Gone For Now

The ideal of a free press operating as a fourth estate, and "speaking truth to power" was always an ideal, and seldom realized. The press set professional standards in the modern era that moved it closer to this ideal, as did the culture within major news organizations and at least a small set of actions that could be held up as a model. Younger journalists wanted to push this independence even further, and get closer to the ideal.

It happened for awhile, as the countercultural press created a dynamic that seemed to goose the larger organizations with the resources to do actual reporting every day, all around the world. It would be interesting to chronicle the experience of former countercultural journalists as many of them joined these larger organizations, and the survival or not of those ideals.

News organizations were always businesses, and soon became parts of bigger businesses. When they were in the business of selling papers many did quite outrageous things that had little to do with the ideals of journalism. That seemed to have been marginalized in the modern, Walter Lippmann/Edward R. Murrow era.

Then came the sea-change of the 1980s, when illusions and trivia sold better than news and reality. By now, Bill Moyers' analysis of the media and its role in the downward spiral of democracy is the clearest and most complete, but there are many others outside and within the news business who would agree with most if not all of it. At best, we're going through a reversion to darker times, with the usual differences of technology and context.

Today Time Magazine chose to turn over a reporter's notes in the Valerie Plame case, after the Supreme Court ruled that two reporters, one from Time and one from the New York Times, could be jailed for refusing. They were about to be sentenced.

This has been a difficult case for many of us, more difficult even than in past challenges to a free press which put people in the absurd situation of rallying to the defense of pornographers, whose only real interest in a free press was the right to make lots of money.

The guilty parties in this case are within the Bush administration, and their "dirty tricks" and worse rival Watergate for viciousness and for undermining democracy. Plus one of the reporters involved---Judith Miller of the NY Times---is generally reviled and disrespected as a willing tool of the Bush machine. Her conduct as supposed war correspondent during the Iraq "embedded" reporter period was nothing short of scandalous. The Times should have fired her long ago.

The issues here are serious and complex, but the most objectionable part of Time's decision, and the element of it that is most threatening to journalism---that is in fact most revealing about the state of corporate journalism---is that the decision was made because the editor of Time---not the publisher, not the CEO or chair of the board---the editor decided that corporate interests come first. He said (according to the NY Times):

"I don't believe that a company has the right to put the assets of it shareholders at risk in an act of civil disobedience."

In one sentence he has pronounced the death knell for the independent press in our time.

It is most significant that this did not come from "the business side" of the paper---this might have been an expected response at any time in the modern era---but from editorial, that is supposed to defend its independence. If it doesn't, who the hell will?

Time Inc. Decides to Hand Over Notes of Reporter Facing Prison - New York Times

Iraqmire Update

Response to Bush's speech on Iraq ranges from tepid to savage. The cartoon by Oliphant in the Boston Globe showing Bush strutting over a sea of coffins being the most graphic, but there is also this column by Bob Herbert in the NY Times. Titled "Dangerous Incompetence" he begins:

"The president who displayed his contempt for Iraqi militants two years ago with the taunt "bring 'em on" had to go on television Tuesday night to urge Americans not to abandon support for the war that he foolishly started but can't figure out how to win."

Later Herbert uses the Q Word and the I. Word together, in a statement that is likely to be widely quoted:

"The incompetence at the highest levels of government in Washington has undermined the U.S. troops who have fought honorably and bravely in Iraq, which is why the troops are now stuck in a murderous quagmire. If a Democratic administration had conducted a war this incompetently, the Republicans in Congress would be dusting off their impeachment manuals."

Dangerous Incompetence - New York Times

How bad is the Bushitting? The Independent's Patrick Cockburn told Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! that " [I]t’s a running joke in Iraq, in Baghdad, the number of Iraqi government leaders who are outside the country at any one time. At one moment last year, or this year, rather, a Baghdad newspaper calculated that the entire -- every cabinet minister was outside the country. The president, Jalal Talabani, was saying a couple of months ago that most of Iraq was quiet, but you have to look at where he was saying this: He was saying it in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil.

So you just have to get off the plane in Baghdad or look anywhere around the city to realize that this is a place in chaos and this is the most dangerous place in the world. "

Before the Panic Starts: A Cautionary Note about Nuclear

At the moment, only those in the vanguard---environmentalists, scientists, some corporate planners and execs---are obsessively worried about the climate crisis and/or the coming end of oil. But their concerns suggest what is to come, as panic sets in, as it eventually will.

So among this group there is already talk of reviving nuclear power generation, as a lesser of the evils technology. Even one of the founders of Greenpeace is reportedly talking this way. The idea is that nuclear is potentially a large enough source to make up for carbon based energy production, and that improvements in technology have rendered nuclear safer than it used to be. Apparently, the generation of huge amounts of nuclear waste is also part of that lesser evil. Lesser that what? You might well ask.

But a Brit think tank is putting one kobosh to this, simply as not cost effective. Maybe the vanguard will hear this, before it becomes a widespread part of the panic.

The cost of new nuclear power has been underestimated by a factor of three, according to a British think tank.
The New Economics Foundation (NEF) says existing estimates do not allow for the cost of building novel technologies and expensive time delays in construction.
They claim that renewable energy sources like wind and solar should be relied upon instead of nuclear power.

BBC NEWS Science/Nature Cost of nuclear 'underestimated'

In Other New...

The Great Malls of China in the LA Times, or an earlier version still at Shopopolis.

"Before Steven" looks at earlier versions of HG Wells' "The War of the Worlds" at Soul of Star Trek.

The War at Home

W breaks into the TV reruns and humiliation spectacles on the cusp of primetime tonight to talk about the war in Iraq. The polls have been showing that Americans have turned against it. But for those who have other plans, like staring into the middle distance for an hour, here's a capsule of the speech, courtesy of press flack Scott McClellan:

It's a very significant speech by the commander in chief at a critical moment in the war on terror"

There you have it---it's all about the war on terror, despite the FACT that John Kerry wrote about in the NY Times today that W's invasion of Iraq created the terrorism there. Anyway, we've all heard all of this before.

We're also going to hear about patience, and the importance of the Iraq elections in December, and how they bravely came out to the polls last time, waving their purple fingers.

So here's a little news note from 1966:

On September 12: South Vietnamese go to the polls to elect a 117 member assembly to draft a new constitution. American supporters point to the 75% turnout as proof that democracy is working.

It worked great there, didn 't it? After another 8 years of war, pain, slaughter, death, blown away limbs, lives that were permanently screwed up and still are, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong won, took over the country, and now the U.S. is trading with them as if none of it ever happened.

Bush and Aides Seek to Calm Public's Concerns About Iraq - New York Times

In Other New...

H.G. Wells Goes to the Movies at Soul of Star Trek.

Declaration of Independents

The American Research Group poll shows that 60% of registered voters disapprove of the Bushmauling of the economy, about the same percentage as all Americans.

To understand what this means you need to factor in that 77% of Republicans loyally approve of Bushonomics. And of course a nice round 85% of Democrats say he sucks. So to get to a 60% diapproval, you need:

INDEPENDENTS 15% approve; 79% disapprove.

And of everyone who approves of Big Bushyness, only 41% believe the economy next year will be better.

So suddenly it looks like Loss of Faith Based Economics.

The National Economy

The Italian Job

The New York Times reports that a judge in Italy has ordered the arrest of 13 CIA operatives for kidnapping a terrorist suspect and delivering him to Egypt, where he was allegedly tortured.

Something like a hundred suspects have been cynically delivered to third party torturers.

This is the first time that this shameful thugish practice has met with public, official opposition anywhere. It isn't even that the person kidnapped was undeniably innocent--in fact the kidnapping disrupted European investigations into terrorist networks that have caused far more trouble there than here.

"The international community must struggle against terrorism and international terrorist groups in accordance with international laws and the rights of the defendants," the official said. "Otherwise, we are giving victory to the terrorists."

Italian Judge Orders Arrest of 13 CIA Operatives for Kidnapping - New York Times

The China Syndrome

They've got most of the money, the manufacturing jobs, the biggest malls, and some of the biggest corporations---and now they're more popular.

Thanks in part to the war in Iraq that Robert Kennedy Jr. calls "humiliating," the U.S. is way less popular in the world than China.

In most countries surveyed, Americans are seen as "inventive" and "hardworking", but they are also seen by many in both Western and predominately Muslim countries as "violent" and "greedy" - a judgement with which many Americans agree.

And proud of it, too, the even sadder part.

BBC NEWS Americas China 'is more popular' than US

In Other New...

The Return of Cold War Cinema at Soul of Star Trek

Catch-22 Explained, Courtesy of Your Friendly Neighborhood Patriot Act

Are you a student having trouble understanding what the concept called "Catch-22" means? It's at the core of the novel '>Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, which is today considered a classic and is widely assigned, in areas where it is not yet banned.

Your ever-helpful government is here with a demonstration of Catch-22 in action, and it's no farther away than your local library, in areas that still have them!

The Patriot Act contains a provision, called Section 215, that permits Your Government to gather information on your reading from libraries. For example, Your Government could find out if you happen to have withdrawn a copy of Catch-22.

Critics of Your Government in Action say this is unwarranted intrusion that violates the First Amendment to the Constitution, and smacks of the Orwellian mind control society of '>Nineteen-Eighty Four.

Your Government says this is nonsense, that in fact in has never used Section 215 to gather information from libraries, for example, on people who read Nineteen Eighty-Four or the '>U.S. Constitution. Though libraries report more than 200 requests for such information from the U.S. government, they cannot say if these requests were made with the authority of Section 215.

Section 215 prohibits libraries from telling anyone that such a request under 215 has been made. Therefore, there is no information to challenge Your Government's assertion that it has never used Section 215. Nor can there ever be.

Catch-22.

This educational experience has been brought to you by Your Government in Action.

If you are reading this in a library, you may feel secure knowing that if Your Government investigates people who read this column, you will never know about it. Of course, if you wind up in a cell at Guantanamo, you might begin to wonder.

Fishing in the Card Catalogs - New York Times

Fear and Decadence in Washington

There's a book waiting to be written about the marriage of fear and decadence in today's Washington: how a wartime mentality is fostered and linked with an unprecedented decadence that makes the age of Teapot Dome a tech rehearsal. One sure sign is the establishment press using the ridicule of an overstuffed decadent superiority in support of power, which maintains itself by keeping the wealthy and fashionable few satisfied and busy, while it keeps the rest of society under control with fear and nationalist fervor, this time linked with the false pieties of a religious cult so convinced of its sole possession of the truth that it excuses any ruthlessness or mendacity that supports it.

The latest example of press decadence is the Washington Post report of the Conyers Downing Street Minutes hearings, skewered by Rep. Conyers himself in a letter reproduced in full in a report by the Nation's John Nichols:

Conyers vs. The Post - Yahoo! News

The New York Times and Washington Post were something of establishment mouthpieces until some of their reporters in the field in Vietnam in the mid 60s began to report facts that countered the Washington and Pentagon lies. These papers then distinguished themselves by printing the Pentagon Papers, which in part revealed how well they had served the government's interests. Watergate reporting was also a high point for the Post a few years later.

But the fact that Deep Throat is revealed to be an ailing 91 year old suggests how long ago that was. Apparently the Post reporters have returned to mirroring and mimicking those in power, perhaps grateful for their large incomes and looking forward to even better accomodations in the club. Unfortunately, others will pay for their decay.

In Other New...

There's real time blogging as events warrant on the California earthquakes situation at This North Coast Place.

Showdown with the International Menace

Next month's G8 Summit will issue a statement and plan of action on the climate crisis, but a draft report has been leaked that shows that "one country" has so far successfully watered down the findings, specifically by calling into question the existence of global heating. Guess who the leading candidate for that country is?

That the U.S. persists in this idiocy prompted Greenpeace exec director Stephen Tindale to call Bush "an international menace." The UK Chancellor Gordon Brown seems to believe that the final document will restore the findings, presumably as a result of evidence presented at the conference.

Evidence? Find a Biblical source for the climate crisis, and we'll talk.

But there does seem to be opportunity in the time before the conference for world leaders and world environmental and political organizations, perhaps with support from humanitarian organizations (who will have to deal with the worst effects in poor countries) and global businesses who can't afford to be too stupid about the immediate future, to put pressure on the Bushheads to keep them from blocking long overdue efforts to face the complex problems ahead --and in fact, already manifesting---due to the climate crisis.

BBC NEWS UK UK Politics G8 climate plans 'watered down'

Another Brick in the Wall

There were so many outrages committed by the Reagan administration that one of the most devastating slipped by without much more than a weary finger or two pointing it out. But ending the Fairness Doctrine governing equal time for conflicting political views opened a door that Rupert Murdoch and other GOP partisan moneybags and extremist reactionaries were very ready to bolt through. It led to Fox News, right wing talk radio, and just about the end of legitimate news on TV and radio. Which has just about ended the dream of an informed citizenry electing their leaders, and the media as the dogged check on mendacious power.

Now the Bushies, rolling out one outrage after another, have numbed us to apparently minor changes including one which could be the coup de grace of democracy, and at the very least the last hope for the young of America to ever get a straight answer, a real fact or even another view. And that little matter is the complete de-funding of PBS that's just passed the House subcommittee on appropriations.

Sure, everybody says the subcommittee always does something like this, the committee restores at least some of the cuts, then the Senate restores some more, and PBS and NPR, through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, get most of their money. Always a little less, of course. The federal contribution to our "public" media is about 15% of their costs.

But all that has to happen is for people and their congressional reps to fall asleep and these guys will finally do it. Sure, they say it's about tight budgets, and everybody thinks that's very funny. And they say, why do we need this, we've got all these choices on cable TV. Sure, if you think 3453 channels of the same crap constitutes choice, especially when those 45321 channels are owned by the same few corporations, and they're all competing to see who can perfect the most effective blend of mesmerizing trivality and political manipulation for the GOPer cause.

The U.S. airwaves without Frontline and NPR would complete the 1984 media takeover. They've already installed a right wing ideologue in charge of the Corp for Public Broadcasting, and they got rid of Bill Moyers. Now they want to end it all. A little matter of investigations into some improper payments to GOPer lobbyists may slow them down a bit, but this is really one to DO FOR THE CHILDREN. Not to save Sesame Street for them, as worthy a goal as that might be. But to save Frontline for them. They are really going to need it.

This is one of those issues that writing your congressional rep can really count. These votes take the public temperature on a subject that doesn't have a lot of loud-mouthed lobbyists fighting for it, and certainly isn't going to get much TV time. So do it.

Tom Teepen: Nation should defend, not defund, CPB

In Other New...

Review of two new books on Darwinian evolution, Evolution in Four Dimensions and Before Darwin at books in heat.

H.G. Wells and Gene Roddenberry at Soul of Star Trek.

Earthquake News

For readers who know we're residents of the North Coast of CA and heard about the earthquake, everything is fine here. There was a ripple and some rock and roll for long enough to indicate a big event somewhere, but no real damage and everything is quiet. There was a tsunami warning for about an hour, but thanks to all the information that got refreshed hereabouts after the Indonesian quake (very similiar to this one in the type and location), we felt pretty secure. We're high enough not to be in direct danger from tsunami from even a really big one, though we'd probably be cut off from the world for awhile---highways would be liquified at the bridges, and otherwise flooded.

Anyway, no tsunami of appreciable size hit the coast--Crescent City to the north performed a quick evacuation of the low-lying downtown, so they feel better about how they'll respond when they really have to.

According to reports coming into the CA earthquake center, the 7.0 quake about 90 miles to sea was felt along the entire coast of California, as far south as San Diego. Maybe 30 to 50 reports were filed from the Bay area, and hundreds from the towns here around Humboldt Bay.

I expect our geologist acquaintances have the adrenelin going about now, as they study what happened and where. It could be an isolated event, but somehow we don't think so. We'll see, though, won't we? Front row seat.

from Dr. Strangelove to Rev. Enron

Blinded By Non-Science

By Phineas Dash

Maybe it’s age, but I am becoming more detached from the daily news. What follows might even be pontificating, but as the oracular Dash brother, I guess that’s my job. So here are some thoughts prompted by a request for some words on a progressive view of science…

Evaluating science and using the findings of science are collective responsibilities in a progressive democracy. We need to be informed and skeptical, without surrendering to unexamined fears and projections of our own anxieties and desires.

We must be skeptical because many "scientific" findings, and the research (which may be valid or not) that leads to them are increasingly financed by special interests, with a financial stake in the outcome. We find particularly egregious examples in drug testing which is often inadequate and inaccurate, done by the very companies who profit by the sale of the drugs. These days they sometimes spend more money on advertising than research and testing. We find it as well in biotechnology, in which huge companies can suppress information and use science to destroy individual freedom as well as the environment (by forcing the use of genetically altered seeds, for example).

Science is used as an instrument of dominance when it is marshaled to harm those least able to defend themselves. It is no coincidence that most toxic waste sites and other harmful processes are located where the poor live, in particular on Indian reservations.

Even public financing of science, without scrutiny, is not a solution, for it has been corrupted as well. Americans became rightly suspicious of science and technology when nuclear weapons "experts" both lied about dangers and created closed systems they claimed were rational, but from outside the system appeared insane: therefore, Doctor Strangelove.

These days, besides weapons research, other science and technology-based enterprises are subsidized that are in themselves harmful, but also benefit large corporations rather than the public---corporations that often escape their tax responsibilities.

When science is used in these ways, a chain reaction of corruption begins that threatens the credibility of science everywhere. Huge commercial interests are now willing and able to bypass traditional safeguards such as peer review, or simply bribe their way to acceptance. The money they spend on advertising discourages scrutiny from the media depending on advertising income. Already the dumbing down of information media means sloppy science reporting, not only in terms of the science itself, but such crucial information as methodology and who paid for the research.

When science is used as an instrument of self-interest and profit---especially when it becomes a tool of public relations--- it is but a short step to the abuses we've seen by the Bush administration, in distorting and ignoring scientific findings, particularly on the climate crisis, that doesn't support their political agenda.

Like just about everything else, science has become part of this overheated inside-out public frenzy, where unexamined unconscious reactions get projected onto everyone and everything in sight, usually in the form of political bombast. Roger Pielke, director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at U. of Colorado, affirms that "science is becoming yet another playing field for power politics," which isn't so new, but what may be is, "complete with the trappings of media spin and win-at-all-costs attitude. Sadly, much of what science can offer policymakers, and hence society, is being lost."

That's simply so science can play a role, rather than become (as it once seemed it would become) the indisputable authority. That was never going to be a good thing.

Even in areas not so directly affected by corporate and political interests, science must be viewed and evaluated intelligently. Scientists are human beings, and for all of their rhetoric of objectivity, the reliance on scientific principles does not guarantee that accurate findings and especially new and better explanations will always be judged on their merits and accepted immediately. In his book, "The Big Bang," Simon Singh exposes the dirty little secret least familiar to nonscientists: the degree to which science is hostage to human failings of ego, status and reward. Singh cites the observation of renowned physicist Max Planck that new ideas seldom win over adherents of old ones -- usually a generation must pass while the new idea's "opponents gradually die out ..." He also quotes English geneticist J.B.S. Haldane's "four stages of acceptance" of a scientific idea: "i) this is worthless nonsense, ii) this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view, iii) this is true, but quite unimportant, iv) I always said so."

Scientists also often are biased to the simplest (or "elegant") explanation, which they've found in the past is often the best one. But it is not always so, especially as science gets into deeper and more fundamental questions. It may turn out that fundamental answers are complex. This appears to be so, for example, in the evolution of living beings. A growing number of scientists (most recently, Eva Jablonka and Marion J. Lamb in their book, EVOLUTION IN FOUR DIMENSIONS (MIT Press, 2005) are questioning the exclusive reliance on genes as the engines of inheritance and evolution. From molecular biology and more unbiased animal study, new findings support the idea that other factors are at work, including behavioral and symbolic transmissions of traits.

But apart from ego and careerism, science that touches upon political and religious controversies can get caught in the crossfires. Part of the resistance to new theories of natural selection is from scientists who feel they must circle the wagons against reactionary views (from downright denial of evolution to so-called "intelligent design" schools) and maintain a unified front focus on simple ideas, that may have become dogmas.

Not all the trends are bad, however. There is increasing diversity among those engaged in science. Women, for example, have made usually unacknowledged contributions throughout the history of western science, but more are becoming prominent in their fields today. They may bring a more collaborative attitude and a greater openness to complexity, although deterministically ascribing traits on the basis of gender would be, as they say, unscientific.

More Shoes Dropping

Says USA Today:

The debate's over: Globe is warming - Yahoo! News

so you know it must be true. Actually this is a solid article for what's going on in the conventional wisdom, with nuggets like:

GE Chairman Jeffrey Immelt recently announced that his company, which reports $135 billion in annual revenue, will spend $1.5 billion a year to research conservation, pollution and the emission of greenhouse gases. Joining him for the announcement were executives from such mainline corporations as American Electric Power, Boeing and Cinergy.

Exxon isn't on the list, of course, but other global "energy" (i.e. "we don't want to be caught being only oil") companies have gone ahead, as if they knew this all the time, but still they are far more realistic than our faith-based and paid-for government.