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January 15, 2004

Top 20 reasons why George Bush wants to put a man on Mars
: Here are David Letterman's reasons.

10. Dick Cheney needs a new undisclosed location
9. It's part of his "No Planet Left Behind" initiative
8. Great deal on the off-season airfare right now at Expedia.com
7. Maybe we'll find some weapons of mass destruction there
6. We've run out of places on Earth to drill for oil
5. Hoping to get Mork's autograph
4. We cannot back down until the people of Mars hold free elections
3. Dude, free Mars bars
2. Why not? It's not like we have an enormous debt or failing economy
1. Pete Rose bet him we wouldn't do it

And here are Jack Balkin's:

10. American troops sure to be greeted as liberators.
9. Barren Martian landscape resembles top of Dick Cheney's head.
8. Secret campaign contributions by Mars Candy Company.
7. Martian officials have repeatedly refused to respond when Bush accused them of possessing weapons of mass destruction.
6. Paul Wolfowitz theorizes that bringing democracy to Mars will have domino effect throughout Solar System!
5. President thinks it would be really cool to dress up in space suit and shout "Mission Accomplished!"
4. No space contracts for Frenchies!
3. Ashcroft suggests Mars is great place to hold enemy combatants.
2. Large desert spaces with no water or intelligent life remind Bush of his Crawford ranch.
1. New Martian territories guaranteed to be Red states.

I saved the best for last.

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Transit toasters
: NJ.com's transit blog mentions the space heaters PATH offers in its open-air train stations. I stand under one and I'm tall enough that I sometimes fear I'm going to smell smoke and discover it's my head on fire. Damn, it feels good on days like these.

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Just don't let it happen again
: NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin issues an impressive apology for dismissing blogs:

Finally, an apology: In an e-mail to a listener, I dismissed those people who criticize NPR based on information they get from blogs. That e-mail to Professor Ann Little (to whom I apologized) was posted on one of those blogs, www.mediawhoresonline.com. The response from people who read this and other blogs was pretty impressive.
While the tone from some who wrote was rough, I get the point.
Blogs are, as I now appreciate, as legitimate a method of communicating information and opinion as traditional media. I was wrong to suggest that much of political blogging is "astroturfing" ... Indeed, a recent Pew poll points out that an increasing number of Americans are getting their information from non-traditional sources. That fact has now been made abundantly clear to me.
You were right. I was wrong.
In future, I will pay closer attention to those who feel inclined to contact me, regardless of where they get their information. Political life in the United States is changing and so, it seems, should be how and where political journalism chooses its information.

Here are the letters that changed his mind.
[via Terry Heaton]

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History
: At the end of yesterday's The Week Opinion Awards, I was going to say goodbye to Josh Marshall but I heard him just start to explain to three people what a blog is and I said, whoa, that's going to take an hour, I'll just leave. Well, here's what was really happening: He was trying to explain blogging to renowned historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

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Old law in new Iraq
: Riverbend and Zeyad are both having proper fits over an Iraqi Governing Council decision to include Sharia law in family matters.

: Meanwhile, Zeyad is working in frightening circumstances:

More bad news. A fellow dentist who will be working with me in Basrah dropped by today and informed me that another dentist who used to work at the same clinic we were assigned to was murdered this week in Basrah. He was a Christian. My friend who will be assigned with me is also Christian.
My parents are going crazy, they want me to give up the residency and stay in Baghdad. Unfortunately it isn't that easy. If I were to leave that assignment I would be fired and I would not be allowed ever to work as a licensed dentist in Iraq. I'm really confused. what to do? What to do?

I wish we could get him a journalism scholarship in the U.S.

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On the other hand...
: In an otherwise fine feature on Daily Kos, the SF Chron has to go and ask somebody for perspective and finds somebody who has nothing to say but takes a paragraph to say it:

Not everyone is ready to write off the mass media and old-style politics.
Paul Grabowicz, who teaches new-media courses at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, has some doubts about the political importance of blogs.
"They may play out like a lot things that exploded on the Internet and were going to change everything," said Grabowicz. "On the other hand, the sophisticated answer is that they're an interesting addition to the public discourse and a welcome check on journalism."

Sweetheart, get me rewrite.

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Aren't we past this by now?
: The New York Times calls it a "so-called blog." The San Francisco Chronicle insists on putting quotes around "blog." It's a copy-editor's put-down, trying to act as if we don't exist.

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Alms for Salon
: Why would anyone more "invest" in Salon? Why don't they just call it a charity and let the poor suckers get a tax deduction?

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Outeractive
: Mark Glaser at OJR takes on AOL's bragging that they have interactive news. I pooh-poohed this last month.

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Clark testified for the war
: Drudge dredges up Wesley Clark's testimony before Congress in favor of the war in Iraq:

Less than 18 months ago, Wesley Clark offered his testimony before the Committee On Armed Services at the U.S. House Of Representatives.
"There's no requirement to have any doctrine here. I mean this is simply a longstanding right of the United States and other nations to take the actions they deem necessary in their self defense," Clark told Congress on September 26, 2002.
"Every president has deployed forces as necessary to take action. He's done so without multilateral support if necessary. He's done so in advance of conflict if necessary. In my experience, I was the commander of the European forces in NATO. When we took action in Kosovo, we did not have United Nations approval to do this and we did so in a way that was designed to preempt Serb ethnic cleansing and regional destabilization there. There were some people who didn' t agree with that decision. The United Nations was not able to agree to support it with a resolution."
Clark continued: "There's no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat... Yes, he has chemical and biological weapons. He's had those for a long time. But the United States right now is on a very much different defensive posture than we were before September 11th of 2001... He is, as far as we know, actively pursuing nuclear capabilities, though he doesn't have nuclear warheads yet. If he were to acquire nuclear weapons, I think our friends in the region would face greatly increased risks as would we."
More Clark: "And, I want to underscore that I think the United States should not categorize this action as preemptive. Preemptive and that doctrine has nothing whatsoever to do with this problem. As Richard Perle so eloquently pointed out, this is a problem that's longstanding. It's been a decade in the making. It needs to be dealt with and the clock is ticking on this."

I don't disagree with his stance then. Too bad he does.

: Update: Josh Marshall smells something fishy.

LINK | Comments (30)

Undemocratic CBS
: Incredibly -- unbelievably, disturbingly, appallingly -- CBS has barred MoveOn from airing its commercial on the SuperBowl. AdAge reports:

Viacom's CBS today rejected a request from liberal group MoveOn to air a 30-second anti-President Bush ad during the Super Bowl, saying the spot violated the network's policy against running issue advocacy advertising.
A CBS spokesman said the decision against broadcasting the spot had nothing to do with either the Super Bowl or the ad's specific issue but was because the network has had a long-term policy not to air issue ads anywhere on the network.

That's a pile of Black Rock bile.
What, they can accept an ad about, oh, literacy and that's not an issue?
They accept ads against smoking and that's not an issue?
But an ad about the presidential election and the deficit is somehow corrupting?
Listen, I'm no fan of the MoveOn ads, as I've said. And I'm no fan of interference with the airwaves and media. But I have to say that this offends my senses of democracy, free speech, responsible media behavior, and just good business. It's dumb on CBS' part: insulting to the audience and irresponsible to democracy. It is, on the other hand, great news for MoveOn: They'll get tons of publicity and I would be surprised if, oh, Fox calls and volunteers to run the ad.

: Sheila Lennon has lots more. She points out:

CBS will however run anti-smoking ads during the game and, for the third year, an entry from The White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy (remember the "drug use aids terrorists" ads?).

Right. The issue rubicon has been crossed already.

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An editor blogs
: Doug Clifton, editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, has started a weblog at Cleveland.com.
I'm not sure I know of another editor of a major daily paper who's attempting this. Do you?
Clifton says he will use the weblog as another way to communicate with readers:

As a lifelong consumer of the written word displayed on paper, the prospect of talking to readers by way of a "blog" is a little unnerving.
I've decided to tip toe into these electronic waters because I recognize that to ignore change is to be consumed by it.

In his first post, he dives right in, discussing the paper's policy in a complicated controversy regarding the publishing of the names of holders of new concealed-weapon permits (names that can be revealed to media but not to individuals). He explains:

We also believe that a democracy works best when the public has the capacity to inform itself if it so chooses and, certainly, the ability to learn whether someone in your neighborhood carries a concealed weapon should be among the things a citizen has a right to.
That would be our position on all kinds of license information, from marriage to fishing and all stops in between. That said, we also believe that if a record is open to one class of citizen - in this case the media - it should be open to all citizens.
To favor one group over another is unfair and probably unconstitutional. Besides, because "media" is so broadly defined the Ohio law would give access to permit records to anyone who worked for a publication of any description.
Under the Ohio concealed carry law the most disreputable journalist in the country working for the most disreputable publication would have access to the records but the parish priest, the school teacher, even the governor, would be denied.
So we decided that we had an obligation to share the information the legislature had given us the right to see....
If the records were open to public scrutiny there would be no need for us to publish them. But as long as the legislature creates this dual citizenship I think we have an obligation to share the information.

This sort of transparency, explaining what is behind the decisions made inside a major media institution, is a good thing and this is a good format for it.
Full disclosure: Cleveland.com is one of the services at my day job (so don't expect me to get into any Second Amendment fisticuffs in the comments).

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Penn, Part II
: The Chronicle put up the second and last part of Sean Penn's return-to-Baghdad travelog today.
I meant to point to the paper's own full-of-crap intro yesterday:

Sean Penn did not go to Iraq a year ago as an actor, but as a father, a husband and an American.

No, Sean Penn does everything he does as an actor. That's why he went. That's why media paid attention. That's what it's all about. Let's not be naive about celebrity after all this time.
Penn lets his video camera get him in trouble as he tapes a place that had just been attacked and CIAesque mercenaries working with the Iraqis detain him and review his tape. This allows Penn to launch into a history of Dyncorp that I'm surprised doesn't wend its way to the Trilateral Commission, though it gets to the next-best thing, Halliburton.
He runs into his Baathist minder from his last visit to Baghdad, who's now working for journalists. He learns that you can't tell whom to trust.
Welcome to a world without a script.
He goes to a hospital that hasn't been fixed up yet. Read the Iraqi bloggers and you will hear about health facilities that have been fixed up. No news there; it takes time to build a nation.
He spends time with a lot of reporters and give them this:

I am deeply impressed with the risk-taking and commitment of all of the journalists I've met in Baghdad.

He says goodbye to an Iraqi he has met and has this nice epiphany:

He writes down a Hotmail e-mail address. Hotmail.com? This world's getting too small for war.

As he's about to leave, he sees more mercenary protectors outside a hotel and there's his neat exchange:

And there they are, another unit of PMC men polishing their rifles, suiting up in bulletproof vests and warming up the engines of armored vehicles. And out of the hotel comes their client. He too has a chain around his neck with an identification card, sees me and says, "Hey, aren't you ...?"
"Yeah," I say. "Your ID card says contractor. What do you build?"
And with a smile, he says, "Elections."
"How do you do that?"
He grins a little more and says, "Whatever it takes."

We're almost out of Iraq and Penn has been remarkably restrained. So he can't resist getting in one ideological jab:

We pull over and I get out of the car to urinate roadside while Yasir fills up. None of the black-market gas kids or Iraqis passing in vehicles pays me any attention. The one honk I get from a passing vehicle is from an armored car of PMC men transporting clients into the country. The honk seems to indicate their misguided sense of kinship to me. Perhaps they are familiar with the practice of pissing on this tragic place.

Yeah, yeah. Feeling relieved in many ways, he leaves Iraq:

I get the Air France flight from Amman to Paris and am abruptly reminded of my own notoriety as the pilot invites me to experience takeoff from the cockpit. If I'm on my way home to take more crap from the radical right talking heads on TV, I am damn well gonna strap into a jump seat directly behind a French pilot. And when I do, there sitting to my right in the jump seat behind the co-pilot is CNN's Christiane Amanpour. Every French story has to have a woman. And I've always found this woman impressive. One would think she'd had enough adventures for any six lifetimes, yet she still seems innocently excited about this cockpit takeoff. To look at her face, you think she's just strapped herself into a roller coaster at Disneyland. She is all giggles. I pretend to share her enthusiasm by accessing the glee I feel just being out of Iraq. For her it is just plain fun, for me it is an escape....
Wheels down. Terra firma, U.S.A., baby. Yes, I love my country.

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If this blog were televised
: Low Culture asks, if your blog were a TV channel, which channel would it be?

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Protecting the masses
: While Michael Powell is trying to wash our media mouths out with soap -- he wants to multiply by 10 the fines charged for dirty words on the air -- Britain has its own nanny trying to protect their tender sensibilities.
Clare Short, disloyal opposition to Tony Blair, wants to ban breasts:

Ms Short criticised the Sun at a Westminster lunch yesterday, where she said she wanted to "take the pornography out of our press".
"I'd love to ban it. It degrades women and our country," she said.
"A survey of Sun readers' wives and daughters showed they believed it degraded them. We need to push back the tide of nakedness. You can't take it out of the whole of society but I think you can take it out of the mainstream," she added.

And The Sun hit back. The paper sent a bevvy of Page 3 girls to Short's house so they could put a picture of them at her door with the caption, "Door knockers" (no distance is too far to go for a punchline), and so they could quote one of them saying:

“Page 3 is fun and we are just doing a job. It’s pathetic of her to jump up and down about what is essentially just a pair of boobs — after all, half the population have them.
“Even Clare has boobs, but obviously she’s not proud of them like we are of ours. Besides, she doesn’t exactly have Page 3 looks, does she?”

They put Clare's picture on other bodies and put a coupon in the paper to send to Clare.
I'm rooting for The Sun. We don't need government nannies. And we certainly don't need government deciding what can be printed and said.
So let me add this:
F the FCC.

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How-to
: Hoder posts an open letter to the Iran reformers planning a sit-in at the Iranian parliament advising that they start a weblog and post updates to keep the world informed.
This is no different from a young technorat advising Howard Dean on how to win the presidency using citizens' media.

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Global goofing
: The irony is as thick as the snow on my deck right now:

Mother Nature is threatening to give Al Gore the cold shoulder today when he gives a speech on "global warming" at the Beacon Theater.
Accuweather is predicting the temperature will reach a high of a bone-rattling 14 degrees this morning - accompanied by snow and high winds - while Gore blasts the Bush administration's policy on global warming.
"We don't control the environment," said Lisa Sabori, a public-relations official for MoveOn.org, the group sponsoring the event.
"Maybe [the speech] won't apply in New York right now, but Vice President Gore will be highlighting the effects of global warming in different parts of the world," Sabori added.

MoveOn will webcast the event here. Here's hoping somebody leaves the door open.

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Democracy's soft underbelly
: Terry Teachout goes to jury duty and faces The People:

I took a closer look at my fellow citizens as they lined up at the desk. One woman caught my eye—she had the long neck and slender frame of a dancer—but the rest were mostly nondescript, except for the usual sprinkling of freaks, morons, malcontents, and grotesques likely to be found in any random sample of New Yorkers. One of the latter stumbled back to his chair, opened the bottom button of his shirt, exposing his pale belly, and started snoring at once. I’ve never doubted that democracy was a good thing, but like so many good things, it often looks better from a distance.

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Dogging the doggers
: Columbia's J-school and the Columbia Journalism Review have started CampaignDesk.org to watch over the best and worst of campaign coverage. They'll have a full-time professional staff led by Steve Lovelady (ex-WSJ, Philly Inqy, Time Inc.) and Bryan Keefer (of Spinsanity). Well, that's a good mix. The welcome letter from J-school Dean Nicholas Lemann promises:

A few assurances are in order: The Desk will be politically nonpartisan. While it will call attention to journalistic sins, both of omission and commission, it will by no means be exclusively a finger-wagging operation. It will have a lively, engaged tone, not a grim, censorious one. One of the Desk's important functions will be to praise work of high quality, and one of its most useful aspects will be its ability to bring distinguished work in the local press to national attention, instantly and (through links) in full.
The Desk aims to decrease, not enhance, the self-referential and self-enclosed tendencies of the campaign press. It is quite difficult for reporters traveling with a presidential campaign to get information independently; the Desk intends to make this easier, by making available links to briefing materials, accurate information, and other documents from the outside world that will help reporters evaluate what the candidates are saying.

If it's just pros talking to pros about pros and prose, that will get a bit insular and boring fast.
I suggest that they also pay attention to what others, including weblogs, are saying about coverage. And if they're smart, they'll find that bloggers will do a lot of their work for them, pointing to the best and usually worst of coverage. If CampaignDesk brings all that together, that's also a good service to the rest of us; it could beat the adopt-a-journalist truth-squad grudge approach.
Two other bits of advice:
Enlist students (!) to use Command-Post.org as a model of how an open group can do a much more thorough job than a limited group of pros.
And open up comments! Hear what the people have to say! [via Lost Remote]

: I'm snowed-in and the NY Times is buried, so I just saw its story on Campaign Desk. And it got my dander up. Lovelady contrasts what he's doing to mere blogs:

Most blogs are 99.9 percent opinion," said Steve Lovelady, the site's managing editor and a former managing editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer. "This is a Web site run by and staffed by responsible journalists whose job is to monitor, critique and praise the campaign press, on a daily basis."

So we're irresponsible journalists? Jeesh. I sure hope that quote was taken out of context because on its face, it exhibits the worst of the cloistered attitude of the press priesthood. And I guess my suggestions to open up to blogs and commenters was just journalistic heresey.
Well, Lovelady, if you don't open up and if you try to do this with your staff of "professionals," I will bet you right now that weblogs as a collective will do a much better job of meeting your mission than you will.
We're watching you watching the press.

: Ed Cone: "I vote clueless old media snobbery."

: Dave Winer advises bloggers: Instead of tracking journalists, compete with them.

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