THERE IS SKEPTICISM: A reader has suggested that the Maxim/Detroit thing is an April Fool's joke. Direct quote: "Detroit?" You can read the article linked below yourself and judge. But I have been to Detroit, and I can vouch that it is the greatest city on earth. But I'm not revealing what it's greatest at.

JUST LIKE A GUY. Maxim's, the men's magazine, has named their Greatest City on Earth. The problem is...they named 13 different cities. And then proceded to print 13 different press runs with the 13 different versions and distributed them locally to each of the areas around the "greatest" cities. Detroit caught them out:

On Tuesday, Maxim, a men's lifestyle magazine with a circulation of 2.5 million, named Detroit the Greatest City on Earth.

Just one problem, though. The magazine's editors also named Miami the Greatest City on the Earth. And Philadelphia. And San Francisco and Dallas. By the time Maxim's serial city-lovers got done, they had named 13 North American cities the greatest on the globe...

"We just couldn't bring ourselves to tell the Southies in Boston that they weren't No. 1," Heidenry said, "or the people in New York that they weren't No. 1. So like a guy juggling different girlfriends, we told them all they were No. 1."

The online version of Maxim has no link for "the greatest city". Must not have brought it home to meet the parents.

SOMETIMES BIAS IS FUNNY: The Maoist Internationalist Movement has a whole section of articles of "anti-imperialist response(s)" to the U.S. war on Afghanistan. What is funny is - every time they write "U.S." they use a dollar sign for the S. Every time! Even in the individual articles. And they have a "terrorist profile" of Madeline Albright with a graphic of her where it appears she is baring her teeth and getting ready to bite someone - likely a Maoist. The funniest parody is unintended self-parody.

LINDH FROM A LEGAL PERSPECTIVE: Brooklyn Law School Professer Emeritus Henry Mark Holzer has set up a website to explore the legal questions associated with the John Walker Lindh case, especially the issue of whether he could be legally termed a traitor. It's fairly comprehensive and, according to Holzer, designed to help a layperson understand the intricacies of the law involved.

JOHN WALKER LINDH was a gentle scholar who only wanted to help fight the Northern Alliance, as a soldier – not a terrorist - and suffered abuse, deprivation, threats and abridgements of his civil rights as an American citizen when the United States got their hands on him, according to his attorneys, who began to set up his defense with court filings on Friday.

They are being ably assisted in constructing this image by LA Times writer Richard Serrano:

Lindh's arrest in late November sparked outrage in the United States, fueled by video images of a ragged, bearded traitor derided as the American Talib…

Now his San Francisco legal team is working to soften his image and to blame the government for misrepresenting his actions in Central Asia.

I’m not quite sure who’s outrage he’s speaking of, unless it is his, the attorney’s and Lindh’s parents; it seemed to me the outrage was directed more at Lindh and his parents. And it isn’t just the legal team who’s working to soften the image. Look at this clear characterization of Lindh vs. the cruel opposition (i.e. the U.S. alliance) in Serrano's article:

When some of the captives exploded grenades and attempted to escape, Lindh was wounded by shrapnel and a bullet.

For several hours, according to the defense, he lay wounded on the ground until fellow prisoners carried him to the basement of the Qala-i-Janghi fort.

He remained there for a week. "Mr. Lindh had almost no food, limited water and virtually no sleep," the defense said.

All the while, U.S. forces fired about 40 missiles at the fort. Northern Alliance soldiers tossed grenades down basement air vents, poured oil or gasoline down the vents and set them on fire, and flooded the basement with freezing water, the defense said. Most of these prisoners died.

Here we see that apparently a few desperate prisoners set off grenades trying to escape, and Lindh was wounded in the melee. (No mention here that the “escaping” prisoners deliberately killed U.S. CIA operative Johnny Micheal Spann, and not just in general fighting.) The prisoners – not called soldiers by Serrano here – kindly took a wounded Lindh to a “safer” place, where he starved and was sleep deprived while the U.S. military and the Northern Alliance tried in every way to destroy these hapless prisoners.

Throughout the article, the efforts at constructing an alternative view of Lindh are so heavy-handed as to make me wonder if Serrano co-authored it with Lindh’s attorneys. The defense’s viewpoint should be presented honestly in the newspaper – but this isn’t an honest presentation. It’s a collaboration. You’ll find the rest of the article just as interesting.

UPDATE: I've been questioned about whether the writer here is engaging in active bias or whether he is merely fully presenting the attorneys' case as filed. He could just be using dramatic technique to give both the feel as well as the facts of the attorneys' case, but I tend to think it is a very sympathetic rendering at best. There is no effort at balance either - no mention of Spann, no discussion of what constitutes a "terrorist" vs a "soldier", and why Lindh has been designated one instead of the other. That designation is foundational to the defense case - Lindh as soldier against foreign rebels is very different from Lindh as terrorist against his own country. I do think the "outrage" the author refers to on Lindh's arrest may mean outrage toward Lindh; on first reading, it seemed to me that he was saying the country was outraged that Lindh was arrested and then was turned against him by the government.

A GOOD SPORT? Of course I am! Kentucky and Maryland fought hard tonight, and both teams missed a lot of opportunities, but when the buzzer sounded Maryland walked off the winner. So now I’ll eat crow, concede defeat, but still I’m proud of my Wildcats. They had a rough year and closed it out in style with a great game.

And to show no hard feelings, I’ll even pull for the Turtles, er, Terrapins, to win the whole thing. Because, of course, it isn’t quite as painful if the one who beats you beats everyone else too.

And Bryan Preston at JunkYardBlog even got his double digits. Way to call it, Bryan!

WELCOME TO THE (NRO) CORNER READERS and thanks to Dave Kopel for the link. Those looking for the post he mentions need to scroll down to TANDEM BIAS, the first post from yesterday. And below is Part II - a study the NY Times didn't report.

GUN BIAS II: While bias by commission is usually apparent, bias by omission is more difficult to catch. But the New York Times is guilty, about both guns and violence.

On Wednesday, March 20, the New York Police Department reported that the crime rate was down for this year in New York City. Here is a quote from the UPI article:

NEW YORK, March 19 (UPI) -- Despite terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, an anthrax investigation and heightened security, New York City's crime rate has continued to drop, the New York Police Department said Tuesday.

To date, 85 murders were reported citywide through March 17, down 40 percent from the same period last year. In Manhattan, 11 murders were reported, compared to 28 last year. Violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, felonious assault, burglary, grand larceny and auto theft dropped by 18 percent for the week ending March 17, compared to the same week in 2000.

A search for "New York City crime rate" on the NY Times site between March 9 and March 22 revealed no articles about the NYC crime rate.

And today, I received an email from my school which alerted me to a study specifically addressing the issue of adolescent gun violence. The NYTimes reported another study on increased suicides using firearms amongst adolescents - focusing on black adolescents - yesterday, which I did an analysis of, but didn't report this one. Apparently the study in the email was reported by Reuters, but the article posted on March 11 and the site only had articles in that category from March 12 forward. However, I did find a presentation by the authors at the conference mentioned, so the report seems to be substantiated:

A new study shows a decline in gun violence among teens and young adults during the 1990s, Reuters reported March 11.

Analyzing data from the National Center for Health Statistics and the U.S.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance, researchers Lawrence J. D'Angelo and Marisa K. D'Angelo found a decline in gun deaths and injuries over the past 8 to 10 years.

According to the national analysis, in 1990 there were 25.8 firearm-related deaths per 100,000 people aged 15 to 24 in the United States. By 1998, the number had declined to 19.9 per 100,000. While the decline spanned all ethnic groups, it was most significant among African-American and African-Caribbean males.

The researchers also found that the percentage of youth who reported carrying a gun in the past 30 days dropped from 7.9 percent in 1993 to 4.9 percent in 1999.

Lawrence D'Angelo noted that compared to other countries, "We still live in a relative climate of violence, but things are actually getting better. Whatever parents are doing at home, whatever is being done in the schools and in the community may not be enough, but something is taking hold. I don't think we can say what it is, but we just have to be honest about it and say that it is taking hold, and that change is beginning to be seen."

The study was presented at the recent Society for Adolescent Medicine's annual meeting in Boston, Mass.

So a study reporting a decline in gun deaths and injuries, especially in black youth, did not get reported in the NY Times, and a Google search revealed that it wasn't reported substantially anywhere. And yet the NY Times made a major point of one study and ignored the other. I think it is at best sloppy reporting and at worst deliberate omission; you can make your own decision on that.

I appreciate the comments of Dr. D'Angelo, who says three important things: Gun violence is going down. We can't say exactly why. But we have to be honest and say it's happening.

The NY Times doesn't make an effort to say any of those three true things.

It's pretty clear that I speak from a gun-rights perspective, and I make no effort to conceal my biases - and you know why that's true. But as a social scientist, I have a responsibility to approach a problem as objectively as possible - if I do surveys, I write my questions cleanly. If I collect data from other sources, then I have an obligation to collect all available data possible about my topic of interest, and not pick and choose for the sake of supporting ideology. Formulating an hypothesis that includes theories of causation is the opinion part of science; data collection and interpretation should not be. I want to be able to trust social scientists on both sides of the ideology aisle to do that kind of clean research, which from Dr. D'Angelo's statement it appears he does. And I think social scientists who are gun-rights advocates by ideology must be held to the same standard. What is very very sad is that we do not get clean, fair reporting about the issue from our newspapers, and that is most especially distressing from a newspaper with the readership and status of the New York Times.

WHITE HOUSE PARODY WEBSITE: You've probably all been here before, and if not you'll get the same junk email that I did on it, but it's still funny.

BLOGGER BACK UP: I never know how long or when - it's more on than off but the off times seem particularly annoying - i.e. always when I have something to say. Which I do. In just a minute, so don't go away.

JUNKYARDBLOG BLINKS: Bryan Preston, recognizing the inexorable march of history, has abandoned the floor as Kentucky polishes its plays for tonight’s housecleaning of Maryland. I don’t blame him, and I’m sympathetic. After seeing Indiana send Duke home last night, I’m sure he’s quivering in his NASA Nikes.

In deference to Bryan, because he really is a nice guy, I’ll just let others say the truth:

ESPN:

“Kentucky has the personnel to beat Maryland in the Sweet 16…at the end of the day, Kentucky is still the only SEC team with staying power…”

CBS Sportsline:

“(Tayshaun) Prince took over (in the Tulsa game) with a career-high 41 points, a nearly perfect game with his team's season at stake.

"The points were the most scored in the legendary program since 1984 and brought to life some tournament mojo for the Wildcats…

“"We've got momentum on our side now thanks to the big guy," senior guard J.P. Blevins said, "but no way are we as far as we want to go. We're trying to … go all the way." “

Dick Vitale:

"Kentucky is playing its best basketball of the season…(and they) will fight, scrap and claw…”

CBS Sportsline:

“…(W)in championships…that's what Kentucky basketball does.”

I JUST BECAME AN IU FAN FOR LIFE, or at least until they meet Kentucky in the NCAA tourney. What an AWESOME finale! Nothing better for an anti-Duke than to see them fall ignobly in mid-tournament. Exceptional!

DESERT PUNDIT has some thoughtful additions to my analysis of the NYTimes teen suicide/anti-gun posted earlier.

FLAMING FLEMING ON YATES: Anne Taylor Fleming, the liberal essayist, scooped up broad-ranging feminist and liberal concepts and wove them into a bizarre apologetic for Andrea Yates in Sunday’s NY Times Week In Review. Those of you who have read my earlier posts on Yates know that I do think her mental illness was sufficiently advanced to mitigate her sentence from death to life in prison. And you also know that I think Russell Yates bears at least some moral guilt for her crimes. However, the kind of frothy liberal venom toward men and society that Ms. Fleming poured on the Times’ readers this past Sunday requires an answer. Thus the takedown below – the entire Times article is there, in italics, with my translations in regular type given as if in her voice. The tone is not to diminish the tragedy of the death of the Yates children, but rather to highlight the arrogance and bias of Ms. Fleming.

If you want to know more about Ms. Fleming and her work, please see the post below this one.

MATERNAL MADNESS
Crime and Motherhood
By ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING

A NATIONAL gasp went up last week when Andrea Pia Yates was found guilty in a Texas courtroom of capital murder — possible punishment: life behind bars or death by lethal injection. As it turned out, on Friday the jury opted for life in prison.

Translation: The nation gave a gasp of horror that she was found guilty, although it found some mitigation in that the jury didn’t send her to the death chamber.

But questions remained. What did the verdict say about the American system of justice, its system of values? Mrs. Yates had been described over and over during the trial as mentally ill, suffering from hallucinations, postpartum psychoses and suicidal tendencies (she had tried to kill herself twice). How could any mother after giving birth to those five babies seen on the haunting home videos do what she did: drown them systematically, one after the other — any sane mother?

Translation: The verdict flies in the face of reason, given that Ms. Yates was obviously not responsible for her actions. “Those five babies” “haunting” - these are the sympathetic thoughts of a “normal” mother. It was some automaton who drowned them – definitely not “normal” and thus “not sane”.

But was she sane? That was the question. In fact, that wasn't the question before the court. Under Texas law, the question was narrower: did she know right from wrong when she killed her children? On those grounds, the jury found her guilty despite her history of mental illness. What, in effect, happened in that courtroom is that while the defense tried to make the case about mental illness, the prosecutors made it about motherhood — and motherhood trumped mental illness.

Translation: The question SHOULD have been, was she sane? I just established that she wasn’t, but no, the bloodthirsty state of Texas sets the bar for insanity at an unreasonable standard. Because of that, the jury had to find her guilty although it was obvious she was insane by the standard of any thinking, compassionate person. The prosecutors even set up this straw man called “motherhood” to draw attention away from her mental illness. Of course, we won’t discuss that I just used the same straw man in establishing that she had to be mentally ill to do it.

"The children had become a hindrance, and she wanted them gone," said Kaylynn Williford, one of the lead prosecutors, conjuring the image of an overwhelmed stay-at- home mother unable to cope with the needs of a deeply religious, demanding husband and ever-growing brood. She was, in short, the ultimate maternal failure turned murderer, the demon mother writ large. She had to be punished — severe mental instability notwithstanding.

Translation: The prosecution – clever, to use a woman to destroy a woman – painted a picture of some kind of freak mother who got in over her head and just killed her kids because they asked for one cookie too many while daddy was out thumping a Bible somewhere. For giving in to the impulse all of us mothers have had during the course of a five-kid sleep-over at the house while the hubby is playing golf, she must be punished. Even though she was obviously very sick. But I already explained that part.

The flip side of this demonization of Mrs. Yates is the American sentimentalization of motherhood. It is seen as a sacred and sacrosanct sphere. The circle of mother and child is a Hallmark card place, where the selfless mother nurtures her young, no matter her dreams or ambitions, conflicts or terrors. Motherhood is seen through gauze, in soft, religiously inflected focus. Madonna and child. Through all that gauze, it's hard to see a mother like Mrs. Yates as she really is — one of the desperate, destructive mothers nobody takes seriously until too late.

Translation: See? This society (probably the men, I’ll address that below) puts mothers on some kind of pedestal, and when she gets really sick and doesn’t get the help she needs, and kills her kids, well, it’s society’s fault for putting that kind of pressure on her anyway. Why in the world should I give up my dreams and ambitions for my kids? I’d probably be where she is, if I had to do that. And society even prevented her from showing her conflicts and terrors, which led directly to her actions. It’s all because of the religious nuts out there, anyway. Yes, she was desperate and destructive – but wouldn’t you be? And on top of it, she’s ignored, too.

"To capture how deep this is in our culture — this sentimentality about motherhood — you have to go back to the 18th century," said Victoria Brown, a professor of American history at Grinnell College. "That's when there was a profound shift in Protestant literature from an image of woman as Eve to an image of woman as Mary. That is how she redeems herself from original sin, that is how she is valuable to the community — as the self-sacrificing mother.

Translation: I told you it was the fault of religious fanatics. And I even got help on this one.

"And along comes the American Revolution. Women do not get the vote, they do not get full citizenship. They are defined as Republican mothers who will keep the nation together and insure democracy by being these selfless creatures at home, who raise virtuous citizens."

Translation: The delay of the feminist movement contributed directly to Ms. Yates’s crime, er, situation. Did you notice how cleverly I slipped “Republican” in there in a negative context? And I made “virtuous” into a sneer – that was almost as clever as my article on McCain where I made “character” into a sneer.

It seems apparent that Andrea and Rusty Yates bought into this vision big time — a vision he apparently held fast to even as she fell ill, even when she became pregnant that fifth time against doctors' advice (for fear of sending her into another postpartum psychotic episode). He insisted on home-schooling the children, tightening that sacrosanct motherhood circle around his increasingly fragmented wife.

Translation: Here is the real demon – a man, imposing his paternalistic will on his ragdoll wife, squeezing her psyche until it popped. Please note the “I told you this would happen” in the middle.

That was her historically and religiously ordained role, motherhood, and she would do it even at peril to her own sanity. If her anger at him or her angst over her role was part of her madness, we will probably never know. But no question, the prosecutor skillfully played up that motif of wifely anger and revenge.

Translation: Here is my thesis: Religion and paternalism made her do it, and frankly, her anger and angst were justified. We don’t know that from evidence, but I can tell. And the prosecutor was so sneaky.

But what of the rest, the people who stood by and watched her disappear into madness, those close enough to see beneath the gauze of motherhood? What could they, what should they, have done — the relatives, friends and doctors — all of whom say they knew she was unstable? They made stabs at helping, but not enough to avert tragedy.

Translation: Ineffectual bums. But it’s not their fault either. It’s… guess…no, really … guess. Yes! Society! You’re too good.

"We don't have an ethic in this country that says it's suitable to interfere," said Professor Brown. "So it's not just the sentimentalization of motherhood that's at play here, it is the privatization of it."

Translation: Watch me segue into a new way of blaming society. Not only is it religion, and paternalism – it’s a deliberate isolation of women in a blind canyon called motherhood where it’s surprising anyone stays sane. Just keep reading.

Motherhood is a no-entry zone, a zone of privacy. That's apparent throughout the culture — from a husband's refusal to heed the cry of a deranged wife to the state's reluctance to take children from mothers, however abusive or addicted. It goes beyond the hands-off, romantic cult of motherhood. Privacy — and individualism — are basic to our democratic, capitalistic system, where nonintervention in motherhood is the personal analog to nonintervention in the marketplace.

Translation: OH MY! DID YOU SEE THAT? I may have to lie down. I’m so good. I managed to make Andrea Yates’s killing of her five children into an indictment of capitalism and marketplace regulation! You’d have to pay all kinds of money to see contortions like that at the circus!

THE ultimate question the Yates case raises is this: Is there is a point where intervention should occur, where mothers at risk should be helped or children protected — even from their mothers? Can't such tragedies be prevented?

Translation: Can’t we monitor every family continually and make the state responsible for deciding who is doing a good job and who isn’t, and give it even more authority to intervene?

After all, it's not that the public doesn't involve itself in motherhood at some level. There is always a chorus pushing and pulling at mothers, telling them how to do this or that, a lot of it from women themselves, as they try not to feel guilty about failing to live up to the myth.

Translation: All men, and women cowed by the paternalistic motherhood myth, are constantly hectoring at mothers anyway, so why shouldn’t the government join in? Only the government should have powers to “fix” it. Well, as long as that “fixing” agrees with my worldview.

The airwaves and bookshelves are full of didactic advice — be it the hippie homeopathic insistence on natural childbirth or the pro-family brigade's insistence on the virtues of stay-at-home motherhood. The advice, though often contradictory, can end up at the same place: reinforcing the myth of the all-important mother who should be able to meet all her children's needs — physical, psychological, emotional and economic — without help or "interference" from anyone. The new importance of fathers has sometimes ameliorated this mother- centric view of parenting, but sometimes it has had the perverse effect of upping maternal guilt. Mothers are tough on themselves — and each other.

Translation: Why do we have to deal with these freaks who think childbirth without medication is good, and those religious nutcases who think a woman who actually raises her own children is making a wise choice? Everything, everyone, except me and my kind, are making life hard for mothers – even fathers who want to help are making it worse! Motherhood needs to be turned over to the state where people like me can make sure it’s done right. Sheesh.

And who was tougher on herself than Andrea Yates? That's why, she said, she tried first to kill herself and then killed her children — to save them from her inept mothering. They were turning out wrong, going to the devil. There is a grisly, demented rationality in her irrationality, this overwhelmed, unbalanced mother who will now spend virtually the rest of her life in prison.

Translation: Andrea Yates was a mother’s mother. She was so loving and so concerned for her children that she finally killed them to protect them. Can’t you see that? She killed because she loved them. From her insane perspective (and I've established she was insane) it was what needed to be done because she couldn’t meet the demands of her demon husband and this rigid, religious-freak, male-dominated, woman-hating/oppressing society where even women help enforce the hate. And now you’ve sent her to prison.

I hope you’re happy with yourself.

WHO IS ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING? The author of the article "Crime and Motherhood" about Andrea Yates (referenced in a post that will go up later today), Anne Taylor Fleming, is an essayist with the PBS Online Newshour. She has a list of essays available, but an earlier example of her work from another site will give you an inkling of her worldview, and the perspective from which she approaches the Yates case

This was published in February 2000 during the presidential primary race, on Common Dreams, a self-styled "progressive community" website:

"McCain's Manliness Beguiling"

“...McCain's sudden surge is unnerving because, buried in it, is some retro-male bias that is going largely unexamined. He has "character," people say. He is "authentic." … underlying all this talk of character is the old-fashioned longing for a man's man, a war hero, a man other men can be proud of, envy, admire, a man -- we're told -- who takes no guff from other men, be they captors or colleagues…”

This, you understand, is a criticism. He has "character", he is "authentic" and that makes him a dangerous person. Why? Because,

"No question, manliness is in the air. And the way to sneak it back into the national political dialogue, in our postfeminist, politically correct times, is under cover of heroism."

Fleming was terrified that the aura of character and authenticity, of being a man of his word, would give McCain an edge when:

“…his position is …alerting, along with his pro-gun, pro-states'-rights, pro-prayer in the schools, conservative orthodoxies.”

The problem here is, she said, “aren't we finally defining character too narrowly, too conservatively, too malely?”

So character that involves pro-gun, pro-state’s rights, pro-prayer, conservative and narrow is a “male” version.

She finishes with:

“This is not to question McCain's character or authenticity or his heroism. (She couldn’t do that – it was too popular and too widely believed - slc) It is to suggest that, ultimately, in a president, politics and ideology are more important than character -- indeed, are character -- and those are the things we should be examining.”

She is establishing the Clintonian philosophy that character doesn’t matter, can’t matter; ideology is paramount, regardless of what behavior is actually happening in the background. It is this attitude – promote-the-ideology-at-any-cost, men-are-suspect-unless-feminized, character-doesn’t-matter – tone that she takes into the Yates discussion. Ms. Fleming is a flaming ideologue. That isn’t to say others aren’t but all her work should be considered through that lens. And it certainly affects her assessment of a situation that sets a woman against the system.

TANDEM BIAS: The NY Times joins hands with the authors of a study on teenage suicide to produce an anti-gun article (full text in italics):

Data on Teenage Black Men Show Rise in Suicide by Gun

The focus is on blacks even though the study found a rise in both black and white rates; the rate among blacks did increase more, but that isn't compelling (see below).

PHILADELPHIA, March 20 (AP) — The rate of suicides involving guns among black male teenagers nearly quadrupled from 1979 to 1994 before falling in the late 1990's, a study has found.

The rate among white male teenagers climbed by more than a third from the late 1970's until the early 1990's before also falling.

Notice that it is RATES here, not actual numbers. If you have, say, 1% of 100 black teens committing suicide and 10% of white teens, and they go up by the numbers mentioned, quadrupling the rate would mean 4% or 4 black teens while white suicide going up by a third would be 13% or 13 white teens – the same increase in actual numbers.

Traditionally, blacks have had much lower suicide rates than whites, but the availability of guns may help account for the narrowing of the gap among young men, researchers said.

Note below that the study doesn’t look at causes, yet here we have the article's author setting up a quote about causation that has no support anywhere.

"One of the factors is the easy availability of firearms," said David Satcher, the former surgeon general and now a visiting fellow with the Kaiser Family Foundation. He was not involved with the study.

Satcher makes a blanket, unsupported statement. He was not involved in the study. So how does he know? He gives no evidence, such as saying “as was found in such and such a study in 1999” or whenever. His credentials are given as proof of his veracity, rather than any actual study. That’s bad science AND bad journalism.

It isn't reported whether the study looked at other causes of suicide - did suicides by hanging or overdosing go up by comparable rates? Are suicides using guns more frequent than other types? Those factors are important in determining whether availability of firearms could be a factor, which is still far from a blanket statement like Satcher makes.

The study, which uses data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that suicide by gun among 15- to 19-year-old black males rose to a peak of 13.9 per 100,000 in 1994 from 3.6 per 100,000 in 1979. The rate for 1997, the most recent year studied, was 8.4 per 100,000.

For white males in the same age group, the gun-related suicide rate was 9.7 per 100,000 in 1979. It peaked at 13.6 per 100,000 in 1991 before dropping to 10.4 per 100,000 in 1997.

Notice that the peak of each category was in the early 1990s, which we don’t learn higher up, and that while black teen suicide peaked at a higher rate than white, it is now lower than the white rate again. And remember that comparable rates can produce vastly different actual numbers; it's likely that more white kids than black kids were dying in suicides throughout the period in question.

The study appears this month in Psychiatric Services, a journal published by the American Psychiatric Association.

The study did not look at causes for the suicide rates. But its co-author, Sean Joe, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Pennsylvania, speculated that young blacks feel more pressure to succeed than older generations of blacks, who could point to segregation and other obstacles to achievement.

Read that again. "The study did not look at causes for the suicide rates. But..." What do we have in this article but repeated statements of causation? Again, bad science and bad journalism. You can speculate about what the causes are, but the speculation should be based on other studies when yours doesn’t look at causation. At the very least, suspected causes should be identified as suspected with assurances that further studies will be done to prove or disprove the connection.

The point of this article is to make it very clear that the cause of increased teen suicide, especially among blacks, is the availability of guns. But they admit that there is NO SUPPORT for this conclusion in their study – they didn’t even look at it! So they had to go outside to find anecdotal conclusions – not scientific ones. Notice that the person who linked it to guns was a researcher who was not even connected to the study. There is no evidence that he has more than a passing knowledge of research on gun deaths or causation of suicide - just that he was a surgeon general. For the Clinton Administration. No bias at all there, I am sure.

The last paragraph, where researcher Sean Joe did go outside the sphere of his study to make conclusions about causation, skids off into ideological blaming that on its way to his purpose actually creates an impression I don’t think he meant. He says that young blacks feel a pressure to succeed that older blacks didn’t feel – a pressure that by implication is bad because it resulted in a higher rate of suicide. Then he explains why the older generation did not feel the pressure – they could point to obstacles to achievement! This a) says the older generation couldn’t achieve because of the obstacles and b) the obstacles are now gone, because the pressure to achieve is present. Isn’t the absence of obstacles a good thing? Doesn't that mean the door to opportunity has opened wider? And if we want to speculate, given the data it seems that whatever additional pressures were in play in the early 90s have eased - couldn't that just as easily mean that the black teenagers have adjusted to the greater expectations that more opportunities bring, and are now handling it well? The study doesn't support that directly, but my speculation is at least if not more grounded in the study than that of the other researchers.

My major objections to this characterization are two-fold – it is bad science to attribute causation when none has been found in your study, especially when that attribution is done for the purposes of ideological pandering; and also, when you attribute causation without studying the facts you could be directing efforts at prevention toward a non-existent or spurious factor when other factors are much more potent. You could actually cause increases in the problem by approaching it through your bias rather than through rigorous study.

An article like this is not just meaningless bias to point at and laugh. It can cause actual harm.

(Thanks to reader Ron Binns for fact-checking and correcting me on the years Satcher was surgeon general.)

THE MOTHER OF ALL TAKEDOWNS will come your way tomorrow about this article on Andrea Yates. Read it and weep. Then come back tomorrow afternoon and see a ray of reality. I may not be able to sleep tonight over this mess of hyperbole, inaccuracies and bizarrely rambling bias.

LITTLE PEARLS OF THE DISINGENUOUS keenly spotted by Robert Musil at Man Without Qualities, who found an admission of the power conferred on media companies by news divisions coupled with an effort to deny its impact. From the NYTimes article:

"It is so obvious to the Times that the CBS news division confers “political clout” that this fact is introduced without any support whatsoever and notwithstanding the denial by Mr Moonves that it is “a factor...”"

Musil has a nice analysis too.

A LESSON on how to treat war prisoners from Bob Lonsberry - essential reading. Thanks to Vodkapundit for the heads-up on this one.

NOT AN ISOLATED CONCLUSION: David Nieporent of Jumping to Conclusions wrote to point out an article last year regarding another economics experiment about people's willingness to give money away. This one included information on "a variant of this experiment where subjects know that everything they put in the envelope will get tripled by the experimenter before it's sent to the other room. If they give up a dollar; the other guy gets three. If they give up 10, he gets 30.

"In (this) experiment, even with elaborate anonymity procedures, subjects gave up a lot more money..."

And the article's conclusion?

"Taken at face value, the Cox experiments suggest that the reason we have a redistributive tax system is not because people want to help the poor or the unfortunate or the incapacitated; it's because people enjoy moving other people's money around just to make mischief."

That's worth more study.

EVEN MARTHA STEWART apparently thinks the UK Wildcats are going to hammer Maryland. Who would have thought it?

BLOGGER LIBEL INSURANCE? Those posting online have to be careful what they say, according to this article on FoxNews. It's speaking about anonymous posters on various chat boards, but it's an interesting thing to consider for bloggers too:

"Those with quick access to the Internet and the urge to rant online ought to think twice – what you post could come back to haunt you, in court.

"In February 2001, a California federal court ruled that online posters cannot be sued when they are stating opinions, as protected under the anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) statutes there. Nineteen states have such statutes, which protect the right of citizens to publicly criticize a corporation, government or organization without fear of retribution."

THAT EXPLAINS A LOT: A study in England showed that people are willing to spend some of their own money to make sure other people lose lots more of theirs. Interesting reading – it seems to me that this shows up in the constant snipping about redistribution of wealth even when it can be proven that the wealthy create jobs. Link from Plato’s Cave via Justin Slotman at Insolvent Republic of Blogistan.

CAN YOU SAY ‘MELTDOWN’? The Maryland Turtles are a good team, even a great team, but sometimes you can’t send a boy in to do a man’s job. Some tasks need the depth, the maturity, the history a man can bring to it. Bryan Preston of JunkYardBlog thinks our common enemy, the Duke Blue Devils, will succumb to the Turtles. I think history circa the NCAA 2001 Final Four gives us cause to worry:

“Playing in the Final Four for the first time, Maryland blew a 22-point lead against Duke in a 95-84 defeat.”

How did that happen?

“Duke really put a whammy on the Terrapins psychologically,” according to SI’s Grant Wahl.

Yes, Maryland has beaten Duke this year, but Duke beat Maryland too. Yes, Maryland can break it out, but it’s not something they seem to have a great deal of control over:

“WASHINGTON - Even the Maryland players don't know when, "The Run," is going to come or who's going to be the catalyst. The Terps just have this unbreakable belief that it will come.”

“Unbreakable belief” will cut no ice with the Blue Devils. What will?

“The Wildcats (22-9), who advanced to the East Regional in Syracuse to play No. 1 seed Maryland, have an NBA cool about them… Kentucky play(s) with more intensity and cohesiveness, reminding everyone of just how much talent they have. They (do) what so many teams do in the NBA playoffs.”

And even Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski recognizes the UK history: "No program has more tradition in basketball than the Kentucky program.”

Grant Williams has never brought home the big games; recently, Tayshaun Prince's 41 pts. in St. Louis looked eerily like Goose Given's 41 against Duke in the '78 championship in St. Louis. The Turtles weren’t even able to take out NC State in their own conference tournament. And Kentucky has a history with the Turtles too:

“On Dec. 12, 1999, the Terps played their first game in Lexington, Ky., since 1958. Maryland entered with a 10-0 record and the No. 2 ranking… No. 5 Kentucky posted a 103-91 victory in front of 24,321 at Rupp Arena.”

And the problem isn’t behind them. In this year’s ACC tourney, Maryland – despite winning the regular season ACC title – lost to NC State and thus gave up the tourney championship to Duke. We don’t want to see a repeat of that in this tourney. It’s time for the men to come in and do the cleanup – scarred, yes, embattled, yes, but closers. That’s what UK is – the closer. With tradition, talent and heart, they can put a whammy on Duke psychologically and follow through with hard playing. We anti-Dukes have to set aside our animosity and pull behind the ones who can put it away – the Wildcats. National Championship Marquette University coach Al McGuire, speaking of the Wildcats, put it best:

"They had it before you, they had it during you, they'll have it when you're gone."

Go Cats.

WHAT SHE SAID: I'm with Ashley Judd when it comes to the University of North Carolina's basketball team:

"I'd just as soon freeze to death." - Actress Ashley Judd relating a story of being offered a University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill jacket on a chilly movie set. - Lexington Herald Leader, August 15, 1996.

The article is in the H-L archives, but it'll cost you $2.95 to get it.

THE BRUTAL AFGHAN WINTER, er, summer, er, terrain, makes its reappearance:

"A sophisticated enemy in desperate terrain

"When the Royal Marines fly out for combat in Afghanistan they will land in an alien terrain shaped by soaring mountain peaks and dominated for now by a hardened guerrilla force...Armed with little more than Kalashnikov assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and heavy mortars they can put up serious resistance to ground troops and low-flying helicopters...The total size of the force is difficult to gauge but is likely to be several hundred strong."

Shockingly, there appears to be a fly in the ointment for this massive, hardened fighting machine:

"But they have little answer to high-altitude raids from B-52 and B-1 bombers. At night, in the mountains at Shah-i-Kot, US forces churned up the battlefield with devastating firepower from AC-130 gunships. The Taliban and al-Qaida fighters could do little more than hide in their caves and wait for daybreak."

Could that be why we're doing high-altitude raids? Maybe there is a military strategy?

Nice try, though.

I'M REASSURED: According to Jonathan Freedland of The Guardian:

"It is perfectly possible to love the ideals of America's founding fathers and to abhor George W's policies."

According to Freedland, the British public love the United States but find the Bush administration's policies tough to swallow. This is not, he says, "anti-American". In fact, it's more American, because the founding fathers saw it that way too:

"It is perfectly possible to imagine a US organised just the way the founders intended with a non-interventionist, pacific, stay-at-home view of the world....the best method for the (war on terror) remains a combination of peaceful persuasion, aid and example - not bombs. And it is hardly anti-American to say so."

He seems to forget a little thing called The American Revolution, as well as a few other minor conflicts like, say, world wars. But no - apparently war is ok, when someone he likes does it:

"Bill Clinton's military interventions in Haiti and Kosovo, like his tireless efforts to broker peace in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, were political choices which it is hard to imagine the Bush-Cheney team ever making."

And aren't we thankful that Bush and Cheney don't make Clintonesque decisions. The Middle East needs all the aspirin it can get, especially now. Freedland closes with this:

"So today I issue a plea, in defence of that little sliver of middle ground where I - and, apparently a good chunk of the public - want to stand. We want to be pro-America and anti-Bush. We want to applaud what the United States stands for, even as we express our dislike for this particular administration."

You can do that, Mr. Freedland, because of "democracy" and "freedom of expression". In case you hadn't noticed, that's why there's a war in Afghanistan - because some others don't want the world to have those things, and we do. So hold hands together on that little sliver and sing peace songs while the United States, with brave help from your long-suffering countrymen, makes sure you will continue to have the ability to do so.

TEENAGE TERRORIST SLANG? A Georgetown University study shows that teenagers are using slang connected to the 9/11 attacks and the war as a means to cope. Some examples:

Their bedrooms are “ground zero.” Translation? A total mess.
A mean teacher? He’s “such a terrorist.”
A student is disciplined? “It was total jihad.”
Petty concerns? “That’s so Sept. 10.”
And out-of-style clothes? “Is that a burqa?”

It's a fine line to walk but humor about horrific things is a staple of American conversation. Think of all the Jeffrey Dahmer jokes (What's Jeffrey Dahmer's favorite song? Wouldn't you give your hand to a friend.) It's a way to distance from the horror and manage the fear. Some professions - police officer, firefighter - are well known for humor that out of context sounds absolutely awful. But in context it's part of what allows them to do their job, and isn't meant in hurtful ways (unlike, say, certain cartoons by T*d R*ll). In a way, the same is true for teenagers - getting on with the job of living their lives. Somehow, though, I don't think calling their bedrooms "ground zero" will get them cleaned up any faster.

DAVID NIEPORENT on Jumping to Conclusions has been hard at work already today, busting the NYTimes and campaign finance, France, the UN and Australia. Good stuff! My favorite:

""But Mr Howard said the most important thing was that the three leaders had adopted a consistent approach to anti-democratic action."

"The second most important thing was their decision to order the caesar salad instead of the house salad for lunch."

THE TRUE RIGHT MARGINALIZED BY THE NEO-CONS? My brother is a southern agrarian conservative who worked for a year as an assistant to Dr. Russell Kirk, the author of The Conservative Mind who in company with William F. Buckley spurred the modern renaissance of conservative thought. Today he brought my attention to an article posted in January that charges the neo-cons – most especially the National Review crowd – with espousing a conservatism that would have been called liberalism just 50 years ago, a conservatism that equates John C. Calhoun with feminist liberal Lani Guinier. Calhoun was characterized by Kirk as a prototypical southern conservative.

The author of this article, Elizabethtown College history professor Paul Gottfried, refers to an earlier article by Daniel McCarthy that says, in part:

“There was a time when the right-wing was practically defined by its opposition to FDR…Today, fifty-six years after Roosevelt's death, "America's Premier Conservative Website" runs a flattering imitation of FDR's "Four Freedoms."”

McCarthy’s article is making a case for Bill Clinton as the golden child of the conservatives of the future, based on the way conservatives moved from critics to admirers of FDR’s policies as the decades passed. Gottfried discusses the mechanism by which that will happen – neo-cons moving further and further to the left, maintaining the label “conservative” by dent of controlling the framing of the conservative debate – via funding from media moguls such as Rupert Murdoch.

I don’t have the background to make an educated judgment about this issue, although I intend to pursue more information. My brother, who’s judgment I respect, studied for his master’s degree in American history with Calhoun expert Clyde Wilson at the University of South Carolina, and remained in close contact with Dr. Kirk from the time of his assistantship until Dr. Kirk’s death. He believes the argument here has great merit. And my grandfather, who was born poor in Kentucky in 1910, loathed FDR and thought he had caused more harm than good.

Issue framing is a major tool of those who would affect public opinion, and is one of the major roles of media. When we criticize media for covering issue A but not issue B, or interviewing person A but not person B, we are accusing them of framing bias – selectively presenting a topic to create an impression that marches along with their own image of the issue. Conservatism should have central tenets, or it cannot rightly be called a distinct concept. If two groups both are calling themselves conservative, and their central tenets are not compatible, then only one of the two can be the “main” conservative group – the other is by necessity marginalized. We should be concerned if a new rhetoric is setting the framing for conservatism without a public debate about foundational tenets.

THE LAST BASTION OF A LOSING ARGUMENT is always to start name-calling and degenerating into –isms. So now Bryan Preston of JunkYardBlog is trying to defend his support for the Maryland Turtles by impugning my career and my gender. I don’t want to embarrass him by expounding on it, but obviously he has a bad case of genus envy. (Genus defined by Webster’s as “a class, kind, or group marked by common characteristics or by one common characteristic”, here, of course, referring to the penetrating sports intelligence common to those of my gender.) It isn’t my fault that while I mastered sports journalism and moved to other pursuits in six months, it took him three years.

As for the Turtles vs the Wildcats this Friday, a comparison of their namesakes seems pertinent:

“…Terrapin meat was once greatly esteemed as a delicacy…the word "terrapin" was actually derived from a french word meaning turtle soup…”

Something which hasn’t escaped the wildcats:

“…(Wildcats) feed mainly on rodents …and even small reptiles” such as turtles.

I think we’ll see on Friday night just who gets chomped and who is spitting out shell shards at the end of the game.

GUNS DON’T SAVE LIVES, people save lives – but they use guns to do it. John Lott Jr. is an important voice in the debate on gun use in our society, and in this article explains how the media misses the big story of crimes that weren’t committed. It’s from his website, and undated, but from this calendar year. He’s worth a visit, and it wouldn’t be a bad thing to stay around and browse some of his other articles.

ORSON SCOTT CARD has an excellent discussion of moral equivalence and its consequences in the Israeli/Palestine conflict. Thanks to LGF for the link.

I think the war between Israel and Palestine, as well as our own war against terrorism, highlight the difficulties inherent in a media that claims but does not practice objectivity. It becomes a weird twisted effort to show both sides in a situation where one side clearly has hate in its mind and blood on its hands. I think it is important to try to understand why the Palestinians persist in this bloodlust. I think it is also important to understand the inner workings of societies that give us al Qaedas and the bombing of thousands of innocents, just as it is important to understand what circumstances in Hitler’s Germany led to the wholesale murder of Jews and eventually to World War II. We want to understand so we can intervene before its natural conclusion – death to the hated.

It’s also very possible that the United States has had policies over the years that fed a virulent hate until it became poisonous. And if that is true, it is again a good thing to understand the dynamic at work, and to determine if there is any validity to their concerns.

But that is a completely different thing from finding moral equivalence in their actions and ours. And it is not objectivity to present both sides of an argument as if each had the same degree of rightness. Truth happens on several levels, and facts are just the beginning. There are also moral truths, and the media know this. They operate from an understanding of that, and in fact use that understanding as the foundation for their claim to objectivity – it is, they say, a morally better approach. They have an obligation. They have used this moral claim repeatedly in making the decision to advance various agendas – the rights of assorted minorities, the welfare state, etc. In a discussion of race relations, they don’t give equal column inches to the white supremacist’s reasoning for his hate. If you take the white supremacist’s basic premise as valid – that black people are bad – then the rest of his reasoning can be quite cogent. But that basic premise is one we shouldn’t – we can’t – swallow. Because it is immoral. However, the media become confused when faced with a nuance of the white supremacist’s premise – sometimes, black people are bad. Of course this is true. What has to be parsed is the origin of the “badness” – it is not a matter of race, it is a matter of humanity. Sometimes people are bad – and they are also black, or white, or Hispanic, or gay, or female.

This nuanced parsing is what is eluding the media in this war. They can’t separate “Muslim is bad” from “Some Muslims are bad”, so they try to explain away vicious immoral murderers by claiming that somehow their hatred is a reasonable response to Western…. whatever. It changes from day to day – Western politics, Western arrogance, Western music, Western cheeseburgers. It is a mantra they developed in explaining away “black rage” when it erupts on the streets – it is a reasonable response to white oppression. Actually, it’s not. It’s illegal and destructive behavior that destroys, not builds. It mostly hurts the very ones on whose behalf they claim to fight. The same is true here, but on a far grander scale – a tiny minority, by percentage, are through their actions bringing damnation to a whole culture. And that culture is struggling with whether or not to be complicit.

This to me is the moral struggle the media miss through their simplistic “objectivity”. They refuse to grapple with the many layers of nuance and wind up making statements like “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”, which has about as much validity as “the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim”. No, no and no. A Muslim, a white, a black – none are good or bad on that basis. ALL can be bad if they make that choice. Some Muslims have made that choice, and the United States didn’t make it happen – we just have to let the world know what happens when that choice is made. We are morally right in doing so. The mainstream media needs to take off its false objectivity blinders and, reaching for the higher truth, say just that.

MEDIA MINDED has some excellent links ranging from reviews on "Bias" and "Coloring the News" to coverage of the Media Research Center. I especially like this quote:

"University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato says ... "Journalists would be much better off admitting, `Yes, I'm human, I have opinions, they influence me, they're bound to slip out from time to time. When they do and you catch it, you tell me. We'll try to control it.' People would appreciate that candor.'' "

It would be a start. But the media remind me of a friend of mine years ago who had some fairly serious mental problems, and her husband blamed her behavior on everything but that - it was PMS, it was other people being mean to her, etc. In my judgment, the reason for his refusing to see her illness was that to admit it meant he had to try to help her get better - which in turn would require a change in behavior on his part, most likely a move to another part of the country and a job he didn't like as well. In many ways he was a good man, but in that way he was dangerously self-centered. The media also does many good things, and we absolutely need them. But there is a serious disconnect between their view of themselves and what objective reality shows them to be (objective here referring to studies, and vast amounts of literature on it), and I think the refusal on the part of the media to see the bias inherent in their work is affected by the need for change implicit in the recognition.

FEAR AS CHARACTER: It’s sad when someone finds fear a valuable character trait, but seriously, folks, Bryan Preston of JunkYardBlog is a good guy despite that. Well, despite several things, most of them sports related. He began this NCAA March Madness exchange by calling Maryland’s hyperbolic whomp of Wisconsin “crushing”, in comparison to Kentucky’s gentle win over Tulsa which he terms a “scraping by”. What really happened here was a comparison of control and confidence. Maryland, finding itself ahead of Wisconsin, ran up the score on a struggling opponent for fear of Wisconsin finding a second wind and pulling it out. Kentucky, confident and kind, just maintained a score that ensured the win without humiliating its combatant, knowing the UK team could control any last minute rallies.

Bryan not only misunderstood the games, he underestimated my sports analysis ability. I have in fact worked as a paid journalist covering sports. Back during the Reagan administration, I spent six months as a reporter for a small weekly in western Kentucky. I covered everything from school boards to basketball. As reporter/photographer, I spent many nights on the home end of the local high school gym floor, camera poised, waiting for the inevitable drive to the basket. I became familiar with the armpits of every member of the high school boys basketball team, at times a fragrant exercise even from10 feet away. After the game I interviewed the coach, then wrote a late night story replete with phrases like “charity stripe”, using the list of terms and definitions left by my predecessor. My stories were a strange rich stew of play by play and jargon, and every published picture featured an armpit. So I did do my time in the sports trenches before climbing to the lofty heights of academia, where things still get fragrant from 10 feet away, sometimes.

Thus, with my combined training as journalist, sports analyst and researcher, I reiterate my prediction for Friday – tears will be falling in Maryland, and a shriek of joy will rise from the lone Kentucky Wildcat outpost in the environs of Newark.

Sorry, Bryan.

ALBUQUERQUE BLUES: The Vodkapundit tracks down media bias as the LA Times showcases its radical environmentalist ideology. Are we surprised?

SAMIZDATA slogan of the day:

Bloggers may not be able to change the way newspapers are written, but we can change the way people read them
- Perry de Havilland

CHECKING POYNTER'S BIAS via a quick skid through a couple of articles by Roy Peter Clark. I tracked down the article referenced in Cluster-Tracking below, and found a whole page of articles by Poynter people about how to cover the war. Fascinating. I'll be going back. It's nice to know there's a primer on bias, isn't it?

Clark himself is stunningly free of bias, as noted below. In another article, "Ban the Word Crusade", he says about Bush:

"The president is many things, but is not by reputation the kind of person who, by disposition or education, would be alert to word etymology or connotation."

By reputation in which circles? I think you know the answer to that.

GIVING REPORTERS GUNS: Bo Crader at the Weekly Standard thinks war correspondents will eventually have to arm themselves for safety:

"...the war correspondent is caught in a potentially deadly Catch-22. Go into a war zone unarmed and get ambushed, stoned, and executed by a gang of thugs. Carry a gun and get shot as a spy."

Oddly, Crader doesn't address the ideological problem many journalists, who tend to be anti-gun, would have with this measure. It truly is a Catch-22, because to carry a gun would dislodge them from their PC underpinnings, but not carrying one, as Crader says, could get them killed. Are they willing to die for their ideology? Maybe they would make Rosie-O'Donnell-like justifications - "Most people shouldn't have guns but I'm really a target so the concern doesn't extend to me; besides, I'm responsible about it." Should be interesting to watch.

CLUSTER-TRACKING BIAS: Websites tracking media bias are in the news this morning. SmarterTimes, ChronWatch , and LA Examiner focus all their attention on pointing out the bias and other deficiencies of, respectively, the NY Times, the San Francisco Chronicle and the media in the LA area, especially the LA Times, with mixed or no response from their targets.

ChronWatch points to another article on these newspaper-critique sites at Poynter - which, interestingly, imbeds a nice little bit of media bias of its own near the end of the piece. After gently impugning the claim of SmarterTime's Stoll that he is an "everyman", Poynter says,

"Local-media watchers might find comfort in the more objective media watchdogs, such as Grade the News, a website maintained by public television station KTEH and affiliated with Stanford University's graduate program in journalism."

A trip to Grade the News reveals criticism not for ideological bias but economic bias - the broadcast media are whoring themselves for ratings. This is news? A 10-minute read scrolling straight from the top found only concerns about too much Olympic coverage by the local NBC affiliate, and misleading teasers designed to increase audience. They even manage to use Stanford grad Daniel Pearl's death as a stick to beat the money-grubbing media companies with. It doesn't take a lot of scrolling for another Ideological Truth About Grade the News to show up:

"New Diversity Guide Available

"Are you unsure about the difference between an abayah and hijab? Don't know whether to use "Latino" or "Hispanic"? Still using the term "wheelchair-bound"?

"Find the definition of these terms and others in News Watch's updated Diversity Style Guide. This online resource will help you use the most accurate terms in covering news stories about people of color, gays and lesbians, and people with disabilities."

That's right, Grade the News will help you make sure you are Politically Correct. But wait, there's more! Was Poynter just misguided in finding Grade the News "more objective"? Or could it be (say it ain't so) "I'll scratch your back since you scratched mine"? In another "objective" criticism, GTN rips the media for allowing the President to shift the public's perception of the September 11 attacks from "crime" to "war". In support of this, GTN has this quote:

"“The language of war has its consequences,” Roy Peter Clark of the Poynter Institute pointed out on the ethics website it operates for journalists. “It anticipates formal declarations. It imagines counterattacks. It begins to define and dehumanize an enemy. Within the current frame, that enemy is ‘likely’ to look a certain way and dress a certain way and practice a certain religion. The collateral damage of building a culture of war is xenophobia and paranoia, much if it directed at our own citizens.”"

GTN quotes Poynter as an expert in ideological framing; Poynter thanks them by characterizing them as "more objective" than those ideologically-biased rags cutting the NY Times et al. It's nice to know such fine institutions are above the bias that plagues the rest of the media industry. In an amusing note, GTN's unfortunate sentence construction says more than they meant in this quote:

"Grade the News would like to appreciate the contributions of an original member of its advisory board."

I'd like to appreciate your contributions too, GTN, but I'm afraid I just can't. The language of bias has its consequences too.

NORMAL BLOGGING WILL RESUME at a reasonable hour on Monday.

BRYAN, I'M RIGHT: From JunkYardBlog, where NY Times-level delusions are spreading:

"Maryland crushed Wisconsin and Kentucky scraped past Tulsa, so the two will now meet to see who goes on to the round of 8. I've been backing Maryland to win it all, while Susanna Cornett thinks Kentucky will take the prize. It's not her fault--she's from Kentucky. I'm not from Maryland, just a dispassionate watcher coolly assessing relative talent. If I were going by home state, I'd be going for Texas, which by some miracle is still in the thing. I guess we'll see who's right on Friday night."

"Crushed"? "Scraped"? "Dispassionate"? Nice try. See me Saturday morning - I'll give you some tissues to wipe those loser's tears.

ANOTHER INTERESTING ASPECT OF MEDIA MISBEHAVIOR: Dreaded Purple Master points out and discusses media misbehavior as reported in the NYTimes and the Wall Street Journal. Excerpts:

"The NYT story is about television news. About forty TV stations around the country have news operations without newsroom "sets". Instead, the anchors report in front of a blue (or sometimes green) screen, and the room they appear to be in is computer-generated...

"The WSJ story is about "Cabana Boy Geoff" Alan, DJ for KISS San Diego. No, wait, make it KISS Santa Barbara. Boise. Medford OR. No, make it Channel 933."

Check out the details.

I HAVE BEEN INFORMED THAT EVEN MY ANGST IS GENERIC. What a shaft to the heart.

YOU JUST GOTTA LOVE NYC: After a full day of church and the Statue of Liberty (that was a cold wind blowing off the ocean!), my two Texas friends and I decided to head into Manhattan for dinner at the always excellent Meli Melo on Madison between 29th and 30th. We parked where I work in Jersey City and caught the PATH at Grove Street.

It soon got interesting.

At Christopher Street a young man and woman get on, she clearly under the influence of something, and every other word is f***. Apparently it’s both a modifier and a noun. They start hitting at each other, then she says, “I have to sit down, I’m sick!” As she wedges into a seat, a conductor pushes his way through the crowd to the front of the car – we’re on the first one. The train stops, he pulls something out of the closet behind the driver and goes out the front door onto the tracks. A couple of minutes later, he returns – with a fire extinguisher, smoke drifting in after him. The drunk girl yells for her companion to bring a bag, she’s going to puke; her conversation for the next few minutes is, thankfully, muffled by plastic. She never delivers. The train moves forward again, and we soon arrive without further incident at 33rd Street/ Manhattan Mall.

We stand at the corner of 33rd and 6th, waving for a taxi. A petite, attractive brunette bundled in a coat stands out on the edge of the crosswalk to our right, talking on her cell phone. A taxi pulls over to our left in record time, and we move toward the door. The brunette says, “Oh, no, you don’t, I’ve been waiting 10 minutes!” and gets to the taxi first. The driver shrugs with his hands in a helpless motion just as another taxi stops for us. We pile in, give the address, and he takes off – quarreling every breath. “That’s only two or three blocks!” he says. “That’s a long way in high heels,” I answer (my friends both had on 3” heels – I was in sneakers.) “It costs too much, I pay too much in insurance to make these short trips!” he says. “Well, we’re in here now.” No more is said; we give him a fiver for the $2.60 trip. (It was more like 7 blocks, btw. And his taxi number is 9C76.)

The food is fabulous – I have a porcini tart, cauliflower soup, stuffed chicken breast on a shredded-fried-potato nest, and a caramel-apple tart – for $33 plus tax and tips. Best part of the day.

Then back into the harsh world. Another taxi, this driver forbearing comment on distance. We make it onto the PATH train finally, safely heading home. The train stops… a guy gets on with cowboy boots fit to out-Texas Texas. Some kind of reptile skin with pointed toes that’d kick butt and wind up between your ribs. About that time we notice the guy across the way has his shoelaces tied around his ankles under the top of his socks. The train stops again; a dozen green-clad St. Patty’s Day revelers crowd in, apparently well-sloshed with Irishman’s friend. A tall girl immediately lays into one of the guys for pretending that he’s going to jump on the tracks; before she’s done, we know she’s yelling because he upset her sister with his antics and her parents were paranoid and that is why she’s paranoid and what the **** is his problem anyway? The guy in front of me is getting another girl’s email address (aol? No, hotmail. Hotmail? Yeah, hotmail. I’m thinking, more like “hot male”). The girl drapes herself on the pole almost in my face, and given her height and mine, I have a barely obstructed view most men would envy. On the other side, one of the guys has decided to grab the jump-on-the-tracks guy in a bear hug complete with wrapping legs around his hips, while email guy moves on to discovering just who it was that f*rted, asking each friend individually. “Hey, man, did you…?” At Hoboken, off they all go.

With them goes the last act of the evening’s show. We’re home an hour later, and now my friends are tucked in bed as I close out the day telling you more than you wanted to know.

Gotta love NYC.

IT'S FUN TO BE DISCOVERED AND THEN DISCOVER SOMEONE ELSE BACK: One of my favorite features of Site Meter is that it tells me what website, if any, my visitors came from. I can check out what Google searches sent people to me, and also follow links back to whatever blog sends someone to me. I've found some great blogs that way, and today I add another to the list - The Last Page, another anonymous journalist (former, in this case). She's tart, funny and deadly serious about avoiding seriousness. Check it out. (And of course, she shows wildly good taste by linking to my blog.)

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY! We're off to church and then to the Statue of Liberty, so blogging will be minimal today. I will likely be back around tonight. Enjoy your day! Eat corned beef!

I FINALLY SAW THE LIGHTS: Last night I picked friends up at LaGuardia Airport, then drove around lower Manhattan some, winding up eating dinner at Moondance Diner near Varick and Canal. You know you've chosen a good place to eat when the cops are there, and they were, six of them, having a good time. And outside the window, a few blocks away, were the WTC lights.

We saw them first from Queens, on the way back into town, and they weren't very bright. I was surprised - I knew the main photos of them were time-exposures so the lights stand out more than they do in person, but from a distance they were hard to see. I understand now why I couldn't see them from my apartment, 7 miles away. We later drove to Exchange Place in Jersey City, right across the river from WTC, and looked at them from there.

They really are impressive. Two solid beams of blue light reaching for the sky; last night was cloudy, so they illuminated the clouds above. As wonderful as they are visually, I think my strongest reaction was comfort. That's hard to explain to someone who wasn't familiar with NYC before 9/11, but the WTC was a beacon, a landmark that even without thinking you would use as a compass. From a distance you would see the towers, and know you were near NYC. On the island itself, you would look for them to get a sense of where you were - okay, the WTC is in front of me and to my right, so I must be facing south and at about midtown. Helpful when you don't know the city well enough to look at a street number and know where you are.

Now the lights serve the same function at night. From wherever you are, you can see them, and know your direction. And, in an odd way, you also feel the country's direction - we're wounded, but we're not going down. We're reaching for the sky.

POSSUMBLOG RULES! Alabamian Terry Oglesby covers the gamut from down south; thanks to Moira Breen for the link. And she's right - don't miss the Axis of Weevil checking out the Clinique counter.

I'm a southerner locked in Yankeeland, so it's nice to see southern bloggers. Too bad I don't, haven't and won't live in Alabama - I'd apply for Bamablogger status. But then I'd have to give allegiance to some team other than the Kentucky Wildcats, and that just won't ever happen.

I make a pretty mean biscuit, though.

MARK STEYN DIAGNOSES "a bad case of homeland insecurity".

THE TROUBLE STARTS EARLY: Michael Olson’s media-bias commentary on Hotline Scoop gets off to a bad start with this headline:

Rethinking The Forth Estate

I tried to decide if this was supposed to be cute in some way – the media should “go forth” more and thus be The Forth Estate? Or what Olson is rethinking is the spelling of “Fourth”? Do the British spell it “Forth” (they seem to have trouble with “u” placement) and he had an ancestral moment? I finally decided the headline writer was giving us a marker that the article below was incompetent.

It didn’t take long for evidence of that to emerge:

“If the media treated the definition of the war like it was Monica Lewinsky's dress, or Gary Condit's relationship with Chandra Levy, the state of the fourth estate would be strong.”

Lewinsky and Condit are media high moments??? (At least he spelled “fourth” right here.) That’s extremely scary. Apparently Olson thinks the media asked tough questions and defined the issues there, and should transfer that tough-mindedness to their coverage of other torrid stories like the war and where the US stores nuclear waste. The problem is, the media did not cover themselves in glory with Lewinsky and Condit; what they showed was an inability to find the serious through the distraction with the titillating.

Olson’s concern is that the government is defining the war. He says the media needs to take hold or the American public will be “drunk on fear and retreating from civic life” because of the government’s fear tactics – aimed at using the war to pass any number of domestic policies unconnected to real wartime needs. His concern isn’t unfounded – I agree that Americans need to be careful about the linkages to war needs suddenly found in every domestic issue. But this is not precisely a new tactic. The Clinton White House, for instance, used concerns about “the children” to try to re-engineer whole sections of society including education and health care. The media’s credibility in making distinctions between real needs and fear-mongering is at best tainted.

Olson goes on to whine about the Pentagon closing journalists out of the loop in getting battle information, obliquely blames Daniel Pearl’s death on Dan Rather offering himself to the Bush administration on the David Letterman show, and then skids into a long diatribe about a song on the 9/11 attacks by country music star Alan Jackson, which, he says, “is not one of global unity, or tolerance.” Katie Couric comes in for a share of blame, reacting eloquently to Jackson’s song with, "(that song is) more or less an anthem for -- of -- of really healing as well."

Olson is upset that any healing at all is taking place:

“…this pattern of healing makes the job of the journalist all the more difficult. Public support for the tough questions would be helpful in getting to a definition of the war, but it is an indulgence.”

Darn that healing public! If they’d just go around being an open wound, how much easier it’d be for the hard working journalists, who are dodging murderous Islamofascists already because of Dan Rather’s emotionalism. Now they are alone in trying to get to the truth, using the tough Lewinsky –era questioning all journalists aspire to.

And it’s the journalist’s lonely job to transcend the public in their noble task:

“Fortunately, it hasn't been -- and hopefully never will be -- a journalist's job to kow-tow to an ever-shifting public sentiment.”

That’s correct. I have never seen any media outlet kowtow to public sentiment. No endless stories on OJ or the scandal-of-the-moment, but rather constant deep analyses of trade agreements and participant-observation studies of homelessness and the truth behind Democratic scare tactics. I’m glad too, Michael.

Finally, digging past a discredited Rather into the misty history of broadcast journalism, Olson pulls out a quote from Edward R. Murrow, unconnected to what we know of journalism today but seeming, in Olson’s mind, to give him the moral high ground to make this closing doom-filled comment:

“If U.S. democracy is to persevere though this long and difficult time, the media must go beyond the symbolic and dig to discover the terms of the war, while helping an information-starved public gain a deeper understanding of the enemy.”

Thus, apparently, the continued existence of our democracy rests on the ability of the professional media to feed their views through news shows and NYTimes op-eds to the huddled, helpless, information-less (apparently no DSL there) masses. If that’s the case, then we really are doomed – and we won’t need the Islamofascists to help get us there.

GO KENTUCKY! The UK Wildcats play Tulsa today at 4:30 p.m. Some say Tubby has to win to get some respect out of this rough season. I think he already deserves it.

And have this for breakfast:

"With the March 14 win, the Wildcats had their 12th straight opening victory in the NCAA Tournament. Kentucky hasn't lost a first-round NCAA tournament game since dropping a 91-77 decision to Ohio State in 1987."

Whoooosh!

BIAS ON THE HOOF: David Tell at The Weekly Standard has an excellent dissection of mistakes in a recent article by New York Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner Nicholas D. Kristof about Sami Al-Arian, a former University of South Florida computer engineering professor who has been the center of investigations for involvement in raising money for terrorists. Tell indicates that Kristof is both lazy and disingenuous. You like to see that in Pulitzer Prize winners. (Wait a minute... isn't Doris Kearns Goodwin a Pulitzer Prize winner? Oops.)

Both Kristof and Tell seem to think al-Arian is still a professor at USF, and he is still on the USF website. The link on "former" is to a Salon article saying he's been terminated, but this article says he's fighting it.

Viewing an abstract of Kristof's article requires registration; full text requires payment.

SHAKEUP AT INS: In the wake of the revelation that visas for two of the 9/11 terrorists had been processed and approved recently, four top officials at the INS have been removed. If this means that improvements will be made, that's a good thing. But the reason I can't get too excited about either the visas or the firing of officials is that government is always about business as usual. I will have to be convinced that the "shakeup" is about more than window-dressing.

I've worked for eight years for various local government agencies, and before that I was a journalist covering government, with graduate school weaving throughout. I've been around these bureaucracies enough to be skeptical of any kind of meaningful change - it takes a concerted effort from either a rational, minimally-political government official or a persistent non-government group - a citizens group, or even the media. The public in general could cause change, but usually their attention is measured in nanoseconds when the issue is serious. They can be riveted by the short-term drama of a trial, but mismanagement in the INS is a yawner unless repeated foul-ups cause persistent fear.

I suspect the INS is similar to some of the government agencies I've experienced. In one, the bosses were all political appointees and in their view whatever they said was the best thing was, by caveat, exactly that. By their judgment, any problems were a result of staff stupidity, not poor leadership. They responded to fawning and hired based on a variety of characteristics with qualifications and work ethic low on the list. People who did good work and worked hard were appreciated, but as chattel, not professionals. The point was to maintain the bosses' position, not make the office productive. Productivity was a by-product.

The civil service system is a nightmare, but the political patronage that gave rise to it is a real and present danger to departmental functioning. Every time a new administration comes in, the leaders change, and they want to make their mark quickly. Since their political bosses often supported their candidacy with the premise that the previous administration was pathetic, those changes have to introduce new policies regardless of whether current policies worked well. In a small organization, the adaption is painful but doable. In a huge organization, it's virtually impossible to make meaningful change quickly, so the civil servants become adept at continuing business as usual while changing surface aspects of the job to appear to be following the new directives. Long-term civil servants often manage to create their own little fifedoms, defining their work, deciding how they want to do it, knowing that more than likely they only have to hang on four years before the next administration comes in with new changes. Even good civil servants - and there are a lot of them - become cynical about change after two or three or ten amazing new plans wind up on the shelf in six months or a year because the powers that be lacked the will or the clout to implement them.

So what is the solution? I don't know. It's something that literally has kept me awake some nights, because it matters to me that things are done right. I'm not perfect and I have at times made my own little job bubble to get peace from the daily vacillations. It seems to me, though, that a tough, honest analysis that looks at where we are, where we should be and what obstacles stand between the two is the best first step. Then a system-wide strategy to remove the obstacles and create both accountability and productivity standards would be a good next step. But there are so many special interest groups operating whose goal is protection of their group with no concern for the broader public good, that I despair of success. I know retreat from the battlefield means no chance to win the war. But I get tired. And so far, the blustering about national security, the INS and airport security show no promise for meaningful change.

If the visa approval has the power to change that, good. But I don't count on it.

THOMAS SOWELL gives a good analysis of the pros and cons of the death penalty for Andrea Yates, posted today prior to the penalty verdict. His thoughts about the context in which the decision was made are still pertinent. This one general comment is especially important:

"Too many among the intelligentsia, and those influenced by them, simply cannot face the fact of deliberate evil, and take the easy way out by automatically saying that all murderers are ill."

Usually this is true. I've heard a lot on the radio, and read online, that anyone who murders is insane. It is a circular argument - wanting to kill someone is insane, thus anyone who does so is insane by definition. It is a safe home for moral relativists and those frightened by the thought of evil.

And yet, in some circumstances Sowell's comment is not true - the most stark examples are the circumstances where liberal protectorates are the focus. For example, the men who killed James Byrd in Texas by dragging him behind their car were considered by all to be evil - only there, the word for "evil" was "racist". When Matthew Shepard was killed by two men, presumably because he was gay, those killers were "evil", only the word for it there was "homophobic". And yet, when black men kill a white man, or when gay men kill a straight man, the behavior gets little media play and the acts are not characterized as evil. In fact, when black men beat Reginald Denny nearly to death in Los Angeles during the riots following the trial of the officers who beat Rodney King, their behavior was not often portrayed as "evil" but justified rage emerging from oppression. (Something that has gotten too little press in that incident is that Denny was saved by four black men who saw the beating on television and rushed to the scene to stop it.)

The point here isn't that the killers of Byrd and Shepard weren't evil - I think they were. The point is that the moral label of "evil", by whatever name, isn't applied objectively to similar behavior committed by functioning adults who were able to choose whether or not to behave that way, but rather to behavior that offends the sensibilities of "the intelligentsia, and those influenced by them". What is evil is motive, not action - in this construct, any action is permissible as long as the motive is acceptable. And often it is the media and the intellectual elites - usually liberal - who define what acceptable motives are.

JOHN ELLIS tips his hat to bloggers while dissing the mainstream commentators. The subhead of his column says it well:

"Say good-bye to the old-school pundits on the op-ed page of the "New York Times." It's time to blog."

LIFE FOR YATES: This was a tough call, but from what I've read about Texas law it was the right choice:

"To impose the death penalty, the jury had to decide unanimously that Yates posed a future danger to others and that there were no mitigating circumstances against executing her. The jury answered no to the first question — deciding that she didn't pose a future danger to others — and therefore did not have to answer the second."

I think she would be a danger if she had more children - which is why I think she absolutely should be in prison the rest of her life. This justification for the death penalty doesn't allow for "depravity" - i.e. that her actions were so depraved and horrific as to deserve death. I think depravity should be an aggravating factor allowing someone to receive the death penalty - if, for instance, she had done the same thing with no record or hint of mental illness. Sometimes revenge or just moral outrage should be sufficient.

And I think this is a fine quote for the last word on the subject:

"Prosecutor Kaylynn Wilford said after the verdict: "It's very important to realize what these children went through. Everyone is trying to make this a woman's issue or a political issue, but the issue to me is five dead children." "

MAYOR IS A BLOOMIN' IDIOT: The mayor of NYC, Mike Bloomberg, has a weekly call-in show on WABC 770 A.M. in NYC every Friday, following in the steps of Rudolph Guiliani. A private detective called this morning about 11 a.m. asking about getting a carry-concealed permit for the five boroughs, since he already is able to carry concealed in other areas and is losing business because he can’t in NYC. I don’t know the merits of that individual case. But Bloomberg’s response was (paraphrased), I think restrictions should be tougher, not easier. His reasoning? Because if a gun is in a home, a child will find it and shoot himself or someone else. He even said that he recommends that police officers with children don’t take their weapons home, but leave them at work in their locker. This man is such a liberal in Republican clothing. The kicker:

“There’s nothing more precious than your children.”

Yes, and the point in an anti-gun argument would be….? By this measure, we should get rid of cars, swimming pools and parents in general, because more children die through non-gun encounters with them. Stats from the National Center for Injury Prevention & Control's Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System: of children 14 and younger in the US in 1999, 2219 died in motor vehicles; 859 drowned; 571 died in fires. Firearms were 8th. If you take out the youngest and count only 5-14 year olds, firearms are still only 7th and firearm deaths do not even reach 5% of the number killed in vehicles. And looking at the 15-24 year olds, firearms still only rise to 5th – behind motor vehicles, poisoning, drowning and other land transport (motorcycles? Four-wheelers? I’m not sure). Should we have tasters for people under 24, to test for poison? Refuse to let them in vehicles? Keep them away from water? (Thanks to Instapundit for the stats link.)

Also, it’s just outrageous for Bloomberg to tell police officers not to carry their guns off-duty. Just last night an off-duty officer here in Jersey City foiled a robbery because he was armed. He was at his barber’s, and two men tried to hold up the business. What would happen if criminals knew that off-duty officers can't carry?

An attitude like Bloomberg’s will get us a British-like NYC – people cowering in their homes in fear because the state favors the criminal by preventing citizens from protecting themselves.

FOR REASONS BEYOND MY CONTROL I have been unable to post since this morning, but I'm back in business now. It was particularly difficult because I was seriously ranting about Mike Bloomberg all morning and couldn't post about it. But now I will - see above.

A GREAT DISCUSSION OF BIAS by Sgt. Stryker in the context of openly gay people in the military. Basically, he says the only way to make it work is if both sides are honest about where the problems are without making problems where there aren't any. I think his comments would be true about a lot of issues. My favorite part is his definition of bias:

"There's a tendency, no matter what cause you advocate, to portray whomever you boost in the best light possible and to shout down those who would like to bring your cause down to earth. Hell, I do it all the time."

NO STOMACH FOR IT? The BBC has been slapped down by the courts for censoring a pro-life political program. I'm no fan of graphic photos to prove a point - words do just as well, if someone is open to being convinced - but given the number of times I've seen horrific photos in support of liberal causes, this seems clearly a matter of issue bias.

"LONDON (AP) -- TV broadcasters illegally censored a graphic political program by an anti-abortion party, the Court of Appeal ruled Thursday, holding that the shocking pictures were an important contribution to a political debate.

"Anti-abortion activists cheered the ruling, but the British Broadcasting Corp. said it would pursue an appeal.

"The BBC fought the case on behalf of all broadcasters. The Independent Television Commission, which regulates commercial broadcasts, said the program violated its code.

"``The broadcasters have been entrusted by Parliament with the obligation not to broadcast material that offends against good taste and decency or is likely to be offensive to public feeling,'' said Anne Sloman, chief political adviser to the BBC."

The question is, who makes the decision about what offends and what doesn't? I guess they know it when they see it.

BILLY GRAHAM, STAY HOME! The well-known evangelist Billy Graham is being asked to cancel a huge summer mission in Cincinnati by one of the people who asked him to hold the event there. A father-son preaching duo, Damon Lynch Jr. and Damon Lynch III, were actively involved last spring in the vitriolic public debate following the shooting death of a black man and subsequent riots in the city. Now Lynch III wants Graham to stay home:

"...the Rev. Damon Lynch III, told the Enquirer the city needs justice before it can heal and that he is calling for the boycott. The Rev. Mr. Lynch III was instrumental in lobbying the Rev. Mr. Graham to come to Cincinnati, and until last week, served on the general committee of the mission. He declined to discuss any strategy concerning the boycott's expansion to the Graham mission.

"The boycott leaders have a number of demands for the city, including amnesty for rioters, millions of dollars for inner-city development projects and changes in the police department. A few entertainers have responded to the call to boycott, including Bill Cosby who was scheduled to perform tonight at the Aronoff Center."

Looks like a ploy to me, getting a prominent religious leader to agree to a huge event, then using it as leverage in a political game.

BIAS BY ABSENCE? The US Dept. of Justice has sent its lawyers to side with Ohio right-to-life proponents in fighting to preserve a state law against partial birth abortions, according to an article in FoxNews. The article seemed relatively straightforward, with a little lean toward the right-to-life side, and I wondered how other outlets covered it. So far, I can't see that they have - no word on CNN, or the websites of any of the three major networks, not in the NY Times or even the Cincinnati Enquirer. Could this be a bias? It seems like a big story to me, giving some idea of Bush's intent to take sides actively in an issue debated hotly throughout the nation, and the silence of the big outlets is odd.

While generally I agree with the efforts of the Ohio right-to-lifers, at the same time I'm not very happy with the federal government getting involved. It's a state issue, and needs to be dealt with there. I wouldn't have wanted the Clintons involved on the abortion rights side, and I don't want Bush involved on the right to life side. I want them to pack their bags and go home.

BIAS IN SCIENCE? Charles Murtaugh has an excellent article on the politicization of science, where scientists present their information ideologically:

"Ignacio Chapela, one of the authors of a Nature paper on GM corn "pollution," turns out to be an anti-GMO ideologue. On the other hand, Paul Christou, who authored an editorial in the journal Transgenic Research strongly criticizing the Nature findings, is himself an outspoken advocate of plant biotechnology. Both researchers could be accused of ideological bias..."

So the bias can come from both sides, and readers should look closely to find the science behind the rhetoric. But Murtaugh also highlights something that I find even more chilling:

"...might they begin to selectively filter their data and opinions so as avoid undermining their ideological position?"

I think this already happens in some disciplines, although Murtaugh does not think it has invaded his area of developmental biology. I don't want to indicate that it is rampant, but I think it is more common that we want to believe, and more prevalent in the social sciences than in the hard sciences in part because social sciences deal with less quantifiable research questions to begin with. The social sciences - which include the type of polling common in politics - must be approached with great rigor to prevent ideology from affecting even the data collected.

In the Internet age, scientists reporting their findings should post things such as sample size, wording if the data collection involved a survey, method of subject selection and other factors that could have an impact on the result. That would usher in another way for readers (especially bloggers) to fact check them.

FRIENDS FROM TEXAS are visiting next week, arriving at LaGuardia on Saturday. I get to go pick them up - oh, joy. It'll be fun, though, even if we fall all over each other in this little apartment. It will mean less time blogging - they probably won't be too excited about my typing really late or really early, and the "guest room" is a futon couch in the living room about 10 feet from the computer. But I'll still post some daily. And thank you for reading - I very much appreciate every minute you spend here.

THE WTC LIGHTS shine bright in this time-exposure photo; Claudia Rosett says what it means to all in the NYC metro area, and beyond. I'll be able to add my bit tomorrow night.

I CAN'T SEE THE WTC LIGHTS from the ridge near my apartment. I could see the towers burning from there, the morning of September 11, and for the rest of that week I could see the smoke rising. But tonight I couldn't see the two beams of blue light from the WTC site, and I'm only about 7 miles away. The television news said it could be seen for 20 miles. Maybe that was from Long Island. Tomorrow night I will go down to Exchange Place, which is directly across the Hudson from the WTC site, and seen the lights from there. And then report to you.

MUSLIMPUNDIT is a must-read - especially Monday's post about the current state of Islam and ideas about the future.

HIS AND HERS FILICIDE: the difference in society's reaction, according to Slate, is that children are considered women's property, and thus a woman must be insane to harm them. Men, on the other hand, are harming the property of someone else - the mother of the children - when killing children. Blogger Anthony Swenson doubts the stats and the logic, with several good points worth reading despite his emphasis on evolution as the reason for the difference. But one of the foundational issues in this discussion is the attitude that women don't hurt their children, women don't kill their children, very frequently, and when they do it must be some aberration beyond the general aberration of humanity that selfish harming exemplifies.

I agree with Slate's Lithwick that women kill their children more frequently than men do, but I think it's more a matter of proximity and control of the victim than any sense of property on the part of mothers. She says:

"Women still believe that they have sole dominion over so little property that arson and armed robbery and rape make no intuitive sense to them. But the destruction and control of something deemed to be a woman's sole property sends a powerful message about who's really in charge, and this message hasn't changed since the time of Jason and Medea."

I think the property argument is biased toward a feminist perspective of patriarchy, which basically tries to make bad or evil behavior anything but a woman's personal choice. I also don't think matricide is about showing who's in charge - that's an offshoot of the patriarchy argument. The question is - do women choose to kill just as men do, even though they may have different logic and methods? I think the answer is yes. Studies show repeatedly that the most dangerous people in your life are not strangers on the street but your family members and friends. Women by tradition have greater responsibility for and time with children than do men; among those women are going to be ones with the same selfishness or mental disconnects that cause homicidal behavior in men. The point here is proximity and ability to control - women physically can subdue and harm children whereas they are less physically capable of doing so with other adult women or with men, and also are less likely to be in settings with adults where the potential for control is active. Men traditionally don't have that constant proximity to and responsibility for children, and those who do are likely a purposive sample of men who are predisposed to cherish children and not a cross section of all men.

And I think the abuse and killing of children is more widespread than we tend to believe. The vulnerability of children is emphasized by the condition known as Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. In this disorder, a caretaker actually causes a child's illness to get attention and accolades from family and medical personnel as a wonderful mother caring for a desperately sick child. And it works - two women who were later found guilty of Munchausen by Proxy were honored respectively by first ladies Nancy Reagan and Hillary Clinton for their exemplary motherhood.

The attitude that mothers won't hurt their children is dangerous for the children and can actively bias research. An example is a 1972 study on SIDS where a family in the study purportedly lost five children to SIDS over time; the mother later confessed to killing all of them by suffocation. Incidentally, she was given 75 years in prison for her crimes. In another case in the 1960s, a couple lost 10 babies over the years, supposedly also to SIDS. While authorities investigated the case repeatedly, the couple were never charged.

This isn't to say that all families who lose babies to SIDS should be suspected of dark activities. But it does speak to the tendency of our society to give women a pass on homicidal behavior. Once this attitude is established, it becomes harder to hold women responsible for choices they make, especially when those choices truly are deeply influenced by mental disorders. But the law separates out mental disorder from legal insanity, and we have a responsibility to hold women and men to the same level of culpability for choices - not give someone a bye because of what we wish were true.

UPDATE: I got to thinking about filicide, matricide, patricide - just which word was right? So I researched, and it turns out that filicide covers both men and women killing their children. So I have updated the heading to reflect that. Matricide/patricide is about children killing their parents.

LEFT-WING THEOLOGY? Charles Murtaugh has an excellent and thought-provoking discussion of theology from both extremes in the wake of 9/11; of particular interest is the part on why innocents suffer, and the posturing of Noam Chomsky. I tend to fall into the "free will defense of God's justice" camp; Ecclesiastes 9:11 comes to mind as well - "...but time and chance happeneth to them all."

EMAIL ME! I now have the email-me button link on my site, thanks to HTML help from George of George's Miscellaneous Ramblings and some finagling with Blogger's HTML version. Now I have to figure out how to do a list of links....

In the meantime, check out the cartoons George posts. Pretty funny. Glad you resisted the magazine, George.

WORTH IT FOR THE HEADLINE: David Nieporent at Jumping to Conclusions has some interesting commentary, but my favorite thing is this headline on one of them:

"U.N. complains that U.S. skyscrapers keep killing innocent Saudi tourists"

The scary thing is - it sounds like a headline that could really be.

THE CURRENT CATHOLIC CRISIS: Rod Dreher of NRO and Andrew Sullivan set up a debate about the issue of homosexual priests in the Catholic priesthood. It's very good reading; I agree with Dreher on this. I'm not Catholic, and I have serious theological differences with Catholic doctrine, but I think this debate is a very good thing and Sullivan and Dreher both are honest and unflinching in their discussions. It's obvious that the sexual behavior of priests has to be understood and dealt with by the Catholic Church, for the safety of its children and the preservation (or adjustment) of its doctrine. Sullivan says:

"...I think we have a duty to question our faith in order to understand and fully believe it."

That I agree with totally. I encourage you to read both discussions.

ANDREA YATES/ADAIR GARCIA COMPARISON AGAIN: David Skinner at Weekly Standard compares the reaction to Andrea Yates's crime to the reaction of Adair Garcia's crime - both killed their children, but the response in the media was starkly different. He thinks it's because she was a mother, he was a father, and it's just a situation that feminism and psychiatry struggle with given their worldview. I agree. I addressed this on March 3; my analysis of Yates/Garcia is the last post on the archive page.

KENTUCKY CONNECTION AGAIN: The Atta visa was processed in London, a small Kentucky town just 17 miles from my childhood home. Everyone is saying "it's not their fault!" That's probably true, but who's is it? I'm not quite sure why everyone is so hysterical about this. We knew INS was screwed up before 9/11, and we know they haven't made any significant changes since. The value of this, I think, is to highlight the difficulty of shifting bureaucratic processes and the fact that it's still business as usual. Heads should roll, changes need to be made. We knew that already. This is just blustering because now the public knows it hasn't changed.

WEEKLY STANDARD'S LAST ON BLOGGING: He thinks that if the blogging phenomenon isn't a fad, it will in the long run return print journalism to ascendency over broadcast. And he loves Instapundit. But then, doesn't everyone?

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: Or, maybe not.

"Calcutta, India (Reuters) - A man in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta who applied for a state government job 34 years ago finally got an interview call -- but said on Wednesday he was now too old for a post."

Gotta love efficiency. Thanks to Annessa at The Unusual Life of a Usual Girl blog for the link. The whole article is pretty funny.

BITING THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU makes JunkYardBlog bite back. Nice little rant about an Anglican bishop who's written a book deconstructing Christianity and Judaism. A quote from the bishop:

"I try to distinguish between the transient and the enduring elements of both the Hebrew and the Christian scriptures," he says, "and suggest that it is better to see them as good poetry than as bad science if they are to have meaning for us today."

Ouch. JunkYardBlog has good science too, from a Christian perspective - specifically on evolution/creation. I suggest you check it out, especially if you think you'll disagree. A good debate is as, if not more, important in the religion/science intersection as anywhere else.

STATISTICS! I love statistics, except actually calculating them. Instapundit points the way to The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, where you can find all manner of statistics about death and injury - including firearm deaths and legal intervention deaths. Cool stuff, easy to read and sort through.

IT'S TIME FOR MARCH MADNESS! And I make my prediction now - the University of Kentucky will mow through the field and come out the winner.

Ok, I know, that is madness. But they're in the tournament, so a woman can hope, right? I even did my basketball pool brackets with UK winning. Putting my heart where my hopes are.

I have two favorite teams in the tournament: Kentucky and whoever is playing Duke. One of the two is bound to win.

REPORTER HITS IT BIG WITH SHOWTIME: Keith Sharon with The Orange County Register relates how he sold a script to Hollywood that was released this month as the movie SHOWTIME, with Robert DeNiro and Eddie Murphy. It's a cool story, and the best parts are the "aw shucks" way Sharon admits feeling as he watched the movie being filmed:

"In that first few minutes, I tried to muster the nerve to approach DeNiro or Murphy. You know, to talk about their characters' motivations. But I have to admit, I didn't go near them. I snuck a few pictures of them, but that's as close as I got.

"A production assistant scolded me for taking pictures. "That is so unprofessional," she said. She looked like a high school student."

One of my journalism professors said you know you're a professional when you stop being impressed with seeing your name in print. I think that's true, up to a point - it's about getting beyond your ego and into the story and the job - but sometimes you gotta be like a kid who just hit a homerun. Mom! Look at MEEEEE!!!! And to feel awe in the presence of talent doing its thing. That's why I loved this article, and why I would have had to sneer at the production assistant.

EVEN MORE EXAMPLES OF PRIVACY PROBLEMS due to surveillance in this FoxNews commentary; writer Radley Balko says (and I agree):

"We seem to think that there must be a tradeoff — security for privacy. But that’s not the case."

SEARCHING 3 YEAR OLDS? Robert Musil on Man Without Qualities does a nice takedown of the LA Times and a set of not-very-bright parents objecting to the fact that their 3 year old daughter was searched at the airport.

JIM ROMENESKO has a great site on obscure news. A couple of snippets:

"A Billings woman (was) accused of stabbing her boyfriend in the back because he was taking too long washing the dishes..."

"...two female teachers -- they're also sisters -- allegedly told three students that they'd get cash if they beat up a girl who was having a fling with the boyfriend of one teacher. A police report quotes one sister/teacher saying: "That little ho, she thinks she's grown because she sleeping with a grown man."

Worth making a favorite.

GOD AS CENSOR?:

"RUSSELL SPRINGS -- A teachers' prayer group is involved in an effort to get dozens of books dealing with ghosts, cults and witchcraft reviewed for possible removal from the library at Russell County (KY) High School.

"God revealed to the group that the presence of the books was one reason his "manifested presence" hadn't yet come to the school to change the hearts and minds of students, according to a letter from one member of the group."

There's just nothing nice or kind I can say about this, so I won't comment.

LAST NIGHT TRACY HOUSEL DIED by lethal injection, in Georgia’s death chamber, with more attention from Britain and Europe than from the U.S.:

“JACKSON -- Considering the 20 foreign media representatives outside the Georgia Diagnostics and Classification Prison Tuesday, Europe was more interested in the execution of Tracy Housel, a drifter and accused serial killer, than the people in this state."

The interest is because Housel was a British subject; he is called "British" and "a Briton" in various references. Even CNN begins their article with:

"JACKSON, Georgia (Reuters) -- A British man convicted of the 1985 murder of a female hitchhiker was executed Tuesday in Georgia despite sharp protests, particularly in Britain."

You have to go down a long way to find the edges of the truth about his citizenship in the same article:

"Housel was one of four Britons on death row in the United States. Born in the British colony of Bermuda, he held dual U.S. and British citizenship. He came to the United States as a child and lived there most of his life."

But even that creates a false impression. A biography of Housel, on a site dedicated to having the death penalty stayed, makes it clear:

"They (Housel's parents) were American civilians (his mother from North Carolina) and Housel's father was employed at the Kindley Air Force Base as a sheet metal worker. At that time Bermuda was in British possession. On February 1st, 2001, the Foreign Office confirmed Tracy was born and remains a British national.

"The family left Bermuda about a year after their son's birth."

So Housel was born to American parents and lived all but one of his 43 years in the United States, but on that basis he was considered a British citizen by those who wanted to use his case as an opportunity for protest. And it was a sizable protest:

The Guardian: "An extraordinary and unprecedented alliance of relatives, lawyers, campaigners, British politicians and European diplomats trooped into the board offices in Atlanta in a final attempt to save Housel's life."

The BBC: "The Council of Europe's general secretary Walter Schwimmer said he "deeply deplored" the fact the US had refused to commute Housel's death sentence to a prison term.

""Once again, the USA has decided to go ahead with the death penalty, despite my own plea and those made by the United Kingdom, which, as a member of the Council of Europe, has already banned the death penalty." "

SkyNews (which refers to Housel as "Briton"): "Foreign Secretary Jack Straw phoned Georgia's governor in an unsuccessful bid to have the sentence commuted."

The reporters were aggrieved at Georgia's response, and put a spin on their reporting to get the point across:

"They (the petitioners mentioned above) were armed with an indirect appeal from Tony Blair addressed to Vera Baird, the MP for Redcar. It did not impress the five-strong panel (the state parole board), who traditionally give no reasons for their decision. No voting figures were released.

"The hearing was closed to the public and media but witnesses said the board members appeared to soften just once: when they were shown two christening gowns crocheted by Housel for his lawyer's twin babies."

And what was it that Housel did, anyway, to cause such hard-heartedness on Georgia's part, so hard that they were almost unmoved by hand-crocheted christening gowns?

"Housel has admitted raping and strangling 46-year-old Jeanne Drew during a two-week homicidal spree in 1985... "

"...and also allegedly raped and killed a man in Texas, slashed another man's throat in Iowa and sexually assaulted a woman in New Jersey."

The whole episode is a good example of how the media selects information and wording to advance certain causes. Fortunately, Georgia did know the whole truth, gave the protests the consideration they deserved, and responded, in my judgment, precisely right:

"A board member, Dr Eugene Walker, heard the delegation of EU consular officials plead that execution was wrong, then said: "You know, you have strong sentiments against the death penalty. You've got to know we have strong sentiments for it and it's part of our law.""

That's right. It's a part of our law, and it's not Britain's business, or Europe's, no matter how it's spun.

"At 7:28 p.m., Housel became the sixth person Georgia has put to death by lethal injection."

CLASSIC MEDIA BIAS through word usage and proximity. In covering a verdict about whether corrections officers caused the death of an inmate named Schmude, The Chicago Sun-Times begins their article today this way:

"After 13 days of courtroom heat, bitter confrontations and dueling experts, it took just five minutes Tuesday for Cook County Judge Ronald Himel to find three sheriff's officers not guilty of killing Louis Schmude when he was their prisoner."

"Sgt. Patricia Pultz and deputies Lawrence Koscianski and William Spatz walked free of charges they beat Schmude so severely on May 5, 2000, in a Bridgeview holding cell that he died of a ruptured spleen two days later."

Evidence from the defense mentioned elsewhere in the article notes that the prisoner was an alcoholic and maintains that "Schmude's own "rock-hard'' liver had speared his spleen in a drunken fall".

A sidebar article run with the verdict article gives an almost fond brief biography of Schmude, quoting his family, and saying in part,

"But he didn't deserve to die--and certainly not at the hands of three Cook County sheriff's deputies, his family believes.

""They made him out like he was a stumbling idiot and that wasn't the truth at all," Schmude's wife, Joan, said. "We all know what they did. They know what they did.""

The headlines?

"Judge defends his verdict"

"Schmude was an alcoholic, but no monster, family says"

I don't know any more about this case than these articles explain. But the tone of the articles and the juxtaposition of information and quotes makes it plain what the newspaper thinks about it - the judge was protecting abusive officers and let them get away with the murder of a troubled man who was trying hard to make his life work. Maybe that's true; maybe the officers did the beating and the judge was protecting them. You won't find the truth about it on this web page. The newspaper doesn't make the case by quoting specifics indicating it, or letting experts in law or law enforcement or alcoholism or forensic pathology address the case. Instead, the newspaper works to condemn the judge and officers in the court of public opinion by this hyperbolic, biased coverage.

When you read a newspaper or watch television, pay attention to the actual words journalists use, and the qualifiers. "Just five minutes" and "five long minutes" are both using the same space of time, but the image created is very different. The journalist is saying to you, "in this instance, five minutes is too fast; in this other one, five minutes is agonizingly long". It's often used in covering the economy - stocks and unemployment. Something is always "precipitously" dropping - 2%. Or "shooting up" - 1.4%. In whose judgment is 2% a sharp drop? Or is 1.4% a sharp climb? Without context or quotes from experts, you don't know. And the words create impressions without your always being conscious of it.

Interesting writing doesn't have to be flagrantly biased writing. But it does take more work.

WELL, I'M BEHIND THE TIMES about the affadavit on Walker, but I hadn't seen it before and I certainly hadn't seen much made of his knowing about the suicide missions back in June 2001. But it was reported; probably more than this but the links are gone now. Still, if you've not read the whole thing, the affadavit itself is very interesting. I can't find anything on Google about what is going on with him now. Anybody else seen anything?

WHAT JOHN WALKER LINDH SAID to an FBI Special Agent about his involvement with al Qaeda is in an affidavit on FindLaw. Pretty damning. Some excerpts:

"HUM (Harakat ul-Mujahideen) officials told Walker not to admit to anyone that he was American but to say, if asked, that he was from Ireland.

"Walker further stated that he knew at the time that Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were "against America and the government of Saudi Arabia," and that al-Qaeda's purpose was to fight Americans."

"Within the first several weeks of his arrival there, in or about early June 2001, Walker learned from one of his instructors that Bin Laden had sent people to the United States to carry out several suicide operations."

"Based on the foregoing, I (the FBI agent) have probable cause to believe that: (i) from in or about May 2001 through in or about December 2001, John Philip Walker Lindh, a/k/a "Suleyman al-Faris," a/k/a "Abdul Hamid," the defendant, while outside the United States, engaged in a conspiracy to kill nationals of the United States outside of the United States, namely, United States nationals engaged in the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan..."

He knew he was fighting Americans; he was ready to kill Americans. He knew about planned suicide attacks in the US at least 3 months before they happened, and made no effort to warn. He sounds like a traitor to me.

OTHER THOUGHTS ON THE YATES VERDICT and what should happen next, from Matthew Edgar and Creatical.com. I'm down the middle on this one.

DID YOU KNOW: Saddam Hussein has now agreed to weapons inspections?

The bad news is that he wants Arthur Andersen to do it.

There's more where that came from.

(I love bad jokes.)

IS AMERICA CASUALTY-AVERSE? Sgt. Stryker says no, if the fighting is for the right reasons. Lengthy but very good discussion.

SGT. STRYKER ponders Providence and the WTC.

THE YATES TRIAL AND DEEPER TRUTHS: The closing arguments by the prosecution and defense at the Yates trial neatly set up the dichotomy of philosophies in our society:

""It's not that I am without sympathy or that you are without sympathy," (Prosecutor) Owmby said. "You have to decide this case based on the facts of the law."

"Parnham, the defense lawyer, said the case is about prevention, adding: "This is an opportunity for this jury to make a determination about the status of women's mental health. Make no mistake, the world is watching.""

Responsibility vs. no responsibility.

Mental illness is real, and often misunderstood. Some people are unable to distinguish between right and wrong. That's why we've developed laws to give us guidelines on making these determinations. If we don't like the boundaries we've set, change them by changing the laws. Until then, decisions must be made based on the law, not emotion.

I think the world is watching. I hope the jury makes the right decision.

BIAS IN EDUCATION? Of course n... uh, well....

"A Stanford professor has accused the influential Phi Delta Kappa education association of "cooking the questions" in its closely watched annual survey of attitudes toward school vouchers so it could produce an anti-voucher result."

Thanks to Kausfiles for the link.

DEFINITIONALLY CHALLENGED: Dan Rather, that media bastion of honesty and trustworthiness, wins a major award for his incisive analysis of Clinton and honesty:

Bill O’Reilly: "I want to ask you flat out, do you think President Clinton’s an honest man?"

Dan Rather: "I think at core he’s an honest person....I know that you consider it sort of astonishing anybody would say so, but I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things."

That explains a lot.

AM I A PRIVACY ALARMIST? Read this and decide. An excerpt:

"...state motor vehicle agencies (are) using the Sept. 11 attacks as justification for asking Congress to standardize the license, share more driver data between states and mandate techniques such as biometrics to "uniquely identify" each of America's 228 million drivers...

""This is not about a national ID," says Jason King, AAMVA's public affairs manager. "The reality is that corporate America came to rely on (the driver's license) as something more. If people are going to use a driver's license for more, then we have a responsibility to create uniform standards."

Did you hear me say "convenience"?

"...the most chilling objection may be the idea of a gargantuan database that tracks and records any time you use your ID. If all states issued the smartcard-licenses, such detailed information about their use would become a gold mine for the IRS, police and direct marketers."

Well, you're not doing anything wrong, so you won't mind. Or do you?

PRIVACY VS CRIME CAMERAS update, with thanks to Perry de Havilland of Libertarian Samizdata for a heads-up on the links.

I talked below about the television cameras that are increasingly placed in cities in the US, mentioning that they have been common in Great Britain for a while. The Scottish Center for Criminology did a study on the effectiveness of these cameras for deterring crime, the results of which were released last year. The findings are put like this, in an article on it by Jason Ditton, Professor of Criminology in the Law Faculty at Sheffield University, and Director of the Scottish Center for Criminology in Glasgow:

"...did the open-street CCTV system reduce crime and the fear of crime?

"The short answer to both is no."

And why is that?

"The problem, one exasperated police source told United Press International, is that "the TV cameras can't be everywhere. There are hundreds of thousands of nooks and crannies left, everywhere you look, and this is where criminals are increasingly operating. And when a camera shows up, they move elsewhere.""

This is something that is taken as read in criminal justice circles - the "displacement" factor. There are two types of displacement - location and type of crime. So if the police come into the neighborhood where I'm selling drugs, I will either start selling drugs somewhere else or I will start running various scams because the police aren't focusing on scams. Police tacticians are well aware of this phenomenon and most policing strategies are developed with an eye to minimizing displacement. The only way to prevent displacement is to saturate the entire jurisdiction with police, but then you are only displacing outside the jurisdiction, and you are creating a police state inside the jurisdiction. So what do you do?

One thing you do is understand that policing is a function of society, not outside it, and as such police respond to the society's mandate. Currently we have a very splintered mandate for criminal justice as a whole in our society - we want 10 year sentences for third offense DUIs, but are accepting of 5-7 year sentences for manslaughter. We want the police to make crime go away, but we watch and video and snipe at everything they do while making no effort to incorporate our own safety into how we live our lives. We criticize police for not policing, we refuse to help them police, and then criticize them when they do police. This creates a greater market for policing without actually having contact with the public physically - i.e. video cameras, which don't require sleep and record information permanently for later review. It also tends to be touted as an economic move, as Ditton says:

"...as well as eliminating crime and fear of crime, the cameras were also supposed to increase annual inward investment to the city by £43 million a year, generate 1500 new jobs, and bring an additional 225,000 visitors each year."

My personal opinion is that these cameras should be a tool that is in very limited use, and only in areas where the quality of life is so degraded by crime that the cure is not worse than the disease. But complaining about the cameras doesn't cut to the heart of the larger issue - the United States as a nation is moving toward a society where people accept less and less responsibility for themselves, for their families and for their neighborhoods. It is an outgrowth of the welfare system, the cradle-to-grave "nurturing" that is expected by so many. So of course the government has not only the right but the responsibility to video all of us all the time to make sure that we are not up to any meanness, to protect those who can't or won't protect themselves. From my reading, it appears that Great Britain is already there - a society with a major disbursement of the surveillance cameras yet crime grows, where a man who protects his own home is sent to prison for shooting an intruder.

Our tendency is to take all these things piece by piece - copyright protections hardwired into your computer, cameras watching you on the street, EZ PASS tracking your movement over the roads, your credit cards and phone bill revealing your habits and preferences to anyone who can get access. The reality is that all of these things are the same thing - invasions of privacy. Perhaps as a country we will decide that such invasions are worth whatever convenience they afford in return. But if we aren't careful, our rights will diminish incrementally, piece by piece, until we wake up with none and wonder what happened.

And what will have happened is our indifference and refusal to take responsibility for ourselves as individuals, ceding it to the government.

HERE WE GO AGAIN! MSN has another list of "women who made history", less overtly feminist than that last one but still leading off with Madeleine Albright. This tells you just about all you need to know about the bias behind this list:

"Why we celebrate her: She became a wife and mother at a young age, but Madeleine Albright never swerved from the path of educating and bettering herself. She parlayed her Ph.D. in public law and government into high-profile teaching and political jobs — and shone on the global stage with her informed, fair-minded approach to foreign policy. Albright proved that power and compassion can coexist."

I can't begin to tell you how happy I am that Ms. Albright didn't allow roles so potentially debilitating as wife and mother to deter her from pursuing the global stage. And we deeply needed the lesson that power and compassion can coexist - in this male-centrist world, it was something we didn't already know. To find this all embodied in one person who can, objectively, be considered "informed" and "fair-minded", puts me into an ecstasy almost as consuming as, say, eating Brussel sprouts.

The others on the list seem less objectionable, but the absence of women emboding other roles and values is stark. At the very least, they should include "the nameless millions of women who built this country through raising responsible children, supporting their husbands and with their own hands working the farms and businesses that make this country great". That would be my entry. It just burns my biscuits how women who are wives and mothers, by choice, are not honored for their important - I would say crucial - contributions to this country. They may not "shine on the global stage", but it is their sons and husbands who are fighting in Afghanistan and preserving this country, much more so than Ms. Albright is even capable of comprehending. Women should have access to whatever role they choose to fill, and be respected for their contribution, but that includes domestic roles - and I don't mean assignment to the Justice Department instead of a foreign office.

I AM NOT ADVOCATING GENOCIDE - the sheep can live.

Seriously, I have been informed that my post below could be misconstrued. I'm not advocating an al Qaeda scorched-earth kill-the-family-including-the-sheep approach. I'm just saying, these people are religious zealots and they won't be deterred by diplomacy. All that will deter the majority of al Qaeda fighters is death. So, give it to them.

Death is the only result with no chance of recidivism.

RED CROSS STUPIDITY: Dan Rector at Blorg gets it right.

THE HOLY LAND, al QAEDA AND RELIGIOUS WAR: Terry Eastland of The Weekly Standard paints mind pictures of his recent trip to Israel, to Jerusalem and Capernaum, making connections between the layered religious history of the place and the current condition of Capernaum. It is worth reading, and thinking about.

And I did think about this, again. I’ve not been to the Holy Land, although I want to go. I love history, and as a Christian I think a place with such a history as Israel would fascinate and move me. I want the physical place preserved, as millions of others do. But I think I have a little different perspective than I often hear from others. I see these places as historical, not holy. It is important history, and losing the physical place would also end our search for more information from the sites. But I can’t work up the same intensity about them that I hear from Christians and, even more so, from Zionists.

I understand the Zionist perspective more. God gave the land of Israel to His chosen people, and His covenant with them was founded and expressed a great deal through the physical. Thus occupying the place God gave them carries a very real religious point. My view of the rightness of their laying claim to it in this millennium is another issue. Suffice it to say I think Israel has a right to exist as a country, a democracy, but I don’t argue it on religious grounds.

I think the Christian covenant with God is not primarily physical; it has physical implications through required behavior, but those mostly emerge from execution of Godly attitudes (I’m going to behave kindly to people because God requires kindness – action emerges from attitude), not obedience to specific commandment (exceptions include baptism and communion). This has implications for what I think about the disposition of the Holy Land – I would be very angry if it were destroyed, or taken over by those who don’t believe in God, but I wouldn’t feel that my Christianity was compromised. My faith is not connected to a place. It is connected to Christ, and to God, and to the Bible.

I think a lot of people who are not religious, or for whom religion is another self-fulfillment exercise, do not “get” a lot of the intensity of what is happening in Afghanistan, or even Palestine/Israel. While the Taliban and al Qaeda are supposed to be fanatics on the fringe of mainstream Islam thought, I do think their motivation is grounded in their faith – their hatred for America emerges from their faith, and isn’t something that exists as a separate thing. While the God I believe is very different from the god they worship, I understand the concept that what happens in this world does not matter as long as my faith is preserved until my death. (It matters in a day to day, human way, but not in an ultimate way.) And I would die for my faith, if necessary. It’s such a part of who I am that I don’t really think about it. It just is.

I think that is true of the al Qaeda adherents. Their faith is a virulent, wicked thing that seeks to tear down rather than build up, but to them it is consuming and who they are. It gives them a strong sense of destiny – their god will reward them, and they must fight. Negotiation and diplomacy are an insult to their god – a compromise that cannot be tolerated. I do think there are personal satisfactions tied into the expression of their faith – a sense of power, of superiority, of self-righteousness – but again those feelings are tied to their willingness to give everything for their beliefs. The difference between that and, say, an atheistic approach to society such as communism, is that it does not matter what happens here because what is important is what happens after death. Pundits chuckle and make fun of the 70 virgins supposedly waiting for these al Qaeda at death, but it’s not the virgins they are interested in. It is the approval of their god, and currently they believe that killing Americans is how that approval will be achieved. That is the teaching of their leaders. And it literally goes right to the soul of each warrior.

And so… what are the implications of that for this war? In the Old Testament, God on more than one occasion had the Israelites literally destroy a kingdom, killing all the people and even their animals. Remember, this was a physical covenant and Israel a physical kingdom that had to be preserved intact to fulfill God’s promise. Any piece of an enemy that remained was a threat to the safety of Israel. Only when all those who hated, or who could be raised to hate, or was connected to those who hated, were destroyed, could the safety of Israel be assured.

I think that is where we are with al Qaeda. This is a religious war, even though everyone seems afraid to say it. While I am very much in disagreement with the theology of Islam and many other world religions, in modern society I think we can “all get along” through negotiation and respect as long as no one religion tries to physically obliterate another. But when that happens – when a faction of Islam decides to declare war on Christiandom in the manifestation of the United States – then obliteration of that faction is religiously precedented and necessary. The fight is to the death because the focus is not this world but the hereafter. And they picked the fight.

I think this war will be over only when all those who have declared holy war on America are dead. We must be the ones to finish the fight.

QUOTE OF THE DAY ON THE AFGHANISTAN WAR, from FoxNews:

""It's been kind of like whack-a-mole: Whenever someone pops their head up, we go in and kill them," said Vickers, a former military and CIA special forces operative."

WHAT TO DO WITH TERRORISTS? Stephen Green at Vodkapundit answers the question:

"Speaking at a 9/11 ceremony at the White House, President Bush today described a "second phase" in the war on terror.

Sadly, he was referring to the bloody mopping up fighting going on in Afghanistan, and not dropping a daisy cutter directly down the front of Saddam Hussein's jockey shorts.

"Every terrorist must be made to live as an international fugitive, with no place to settle or organize, no place to hide, no governments to hide behind, and not even a safe place to sleep."

No, Mr. President. Every terrorist must be made to die."

Amen.

He has several good posts on the Saudi problem too. You should read them.

SEE? IT CAN HAPPEN: Reader Michael Tinkler writes in, regarding the EZ-PASS privacy concerns I expressed below:

"(I)t's not EZ PASS, but it's the same technology - before I left Atlanta there was a divorce case involving the tollroad Georgia 400. The wife's attorney subpoenaed the records proving that the husband was making - ahem - frequent extra lunch trips from downtown to the suburbs. So yes, these records may well be accessible, though now that I think about it, he might have gotten
at them through the credit-card billings."

Okay, it's not precisely a clear-cut instance - maybe toll records were used, maybe not. But it's illustrative of the use of such information collected for other reasons entirely. Credit-card billings, and telephone records in general, are established in the courts, both civil and criminal. It seems likely that the use will extend to EZ-PASS and cell phone location records over time - if it hasn't already - unless we specifically say it's inadmissible by definition.

After posting about this yesterday, I thought about other ways we are tracked. Certainly the little cookies in our computers are feeding information to marketers about where we go on the Internet. The credit card and telephone billings mentioned above give a pretty good guide to our behavior and just precisely where we're doing that behavior. But have you considered your supermarket SuperSaver card? I have one of these from PathMark, a grocery store up here, and I always use it even though most of the time it doesn't make a difference in my total. Usually I get coupons along with my cash register ticket that are discounts for products similar to the ones I just purchased. That quickly, they've made a computer analysis of my buying habits and responded. Do you think they don't do more intense analyses later? Of course they do! If someone gave them my card number, it's likely that the store could produce a two-year overview of my buying habits - frequency that I shop there, my preferred foods (Ben&Jerry's, anyone?), my preferred brands, whether I use coupons, etc. And I think it likely as well that they do aggregate analyses - dumping my generic demographics from my application for the card (i.e. my age, salary, etc., but unconnected to my name and address in their database) into a pool of all customers, then look at buying preferences by age, income and sex. It gives me a peculiar pleasure to confound them by allowing others to use my card for their purchases, when they have forgotten and need a card to take advantage of a sale. (It's scary that confounding statisticians is at times the highlight of my day.)

It comes back to convenience vs. privacy. Sometimes the convenience slides over into safety issues, which is what has Instapundit and others up in arms over the provisions of various homeland safety proposals - the administration is crying safety, the detractors are growling privacy. Another example is the face recognition software in use - it's very common in Great Britain, and becoming more so in the United States. In theory it's a nice idea to have cameras checking to see if anyone passing on the street is someone with a warrant out for his/her arrest. But are those videos available for subpeona to someone who wants to know if you left Building A at a certain time, for civil liability purposes?

A question many people have is... if you have nothing to hide, why do you care? It's not about having nothing to hide. It's about it being nobody's business. We all operate by presenting different facets of ourselves in various settings, and what is appropriate knowledge in one setting isn't necessarily in another. Trust in relationships is all about controlling how much information about yourself you permit another person to know. What would it be like if before a first date someone could make a connection with a buddy who can "get into" various databases, and find out everything about you from credit rating to dietary habits to how fast you drive on the turnpike? Wouldn't it be vaguely frightening if someone you didn't know well at all showed up at your door with a book by your favorite author, a box of your favorite candy and tickets to your favorite musician's local show? And they know these things without the context of your thoughts, how those things fit into an overall picture of who you are. And I don't want George W. Bush or anyone else to have access to that kind of comprehensive information about me without my express knowledge and permission.

SORRY! Here's the link to the NPR/Transom feature referenced below. And don't read Jenkins's bio before you listen; you might be distracted by the fact that "(s)he recently received a degree in Art History after working for several years on the dark side in business and technology" and "is at work on her first novel, a tale about a house with termites." It's a good audio piece. Honest.

CONSTRUCTION WORKERS AT THE WTC SITE have something to say too. NPR this morning featured Susan Jenkins of Transom.org and her audio interviews with workers at the site; it's worth hearing. I was struck by this from one of the workers:

"Nobody wants to be down here...I thnk they feel they have a duty. And so do I."

That's it. That's what the construction workers feel, that's what the firefighters on the 9/11 CBS documentary last night showed, and that's what our soldiers in Afghanistan and all over the world are showing every day. Given a choice between a vacation in the Bahamas and fighting fatigue, fires and fatwa-fanaticists, I think they'd be in the Bahamas. But they know that there is something that needs to be done, and they are stepping up to do it.

Bravo.

GET OVER YOURSELF ALREADY! The PC crowd is getting beaten back by Native Americans, thank goodness, and I hope it continues. But they persevere elsewhere. One of the latest manifestations is telling a kid at a high school in New Jersey that he can’t wear a Jeff Foxworthy "Top 10 Reasons You Might Be a Redneck Sports Fan" t-shirt. I haven’t seen the t-shirt, but I can tell you right now that as a person of red-neck heritage I would find it hilarious. I love Jeff Foxworthy. Not enough to fly to Branson to see him live, but enough to defend someone wearing a t-shirt with one of his lists.

The t-shirt incident happened last March, and it’s now in court. How bizarre is that?

This business of everyone being offended by references to their heritage needs to stop. Yes, racism is bad. Yes, discrimination based on inborn characteristics or neutral cultural habits is bad. Yes, mocking entire ethnicities in a mean-spirited way is bad. But what in the world is wrong with a red-neck t-shirt? And does anyone go ask the people supposedly being harmed whether in fact they feel harmed?

FoxNews points out the Native American response:

“Asked if high school and college teams should stop using Indian nicknames, 81 percent of Native American respondents said no. As for pro sports, 83 percent of Native American respondents said teams should not stop using Indian nicknames, mascots, characters, and symbols. The poll also found that 75 percent of Native Americans don't think the use of these team names and mascots "contributes to discrimination."”

I think you’d find even higher percentages if you asked so-called “red-necks” if they in fact felt discriminated against by Jeff Foxworthy jokes. We can tell the difference between a joke and a dig. (And we can admire a really awesome takedown of said dig.)

Over the years I have had some interesting reactions to the revelation that I’m from Kentucky – less so now than 15 years ago; I’m not sure if that’s because the world has changed or because I have. A lot of people in the NYC metro area aren’t really sure where Kentucky is – somewhere in flyover country – and they mainly associate it with bourbon and horses. It’s fun to watch the look on their faces when I tell them that I grew up on a family farm 12 miles from the nearest town, which had a population of 1700, in hill country. More people worked in the WTC towers than live in the county I’m from. They always ask, “How did you wind up here?” I always answer, “Stupidity?”

The point is, I’m proud to be from a rural area in Kentucky, which doesn’t make me unaware of its drawbacks. I don’t mind teasing about it when it’s good humored. I get really angry when people are dismissive or condescending about Kentucky or the South in general – and frankly, in my experience, it’s more often sophisticated liberal types who are condescending. And in my judgment, this nattering on about political correctness is just another type of liberal condescension – we must protect the naïve, not-very-bright people who are racially- or culturally-different-from-us-intelligentsia from the hoi polloi (who also aren’t the us of liberal thought).

You might be a red-neck if: You think the PC liberals are full of it and enjoy saying it to their face.

IS SAUDI ARABIA AMONG OUR ALLIES? Dave Kopel had this to say in his column on September 12 (thanks to Instapundit for the link), and I think it's worth consideration now:

"Now, Saudi Arabia will prove whether it is worthy to be an ally of the United States. The U.S. defended Saudi Arabia after Iraq invaded Kuwait. The U.S. even acceded to Saudi demands to prevent American soldiers from exercising their freedom of religion while they were on Saudi soil, defending the Saudis from Saddam Hussein. Will Saudi Arabia exercise its immense influence with the Taliban, to ensure that bin Laden and his cohorts are immediately turned over to the Americans? If the Saudis will not support us in our time of gravest need, they are no allies."

I think we know now. Where are the consequences for their tacit disavowal?

THE 9/11 VIDEO WAS AMAZING. I needed to see it.

"...if my country sent me to kill, I could now."

The words from the probie the Naudets were shadowing sums it up for me.

THE ACTUAL ARREST WARRANT AFFADAVIT for Chante Mallard is on The Smoking Gun. Chilling.

SECURITY AT LADY LIBERTY: I visited the Statue of Liberty yesterday with 150 high school choral students - an exercise in insanity itself. The security was pretty tight. The old train station is still being used as a clearinghouse of services for those affected by 9/11, so ticketing was done at an outside booth and the souvenir shop is in a tent. We lined up outside another tent that covered the entrance to the ferry dock. We were told to remove everything from our pockets and put it in either a coat pocket, purse or backpack, and to remove our belts. The entry into the tent was through two security checking areas with walk through metal detectors and conveyor detectors for coats and carryons. I set off the sensors the first time, but not the second, so they let me through. One of my friends set it off twice, and they pulled him aside to be wanded. At least once a rivet from his jeans made the wand sound. Eventually, they let us through - no one checked our shoes - and we all stood in the tent until the ferry came.

The statue remains closed, even the base. A tent where visitors usually wait to enter stood empty and flapping in the breeze. Across the bay, the hole in the NYC skyline reminded me of our war.

Before the students re-entered the ferry, they stood in a circle and sang, "God Bless You and Keep You".

I wish our soldiers could have heard it.

TRACKING YOU DOWN: A good thing or a bad thing? The technology to know where you are at any time via your cell phone is moving into common use. The reason for the tracking is so that callers in an emergency can call 911 and have the call traced to their location. When I worked with the Lexington, KY, transfer to an enhanced 911 system, locating cell phones using global positioning systems was a hot topic. Then, if you called 911 from a cell phone it was transfered to the state police who had to find out from you where you were. If you were too injured to talk, or if you were in an isolated place and didn't know the area, you were in trouble. From that perspective, tracking your location is a good thing. But what if the information were used to find out where you were shopping? Or where you ate dinner?

Now, living in NJ, I often travel the turnpike and parkway, paying toll constantly (someone told me recently that 40% of the tolls paid in the US are paid in NJ). In the past couple of years, the EZ PASS system went into effect - the techonology allows the system to "read" a tag in your vehicle so it can charge you toll without your having to stop. Supposedly this saves time, eases congestion and brings more money into the state's coffers. Thus far, the opposite is true.

So what do these two things have in common? They both track where you are, and when you are there. I don't have an EZ PASS, because I don't like the idea that somewhere, someone has a record of all the times I've been on the road, where I went through the tolls and how long it was between tolls. It's not that I have anything to hide; I dislike it on general privacy principles. What happens to these records? Can they be used in the courts? If I were in a custody battle, and my ex-spouse suspected I was having an affair, would he be able to get his hands on the EZ Pass information to see if there was a suspicious pattern to my exits and entrances? Would the police be able to use the information? I'm similarly concerned about GPS tracking on cell phones and, eventually, on cars. This is a huge privacy issue, and while I know it has been addressed peripherally, I haven't seen a lot recently about it. The truth is - if data exists, someone will get their hands on it, and soon it will show up in court and in marketing firms around the country. And you may see your meanderings down the Garden State Parkway laid out for the world, or at least see a flurry of advertising mailers from stores you normally pass when you exit.

I think we need to spend time and public debate on these issues, and soon. It's only going to get worse, as technology develops; we have to come to a decision about convenience vs. privacy. I think we can have safety - like the cell phone GPS service - without losing our privacy.

THE FRENCH LOVE MYTHS, according to this story, which is good, considering their relevance is a myth. The article, about an agriculture fair in France, says,

"...the French want to believe in Marie-Noelle and Joelle (two farming women featured in French media). They help support the myth that their food is the best in the world. They are a living embodiment of the myth that France is a fortress against globalised culture, and remains a place of deep attachment to its regions."

Mass delusion seems the order of the day, and not only about their world importance.

SGT.STRYKER gets thoughtful, to good purpose. He says,

"I feel like I can't let you down and try like hell not to."

You haven't.

STEVEN DEN BESTE explains why we don't - and shouldn't - trust the French in this war.

RACISM OR MUNDANE EVIL? Chante Mallard hit Gregory Biggs with her car last October as she drove home. For a period of time - hours, some say; days, according to others - he lay stuck in her windshield, badly injured, pleading for help, as Chante apologized to him and cried about what had happened. When he finally died, two male friends dumped Bigg's body where it was found and suspected of being a hit and run. When Chante told a person about it at a party just recently, she supposedly "giggled" and said, "I hit this white man". Because of that statement, the question of racism has been raised - Chante is black, Biggs was white. The FoxNews article mentions it in the fifth paragraph:

"The District Attorney's office in Fort Worth, citing a gag order, would not respond to questions Friday about whether the issue of race would be entered into its prosecution of the case."

It goes on further down to quote her statement.

So is this racism? FoxNews either thinks it's racism or thinks the racism angle will give them more hits, because the headline on their front page is:

"'I Hit This White Man'
Judge sends hit-and-run suspect back to jail, raises bail"

The most recent CNN article doesn't mention the quote. A quick scan of several recent articles in the Dallas Morning News doesn't reveal it either (registration required to view). Several other places I checked didn't have it either. While I don't think that FoxNews should take its lead from other media sources, I think it's playing to bias to highlight this aspect of the story beyond what even their own article does.

Focusing on racism as an issue here is an inappropriate distraction. It appears likely that Chante would have hit anyone who was where Biggs was - she wasn't out hunting for a white person to kill. And I also think it likely that she would have left a black man or an Hispanic man in her windshield too. I think it unlikely that it matters that Chante is black, either. Her decision making is not race-related; it is a question of selfishness and inhumanity, which cuts across all races. FoxNews is, I think, showing its own desire to get hits from horrified readers rather than highlighting some obscure aspect of the case that other news outlets are refusing to cover. I think her comment is interesting, but not evidence for why it happened.

What is, to me, the most terrible part is the all-consuming selfishness of her act, and the mundane evil it reveals. FoxNews is wrong to bring race into it.

FINGERPRINT MATCHING NOT ADMISSABLE? OR OPINION AS NEWS? An article in today's New York Times says,

"In a pretrial hearing in a Philadelphia federal court in January, Judge Louis H. Pollak sharply limited the use of fingerprint evidence in a drug-related murder case. He found that there is no persuasive proof that the methods used by fingerprint analysts have been adequately tested in objective, controlled experiments.

"Fingerprint experts ha(ve) conceded that the process they use — matching large, evenly pressured prints taken from suspects at the police station to smaller, unevenly pressured prints from crime scenes — is ultimately subjective and bedeviled by inconsistent standards...

"Judge Pollak, who is a former dean of the law schools at Yale and the University of Pennsylvania, also noted "alarmingly high" error rates when fingerprint examiners took proficiency tests..."

Sounds damning, and very much an issue of concern. If experts in fingerprint analysis are successfully and universally discredited, that will call into question the convictions of thousands of inmates in our prisons. And if the experts' testimony indicates a certainty that the technology behind it can't support, then it is right that questions are raised.

But when I got close to the end of the article, the tone switched and suddenly it was strongly advocatory:

"As the National Institutes of Health finance basic scientific research, the National Institute of Justice should put money into verification and validation before a technique of identification is admitted in court. Academic centers should be established for research into these questions under the aegis of medical and law schools.

"Independence and scientific rigor should be the norm for forensic science. Crime victims, the wrongly accused, and the public will all have more confidence in the system if forensic scientists and their laboratories are completely independent, not beholden to prosecutors or defense attorneys."

Huh?

Then, finally, the authors' credentials at the end:

"Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck are directors of the Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University."

Ahhhhhhhh.....

When I scrolled back to the top of the article, I saw that the heading was "Editorial/OpEd", although the link itself was in the Science section of the NYT front page. I clicked through on all the articles under other news-type headings, and none of the others was "Editorial/OpEd" - all were Science, or International, or Health. One was News Analysis - but it was labeled "News Analysis" in the headline (under N.Y. Region) on the front page. It seemed a subtle thing, but still, most people - like me - aren't going to check in the upper left corner when they click through to make sure it is a news article after all.

And what is the Innocence Project? I'll let their website tell you:

"Having lost their freedom, livelihood, and often their families, thousands of inmates have turned to the Innocence Project for help, most of them indigent. Operating out of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, the Innocence Project is a clinical law program for law students that is supervised by law professors and several administrators.

"The Innocence Project provides pro bono legal assistance to inmates who are challenging their convictions based on DNA testing of evidence, though clients must obtain finding for testing. Founded in 1992 by Barry Scheck, Professor of Law, and Peter Neufeld, Esq., the Project has represented or assisted in more than 100 cases where convictions have been reversed or overturned in the United States."

I think it is admirable that the Innocence Project has helped innocent people. What I don't think is admirable is that the founders of the project have an advocacy article under "Science" on the front page of the NYTimes that isn't identified as such. It is also interesting that Scheck and Neufeld are attacking fingerprint evidence, given their success with overturning cases by using updated technology, mainly DNA. A quick search of the NYT database shows 26 articles with "fingerprint" in them in the past 90 days, none of which appear (from their summaries) to address this issue. One article in January, showing up when "Pollak" is entered, discusses his ruling (requires purchase for full text). So the NYT has not precisely tracked this issue or analyzed both sides in depth. That just makes it more interesting that this opinion column appears as news on their website front page.

RIGHT AFTER 9/11 I went to a memorial service at Liberty State Park, and then three weeks after the attack I went to the WTC site for the first time. I wrote about it, for myself so I wouldn't forget, and for my family and friends so they could see what I saw. My sister suggested I post them here, but they're too long and not really appropriate for this page. So I've set up another site where I have posted them, and will post other things along the way. I'll let you know when I post more there.

UPDATE: The two links both take you to the start of the site, so you will have to scroll to the essays. The September 24 memorial is first, closer to the bottom, and then the October 2 visit to the WTC is near the top.

THE NYPD IN ACTION: A scuffle broke out on the sidewalk near The Lion King theatre as we loaded our buses after the play; two guys in the early stages of what looked like might become a really bad fight. Within seconds two other guys grabbed the two and pulled them apart; one "rescuer" struggled with a combatant and finally put a lock on him and pushed him to the ground, where he held the combatant - a taller man - in a wrestling hold (at least that's what it looked like to me) - the guy on top had his arms under the elbows of the guy on the bottom, and his hands on the second guy's neck, so the guy on the ground literally couldn't move his body. A crowd gathered, and sure enough someone had a video camera. A policewoman arrived quickly, checked the hold and allowed the guy on top to maintain it - I couldn't hear, but she said something and the guy on the bottom lifted his hands; I wondered if it was to indicate that he was ok. She spoke into her radio and within 10 seconds, literally, there were at least 5 or 6 officers there. By the time we pulled away about 5 minutes later, there were 20 or more officers there, two pedestrians with video cameras and a crowd milling about. It appeared that one of the combatants had melted into the crowd and the second was talking to the cops. The guy who did the wrestling hold also walked away when enough officers arrived. One of the video guys was filming his buddy talking and gesturing; surely about the scuffle. Everyone's a news reporter, these days.

I was very impressed by three things - how the two "rescuers" broke up the fight; how quickly there were police everywhere; how the situation seemed to merge into the ebb and flow of a Friday night on Times Square in Manhattan.

I wish I knew how to do that hold.

THE LION KING is an amazing production. I'd seen the movie several times, and had a number of the songs memorized, so I was uncertain about how much I would like a stage production. Well... it would have been worth the price of a top ticket (which makes it even cooler that I saw it free). The costuming was beyond describable. The best character - in terms of suspending belief and seeming to be what you know it isn't - was Zazu, the major domo bird. In the play, an actor in a coat with tails carries around what is basically a dummy of Zazu - but through manipulation of it he gave Zazu life. The second best was the hyenas, which looked very like they did in the movie. The actors had on costumes that included front legs hanging from the sleeves at about the elbow, a ridge of "hair" down their backs, over their heads and connected to a face mask of the hyena - but it was held at about chest or stomach height and manipulated with their hands. Almost spooky how realistic it felt. This to me is like the best writing - when the mechanism fades away and you are inside the thought. Here, we were inside the story, and even an actor dressed as grass seemed just as it should be.

Earlier we went to St. John the Divine on Amsterdam and 112th, where the chorus my friends' daughter is in performed. At the front entrance are rows of granite sculptures of Biblical figures; one is of Jeremiah, the Old Testament prophet of doom. These were carved 5 years ago. Each figure has some scene as its pedestal. The scene under Jeremiah's feet is of the World Trade Towers, extending outward as if they are falling, and behind them is what appears to be a mushroom cloud. Very eery.

And now I'm posting from a laptop in a hotel room overlooking the Hudson. What a day. Tomorrow is the Statue of Liberty, the first time I've been since 9/11. It will be sad. The ferry ride to Staten Island or to Lady Liberty was always the best place to see lower Manhattan's skyline. It still is, but it's hard to look now.

GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS: The good news is, Blogger is back up - I've found all these things to post on, and couldn't get to Blogger to post. The bad news is, now that I can, I can't. Work is crunching hard, and I'm leaving early this afternoon to join friends in NYC, won't be back until tomorrow afternoon. It will be fun though - a touch of Kentucky in the big city - and it includes a free ticket to The Lion King on Broadway, so I'm not complaining.


In the meantime, check out The City Journal, if you haven't already. It's a great quarterly, and I especially like the work of Heather Mac Donald, who does a lot of police and crime things. She's very talented both as a reporter and a writer, and while she seems to me to be very pro-police (which is not a criticism, coming from me) she also seems to be fair in her approach - a good example of her work is her take on the Cincinnati shooting and subsequent riots last April, or this thought-provoking article on whether racial profiling exists. I don't always agree with Mac Donald, but I do think she does solid research and analysis from a different perspective than seen in the mainstream media.


Also worth reading is Theodore Dalrymple, who takes on the media, recently including The Economist and The British Medical Journal.


Enjoy!

GOOD FOR DAN RATHER, says Sgt. Stryker. In this post, he quotes Rather's commentary on the soldiers who died on Monday. It's worth reading. And I agree with Stryker that in this, Rather is a stand up guy.

IT'S NICE TO KNOW THAT CNN IS UNBIASED, and interested in covering truth in whatever manner it presents itself. Drudge reports,

"A CNN internal memo advises staffers to hold off reporting on a new book which presents a damning portrait of former CNN host and civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson.

""Kenneth Timmerman is a long time writer and investigator touting conservative causes," the CNN memo notes.

""He is recently a failed political candidate [ran for US Senate in Maryland] whose own bio points out he studied creative writing at Brown.""

Seeing a resume like that, I'd be cautious too.

YA GOTTA LOVE METICULOUS RESEARCH BY LIBERALS. Avram Grumer on Pigs&Fishes, a liberal-ish blog (by his definition), takes issue with the "naïve neocons writing from a perspective of total unfamiliarity with liberalism", in this long rant about the blogging response to the Kurtz/Ruffini discussion about liberal media bias and the Glastris article. See this post for links to each piece of the earlier discussion.

Grumer trashes Ruffini's analysis, and the general response to Kurtz and Glastris in the non-liberal blogging world. He apparently read my post about it because he dissects it, but then again, I'm not sure he did, because he says,

"In the same paragraph as the Ruffini link, Instapundit linked to another piece about Kurtz and Glastris, in Cut On The Bias (a blog by a nameless journalism student). The author of this piece seems to have actually read both articles (and Ruffini’s as well), and his comments are a bit more intelligent."

I do appreciate the compliment, but, just to clarify, my name is clearly underneath each of my posts. I haven't met many people named "susanna" in my life, and none of them were men (maybe he listens to Johnny Cash and got confused from listening to the song "A Boy Named Sue" too many times). Knowledge of this gender shift would certainly come as a surprise to a number of people in my life, including me. And while once in my life - 20 years ago - I was a journalism student, that's been a while and not at all what I am now - which I say in my original post, although since that is now in an archive I can understand the struggle to find it. That "click" and "scroll" thing is at least as difficult as, say, knowing the HTML to make a proper web list.

By the way, I know Grumer is male because he says, "(t)he gene for liking science fiction runs in the male line of my family -- I've been reading the stuff since early childhood." Sure, it's an inference, but a supportable one, I think.

The bulk of his analysis of Ruffini/Kurtz et al carries about the same level of insight and attention to facts/detail.

SEEING 9/11 THROUGH THE EYES OF THE CAMERA in a way that we haven't before but should, Rod Dreher at NRO says in his review of the CBS documentary on the 9/11 attack that will air this Sunday. Dreher and other media types were allowed a viewing Monday night, and even Dreher's review is hard to read. I will have tissues at hand on Sunday night, but I will be there watching.

Admirably, one of the two French videographers expresses the kind of judgment that too many journalists today can't seem to exercise:

""Two people were on fire. The image was so terrible, I made a decision not to film it," Jules said after Monday's screening. "It's not something anybody should see, or want to see."

"He said no gory footage was left out of 9/11 for reasons of taste. Jules censored himself as he was shooting, he explained, out of respect to the dead and dying."

Thank God for his respect.

I think many, after Sunday, will be echoing Dreher's conclusion:

"(T)here is no better justification than the images captured by the Naudet brothers for why the United States has unleashed, and must continue to rain down, unshirted hell on radical Islam and its supporters."

IS SO MUCH MEDIA A GOOD THING? Jonathan Last at the Weekly Standard reviews a book by Todd Gitlin, "Media Unlimited", which is about the history of media in the US and the damage it does to American society now by its sheer pervasiveness and emphasis on consumerism. Last thinks Gitlin has a point, but is somewhat alarmist about the level of media availability, as well as too ready to mix news media with popular culture in finding both problematic. Thomas Hibbs in "Shows About Nothing" (2000) has a stronger point, Last says - that "American popular culture undermines democracy by fostering a soft, comfortable nihilism."

Interesting review. I think I'll probably read Hibbs, whom I had not heard of.

AND THEN THERE'S JONAH GOLDBERG, cutting loose to say things I wish I had:

"...just because the diplomats failed in making their case that we're the good guys, doesn't mean we're not the good guys.

"...I am not saying, nor do I believe, that Arabs or Muslims are criminals. What I am saying is that just because they have negative views of us and we have negative views of them, doesn't mean they're not entirely wrong and we're not entirely right.

"...we have very good reasons to have negative attitudes toward Arab countries.

"And, hell, even if Sept. 11 never happened and Osama bin Laden had followed his true calling and became a cross-dressing apple-bobber in Amsterdam, we would still have a legitimate reason to have "negative views" toward Arab countries.

"You know why? Because they are undemocratic stagnating cultures lead by tyrants who drink daily from a heady cocktail of brutality, corruption, and crapulence. I am so fed up with the criticism that it is "arrogant" to express such opinions. Fine, it's arrogant. I plead guilty."

There's nothing I can add. Just read it.

THERE ARE JUST NO WORDS to say how awful this Ted Rall cartoon about WTC widows is.

Fortunately, I don't need words. All I need to do is send you here and here.

Bloggers rule.

(Thanks to Instapundit for the links.)

"REMEMBER TO ROTATE YOUR GOVERNMENT REGULARLY.

"Don't ignore excessive vibration. This could be a sign that your government is unbalanced, bent, or Italy. If you suspect this, get out of your country at once.

"Once the backup is installed, consider what kind of spare it is before attempting to drive off. Why? To cut costs, some countries come equipped with miniaturized, space-saving governments for use in emergencies. While these smaller spares make sense for compact, lightweight countries, where room is a concern, bigger, heavier nations should really come with full-sized spares to handle the load. The backup U.S. government is quite small, and therefore should not be used for long periods or at speeds above 35 miles per hour. As soon as you can, go, but slowly, to your nearest national capital and see about getting a real government."

Go to SatireWire for full details on how to use your spare government safely. Stay there for general enlightenment.

FROM LITTLE TO LEGENDARY: another entry in the category of things that start small and grow big.

BUT IF IT'S UP TO THE INTERNET, at least we have the tools to do it.

CAN THE INTERNET SAVE NEWS? The news profession is in trouble because of economics, according to “The News About the News,” a new book by Leonard Downie, Jr. and Robert Kaiser, two editors at The Washington Post, and Michael Rogers at Newsweek via MSNBC thinks the Internet will be the salvation of journalism. (Thanks to Media Minded for the link.)

The analysis is interesting, and worth reading, but I was very taken by Rogers's conclusion that the way Internet would save news is by becoming a profit-making concern. To accomplish that, he said, journalism must promote itself:

"The notion of the audience paying for news leads to a final issue about which the Web can do nothing: journalism’s ingrained reluctance to promote itself. Even the severely understated dust-jacket of “The News About the News” reflects that bias. Journalists, of course, are not supposed to become the story, and Kaiser and Downie excoriate a few big names for doing just that. But what about promoting journalism itself? We live in an economy where every single fruit, nut, vegetable and dairy product grown in California has a multimillion dollar promotion campaign to sing its praises. Why not the news profession too?"

And how would you accomplish that? What product would you sell? What image would you project, and what permutations are you willing to go through to fit your product to the market? I remember that once the prune industry was considering using the term "dried plum" instead of "prune" because of the connotations of "prune". What is journalism willing to change about itself to get into consumers' pockets? It seems to me that a lot of change has already taken place precisely because of the entertainment imperative that drives media today.

The problems that plague the media now are the same ones that will make marketing journalism a touchy thing. Would you advertise that you are "fair and balanced"? Well, it's been done, and nobody truly believes it on either side. You couldn't say, "we TRY to be fair and balanced", although that nuance is more believable, because you can't sell something that isn't absolute, the NEWEST and the BEST. Would you emphasize analysis? Too complex, not high on readership's list. Would you emphasize new and different? Then you're going for flash over substance. Would you advertise as the first on the spot? You would soon lose face for accuracy problems. What's a self-respecting journalism profession to do? Even Rogers seems to agree with the authors that "(j)ournalists...are not supposed to become the story", so that is not an acceptable option (even though we all know that it has happened, does happen and will continue to happen no matter how often Geraldo Rivera makes an absolute ass of himself).

I'm concerned that the issue of promoting "journalism" has even been raised in this manner. It can't be good for the future of what really, truly, can be a noble profession.

DOJ RUNNING MEDIA MERGERS and Sony/CenterSpan song swapping make for interesting reading on InsideRadio. The brief on media mergers reads,

DOJ assumes media merger duties
"The DOJ and FTC have been divvied up various corporate mergers since 1948. Fighting within the two organizations has caused the system to get bogged down – making more sense for the mergers to be split says FTC Chairman Timothy Muris and Asst. Attorney General Charles James. Under the restructuring the DOJ will get sectors such as media/entertainment, aeronautics, mining, missiles, photography and film. The FTC will get autos, trucks, energy, grocery stores and pharmaceuticals. The restructuring was not and did not have to be cleared by Congress. Some in Congress are not for this restructuring like Sen. Ernest Hollings. Hollings feels as though the DOJ has a direct line to the White House and President Bush. Some sources say the Bush administration is in support of massive media deregulation. Media/entertainment mergers also must be cleared by the FCC which conducts its own independent investigations."

What does this mean? It seems significant, and I'm curious why the DOJ would get media and the FTC would not. The Sony deal is apparently significant as well:

"Monday, March 4, 2002
Sony strikes a deal to license music to song-swapping CenterSpan
"The deal will allows CenterSpan to provide music from Sony Entertainment artists to online service providers seeking to offer their subscribers streaming and downloadable music. CenterSpan will pay Sony Music around $2 million in cash plus 283,556 shares and a warrant to buy 189,037 additional shares of common stock at an exercise price of $8.11 per share. This is the first time a major record label has licensed its content to a file-sharing company. CenterSpan purchased Scour.com in April 2002 after Scour declared bankruptcy in the wake of a copyright infringement suit. CenterSpan is in the process of talking with other major record labels, movie studios and online subscription services such as PressPlay."

A lot more interesting stuff are in the Internet Radio section of the InsideRadio website; I haven't been following the vagaries of online radio streaming, but it could have an impact on me when I eventually move back down south. I'll have to stream 770 A.M., but what if they can't afford to be online?

INCLUSIVENESS OVER IDEOLOGY? According to this AP article (linked from iWon), California GOP gubernatorial candidate Richard Riordan lost his bid for GOP nominee to challenger Bill Simon partly because "he alienated the conservative voters who make up the Republican Party's base by supporting abortion rights, gun control and gay rights." In his concession speech, he said,

""The Republican Party will become more powerful by becoming inclusive... We must bring women back to the party to sit at the decision table. We must also open our doors to minorities by creating opportunities for all of them.""

This makes several assumptions that I question. First is that the Republican Party is not "inclusive", which is a slippery term at the best of times. What does it mean? In this context, basically that the white men in the party must support abortion rights to bring in women, abortion rights and gun control to bring in ethnic minorities, and gay rights to bring in homosexuals. Riordan explains it further by indicating that women are not at the decision table, and minorities have no opportunities, two additional assumptions I disagree with. I'll address these below, but first just think about it - if the Republican Party does not have many women, minorities or gays, then who does it have? Apparently straight euro-Caucasian males intent on taking away women's rights and allowing open season with guns, probably on gays and minorities. This is a very scary image to put before the public, and not, I think, a true one. This is bias, bald and uncontextualized, presented in an effort to force ideological change.

I wonder... is Condi Rice not at the decision table? Or Karen Hughes? Is Colin Powell lacking in opportunity? I can't name off-hand any gays in the administration, but Andrew Sullivan addresses the issue of conservative gays better than I can anyway. The Republican party is inclusive, in a true sense; what it isn't is supportive of the ideological agenda that the media simplistically, with their own agenda, put forward as the motivating issues for each "oppressed" faction in society. And Riordan is playing to that image.

What is needed in the Republican party - and the Democratic party - is a discussion of ideology and how policy emerges from that. What needs to happen is that women and minorities and gays and white euro-Caucasian males duke it out in the arena of ideas, seeking the right policies for people, not for factions. When I talk about politics, I expect to be heard about all issues, not just women's issues. And I don't expect the white male beside me to keep his mouth shut on "women's issues" just because he's a man. I am first an ideological conservative. What characteristics I bring to the table are about nuances, not ideology. To set me apart as part of a "special group" immediately says I am less powerful than whoever it was that separated me out, and who now condescends to give me voice.

I would have voted against Riordan for that reason alone.

SGT. STRYKER BUSTS ONO, and gets a lot of other things right too. Yoko Ono has bought billboard space in London to promote peace, and it will carry the Lennon line, "Imagine all the people living life in peace." Stryker says,

"Yeah, I can imagine it, but wishing for something won't make it so. Right now there are young men getting shot up in some ass backwards hellhole who're trying to give us some peace. I imagine that those who've died once imagined that they could live life in peace, but some sadistic motherfuckers decided to fly passenger planes into some buildings. Just like those on that aircraft that crashed in PA, who prevented more deaths by sacrificing themselves, we have normal men and women over there sacrificing their lives so those of us here can live the remainder of our lives in peace. Imagine that."

MARCH IS WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH, and according to MSN and Encarta, that means a celebration of liberal women - the list of biographies includes such notables as Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem and, as the only American woman in the "Politics and Military" listing, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Wouldn't Condi Rice have been a much better choice, if we can only have one American? She even hits both parts of the category.

The lists of important women includes historical figures as well as recent ones in the arts, sports and other areas. A nice thought, but someone went to a women's studies program for the list. Not that all the women there haven't made contributions, but there are glaring gaps. Hillary Rodham Clinton and not Margaret Thatcher? An excerpt from Hillary's blurb:

"During her husband's presidency, she became a powerful symbol of the changing role and status of women in American society."

A powerful symbol, yes, but not one I would recommend to future generations of eager young women seeking to make positive contributions to society - riding the coattails of a popular philandering husband into a position of power.

This is another example of the bias in media - they probably thought that was a very even-handed listing (Betty Friedan?) but fell wide of the mark in covering the range of women's accomplishments. And it totally ignored two very important and satisfying roles that many women fill, by choice, every day - wife and mother.

(Hillary Rodham Clinton? geez)

ZOO ANIMALS? Vodka Pundit chimes in with thoughts on the drinking age debate. I think he's a shill for Elizabeth Dole.

Thanks for the heads up on this from Rat's Nest.

AND I THOUGHT I'D HAVE TO SEARCH: One aspect of the media/police interaction that I want to explore is the entertainment imperative which directs many media decisions, even the so called "hard news" divisions. In an excellent article (pointed out by Media Minded) in the London Telegraph, British media censorship of pro-war viewpoints is outlined.

The editor of the left-wing magazine the New Statesman made no apologies for his profit motive:

"Mr Wilby said he had taken a policy decision that the magazine would vigorously oppose the "war on terrorism", partly to make itself distinctive in a crowded media market. He said there was also a clear commercial logic to his magazine's editorial line, as circulation had surged by almost 25 per cent since September 11."

The question is - to what extent is this cynical profiteering prevalent?

THE INTERSECTION OF POLICE AND MEDIA: This is my core area topic and a refinement of this will be my dissertation. By the time I’m done, I’m going to know more about this than any sane person could desire. If you stay tuned, you’ll certainly know more about it than you know now.

The basic question:

Journalism needs freedom and a certain degree of chaos to succeed; policing is about controlling chaos by selectively limiting freedom. The goal of journalism is information collection and dissemination; policing often requires keeping information hidden. The two are natural adversaries but in a modern technological democracy they need each other to do their work well. How does that interaction work, and what impact does it have on each entity?

The media, both news and entertainment, shape public agenda by what crime and policing they choose to cover, and how they approach it. They bring certain biases to the process, as well as a specific goal – informing while entertaining. With crime frequent in society, and with police an entity familiar to every citizen, the media of necessity must cover policing extensively. However, the drama inherent in crime and police situations make it lucrative as well as necessary to cover policing, and the profit motive has an impact on the media’s approach to police coverage.

Policing in a multi-ethnic, free, politically savvy affluent society is a difficult task fraught with pitfalls. It is by nature about control and confrontation; community policing, in particular, places more emphasis on control through coordination with community members, so the controls on behavior come from enforcement of social mores, not police intervention. Power is necessary for control, and information is power – thus the media are crucial in the police’s efforts to control. The interaction is sometimes deliberate – the two collaborate; sometimes manipulative – the police manage information dissemination for particular effect; and sometimes routine – police release information necessary to comply with law, to notify the community and to build relationships.

The push-pull of the interaction between the two creates a dynamic different from that natural to each on its own; at times, the interaction requires concessions that seem almost antithetical to the entity’s identity and task. I want to know how this works, and what social consequences arise from it.

In my spare time, I’ll blog.

"MOM, THE TERRORISTS HAVE TO BE STOPPED," Army Sgt. Philip J. Svitak of Fremont, Nebraska, told his mother before he left for Afghanistan. He was 31 when he died there yesterday.

FoxNews has a brief profile of each American who has died in the war on terrorism since it began last fall; I read them all, a kind of memorial to them, a thank you. It is an acknowledgement that I can go to work, go to school, plan my future because he was willing to lose his future.

""He said, 'If they send me over there and anything happens to me, that I'm proud to die for my country,"" his mom said.

I'm proud that America has such warriors. It breaks my heart when they die.

AND HERE'S MARK STEYN: My favorite columnist in the world has a new one up, this one about the Saudis. An excerpt:

"If the Saudis nuked Delaware, the massed ranks of former Ambassadors would be telling Peter Jennings that, obviously, even the best allies have their difficulties from time to time, but this is essentially a little hiccup that can be smoothed over by closer consultation."

Read it, but don't have a mouthful of coffee while you're doing so.

KILL AMERICANS, AND YOU'RE DEAD MEAT: Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit says we should be as aggressive as necessary to disperse the threat of Islamic terrorism now, rather than later. I agree. Here's an excerpt:

"The big danger in the next few months isn't being too violent, and inflaming the "Arab street" with a desire for revenge. It's not being violent enough, and inflaming the "Arab street" with the belief that victory is possible."

AND IF YOU LIKE RADIO: Check out Curtis & Kuby on WABC Radio 770 AM in New York City from 5:30 to 10 a.m. weekdays; you can stream it from the website. Curtis Sliwa is the very conservative, hawkish founder of the Guardian Angels. Ron Kuby is (to pull out all the cliches) a left-wing bleeding-heart-liberal radical Commie lawyer, by his own admission. Check the website, or google him, for more info.

The reason I recommend the show, other than it's entertaining, is because although sometimes Ron Kuby makes me want to do him bodily harm, he does a great job of shifting gears into fairness, to the point of neutrality, when the situation calls for it. He often explains the legal intricacies of issues they discuss, and he does it cleanly and fairly. Usually he then goes into a rant about his views on the topic, but that's ok. To me it's one of the best examples of how to separate factual description and analysis from opinion. I don't know that I could get through dinner with him without dumping the spaghetti on his head, but I trust his analyses.

Curtis is cool just because he's Curtis Sliwa.

GO FOR THE INTERVIEW, STAY FOR THE ECONOMICS: Matthew Hoy at Hoystory has managed to scoop the international media with an interview with an al Qaeda prisoner at Guantanamo. All I can say is, those meddling French! Below that is a post pulling apart "columnist and former Enron hack Paul "Line 47" Krugman". As a severely economics-challenged person, I found his discussion of the Social Security situation the clearest and most interesting I've seen thus far. And trust me, "clear" and "interesting" rarely find themselves in the same sentence with "economics" in my writing.

DO WE WANT TO KNOW? Apparently the crematory incinerator at Tri-State in Georgia was actually working, which takes away the only remotely logical reason for the hundreds of bodies left in the woods around Ray Brent Marsh's crematorium. In addition,

"During a bond hearing on Monday, District Attorney Buzz Franklin revealed that pornography and pictures of rotting corpses were found stored on a computer belonging to Marsh."

I read about the computer's contents in another article about Marsh, and the juxtaposition makes me nervous. I don't know that we want to know more.

ENRONIZING THE NATIONAL DEBT: Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., "is proposing that the government redefine its debt — by taking nearly $2 trillion in intra-governmental debt off the books — and then lowering the debt ceiling," according to FoxNews. The Democrats are calling this "a la Enron". Interesting. But wasn't one of the big issues with Enron that they hid where they put it, not just shifted it from Book A to Book B? I don't think the US government will be hiding this, any more than they already do (which I think is more than we the average citizens suspect).

I find quotes at the end of the article particularly of note:

" "This really is an opportunity for Democrats. No one wants to be responsible for raising the debt limit, particularly in an election year," said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a watchdog group that proposes a modest increase to keep government spending in check."

What FoxNews doesn't say is that this self-proclaimed bipartisan group, started by the late Democratic Sen. Paul Tsongas and Republican Sen. Warren Rudman, is currently co-chaired by no less a bipartisan than former Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey.

And then:

""Whatever the solution, the amount of debt the United States carries will have less impact on the economy than whatever political debate it fuels, says Dan Mitchell, senior economist for the Heritage Foundation.

""We are so far from a crisis situation that it isn't even funny. I don't think there will be any lasting effect [to raising the limit]," he said."

The Heritage Foundation, of course, is conservative and open about it. Their own website says, "Heritage delivers conservative proposals..."

It's notable that FoxNews covers the bases by going to both liberal and conservative "think tanks" for response to this, but I wonder about why the two organizations aren't identified with their ideology in the article. Clearly their quotes indicate their bias, and that's fine - the point of having two parties (and more) is to ensure debate. However, I think the ideology should be identified when it is clearly present on closer inspection, because many people won't inspect more closely.

I also wish the two organizations gave more substantial responses than "the Republicans had better watch out here!" or "Those Democrats, silly things. This is no problema!" Why is raising the debt limit a terrible thing? Or, conversely, why isn't it? Neither organization addresses this or, if they did, Fox News didn't quote them on it.

I also wish the Democrats would stop verbizing nouns.

AND SO THE DEBATE ENSUES. John "Akatsukami" Braue at Rat’s Nest takes issue with my post on the drinking age, most specifically the “Make it so an adult is an adult is an adult” statement. He says, in part:

“Why should we suppose that one becomes mature enough to do everything all at once, like the dissolution of the Wonderful One-Hoss Shay? Granting that "legal x age" (where x can be nearly anything) is largely if not entirely arbitrary, why should there be a(n) age of adulthood? Can we not suppose that a person is mature enough to drive at 16 and to vote at 18, but not enough to drink until 21?

"A "legal age" is (or should be) shorthand for "enough people are mature to do this at that age without destroying society in the process". "

First, I would disagree that an “age of adulthood” is an arbitrary number. I think it is a culturally determined number, thus variable, but not arbitrary. And I also disagree with Braue’s contention that “heuristics derived from five thousand years of history” is an appropriate foundation for determining the right age. Adulthood at 18 when life expectancy is into the 70s is far different from adulthood at 18 when life expectancy is 30. Ditto adulthood when schooling ends at 8 or 10 vs 22.

Braue also sees no problem with setting different threshold ages for different actions, depending on maturity needed for good decisions about that action. Based on the same reasoning, then, we should be able to set “adult” ages differently for males and females – this is already done by the automobile insurance industry, which will hit you much harder for your son’s premium than your daughter’s, so there’s even precedent. In this scenario, girls would be legal to drive at 15, boys at 18, girls could vote at 14, boys at 22, girls could drink at 21 and boys… Well, I won’t go there, but you get the point. Not really workable.

What is needed, then, is a rationally derived formula for determining maturity at each age and the maturity level needed to make the best decisions in each category – we could call that “maturity quotient”, or MQ. We could average MQ across action categories, take the average and apply it to the age where that level of maturity is most often attained. That seems fair, and controls acceptably for individual variances.

And I’ll bet that age will be close to 18.

LEAVE SMOKERS ALONE! John Ed Pearce, a writer whose talent I have long admired and whose politics I abhore, lays into the moralists and opportunists who have elevated smoking to one of the most horrific sins in our society. His prose here teeters on purple, which I will attribute to his passion for the topic, but his reasoning I applaud.

And no, I don't smoke.

Pearce's politics shine through in a beautifully abbreviated litany of the liberal agenda buried in his rant:

"Unable or unwilling to free our land of its real sins and shortcomings -- the shame of 40 million children without health care, the racism that loads upon us hordes of un- or underemployed minorities and crammed prison cells, the disparity of life standards that produces the hungry alongside the overfed and fat, the failure to meet the goals of democracy that leaves us with millions of un- and undereducated children, an underclass of AIDS victims -- we determine to show our moral courage by stamping out the horrid cigarette."

I don't know that I've ever seen one sentence carry so much guilt and victimization. It deserves to be framed.

"I KNOW ABOUT BAD RAPS", O.J. Simpson told people at a hip-hop concert in Cincinnati last Saturday, urging them to "leave recent racial unrest behind". The concert was in the area where an unarmed man was killed by police last April.

It's nice to know that people of good character are taking leadership roles in dealing with serious social issues in the US.

WARRIORS VS SOLDIERS - WHICH ARE WE? Victor Davis Hanson on NRO has an excellent article on why the United States will win if war with Iraqi is next. And why we will win in this second stage of fighting in Afghanistan.

A hint:

"...fact sheets (can) not reveal what is inside a man's heart, or how he aims a gun, or what he does with a radio, or how he relates to his comrades under fire — or the type of nation that raised, supported, and will cure, pension, and bury him.... we will fight as we live...(a)nd so we will win decisively a war that we did not seek — allies or not."

Amen.

CORRUPTION IN THE ALTERNATIVE MEDIA? Ken Layne explores it. Link courtesy of Instapundit.

SEEDING THE CLOUDS, THEN REPORTING ON THE RAIN: The New Criterion discusses the spinning of polls into news by the media ; very illuminating. Thanks for the heads up on the article from MediaMinded.

As interesting as the article is, it missed what to me is one of the most important points. The author, James Bowman, points out how the media's polltakers call citizens with well-shaped questions, then the media report on how a certain story - in this case, Enron - is causing distrust to deepen, or reaffirming previous doubts about conservative methods. What he doesn't include is the fact that the majority of the information that Roy Average Citizen has access to in formulating his opinion comes from the same media that then polls him and reports his views. Think of this example. A daily newspaper is having a slow news time and turns to the crime reporter for fill in. The crime reporter goes out and finds crime, writing feature articles on violent assaults, victims, and police actions. After a few weeks of this, after the other local media including the television stations have taken their lead and crime is the opening story every day, the newspaper takes a poll of its readership and their thoughts on crime as a problem. Would you be surprised to learn that fear of crime was on the rise in that city? Crime may actually be down in pure numbers, but that fact would be buried under the intense focus on the issue. I think this cycle is common in the media.

I got my first taste of how this worked while a journalist myself. One editor I worked with, a seasoned veteran, was annoyed because the local election season was too tame to make for interesting coverage. One day he said, I'm going to go plant a rumor. He did. A few days later, he went out and interviewed people in the political scene about what they thought about this new rumor. They of course did not know that he had planted it. And he did an article about this new rumor and its implications.

That may be more directly dishonest (or maybe not) than what major media journalists do now, but the mechanism is the same. And I think it's disingenuous of the media to report poll results with stern warnings that "the American street" is up in arms over whatever is the media darling issue of the day, without acknowledging their role. Reporting, polling, reporting the polls is a closed circle that needs to be broken.

Seed the clouds, report on the rain.

TRIANGULATING THE MEDIA ON MERGERS brings interesting information. This morning at Columbia Journalism Review I came across a February 23 NY Times editorial sounding the alarm about the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit nullifing the F.C.C.'s cross-ownership rule which said, in part:

"Americans do not want to wake up someday to realize that, as a result of mergers between cable operators, TV networks, local broadcast stations, radio networks and newspaper chains, they must rely on only two or three corporations for all their entertainment and, more to the point, their news. It is important to the health of a democracy that a few powerful economic interests do not monopolize information outlets."

Naturally, since this was the NYT and of course monopolies are by definition bad, I was concerned. So I looked further, and found some reason for comfort from CNN Money:

"...most of the major media companies have enough problems on their hands, given the sluggish advertising market, without taking on the additional burden of tricky merger integration issues. And more importantly, there's the question of how to finance a big deal in the first place."

And still more at the WSJ:

"For all the chatter, it is unlikely that the court ruling will result in a sudden flood of deals. Industry executives and media bankers say the rule changes were expected and don't drastically change the larger deal landscape. Until the economy and advertising market pick up, they say, big deals are likely to be rare.

"...the most immediate effect will be a shuffle among the lower-tier players who own the bulk of the country's local broadcast stations."

A deep understanding of economics and business intricacies is not my strongest point, but it sounds like the market is taking care of this concern. Could a big-business bias be in operation at the NY Times? Say it ain't so.

Interesting that the NY Times, by the way, is so concerned about the major commercial outlets being owned by the same people when news dissemination is alive and well throughout the world via the Internet. Even if, as some have pointed out, the blogging world and the Internet as a whole don't do the bulk of on-site reporting, they can and will fact-check the hide off the major media outlets, keeping them honest, and this phenomenon will grow. My niece who is two years old will grow up in a world where the Internet is as ubiquitous as the television and telephone are for my generation. I think regulation of the Internet has greater potential for damaging our "right to know" than does relaxing the restrictions on commercial media ownership.

Besides, if the major media outlets are unbiased and incorruptible, why does it matter who owns them?

WHAT A GREAT WEEK! I officially opened this site last Sunday, although I didn't really post anything of substance until Tuesday, so it's a week old. As of midnight tonight, I had 1,534 hits for the week. Just over two-thirds of that came from links from Instapundit (thank you!) twice this week, but increasingly from "unknowns" which I am going to identify as people typing in the link or having it on a link button (because it makes me feel good, and until someone tells me differently, that's my story), and from three other sites which have linked to me (that I know of) - MediaMinded, Dreaded Purple Master and NoWatermelons. Thanks, folks!

I'M REVEALING MY OWN BIAS ON THE DRINKING AGE, which I think, personally, should be "dead". But that's just me. I don't drink alcohol, and the few times I've tasted it I've been singularly unimpressed. I confess I do like pecan cake soaked in bourbon, but then it's hard to ruin a pecan cake. Ditto pecan pie. What the heck, pecan anything. My reasons for not drinking include thoughts on the morality of drunkenness and the things people often do while drunk that they wouldn't otherwise do. And it can't be denied that a lot of people wouldn't be dead, and a lot of people wouldn't come from ruined homes or live ruined lives, if alcohol wasn't consumed.

That said, as a pragmatic matter I find the discussion about a legal drinking age getting increasingly bizarre (as do others). Since it doesn't now and never has personally affected me, I tend not to follow the vacillations of the drinking age debate, or, for that matter, the fights about wet vs. dry that are ongoing in many communities. But the report about underage drinking that has recently been debunked (discussed here at Reason), and the apparent desire of Elizabeth Dole to raise the drinking age to 25, are, as I said, bizarre. This is bias on speed (or at least caffeine), trying to frighten people into outlawing behavior using lies or shaming, rather than convincing with facts and reason. And the term "adult" is apparently more flexible than a yoga master.

What this hysteria does is divert attention from this fact: being an adult is not so much an age as a level of maturity, defined by the ability to make decisions that are the healthiest, or at least minimally harmful, for yourself and others. Some people are not adults at 50, others are almost there by 12. It's part intelligence, part personality, part physical and psychological readiness, and a big whopping part is training in reasoning and morality. The difference between an 18 year old and a 21 year old in psychological and mental capacity for maturity is, I would say, minimal. What we need is not higher drinking ages, but better parental guidance for teens and general societal responsibility about the whole issue.

Decide an age and make it stick. If it's 18, then drinking, driving and dying for your country start at 18. If it's 25, then none of those three should start until then. While you're at it, up the legal age of consent for marriage, which is 16 (15? 14?) in most states. Make it so an adult is an adult is an adult.

Even I can drink to that (one ginger ale, please).

MORE ON RACIAL BIAS IN THE MEDIA from Front Page's Larry Elder by way of MediaMinded. Elder tells of horrific murders similar to ones covered heavily in the mainstream media except for one thing - in the ones that weren't covered, the victim was white and the killers were black. He speculates that the reason for the lack of coverage was the same quandary I discuss below - the mainstream media don't know how to say that someone black can be bad, even evil.

What I honestly, truly don't get is how the mainstream media can believe that it is a bad thing to make news judgments based on actions and not characteristics. By their actions they are fostering the very thing they say they want to erase.

DANIEL TAYLOR AT DREADED PURPLE MASTER blog wonders,

"Now, I ask you: Does this sound like a bloggable topic?"

Before you even know what he's referring to, the answer is "yes". If it's a topic, it's open season. But what he specifically refers to is the crematorium in Georgia where all the bodies have been found in recent weeks. The number is inching close to 350. There are a lot of unanswered questions here. Many may never be answered, and certainly most won't until the trial of the owner because of a judicial gag order.

I've been considering this for a while, and, for a bias blog, the main question I think is this - where are the articles on the family? When people who run businesses violate public trust, we hear a lot about them, usually in highly negative terms - Enron, child-care workers who have abused children, college students who embezzled funds from their school's organizations. I'm not saying that is the right thing to do, it's just what usually happens. But I've seen little coverage specifically of the Marsh family in the national media. Maybe I missed it. Could this silence be because the Marshes are black?

The Atlanta Journal and Constitution had two articles recently on the Marshes; I didn't pay to get the full text of the articles so no links.

CREMATORY OWNERS: Everyone knew the Marshes, or so they thought
Dana Tofig/2-22-2002
"Walker County is caught up in a dual mystery. The first one is obvious: How could a family as civic-minded and God-fearing as the Marshes be involved in something so horrible as burying in their back yard hundreds of bodies..."

Crematory mourners gather as Marshes seek, find solace
Andrea Jones/2-25-2002
"As hundreds of grim-faced families gathered with black ribbons at the Walker County Civic Center Sunday morning, Clara Marsh and her family gathered in their small clapboard Baptist church, welcomed with hugs and pats of reassurance..."

And even BET (Black Entertainment Television) has covered the story. They did find one relative who said Clara Marsh, Ray Brent Marsh's mother, is "controlling" and that the family "never did like the marriage". That is a very different picture from what little I have seen in the mainstream media.

I think a situation like this is a quandary for the mainstream media, because to them anytime a minority is involved in a story the minority status of the person is high on the list of things to consider in making decisions about coverage direction. When the behavior is objectively bad, and there is no way to blame society in some way for the behavior (poverty, racism, poor education, poor socialization), how do you cover it? How do you go out and say, "This black person is bad, and there is no excuse"? They don't know how to do it.

Of course, the answer here is, race has zero importance in this story. Some people with the intelligence and resources to do better have done something really really awful, that has hurt a lot of people, both black and white. End of discussion.

In a truly color-blind society, value judgments are based on behavior, not the color of a person's skin. We're just waiting for the mainstream media to realize it.

MEDIAMINDED COVERS THE BIAS BEAT! Great blog covering bias from an anonymous copy editor at a mainstream media daily. We wonder who! Check it out, for both the content and the wonderful page design. I'm jealous! But I'm such an HTML amateur. Maybe some day....

ARE WOMEN WHO KILL THEIR CHILDREN DIFFERENT FROM MEN WHO DO? A Drudge link to a Globe and Mail article on a father who killed five of his six children recently in Los Angeles brought that question to mind. The article discusses how Andrea Yates's crime and trial are major news, while the case of Adair Garcia, 30, was on page B4 of his local paper, the LA Times. Is this some bias in operation painting a man's killing as a different thing from a woman's?

The cases have some similarities. Yates killed all five of her children in the space of a morning by drowning them. Garcia turned on a gas barbeque in his living room and five of the children died of asphyxiation from inhaling the fumes from it. Yates was clinically depressed and, some say, psychotic at the time. Garcia had recently separated from his wife and was depressed. One interesting difference, though, is that Yates made no attempt to harm herself. Garcia was found unconscious in the same room with his children, apparently planning to die with them. From the Globe and Mail article on Garcia:

""Killings by aggrieved fathers are generally done out of jealousy and anger, directed at hurting the ex-spouse or ex-partner," said Jordan Steiker, a law professor at the University of Texas. "Our society is very ambivalent in labeling women as murderers. To make sense of a crime through mental illness is much more common with women, and especially with mothers," she said in an interview yesterday."

Anyone who is thoughtful about the differences between men and women understand that the differences are real, and not only physical. But it seems that women are given a moral "bye" at times because of our differing perceptions of men and women. We bring our assumptions about "the way men are" and "the way women are" into our calculations of responsibility, of culpability. Thus, men's crimes are more generally assumed to emerge from rational consideration, while women's crimes are assumed to emerge more from emotion. When considering a defense, it is easier to move jurors to thoughts of legal insanity when their general perception is that the defendent was operating emotionally, rather than rationally. In some cases this perception may be true. But that is a fact that should be established, rather than assumed.

This premise is one that is explored in a 1996 book by Ann Jones, Women Who Kill. While I don't agree with all her conclusions, her exploration of Lizzie Borden's trial is very interesting. Jones says that the evidence of Lizzie's guilt was likely present, but the assumptions about women of her status at that time in history precluded the police and even the jury from fully exploring the possibility. A review of the book gives a summary of her discussion. Jones says that the jury was composed of white men of similar status and age to Lizzie's father, and the implication inherent in finding a woman like her guilty of murdering her father was enough to cloud their judgment - they couldn't accept that she would do that because that would mean accepting that the daughters and wives in their own homes were capable of the same.

Jones's analysis is imbedded in the feminist concept of oppressive patriarchy, which I think carries its own bias baggage, but that doesn't mean her analysis has no merit. I think what we see anecdotally in today's society bears it out. And the emotions that both men and women undergo during very stressful times are not necessarily that different.

I collected data on mass murderers to do a typology of them for my master's thesis; mass murder is when several people are killed in a single episode, as opposed to serial killing, which occurs in several distinct episodes. Both Yates and Garcia qualify as mass murderers. Two cases in my data set come to mind - a young Asian woman who walked into the ocean with her two children, and a white middle-class man who killed his wife, two sons and himself. The young woman lived, but her children died; the article talked about how in her culture killing herself was a shameful act, and killing her children as she committed suicide was saving them from that shame. The article on the man's killing speculated that he was depressed from a failed business venture, and killed his family and himself from shame. The thing that caught my attention in the man's case was that he also killed the family dog. Those who have pets understand - a pet is a member of the family. From the information available in the one article about the man, I believe his killing of his family was in a sense a macro-suicide - killing not just himself, but his whole life. I think the Asian woman was doing the same. But the two cases were treated very differently in the media.

That brings us back to Yates and Garcia. Yates killed her children, yes, but she did not kill herself. This says to me that she was ending a problem in her life, but wasn't interested in ending her own life. Garcia, on the other hand, was committing a "macro-suicide" - killing his life. Yates has received oceans of print about her case, with intense media scrutiny and everyone from top psychiatrists to Marie Osmond opining about the tragedy of a mother killing her children, and how that in itself is sufficient evidence of psychosis. Garcia, on the other hand, is unlikely to receive much attention from anyone, and likely will spend the rest of his life in jail.

I have friends with several children who have told me they feel great sympathy and a connection with Yates. They too have harbored awful thoughts about harming their children, in the midst of depression. The difference is - they didn't do it! They got help. They are happy now and their children are healthy. Yates's situation was extreme in a variety of ways, and perhaps her psychosis did result in the deaths of her children. But I think we do damage to our judicial system when we consider that she is a mother who did this, rather than she is a parent who did this. I also don't think Garcia should get a "bye" for what he did - maybe jail for life is the best choice. But he should not lose a piece of his defense because he is a man and not a woman.

HERE IS THE LINK TO THE 9/11 DOCUMENTARY on CBS on March 10.

TO THOSE LINKING FROM INSTAPUNDIT who are seeking the media bias commentary, scroll down to the top post under Friday, March 1. And thanks for coming by!

I WAS DRIVING TO JERSEY CITY ON THE MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 11, and could see the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers burning, like two smokestacks. The Manhattan skyline is very familiar to me – I see it every time I crest the hill two blocks from my building, and watch it draw closer as I drive to work. Just yesterday, as I drove through a clear morning very similar to September 11, it hit me again that the towers were just not there, and all the implications that has for our country. It’s been almost six months since the attacks, and rarely does a day pass that I don’t think of it – because barely a day passes that I don’t see again the hole in the Manhattan skyline.

Now CBS News is planning to show a documentary on March 10 about that day. Families of the dead are concerned about how graphic it might be, and I am sensitive to their concerns. But my thoughts are more in tune with those of NRO’s John Derbyshire:

“When people rubberneck at an accident site, I think they are doing a natural and instinctual thing, a thing which, if consummated, will improve them in some measure. I feel sorry for the relatives of the 9/11 victims, and I understand that the public display of the bodies of those they once loved is an indignity. I believe, however, that showing the awful truth of what happened — with, of course, some sensible editing for the sake of decency — will outweigh that indignity, and be a general public benefit.”

In the years I’ve lived in New Jersey, the World Trade Center was the most usual staging point for my trips into Manhattan. Taking the PATH train in from NJ, I would go through the mall to whichever subway I needed, buying chocolates at Godiva’s at the top of the bank of escalators coming up from the PATH station or stopping by Ecco Panis for a sample of gourmet bread. I bought my ex-boyfriend’s 2000 Christmas gift at the Borders bookstore that faced the church. The day the towers came down I was supposed to meet a friend there at 6 p.m. en route to a NY Sports gym nearby. As I drove to work that morning, I thought, well, that appointment is canceled. I still hadn’t grasped the magnitude of the disaster, not until I got to work at the Jersey City Police Department.

I spent that day answering phones, and helping where I could. In the following weeks, I talked to a number of officers who told about their experiences. I went to memorials, talked to friends who lost friends or family, and went to Ground Zero several times. The week before Thanksgiving, a visiting friend who is a detective with a sheriff’s department out west took me with her on a tour of the restricted sections of Ground Zero. I saw the beams which fell in the perfect shape of a cross; the office buildings that looked as though a giant hand had twisted off a section, leaving the rest intact as if someone would be in tomorrow to continue on; I stood on the platform where families stood while workers dug through the rubble. The soft wood handrail was an impromptu memorial of its own – one scrawled message read, “We will never forget you, Dad.”

The closest and deepest grief will always belong to the families of those who died, but the rest of us are grieving too, and need the resolve to do what is necessary to make sure future attacks are averted or rendered ineffective. And I agree with Derbyshire that understanding the seriousness of what was done is essential to shoring up that resolve. Watching such a documentary can do that.

In my master’s program I took a semester-long class on the death penalty. Ten of 12 were for it at the beginning; 10 of 12 were against it at the end. The course included a discussion of all the arguments pro and con, and we watched a video called “Faces of Death” which showed actual executions, including one in the electric chair. It was horrific. And when it was done, I was one of the two still in favor of it.

I think this is in part because I already knew what death looked like, so my decision was not changed by the emotional experiences in the class. I grew up in a rural area where attending funerals was part of community life; one of my earlier memories is going with my father to a home where a man lay in his coffin in the living room. As a journalist I covered a number of vehicle accidents where people were terribly injured; one where a man died. It was in part this aspect of my job that caused me to leave journalism. I felt like a vulture picking at the bones of another person’s grief. I didn’t help as the police officers, the paramedics, or the firefighters did. I took photographs for people to look at while drinking their morning coffee the next day.

It took me a while to put all that in perspective, and to understand the value of seeing the truth about death, of the need, as Derbyshire says, “to look it in the face, to stare it down”. I think it is only when we face death, accept its sadness, horror and inevitability, that we can move beyond our fears and emotions into the resolution necessary to deal with whatever situation caused the death, with rational thought and moral certitude. That is what this documentary can help us do.

In the Corrections classes I have taught, I make my students take sides on the death penalty, and explain why. We talk about it extensively, and I try to help them understand two things: If you are for the death penalty, then you have to accept that you are for taking the life of someone whose mother loves him, someone with friends, with dreams and always at least a whisper of hope to be a better person. If you are against the death penalty, then you must be ready to deal with saving someone who brought death to an innocent person, often death that is painful to even think about – torture, abuse, pain, violation. There is no win-win situation. Neither side has cause for joy.

And that is where we are in this war. For months we have heard about Afghanistan, the civilians who have died there, the potential for even more death, while the attacks on September 11 have receded from our minds in a wash of talk about money for victims’ families, Washington catfighting and the dailiness of a world moving forward. We need to be reminded, we need to look this death in the face again. Because it is only through staring it down can we move to a place where we make decisions rationally and with resolve, not emotion.

Again, I echo Derbyshire:

“Let us know what was done to us, in more detail than we have so far been shown. Then, when we set out to do what we need to do to our enemies, let's do it not in a spirit of whooping blood lust, but coldly and grimly, in full knowledge, full understanding, of what it means to cut short a human life, to turn smiles and kisses and laughter into the stiff pale grimace of death.”

SLIPPING UNDER THE WIRE, or maybe not, with this post on bias by the end of Friday, as promised. Okay, that was sneaky, I published it and then edited it, so it's got 11:54 p.m. on the time although it will likely be 12:30 a.m. or so by the time I'm done.

Instapundit led me to Patrick Ruffini ranting about Howard Kurtz's media bias, but apparently that was mainly quotes from Paul Glastris in Washington Monthly, in a chain reaction of media bias. Another quick pass through Instapundit brought a link to Michael Fumento's expose' on Dan Rather and ADHD, and just for the heck of it I pulled in Bernard Goldberg's Bias in today's research on media bias. Tasty stuff, I suggest you read it all.

The root of the day's ranting was Glastris's piece, "Why Can't The Democrats Get Tough?"; I have to admit I laughed out loud through most of it. It begins with "mostly young Republican congressional aides" during the 2000 election recount chanting and banging on doors until they intimidated three Miami-Dade County judges into shutting down the recount and thus giving the election to Bush. It gets better. Gore "high-mindedly" sought a recount; Bush's Republicans "sternly" disagreed, having gotten their way already through "thuggishness". The article continues in that vein, in a beautiful demonstration of how word usage itself illustrates a writer's bias. Throughout, the sweetly-bewildered Democrats, wanting only to stand on principle and protect the populace, are turned back time and again by the "ruthless" Republicans. Why, Glastris asks, do Democrats "have so little fight in them"? Dozens of "academics, Hill staffers, political consultants, pollsters and assorted operatives" conclude, among other things, that "Democrats believe in government, so they have a natural tendency to cooperate and compromise. Republicans...are deeply suspicious of government, and see implacable opposition as their role in life." Gentle Democrats... implacable Republicans. Interestingly, though, Glastris notes that "(t)hey [Republicans] seized on the same mechanisms of scandal Democrats had used - ethics laws, congressional subpeonas, independent counsels...and an eager mainstream media press corps. But they brought far more money and ferocity to the task, as well as an openly partison conservative media". So now, it seems, the problem was not that the Democrats didn't use the same methods as the Republicans, but rather that the Republicans were better at using them and that made the Democrats really mad. Plus, not only were there media outlets who supported the Republican world view, but they were open about it. In closing we find out the reason for the piece - the Democrats are fragmented because of the high-level jostling for position as presidential nominee and are too worried about irking the American public to "mix it up with the Republicans". So what they need is... Bill Clinton. Yes, the point of the piece is that Bill Clinton needs to come back as a "ringer" and toy with the Republicans like a child poking a stick through the fence to distract a bad dog while his buddies sneak in the house to steal cookies.

From this amalgam of partisan positioning, Kurtz pulls the main premise of his own column, keying off Glastris's general theme that the conservatives are rabid partisans while the liberals are ideologically high-minded, misunderstood and taken advantage of because of their own desire to do what's right. The majority of Kurtz's column is actually a direct quote from Glastris's article, with a lead in that sets the tone through his summary of Glastris's theory: "That the conservative press is purely partisan, while the mainstream weenie press is concerned with issues like fairness and balance – and, in fact, often criticized Bill Clinton and other Democrats. That it's not really an even fight, heavyweight boxers versus high school debaters." Kurtz actually does a very nice job here of catching the tone of Glastris's article, and the main point harkens back to the ideological saints vs. thugs idea:

"Yes, there is a certain amount of liberal bias in the mainstream press. But on balance, the big national papers and broadcast networks take seriously the traditional journalistic strictures of fairness, accuracy, and independence of judgement.

"The conservative press, by and large, does not labor under these constraints. It does not pretend to be in the business of presenting all sides fairly, but of promoting its side successfully."

So Glastris, and through quotation Kurtz, both admit that there is a liberal bias in the "mainstream press". But again, they strive for purity of purpose only to be defeated by conservative partisanship.

Here is where Ruffini goes off on his Rant - taking issue with idea that the mainstream media makes more than a token effort to provide "balance". To find the truth, Ruffini did searches of the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, looking for instances where the terms "conservative" or "right-wing" were used in comparison to times "liberal" or "left-wing" were used. Consistently, one of the "conservative/right-wing" duo showed up twice for every one "liberal/left-wing" use. Controlling for the possibility that there just exists more conservatives than liberals in the news as a whole, Ruffini searched for the number of times articles mentioning well-known arch-conservative Jesse Helms included the word "conservative" vs the number of articles mentioning arch-liberal Ted Kennedy which also used the word "liberal". Again, the conservative term was in much greater evidence. From this, Ruffini concludes (rightly, in my judgment) that a liberal bias exists strongly in the mainstream media.

A specific example of how that bias may work shows up on Michael Fumento's website in an expose' about a 48 Hours episode on ADHD, hosted by Dan Rather, which criticized the purported high level of Ritalin prescriptions given to children to control behavior. Fumento points out:

- a column by Rather published four months prior to the ADHD 48 hours episode where Rather is strongly critical of
using drugs to control ADHD, a bias he likely brought to the table in putting together this show;
- the physician interviewed in the episode has a financial interest in alternative methods of addressing ADHD
which undermines her credibility in criticizing Ritalin;
- the mother interviewed about the death of her child in a car accident, which occurred while she was on medication
for ADHD, actually had a history of mental problems and did not have her child in a safety seat at the time of his death;
- a 48 Hours reporter called Ritalin a "middle school cocaine", citing "unnamed authorities" when government
agencies have found no widespread abuse of the drug.

These clear problems with the piece raise the question - did CBS know these things and hide them? Or was it lazy or thoughtless journalism?

In addressing the political side of things a la Kurtz and Glastris, Ruffini says, "I start with the pretty basic assumption that any bias that exists will tend to be cynical and oppositional." Thus his research for numbers showing systematic bias. Fumento asks, did CBS know?, not assuming but creating a definite question that needs an answer. And Bernard Goldberg answers it - usually the bias emerges from a world view where the way the liberals see things is by definition right and true, and they don't look very closely when the "facts" support their world view, while they probably would examine it more closely if a "fact" conflicted with their world view (i.e. if it is conservative). For those of you who have followed the Michael Bellesiles story, the same narrow vision is apparent in the way his work was received by various factions - the liberal, pro-gun control crowd lavished praise on him, while the conservative pro-gun rights crowd began an intense review of his research's validity. Given the startling nature of his conclusions, his research should have received great scrutiny from everyone. But it didn't.

I think sometimes Ruffini's assumption is clearly true - as seen in Glastris's article. But most of the time I think Goldberg's premise is true, that the mainstream media operates with a world view that almost prevents them from seeing their own bias. In some odd way, the very fact that the conservative media is more openly partisan makes them more believable, because you are warned that there are facts and there are interpretations in the mix, and you as an information consumer must sift out which is which. I think articles such as the one by Glastris are less harmful in the long run than a piece like Rather's on ADHD. But the ultimate lesson is that media, as always, is a "buyer beware" market.

(i love this stuff. it's almost 2 a.m., by the way, but who needs sleep?)

WELL, I'M UP AGAINST THE WALL at work and school, on top of being sick for a few days this week, so I've not posted since last night. However, I've been reading posts about media bias on Instapundit, Ruffini's blog and other places, so I want to post about that this evening. Basically, it's about whether the mainstream media does show a liberal bias. The answer would be "yes" - and isn't that a newsflash! But more on that later. Also, I'm finishing up Goldberg's book on bias, and I must say that while he has a lot of good things to say he's pretty whiny about it. I hope to post a review of Goldberg's book tomorrow.

Americans have taken some knocks from Europeans about how we have not flocked to the Continent since Sept. 11. There is an interesting article in today's Irish Times about low hotel occupancy in Ireland in 2001; an excerpt:

"Demand from the North American market was down by 21 per cent overall and by 18 per cent from the Continent. Average occupancy in Irish hotels fell by four percentage points to 61 per cent in 2001, the figures show."

So it appears that the Americans are not the only ones who aren't traveling. The article implies the Continental tourism reversal is due to "the foot-and-mouth crisis". Unlike, say, a plane crash, foot and mouth disease "does not affect...humans". So why are the brave Europeans staying home in droves?

It appears that an Irish foot-and-mouth crisis could expose a European foot-in-mouth crisis.

James Lileks answers the smug nastiness of a Guardian reporter who disses the US by way of an essay written from an Olive Garden restaurant in Birmingham, AL. As someone who grew up in fly-over country, all I can say is - goooooooo James! Pretty funny, and it echoes a lot of my own thoughts about European attitudes about the US.

One of my favorite things happened again! A cell phone recall - and no, that isn't the company trying to take it back.

One of my best friends wears his cell phone on his belt as he rushes around through his day. Periodically, he bumps into something with his auto redial button. Dutifully, his cell phone calls me (if I was the last person he talked to), and when I pick up the phone I hear the unmistakable sounds of him walking around. By now I recognize the sounds, and sometimes, if I'm not busy, I settle in to listen. I've heard him talking on the phone (land lines), ordering lunch, conferring with coworkers and, this morning, having his carryon searched at LaGuardia. I keep waiting for him to do or say something that will surprise me, but it hasn't happened yet. I've told him several times that this happens, and he just laughs.

I'm not quite sure why it amuses me so. I guess it's that little touch of voyeur in each of us. Lately I've become conscious of using his cell phone minutes so I hang up pretty quickly. I wonder, tho... how many people have redialed a number unbeknownest to them? And what have other people in their lives heard? Has anyone gotten into trouble from inadvertent revelations? Hmmmmm..... oops! There's the phone! ttyl...

The Cincinnati police have responded to a USDOJ review of their policies and practices with substantial agreement with the USDOJ's findings, although there is dissent with some of the findings. I haven't followed this situation closely, although it's on my list for attention during my current research project. One thing of interest in the article is the list of findings the Cincinnati Enquirer claims for itself, and lists under the department's plans for change as if the Enquirer was the reason for the change. Possibly the Enquirer did first flag issues the USDOJ found problematic later, but I question why they list their findings and conclusions without a discussion of the larger context. One example:

" • Officers now must explain on use-of-force forms the circumstances surrounding any uses of chemical irritant, and officers will get more training on the use of the spray.

"Chemical irritant is the most common use of force in Cincinnati — officers sprayed it almost three times a day last year. But an Enquirer investigation found the department did not accurately report all the incidents."

According to the Cincinnati police website, from January through November 2001 there were 26,164 major offense reports taken and 3,573 violent crimes. Cincinnati's population, according to the 2000 Census, is 331,285. Rounding up the Enquirer's stats, if officers used chemical irritant 3 times a day, every day of the year, that would be 1,095 uses, or in about 31% (less than a third) of violent crime incidents. If every use occurred on a different individual, that would involve 0.3% of the residents in Cincinnati. Even if the police department under-reported their use of chemical irritant by half, that would still involve fewer than 1 percent of the population of Cincinnati - and that's assuming only one use per incident and per person.

I don't think it's a bad thing for officers to explain why they chose to use a chemical irritant in a certain situation; the lowest level of force necessary to control a situation is generally best. Review of these incidents can help the department to assess what situations are giving rise to officers' decisions to use chemical spray, and possibly adjust training exercises to help officers gain control in those situations using other less forceful methods. But that's not the point - the level of chemical irritant use in Cincinnati just doesn't seem that high, in context, but the Enquirer presents the information with no context. I think this makes the situation sound dire when it is not. Policing by its very nature is about either maintaining order through the understanding that force is an option, or imposing order to any outbreak of disorder through a use of force that escalates along with the level of disorder. Excessive use of force occurs when a situation can be controlled with less force than was used. A newspaper reporter assessing a police department's use of force record out of context, without even an acknowledgement of the split-second decision-making involved, is in my judgment poor journalism. While I have some problems with the tone of this article, it does a much better job of giving context for use of force incidents in Cincinnati and Ohio in general.

The Enquirer article is an example, I think, of a newspaper touting its importance at the expense of the police, making de facto accusations that are unanswerable and inaccurate. This is a subtle bias - if the organization being considered was favored by the newspaper, I think they would have made more effort to provide context. I don't think the Enquirer necessarily dislikes the police; it just offers the department up for criticism with no context to mitigate. I found all the information in this analysis during the course of an hour of Internet surfing. That speaks pretty poorly of a newspaper actually in Cincinnati, ostensibly with both the contacts and the time to research the facts.

Does anyone but me find Russell Yates very frightening? His reaction to his wife Andrea killing their five children seems surreal. I guess we're seeing the type of internal denial that allowed him to live with her deteriorating mental state and not recognize (or take responsibility for) the need to get her serious help. I think she's culpable for her actions, but I wish the law allowed him to be tried as an accessory.

Well, talk about horrific timing. I have the worst cold I've gotten in ages, I'm sneezing and coughing all over everything. Not very pretty. So that's the reason for the dearth of posts this afternoon, but I plan to be back in the morning all better. Or else.

Today Andrea Yates’ husband testifies on her behalf, and FoxNews has a decent discussion of insanity pleas and their success (or more accurately, lack of success) in other cases. I stand corrected about the similarity of insanity defense laws nationwide; some are more liberal than others, while some states have eliminated it altogether. But the M'Naghton "right or wrong" rule is still the primary foundation.

Yates’ mental problems remind me of Laurie Dann, a woman with a long history of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) who first tried to harm children she had babysat with poisoned sipper drinks, then in 1988 took a gun into a Winnetka, IL, elementary school, killing one child and wounding five others. That same day she committed suicide after police cornered her in a house near the school. If the police had succeeded in taking her into custody alive, what would her defense have been? Her history, detailed in an out-of-print book, Murder of Innocence, included behavioral tidbits such as stuffing raw meat behind the cushions of couches in her college dorm lounge area, and keeping her makeup in the microwave. But to most in her life she seemed quirky but friendly and functional. To what extent was she culpable for her later behavior? Andrea Yates thought first of using a knife to kill her children, but decided it was too messy. Could she not also have decided not to do it?

I think so. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

Mark Steyn says that Daniel Pearl was killed as much because he was a Jew as because he was a journalist, run afoul of an Islamic fanaticism that is the true oppressor of the Muslim world. A lot of good points, especially about how the US may react if Pakistan does not handle it. I love Mark Steyn - read his backlist too.

I've struggled with the case of Andrea Yates since I heard that she killed her children last summer. I'm sympathetic to the mental illness aspect, although I think it is unfair to characterize her mental problems as "post-partum depression". From reading this excellent article at Time.com detailing the chronology of her life after meeting the man who became her husband, I think it clear that her pregnancies and the stresses of motherhood exacerbated a pre-existing condition. This case is actually a good one to explore the concept of "insanity" in our legal system - a concept that is very narrowly defined and with a long history. Of course her actions horrify the majority of people, and it is some comfort to the citizenry to define her as "insane" because then we can separate oursel