Jay Rosen interviews Herbert Gans about Journalism: who gets to decide who gets to decide what's news, objectivity, and multiperspectivity.#

The idea of multiperspectival journalism:

The solo perspective also leads to rhetoric about that collectivity, "the nation." If you believe, however that journalists should also inform citizens about such subjects as the country's political diversity, the politically relevant activities and ideas of their fellow citizens, and what issues are concerning these citizens (which our elected representatives also need to know) then journalists need to be multiperspectival: to encompass all the important viewpoints from people with different values, interests, incomes, etc.

On journalism schools and how values that are implicit in the Religion of Journalism are transferred:

Well, academics are not and do not have to be practitioners and so can suggest what might be rethought and changed in the profession-- and indeed, that is, as I see it, one of their roles in the division of labor between newsroom and classroom. They should not be required or expected just to teach the status quo to the next generation.

Jay Rosen wonders how coverage of the Iraq War might have been different if a multiperspectival approach was taken, and what effect this would have on the country.

Whether such news would have changed administration policy or the war is dubious, for we are currently governed by an ideological party which sees only its own perspective while demonizing all others. Moreover, the power of the news and the ability of journalists to affect society is limited, sporadic and unpredictable. But the amount and diversity of relevant information would have been greater, and who knows what subsequent and indirect impact it might have had.

Herbert Gans closes with a statement about Howard Dean and the Internet campaigns:

However, I see a campaign as at best an introduction for citizens' democracy; the real thing can only take place when there is a government ready to make decisions on the big issues. And then it has to decide which citizens to favor at the expense of others when necessary-- and when to put citizens behind not only the national interest but also the demands of the economically vital (like those who create jobs) and the politically powerful.

But there is one complication even around the exciting events surrounding Dean's Web-related constituents: the fact that the people who are being active via the web are not representative; as always, they are the better educated citizenry-- the same people that always get involved the moment a new form of participation becomes available. (Usually they are also the more affluent, though maybe not in Dean's case.)

And they are the ones who vote as well, which is why I said in the book that we are moving toward an upscale democracy. This is obviously not Dean's fault, but at some point it has to be addressed. In a proper citizens' democracy, the less educated, less affluent, and the non voting non participating people also have to be drawn in or at least consulted and represented, and all that is very difficult.

The Binary Circumstance links to Objectivism and the Primacy of Existence.#

When Ayn Rand distinguishes 'existence' from 'consciousness', she mainly means by "existence" what other philosophers call "the external world" -- thus, the distinction is between states of one's own mind and external phenomena. According to Objectivism, existence has primacy over consciousness in two senses. First, epistemologically: human knowledge begins with (sensory) awareness of the external world. It does not begin with awareness of one's own ideas. The reason is that ideas or states of consciousness are necessarily ideas about something, and that something is what one is aware of. One could not become aware of one's own consciousness, unless one first had some states of consciousness to be aware of; and one could not have states of consciousness, unless one first had something else that one was conscious of.

Something I like to bring up is that even though the Forms exist independently of any observer, and thus existence is "prime" over consciousness, that doesn't mean that everything your senses tell you is true. The world we create in our minds is based upon the physical experience of the real world, but it is not the same world.

Example: A blind person who has always been blind does not have the concept of colour in their mind world. Does that mean it doesn't exist? No. Given the assumption that both time and space are infinite, or beyond human contemplation, then we cannot be completely sure that sometimes does NOT exist (like colour) nor could we tell if it didn't. Thus, there is no absolute and completely understanding of reality--often called Truth.

There are only the various truths that we decide on as a culture and our primary tools to create these truths are reason and experience.

Richard links to Ryan Parrot who writes about the anti-media bias on the Internet, and looks into where it comes from.#

At this point, it seemed pretty clear to me. Accusations of Cole being a hack or a liar didn't make much sense. What did make sense was that he'd linked to breaking news stories, which, as is general practice, had been updated to bring in detail. This isn't some malicious practice, it's just how wire services work. They file a bare-bones initial report to get the news out, then send along updates -- known as "writethroughs" -- that flesh out the story and add background. When a newspaper runs the story in print, it takes the latest writethrough, because it has the most information. But the wonder of the Internet is that we see all the versions of the story, including the earliest ones.

One problem with judging journalism as a blogger is that sometimes you can expect them to be like bloggers--making their changes obvious or posting completely new stories. And, as indicated above, that's just not how they do it. But does that make it okay?

That's one interpretation, without all the facts, but Ryan investigates more and finds that Cole was not linking to something that was change being his back, but was simply not reading everything.

Now, as I noted in his comments thread, I'm not accusing Cole of lying in his post. I believe what happened fits much better with something I've hit on before -- the blogosphere has such anti-media bent that it sometimes can't see anything but journalism gone wrong. Even when it's not there. I'm guessing that John Cole was so sure that the media would act in this way, that he just missed the evidence that contradicted him.

The big problem for Ryan, is that this shows how hard it is for the blogosphere to be a true self-correcting environment. We have the technology to rebuild him, but we lack the will. It is too hard to get the correction linked to the original if the author of the original doesn't want to provide a link back.

It is my opinion that we must vote with our attention on these people. If you don't see someone linking to commentary or correction, then they are not a trustworthy source and they seek to manipulate you.

It will be awfully sad if the blogosphere continues down that this path, and the more bloggers hate Big Media, the more they become it. Because journalism has problems that need fixing, and solid,accurate criticism can only help.

Jon Lebkowsky writes about how alcoholism, and other addictions, maybe a sign of an underlying problem.#

For those about to quit (we salute you), it is however important to understand the reasons one became dependant in the first pace. Sheer will-power, spiritualism, a regiment of living sober and staying away from the substance, can be very effective, yet it might lead to the development of substitute dependencies if the underlying cause remains untreated.

It is also important to understand the dependency cut-over, most addicts will experience. Once a dependency cut-over has happened, consuming the substance is no longer a means to self-medicate, it is entirely focused towards managing the status quo, not to improve it.

Joshua Bassett writes about community and Democrats at the Blogging of the President.#

We have seen the effectiveness of the Republicans' message: family, restricted government, national pride. It is simple. It is intuitively, emotionally, appealing. It is reducible to (sound)bite-size. The question for Democrats, then, is what is left for us? Is our mission to fight against simplification, advocate for shades of grey? Is it to claim territory the Republicans already hold? Or is it to find new territory with competitive appeal?

If it is the latter, I'd like to make the case for one selling point that Democrats already own, yet take insufficient advantage of: Community.

Adam Turoff writes about the State of Perl.#

Perl 6 and Parrot do not represent our future, but rather our long-term insurance policy. When Perl 6 was announced, the Perl 5 implementation was already about seven years old. Core developers were leaving perl5-porters and not being replaced. (We didn't know it at the time, but this turned out to be a temporary lull. Thankfully.) The source code is quite complex, and very daunting to new developers. It was and remains unclear whether Perl can sustain itself as an open source project for another ten or twenty years if virtually no one can hack on the core interpreter.

Matt Stoller writes about the beginning of the Internet based campaigns.#

Every four years, Americans create a new Presidential myth to match the size of the office of the Presidency. Becoming President is a uniquely difficult achievement; unlike Parliamentary systems where the leadership is well-known years before the ultimate power grab, there's no set path, no set career choice one must make before jumping for the prize. Governors do it often - Bush Jr, Reagan, Clinton, FDR, Carter - Vice-Presidents do too - Bush Sr, LBJ, Truman - Senators and Generals less so - JFK, Eisenhower. Businessmen make the grab - Ross Perot - while quixotic figures like Ralph Nader and John Anderson cannot always be ignored in the overall process.

It is never just one man, but a group of men and women, and a moment, that creates this myth.

The New York Times had an article about blogging and teenagers last week.#

A result of all this self-chronicling is that the private experience of adolescence -- a period traditionally marked by seizures of self-consciousness and personal confessions wrapped in layers and hidden in a sock drawer -- has been made public. Peer into an online journal, and you find the operatic texture of teenage life with its fits of romantic misery, quick-change moods and sardonic inside jokes. Gossip spreads like poison. Diary writers compete for attention, then fret when they get it. And everything parents fear is true. (For one thing, their children view them as stupid and insane, with terrible musical taste.) But the linked journals also form a community, an intriguing, unchecked experiment in silent group therapy -- a hive mind in which everyone commiserates about how it feels to be an outsider, in perfect choral unison.

This is great:

Some posts consist of transcripts of instant-message conversations, posted with or without permission (a tradition I discovered when a boy copied one of our initial online conversations under the heading ''i like how older people have grammar online'').

Richard told me about it.

Stirling Newberry describes the original purpose of Social Security.#

Many New Deal programs have been with us so long, and are so popular, that we have forgotten what they are meant to do. Their place in society has evolved as well, and they fill functions that were not originally considered by their creators. In explaining the legacy of the New Deal, the workings of these programs, which form an invisible veil of assumptions in a host of areas of controversy, needs to be better understood so that people may be informed participants in decisions which alter their future.

The single most visible, most popular and perhaps even most important, program that the New Deal is reponsible for is Social Security. However, it is the most pervasively misuderstood, partially because it is largely sold to the public as a system of retirement payments and social insurance for those who can no longer work because of illness or to the survivors of someone who has died. While this viewpoint - of the average consumer of Social Security Benefits - is important, it is far from the entire story.

Matt Stoller posts an interview (over email?) with a reporter in Iraq.#

What's your experience with the coalition authority? The military? By way of context, I've heard very bad things about the CPA, and very good things about the military.

The CPA is a total mess, as should be pretty clear. It's actually kind of shocking. It's hard to even know where to start. You probably know all of this: the CPA is locked inside the Green Zone, this massive area in the heart of Baghdad that's protected by armed guards, tanks, and lots of big concrete walls. Most of the people in the Green Zone never leave, or only leave with massive army escort and then only to go directly to meetings in ministries. They call the area outside of the Green Zone, the Red Zone. In other words: all of Iraq is the Red Zone. So, very few people in the CPA have the slightest idea what's going through the minds of Iraqis. They either have brief conversations with people on the street, when they're surrounded by armed troops. Inevitably, the Iraqis tell them they are very happy with the US occupation. What else would they say? I never, ever meet Iraqis who are happy with the US occupation. Or they meet with their own Iraqi staff or staff at the ministries, who are similarly positive--sycophantic to their bosses. The ignorance is so great that I generally find when I meet with CPA officials they start interviewing me, because I know far more about Iraq than they do.

Richard writes about beauty and appreciation after reading an essay on them by Alexander Nehamas.#

Alexander's main problem is how to reconcile differences in taste, both between you and I, and between the characteristics of those things I find beautiful. Why is green good in nature but not on clothes?

It is more than an expression of purely personal feeling, more than simply saying that I like a work of art. The aesthetic judgment is a normative claim; it says that the work should be liked. Although my reaction is based on a feeling, it is not beyond reason. I expect agreement. I am often upset when others, especially people who matter to me, withhold it. Kant writes that although "there can be no rule by which anyone should be compelled to acknowledge that something is beautiful," aesthetic judgments still speak with a "universal voice…and lay claim to the agreement of everyone." But how can I convince you that something is beautiful if there is no reason for my reaction? How can I even expect your agreement if I have no idea how you, and the rest of the world, actually feel?

With more reference to Kant, Alexander describes his failings:

I want to defend aesthetic judgments, but I also believe that Kant was bound to fail, for two reasons. One is that he was right to say that no features can ever explain why an object is beautiful. The other is that he was wrong to say that the judgment of taste demands everyone's agreement.

One of the things that Jacques Barzun wrote in The Culture We Deserve in the essay What Critics Are Good For, is that art is not science. You can not break it up into smaller pieces and say, "Ah, that's where the beauty is." This is because art is more like life than symbolism. Human life and experience cannot be boiled down to single events, causes, or properties--and thus neither can art. Art is beautiful when it evokes feelings and changes lives. It is okay that there is not a golden standard of beauty, just it is okay that there is no a golden standard of human happiness or purpose.

Alexander begins to touch this idea:

The judgment of beauty is not the result of a mysterious inference on the basis of features of a work which we already know. It is a guess, a suspicion, a dim awareness that there is more in the work that it would be valuable to learn. To find something beautiful is to believe that making it a larger part of our life is worthwhile, that our life will be better if we spend part of it with that work.

This is again referenced when referring to the quest for beauty and the experience of it:

It is possible that spending a life, or part of a life, in the pursuit of beauty—even if only to find it, not to produce it—gives that life a beauty of its own.

What this means to me is that your life is changed by art in the same way that it is changed by meeting other people. With the idea that art is encapsulated human life and experience, it seems to follow very easily that to experience that art and appreciate it, you life is changed. And beauty is that art that changes it for the better.

And of course, because the art had a creator, you are interacting with them and learning from them. Richard writes about this aspect,

Another way I look at the above highlighted quote critiquing Bloom's conception of enjoying the beautiful as a solitary act is the sense that, while in university, writing papers and preparing presentations and the like—especially, by definition, if it's not group work—seemed on the surface to be a solitary act. But we students were engaged in a process of learning from people both alive and dead, and, more importantly, engaging in the conversations that were happening around us by producing works of our own. Rather late in the process—but thankfully at the beginning of upper level studies—did I learn that way of thinking about my education and that (coupled with a practical course in analyzing arguments) is the major reason for my later success academically.

And who are we interacting with when we experience the beauty of nature and life itself? This is where the notion of God comes from, it seems to me. The first artist and the origin of beauty.

The two main actors: The Binary Circumstance and The Yeti.#

The setting: The Binary Circumstance writes about how "patriotism" can turn into the worship of human sacrifices for the preservation of the collective.#

On Honour and Duty.#

The Yeti:

An American soldier does not trade his life to get a flag. He risks his life because he believes in concepts like honor and duty.

The Binary Circumstance:

The Yeti-We speaks for an American soldier and presumes to know what he thinks, what his values are. In reality, The Yeti-We is telling American soldiers what they "should" think and what their values "should" be. The concepts of honor and duty imply "honor of something" and "duty to something." What does The Yeti-We feel we should all honor? What does The Yeti-We think we all have a duty to? These are values and values are products of the individual mind. Rational values are not products of a collective. The Yeti-We is correct that soldiers don't trade their lives for flags; a dead person can't trade. It's the collective Yeti-We that trades soldier's lives for flags in order to perserve The Yeti-We's collective flag-waving Yeti-We-self.

On Freedom:#

The Yeti:

It's trite to say that soldiers die so ingrates like the man at Binary circumstance can write freely on his website.

The Binary Circumstance:

It's not only trite, it's insulting to suggest that I have my freedom because some a bunch of twenty-somethings are fighting Bush's war on Iraq. Most of those soldiers were not even born when I, as a gay man, started fighting for freedom. They were not even born when I fought for the lives of my friends during the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco when the government turned it's back on us. I've been fighting for freedom for 52 years and haven't seen it yet. In fact, I am still forced at the point of a gun by my own country to support a military that no gay man or lesbian serve openly and proudly in. If The Yeti-We sees freedom there, The Yeti-We suffers from delusions.

The Yeti:

Speaking of his contempt for breeders - Does anyone read this guy and start thinking of Phil Hendrie? I swear he sounds like the man who begins every sentence with "As a gay man and a gay journalist..." See - the idea is supposed to be that BC has suffered under the oppression of us breeders. Thus - he is more sensitive to nuances, and also isn't responsible for buying into our breeder myths because none of us care about him and his kind.

I don't care what your sexual orientation is, BC. I doubt your sincerity in this manner because you express such contempt for the society you live in it becomes impossible to separate what you believe from what you use to shore up your self-esteem.

On Values:#

The Yeti:

In truth, all you can really do is feel sad for him. His life will always be lacking. To reach his age, and not understand what a line two-and-a-half miles long of teenage boys already understands.

The Binary Circumstance:

Again, the Yeti-We tells you how to feel. In truth, "all you can really do" feel sad for me. One option. No other choices. The truth is that The Yeti-We has sacrificed the Yeti-self and projects that it is the Binary Circumstance that is lacking. I might be lacking some things like a collective identity but a self is not one of them.

 

The Yeti:

And no matter what - in this country, we honor the fallen. We are acknowledging that a young man lost his life in service to his country.

The Binary Circumstance:

To accept that soldiers--mostly young men--are dead and not coming back forces us to ask ourselves, "Why did they die? Why did they die so young?" We would ask ourselves these questions about a young man who died of a disease and we would race to find a cure if hundreds of boys or girls were dying from the same disease. Why are we afraid to call dead soldiers dead? Why are we unwilling to find the cure for what's killing them?

Could it be that we collectively regard their lives as less valuable than irrational, inanimate entities like duty, honor, and country? The Yeti-We would have to take a long deep look in the mirror at the collective Yeti-We-self to find that answer.

Later, The Binary Circumstance ponders why they are sacrificed:

Almost 500 soldiers have died while the NASDAQ climbed a staggering 60% in 10 months. That's only 8.3 lives for each percentage gain in the market. Every percent gained means billions in new wealth for investors and the government, with most of it going to those who already have so much money they can't count it, the same people that Bush already gave huge tax cuts to. In Objectivist terms: Are we trading a lower value for a higher value (a moral good) or trading a higher value for a lower value (a moral evil)? You be the judge.

On The Country:#

The Yeti:

That Binary Circumstance can't understand that, and instead sees a mystical ceremony of human sacrifice, speaks to his failures, not ours.

The Binary Circumstance:

Forgive me but The Binary Cirumstance doesn't understand all things like The Yeti-We. I am a mere mortal. But there is one thing that the BC does understand: Things either exist or they don't. A young man has a life and a mind. A country is an inanimate entity without a mind. To suggest that a young man should die for a country is to suggest that a young man should die for a rock. That would be sacrificing a human life for something of much lesser value, a bad trade that diminishes the value of human life. Conversely, for any one to trade his/her life in defense of his own rational mind, his liberty and his own individual values is a good and moral trade.

The Yeti:

Under your thought system, there should be no funerals for anyone - whether soldiers or gay men dead of AIDS-related diseases because they no longer exist - and the rest of us are foolish for wasting time and effort on people who no longer exist.

The Binary Circumstance:

I wish you well in attending all those funerals. I've already attended far too many for young men in my life.

Jay Rosen writes about the religion of journalism, it's priesthood, and faith.#

Smart people entering the profession learn the religion of journalism. Amid their practical lessons they acquire their faith in a free press. [...]

They also absorbed a sense of what's sacred, what's profane in journalism, as with the wall between the news and business sides of the operation. The wall is commonly called the "separation of church and state" by newsroom pros, who speak metaphorically yet with great passion and precision about this sacred divide. And who is the church in that comparison? It isn't the counting room, it's the newsroom. The church is supposed to be journalism. The money side is of course profane.

The separation of church and state is easily adapted to the essential separation of the state and the media--journalism--so it cannot control what the people think. Of course, the Libertarian line is that the state should be separate from everything because it has not place, so in this mindset it's not a particularly interesting revelation.

Like many religions, Jay Rosen writes that people who are inside it may not completely understand it, having been wrapped in the dogma and the "good acts" for so long they've neglected the internal contemplation.

I practiced journalism, but I knew almost nothing about it. What do these words mean? Certainly Porter knew enough to do the job, and get promoted to newsroom management at the San Francisco Examiner. The nothing he knew means nothing deeper than news, nothing to connect the "job" to larger things, which in turn shine a bigger light on journalism. The "preservation of democracy" is one example, a larger thing. But are belief and practice in daily journalism constantly wrestling with democracy's preservation? Porter searched his experience. He did not find much of that.

He took time off. Started a weblog. Began to read and reflect on journalism, and on a certain professional emptiness--a missing knowledge, a missing purpose--he had not known was there before. If you read First Draft, and I recommend it, you may see how Tim Porter got religion again about journalism. In my reading of his story, this came only after a loss of faith.

The power of Journalists is particular over a democracy and people, this is the power that must be resisted like the Sin of Christianity or the materialism of New Agers. Jay comments,

Journalists also need to grasp how the press does—or does not—foster the kind of quality debate required if people are to make democracy work. They should see how it's possible for the press, when a concentrated industry overtakes it, to be a barrier to entry, even as it overflows with good information. Free and unfettered, the press can shut people out, ignore their views, or unfairly constrict debate. It can decide that two candidates matter tonight, not five. It can refuse free air time to a leader with a message.

This is a particularly apt comparison for the next segment of Rosen's peace: What is the God of Journalism? In Christianity, to Sin is to harm God by refusing his Love. And in Journalism, to manipulate the Public is to harm the Public. The Public is the God of Journalism:

In Carey's world the religion of the press is properly rooted in the public: "The god term of journalism--the be-all and end-all, the term without which the enterprise fails to make sense, is the public. Insofar as journalism is grounded, it is grounded in the public." If they, the journalists, are supposed to believe in "us," the public, then do we, the public, have to believe in the press? That seems to me a puzzle involving in the last analysis faith.

There has been, a rift in the religion, Rosen notes, and a new dispute has risen over the interaction between Journalism and the Public.

Either you believe that--people can make a difference if they know what's going on--or you do not. If the claim turns out to be false, then journalism is false to its history and founding premise. So people in the press ought to do everything they can to support certain causes, even if they join no crusades: an informed, engaged, and active public, a society in open conversation with itself, a high quality debate, a media system with low barriers to entry, a democracy that is actively preserved, a connected politics that welcomes participation by citizens, and finally what James W.Carey called "a genuine public life and a genuine public opinion."

Is God a personal God or not? Does He responds to us? Journalism faces the same questions.

Richard has a counter-point on the necessity and utility of Journalism school.#

The counterpoint comes from Allan Fotheringham, writing in Maclean's Magazine, the issue of November 18th, 1996, p. 88, to the budding journalist:

"Stay away from journalism schools. You can't teach journalism any more than you can teach how to make love. You either got it or you ain't. A matron once asked Louis Armstrong what jazz was. He replied that if she had to ask, she'd never know. It's the same as the chap who asked J. P. Morgan what a yacht cost. He was told that if he had to ask, he couldn't afford one. Journalism schools fall into the same category."

And later in the same article:

"Get a good, broad education--while avoiding journalism school--in history, economics, some psychology might help. You don't need English classes, since you're enamored of literature anyway."

AKMA, a theologian, comments on this.#

Rosen makes a case that journalism partakes of the characteristics of religious faith: unquestionable dogmas, shared rituals, spiritual-cum-academic formation at a professional school, conversion experiences, and so on. People who worry about "religion" as a category see this kind of essay with some regularity; I used to begin my "Introduction to Religious Studies" class with Baseball Annie Savoy's opening monologue from Bull Durham, "I believe in the Church of Baseball. . . ," as a way of opening up the students' assumptions about what reallycounts as "religion."

Ari Shavit interviews historian Benny Morris about Israel and Zionism.#

The interview introduces Benny Morris as a Zionist who has had a reputation as being against Zionism, because of the neutral way he describes the crimes and cruel deeds of Israelis and the Zionist movement. He is simply a historian he says, these things happened and some of them had to happen.

And at the same time historian Morris completed the new version of his book on the refugee problem, which is going to strengthen the hands of those who abominate Israel. So that in the past two years citizen Morris and historian Morris worked as though there is no connection between them, as though one was trying to save what the other insists on eradicating.

This description of his energy is particularly frightful and attempts to show the double nature of Morris:

Morris spews out his words, rapidly and energetically, sometimes spilling over into English. He doesn't think twice before firing off the sharpest, most shocking statements, which are anything but politically correct. He describes horrific war crimes offhandedly, paints apocalyptic visions with a smile on his lips. He gives the observer the feeling that this agitated individual, who with his own hands opened the Zionist Pandora's box, is still having difficulty coping with what he found in it, still finding it hard to deal with the internal contradictions that are his lot and the lot of us all.

After describing how Ben-Gurion created an atmosphere where massacres were encouraged and describing how he covered up for the soldiers and no own got charged, Benny Morris says:

Ben-Gurion was right. If he had not done what he did, a state would not have come into being. That has to be clear. It is impossible to evade it. Without the uprooting of the Palestinians, a Jewish state would not have arisen here.

Morris thinks that some of these incidents should be classified as war crimes, while others were necessary. He uses the 'egg breaking / omelet' rational.

"There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide - the annihilation of your people - I prefer ethnic cleansing."

This is an interesting thought: The Jews deserved a handicap because the Arabs had been winning the genocide game for so long.

"Remember another thing: the Arab people gained a large slice of the planet. Not thanks to its skills or its great virtues, but because it conquered and murdered and forced those it conquered to convert during many generations. But in the end the Arabs have 22 states. The Jewish people did not have even one state. There was no reason in the world why it should not have one state. Therefore, from my point of view, the need to establish this state in this place overcame the injustice that was done to the Palestinians by uprooting them."

Benny Morris makes the comment that while these are war crimes, only about 1 percent of the population was "lost," and this makes them not as severe and thus okay. If such a small group needed to be displaced, then why was it essential to do so? Actually, Morris then says that he wish Ben-Gurion had expelled more Arabs and "resolved [it] once and for all."

When the interviewer brings up that the Israelis maybe in part responsible for Palestinian terrorism, because of the goading of the hatred. Morris retorts:

"You don't have to tell me that. I have researched Palestinian history. I understand the reasons for the hatred very well. The Palestinians are retaliating now not only for yesterday's closure but for the Nakba as well. But that is not a sufficient explanation. The peoples of Africa were oppressed by the European powers no less than the Palestinians were oppressed by us, but nevertheless I don't see African terrorism in London, Paris or Brussels. The Germans killed far more of us than we killed the Palestinians, but we aren't blowing up buses in Munich and Nuremberg. So there is something else here, something deeper, that has to do with Islam and Arab culture."

It is interesting the Morris uses the word "oppressed," as if the Palestinians are no longer being oppressed and they just haven't gotten over it.

Reading this is so surreal, Morris says people should not try to find out why serial killers have become killers, they should just imprison and execute them. That seems like a great way to assure that no more will come about. Actually, his idea for making sure new ones don't appear (or rather, can't harm him) is to lock them up before hand. He advocates a "cage" for the Palestinian people.

"Yes. Exactly. We are the greater victims in the course of history and we are also the greater potential victim. Even though we are oppressing the Palestinians, we are the weaker side here. We are a small minority in a large sea of hostile Arabs who want to eliminate us. So it's possible than when their desire is realized, everyone will understand what I am saying to you now. Everyone will understand we are the true victims. But by then it will be too late."

Norman Geras comments on the above interview.#

I just want to argue for a distinction which Morris's discussion does not observe.

That is the distinction between justifying crimes committed in the foundation and initial defence of the state of Israel, more generally justifying the origin of the state of Israel, on the one hand, and justifying its continued existence, on the other. War crimes and crimes against humanity are not justifiable, on any side, as a matter of state or organizational policy. That is precisely one of the meanings the global human community legislates by designating them so. Therefore such crimes committed in the foundation of Israel or its defence cannot be justified retrospectively. If, as Morris argues, such crimes were, and had to be, a part of the foundation of the state of Israel - if Israel's very foundation, in other words, could not have happened without crimes of this kind - then the conclusion would have to be drawn that the foundation of the state was not justifiable at the time and so should not have happened.

Norman then argues for a two state solution. There is another option though: A no-state solution, a Libertarian state that allows each group to do what they will and build new groups as they see fit. This still has the problem of returning property to the displaced, but the idea of imposing laws on one another is avoided.

The Israeli/Palestine issue is a particularly emphasized damnation of Government. It is common to refer to governments as the wielders of the weapon of Public Force, but it is hard to get people to recognize this. In Israeli, all arguments recognize this by their nature: The government threw out the Palestinians. A one state system would not work because one group (the majority) could coerce the other. The government has to be convinced.

But, governments will never be compelled to give up their own power. And the people will never take it back from them as long as they think they need it. This is why the terrorism will never stop, it gives the governments too much power. The reason for the government to be there is to "protect" the population from terrorism, but they can't be too effective or else they will have no reason to be.

This is the road that the United States government is going down. This is why in 1984, a central concept was that of perpetual war.

Bill Bumgarner writes about people who don't understand Global Warming.#

Roy Blunt, the republican representative from Missouri, took the opportunity to poke at Gore with the statement of "It is fitting that Gore chose one of the coldest daysof the year to spread false information about the Bush Administration's record on global warming. Mother Nature didn't agree with his message and neither do I. Al, it's cold outside". What a dumbass.

Poor name, Fucking Up The Atmosphere would have been better.

Bob Pence satires a recent post on the importance of the Second Amendment.#

In fact it would seem that the Third Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is one of the least controversial legal issues ever. The founding fathers objected, in the Declaration of Independence, to the billeting of British soldiers in civilian homes, and so were determined not to repeat the offense.

It may well be the only law that rabid opponents have accused neither William Jefferson Clinton nor George Walker Bush -- nor even Richard Milhouse Nixon or even Howard Brush Dean -- of violating as President, as Governor, as Boy Scout, or ever at all.

Someone on Kuro5hin.org encourages an international minimum wage. Waxmop sets him straight in the comments.#

My advice: go check out a few textbooks on labor economics from the library. Read up on deadweight losses, the relationships between productivity, capital, and wages, and the historical relationships between wage and price inflation. Then write a serious article that examines both sides of the minimum-wage debate, and I promise that I'll create enough bogus accounts myself to make sure your article hits the front page.

Poverty sucks -- there's no denying that. But top-down authoritarian solutions have an awful track record. You certainly don't want to make things worse, do you?

Matt Stoller reports on his trip to Iowa and how the candidates are seen there.#

People are sick and tired of being bothered about politics. This is, by far, the most media attention that Iowa has ever received for its caucuses. The most direct mail. The most canvassing. The most phone banking. The most advertising. On the local news broadcast, there are basically three or four Presidential ads per advertising break. People are friendly and helpful, often until you ask about the caucuses. One guy literally ran away from us. Other experiences are even more dispiriting - one girl, educated, liberal, works in a bookstore, planned on drinking instead of going to a caucus. "They're all liars," she said, criticizing Kerry's hair and gray personality. Another nice, friendly, liberal guy said that he doesn't follow politics, and will "just put his head down and hope it all gets better." It seems to me that Iowa is a gimmick more than anything; 3% of a state shouldn't determine the next President. Despite all the resources invested here, most people just don't care.

Dan Wood writes about Al Gore's speech on Global Warming.#

Vice President Gore would have made a good professor! I've just watched a sobering and very educational lecture -- not even thatpolitical -- by the former VP talking about Global Warming. Wow, what an eye-opener. I have been vaguely aware that it's a problem at some level, but now I'm realizing that this is a problem that, if unchecked, is going to have a significant effect inmy lifetime and certainly my childrens'. (Living on Earth now is like the frog in the pot of water that is slowly getting warmer and warmer, never getting out in time to avoid being boiled to death!)

The Binary Circumstance writes about Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian Party Candidate for 2004, and the nature of liberty.#

BC objects Michael's idea that abortion is a states' rights issue:

When states have rights, other than those that protect individuals from the use of force, individuals lose their rights. If neither Michael or the government should force their will upon a woman, how can it be a state's rights issue. In the context of individual liberty, it makes no difference if it's a federal government, a state government, or one tyrant that denies the individual control over his/her own body; that's just a matter of scale.

And points to the problem when people do not really believe in Liberty in a way that is based on reason, rationality, and existence:

Mr. Badnarik's web site demonstrates what happens when the concept of liberty is not derived from existence, when liberty is just another form of mysticism--the freedom to reject objective reality and make up your own version of it. It is an example of liberty as a religion, a set of irrational, compartmentalized ideas based on mystical premises, rather than an extension of the very nature of existence. As such, it will not stand.

This sort of mindset is the one that leads to corruption of liberty. If you believe that Liberty is something worth protecting, fighting for and believing in, then you succumb to placing it before the individual. At that point the Liberty of many seems to be more important than the Liberty of one and all. This is akin to the egalitarian extreme of making sure their are no "stars" so that people never feel left out: Don't be great, you'll make us look bad.

Don't make a religion out of something that is not one. Fight for it for yourself because it is what's best for you, not because it's an appealing, holy idea.

Mark Schmitt writes about the Senate and its decline in recent years.#

Senators are not even permitted to refer to each other by name on the Senate floor, to discourage personal attacks. There's no need for all the vacuous, over-the-top pseudo-bipartisan flattery -- "My dear friend, the Senator from North Carolina," when referring to Jesse Helms, and so forth -- but the Senate depends on a basic level of cordiality and respect to the others who've also been elected by the people of their state. Everyone in that body knows that no party or temporary majority can rule the Senate single-handedly, and the colleague you disagree with fiercely today might be the one you need to form an alliance with tomorrow. Or they should know that.

The Senate can be a great institution. It's not without its flaws, and of course, its very makeup is undemocratic. But the fact that any member can introduce any amendment at almost any time, or speak on any subject as long as he can hold the floor, makes it one of the most open, loose and non-hierarchical legislative bodies in the world. Ideas that the President and majority party don't want to entertain, like raising the minimum wage, can be introduced by a single Senator, who can force a vote. But that openness depends on the respect and decorum, even if it's sometimes phony, that the institution had developed over two centuries. And which has been lost in a few years.

Refer to the Berkman Thursday Blog for details on last night's meeting, along with notes, pictures, and a recording.#

Lisa Williams quotes Dave Winer:

A citizen is a person who takes responsibility for their political life. And they don't do that by being nice. They do it by getting out there and saying what they see, and telling their truth.

Richard links to Nigel Farndale on admitting your problems and what that entails.#

When people admit to other failings there is often a positive spin implied. People who blithely confess they are useless at maths imply they compensate for this by being creative and artistic. When someone admits to being a bad driver, the implication is that good driving is simply a matter of concentrating harder - and their mind is on higher, less trivial things. If you claim you are idle, it suggests you are too cool to care - you pass exams without revising, for which read "without trying".

Tony Pierce writes about the busblog car experiment.#

the car fund experiment is one of my favorite little things about the busblog.

for those of you who dont know, i am trying to see how long it takes to get $20k for a new car off my blog.

its an art project science fair experiment of sorts.

[...]

if it takes 20 years to get the ride then we will know that it takes 20 years. hopefully it will take less.

Richard writes about using weblogs to have directed conversations, like email.#

I'm not totally insensitive to people using weblogs as public exhortation. It happens all the time in non-weblog life, and the best example is the President using the so-called bully pulpit to get Congress to enact his policy. He could with little fanfare berate individual members of Congress privately, but he knows that Congress doesn't answer to him but rather public opinion. (Okay, big money interests too. But not everybody's vote can be bought.) So when bloggers communicate to people through their weblog, knowing full well that email is still an effective tool to reach people (since most bloggers publish their email address), but sometimes it's necessary to convince one's readers instead. That way three people might email in instead of one.

I will add that another great benefit and perk of using your weblog to say something to someone is that it enables other people to enter the conversation. Maybe you know more about Oceanography than I, and you can fact-check, or educate me, when you see that I demonize Dave Winer for saying something I disagree with about ocean currents. If it were email, that wouldn't really be possible.

Adam Keys uses my reasoning to disable comments.#

We'll see if I change my mind later on. Non-solutions to spam problems are fun, ya see? Its not that I don't think the recent changes in MT are sufficient, or that MT-Blacklist is a good thing. Its just that I want the people who read my weblog and want to respond to get a weblog so I can read their thoughts that aren't respones to my own. So, faithful but shy reader, I implore you to hop over to Blogger or TypePad and start up your weblog. Write up a response, and make sure you hit me with the trackback.

Jeremy Bowers has an idea about how journalism can survive in the face of bloggers and corruption.#

We know reporters are biased. They are human, all humans have bias, therefore the reporters are biased.

Suppose the large journalism institutions tried a new style of reporting. Instead of letting one reporter write a story, assign two reporters to the story. We want them to be clearly biased, one on each side of the issue.

Then, write a three-part news article:

• A core that both agree to.
• One part each that are the aspects they could not get the other to agree to.

This is a way in which an organization could add value to the news that one individual really could not. The news organizations will have an easier time doing this then us independent commentators, though nothing prevents independents from doing this informally.

Joe Attaboy writes about The Passion.#

The idea of anti-Semitism in the film is based on the concept that Christians through the centuries have blamed Jews for the death of Jesus. My point in my original comments was that making such a conclusion oversimplifies the issue. But, sometimes we need to do so, so let's try it again: the Jewish leadership of Christ's time feared him for what he was preaching. They believed he was a criminal and that his punishment should be severe. If one believes the accounts of the Gospels, the Roman government left the decision regarding his fate to a mob of screaming people. (This, my friends, is why our form of government is a republic and not a pure democracy). But the men who made the initial accusations against Jesus were Jewish. Did the Jews (as a people) kill him? No. The local government executed him because, based on the narrative, the people of the time wanted him killed and someone else spared. They wanted this because they believed, as the religious leadership insisted, that he was a blasphemer, and therefore, based on the cultural mores of that era, he was a criminal. The Romans carried out the actual execution.

Kasia writes about religious appropriations.#

We get a ton of nutty feedback, we get a ton of good feedback and sometimes we even get useful feedback.. but imploring us to "find god" and scaring us with fire and brimstone over the use of the term "bible" is a little out there.. but apparently we're all going straight to hell. Which begs for the question.. why would an almighty, all knowing and all understanding god give a damn (no pun intended) over the use of a term in the English language? If we called ourselves "biblia" (Polish) would we still be going to hell? Is every librarian (biblioteka, again, Polish) going to hell? Interesting.. a connection.. bliblia.. biblioteka.. anyone who knows a bit of Latin will recognize this one.. So it's pretty obvious, bible is not a religious term, it's just another Christian appropriation (see major holidays).

Ryan Overbey writes about rituals, magic, and human nature.#

Still, Brian's critique is worth considering- it's an issue I run into time and time again. There may well be something fundamentally human about ritual, and we may well impoverish ourselves by deemphasizing ritual. I encounter the same dilemma in my work on magic. No matter how stupid I think the vast majority of religions are in their pursuit of apotropaic magic, divination, invocations, demonology, and sorcery, people keep on practicing these absurdities in pretty much every religion I've encountered. There's something disarmingly universal and human about it all. And while bashing Eliade may well have been "the academic bloodsport of the 90s", we may well be at one of those fun times in scholarship when the pendulum begins to swing the other way.

Ryan Overbey writes about a great cult of prostitution in Hong Kong. (That's in China, Americans.)#

Whoever invented this religion was a genius. I love how the article thinks of the women as "snared" in the cult, and triumphantly declares that five female cult members were "rescued" from brothels. How paternalistic. If the women really do think they're getting a free ticket to goddessland from this, removing them from their brothels is hardly "rescuing." Congratulations, you've just prevented a woman from reaching her salvation. Oh wait, you mean this one of those religions we're allowed to forcibly eliminate because it's new? Sorry, I forgot myself.

Correction told his story about changing from being an atheist to a believer to his Church interviewers.#

After I left, I drove home in a strange mood. What if, I suddenly wondered, the real me was in no way the person that they were looking for. Had I offended anyone? Jesus, did I unwittingly say "fuck" at some point? I mean, I didn't think I had, but who knows? I went back and reviewed the conversation in my head. Nothing too horrible leapt out at me. At one point I'd said something like, "It's especially difficult for men sometimes to open up to each other. We don't generally do it unless we're with really old friends, or filled with the holy spirit, or. . . you know. . . unless we're really drunk." That was probably the most off-color thing I'd said. But still . . . I had told them the shower story.

The Movie Blog writes about Disney's 2D studio closing and the popularity of 2D animation.#

Maybe I'm goin WAY too far out on a limb here, but if you're releasing such bad 2-D animated movies, that it results in a closure of an ENTIRE studio, then WHAT ON EARTH makes you think that adding a 3rd dimension to the film is going to make the acting, the directing, the characters or hey, maybe even the FLIPPIN STORY any better?!?!?! Why am I not getting paid to come up with these earth-shattering conclusions??? -- Or better yet, why is someone GETTING paid to NOT come up with them??

If I sucked at math (which, is VERY possible) and I dropped out of my math courses to chase a career in... oh let's say... nuclear physics - I'd really hope that one of my close friends would punch me up the side of the head with a car. Why? Because doing such a thing is very very very very very very very very Stupid. It's exactly what I suck at -- only harder. If you can't get the fundamentals right, don't even bother trying the next step.

Lisa Williams and Wendy Koslow both would want "teleportation" as their superpower.#

There's a longstanding tradition of asking people which superpower they would prefer -- flying or invisibility -- and inferring things from their personality from that. Wendy writes about wanting to be able to teleport, which is also my superpower of choice. For me, I figured it would solve one of my big problems with losing or forgetting things -- if I left something at home, I could just wiggle my ears, be in my house, grab it, wiggle ears, and be back where I was.

My name is Jay McCarthy, and I approve of this message.

Alexander Payne is a stud++.#

That said, it was suggested to me that I game the "I Saw You" ads made available online by my favorite WiFi-equipped coffee shop in DC and post an ad for my ideal women in hopes that someone fits the description and responds. I wouldn't consider doing it, but just for fun I imagine the ad would read:

You: voluptuous Indian beauty working on Mac laptop, headphones blaring alternately Delarosa & Asora and Coheed & Cambria, sipping genmaicha while I tried to figure out how to approach you. Me: that really cute guy with the iBook. (You know, the *really* cute one?) IM me.

Oh well, a guy can dream, can't he? The truth is, all preferences aside, it's fun for the first time in my life to be single and flirty and gauging the intricacies of attraction. You can have your ideals, but in my limited experience life seems to hand you whatever/whomever it feels like dealing, and you're usually so bowled over by it all that preferences fly out the window.

Richard links to Anne Kingston who writes in the National Post about the death of Elm Street, a popular Canadian magazine for "educated women."#

If the failure of Elm Street teaches anything, it's that it's folly to target "educated women" as a niche in and of itself. If one is going to succeed at running a magazine targeted specifically at women or at men it has to satiate perceived gender insecurities; that doesn't mean stoking anxiety necessarily but presenting the illusion of offering social, sexual or fashion advantage. Otherwise, what's the point? This month's GQ for instance, promises "46 Pages of Everything You Need to Know, Wear and Buy."

Elm Street's owners may want to write off the distress experienced by the magazine to new circulation measurements and funding cutbacks, but the precipitous decline in its ranking also reveals that even though its circulation was controlled, the publication failed to hit a visceral chord; it was never a top-of-mind, must-read, hot-button product, as reflected in its low identification quotient. And therein lies the dilemma of trying to cater to the "educated woman" as a niche: When you patronize the smart reader it's at your peril.

Tracy Adams writes about dedication and making your New Years Resolutions work.#

The key to success and happiness is optimism and self-confidence. You become an optimistic person by continually thinking about the things you want and working on the goals that are most important to you. You develop confidence from the feeling of forward motion in the direction of goals that you have set for yourself.

The most important key to success is Action. Resolve to take action everyday in the direction of the things that are most important to you. Never let a day go by without you having done something that moves you one step closer to your most cherished goals.

Richard links to Anil Dash, who writes about Mandy Moore.#

I grieve for Mandy Moore. The poor girl has been unfairly lumped in with lesser lights of girl pop stardom, barely staying above Willa Ford levels of obscurity. In a just world, Jessica Simpson's idiocy would be punished by failure and Mandy Moore would be recognized for such gems as In My Pocket and Crush. I have an explanation for her relative lack of attention, though. Mandy Moore made "A Walk to Remember", one of the worst movies that's ever been built.

I'm a huge Mandy Moore fan. I like all her movies... well, I don't like HER in The Princess Diaries, but I like the movie. And, the only CDs I have in my car right now are her's. If you have a problem with her, let's fight.

(Note: Anil spoils A Walk to Remember.)

Richard posts a picture of a boat in Vancouver. I went on a ferry ride when I went to Vancouver when I was younger, maybe this was the boat?#

Tony Pierce was distracted by lesbians during bowling on Wednesday.#

first one says i want to make a blog called are you fucking kidding me

shorter one was mexican, hair dyed yellow. not really a mohawk but definitely a ridge across the top a little higher than the rest. piercings on the lip. dickies cut off at the knee. two shirts, leather wrist strap. wallet on a chain. work shoes.

Chai Tea Latte posts SOULS BURST IN THE AIR, by Yayoi Kusama.#

City Comforts on being against cars and in favour of public transportation.#

Maybe in Britian. But anyone who has experience of local transport politics in the USA would know that the only reason public transport gets funded is because the voters (who are typically asked to vote for bonds) have a dream thateveryone else will take the trolley thus leaving the streets open for their car.

More seriously, what the Englishman seems to ignore (or pretends not to get) is that auto congestion is indeed a real and very unpleasant part of the day for zillions of people and that --- in trying to twist every event into a momentous political statement as the Marxists do --- we stultify solutions when we think along hackneyed, conventional lines that "car = liberty" and "train = serfdom". That's junior high politics.

The Onion reports on silly people from Wyoming.#

JACKSON, WY—A simple typographical error in a proposal to set aside a scenic Big Horn Mountain valley for public recreation has resulted in the construction of the 10,020-acre Henrietta Bedford Memorial Skate Park, Wyoming Department of Natural Resources officials announced Tuesday.

"I am pleased to dedicate Wyoming's new skate park," said baffled Wyoming Parks Department supervisor William DuBois, reading from a prepared statement. "This skateboarding park honors the memory of Miss Henrietta Bedford, a leading Wyoming conservationist, physician, and women's-suffrage activist—a woman who knew the importance of nature to the radical and the sick."