The lunchroom TV has Headline News on, and since yesterday it has been 24×7 on the story of a former football player being indicted for a felony. I saw a promo for four hours of in depth coverage and analysis last night.

Are they serious? This is while congress is trying to vote to reinstate habeas for detainees, an incident with Blackwater security has caused the US military to stop all land travel for non-military us personnel in Iraq. Also, the fed slashed interest rates in an attempt to stop the bleeding in collapse of the housing bubble. And Headline News, the source for “real” news is spending hours on analysis of the stupidest news story in the world.

DailyKOS writes that, according to the band’s website, Pearl Jam’s Lollapalooza webcast was censored by sponsor/webcaster AT&T:

When asked about the missing performance, AT&T informed Lollapalooza that portions of the show were in fact missing from the webcast, and that their content monitor had made a mistake in cutting them.

During the performance of “Daughter” the following lyrics were sung to the tune of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” but were cut from the webcast:

“George Bush, leave this world alone.” (the second time it was sung); and
“George Bush find yourself another home.”

This is precisely the type of politically motivated censorship that big media corporations like AT&T have claimed that they would restrain themselves from doing if net neutrality were to be eliminated. Their inability to restrain themselves shows that they are liars and should not be trusted, and that we need net neutrality. Read more at DailyKos and Pearl Jam’s website. Look out for Pearl Jam’s posting of a video of the uncensored song, but until then, you can check out a fan’s clip of it at youtube.

Some food for thought about Paris Hilton. I don’t think much about her as a person, one way or the other. She does symbolize what extreme privilege looks like, which is someone interesting. One thing Amanda forgot is that what catapulted Paris Hilton to fame was her sexuality. One sex tape took her from well known party girl to celebrity overnight. As some commenters mentioned, women so often achieve fame through their sexuality, after which they are punished.

The most offensive part of the whole thing, which has been oft discussed, is this insane tabloid journalism. And by tabloid journalism I mean titillating stories of (white) women. If an attractive white woman is murdered (and hopefully raped) somewhere in america it takes over the cable news. This week it is someone named Kelsey Smith, who really got the star treatment by CNN. Last week a 50 year old, non-sexy woman was murdered in Maine by an unidentified assailant. A 16 year old boy was murdered in Miami, possibly in gang related violence. Around 20 young americans dies in Iraq.

Now I understand why the media covers some stories more than others. “man bites dog” is news, as they say. But why is it the murder of a young attractive woman that the media runs with? Is it because those get the best ratings? And if so, why is that? And how can you have a functioning democracy when the source of most people’s news is from someone who reports on what you want to hear, rather than what is?

Today’s story, Elite Colleges Open New Door to Low-Income Youths, seems to have its heart in the right place. It’s an uplifting story about an African-American kid from a poor family in Miami who got a full scholarship to Amherst, and did well there, eventally being nominated for the Rhodes scholarship. With his 1200 SAT score, he would not have been admitted had it not been for Amherst’s new policy of taking into account economic background in admissions decisions.

Although these programs of affirmative action on the basis of economic class are a step in the right direction, I think that they do more to reinforce an ideology of meritocracy than to address the deeper problems of economic inequality. Read the rest of this entry »

What distinguishes the responsible media, like Media Matters, from irresponsible pundits, like those on FoxNews, seems to be a concern with communicating clearly to a public audience as opposed to using words in ambiguous ways that paint a veneer of legitimacy over unsound, illogical arguments. For an excellent example of Media Matters unmasking of right-wing talking heads’ bullshit, see their article, “like rain on your wedding day”:

“Cavuto suggests it’s hypocritical for Edwards, a wealthy man, to want to eradicate poverty. And it’s what the Washington Post’s Bill Hamilton suggested when he justified front-page placement of the article about Edwards’ house sale by pointing out that it involved a “presidential candidate [who] just happens to be a millionaire who is basing his campaign on a populist appeal to the common man.” But it is no more an example of “hypocrisy” for a rich man to want to help the less fortunate than it is “ironic” to have a black fly in your Chardonnay or rain on your wedding day. That just isn’t what the word means.”… read more…

(yet, we shouldn’t be so harsh on Alanis’s use of language, since she has redeemed herself with this parody of the even worse linguistic transgression of ‘my humps’.)

(from insanereagan.com) How many thousands of US soldiers (and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis) have died since Bush proclaimed “Mission Accomplished”?

I can’t believe that Bush will veto the Iraq Bill tonight! He will have to suffer the media highlighting for the American public how ironic it is that he is extending the “mission” on the day exactly four years after he said the mission was over. Juan Cole does a thorough job of rebutting each of Bush’s claims in the speech he gave May 1, 2003 from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln.

Media Matters recalls, Mission Accomplished: A look back at the media’s fawning coverage of Bush’s premature declaration of victory in Iraq. (On a related note, such shitty reporting done by right-wing media pundits should give us pause (and make us pissed off) when considering that today NewsCorp, owner of Fox, has made a bid to expand its media empire to include DowJones, publishers of the Wall Street Journal.)

Why is raising taxes considered a third rail? Why does the idea of lower taxes sell so well in the US? Libertarian-backed tax cutting and budget restriction laws cripple many state governments and no one seems to touch them. Attempts to try often fail at the ballot box. People who pay little to no taxes consistently vote to cut taxes for wealthier people. In California Prop 13, the single biggest cause of California’s biggest problems: (transit, housing costs and poor eduction), is considered a third rail that no serious politician will even discuss repealing. Why are people voting against their own interest? What happened in this country that caused the marginal tax rate (federal) for someone make $30k to be 10%, and someone making 300k 35%?

I wonder about these things.

“Low price at any cost!” Do we want a government that replicates Wal-Mart’s model of catering to consumers and capital without concern for the negative externalities absorbed by workers, the environment, and other public goods?

From NYT story today -

OSHA Leaves Worker Safety in Hands of Industry
WASHINGTON, April 24 — Seven years ago, a Missouri doctor discovered a troubling pattern at a microwave popcorn plant in the town of Jasper. After an additive was modified to produce a more buttery taste, nine workers came down with a rare, life-threatening disease that was ravaging their lungs.

Puzzled Missouri health authorities turned to two federal agencies in Washington. Scientists at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which investigates the causes of workplace health problems, moved quickly to examine patients, inspect factories and run tests. Within months, they concluded that the workers became ill after exposure to diacetyl, a food-flavoring agent.

But the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, charged with overseeing workplace safety, reacted with far less urgency. It did not step up plant inspections or mandate safety standards for businesses, even as more workers became ill.

On Tuesday, the top official at the agency told lawmakers at a Congressional hearing that it would prepare a safety bulletin and plan to inspect a few dozen of the thousands of food plants that use the additive.

That response reflects OSHA’s practices under the Bush administration, which vowed to limit new rules and roll back what it considered cumbersome regulations that imposed unnecessary costs on businesses and consumers. Across Washington, political appointees — often former officials of the industries they now oversee — have eased regulations or weakened enforcement of rules on issues like driving hours for truckers, logging in forests and corporate mergers.

Since George W. Bush became president, OSHA has issued the fewest significant standards in its history, public health experts say. It has imposed only one major safety rule. The only significant health standard it issued was ordered by a federal court.

… (read the rest of the story here)

And a similar case of a government agency failing to perform its duty to the public: the department of education… see this NYT story: Cuomo Says U.S. Is Lax on Student Lenders.

The problem with the Bush administration’s corruption of these agencies seems easy to articulate. If Bush’s OSHA panders to businesses and consumers, they are abandoning the principles on which OSHA was founded: to serve the public good by protecting worker’s health. Likewise for other regulatory agencies, like the EPA: their corruption to serve industry is an abandonment of their mission to serve the public good by protecting the environment. None of these agencies should be guided by principles of serving businesses or consumers. Those are corporate and private interests, not public interests. There are other organizations and associations that already represent their interests, such as consumer advocacy groups and industry associations. The point of public deliberation in a liberal democracy is that each of these groups and organizations should be able to express and argue for their positions. If we actually had a critical public sphere (rather than the manufactured publicity of most mass media), then these arguments would be able to be adjudicated in public on the basis of careful reflection on reasons supported by empirical evidence. When the agencies that are supposed to articulate reasons in favor of protecting workers’ health, the environment, and other public goods, abandon that job and instead become mouthpieces for other, private interests, then they have lost their legitimacy, and hence they have lost the public’s trust in them, and hence the public has a right to revolt and overthrow the part of the government in charge of them. Hence, we should impeach Bush. (cf. Locke, Rousseau)

CNN today has been hammering the story of the Blue Angels today. It would seem a Blue Angles jet crashed on Saturday, killing the pilot. Now it is a tragic accident and I am sure very said for those who knew the pilot. According to the Department of Defense six American service people died on active duty in Iraq on Saturday alone. Why is CNN doing the Blue Angels full on scattered with a dash of Virginia Tech? Because it makes good tv. It’s new and interesting. Read the rest of this entry »

How should we respond to today’s tragedy at Virginia Tech? One response that seems to make sense to me: pass legislation for much stricter gun control in Virginia and nationwide.
From the NYT story:

Virginia imposes few restrictions on the purchase of handguns and no requirement for any kind of licensing or training. The state does limit handgun purchases to one per month to discourage bulk buying and resale, state officials said. Once a person had passed the required background check, state law requires that law enforcement officers issue a concealed carry permit to anyone who applies. However, no regulations and no background checks are required for purchase of weapons at a Virginia gun show.
“Virginia’s gun laws are some of the weakest state laws in the country,” said Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. “And where there have been attempts to make some changes, a backdoor always opens to get around the changes, like the easy access at gun shows.” He demanded a thorough investigation into the provenance of the weapon or weapons used in Monday’s rampage.

A more extreme response is to draw links between this violence and that occurring in Iraq. Recall that the previously most deadly mass shooting in America took place during the Vietnam War (the Charles Whitman murders at Texas A&M).

I won’t dwell here on the possible connections one could draw between domestic and foreign violence (e.g., with Michael Moore’s movie, “Bowling for Columbine,” when he notes the ominous presence of missile manufacturers in Columbine). But I do hope that this tragedy will lead people to reflect on the fact that more than this many people have been killed in Iraq almost everyday for several years now. Just last Saturday, it has been estimated that 289 Iraqis were killed or wounded. Will this tragedy on our own soil lead us to expand our circle of compassion? It certainly will not on its own, but rather depends on how we frame it. By ‘we’ I mean the media. I will be interested to see how many, if any, media outlets frame the story in relation to the violence in Iraq, as opposed to repeating Bush’s quasi-religious framing of a violation of the “sanctuary of learning.”