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Media CoverageSaturday, September 27, 2008 McCain's Pakistan Flip FlopThis isn't the first time I've flagged these comments made by John McCain in an interview with the editors of Defense News last October. I'm posting them again in light of last night's debate, where McCain once again attacked Barack Obama for his stance on American strikes against al-Qaida leadership in Pakistan's tribal frontier:
That's a pretty clear case of political bad faith, but oddly enough it hasn't gotten a whole lot of traction. Thursday, September 25, 2008 Missing the Obvious FollowupThis entire post is covered by the caveat that I didn't see the entire Katie Couric interview with Sarah Palin, just the brutal clip of Palin's Russia answer. So it could be that Couric went on to ask the question I formulate below. But it seems to me that getting into a debate about whether or not proximity to two foreign countries qualifies as "foreign policy credentials" actually lets Palin off the hook. Couric should have taken Palin at her word and moved on to the obvious followup: "In that case, what should our policy towards Russia be in the aftermath of the Georgian invasion?" Granted, it's a question that no one can really answer right now, but by forcing Palin to actually discuss a foreign policy question of substance it would have put her claims of being qualified to the test. Saturday, September 20, 2008 All Bark, No BiteThe NY Observer ran an important piece earlier this week that didn't seem to get much of an echo on the political sites I follow. Not surprising, since the piece discusses the way in which political print journalism and political journalism in general has lost its ability to resonate:
The internet is an echo chamber and, of course, one of the effects of an echo chamber is that all you hear is the echo and not the original message. Add to that the "noise machine" that drowns out news with spin and deflection and it's easy to see how the power of the press has been diluted. But the impact of technology overlaps with a concerted effort by the Bush administration over at least the past four years to endrun the national press of record. This went beyond repeating the longstanding conservative mantra of "liberal media bias" to become an official communication strategy of "taking the message to the American people" that consisted of using "town hall meetings" and local press outlets to broadcast the administration's talking points. This strategy has reached its apogee in the McCain campaign's handling of Sarah Palin, whose inability to credibly address policy on a national level is being camouflaged by an attempt to challenge the very role of the press in scrutinizing candidates. Now, there's nothing unconstitutional about this, because contrary to the Congressional oversight that the Bush administration has treated with contempt, the Constitution only guarantees the press its liberty, not its access. But the result, when combined with the evolution in communication technology, has been a fundamental shift in the extra-Constitutional system of checks and balances as it had been established over the course of the previous thirty to forty years. We're witnessing the end of the press as "watchdog of democracy," not because the press isn't barking, but because no one's listening. One of the consequences is the ease with which McCain can get away with a campaign based on lies; the old saw that everyone's entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts seems to no longer apply. Anyone familiar with human nature knows how stubbornly people can hold onto their beliefs in the face of contradictory evidence. That has become even more acute now that the authority of the press, formerly the arbiter of what qualified as evidence, has been so thoroughly undermined. Thursday, September 11, 2008 Media AppearanceI'll be appearing as a guest on Sirius Radio's Blog Bunker program this evening at 5pm EST. I did the show from their NY studio last May and had a blast. (I'd forgotten how sweet a high-quality studio mike can make your voice sound.) Tonight, I'll be doing it by telephone from Paris. If you're not already a Sirius subscriber, you can catch the show by registering for a free 3-day trial period here. (Don't tell 'em I told you.) Friday, June 27, 2008 Chad DispatchesI'd just like to flag a couple of WPR articles for any readers who might enter the site directly through the blog. David Axe, who is a frequent WPR contributor, has travelled to Eastern Chad to report on the humanitarian crisis in the region as over 250,000 Darfur refugees, refugees of the Central African Republic's civil war, and internally displaced Chadians converge on the frontier delta. I covered the story last March for WPR from the comfort of Paris. David's conditions are quite a bit more dangerous, and his first two dispatches (here and here) are well worth a read. These are the kinds of stories that really go overlooked unless courageous people like David stick their neck out to get them, and journals like WPR decide to run them. Hats off to both. Cross-posted to World Politics Review. Friday, May 23, 2008 Media AppearanceI'm not sure I'll have a chance to post again beforehand, so for any Sirius Satellite Radio listeners, I'll be representing the WPR blog on Sirius' The Blog Bunker program this Tuesday, May 27, from 5:30-6pm. Sunday, April 20, 2008 The War That Never WasThe NY Times story detailing how the Pentagon used "military analysts" to spread administration talking points on the Iraq War is sure to dominate the news cycle, and rightly so. The story reveals the fundamental role Information Operations (IO) play in the Pentagon's strategic vision, as I noted here, and as confirmed by this October 2003 report (.pdf) titled Information Operations Roadmap, personally approved by Donald Rumsfeld and kept secret until January 2006, when the National Security Archive at George Washington University obtained it through a FOIA request. While far from a smoking gun, the report makes for interesting reading, especially the passages that recognize the difficulty of maintaining boundaries between foreign and domestic audiences in the contemporary media landscape. A lot of discussion of the story's revelations is almost certain to center around the Smith-Mundt Act, but significantly, nothing that took place violated its prohibitions, which are on the domestic dissemination of public diplomacy "propaganda" targeting foreign media markets. The same talking points echoed by the "analysts" were being distributed for domestic consumption by official DoD and White House spokespeople. The fact that the "analysts," who were under no direct orders, were not identified as official Pentagon mouthpieces is a matter of personal integrity (or lack thereof) and their network employers' lack of rigor in vetting them. That's not to say that the operation isn't alarming and repugnant, both from the point of view of the Pentagon and the "analysts." It is. But it's also not very surprising, and falls short, in its flagrant contempt of press objectivity, of this administration's other abuses, mentioned in passing in the article. The major systemic failure, to my mind, was not in the "analysts," who were led astray by human nature and misplaced institutional loyalty, or in the Pentagon, which was faithful to its institutional nature, but in the media which, by failing to vet the "analysts" for independence of viewpoint, betrayed one of its central functions. To the extent that the operation was successful, it illustrates the Pentagon's savvy appreciation of contemporary media. The "analysts" were "paid by the hit" by the networks, which meant that, like Debka and Drudge, their privileged media positions were dependent on access to their sources more than veracity of their information. The identification of "analysts," as opposed to reporters, as key opinion shapers also demonstrates an understanding that in an age of media saturation, those who frame narratives are more important than those who gather facts. But insomuch as the information they were peddling was demonstrably false, the operation reveals the extent to which the DoD has failed to integrate the lessons of Vietnam, which it has identified as the media filter slanting public opinion, as opposed to the dissonance between the Department's official line and the reality on the ground. It also leaves the Pentagon wide open to what amounts to a devastating counter-op targeting the very assets (the "analysts" themselves) it would normally deploy to defend itself. As such, the Times story should probably be understood as part of an internal DoD battle for control of the Iraq War "narrative," and the cameo appearances by Gen. Petraeus, in this context, are hardly surprising. The demonstrable falsehood of the talking points will also ultimately determine whether the DoD crossed whatever statutory lines might apply, since it is forbidden from domestic use of Psychological Operations (Psy Ops) both by executive order and department regulation. For an in-depth treatment of some of the ways IO and Psy Ops have already been employed during the Iraq War, as well as how the lines between foreign and domestic consumption have been blurred and/or exploited, Daniel Schulman's Columbia Journalism Review piece from back in March 2006 is must reading. Ultimately, the story really drives home the degree to which the Iraq War has existed mainly as a battle between competing narratives, whose defining feature is the fading centrality of fact, and whose defining historical figure may end up being neither George W. Bush nor Saddam Hussein, but Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the Iraqi Minister of Information who declared America's military defeat even as U.S. forces occupied Baghdad. Launched in response to an imaginary threat, planned to facilitate an imaginary liberation, waged to secure an imaginary peace, and now extended to achieve imaginary outcomes, the administration's version of the Iraq War has from start to finish replaced reality with denial, analysis with wishful thinking, and factual assessments with fairy tales. Indeed, were it not for the deaths of 4,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis that make such an idea obscene, you could almost say that the Iraq War has never really existed at all. Wednesday, February 27, 2008 Foreign Policy And The PressThere's been a lot of back and forth about David Signer's WaPo piece this weekend taking the major media to task for ignoring foreign policy in its coverage of the presidential campaign. Ilan Goldenberg at Democracy Arsenal has got all the links and some original insights that warrant a glance. I'd add that part of the problem has to do not with a lack of interest so much as a sense even among journalists that foreign policy is better left to experts and the specialized press. Most people are comfortable discussing the political calculus of tax cuts, even if they aren't economists. Same goes for universal healthcare or education reform and a whole host of other domestic policy issues. But how many people really have an opinion on the expansion of NATO into Russia's periphery, or the best way to counter Chavez-style neo-Bolivarism in South America? Both foreign and domestic policy have concrete impacts on the lives of the end consumer of the news, but the former (outside of the big ticket items) are often more indirect than the latter, and more difficult to trace. I'm also not sure how relevant it is to talk about foreign policy when what we really mean is a multitude of foreign policies, some broad and regional, others more narrow and local. Ideally they form a coherent strategic whole, but sometimes the result ends up being something of a patchwork of contingency and convenience that combines to offer a least bad rather than an ideal approach. While Matthew Yglesias is right in saying that the president has far greater control over foreign policy than domestic policy, it is often in the form of reacting to events on the ground rather than formulating and implementing a grand strategy. Which leaves me somewhat immune to foreign policy white papers and addresses, as well as the coverage they might inspire. Meanwhile, although the major media has been remiss in this regard, the foreign policy press has been doing its job. Case in point is Ximena Ortiz's rundown of the three remaining candidates' foreign policy records, statements and agendas. None of them gets off easy, but Barack Obama scores some points for owning up to it when he changes his position. Worth a read. Cross-posted to World Politics Review. Tuesday, February 26, 2008 WPR BloggingToday, instead of just reminding you that I'll be posting primarily over at the World Politics Review blog, I'll also call your attention to an article by Parag Khanna that just went up on the site. Khanna just made a big splash (deservedly so) with his recent NY Times Sunday Magazine cover story on the geopolitical transformations that are re-shaping the global strategic landscape. In his WPR piece, titled "On the Road to Disaster in India", he uses a recent trip back to his city of birth to illustrate the very real challenges that are often obscured by the media narrative of India's rise:
It's an eye-opening piece that doesn't shrink from calling attention to the many ways in which India's political culture and society serve as brakes to its economic and strategic development. The article also gives me a chance to plug World Politics Review. It's a really solid outfit with great contributors, updated with new material daily. Click through and give it a look and you'll see what I mean. Tuesday, February 26, 2008 The Blog GhettoAs someone who began "blogging" just over a year ago, I don't really identify myself as a blogger in the way that most early adapters do. So I usually don't get too wrapped up in debates about the relative merits of blogging vs. reporting. But like Andrew Sullivan, I was surprised to see the NY Times write-up of Josh Marshall and TPM's Polk Award for their US Attorney coverage reference the "stigma" attached to blogging. Here's the quote:
Now, the fact that this sentence shows up in a NY Times article in February 2008 has so many layers of ridiculousness to it that it's hard to figure out which one to unravel first. Ridiculous layer no. 1) I mentioned that I just contracted a freelance editing gig working for a newspaper trade publication. It consists of sifting through content (from their blog, no less) and synthesizing it into coherent articles. I'd say that about half of the articles I end up with mention -- among the many ways that newspapers are scrambling to integrate new media into their content delivery models -- the proliferation of blogs springing up on newspaper online editions. I'm too lazy to check, but I'd bet dollars to donuts that the reporter who wrote the Times profile has got a blog, or else contributes to one, either on the Times site itself, or privately. A good deal of the rest of the articles I end up with mention the newspaper industry's enthusiasm for citizen journalists, and their increasing experimentation with volunteer reporters. This is of course driven by the challenging revenue outlook and the demand for content. But the fact is, in the battle between the MSM model and the blog model now being waged in newsrooms worldwide, the blog model is carrying the day. Ridiculous layer no. 2) The idea that blogs are in some way a novel activity is absurd. Having opinions and expressing them is probably the second oldest profession known to humankind. (In all likelihood, it springs from the first.) That's why newspapers employ op-ed columnists. Now it's true that these are usually experienced reporters who have worked their way up the ranks through the obscure metrics that preceded the measurement of web traffic: accuracy, ability to maintain sources, reader popularity or responsiveness, invitations to popular talk shows, etc. In other words, they have accumulated a certain authority. But at a certain point, these experienced journalists begin trafficking in opinions that far exceed not only their own limited expertise, but also any objective measure of the accuracy of what's being expressed. I'm thinking here of pronouncements on what America believes, or what's driving independent voters, and the like. At that point, there's little that differentiates them from the bloggers who engage them, other than the number of people who take their opinion seriously. And that's a metric that doesn't always work in the op-ed writer's favor. Ridiculous layer no. 3) If you compare the news media to a sports broadcast, reporters are the play-by-play announcers, op-ed writers are the color commentary, and bloggers are the folks sitting around the set watching the game. Now, as anyone whose ever watched a game with a group of friends knows, you don't do it in silence. You shout, cheer, make observations, and more often than not you tell the color announcer to shut his trap because he doesn't know what he's talking about. The power of the internet is that it got the folks sitting around watching the game into the broadcast booth, and suddenly the color man has to answer to more than just the TV critic of the local paper. But even there, blogging is nothing new. It's talk radio, written down and hyperlinked, with a range (from Rush Limbaugh to Diane Reems) that's just as broad. So, really, it's time for reporters to get over it. Everybody else has. Wednesday, February 20, 2008 World Politics ReviewI've got some good news to announce. Starting today, I'll be the principal contributor to World Politics Review's blog. It's a trial arrangement, but the idea is to make the blog a more active part of their site. So if you like what you find here, I hope you make the WPR blog a part of your regular reading as well. Here's a teaser from my first post over there:
I'll be doing some cross-posting, and most posting on politics and domestic affairs will still be done here. But this is a real exciting opportunity to be involved with a great foreign policy and national security daily that deserves more attention. So please help spread the word. Thanks. Thursday, February 14, 2008 Byline vs. Bottom LineI just landed a freelance editing gig for a newspaper industry trade organization helping to prepare their annual report. So I've got my head crammed full of all the latest industry jargon, from media convergence to newsroom integration to platform interchangeability. And while everyone seems to agree that the technological possibilities of the internet -- which have revolutionized the way in which news is gathered, produced, disseminated, and consumed -- benefit the end consumers of the news food chain, there are still some lingering questions about new media's impact on the hunter-gatherers (read: journalists) out in the field. Those questions just became dramatically less abstract to the one hundred NY Times staffers whose jobs will soon be trimmed to satisfy shareholder demands to improve the bottom line. Thursday, February 14, 2008 One Of The Few, The Proud, The FiveThere's all sorts of awards out there for blogs and such. But sometimes, the real honors fly in under the radar. Like writing an article that Danger Room's Noah Shachtman includes in his "Five for Fighting" daily round-up. Now that's what I call sweet. Wednesday, February 13, 2008 Blogs Eat Their YoungIn many ways, the Clintons' brand of politics, if it didn't actually spawn the blog, served as a precursor to it in that the Clintons popularized techniques at the dawn of the internet era -- rapid response war rooms, spin, talking points, polarized partisan broadsides -- that blogs would later appropriate, greatly contributing to the proliferation of the new form. The polarization of blog discourse came to a peak during the first term of the Bush administration, where in many ways blogs were the only platform available to resist a media narrative that was at best complacent and at worst complicit. What's more, as recently as the 2006 Congressiona mid-term elections, blogs seem to wholeheartedly embrace the idea of partisanship. So it's kind of ironic that so much of the Hillary Clinton backlash, especially among the blog set, has focused on the polarizing effect of the Clinton brand. It's also worth considering what blog discourse will look like under an Obama administration where bi-partisan cooperation and respectful dialogue have become the norm. Friday, February 1, 2008 Timing Is EverythingAs you've probably noticed, between fighting off a flu bug and working on a couple of articles, I haven't been as active as usual in following the news. So it could be I've just missed something. But a quick Google search seems to confirm that no major American news outlet has picked up on the story of the Bush administration submitting a nuclear energy cooperation deal with Turkey to Congress. In the meantime, Turkey has announced that it will be opening bidding for construction of its first nuclear energy plant in February. Update: Meanwhile, Turkey's energy minister just suggested that Turkey could finalize its gas deal with Iran -- whereby Iran would serve as a transit link for Turkmenistan gas destined for Turkey, and Turkey would develop Iran's South Pars gas field for European delivery -- next month. The deal is strongly opposed by Washington, and I'd assumed that the move to certify Turkey for nuclear cooperation was in part meant to serve as a counter-offer. Stay tuned. Wednesday, December 19, 2007 Outta Here Like VladimirI'm not sure if Vladimir Putin is really Man of the Year, as Time Magazine maintains. But if there were a MVL (Most Valuable Leader) award along the lines of the MVP in professional sports, he'd certainly be high in the running this year. Between his bellicose rhetoric on American missile defense, his high-stakes maneuvering on Iran, his suspension of the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, and his reintroduction of long-range bomber sorties and Russian navy flotillas on the high seas, about the only thing Vlad didn't do this year was bang his shoe on a desk at the UN. There's also a pretty strong argument to be made that he's about ready for a Lifetime Achievement award, too. Judging by his human rights record, the guy's a psychopath, it's true. But if you compare the bareknuckled arena of realpolitik to the Ultimate Fighting Championships, Putin's Royce Gracie. It's hard to think of another leader over the past ten years who has consolidated his or her country's position as effectively as Putin. Tony Blair comes close, but the Iraq War put a pretty big black mark on any assessment of his tenure. Meanwhile, neither Chirac, Schroeder, Berlusconi, or Aznar comes close to measuring up. He's had a bunch of help, ranging from George W. Bush's decision to run America into the ground, to the massive influx of oil and gas revenues. But like it or not, Putin's been at the helm for a pretty incredible turnaround in Russia's geopolitical fortunes. Meanwhile, the difference between Time's gimmicky pick last year and their selection this year is sobering: viral videos on the one hand, ruthless realpolitik on the other. It's almost as if the shock of 9/11 is beginning to wear off and, in looking around, America's suddenly realizing that while we've been squandering our political capital, there are other countries out there who have been slowly but steadily building their's up. What a difference a year makes. Tuesday, December 4, 2007 Hold The NIE EuphoriaA lot of the reactions to the NIE are understandably focusing on the discrepancy between the Bush administration's alarmist characterization of the threat posed by Iran's nuclear program and the intelligence community's finding that Iran froze the weapons component in 2003. And to be sure, the NIE is reassuring, especially in that it discredits the claim that any sort of military option, whether unilateral or multi-lateral, is urgently necessary. It's important not to overlook, though, the fact that Iran's entire nuclear program is the result of a decades-long clandestine procurement effort that was in direct violation of their legal obligations under the NPT, that at no time since the program was revealed has Iran ever been in full compliance with its obligations under the NPT, and that they have repeatedly backtracked on promised concessions both to the IAEA and EU. It's also worth noting that while Iran has recently been more transparent with regards to its declared nuclear activity, the one area where they still have been obstructive is in giving the IAEA more intrusive access to its program sites in order to verify that no un-declared activity is taking place. On a theoretical level, one may be willing to minimize the danger of a nuclear-armed Iran due to Israel's and America's deterrent power, and willing to accept Iran's regional influence under the protection of a nuclear umbrella. I think there are reasonable arguments in defense of both propositions. But on a very practical level, there are three reasons why Iran's mastering of the nuclear fuel enrichment cycle while remaining non-compliant with the NPT poses real threats to regional and global stability. To begin with, it further de-legitimzes the NPT at a time when it has already been severely destabilized. (Yes, the US-India deal contributes to this process.) Second, it has already caused a rush on the nuclear bank, with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Morocco and Libya already declaring their intentions to go nuclear within the next 15-20 years. (Keep a close watch on Turkey, which for the time being has had trouble finding a seismically safe location for its declared nuclear ambitions.) That process could be reversed with a NPT-based resolution to the Iran standoff. It's unstoppable in the absence of one. Third, it will likely push Israel to shed even more of its posture of nuclear ambiguity than what Ehud Olmert revealed in apparently off the cuff remarks earlier this year, which would only accelerate the aforementioned regional race for nuclear capacities. In other words, it's a good thing that Cheney and his gang's nonsense have been revealed for the Iraq redux they are. But that doesn't diminish the need to deal very carefully with the very real dangers presented by an Iranian nuclear program outside the auspices of the NPT. One of the strongest arguments often made against the Iraq War, both in the run up and the aftermath, was that it was a needless distraction from North Korea and Iran, two countries whose nuclear ambitions were further advanced and more determined. Nothing about the catastrophic nature of the Iraq War diminishes the argument, as demonstrated by North Korea's newfound nuclear status. The NIE confirms that Iran has proven more cautious than North Korea, but it doesn't say anything about what happens next. There's no question that the Bush administration's approach to the standoff has been needlessly bellicose, and remarkably uncreative, given the openings for a broader kind of bargain that seemed possible in 2003. As Matthew Yglesias puts it, Sometimes you have to be willing to take yes for an answer. But in the rush to celebrate Cheney's defeat, we shouldn't treat Iran with kid gloves. My thoughts have evolved on this question over time, it's true, primarily due to getting pretty deep into the weeds on the issue. A unilateral strike would be disastrous. But so would a nuclear-armed Iran outside the NPT. Of the two, the second would probably be more manageable, and therefore less undesirable. But it's by no means a benign option. Again, the key is to keep the pressure on, but to make sure it's multi-lateral pressure. In addition to pressure, some sort of opening has to be offered to Iran, and given that Europe already has pretty strong commercial and diplomatic ties with Iran, that opening can only come from us. But Iran has to be held accountable for its commitments under the NPT. Otherwise they'll have bluffed their way into normalized relations, without ever revealing just what cards they're holding. Thursday, November 29, 2007 You Be The JudgeArmchair Generalist on today's DoD blogger's roundtable with Dr. Ali Al-Dabbagh, the Government of Iraq Official Spokesman:
American Forces Press Service on today's DoD blogger's roundtable with Dr. Ali Al-Dabbagh, the Government of Iraq Official Spokesman:
Yup. I think Jason nailed it. The guy's a maroon. Sunday, November 25, 2007 License To ILLaura Rozen directs our attention to this Yossi Melman Haaretz piece, which adds yet another veil of uncertainty onto the Israeli airstrike in Syria two months ago. Melman cites an Israeli professor who, after analyzing satellite photos, claims the Syrian site was not a reactor after all, but a nuclear bomb-assembling plant. The explicit assumption is that Syria was already in possession of the fissionable material necessary for constructing the bomb, and the implicit assumption is that it came from the only place on Earth where fissionable material is not held very accountable to the international community's standards of non-proliferation. This story had lain dormant for long enough that I was beginning to wonder whether or not it would re-surface. Of course, given the lack of any meaningful attempt to actually reveal what took place, as well as the epistemological challenges involved in using "intelligence" to convince anyone of anything anymore, there are two possibilities about the latest theory, namely 1) the phony reactor meme had been conclusively debunked, so it was necessary to find a new phony meme to alarm people about the threat posed by North Korea; or 2) the phony reactor meme doesn't even come close to doing justice to how seriously IL Kim Jong really is. I've always dismissed the worst-case scenario that has one country (usually Pakistan, North Korea and lately Russia) just handing over a bomb to another country (usually Iran and lately Syria) in a fit of pique over an American unilateral military intervention, mainly because it seems farfetched, but also because it seems implausible to assume that any of those countries would assume the risks of actually transporting a nuclear device. Anything approaching appropriate security measures would almost guarantee attracting surveillance attention, and any attempt to sneak the thing in would leave it too vulnerable to interception. But if the Melman story is true (and that's a big if), Kim Jong-il decided it just ain't no thang to sling some plutonium on The Corner of All Corners, the Middle East. And that's ill. Wednesday, November 21, 2007 Viral IntelligenceVia Andrew Sullivan comes this Matt Drudge interview:
This is relevant, if somewhat tangential, to a point I've been meaning to make about the evolution in what's known as "actionable intelligence". It used to be that actionable intelligence referred to intelligence that was so unimpeachable that it rendered a military response not only possible, but ipso facto legitimate and justified. (Think the satellite photos of the Cuban missile installations that President de Gaulle didn't even need to see to believe.) All that has changed in the post-"slam dunk" era. Now actionable intelligence is anything that, by meeting Drudge's standards with enough people, creates the political climate necessary for military action to be possible. (Think Bush's "sixteen words" or Colin Powell before the UN Security Council.) In practice it means that instead of intelligence generating the necessary course of action, a pre-determined course of action generates the necessary intelligence. Bush and Cheney have been particularly egregious offenders, but in all likelihood they won't be an isolated case. To be clear, this is more than just exagerrating an incident, like Tonkin Bay, or even provoking one. It's a reflection of how epistemology has been effected by the information age. The defining feature, as Drudge says, is no longer the relationship between a source's authority and the truth. It's between an individual piece of information and each individual's belief. And as far as I can tell, the increased transparency of the information age will do nothing to mitigate the effect of this dynamic. Partly because, as Drudge says, in an information environment devoid of authority, facts don't necessarily get the best of falsehoods. But also because people's sense of what's true is very often based on innuendo and association, rather than information. Mention Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein in the same sentence often enough and a sizable amount of people will be of the opinion that attacking Iraq is part of the War on Terror. The transparent falseness of the conclusion does nothing to mitigate the propaganda value of the technique. Tuesday, November 20, 2007 The Fogged Goggles Of WarI understand why Kevin Drum needed a drink after reading this Anne Applebaum column about the collateral damage of Iraq. Applebaum begins by correctly describing the impact of the Iraq War on our credibility, and as I wrote yesterday, Congressional Democrats would do well to pay attention to the way she frames her assessment of the good news out of Iraq (short version: don't get too excited about it). But after acknowledging the difficulty of convincing people to take anything we say seriously when they basically no longer take anything we say seriously, Applebaum goes on to lament that in such a climate of distrust, we'll never be able to convince our European allies of the need for a military strike. Which effectively leaves us with a policy of crossing our fingers and hoping that Iran either doesn't end up with a bomb, or remains deterrable if it does. Now, as things stand, I think a unilateral strike on Iran would be disastrous, so to see this kind of stuff on the WaPo editorially page definitely makes me want to reach for a drink, too. I'm also not convinced that the chances of the crossed fingers approach resulting in acceptable outcomes are zero, although that doesn't make it a very attractive policy option. But having said that, I think that on a broader level, the Iran standoff illustrates the way in which the Iraq War has fogged our own (meaning war opponents) goggles a bit as well. Take for instance Matthew Yglesias' use of a Richard Holbrooke quote about Saddam Hussein and Iraq from back in January 2001 to illustrate the risks of a hawkish Hillary Clinton presidency. As Kevin Drum later pointed out, a hard line on Saddam Hussein was perfectly reasonable in January 2001. As for Iran's nuclear program, I think that in the absence of the Iraq fiasco, a hard and even bellicose line would be widely regarded as reasonable today as well. In fact, were it not for the aftermath of the Iraq War, there probably would be broad domestic support for a unilateral strike -- or at least the credible threat of the use of force -- and probably tacit support in both Europe and the Middle East as well. Now that's not to say that such a consensus would have been any more correct today than it was in the run-up to the Iraq War, either on the facts or on the strategic consequences of such a strike. But if in the absence of the Iraq War, the Iran nuclear standoff would have risen to the level of liberal hawks' threat threshhold (which I think is the case), the question becomes, What has the Iraq War changed? Are we simply adjusting our foreign policy to the realities on the ground, or have we re-considered the underlying principles that led to the mistakes in the first place? I think it's a discussion that's worth having, if only to find out whether we're being pragmatic or wise. Friday, November 9, 2007 Progress Or Metastisization?By now the consensus is that things are going better in Iraq, and that all the major casualty figures are significantly down. Call me a cynic, but when I see the Iraqi government announcing that 46,000 Iraqi refugees returned home from Syria in the same week that the Iraqi Red Crescent announces that 67,000 Iraqi have fled their homes during the month of September, it makes me wonder. Even if both reports are correct, it still leaves a net outflow of refugees and suggests that the violence, like so many Iraqis, is just being internally displaced. Most of the reassuring casualty reports I've seen have been sourced to the Iraqi government or the American military. Both have a vested interest in showing progress. Even assuming civilian sectarian killings are down, if you take a glance at the weekly summaries of recent incidents over at Iraq Body Count, you'll notice how many Iraqi police (read: militia members) are being targetted. To my mind, taken together all this certainly reflects a significant change in what's going on over there. But I'm not so sure that's progress. Monday, November 5, 2007 Splitting HairsI think a more appropriate title for this article would be "Meeting Between Gates, Chinese Counterpart Yields Carefully Worded Statements". Instead they went with "Gates, China Agree On Iran Plan". Go figure. Sunday, November 4, 2007 From Paris With DisbeliefI find it hard to believe that Roger Cohen actually pulls down a steady paycheck for this. It's one thing for an op ed (if you want to call it that) to be poorly written, but this one lacks any substance as well. It's especially maddening to someone -- like yours truly -- trying to pitch articles on French politics, given the quota system on French political coverage in the American press. Friday, November 2, 2007 From My Blog To Obama's Ears?Either great minds think alike, or Headline Junky has got readers in high places. A few days ago, I posted a piece on Iran, suggesting the following:
Via Kevin Drum, comes this passage from an interview Barack Obama gave yesterday to the NY Times:
As long as you're listening, Senator, you can run a solid, issues-based campaign without searching America's soul. Drop the charismatic healer routine. You'd get my vote in a second. Sunday, October 28, 2007 Allez!!Via Art Goldhammer over at French Politics comes word that Nicolas Sarkozy walked out of his "60 Minutes" interview with Lesley Stahl after she asked him about his divorce from Cecilia. In the "60 Minutes" clip, you can hear Stahl wondering outloud, "What was unfair?", to which Sarkozy responds by basically giving her the French version of "Talk to the hand, girlfriend." Two things. First, while it's true that French political culture respects the boundary between a politician's public and private life more than in the States, Sarkozy is the French politician most identified with putting his personal life in public view. During his long rise to power, Cecilia was never far from his side, and was considered one of his closest advisors. Her trip to Libya to negotiate the release of the Bulgarian nurses was considered an official state mission. Second, by many people's best guess, Sarkozy wasn't above using the announcement of his divorce -- which he dangled for three days before finally officially announcing the day of the first major strike in protest of one his reform packages -- for his own political advantage. Needless to say, the top story that night on the news was Sarkozy vs. Sarkozy, not Sarkozy vs. the unions. So while I've yet to hear the exact wording of Stahl's question, in some ways the Sarkozy's divorce -- at the very least inasmuch as it effects his access to a close collaborator -- is very much fair ground. His reaction shows the "dark side" of a man known for seduction but capable of strong-arm tactics. Simply put, the guy likes to get his way. When he doesn't he can be brittle and crass, both of which are on display in the clip. Thursday, October 25, 2007 Allegedly Stupid, TooHere's the lede from today's LA Times article on the fallout from James Watson's remarks on race and intelligence:
Here's the offending passage from the Sunday Times profile/interview:
Now, I understand that the first remark is supported by enough research data to make it defendable, even if it is both highly contested and extremely provocative. Indeed, the context of the quotation as well as the profile in general demonstrate that Watson is no stranger to provocative, even inappropriate, declarations. But I just don't see how that second remark can be considered anything but flat out racist. There's no "allegedly" about it; it's the real McCoy. Even if Watson himself isn't necessarily a virulent racist, as evidenced by this passage which closely follows the above citation:
I don't know enough about the medical research community to know if there really is a shortage of qualified black candidates or not. But Watson strikes me as an Al Campanis-type, albeit a more articulate version. Here's a man who obviously does have a conscience, seems to have gone out of his way to advance the careers of individual black and female proteges, but in a moment of candor lets slip some wildly outlandish views on race, and elsewhere in the profile some veiled misogyny. As Watson himself said, the change in leadership at the lab is overdue. But imagine he weren't a 79 year old man at the tail end of his career, but someone with years ahead of him. Does the punishment fit the crime? Again, his actions seem to have been beyond reproach, and there's every reason to believe he'd engage in even more outreach and recruitment now that he's under the microscope. He also immediately took responsibility for his comments, expressing his dismay and regret at the sight of his own words in print. Is it possible the guy can get a pass on something like this? Update: Based on this comment from one of Josh Marshall's readers, I take it back. Screw Watson. The guy deserved it. Thursday, October 25, 2007 Off Their MedsThe slow trickle of satellite imagery and intelligence leaks about the Syrian site bombed by Israel last month is either increasingly incriminating or increasingly misleading. For the time being, I don't think there's any way for those of us without access to classified source material to know which. Should the claims of a nascent Syrian nuclear program prove true, though, it doesn't really matter how far off the actual threat was. The fact that they would even think of going down the nuclear road demonstrates just how unhinged the entire region has gotten, all the more so in light of the ease with which the facility was detected and destroyed. It would also seem to make the case that the threat of loose Russian nukes winding up in the hands of rogue states, the scenario so dear to Hollywood's heart, is largely overblown. Because no one in their right mind would go through all the effort of building a warhead, let alone a warhead that stands absolutely no chance of ever seeing the light of day, if all they had to do was mail order one from a down-on-his-luck Russian nuclear scientist. Wednesday, October 24, 2007 Saint BenazirI've been meaning to post about the strange cult of personality that's suddenly sprung up around Benazir Bhutto in the American press. Ken Silverstein just made that unnecessary. Getting run out of office by a military junta doesn't automatically make a crooked politician straight. Neither do backroom deals for immunity from prosecution. Bhutto's our horse in this race because, as a twice-elected former prime minister with a large and loyal following, she adds a useful element of credibility to the Pakistani electoral process, whether or not she brings her Swiss IRA's back home with her. Thursday, October 18, 2007 After The SurgeI've given up following whether the Surge has actually decreased casualties, civilian and military, in Iraq. Because I've honestly lost track of who's pedaling which numbers and how they came up with them. Which essentially means Mission Accomplished for Gen. Petraeus, because if someone who follows these things relatively closely -- as I do -- can't keep up anymore, the confusion must be pretty widespread. And in this case, confusion favors the status quo. Be that as it may, here's where the rubber really hits the road on the Surge:
It's only logical that the Surge should have had an immediate impact on levels of violence in Iraq, and it's even possible that it actually did. That still doesn't prove that it was a sound strategy. The final judgment will depend on whether the levels of violence remain low now that the surged troops are drawing down. So don't be surprised to see Petraeus working the refs over the next few months in an effort to inluence American public opinion. Because contrary to what some people might think, that (and not downtown Baghdad) is now the war's center of gravity. Thursday, October 18, 2007 The Reality-Based CommunityWhen I first stumbled across this brief item titled "Anti-Syrian Propaganda Unmasked" over at the Arab Monitor, I thought it was a fascinating example of disinformation made up out of whole cloth:
So of course I googled "israel strike un translation office" and -- lo and behold! -- it turns out it's disinformation made up out of half-cloth:
Not quite enough to justify the Monitor's conspiracy theory, especially since Western media have been reporting the target as a nuclear facility since well before Tuesday. But at least there's a kernel of factual truth buried in there. Sunday, October 14, 2007 Dept. Of Bitter IroniesHere's a rundown of today's headlines from a news page I monitor:
No word on whether they were able to keep a straight face. Thursday, October 11, 2007 The Little DeathIn answer to what Matthew Yglesias calls "the necessary questions" (Why the second wetsuit?), it's because human sexuality is such a complex intersection of biological urges, physical stimuli and psychosocial imprints that for some folks (read: most all of us to varying degrees) the only way to feel marginally in control of it is to keep it pretty tightly under wraps. Reverend Aldridge's death is just a remarkably vivid illustration of a universal phenomenon. So the need to ridicule him (and Larry Craig and John Vitter et al.) is understandable, and transcends (or more accurately is submerged beneath) the fact that they're all hypocrites. (I say that assuming that Rev. Aldridge espoused the typical "values agenda" of the Christian right.) Don't mistake this observation for sanctimony, because truth be told, I don't really care one way or the other. But this does strike me as one way in which the left engages in its own form of moral hypocrisy. Liberating politics from sexuality means more than just supporting gay marriage. It means eschewing macho posturing, avoiding the trap of the "bitch slap theory", and not stigmatizing people based on infantile conceptions of sexual gender roles. And the fact that "they (ie. the right) did it first" doesn't absolve us of not having the courage of our convictions. I'm under no illusions that we'll see the disappearance of this blind spot any time in the near future. Transformation is driven by transgression, which always puts it at a disadvantage when confronting the dominant ideology. Not very likely in an age where strength is increasingly fetishized as brutal dominance. But so long as we internally reproduce the dominant paradigm of sex, gender and power in our own political discourse, it makes no difference how superficially liberated we appear to be. We're still stuffing human sexuality, in all its messy complexity, into the comforting confines of a wetsuit. Wednesday, September 26, 2007 Charitable CausesRegular HJ reader Gerald Scorse donates $0.02 to the Gray Lady, pointing out the flawed logic often used by conservatives to argue against increasing the capital gains tax. Gerry's been a faithful supporter of the site since its inception, as anyone who clicks through to the Comments section knows. I've tried to convince him to put some of his thoughts down on the frontpage, but so far he's been too busy grazing on greener pastures... Monday, September 24, 2007 That, Mr. President, Is A DissOver the past week, there was some wringing of blogger hands and declarations of outrage over just how to deal with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Josh Marshall over at TPM suggested that it was beneath us to worry about the kind of propaganda points Ahmadinejad might score by laying a wreath at Ground Zero. Ezra Klein concurred. Kevin Drum wondered if he were alone in feeling queasy about letting such a creep use such a potent symbol for his advantage. While I didn't post about it, I agreed with Josh and Ezra that it revealed a certain brittle fragility to deny him the right to visit the site. I also agreed with Kevin, though, that it wasn't wise to leave him alone to mind the store, so to speak. My thinking was that we risked nothing letting him go down there, so long as we came up with a good PR riposte, like a delegation of 9/11 widows to meet him there with a petition demanding that he cease funding terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. But I think Columbia University President Lee Bollinger showed us all the proper way to handle the Iranian President. You call him out for the petty dictator he is. Because when it comes right down to it, the man is ridiculous. But that's easy to forget if we build him up into some malevolent super-villain. Thursday, September 20, 2007 That's A StartThe YouTube debate might have been flashier, but it really just amounted to the old debate format with a new gimmick. The Democrats' Online Debate, on the other hand, better exploited the strengths of the new medium. Charlie Rose asked the questions; each individual candidate answered fully. The viewer lines up the answers he or she wants to hear and clicks play.They call it a mashup, but it's more like a video archive of the candidates' substantive policy positions. If there's a drawback it's that the viewer selects the clips, so while the lesser known candidates get equal opportunity, they don't necessarily get equal exposure. But that's democracy, I guess. The customer is king. Now what I'd like to see is a series of round-robin, one-on-one debates between all the candidates, whether online or live. Whatever happened to the country of Lincoln-Douglas? Thanks to Jason over at Voices of Reason for the tip. Wednesday, September 19, 2007 Annoying Isn't A CrimeJust a quick follow-up to the Univ. of Florida tasing incident. By now, the video has gone viral. Conspiracy theorists are pointing to the coming police-state apocalypse. Consensus seems to have coalesced around the hypothesis that the student in question, Andrew Myer, is a jerk who intended to provoke an incident. It also appears that the viral video doesn't include the incident's debut, in which Myer jumps to the front of the line of questioners and interrupts another student at the microphone. Finally, according to an eyewitness, Sen. John Kerry did try to defuse the situation, in general, and to get the police officers to stand down, in particular. In light of which, the officers were probably justified in removing Myer from the microphone and the gathering, and I was probably unjustified in condemning Sen. Kerry for inaction. Be all that as it may, my main point was that this was an inappropriate use of the taser, and that in light of other similar abuses, there ought to be some national discussion and/or regulation of what constitutes appropriate use of it. The fact that the taser is non-lethal force doesn't make it universally applicable. And while abuses might persist in the face of regulation, at least there will be laws on the books protecting citizens and allowing for effective legal oversight. Tuesday, September 18, 2007 The Silence Is DeafeningThe web's been abuzz with speculation about what actually happened in Syria last week. So far, what's actually known is that Syria announced that it had fired on Israeli warplanes that had violated its airspace. Turkey later announced that it had recovered fuel tanks of the type Israeli fighter jets use on its border with Syria, and very mildly protested about the Israeli violation of its airspace. The rest is really speculation, because Israel has neither denied or confirmed the raid, and the only people who have commented on it have been "unnamed American officials" who at first suggested the target had been Iranian arms shipments transiting Syria for delivery to Hezbollah, and later tried to grow legs on a Syrian-Korean nuclear link story. The latter angle was picked up by the so-called "responsible" press, suddenly unable to resist a sensational story. But this story's significance, as Ilene Prusher of the CS Monitor points out, lies not in what happened, but in what didn't happen. Namely, a rousing condemnation of the Israeli provocation. Not only has no one forcefully reprimanded them (aside from the Syrians), there's almost been a tacit sigh of relief.
Whether or not that's the case, though, I think Prusher's spot on in her conclusion. Israel sent the entire region, but especially the Iranians, a message, and it was willing to jeopardize any chance of peace talks with the Syrians to do so. The message? It can do what it pleases. And it can do it with impunity. Thursday, September 6, 2007 Treating The WoundedWith all the debate over the Surge being reduced to whether or not the statistics for sectarian violence have gone up or down, and whether or not there's been political reconciliation from the top down or the bottom up, it's easy to lose sight of all the metrics that are being left out of the equation. For instance, this article from the IRIN news service which describes the crisis gripping Iraqi hospitals and clinics. According to the Iraqi Medical Association, roughly 75% of doctors, nurses and pharmacists have left their posts, and 55% have left the country altogether. Low wages and a shortage of equipment and medications are contributing factors. But the primary reason Iraq's doctors are packing up and leaving is the threat of violence from sectarian militias. In other words, the Bush administration and Lt. Gen. Petraeus have succeeded in defining the terms of the debate. And while we're all busy parsing the who, what, where, how and why's of casualty statistics, there's nobody left in Baghdad to treat the wounded. Which strikes me as a far more significant barometer of the country's viability, or lack thereof, than whether or not a bunch of thugs in the Green Zone have hammered out the fine print for how to divvy up the petro-dollars. Andrew Sullivan posted a video about a visual phenomenon, which he calls "inattention blindness", but which magicians call misdirection. This is the political version. When Iraq's doctors not only stop leaving the country, but start coming back, we can start talking about progress. Until then, it's all just smoke and mirrors. Sunday, September 2, 2007 Presidential Stand-UpHere's a funny exchange from a roundtable interview President Bush gave the foreign press in advance of next week's APEC meeting in Sydney:
It's striking how charming he can be when he's humble enough to be self-deprecating. But as soon as he's pressed with an agressive line of questioning, his pride gets the better of him and he comes across as petulant and embarrassingly simple-minded. Wednesday, August 22, 2007 Sarko The SlenderNicolas Sarkozy has often been accused of having an unhealthy influence over the French media. In one famous episode, he allegedly had the editor of Paris Match fired after that magazine ran a cover photo of Sarkozy's at-the-time estranged wife, Cécilia, with her lover in New York. Apparently, the message got through, because in Paris Match's August 9th edition, a photo of the French President canoeing with his son was re-touched to remove Sarko's protruding love handles. The magazine's explanation?
In other words, all they did was lighten the photo a bit and the pounds just disappeared by themselves. Here's a side-by-side of the original and doctored photos. You be the judge. Tuesday, July 24, 2007 The Prose And ConsIf you like flawless prose, rich character portraits and seamless development, click through and read Dominick Dunne's Vanity Fair article on the Phil Spector trial. Think Raymond Chandler meets Gore Vidal. Friday, July 20, 2007 Softcore ClintonUmmm, maybe I'm missing something, but I don't understand why I keep seeing this referred to as showing cleavage. Monday, July 2, 2007 Our Man In TurkmenistanKen Silverstein provoked quite the little brouhaha over at Harper's with his Abscam-style reporting on Washington, DC lobby shops and their willingness to shill for brutal dictatorships in exchange for hefty fees. Some folks questioned his undercover methods in posing as an associate of the government of Turkmenistan. I'm just wondering if President Bush's decision to waive trade sanctions for Turkmenistan (under the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the Trade Act of 1974) was a freebie the lobbyists organized before they realized Silverstein wasn't on the up and up. Monday, July 2, 2007 Corporal Cutten PasteI've mentioned before how the US Army's official news page carries a sidebar with links to often-critical coverage of the US Army. I'm not sure if this is official policy, or if it's just the result of some malcontent HTML programmer buried deep in the bowels of the Pentagon. I prefer to think of it as the latter, even if it is unlikely that he or she would go unnoticed for this long. At any rate, my favorite Army programmer just outdid himself, by linking to this story about the deteriorating mental health of American GI's over at Press TV. In case you're unfamiliar with Press TV, it's the brand-new, 24-hour news service launched today by... the Iranian government. (Among their other breaking stories is one about the US decision to dust off a plan to deploy NATO forces in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.) In all seriousness, though, I wonder if the army could find a way to be less heavy-handed in terms of media management, without necessarily broadcasting the enemy's propaganda. Thursday, June 28, 2007 Bandar's CutFollowing the spate of stories this month about Tony Blair shutting down an investigation into BAE's greasing Prince Bandar's palm to the tune of $2 billion, the Justice Department has opened an investigation of its own. Ostensibly, they'll be trying to determine whether the funds that BAE pumped into a Stateside Saudi governmental account were for Bandar's personal use or for his official functions, as he claims. But the real question is, Why all the attention now? A friend of mine here, a Dutch ex-pat who worked on the original Yamamah contract in the 1980's auditing the construction component, told me that the kickbacks in general, and for Prince Bandar in particular, were common knowledge from the very beginning, to the point of being a running joke in the accounting department. It's also not the first time that investigations into the project were opened and closed. So, again, why an investigation into a business deal between two close allies, and why now? Friday, June 15, 2007 More Dept. Of Shameless PlugsFor anyone interested in French politics, I've got another article up over at The American Prospect. This one's about the legislative elections, and in particular, how Nicolas Sarkozy turned a hard-fought presidential victory into an overwhelming parliamentary majority in just over a month. Drop any feedback you might have in the Comments here. Wednesday, June 13, 2007 Franken's TimeJosh Marshall and Al Franken, separated at birth? Maybe it's just the glasses. The other thing that occured to me watching the video interview is that Franken's comic persona offers him constant cover in the event that he says something kind of lame or unsophisticated. There were a couple of times where I couldn't tell if he was deadpanning or choking, and I just chalked it off to him being Al Franken. Whereas if it had been someone else, I probably would have thought he had just said something kind of lame or unsophisticated. Sunday, June 10, 2007 Nancy & LauraFunny how when Nancy Pelosi wore a veil to meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad, it was a sign of meekness, diffidence, and surrender. But I don't recall hearing a word about this photo on the White House website:
You'd think that if the President can address the Pope as "Sir" instead of "Your Holiness" then Laura could ditch the veil. And in case you're wondering whether it was just part of the snazzy outfit, here's the First Lady later that day, meeting with the Italian President's wife. Friday, June 1, 2007 Hold The OutrageThat Dutch reality show where the dying woman chooses who she'll donate one of her kidneys to? It was a hoax. Tuesday, May 29, 2007 Dead Trees UpdateSorry for the light posting this weekend. I've been finishing off two articles for the summer issue of WAD Magazine (articles are print only, unfortunately). The first is an interview with Martha Cooper, who's best known for her work documenting the 1980's graffiti art movement in New York. Before that, though, she focused on children at play in the streets of New York. The book, Street Play, is just now being released here in France. I highly recommend it, for anyone who loves New York , children or photography. Martha's a genius, and a really cool genius to boot. (You can take a look at some more of her photography here.) The second is also an interview, with a French rapper called Rost. You might remember the riots in the French housing projects two years ago. Rost decided to form an association to encourage the kids to register to vote, which they did in record numbers. He then organized a "citizen's tour" whereby he interviewed all the major French presidential candidates about issues affecting "les banlieues". Now he's busy organizing a political structure to keep the pressure on the politicians. Did I mention he's funding it all himself? Definitely an inspirational figure, for whom "...utopia is the reality of the future." So if you're in Paris this summer, keep an eye out for the magazine. Saturday, May 26, 2007 Police State RevisitedRemember when I mentioned that the news page on the Army's official website has a sidebar that often links to critical or unflattering media coverage of the Iraq War? Here's what's up there today:
I'm not sure, but I'd be willing to wager that that compares pretty favorably to most militaries worldwide. I'm also beginning to wonder if there isn't some disgruntled programmer working in the Army's web shop. Friday, May 11, 2007 Out Of The Frying Pan, Into The FireAccording to an LA County Fire Dept spokesman quoted in the LA Times, "the backbone of the fight" against the wildfires threatening Catalina Island are small firecrews from the Fire Camp program. "They're the frontline, infantry," the spokesman went on to say. But if one of the crew members ever tries to bum a cigarette off you, be sure to say no. Not because it's a fire risk. But because the firecrews are actually made up of non-violent inmates on loan from the California Dept of Corrections and Rehabilitation. And as the Fire Camp website says:
There's also this nugget:
Oddly enough, the LA Times didn't see fit to inquire as to whether and how much the inmates are paid, as well as whether the CDCR gets a cut. I did, however, and I'll keep you posted as I hear back from the CDCR. Update: I just heard back from the CDCR. The inmates are paid $1.00/hr. while on emergency assignment, and $0.20/hr. for non-emergency work between fires. Which begs the question, Are these positions that the Fire Dept has trouble filling? Or is this just an obscene cost-cutting policy? I'll follow up on that next week. Another Update: Something I forgot to mention: One of the Fire Camps is made up of juvenile inmates, or "wards", who are paid at the same rate. And something that occured to me after I published the post: If you're a non-violent offender in California, and you've got the dough, you can buy yourself a spot in a "soft" county jail. Otherwise, you've got to put your life on the line fighting fires for eight bucks a day if you want to avoid doing time with hardened criminals. Can we get prison reform onto the list of Democratic priorities for 2008? Wednesday, May 9, 2007 Hold The HysteriaAlthough there's every reason to be vigilant and indignant about the Bush administration's multiple infringements upon our civil liberties these past six years, it's also important to recognize how lucky we are to live in (or in my case, to come from) a country with such a strong tradition of free speech. Take the US Army's website, for instance, and in particular it's News page. Sure, it's peppered with the kind of fluff pieces and propaganda excercises that you'd expect. But if you take a look at the righthand sidebar you'll see a box titled, "World Media News Today". Here are the headlines I found today when I checked in with the site:
This isn't the first time that I've found highly criti |
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Which gives me the perfect excuse to unload this photo, which I've titled "The Mack" and have been holding onto for just such an occasion.
My 