Category Archives: World Events

Celebrities and the State of the News

I think we all get tired of celebrities spouting their political opinions, as if being famous makes them insightful. There are a few I do view as insightful. Not Sean Penn. Not Babs Streisand. Not Alec Baldwin. But George Clooney–there’s a smart fellow who understands the media and the vanities of Celebrity Land. Yeah, I know, he’s in the “liberal” camp. But I’ll listen to what he has to say (just as I’d sooner listen to Al Franken than a self-absorbed, truth-twisting weasel like Bill O’Reilly).

Anyway, I read an online interview in which Clooney talked about foreign relations (he’s been doing a lot of work on behalf of Darfur), and talked about how the rest of the world views us as unilateral bullies. Which we are.

But he also talked about the news (and he comes from a news background). He said this: “24-hour news does not mean that you get more news. It means you get the same news more.”

Ain’t that the truth! At one time, The Latest Missing White Girl Story would get a minute on the evening news. Now it gets a whole evening, getting handed off from one talk show to another, each exploiting the story with nothing factual to add (though, thankfully, MSNBC and CNN are getting away from that cycle).

He mentions the recent story about the three hikers stuck on an Oregon mountain. “It was 24 hours of three guys stuck up on a mountain. A tragedy, but it is three guys who chose to go out on a mountain for sport and had a terrible accident. Yet there were hundreds and hundreds of people dying in vicious attacks in places all around the world; there were tons of news stories that day that were so much more important to what was going on in the world.”

This is why I increasingly appreciate Keith Olberman (MSNBC), Lou Dobbs (CNN), and Anderson Cooper (CNN), all of whom avoid the “sensational” story in favor of other things that matter. Cooper, especially, gets out of the studio and does original stuff that people should care about. But for the most part, the national media gurus are lazy penny-pinchers, blanketing stories that cost little to cover, rather than venturing something new that might require airfare.

The three national broadcasts–CBS, ABC, and NBC–still do good stuff. But they’re done in a half hour, and that’s it. Then we must switch over to the cable channels, which run the latest sensational story into the ground while recklessly flinging around self-righteous pronouncements. But it’s not as bad as it used to be, as long as you avoid Headline News, whose evening schedule is a wasteland of fluff.

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My View on Stem Cell Research

Okay, time for me to pontificate about stem cell research and reveal my view to the world.

My view is: beats me. I haven’t examined the issue for myself, and haven’t had that much interest in doing so. I know that the party line is that Christians are supposed to be against it, but though I’ve heard and read a few things, those reasons haven’t clicked into place. The opposition seems to be coming from the more rabid end of the anti-abortion crowd, and I’m not comfortable letting their views be the “Christian” view. And yet, I haven’t given the subject enough attention to provide an informed opinion. And since my mind doesn’t get along well with issues of biology and genetics, I’m not sure I’ll ever figure it out.

So don’t ask my opinion. I don’t know what I believe, and don’t foresee crafting an opinion in the near future. On this subject I’m a self-proclaimed dummy. On all other issues, I’m merely a dummy who thinks he’s got something to say.

Now isn’t this one sorry excuse for a blog post?

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A Democracy in Iraq? Riiiight!

George Bush justifies our Iraq adventure by saying we are spreading democracy. But….

  • Can Iraq be a democracy if 80% of Iraqis want the US out of their country, yet we stay anyway?
  • Can Iraq be a democracy if it’s unsafe to be a minority–a Kurd, a Christian, a Sunni?
  • Can Iraq be a democracy if women are oppressed?

Tony Campolo raises these questions on the “God’s Politics” blog. He says Iraqi voters are choosing a Shiite government that embraces Shia law. That Christians face much more persecution than they did under the comparative protection of Saddam Hussein, and that their numbers have declined from 1.4 million to around 700,000 (he cites a United Nations report). That the new parliament is “showing signs of increasing the oppression of women.” A hallmark of a democracy, Campolo writes, is that the government makes it safe to be a minority. An excellent point.

Fareek Zakaria, in the current Newsweek, says the Shiite politicians he talked to “seemed dead set against sharing power in any real sense.” If not for the US presence, they (and the predominantly Shiite army) would crack down viciously on the Sunnis. The Sunnis, the main insurgents attacking US troops, would be massacred without the presence of US troops. The world is a complicated place, George.

To be fair, Iraq’s new government is very young. Heck, we didn’t have democracy in the United States until 1920, when women were given the right to vote (and then you can argue that blacks weren’t really free to participate in the political process until the 1960s). I think it was Pat Buchanan, speaking on the Daily Show, who said the American model of democracy is: first you say everybody is free and equal, 100 years later you free your slaves, and 60 years after that you let women vote. So we can’t expect perfection out of the Iraqis yet.

But neither should we accept the delusions of George Bush that we are creating a democracy in the Middle East.

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Reporting from the Congo

Last week I noticed that Anderson Cooper, on CNN, was doing a series of reports on location in the Congo. I really didn’t have time last week to pay much attention. Something going on every night. But tonight, as I surfed around during football commercials, I noticed that they were showing Cooper’s CNN reports. Something in me wasn’t interested. It was Africa, and everything is dismal in Africa. Whereas NFL games are fun. My urge was to surf on by, and eventually meander back to the NFL game.

But I stopped myself. Why wasn’t I interested in this report on Africa? We criticize news media for acting like Africa doesn’t exist. And here was CNN, pouring no doubt millions of dollars into reporting on the needs in Africa (Sonjay Gupta was also reporting from Chad for Anderson Cooper). And I wasn’t interested? I preferred football?

So I told myself, “Steve, you need to be interested.” And I stayed. And I watched the report. And I was fascinated. This was really great reporting, and I’m better for having watched it. So thanks, Anderson, for taking such an interest in something which, sadly, doesn’t interest too many of your viewer and may have even been a ratings loser for you. Thanks for taking more of an interest than I usually take in Africa. And thanks for putting yourself at risk to inform complacent viewers about the enormous human needs in the Congo and elsewhere.

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Rita Cosby “Reporting”

RitaCosby.jpgLong Blonde Anchorperson: This is an MSNBC Extremely Urgent Special Deluxe Alert. Here is Senior Sensationalism Correspondent Rita Cosby with her very serious and earnest report on something which isn’t all that earth-shattering, but Rita lusts for airtime. Here’s Rita.

Rita Cosby: Thank you. I’m here in Boulder, Colorado, with a late-breaking exclusive that Greta and Paula would die for. Earlier today, it was reported that John Karr, the suspect in the JonBenet Ramsey murder, ate a Red Delicious apple yesterday and, according to sources close to the investigation, admitted that he really likes apples.

MSNBC has now confirmed that on December 26, 1996, the day of JonBenet’ Ramsey’s murder, the grocery store nearest to the Ramsey home, a Safeway, ran a special on apples. Specifically–and this is where the story gets very interesting–the apples on sale were Red and Golden Delicious apples. Newspaper archives from that day show that, indeed, a prominent ad announced this special sale. This seems too bizarre to be mere coincidence.

This information could potentially give John Karr a motive for being in that particular neighborhood on that particular day. No doubt prosecutors will be deposing store cashiers from 10 years ago.

MSNBC will continue covering this and other Extremely Important Breaking News as it breaks, until Hurricane Ernesto strikes the southern US, and I need to go stand in the wind and show my journalistic bravado by exclaiming about the gustiness.

This is Rita Cosby in Boulder, doing what passes for “reporting” nowadays.

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Hisbollah’s Worst Nightmare

France_Soldiers.jpg

Hizbollah is scared. The top leaders are scurrying around in a panic, holding meetings to determine if there is any–any–way to successfully face this new threat soon to descend on southern Lebanon.

The French are coming.

The very thought strikes fear, terror, and fashion-consciousness in the minds of warriors everywhere. In its typical shock-and-awe, overwhelming-force manner, France_ArmyKnife.jpgFrance is sending 200 soldiers to southern Lebanon as part of the battle-hardened United Nations contingent. Some of these French soldiers are even trained in the more exotic arts of war, such as loading and, under extreme conditions so long as nobody might get hurt, firing a weapon. And they all carry, in an easily accessible pouch next to their hair gel, the vaunted French Army Knife (right).

Hisbollah’s fighters are quaking in their, uh, whatever they wear. They know that if they fire rockets into Israel or commit other warlike actions, the vigilant French will…watch. With disapproval, mind you. Vigilant disapproval, which they skillfully communicate nonverbally. If such activities continue, the French will escalate to whining. Better wine is now produced in California, but the French remain masters of The Whine.

And if that doesn’t quell Hisbollah’s hostility toward Israel, the French will do what has always, for them, been a matter of very early resort. They will surrender. This is what Hisbollah fears most. Because when the French surrender, it can mean only one thing.

The Americans are coming.

The Americans will first assert their air superiority over Hisbollah by bombing absolutely everything in sight, including Chinese embassies. Then Congress will appropriate billions of dollars to rebuild what they bombed, financing it all by further cutting taxes to the rich, which makes perfect sense to the Bush Administration. The Americans will then arrive en masse and stay for, oh, 15-20 years. And….

Well, actually, that might be kind of fun for Hisbollah.

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Those Who REALLY Fought for Freedom

We’ve all heard about the slaves who fought against the British during our War for Independence. But since victors write the history books, we haven’t heard much about the thousands of slaves who fought for the British. Slaves were well aware that slavery had been outlawed in England; if they could just reach the British Isles, they would be free at last.

The British offered freedom to any slaves who came to their side to fight against the American revolutionaries. An estimated 100,000 slaves (one out of five) fled the US by the end of the revolution. One was George Washington’s slave, Harry Washington, who ended up dying outside of Freetown, Sierra Leone. When the defeated British departed after losing at Yorktown, 15,000 former slaves went with them. Two new books, one by an English historian and one by an Australian historian, tell this forgotten piece of America’s story and what happened to these slaves, who were dispersed to England, Africa, Australia, and elsewhere.

So here’s what’s interesting. We celebrate our forefathers for fighting for freedom. They were not exactly “unfree,” but did have grievances about taxes and other issues. Meanwhile, here were these thousands of slaves who were, absolutely, fighting for freedom. And when the British lost, thousands were returned to a life of slavery (while their masters could celebrate the lower cost of tea).

But there are other interesting twists. Why were they slaves to begin with? Because of the British slave trade. While slavery was illegal in England itself, they hadn’t outlawed the slave trade on the high seas. The US, in 1808, outlawed the overseas slave trade, but still permitted slavery on US soil. Ah, what a web. Thomas Jefferson originally wrote about this in an early draft of the Declaration of Independence, criticizing King George for violating the “sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery.” In addition, he said King George had vetoed efforts in the colonies to abolish or restrain slavery, and was now offering these slaves the “liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded [imposed] them.”

Alas, some signers felt that paragraph was too harsh, some felt it was too soft, and so they struck it from the final document which landed on King George’s desk.

Ironically, at war’s end, five of Jefferson’s own slaves were recaptured as they tried to flee behind British lines. Now who was imposing slavery on whom? Don’t ya just love this stuff?

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My Own “Farris Hassan” Moment

Hurray for Farris Hassan! I think it’s marvelous that this young man was so zealous about nabbing a story that he made his way to Iraq. Yeah, it was dumb. Yeah, I’d be horrified if I was one of his parents. But I find his journalistic enthusiasm and initiative to be energizing. Plus, it reminds me of a very stupid thing I did when I was only a few years older than him.

I guess I was 20. It was my junior year of college, and I was taking the January Term off (you only needed to take 3 of the 4). I spent January working in a grocery store during the day, and then doing layout for the local newspaper in the evening. It was great fun. However, I’d been taking journalism classes at college, had just read “All the President’s Men,” and figured I would become a newspaper reporter. And so, I yearned to get “out in the field.” And that’s a very appropriate term in the San Juaquin Valley of California.

Migrant worker camps, peopled mostly by illegal aliens, could be found in various places around us. Maria, one of our favorite patrons at the grocery store, came every few weeks and loaded up with hundreds and hundreds of tortillas, plus several 100-pound bags of flour. She was a cook in one of the camps.

Anyway, I decided to go “investigate” one of the camps, see what kind of story I could roust up. And so one day I drove my parents’ car many miles through cotton fields and vineyards until I found a camp. I parked by the road, crossed a field, gently scaled the small barbed- wire fence which ringed the camp, and began walking down the dirt paths of the camp. Most of the people lived in shacks of indeterminate age. A woman stood in front of one. I approached, talked to her with highly broken Spanish, and peered through the screen door to find kids playing on the all-dirt floor. She didn’t say anything back.

Meanwhile, a number of Hispanic guys were watching me closely, and others kept joining them. I waved, and continued walking through the camp. It began dawning on me how stupid I was. I didn’t see any stories in sight. I couldn’t converse with the people. And I was beginning to feel a bit afraid. I hadn’t told anybody where I went. I could disappear without a trace. So I turned around, headed back over the barbed-wire fence, across the field, and to the car. I could see camp folks watching me as I drove away.

I don’t think I ever told my parents about that.

Yes, it was stupid. But it was industrious! Like Farris! He’ll be a great journalist someday. If he doesn’t get himself killed first.

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2000

We’re now on the verge, or maybe over the verge, of having 2000 US soldiers killed in Iraq. It’s pretty amazing that we conquered the country with, what was it, less than 200 killed in action? I guess it’s like Quintus told Maximus in the movie Gladiator, “People should know when they are conquered.”

People should also know when they’re being taken for a ride.

A couple months ago, I was at an event and heard a lady telling another, “Every year 3000 people are killed on highways here in the United States. That’s less than have been killed in Iraq. So no matter what they tell you on the news, it’s actually safer to be in Iraq.”

She noticed me listening, and said, “Isn’t that right, Steve? It’s safer in Iraq than on our own highways?”

I told her, “That’s 3000 out of 250 million. In Iraq, it’s a couple thousand out of maybe a half-million US soldiers who have been in and out of the country.” And she didn’t really know how to answer that.

Where did she hear that? From Rush Limbaugh? From Fox News? Ann Coulter? From Jerry Falwell or James Dobson? Beats me. But I’m tired of the right-wing apologists for whatever the Bush administration does. Or, I’m tired of gullible Christian conservatives automatically believing whatever nonsense these apologists barf up. I’m always ticked when black leaders gloss over whatever Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton say and do, giving them a pass on everything from credibility to morality. But we Christian conservatives aren’t a whole lot better. I voted for George Bush twice, without apology. But I’m hugely, HUGELY disappointed.

But I’ll save that for a post some other time. No sense rushing in to totally alienate the legions of conversative Christians who devour my every post.

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Smoke Over the Vatican

I thought the white smoke thing was pretty cool. All this tradition, going back a couple thousand years, regarding the selection of a Pope.

In 1999, Pam and I visited the Vatican as part of a larger two-week tour of Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and stop-overs in a few other countries. In every news report showing the Vatican, my eyes go right to St Peter’s Basilica. Of all the great sites we saw during that trip, St Peter’s was at the top for me. It was just so unbelievably massive. The pictures don’t do it justice. You can walk and walk and walk inside. There are all kinds of nooks and crannies, all kinds of great sculptures and paintings to see. Totally, totally impressive. The Sistine Chapel was unbelievably cool, too, but the Basilica transcended it, for me.

The Apostle Peter himself is buried under the building, which gives special meaning to Christ’s words, “On this rock I will build my church.” We Protestants would argue that Christ wasn’t referring at all to the Basilica or the Roman Catholic Church in general, but to the Church universal. But why couldn’t Jesus have been using a double meaning? I’ll bet he was. For a long time, the Catholic Church was THE church, pretty much. But since my knowledge of church history has serious gaps, I’ll stop here, lest I betray my ignorance by saying something stupid.

It’s pretty amazing, when you think about it, that the Catholic Church has remained so conservative. Sure, there’s lots of deadness, and I’m sure there are liberal pockets (like in the USA). But in the Vatican, where the buck stops, a conservative/orthodox spirit reigns when it comes to theology. This, after 2000 years. Think of some of the Protestant denominations, like the United Methodists, and how liberal they have become in less than 200 years of existence. What is it that we can learn from the Catholics in this regard?

This summer, our National Conference will elect a bishop–the same one, or a different one. I’m sure there will be jokes about white or black smoke, as the ballots are distributed and counted and reported. Maybe I’ll make such a crack. But I must admit–there is beauty in some of these rituals. I’m sure there is plenty of allure to post-moderns, who tend to be drawn to this stuff. If all of this attention draws unchurched people to the Catholic Church, that would not be a bad thing.

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