So I am up late at night and being a good patriotic citizen of these here United States, I am of course trying to learn everything I can about our enemies: The Terrorists. So I am scouring the Afghanistan-Pakistan border using Google Earth (in case the CIA missed UBL) and GAIMing with my fellow civilian terrorist hunters (heroes, for short), when what should I come across on Google News (yes, Google is the best line of defense we heroes have against the terrorists) but this CNN article:
American says he trained terrorists, cheered videos of 9/11
I, a good Patriotic citizen, naturally start reading so that I may add to my already extensive list of targets for profiling. Let's see here: Mr. Terrorist is a man, of Pakistani descent, educated in Britain...so far we fit the stereotypes, er, I mean profile. But wait, here is a little interesting tidbit:
The slightly built Yankees fan from Queens described how he mingled with radicals from the fall of 2001, when he quit a job as a computer programmer and left New York for Lahore -- saying he was radicalized by the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.
As an unselfish hero who dedicates his life to searching for terrorists, I hereby call upon the U.S. government to take extra security measures against Yankee fans. For years I have been saying they are pure evil, and now we have incontrovertible proof! I will not stop until every Yankee fan is strip searched at airports, stopped randomly at traffic lights, and made to be a minor bad-guy on "24" who actually works for the Russians.
A few weeks back, in the midsts of the Imus mess, I blogged about the hilarity of CNN's context paragraphs. Well folks, the hits just keep on coming.
Today, CNN is running a story about the increasing use of iPods to cheat on school exams. I figure it's a slow news day, so I'll check it out. But please, CNN, educate us on exactly how one uses an iPod to cheat:
Some students use iPod-compatible voice recorders to record test answers in advance and them play them back, 16-year-old Mountain View junior Damir Bazdar said.
Others download crib notes onto the music players and hide them in the "lyrics" text files. Even an audio clip of the old "Schoolhouse Rock" take on how a bill makes it through Congress can come in handy during some American government exams.
Oh yes, the kids these days are apparently using Schoolhouse Rock to cheat on exams. And worse yet, the probably downloaded Schoolhouse Rock illegally!
Now then, far be it from me to point out the greater problem with our school system: that our government classes are no more sophisticated than a PBS cartoon. Since today's cartoons are apparently not smart enough to be used as cheating devices, I'd like to introduce the young and dishonest to a cartoon which made a huge impact in my life when I was their age: Animaniacs. Consider all their great contributions, which you can add to your iPod to help you on the next exam.
On geography exams, kids can listen to either Wako Warner's "50 States and their Capitals", or Yako Warner's "Nations of the World"
In biology class, load up your iPod with Brain feat. Pinky singing "The Parts of the Brain"
In history class, they can load up on the Animaniacs's "US Presidents" song.
I know this doesn't quite fall under "news", but I do say "unless something else is on my mind".
So, tonight was the first of a yet to be determined number of Democratic debates leading up to the primaries. Why they are doing a debate so early is a good question, but they are so let's just accept it and have ome fun. After some grave technical difficulties stemming from MSNBC's hatred of Macs, I finally got to catch the late night showing on MSNBC's website. And here is my take.
The Winners:
1) Sen. Hillary Clinton I'm not a big fan of Hildog. I think she would make a poor candidate and a worse President. But at the end of the day, she was the only candidate on that stage who sounded Presidential. She was articulate, clear, and stood out from the crowd. Perhaps her best moment though, was in discussing Virginia Tech and Columbine. By showing a bit of emotion when discussing those shootings, she did something no one else managed to do: look human.
2) MSNBC's Brian Williams This man had the unenviable job of moderating a debate between nine people, only three of whom anyone cares about. And you know what? He actually did a pretty good job. Clinton, Edwards, and Obama (in that order) got the most time to speak, but the minor candidates were not ignored.
And his questions weren't half-bad either. A little tougher than your average softball debate questions, but not so tough as to create animosity. In fact, the only reason he doesn't beat out Clinton Deuce is his poor time management skills. Did you really expect anyone to just give a name to the "Who is you ideal living Supreme Court Justice" question, Brian?
3) Fmr. Sen. Mike Gravel: This is sort of a win by default situation. I'm going to assume that most of my readers are under 60 years old, and therefore most of you have never heard of this man before. Now you have.
But Gravel took it one step further than simply having a pulse and standing on the stage for 90 minutes looking pretty. The man was a ranting machine. He combined the funnest parts of Al Sharpton, Dennie Kucinich, and Ralph Nader and rolled them all up into a single ball of old-man moaning:
Cussing, ranting at opponents, and accusing the country you are trying to lead of being a nuclear proliferator? Oh man do I love this guy! But wait, it actually gets better. Get ready for one of the greatest moments in the history of Presidential politics:
Joe Biden. Consider yourself served.
Treading Water:
4) Fmr. Sen. John Edwards: A $400 haircut and he still can't stand out in a crowd. Edwards was fine, stuck to his talking points, and was relatively coherant. But he didn't really do anything to distinguish himself.
5) Sen. Chris Dodd: When you are on the bottom of the pile, do you really have anywhere to go? He is a joke. He entered the debate a joke. He left the debate a joke.
The Losers: 6) Sen. Joe Biden: OK. So he did give the best answer of the entire debate. And I know that he is a joke too, and like Dodd does not have much room to fall. But oh lord did he sound awful! I mean, take this exchange from the transcripts of the debate:
[MODERATOR:] Senator Biden, the kind of flip side of the question I just asked Senator Clinton: What could the federal government have done to save those kids at Virginia Tech?
BIDEN: Shotgun -- not pistol.
I watched that exchange three times and I still have no idea why Biden said that. Not the best orator.
Also, could it be any clearer that this man is trying to run for the position of Obama's Veep?
7) Rep. Dennis Kucinich: Now I have a soft spot for Dennis. I mean, look at this picture. He actually manages to make Cindy Sheehan look tall!
For Christ's sake, the man makes Cindy Sheehan look tall! And, to be fair, he did precisely what darkhorse candidates are supposed to do. He picked a fight with Clinton and tag teamed on Obama.
But he got shown up. Mike Gravel totally stole your thunder.
And this is how you know there are too many candidates running. There is actually a competition between two people to see who will be that candidate who can say whatever is on his mind because he has no chance at winning.
8) Sen. Barak Obama: Barack Obama. I wanna be, your baby's momma. But boy, you had better get ready for the big show, and fast!
Full disclosure: Barak is my man. I am standing firm behind him. But he sounded just awful last night. Here is his real problem: the man is a great speaker. But when you have 60 seconds you simply do not have time to pick your words carefully. How many "ums" and "ers" do we need before you can just spit it out.
Obama has not mastered the soundbite yet and he is not quick with the responses. While these are great characteristics for a President, it makes for a piss poor candidate. Standing next to Clinton last night, he looked immature and unready. And his haircut looked bad too.
9) Gov. Bill Richardson: Not only did he sound awful, but he looks like he is going to eat your children. Check it out, if you dare.
Special Thanks to C, for bringing this story to my attention.
So in my last post, I complained that there was not enough political news happening, forcing me to complain about the sci-tech section of the virtual paper:
Come on politics. Get me some funny/interesting news so I can stop with these sciency human interest fluff.
I should be careful what I wish for. Today, the NYTimes is reporting on the preparations for the first parliamentary elections of Bhutan. Oh wait, that was not nearly dramatic enough to describe a country in the Orient. Hey New NYTimes, can y'all give me a hand?
they undertook a sort of fire drill for democracy and set down an important marker on their carefully ordered journey toward modernity.
That is much better. Has that certain Asian Spice to it. And as a bonus, you get inserted into the telos of modernity. But wait, what exactly does modernity consist of?
Having once sealed itself off from the world, the lair of the Druk has cautiously and deliberately begun opening up. Television, including foreign cable stations, was introduced only in 1999 (and more recently featured an episode of “Desperate Housewives” on election day). The Internet came soon after.
There are no McDonald’s golden arches poking out from the blue pine forests yet, though the influence of global consumer culture can be glimpsed in the Pepe jeans on young men and a convenience store here that calls itself 8-Eleven.
The government is considering joining the World Trade Organization. Foreign tourists are allowed to come in somewhat larger numbers than before, though still chaperoned from one high-priced resort to another.
So we have three paragraphs on capitalist consumption now? Wasn't this just an article about elections and democracy? How did democracy become Desperate Housewives, the Internet, and the WTO. Of course, they have not officially reached modernity yet, seeing as how they do not yet have any McDonald's in their country yet. But they'll get there:
But all that is in its infancy. For the moment at least, Bhutan does not resemble a democracy, particularly compared with other countries in the region.
Aww... Cute wittle Bhutan. You're such a good little country. Yes you are! Yes you are! Who's a good country? Who's a good country?
Oh, and for a real bonus keep on reading 'till the last two paragraphs on the article.
<-- Buying a box of Cap'n crunch will greatly enhance the visual aspects of this blog post.
But in the end, it doesn't even matter.
I have been trying all day to ignore this news item. I accidentally read it on the BBC this morning, and have been trying my hardest to forget it ever since. And yet, CNN insists on mocking me, by displaying this headline prominently on their RSS feed:
So I usually am not too interested in the sci-tech section of the newspaper (yeah, I know I read the news online but it doesn't have the same impact when you say "the sci-tech section of news outlets' websites). I mean, I get wooed as much as anyone, but unlike the real news sections I don't care enough to learn more than is reported in the stories. So long as none of my technology fails and I can get a nifty new gadget every couple of years, I live and let live.
British scientists are planning to see whether a Star Trek-style deflector shield could be built to protect astronauts from radiation.
No, I did not just make that up. They explain the importance of engaging the deflector shields thusly:
There are a variety of risks facing future space explorers, not least of which is the cancer-causing radiation encountered when missions venture beyond the protective magnetic envelope, or magnetosphere, which shields the Earth against these energetic particles. Shockingly, they did not raise the possibility that radiation could give you super-powers.
So there is a lot that is very disturbing about the recent shootings on the Virginia Tech campus. News Blues's thoughts and prayers go to the victims. However, in the rush to cover the story as it breaks, the news media has been inserting all sorts of bizzare facts. Take CNN:
Court records obtained by the AP show Cho got a speeding ticket from Virginia Tech police on April 7. He was cited for going 44 mph in a 25 mph zone, the AP reported, with a court date set for May 23. Oh! So now we should watch out for every man with a speeding ticket?! Or maybe that was his motive? I guess I can now see that his true character was that of the criminal. CNN also inserted this tidbit:
Students in one of Cho's classes called him "the question mark kid," classmate Julie Poole told the AP, because Cho used just a question mark for his name on a class sign-in sheet. Now that is pretty deep when you think about it. But the disturbing part come from AOL, where a former classmate who is now employed at AOL shared unpublished manuscripts that the gunman had written. I know this is hardly the main issue, but isn't there some sort of violation for reproducing that without consent?
Not to be outdone, the NYTimes finished its main article on teh tragedy with these two bizzare context paragraphs:
Until Monday, the deadliest campus shooting in United States history was in 1966 at the University of Texas, where Charles Whitman climbed to the 28th-floor observation deck of a clock tower and opened fire, killing 16 people before he was shot and killed by the police. In the Columbine High attack in 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before killing themselves.
The single deadliest shooting in the United States came in October 1991, when George Jo Hennard crashed his pickup truck through the window of a Luby’s cafeteria in Killeen, Tex., then shot 22 people dead and wounded at least 20 others. He shot himself in the head. Look. I know the news cycle can be viscious, and there is a competition between various sources to see who can break what first, but shouldn't there be some relevance? I mean, do we really need to know that this guy was (barely) speeding?
<--This man may even have a Jewish friend. If so, we now know who pays for lunch when they go out.
Former Minnesota Governor and current Republican Presidential hopeful Tommy Thompson demonstrated yet again why he has absolutely no shot of winning. Ha'aretz reports:
Speaking to an audience at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington D.C., Thompson said that, "I'm in the private sector and for the first time in my life I'm earning money. You know that's sort of part of the Jewish tradition and I do not find anything wrong with that."
So according to Tommy Thompson Jews are money-grubbers. Want to clarify, Mr. Thompson?
"I just want to clarify something because I didn't [by] any means want to infer or imply anything about Jews and finances and things," he said.
"What I was referring to, ladies and gentlemen, is the accomplishments of the Jewish religion. You've been outstanding business people and I compliment you for that."
Oh! Thanks for clarifying. You didn't want to imply that Jews control the market, just that Judaism makes for great businessmen. All better!
The Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting that the feud between Harvard's Alan Dershowitz and DePaul's Norman Finklestein -- which is apparently of such proportions that it has its own (poorly written) wiki page -- took a new and ugly turn. Seems Alan Dershowitz saw fit to write a legnthy letter to anyone who would listen at DePaul, lobbying against Finklestein being granted tenure. Needless to say, DePaul faculty did not react kindly: According to the minutes of the session, the council voted unanimously to authorize a letter to DePaul's president, Dennis H. Holtschneider, and the university's provost, Helmut P. Epp, along with the president of Harvard University and the dean of Harvard Law school. The letter was to express "the council's dismay at Professor Dershowitz's interference in Finkelstein's tenure and promotion case" and also to explain "that the sanctity of the tenure and promotion process is violated by Professor Dershowitz's emails."
The minutes add: "A discussion followed in which members expressed their views that this was a very disturbing intrusion which attacked the sovereignty of an academic institution to govern its own affairs."
Asked whether it was unusual for a scholar to weigh in on tenure deliberations at another university, Mr. Dershowitz responded, "What's so unusual about a concerned academic's objecting to his receiving tenure?" The faculty voted 9 to 3 to approve him for tenure, and the College Personnel Committee vote 5 to 0 to approve him, but the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences recommended against granting tenure.
I know I should be angry that Dershowitz would try to publicly interfere with another university's tenure system. And I should probably be amused that these two "scholars" -- the one who uses an ellipse to cover 87 pages and has footnotes to nowhere, and the other who made a career following footnotes -- are butting heads again. But really, that is not what I find most irksome here.
Read that last paragraph of the block quote again.
Dershowitz responded, "What's so unusual about a concerned academic's objecting to his receiving tenure?"
Well, for starters it would be somewhat unusual for a verb to be possessed by a sentence's subject, since that is a role usually left to nouns.
I can only hope this was not an email interview. Somehow though I find this fitting.
Special thanks to M for pointing this one out to me.
So I don't usually blog much about Iraq, for two simple reasons: 1) 90% of the news follows the same format: [Single digit] American casualties today, [double-triple digit] Iraqi casualties today, Bush says things are getting better, opposition quote. 2) By now I think most people get that the Iraq was was a terrible mistake which continues to be poorly run.
But this article really knocked my socks off. Turns out that the U.S. is doing more than fighting a guerrilla war: they are also trying to do some rebuilding. (Shocking as that is, it is not the big news here). Here's the problem though: anything that is associate with the US gets blown to smitherines. So what do do?
The Americans liked the idea and agreed to give Dr. Noori more than $300,000 to renovate an abandoned building and purchase new equipment and supplies, the U.S. officers say. With the work well under way last fall, Dr. Noori asked Capt. Cederman to see the renovations for himself, both men say. But the Iraqi stressed the importance of keeping the U.S. role secret. "Can you come in without anyone seeing you come in?" Dr. Noori remembers asking. That didn't seem possible. Another option: Hide in plain sight. "I thought, 'Why don't we just raid the place?"' Capt. Cederman recalls. Apparently the tactic is equally extendable to those working directly for the U.S. army as well:
An Iraqi who worked as a translator for U.S. forces there was getting death threats from insurgents and asked the U.S. for help. The Americans responded by raiding his house, publicly arresting him, and holding him in jail for two days. "A lot of people there now think he's a bad guy," Capt. Cederman says. "It bought him a lot of street cred." Does anyone else think it is a problem that the U.S. has to convince Iraq that its own employees are "bad guys" in order to ensure their survival?
Continuing yesterday's blog entry about the Imus mess, today CNN is reporting that Imus apologized: "I'm not a bad person. I'm a good person, but I said a bad thing. But these young women deserve to know it was not said with malice," he said. He pointed to his involvement with the Imus Ranch, a cattle farm for children with cancer and blood disorders in Ribera, New Mexico. Ten percent of the children who come to the ranch are black, he added. "I'm not a white man who doesn't know any African-Americans," he said.
Maybe this would be a bad time to point out that if only 10% of the Imus ranch children are Black, then they are underrepresented as either percentage of general U.S. population or as percentage of population with cancer.
Of course, I'm sure his Black acquaintances already told him this.
In other news, the amazing context sentence from yesterday is gone from this article. I guess someone will now be clueless as to what "ho" could mean.
A longer post on Bush's leaked immigration proposal will (barring tomorrow's news cycle) come tomorrow, but for now feast yourselves on the strangest context sentence the AP has ever written. CNN picked up the story:
"That's some rough girls from Rutgers," Imus said. "Man, they got tattoos ... ."
"Some hardcore hos," McGuirk said.
"That's some nappy-headed hos there, I'm going to tell you that," Imus said.
Sorry for the long delay oh solitary fan of mine! I was traveling to a place of fantasy and illusion, where up is down, Zionism cannot be defined (or even discussed), and Skype carries world peace. Now that I am back in reality (aka: Chicago) though, you can expect a propper update soon. In the meantime, though, let me just point to two quick articles to feed your (read: my) news-lust:
1) An excellent article in Salon which conveys some aspects of Palestinian life that are too often not told. It is also notable in that it is the first article that I've seen in a long time which manages to report on Palestine without giving away any clear political bend.
2) An NYTimes article about the group I interned with in El Salvador last year. You can read more about the group here. And yes, this is a shameless plug.
