing that superficially appears to be doing something.)
When I was young and first got my own Social Security number, we were taught things about the number's proper use that were thought to be so important and so inviolable that it might have been written in the consititution: your Social Security number is not a universal identity number, and you should NEVER allow it to be used as one.
Whatever happened to that admonition? Look how steadily it has eroded in the past 30 years until the Social Security number has become, de facto, a universal (US) ID number. For no good reason either: in most cases I can think of, it was used merely as a convenience for whomever was requesting it so that they could assign a unique number to someone for some temporary purpose. There are other ways to accomplish that, even easy ones, that don't compromise the Social Security number.
Now, one almost never thinks about such a request, and one's Social Security number can be found lying around everywhere. It would be simplistic to suggest that this is the sole cause of the problem and that restricting its use would halt the problem, but it is nearer the source of the problem, and looking there could lead to — if not solutions — at least mitigating strategies.
[Update, 1 March 2005:] The Detroit News offers its opinion in the editorial "U.S. Should Limit Use of Social Security Numbers", identifying at least one of the problems that I mentioned. Whether their solution is more than just a start will require quite a bit more reflection.

Posted on February 28, 2005 at 19.43 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Quartos

The Blog People!

It wasn't my fault. Somebody's blog made me read Balloon Juice (a conservative blog, which wasn't all that icky, actually), and there was this entry about a "…wretched mess of turgid prose written by Michael Gorman, the President[-Elect] of the American Library Association, then before you know it there I was reading this bit in his essay "Revenge of the Blog People" (apparently he'd had a run-in with some bloggers at some point, and hadn't resolved his personal issues), in the section headed "Who Are the Blog People? (the "Blog People"? Puh-lease!):

It is obvious that the Blog People read what they want to read rather than what is in front of them and judge me to be wrong on the basis of what they think rather than what I actually wrote. Given the quality of the writing in the blogs I have seen, I doubt that many of the Blog People are in the habit of sustained reading of complex texts. It is entirely possible that their intellectual needs are met by an accumulation of random facts and paragraphs.

Oh my. I suppose that, yes, there are many people who write in many blogs (as in many, many other venues) who are not quite so sensitive and respectful around written English as some of us try to be. To be honest, I wouldn't mind it if they paid more attention to their writing, although the fact that they don't does allow me, in my petty way, to feel superior.
But please! That thing about not many "…in the habit of sustained reading of complex texts." It reminds me of a story.
When I was in graduate school (physics, not library "science"), my best friend Andrea told me about an incident that she had experienced, and I think she was always hoping it would happen again. Anyway, she had been in a bar (the type unfamiliar to me, where men meet women, if you can imagine such a thing) when a not very interesting man started to chat her up. He set out to impress her by explaining to her how Einstein had gotten it wrong with the theory of relativity, and how his own theories could correct it. She let him play out just enough rope for a good hanging, then pointed out that she did [almost] have "a Ph.D. in physics, actually". It's a real conversation stopper, and I'm always looking for an opportunity to say it. Alas, the chances are all too rare in civilized discourse.
Nevertheless, I do take some umbrage at the assertion that I'm not in the habit of obtaining intellectual sustenance from a sustained reading of complex texts, as though to suggest that they might be beyond my Neanderthal comprehension. Not that I make a steady diet of complex texts (just as too much rich food can upset the tummy…) and I hate to get all macho about it since, generally speaking, I think any sort of reading is preferable to no reading at all and I like to encourage it whenever I can, but, well, I do have a Ph.D. in physics, actually.

Posted on February 26, 2005 at 23.02 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Splenetics

The Fifth Estate II

Pamela Troy, in her essay "When Ordinary is Not Enough" (as seen at Democratic Underground), talks about her incredulity at the Fourth Estate's unwillingness or inability to see anything at all wrong with the state of the union and its current administration, those over whom they claim an almost inalienable right to be the exclusive watchdogs. Its a simple question with complex answers, but her analysis makes a good start.
Near the end, she writes

It would have been nice if the Guckert/Gannon embarrassment had resulted in genuine soul-searching among the press about why this outrageous shill had gone undetected by the mainstream media even as he sat several feet away from reporters who are presumably the best and brightest of their profession. It could still happen. Maybe it will.

But don't bet on it.

Instead, what we're more likely to see is a powerful institution rising to its full height, drawing its robes about it, and loftily denouncing the hoi polloi for daring to question its competence. […]

Earlier in the week, I read a piece ("Who Watches the Watchdogs") by Ted Rall. He, speaking as a "real" journalists, seemed to have, at best, conflicted feelings, and at worst, some issues, with bloggers. Rightfully, he attacked the right-wing loudmouths for constantly repeating each other's empty ideas at the top of their metaphorical lungs; their purpose is to amplify, not to illuminate.
He sees the problems with the "mainstream media", but doesn't think it's a problem, and bloggers certainly aren't the solution:

Bloggers are ordinary people, many of them uneducated and with nothing interesting to say. They're sitting in their rec rooms, regurgitating and spinning what real journalists have dug up through hard work. They don't have sources, they don't report, and no one holds them accountable when they make mistakes or flat out lie.

It's curious. Ever since I read that, I've been a bit oversensitive about being dismissed as just sitting in my rec room (I'm actually upstairs in the loft), regurgitating (eeeuw) and spinning (commenting at least, but I hope going further than that) what "real journalists" (puh-lease) have dug up.
Because of it, I've been paying more attention to all the things that I read [admittedly] on line by all the elite "real" journalists, and I've made an amazing discovery which I will now regurgitate:
The MSM is spending an awful lot of its ink talking about bloggers and what's happening in the blogs and what the bloggers are saying and, largely, why they should either 1) be ignored; or 2) are not to be ignored.
Fascinating. (I identified with Mr. Spock in my formative years because of my pointy ears.) The "real journalists" are "digging up" their exclusive truths by reading blogs.
Here's interesting observation #2: when they're not talking about bloggers, the MSM is talking about all the stories that the MSM is not talking about (newspapers in different markets take turns blaming each other for sins of omission).
Where oh where would we be without "real" journalists to keep an eye on things like dirty Republican tricks, warmongering Presidential lies, election manipulation, smear campaigns, White House propaganda programs, tax give-aways for the wealthy, social security magic tricks. Thank goodnes for the reporting elite with their exclusive "sources", sources that seem mostly to be White-House briefing packets and press releases.
I'm afraid by this time — and this is a big lesson the of Gannon Affair, among others — that the MSM has lost quite a bit of credibility as "real" reporters of the "truth"; their role as exclusive "watchdogs" has been suspect for awhile. When most of the media are conservative corporate outlets, where's the independence that girds the loins of the journalist?
Remarkably, the answer to "who watches the watchdogs" in this case is as hard to see as the nose on the the MSM's face: everyone and anyone.
Since the bloggers, at least the ones who deal in facts, rarely have exclusive "sources" that they can't reveal to an interested public because of the traditions of their honorable profession, they must instead resort to investigating, revealing, and co-joining facts that, through the Internet, are verifiable to anyone who wishes to look.
Damn them! What a dangerous idea.

Posted on February 25, 2005 at 17.48 by jns · Permalink · One Comment
In: All, Splenetics

The Anglican Closet

News on the radio suggests that the Anglican conference has made the wrong decision.
Apparently, the "naughty" members of the Anglican communion (i.e., those who ordain gay bishops and don't feel at all bad about it), will be allowed to leave the group for three years, during which time they should sit contritely in a corner and think carefully about what they did. If, at the end of the trial-schism, they're able to explain themselves, they may be welcomed back.
What a ridiculous notion: the schism that isn't a schism. Unfortunately, the "naughty" ones have ceded the moral high ground when they should have called the schism bluff. They've done nothing wrong — quite the contrary! — so they shouldn't be acting like they have. Now the Anglicans have their own version of Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell-Don't-Ordain, and we know how well that worked for the US military.
It's the reactionary faction of their church who raised the ruckus, created the issue out of whole cloth, and then blamed the progressives (a lesson the reactionaries evidently learned from the Republican party). This was not surprising. And, disappointing as it is, it's also no surprise that the progressives are willing to take the blame for it in the name of maintaining peace in the family. Worse than "separate but equal", the Anglicans can now practise "separate but unified".
The progressives now can see how easily their own undeserved shame becomes a weapon to keep them in their own closet, a truth known to, but frequently unacknowledged, by gay men and lesbians.
There is no shame, and it's time to stop acting like there is.
[For an excellent summary of events, see "Church faces schism today" from the Guardian Unlimited (UK).]

Posted on February 25, 2005 at 15.49 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Splenetics