« August 09, 2004 | Main
| August 11, 2004 »

August 10, 2004

World Trade Center health registry

: More than 50,000 people have now signed up for the World Trade Center health registry. I've signed up. If you were there, so should you. eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

LINK | Comments (7)

Reuters' agenda

: John Kerry and answered George Bush's question on the war, saying that he would still have authorized the war in Iraq, even knowing there were no WMDs there. Of course, he says he would have used that authorization differently if he had been president. eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

I say that was the stand-up thing to do. Kerry knows it won't be popular with his corps -- it could even send some running to Nader -- but he said what he would do and didn't back away. I respect him for that.eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

Reuters today does the followup with Bush still trying to tweak Kerry -- fruitlessly, in my view -- and here's the headline: eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

"Bush Goes After Kerry on Iraq War Admission"eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

Admission is an awfully loaded word -- as in, Kerry admits he would support the war Reuters opposes.
eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

LINK | Comments (24)

Help bring free speech to Iran: Click here

: Iranian blog pioneer Hossein Derakhshan's blog is being blocked by Iran's mullahs. His only way around this -- until technology geniuses invent incredibly clever ways to foil censors -- is to buy new domains. So click here and go help him buy some. eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

LINK | Comments (2)

Do not bend

: Stamps.com got final approval to let you use your own photos to create stamps. eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

LINK | Comments (3)

Not a nation divided, just a nation deafened

: I've been saying for sometime that we are not a nation divided -- that's just how media and politicians want to portray us because it fits their agendas. The truth is that we all have lives; they don't. So they spend their time shouting at us, deafening us. But they don't represent us.eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

I'm not alone in this view. In this week's Time, Joe Klein says it's "only the blabocrats":

We are a divided nation, it is said. There is a cultural chasm between the red states and the blue, between the religious and the secular, between Michael Moore's America and Rush Limbaugh's. The "culture war" has become a pillar of the conventional wisdom. But is it real? Is it possible that the great partisan divide is a media-induced mirage, little more than an exaggerated case of squeaky-wheelism? There is plenty of evidence that the very real disputes pushed by political activists and chair-throwing media yakkers—call this the Anger-Industrial Complex—are being carelessly extrapolated to include a far less vehement populace. eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

Take the Moore/Limbaugh divide. A new Annenberg poll shows that the two infotainers are little more than postmodern tribal leaders: an estimated 8% of Americans saw Fahrenheit 9/11 in July, and an estimated 7% listened to Limbaugh. Their tribes are hilariously antithetical on a range of issues—83% of Rushites support the way Bush is handling Iraq, 87% of Mooreists are opposed; 85% of Rushites support Bush's handling of the economy, and 82% of Mooreists don't. eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

And yet, these extremist clumps throw disproportionate weight in the public square....eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

Maybe we're just busy living our lives. A new book by the Stanford political scientist Morris Fiorina, Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America, argues that a closely divided nation isn't necessarily a deeply divided nation.

Amen. eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

It's deceptive and destructive to insist that we are at each others' throats because it skews the public debate toward venomous trivia and away from matters that matter. And it sets a bad example for public discourse: When I talk about politics and issues with family and friends, we disagree, but we don't bulge veins and shout the way they do on TV. But on TV and too often on the Internet, the shouting is drowning out the reason. This fosters hatred. eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

Look at the comments under the Tit for Tat post below: I -- evenhandedly, if I do say so myself -- said I didn't care about the efforts to find military gotchas about either Bush or Kerry -- because it doesn't affect (a) the future or (b) our lives. What ensues in the comments is a fair volume of venom spitting. So listen to yourselves, folks: You sound like a bad cable "talk" show. You're not arguing about matters that matter: I'd prefer to you see you go after each other -- or better yet, go after solutions -- on health care in an effort to find common ground for improvement. Or homeland security. Or stem-cell research. Or education. Or tax reform. Not this. All this blab produces nothing but bile. It's not productive. It's not helpful. It just stinks. eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

Says Klein:

Scream journalism — Crossfire, Hannity and Colmes, the various "gangs" and "groups" of Washington blabocrats assaulting our senses — was always nauseating, but it was more understandable in a world where the most important issue was the definition of the word is. It was the only way to scare up an audience in those days. But this is a different world now. And we are being forced to examine the most serious, complicated sorts of issues—war and solvency—through an anachronistic, irresponsible political-media lens created for more trivial times.

Right. We have real issues in this election, real choices, real questions. But we're wasting time talking about this crap. Worse, we're falling into the media-political complex trap: We are believing our own PR that we really do hate each other. We don't. You know damned well that if you met any of the people you're shouting at, you'd end up having a civil disagreement over beers. eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

This is not a call for us all to get along. The last thing I want to see is a group blog hug. Perish the thought!eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

No, instead I'm merely arguing -- in line with Klein -- that most of us on most issues most of the time are not filled with division and hatred; that's just TV. Most of us are getting on with our lives. Most of us care about trying to do what's right. eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

And so it is time to call media and politicians on their libelous lie about us, the people. We're not a nation divided. They are the divisive ones. I intend to keep calling them on it. eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

The real division in the end is not red from blue or right from left. The real division will media from audience, politicians from constituents, the powerful from the people. That is the "us" vs. "them" at work here. eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

: UPDATE: And also I'm not alone in the argument that we've had enough of presidential hatred.eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

See Namoi Klein in The Nation -- The Nation! -- taking lefties to task for their politics of snark:

It's not that the President is dumb, which I already knew; it's that he makes us dumb.... You know the line: The White House has been hijacked by a shady gang of zealots who are either insane or stupid or both. Vote Kerry and return the country to sanity. eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

But the zealots in Bush's White House are neither insane nor stupid nor particularly shady. Rather, they openly serve the interests of the corporations that put them in office with bloody-minded efficiency. Their boldness stems not from the fact that they are a new breed of zealot but that the old breed finds itself in a newly unconstrained political climate. eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

We know this, yet there is something about George W. Bush's combination of ignorance, piety and swagger that triggers a condition in progressives I've come to think of as Bush Blindness. When it strikes, it causes us to lose sight of everything we know about politics, economics and history and to focus exclusively on the admittedly odd personalities of the people in the White House. Other side effects include delighting in psychologists' diagnoses of Bush's warped relationship with his father and brisk sales of Bush "dum gum"--$1.25.

It is as if we have turned over the body politic to a People magazine mindset -- the dark side of People magazine: It's all about personality. It's predicated on the belief that a single famous person actually matters. We might as well pick our winner on American Idol, the way this is going. eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

But wait: The people, I have faith, are ignoring these fringe fits of feistiness. They're sitting back and asking what is best for the nation and themselves. And they will give their answer in November. All the rest is merely a tabloid nightmare. [via Daniel Radosh]eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

: See also Radosh's sum-up of various reviews and views of Nicholson Baker's book about a would-be Bush assassin. My take -- not on the book, but on a review of it -- here. eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

LINK | Comments (58)

Tit for tat

: I didn't care about the hooha hooey over Bush's military work records just as I don't care about the hooha hooey over Kerry and the swift boat vets. It's all about trying to find a gotcha. It's sniping. It's not about running the country and improving the world. Enough already. eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

LINK | Comments (45)

Digital division

: At last week's journalism education confab, Jay Rosen, Hossein Derakhshan, and I were all taken aback by this kneejerk response to blogging: eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

Asked the kneejerks: What about the people who can't or won't blog because they (a) don't have computers or (b) don't have broadband Internet access or (c) don't spell well?eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

Hossein shook his head and said to a few within earshot that folks in Iran and Iraq have those problems but still manage to blog.eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

Jay shook his head and said for all to hear, to paraphrase: Yeah, so, what do you want us to do about it?eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

As they say on Family Feud: Good answer. Good answer.eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

My response: Well, there's one helluva lot more access to blogging than there is to printing presses and broadcast towers!eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

Blogging does not cure society's ills. It does not make have nots haves. Blogging is not meant to be done by all. eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

The point of blogging is simply that those with the will now have the way. Those who want to publish something to the world can. They can find a PC and Internet access and if they can't, well, I'm sorry, but it's not as if there is a universal right of blogging.eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

And it's not as if blogging should be deemed worthless -- the limousine of free speech -- just because not every person on earth can or does partake in it. eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

The odd thing is that I've attended many a blog conference where just this point was raised and the neckjerk reaction of the crowd is to start nodding heads in unison: Oh, yes, we all should be concerned about those who cannot blog. Well, hell, if you're so concerned, then invited the great unblogged into your home to share your PC and your cable modem!eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

It's a silly PC argument that is ultimately empty and silly. eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

: UPDATE: In the comments, see lots of good notes from Kathy Shaidle and this from Jay Rosen:

This point--blogging sounds great but what about the digital divide?-- was raised at all three panels I was on in Toronto. When I finally lost patience with it, I first asked the woman: so what's your solution? She looked shocked and said, "well, I don't know." Neither do we, I said. "We're doing about it what you're doing about it."eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

She looked confused, and came up to me after to explain that she didn't mean to suggest that she had any answers. (No kidding!) But she didn't really have a question, either, and that fact had eluded her. All she had was a PC reflex. It's kind of sad.

eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

LINK | Comments (13)

Proud blog papa

: My son has been blogging up a storm here. He just put up a PHP tutorial he wrote (and he's a 7th grader) for a local tech camp. He also has earned almost $100 in Google AdSense in the last six weeks. Here ends the proud father's bragging. eclipse paint serialz 3.1.5

LINK | Comments (2)