Completely Unnecessary

…for not posting.

I mean, it does. I know that more than one of you check this blog regularly for new and (ahem) insightful content.

But I can’t control your poor life choices.

So I’ve been tempted this week to blog about the lovely and soul-inspiring weddings of biddies - because obviously that’s awesome.

I think if you can’t be happy for 80+-year-old women getting married you don’t really understand what life is about. There’s fundamental level at which you don’t understand happiness.

[Ed. note - Um, Firefox 3, vaguely appealing though it is, does not seem to have incorporated spellcheck in a timely manner. This is absolutely disastrous for your editor, who can't spell her way out of a very small shoebox.] [Oh thank crap, it kicked back in; I had spelled disastrous wrong. I'm more of a big picture kind of girl.]

Anyway, I’ve been sick and also working/marking/watching Angel, so it’s really a grab bag of reasons why I’ve lacked the wherewithal to fulfill the blogging duties that - I will remind you - come with little to no financial reward.

I had something to say. I think it was this:

I know the Administration only has a short number of months (yay!) left in office, but this doesn’t mean that they should drive down their game.

It will potentially frighten several of you to learn that my father is a Republican. Not of the truly alarming variety - he just believes in lower taxes, etc, etc. (whereas I believe in stealing from the rich, etc., etc.).

Anyway, he sends me an article last week in which George Will (displaying the youngest picture GenXers have ever seen of George Will) is all about drilling in ANWAR and everywhere offshore because the Chinese are already doing it.

Eh, they’re not.

But, if the story gets repeated enough times, it looks like good enough impetus for Bush to advocate drilling off all our coastlines a few days later. The NYT, however, is not so impressed with that, considering it won’t lower gas prices until 2030.

But hey - talking points trotted out in the press ten days before they become ‘policy’ is just typical. Could these guys try anymore? I mean, where are those bold policy suggestions of yore? Isn’t there a country we should think about invading?

Oh, or is it just that we’ve gotten lazy, considering the oil contracts with one that we’ve already invaded?

Personally, I’m happier thinking about old ladies getting married.

Congrats to them and everyone taking the plunge (especially to Elissa and Keith, who I love with all my heart… even though they’re not gay. It’s not, like, a definite criteria for my support of your union).

Vaguely Related

• Justice Kennedy Back In Fine Form
• Zimbabwe Election Redux

I know I’m behind the times; on the upside, I know far more about Australian irrigation, catchment levels and the Murray-Darling scheme than I’d ever hoped to learn.

Anyway, onto Justice Kennedy, who reasserted himself as my favorite Supreme Court justice after a lengthly period on my shit list. Writing the Opinion (.pdf) in Boumediene v. Bush (the case that gave Gitmo detainees their rights back) he said:

Although the United States has maintained complete and uninterrupted control of Guantanamo for over 100 years, the Government’s view is that the Constitution has no effect there, at least as to noncitizens, because the United States disclaimed formal sovereignty in its 1903 lease with Cuba. The Nation’s basic charter cannot be contracted away like this. The Constitution grants Congress and the President the power to acquire, dispose of, and govern territory, not the power to decide when and where its terms apply. To hold that the political branches may switch the Constitution on or off at will would lead to a regime in which they, not this Court, say “what the law is.”

I feel that ‘Snap!’ doesn’t properly represent the the six years of illegality under which these detainees have been held.

Kennedy first won his way into my heart via his Opinion in 1993’s Church of the Lukumi Babalu-Aye v. City of Hialeah:

Our review confirms that the laws in question were enacted by officials who did not understand, failed to perceive, or chose to ignore the fact that their official actions violated the Nation’s essential commitment to religious freedom… No one suggests, and on this record it cannot be maintained, that city officials had in mind [as the target of their ordinances] a religion other than Santería.

I might not always agree with him, but the man does not mince words, which I respect more than most things. The Hialeah ruling is like series of uppercuts to the judge below him - awesome.

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This brings us to the article on politicians as TV comedians, which I think is actually the more depressing one:

None of the presidential candidates want to be seen as snooty or overeducated, which must be why on Monday all three provided taped greetings to wrestling fans watching “WWE Raw” on the USA network.

I’m going to leave the shamefulness of this statement. I’ll note only how pathetic it is that that around the world, education is seen as the thing that can lift people up, change their lives - and in the US its seen as effete and something to be hidden. As if there is somehow a thing as ‘too educated’ - call me elitist (though you might be racist if you do), but that is the single saddest comment anyone can make about the United States.

The article goes on to detail the alarmingly large number of TV appearances by the candidates. There is something disturbing about the embedded (and by this I actually mean ‘in bed’)-ness of the candidates, their wives and surrogates with the news media.

For instance, Laura Bush is serving as co-host on the ‘Today’ show. Hard news it’s not, but there’s still something alarming about the media serving as an uncritical platform (literally) for politicians. How will NBC Nightly News critique the husband of the woman who hosted their morning show? Oh wait, he’s already on Deal or No Deal.

Sure there is concern about politicians using the airwaves as cheap publicity stunts. The cheapening of our politics (and politicians), however, is only one aspect of this problem.

As this trend becomes more entrenched, the networks will be compelled to deliver these kind of political celebrity moments more and more. The problem becomes not if Bush wants to show off on Deal or No Deal, but if NBC needs to have Bush on the show. What kinds of efforts will the networks have to make to attract these guests?

Media theory around sources suggests (unsurprisingly) that one of the problems inherent in relying on government for media sourcing is that eventually the media becomes dependent on the government. They become unlikely to bite the hand that feeds them because they need access for their stories.

Control of access is incredibly powerful, which we saw this weekend in the NYT’s story about military analysts. These men admitted that they sometimes told military falsehoods to keep their Pentagon contacts happy.

If the media become dependent on government and politicians for both their news and entertainment sources, it further removes the media’s ability to be an independent watchdog.

Which brings me to a question: how do we feel about satire? The Daily Show and Colbert Report seem to be able to critique politicians in ways available to few other media outlets. The two shows have also been using politicians as guests for a number of years. A) Do you think their success is driving the trend in other media outlets? and B) Could the critical distance of these shows make them immune from the effects?

Please discuss in groups for about ten minutes, and then we’ll report back.

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What’s it’s going to take in Zimbabwe? South Africa (ANC) is finally calling for the release of election results, and Ban Ki-moon is ‘deeply concerned’ (which, by the way, NYT is calling ’strong talk’), but will any MDC (opposition) voters be around to see them?

A 15-year-old girl was abducted and beaten because Zanu-PF (Mugabe’s party) supporters suspected that her mother had voted for the MDC. When her mother went to look for her, she, too, was beaten.

[Attacked voters] are from diverse parts of rural Zimbabwe and they are a fraction of the many hundreds of people the opposition says have been assaulted as gangs of armed Zanu-PF supporters under military leadership move through the countryside, using polling station returns to identify villages where support for the opposition was strong.
…
“They said it was to teach us how to vote,” said Linus, 58. “They said: ‘It’s your own fault, voting for the opposition. That’s why we are doing all these things to you. When we have the run-off, you will know how to vote’.”

Plain sight. It really doesn’t get more audacious than this.

Few people have been killed in the beatings. It would appear that Zanu-PF has learned that deaths attract attention.

I doubt it’ll take long to move to larger-scale killings though - we’re not paying attention to terrible beatings, so why not?

Links:
Mugabe’s men take their revenge [the Age - from the Guardian]
Strong Talk About Zimbabwe at the U.N. [NYT]
South Africa Shifts on Zimbabwe, Calls For Result [Reuters]

Vaguely Related

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• Mugabe Possibly Defeated in Zimbabwe Election

Well, thank god.

Yesterday [10 April, 2008] 235 Age journalists voted unanimously for a motion accusing their editor in chief, Andrew Jaspan, of degrading their ability to produce independent journalism.
…
These journalists have grown increasingly angry and desperate over recent months at what they see as an unprecedented erosion of the ideals that have guided the newspaper in the past.

The meeting included open displays of anger with the editor. In one particularly telling exchange the night news editor, Patrick Smithers effectively accused Jaspan of telling an untruth.

The meeting was in response to the Age’s coverage of Earth Hour, the content of which appears to have been driven by… promoters of Earth Hour. Journalists reportedly watched in horror and then malaise as their content was replaced by boosterism pap.

MediaWatch also ran a segment about emails from an EarthHour rep to Jaspan on Monday, 7 April.

The journalists have pledged to meet again and to protect and encourage independent journalism at the paper.

To Age journalists I say: Amen. Your writing - when I can find it beneath the gay-pedophile-hussy-teacher-child-torso-murder-shock stories these days - is still top quality. Fight Jaspan, and the readers will be behind you.

It’s behind their pay wall, but Crikey also has audio of Jaspan being told off. Zing!

The moral of the story is: beware the wrath of angry journalists; they will tell you what an ass you’re being, record it, and then pass the tapes onto a site that will play them over and over and over.

Man, I sure hope none of them have seen the website… they’re gonna be pissed.

Andrew Jaspan? 235 Age journalists can’t be wrong [Crikey via Ramon]

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Results aren’t final yet, but from polling results across the country, it appears that the Zimbabwean opposition may have actually defeated Robert Mugabe. Last time, the MDC claimed that election officials added extra votes to Mugabe’s column at the last minute, and it now appears voting boxes have gone missing in some districts.

Still, this announcement will make it harder for Mugabe to fix the results if they go against him. I don’t doubt that he will go down fighting (read: forcing his opponents to eat their own campaign posters), but there are too many results zipping around the country on mobile phones.

Also, Zimbabwe has spent the five years since the last election moving swiftly towards utter disaster, fueled mostly by Mugabe’s increasingly autocratic policies.

So, perhaps he really is on his way out:

“It’s hard for me to believe that Mugabe will go peacefully,” [community activist Mike Davis] said. “When autocrats fall, that’s the most dangerous time.”

Indeed it is. Best of luck to the people and democratic process of Zimbabwe.

Link:
Opposition Claims Win in Zimbabwe on Unofficial Tally [NYT]

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The other day, the Herald Sun ran a story about Connex’s idea to take out some of the seats on Melbourne’s trains to cram in more commuters. Luckily, that isn’t the point.

The headline they ran with the story read:

Train plan a ‘third world’ joke

Alright. That’s a terrible headline, for a whole host of reasons. I think we can all be angry at the official that unfavorably labeled a plan to put more Melburnian commuters on our trains as ‘Third World.’ I can think of a myriad of reasons why that’s offensive.

Not the least of which is that no one appears to have said it.

Ted Baillieu, leader of the opposition, is credited with the ‘joke’ comment, but no one in the article is quoted as using the words ‘third’ and ‘world’ at all.

The question then becomes whether the Herald Sun is using an unattributed quote or one they just completely made up.

For bonus points, they use the ‘quote’ in the lede as well.

Largest circulation in Australia…

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Immigration officers are trading sex for documents. The NYT has the story, as well as what I imagine to be quite a tacky audio recording.

Also, Bill Richardson endorsed Obama. Does this mean that I’ve technically donated to the Obama campaign now? I’m glad to see Richardson’s quirky charm on the campaign trail once again.

As long as he doesn’t run into Melisa Etheridge again, everything should be fine.

Mild LOST spoiler inside: (more…)

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I’m sick of the NYT/McCain scandal already.

Did he have improper lobbyist relationships? Did the NYT go to print with second-rate sources? And, most importantly, did Senator Straight Talk screw that lady that looks just like his second wife?

Because he was married before you know…

The NYT kneecap was sleazy enough. They might have had a good story with the lobbyist ties, but they messed it up by going for the sex angle with bad sourcing. Isn’t it enough that a senator who prides himself on being above Washington trash gets caught with his hands in the dumpster? Especially when he got bit it in the 90s for the same thing?

No.

So now, some lefty blogs - and I’m just picking on Crooks and Liars because it was a particularly bad example - are going to town on the sex angle. Here’s how John Amato opened up a Thursday post called ‘Cheaters Write Letters‘:

I find it interesting that McCain didn’t deny having a relationship with Iseman all that much, but that’s not the big story since he had cheated on his first wife anyway.

Mother of hell. Every liberal who ever criticized Republicans for railroading Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal had better take a long, hard look at how they want to cover this story. That quote above is just some tacky, tacky horribleness.

Not to mention that all liberals had to do was sit back and let the right wing hate on John McCain all the way to an Obama/Clinton White House. Rush and all the usual suspects fancy McCain in the White House only marginally more than they like either of the Democratic contenders.

I read somewhere that this story - since it really started in December - might have originated as a right-wing hit piece to keep McCain from becoming the nominee. Well, that didn’t work. But now, with the ‘liberal’ NYT attacking McCain - and in such a audacious fashion - they’re all coming to his aid.

Plus, McCain had happily hamstringed himself with the FEC, and now he’s got donations coming in because of this story.

At least the NYT should have proved, once and for all, its lack of liberal bias - because they just played right into the hands of the McCain campaign. And the lefty blogosphere is doing the same.

So what I have to say is: Just Stop.

No more sex stories. No more pictures/captioning like this. Because every time the left behaves like what we detest, Rush and Co will stir up their base with stories of how horrible we are.

And the terrible part is, we’ll deserve it.

Links:
For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk [NYT]
McCain Gathers Support and Donations in Aftermath of Article in The Times [NYT]
Cheaters Write Letters [Crooks and Liars]
McCain story proves incendiary among journalists, conservatives [LA Times]
Analysis: McCain Loses Leverage [AP]
McCain’s FEC Problem [TPM Muckraker]
Rep. Rick Renzi Indicted For Extortion, Wire Fraud, Money Laundering And Other Crimes [Think Progress]

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You get new breast implants after they rupture during your gang rape by fellow employees!

Jamie Leigh Jones, a former Halliburton/KBR employee, now 22, has filed a complaint against the company alleging that several men, also employees, drugged and violently gang-raped her. She woke up twice during the encounter, covered in blood (Complaint, 8). Ultimately, her breast implants ruptured and her pectoral muscle was torn.

After reporting the rape and her subsequent medical examination, Jones alleges that she was locked in a trailer without a phone, and requests to call her family were denied. She says she was told she could either ‘Stay and “get over it”‘ or ‘return home without the “guarantee” of a job on return’ (Complaint, 22).

Jones likely understood what this meant as she had been transferred to (I can’t believe this) Camp Hope, Iraq after sexual harassment, intimidation and retaliation from a supervisor in Texas.

She eventually convinced someone to let her call her father, who had to enlist the aid of his congressman to get her the hell out of Camp Hope.

As pointed out by Moe at Jezebel, the second paragraph of the complaint opens with ‘For clarification, this case is not about a pinch on the backside, or a few politically incorrect jests at the office’ (Complaint, 2).

That’s like saying, ‘Don’t worry, we know that women sometimes get all uppity about that low-level sexual harassment and abuse. But this is the serious stuff - you know, conspiratorial drugging, violent and repeated rape, and physical and mental damage.’

Maybe if companies like Halliburton/KBR (and, oh I dunno, US culture) took those pesky complaints seriously, they wouldn’t currently be in civil court defending themselves.

Yep, I said civil court. Her contract said any ‘complaints’ had to go to arbitration. No criminal charges have been filed against the men involved.

I’m really over this week’s theme.

Links:
h/t to Jezebel/Wonkette.
Jones, Et Al v. Halliburton Company et al - Complaint
Victim: Gang-Rape Cover-Up by U.S., Halliburton/KBR [ABC News]

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