Progress Slow, then Sudden

After generations of discrimination, society has become far more accepting of homosexuality. This rapid transformation offers hope for other progressive changes in attitude.



Disclaimer: the post below discusses offensive language which I do not endorse.

A buddy recently mentioned his young son had just seen the animated film Despicable Me 3, which included a scene featuring '80s rock staple "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits. Accordingly, he later played the song for his kid, and was shocked to discover the lyrics prominently featured the word "faggot". I was similarly surprised, having never noticed that in a song I've considered an innocuous bit of "dad rock" used in movies and car commercials aplenty.

In the song's lyrics the epithet is used to insult the protagonist -- a disparagement of the lead singer and his supposedly cushy lifestyle. It is not an affirmation of the flagrant homophobia of, say, early '90s NWA or early '00s Eminem (or the Beastie Boys' 1986 debut album, originally titled Don't Be a Faggot). But its casual appearance arguably makes it more jarring -- no popular artist today goes anywhere near such language.

"I used to use that word so freely in middle school," my friend noted. "I had a hard time typing it just now." It's a sign of how far treatment of the LGBT community and consciousness about the impact of language have come in such a short time.

President Donald Trump

Here are some raw, in-the-moment thoughts about the surprise victory in the U.S. presidential election by Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.



The saddest reaction to the unfolding election I've heard is from a friend who said to me "It makes me wonder if I really fit in as an American". There may be many hyperbolic opinions expressed in coming days, but hers definitely is very identifiable right now. I'm forcing myself to write down some thoughts on what has been a profoundly surprising, deeply depressing night.

The obvious: regardless of political viewpoint, it is unconscionable that a vulgar individual who has enthusiastically indulged in insults and violent threats, cons and scams, religious and racial bigotry, gross misogyny and debasing conspiracies and outright lies--that such an individual will be the leader of this country. I try to convince myself that Italy survived Silvio Berlusconi, and we too, can withstand the psychological embarrassment of a Donald Trump presidency.

Make America Whole Again

Donald Trump's rise seriously challenges U.S. openness to, and engagement with, the world. The system he attacks is worth defending, but must be modified to work for people it has left behind.



For months, Donald Trump was treated by the media and non-GOP-primary-voters as a sideshow attraction -- someone to gawk at, to raise one's eyebrows at, but ultimately to be dismissed when the time came. Unfortunately, for a man who utilizes attention the way the rest of us do oxygen, that was enough to propel him past a crowded field of unappealing Republican candidates. Since his unlikely ascension to the nomination there has emerged an appropriate focus on the obvious: that a vain and crass blowhard who espouses bigoted views against ethnic groups and religions, who has a poor business track record despite that being his claimed competency and source of fame, and who hasn't demonstrated a grasp of the details of any key aspect of public policy -- such an individual is a poor choice for president.

Even so, these criticisms have always been obvious to Trump's detractors and largely irrelevant to his supporters. It may yet be that, having come this far, his competitiveness has only been sustained due to former foes, critics, and the Republican Party apparatus dutifully falling in line behind him. And it isn't a stretch to think that Trump's unforced errors, such as a spat with the parents of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq, combined with his seeming lack of interest in actual governance (versus personal brand-building), lead to a resounding defeat this November. And yet...

A Dumb, Dysfunctional Disservice

The interminable U.S. presidential election campaign's lack of seriousness devalues our democracy, co-opts the media, and makes cynics of believers in politics as an instrument of meaningful change. It needs to be shortened.



Even for a hardened cynic, election season in the U.S. can be a trying time. Worse yet, it's a long time -- while in many other countries national election campaigns last anywhere from a couple weeks to 4-5 months, in the U.S. they begin 1.5 years or more before the actual election.  During this epoch, the least pretense to rational dialogue is left by the wayside. Instead, most "serious" candidates only occasionally deviate from vague statements, devoid of substance and nuance, in order to trumpet the most irresponsible and implausible ideas. They often delve into logical incoherence as they try to make themselves broadly, impossibly palatable across a host of issues. Pointing this out, for whatever reason, is the domain not of serious journalists who confront the candidates, but of late-night comedians.

The only publicized respite we get from a non-informative discussion of issues comes in the form of trivial scandals -- verbal gaffes, email irregularities, exaggerated personal backgrounds, spats with reporters, discredited conspiracies, etc. These get funneled through the "team sports" mentality of America's stultifying two-party system, ensuring that our nightly news programs, cable TV pundits, opinion columnists, and social media memes remain fixated on an inane series of point-counterpoint to fill up our time until next November.

You Cannot Lose If You Do Not Play

American society has vastly differing sensitivities to treatment of different groups. But in trying to protect people's feelings by further sanitizing language, we only give bigots ammunition. A better solution is to see slurs as ridiculous, not taboo.

#CancelColbert was the Twitter protest movement that spiked last week in response to an allegedly racially insensitive tweet made by the official account of The Colbert Report. That tweet was a relay of a joke Stephen Colbert made on his show, skewering Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder for trying to counter criticism of the "Redskins" name--which many consider a slur--through his new Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation. Colbert demonstrated the absurdity of using offensive language in the group's very name by comparing it to an Asian-focused group called "The Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever".

So when the anti-Colbert backlash arose, I paid it little attention, figuring this was another unfortunately-common-on-the-Internet incident of undue outrage being whipped up due to context unconsidered, or worse, willfully ignored in order to advance an agenda. Surely, anyone familiar with Colbert's work would not consider him a racist, and seeing the clip would no more lead a person to conclude he wished to denigrate Asians than reading "A Modest Proposal" might convince a person Jonathan Swift advocated cannibalism to keep the numbers of poor Irish in check. Further, I feared such unwarranted outrage would give ammunition to true bigots who often hide behind claims against an overzealous "P.C. (politically correct) police". A comment on one blog cheekily captured my fear: "This is why liberals can't have nice things."

Black or White

Conversation about race in America remains hampered by a historically rigid perspective and the confusion of even well-intentioned people over how to acknowledge race.

It's taken for granted the description of Barack Obama as our country's first black president. Something about this designation has always troubled me. I wonder whether the president's white mother, and his white grandparents who helped raise him, would have considered the label a slight to their roles in his life. Sure, much of the reasoning behind celebrating the "first black president" label is a country looking to redeem itself for its history of injustice against blacks. But the underlying mindset of "if you're not fully white, you're black" is the same that fueled the Jim Crow-era "one-drop rule", whereby any Americans who had any trace of non-white ancestry were deemed "colored" and were legally discriminated against.

This is just one example where our country can even innocuously display an awkward handling of race. Take the term "African-American" itself, often used as a well-intentioned substitute for "black", regardless of whether the American being described is generations removed from Africa and despite the fact that non-recent-immigrant white Americans are never classified as "German-American" or "British-American". (Lindsey Lohan's Mean Girls character, on the other hand, is actually African-American.)

The Death of News?

On my list of Unrealistic Things I'd Like To Do Someday (e.g. going into outer space, becoming a pro baseball or football GM) is owning a major newspaper (in my head, the Washington Post). I would love to be a part of something that holds powerful people accountable, unifies the community, and helps readers understand their lives and the world around them.

Last Sunday in the Post, David Simon (co-creator of the greatest TV drama of all-time, The Wire) wrote about the decline of the newspaper industry. The easy take on that subject is that the Internet offers free news to readers and that it steals advertisers away from newspapers, who then have to cut back on staff, coverage, etc.

The problem with that? Simon says: "When technology arrived to test the loyalty of longtime readers and the interest of new ones, the newspaper would be offering to cover not more of the world and its issues, but less of both."

He argues that newspapers have hurt themselves by not offering a quality, worthwhile product. Instead of cutting costs and replacing veteran staffers with cheap neophytes in order to survive, Simon would prefer "high-end journalism". He assigns great newspapers the sacred role of being the ones with the resources and the duty to provide the "consistent and sophisticated coverage of issues" that no one else can. I agree with him completely.

Simon's column has attracted a lot of criticism, which I think has mostly been off the mark. Slate's Jack Shafer pinned blame for the death of newspapers squarely on economic hardships, and said that "Simon fails to appreciate that the newspaper no longer enjoys the centrality to American life that it had through most of the 20th century." Well, why shouldn't it? After all, Simon is arguing for a way to make newspapers relevant.

Then there are the critics-in-cocoons who think that there isn't a problem. The Post published a rebuttal by Sara Libby, who basically tells us anecdotally that since she and her friends read the news, that must mean everyone still cares about newspapers. Not so fast, I'm afraid. I bet her survey sample is a little biased because she's a journalist; her conclusions don't necessary match my experience in college.

At school I have a subscription to the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, but I can count on one hand the fellow students I know who get their own daily national papers. Sure, like Libby says, many young people get their news online. However--and now it's time for my anecdotal evidence--I would argue that most go for basic headlines and wire stories, not editorials, columns, and more nuanced reporting.

Before I start to sound like Grandpa Simpson, I want to point out that the old fogies do have at least one thing wrong: young people don't pursue "celebrity news" at the expense of real news. Most don't pursue it at all; I do as a supplement. The important thing is that not one person I know is obsessed with Paris Hilton, while most people I know are significantly interested in the upcoming presidential election. So the "death of news" should not be blamed on the "light fare".

Ultimately, newspapers (and related struggling fare like the nightly news programs) will not be saved by gimmickry. I think they need to convey to their audience, even through explicit advertising, how important they are. People need to feel they are getting tangible benefits from the news, whether it is an understanding of big-picture issues or just items of local or personal interest. Many people don't feel an incentive to follow the news closely. Simon's vision for newspapers is the one that will prove to them that they do need the news.

Fixing the Funnies

Warning, nerd alert...

Just about every day, for almost ten years or so, I have been reading the daily comic strips that appear in the newspaper (first in the San Diego Union-Tribune, and for a long while now the Washington Post.) For me, it's the perfect thing to read with breakfast, on the Metro, or at night in bed before going to sleep.

Wednesday's Wall Street Journal had an interesting analysis of the current state of comics pages, and the challenges editors face with regards to circulation and selection at a time when newspapers themselves are in deep trouble.

Adding to their problems, I've always felt, is that the comics pages feature so many boring and/or old strips that don't attract new readers. For every good long-running strip (e.g. "Pickles", "Baby Blues") or still-valued classic (e.g. "Peanuts"), there are easily many more terrible soap-opera comics (e.g. "Mary Worth", "Apartment 3-G") or well-past-their-prime clunkers (e.g. "Beetle Bailey", "Garfield", "B.C.")

So in the spirit of positive thinking, and on the chance that this might introduce some worthwhile strips, here are ten of my current favorites:

1. "Doonesbury" by Garry Trudeau
Though this strip debuted almost 40 years ago, it still manages to be fresh and feel "with it", while offering hilarious political satire and pop-culture commentary.
2. "Pearls Before Swine" by Stephan Pastis
Great for its lovable set of anthropomorphic animal characters, dark humor, self-awareness, and occasional satire of other comics. Its series depicting Osama bin Laden living with the Keanes' of "Famiy Circus" was priceless.
3. "Watch Your Head" by Cory Thomas
A newcomer to the Post, this has fast become a favorite of mine due to its college setting and a cast of characters easy to identify with.
4. "Lio" by Mark Tatulli
Another newcomer to the Post, this wordless comic featuring the adventures of a quirky young boy takes a little getting used to, but its (very) dark humor is hilarious.
5. "Brewster Rockit: Space Guy!" by Tim Rickard
Hilarious characters and plot-lines from yet another new comic, the strip often parodies of movies or books, or takes stabs at pop culture topics.
6. "Sherman's Lagoon" by Jim Toomey
This was always one of my favorite Sunday strips in the Post, and I was thrilled when they decided to run it daily.
7. "Single and Looking" by Matt Janz (formerly "Out of the Gene Pool")
Since this strip changed its name and focus in July, it has covered relationship humor and pop culture.
8. "Speed Bump" by Dave Coverly
There are many one panel daily comics out there, but this is the funniest and most consistent.
9. "F Minus" by Tony Carrillo
The only comic strip I regularly read that appears online only, it won an mtvU competition a couple years when the author was an undergrad.
10. "Non Sequitur" by Wiley Miller
Miller employs many different styles and the strip's traditional storylines are hit-or-miss, but its political satire and social commentary is usually terrific.

...and an honorable mention has to be made for "Foxtrot" by Bill Amend, which earlier this year ended its daily-run to become a Sunday-only strip. As I was reminded while reading my compilation Foxtrotius Maximus on the can earlier today, this is a damn good comic strip.

As to how to fix the funnies, I hope that newspaper editors can push aside worries--about costs and about the threat of receiving angry letters from senior citizens disgruntled by change--and start taking risks on adding fresh new comics. No knock on the old, "family-friendly" comics, many of which I like and/or think at least belong on the funny pages...but surely everyone can agree that "Mark Trail" and "Zippy the Pinhead" suck!

The Ink & Dead Tree Business

The recent sale and impending dismantling of the Knight-Ridder publishing empire seemed to be yet another sign of the unhealthy state of the newspaper industry. Yet in Monday's Washington Post, Robert Kaiser argues against that prevailing wisdom, saying "Newspapers have become some of the most profitable businesses in modern America."

While Kaiser argues, justifiably, that he prefers a newspaper to be privately held so as to be shielded from "Wall Street pressures", he says that most newspapers are nonetheless beating the 5-10% profit margin that traditional manufacturing industries like.

Is he right? I decided to look up how some leading newspaper publishers did in 2005, and for fun, compare that to the performance of some top companies in other industries. Check it out:

(Profit margin = net income / revenue)

All data via 2005 income statements from Yahoo! Finance.



* - General Motors has not released fourth quarter results from 2005, so data is through three quarters. Starbucks fiscal year is Oct. '04 - Sept. '05.

So while Kaiser was exaggerating a bit, it does appear that newspapers are holding their own. The six publishers above are, in order, the largest newspaper publishers by market cap, and each of them are turning decent profit margins. (Though Knight-Ridder was just bought by McClatchy, who intends to sell a number of the KR papers.) Tribune stacks up favorably against Dell, a company with revenues in the same ballpark. Gannett can arguably be compared to Apple.

In this light, reports of the demise of the "ink and dead tree" business appear to be unfounded. What remains to be seen is how newspapers adapt to deal with competition from other mediums that are stealing advertising and providing alternative content.

The Evening News...Brought to You by Pepsi

Today, Matt Drudge links to recent commentary by legendary news anchor Walter Cronkite on the state of nightly newscasts today.

Walter Cronkite has castigated producers of the network nightly newscasts for including stories about "your health and mine and your backyard and mine and all that kind of thing" at the expense of more substantive reports. "It doesn't belong in the evening news," Cronkite said during an interview...

"We're the most important nation in the world ... and there are these other very important stories in a very complicated world that we need to cover. We can't do that in 15 or 16 minutes." Apparently suggesting that the television networks ought to dispense with commercials during their nightly newscasts, Cronkite remarked, "The networks should be giving us the full half hour... It's ridiculous to have as little time as we have."

Cronkite, who knows a thing or two about real news coverage, is spot-on in identifying the problem with today's evening news. The networks, seeing a shrinking and again audience, run a news program with only 3 or 4 stories a night, interspersed between two long commercial breaks and a couple of "fluff" pieces. Despite the power of the medium, there's no doubt that people are better served by the more in-depth coverage of newspapers and the Internet.

Which really is a shame, considering that TV has the power to get the news across better than either of the aforementioned. I wonder why the evening news programs don't consider getting a corporate sponsor. Edward Murrow's See it Now program, portrayed in Good Night, and Good Luck, was sponsored by Alcoa. Today, as long as the corporate sponsor agreed to have no say in the content of the telecast, I think it would work. Take a cue from sports half-time shows and call it "ABC World News Tonight by IBM", have the logo featured on the set, and run one of their commercials mid-way thru the program.

Since it's primarily only old(er) people who watch the news anyway, maybe a company like Proctor&Gamble or Pfizer would see it in their interest to sponsor a show aimed at their target demographic? And with a guaranteed sponsor, the newscasts wouldn't have to stack their shows with "health and backyard" stories in order to attract an audience. I don't know if the economics of this idea make sense to a sponsor company or the networks, but it seems worth considering.

Unless things get of hand...



(Click to enlarge.)

The Future of Newspapers

In today's Washington Post, Michael Kinsley has an entertaining analysis of what plagues the newspaper industry, which he says is a victim of inefficient production and distribution procedures and a product not tailored to customer's desires. I thought this description of a reader's interaction with a newspaper was particularly accurate:

The proud owner of up to four or five pounds of paper and ink begins searching for the parts he or she wants... [A]t last, there are two piles of paper: a short one of stuff to read, and a tall one of stuff to throw away. Unfortunately, many people are taking the logic of this process one step further. Instead of buying a paper in order to throw most of it away, they are not buying it in the first place.

One of the big reasons for the newspapers' decline is the convenience of the Internet; in order to compete, Kinsley says, "they will have to bring it to me in bed." In bringing up a list of advantages newspapers have, he cites the "brand name" authority that newspapers possess, though he wonders whether that still carries the same weight it once did.

What Kinsley only barely alludes to, however, is "content". What I think is the newspapers' greatest strength are the resources they possess to cover all manner of events, be they domestic or international. A lot of old suits might be worried about the Internet and bloggers, but a blogger primarily fills the role of an opinion columnist. No one popular blog site does much if any independent reporting, and certainly could never dream of having the scope of even a mid-size newspaper.

Newspapers will survive, but to thrive, they're going to have to change their business model. Kinsley has an intriguing solution. He points out that what customers pay for a newspaper doesn't come close to covering its production cost--it is only through the money reaped from advertising that the paper covers its costs and turns a profit. I find this somewhat analogous to movie theaters, which don't make much money off ticket sales--despite their exorbitant prices these days--but rather through the concession stands. (That explains the $5 Coke and $6 bucket of popcorn.)

So, Kinsley says, why not offers newspapers for free? If advertisers go along with this, agreeing to pay more in exchange for more eyeballs, everyone wins. I don't know how feasible this idea is, but it certainly seems worth investigating. If there's one thing everybody likes, it's free stuff. Were newspapers to be offered for free, I'm certain many more people would be interested in reading them without feeling like they were wasting money on an "unnecessary" expense.

It's not something that's never been done. Those of you living in the MD-DC-VA area may have seen copies of The Examiner, a free daily paper, lying around. Yet something like this will never catch on unless a heavyweight latches on--the "brand name" authority that Kinsley talks about. For now, papers like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal seem content to charge $1 a day (and the Sunday edition of the Times is a whopping $4), so for those of us looking to catch a break, it's just wishful thinking.

Ohmy: The Real "Citizens' Band"

Today's San Francisco Chronicle reports on the growing popularity of OhmyNews, a Seoul-based online newspaper which runs stories submitted by thousands of "citizen reporters" in South Korea and around the world. Submissions are vetted by Ohmy's tiny staff of 54 editors, researchers, and professional reporters. Articles selected for publication (about 2/3 of all submissions) earn their author between $2 and $20 for each story used. Once published, articles featured on Ohmy's site each have their own message board for discussion. Articles well received by the public can even earn their author monetary tips from site readers.

Ohmy seems to me to be an unbelievably simple but terrific idea. This is blogging at its best. Isn't Ohmy essentially a huge group blog tamed by professional fact-checking? And what better way to engage the public in the news than by having the public set the agenda of the newspaper? "Every citizen is a reporter," is Ohmy's slogan, and by extension, an avid consumer of news. The results speak for themselves--Ohmy's average daily readership of 2 million far exceeds popular American blogs like DailyKos and Instapundit.

I think this kind of thing would be incredibly popular if implemented here in the United States because it would provide an avenue for young people to get involved. Certainly there are many young people in this country who have a lot to say but who don't have a means of getting their message across. Nearly three-quarters of Ohmy's citizen reporters are under 40, and a full 20% are college students.

None of this is to suggest that organizations like Ohmy can replace traditional media outfits, where the professional journalists who do their job for a living have far more resources available to them to cover stories as they occur. Most of the stories that get reported in Ohmy rely on stories that the professional media has already covered. Nonetheless, I see organizations like Ohmy as perfect vehicles to heighten public interest in news and current events, and encourage dialogue about the leading issues of the day. The goal of a true "Citizens' Band" is not to compete with the professional media, but to supplement it through the active engagement of the general public.

See related: OhmyNews (English edition)

In China, "Business as Usual" is Bad

The big story of the day, of course, is North Korea's decision to scrap its nuclear weapons program. Elsewhere, in Afghanistan, a moderately successful election was held despite Taliban threats and security concerns. Amidst the reports of these twin triumphs, however, is the story of a Chinese journalist recently sentenced to 10 years in prison for publishing a summary of the Communist Party's handling of the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacres.

What makes this case unique is that the Chinese government enlisted Yahoo Inc.'s help in using Shi Tao's private email account as evidence against him. On Sunday, the Washington Post was blistering in its criticism:

"Over the past two decades, many have argued -- ourselves included -- that despite China's authoritarian and sometimes openly hostile government, it is nevertheless right to encourage American companies to work there. Their very presence has been thought to make the society more open, if not necessarily more democratic. If that is no longer the case -- if, in fact, American companies are helping China become more authoritarian, more hostile and more of an obstacle to U.S. goals of democracy promotion around the world -- then it is time to rethink the rules under which they operate."

-- WASHINGTON POST editorial (09/18/2005)

Earlier this summer, I was appalled to hear that Microsoft had cooperated with the Chinese government by making the words "freedom" and "democracy" banned on the Chinese version of the MSN Spaces blogging tool. From personal experience, I already knew that Google and Yahoo searches conducted in China were subject to filtering. Cisco Systems has already helped the Chinese government set up the most sophisticated Internet monitoring system in the world.

American companies are helping a repressive regime tighten control over its people. Why? As Anne Applebaum has noted, "If this isn't illegal, maybe it should be." She brings up the IBM-Holocaust connection to suggest that the companies enabling China today should think twice. In pursuit of the bucks, Microsoft, Yahoo, et al., have struck a devil's bargain that is at odds with our own national interest.

Legality aside, the immorality of it all is disgusting. We should be pushing for the increased liberalization of China, not helping to reverse it. In the future, China should not be able to impose anathematic conditions on our tech companies' services. Take it as is, or leave it, thank you very much. I'd sleep better at night knowing that we were not contributing to the setback of democratic progress in China. Just ask Shi Tao.

Katrina's Deep Impact

Hell hath no fury like Hurricane Katrina. A major metropolitan city, New Orleans, has been all but destroyed. The entire Gulf Coast looks like an A-bomb hit. When I see the pictures of dead bodies floating in the water, thousands of refugees stranded for days on end, and looting in the streets, I am beyond words--this is happening in America? So many thoughts go racing through my head.

I'm struck by the similarities and differences between this tragedy and the Indian Ocean Tsunami of December 2004, the international mega-disaster that claimed 200,000 lives. In the aftermath of the tsunami, I was honestly touched by the number of people who opened up their hearts and wallets because they cared about the plight of Third World villagers half way around the world. The day after New Year's, several friends and I stood outside local Giant grocery stores and collected nearly $2500 in donations. The main theme to arise immediately after the tsunami was that sense of collective generosity, action, and optimism.

Those same themes are certainly manifest in the nation's response to this latest tragedy, but Katrina, having struck here at home, has also hit a lot of raw nerves. Certainly, in the first days after this hurricane, anger more than anything else dominated the discussion. Why weren't preventive measures taken to guard against this disaster? What does it say about race and class problems in America that the vast majority of victims--the ones who were unable to evacuate beforehand--were black and poor? Why was the relief effort so slow and badly uncoordinated?

I'm oft critical of the media when they spend too much time on frivolous matters instead of doing their job, but in the past week I have to say that the news organizations really stepped up to the plate. The broadcast channels and newspapers all did an exemplary job at getting to the area and getting a very human and tragic story out to the American public. Indeed, the coverage was so personal and compelling that I couldn't help but notice the barely disguised anger in reports from Brian Williams, Anderson Cooper, and others. They were each wondering what the public has been asking for days: how is it that the news crews could get in but the relief crews were nowhere in sight?

Federal officials maintain that they were unaware of the severity of the disaster for a few days after Katrina hit. Unbelievable! Thankfully the press has been alert and unrelenting in its coverage of the relief effort. On his Friday night show, Bill Maher cheered that, at last, a press that had been enfeebled since 9/11 and the Iraq war seemed to have rediscovered the ability to ask tough questions and challenge the administration. Well, that's a lone spot of bright news.

There's not really anything to cheer about after Katrina. Preliminary estimates put the death toll at a staggering 10,000, or more than 3 times the casualties of the 9/11 attacks. Katrina is also estimated to have cost $100 billion in damages. The numbers are just a guess, but by any standard it is mindblowing to witness such utter destruction and chaos here in America. I am just thankful that I, unlike many people around the country, did not lose anyone in this tragedy. A friend of mine, though, is a sophomore at Tulane University in Louisiana. His school has been shut down for the semester and he has temporarily transfered here to College Park.

Most of Katrina's victims will not be able to pack up, relocate, and start anew. In the opening scene of Shakespeare's The Tempest, Gonzalo cries "Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground." It is a sentiment likely shared by thousands whose lives have been irrevocably altered. Friday, President Bush vowed that "New Orleans will rise again and be a greater city of New Orleans." It may take months for the city and the rest of that storm-ravaged area to recover, but I certainly hope Bush's promise comes true. America has responded to tragedy heroically in the past. Let's do so again.

Note: This post was adapted for a column in the September 7 issue of the Maryland Diamondback, also titled "Katrina's Deep Impact".

Crappy News Network

Veteran commentator Bob Costas surprised some people this week when he refused to guest-host a Larry King show about Natalee Holloway, the missing Alabama teenager. Costas declined to give a reason, other than say "I didn't think the subject matter...was the kind of broadcast I should be doing". Translation: he doesn't like crap. The idea of devoting another hour to the umpteenth "missing girl" story offended his journalistic sensibility and standards.

Bravo, Bob Costas.

I'm not quite sure how "missing girl" mania became the latest journalistic fad, but it's probably the most annoying thing to hit television since Dennis Miller doing Monday Night Football. It seems like every week CNN, Fox, and MSNBC find a new case of a young woman and possible foul play. Don't believe me? Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, who has comically voiced his exasperation with "white women we love", recently recounted a number of such cases : "Natalee Holloway...her predecessor, the Runaway Bride [Jennifer Wilbanks]...Laci Peterson. Elizabeth Smart. Lori Hacking. Chandra Levy. JonBenet Ramsey." Robinson even lumps in the creation of the Jessica Lynch (remember her?) myth as a byproduct of this craze.

Never mind that a countless number of people go missing every day (roughly 2,000 on average), and that the only cases highlighted by the media happen to be the ones involving young, white, reasonably attractive white women. The important question is Who Cares? Unfortunately, despite the complete lack of newsworthiness in the Holloway, Wilbanks, et al., stories, "Missing Woman" coverage gets terrific ratings. Maybe it was a novel personal story the first time, but come on, people!

In an ideal world, serious news would dominate the headlines, but let's be serious--there's not really widespread public interest there. I'm no news purist either, preferring my gloom-and-doom with a healthy mix of sports and pop culture news just like everyone else. Will Terrell Owens sulk his way out of Philly? Are Angelina and Brad a couple? Those stress-free issues do wonders to take our minds off of the latest report on car bombs and orphans with diseases.

Nonetheless, the saturated 24/7 coverage and endless "in-depth specials" on the most inane topics have become nauseating. I wish I could say the cable news networks are turning off viewers, but actually, they've found their meal ticket. Where does that leave the rest of us fed up boob-tube watchers? It's a nice day outside, I think I'll take a hike.

If only more people would do the same, metaphorically at least, the next time the news networks decided to sensationalize more crap.

Last edited Aug 22.

Divided We Fall

The Fox News network's famous claim, "Fair and Balanced", is considered by most people on both sides of the political spectrum to be as authentic as a $3 bill. Yet that hasn't stopped Fox News from becoming the most-watched cable news channel in America, ahead of rivals CNN and MSNBC. Though the network plays to the right-wing crowd, employing some of the most belligerent and blustery commentators this side of talk-radio, a 2004 Pew study found that half of Fox's viewers identified themselves as Democrats or independents.

Are those liberals who tune into the network looking for political balance and a broader perspective? Not according to Professors Steffano DellaVigna of UC-Berkeley and Ethan Kaplan of Stockholm University, who recently concluded a long-term study of political bias in reporting. They suggest that both Democrats and Republicans watch Fox News to corroborate their own existing viewpoints. Republicans like Fox because the news emphasizes themes that appeal to them, and because there is a heavy ideological slant in favor of conservatism. Democrats who watch Fox do so not out of masochism, but rather, to strengthen their conviction against what they see as misplaced priorities, a lack of intellectual sophistication, and heavy-handed bias.

In other words, both sides are just looking to hear what they want to hear. Psychologists would call it “confirmation bias”, the tendency to emphasize and believe experiences that support one’s own views. Examples from everyday life are abundant. I’m still trying to project the momentary flashes of brilliance I’ve seen from the Redskins in their thus far lopsided preseason as proof that, despite all evidence to the contrary, they will finally turn it around this year. I know, dream on.

Confirmation bias is a far more serious problem in the context of our country’s political dialogue. People have always disagreed on politics, but it seems to me that with the advent of well-funded partisan advocacy groups, vituperative ideologues, and zealous bloggers, it’s become harder than ever to find the middle ground.

Since when did news become a partisan issue? The late Senator Daniel Moynihan once said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” That adage seems quaint now that liberals and conservatives can each get their own news and commentary, each never having to listen to a single word they disagree with.

With people content to ideologically insulate themselves, it is no wonder then that Republicans and Democrats treat each other as if they came from different planets. I’m tired of hearing about a divided America. When Senator Joe Biden (D-R.I.), a presumed presidential candidate in 2008, spoke on “Meet the Press” of visiting “the red states” to gauge support for his candidacy, I cringed. Didn’t anyone learn from Barack Obama’s memorable convention speech last year, that there is no Blue State America and Red State America, just the United States of America? Self-imposed divisions are hurting this country, with each side filled with foreboding for the other.

I hope that, in light of upcoming elections in 2006 and 2008, our new political leaders from both parties will look to the middle-of-the-road and try to formulate policy that chooses broader appeal over narrow partisanship. The country's current division only subtracts from our ability to relate to one another and get things done. Let's see a real uniter!

Last edited on September 3, 2005.

Woodward and The Secret Man

For 33 years, the identity of "Deep Throat"--the anonymous source who helped Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein with their investigation into the Watergate scandal--was kept a secret. Finally, on May 31, 2005, 91-year-old W. Mark Felt stepped forward and admitted "I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat." Last night I finished reading Bob Woodward's new book, The Secret Man, which chronicles his long personal relationship with Felt, the former #2 man at the FBI (see right).

As Woodward reveals, the world's most famous reporter-source relationship actually began as a friendship through a chance encounter. In 1969, Lt. Bob Woodward was nearing the end of his term in the Navy and was yet undecided on his future. One day on a routine courier assignment to the Nixon White House, he struck up a conversation in the waiting room with a distinguished-looking elderly man who, as luck would have it, was Mark Felt. The young Woodward left an impression on the senior FBI man, who offered encouraging words and allowed the former to call him on later occasions for career advice.

Woodward goes on to describe how Felt's influence steered him away from law school and how he wound up deciding to try his hand at reporting. After being rejected by the Post and enduring a stint at a podunk weekly, Woodward finally managed to join the Post staff covering the lowly local crime beat. What a fateful turn of events then, that the "third-rate burglary" at the Watergate he was assigned to cover would catapult him into the rank of the most celebrated journalist of his time.

The Secret Man has been criticized some for its brisk treatment of the events of the Watergate scandal and focusing more on Woodward himself. Not that there are a dearth of enlightening and entertaining details included here--I enjoyed reading about the elaborate system of communication Felt devised in order to set-up their clandestine meetings in that famous underground parking garage.

Anyhow, I don't find fault with Woodward for skimming over the Watergate story; after two bestselling books (All the President's Men and The Final Days) about the era, and thirty years of looking back, that story is familiar enough. What is most interesting to me, then, is the story of Woodward himself--how he was able to do what he did and what he was thinking along the way and since. Woodward is the first to admit in his book that despite the warm relationship he once had with Felt, that bond in later years--especially during Felt's post-Watergate legal troubles--was broken. For almost twenty years, until 2000, he had in fact not even spoken to Felt. In The Secret Man's most moving chapter, Woodward describes his emotional reunion with an aged Mark Felt whose memory has deteriorated. Woodward says he has always wrestled with the effects of Watergate on himself and Felt. After Felt's 1980 conviction he realized:

For me, Watergate had been a cleansing. For him, it was...the opposite. The two of us saw his actions and their results so differently. I realized, but any reflections on the unfairness of it all only added to my growing feelings of personal responsibility for his plight.

The Secret Man combines journalistic history with a personal memoir. Woodward also covers the post-Watergate hunt for Deep Throat, the wrong predictions, close calls, and even one who got it right--and kept the secret. Still, if you come to this book looking for all the answers, you will be disappointed--even Woodward himself admits this, citing Felt's diminished mental condition as the reason why we will never completely know why or how. Oddly enough, I kind of like it that way. Carl Bernstein, Woodward's investigative partner during Watergate, closes the book with a "Reporter's Assessment" that also makes for a good read--especially the moment when he first realized "Oh my God. This president is going to be impeached."

Barring a forthcoming cogent and engaging memoir by Mark Felt himself, this book will be the last important treatment of the Watergate scandal. As the most illuminating personal guide to the most famous political saga in recent history, The Secret Man is a compelling read.

AFP Mistaken About Google News

The French news service Agence France Presse (AFP) is suing Google for indexing AFP in its popular Google News service. The AFP's cause for concern is that its subscription-only content is supposedly being provided free of charge by Google News.

Unfortunately, that statement is misleading. As a user of Google News for a couple years now, I have found it to be an invaluable resource. The site is my home page and I visit it more frequently than any other. Visitors to Google News know that the site simply indexes headlines from various news websites around the world and provides links to the full article on the respective organization's own website.

News organizations have the option of not being included in the Google News service, but virtually all of them do because the exposure is beneficial. I can attest that my reading habits have broadened after having read articles from publications I would not otherwise have the initiative or access to read. Certainly then, AFP is denying itself the opportunity to attract readers who would be interested in becoming subscribers based on the substantial content AFP offers.

Additionally, the AFP could very well solve their problem by following a model similar to others online publications that want to protect their content. Several organizations, including such prominent figures as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times all require a user name and password to access a lot of their content. Or the AFP could go the route of Salon, and institute a pay-to-read system.

If the AFP really doesn't want in, they have that right and it appears Google has honored that. Personally though, I think the AFP is doing itself a disservice. Isn't the objective to get your content to as many readers as possible? Google News only helps direct readers to sites where they can get news. How those sites want to manager their own product is up to them, but it seems to me that AFP can come up with a better solution than the one they've got.