NYT Still Getting the Story Wrong

A May 26, 2008 article about media coverage of the Iraq war had this to say:

" 'Ironically, the success of the surge and a reduction in violence has led to a reduction in coverage,' said Mark Jurkowitz of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. 'There is evidence that people have made up their minds about this war, and other stories — like the economy and the election — have come along and sucked up all the oxygen.'

But the tactical success of the surge should not be misconstrued as making Iraq a safer place for American soldiers. Last year was the bloodiest in the five-year history of the conflict, with more than 900 dead, and last month, 52 perished, making it the bloodiest month of the year so far. So far in May, 18 have died."

So, paragraph 5 says the reduction in violence led to a reduction in coverage. Paragraph 6 says there's been no reduction in violence.

I guess this logical fallacy is called denial of the antecendent:
P -> Q
~P
Therefore, ~Q

Source: Carr, D. (2008, May 26). The wars we choose to ignore. The New York Times. Retrieved May 26, 2008, from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/business/media/26carr.html?scp=1&sq=wars+we+chose+to+ignore&st=nyt

Civilisation

I'm watching the 1969 BBC series Civilisation: A Personal View by Kenneth Clark.

On Diderot and the Encyclopédie, Clark says: "And in the Encyclopédie he wrote articles on everything from Aristotle to artifical flowers. The aims of the Encyclopédie seem harmless enough to us but, you know, authoritarian governments don't like dictionaries. They live by lies and by bamboozling abstractions; they can't afford to have words accurately defined."

This observation seems completely true to me. I think about Orwell and the language of 1984 and Animal Farm; I remember all the times Chomsky has talked about defining the word 'terrorism.'

Clark also says: "The remoteness of Versailles had this good result: that Parisian society was free from the stultifying rituals of court procedure and the trivial day-to-day preoccupations of politics. The other thing that made Eighteenth Century salons a source of enlightment was that the French upper classes were not destructively rich. They lost most of their money in a financial crash brought about by a Scottish wizard named David Law. As I've said several times, a margin of wealth is helpful to civilisation, but, for some mysterious reason, great wealth is destructive."

I don't know enough about this topic to comment, but I was struck by the recent trend, well documented, of the wealthy becoming simply grotesquely rich and how the whole country has seemed to go down the crapper in the same time frame, i.e., the last thirty years.

I Guess He Needed the Advance

John Bolton was recently interviewed in The New York Times. Here's one question:

Question: A lot of Americans would say that if we haven’t done it in Iraq we can’t try regime change in another nation.

Answer: I think it’s almost beyond dispute that we were right to overthrow Saddam and the threat his regime posed.

Beyond dispute?? Threat?? If he isn't even going to acknowledge reality there's no sense commenting on this gibberish.

Source: Solomon, D. (2007, November 4). Questions for John Bolton: The diplomat. Retrieved November 3, 2007 from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/magazine/04wwln-Q4-t.html?ref=magazine

Proof of Propaganda

As a firm believer in Herman & Chomsky's "Propaganda Model," I'm always looking for the offhand, validating comment. (Chomsky's Web site has an article synopsizing this model.)

In that horrible rag, The New York Times, this weekend, they had two paragraphs that relate:

"Rick Wilson, a Republican consultant based in Florida who has worked for Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, and Katherine Harris, the former Florida congresswoman, among others, said that most states have their own expressions for the circumstances under which open secrets stay secret. In Florida, he said, it’s the 'Three County Rule' — no girlfriends within three counties of your home district. In New York, it’s the 'Bear Mountain Compact' — nobody talks about what politicians do with their free time once they’ve crossed the Bear Mountain Bridge en route to Albany from points south.

'There’s a similar phrase in every state I’ve worked in,' Mr. Wilson said. 'In a lot of cases it’s because the principals involved are powerful, and a lot of the people who know are aides or staff or lobbyists or even reporters who rely on these people for access. So you end up with this feeling of, ‘It’s just business, it’s not affecting their work.’ Once it starts affecting their work, then the rules change.'"

Source: Goodnough, A. (2007, September 2). Oh, everyone knows that (except you). The New York Times. Retrieved September 3, 2007, from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/weekinreview/02goodnough.html?pagewanted=1

The Times Continues its Fine Reporting

of some alternate universe.

This weekend, David Brook's reviewed the book The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation. His review ends with the line "The best way to win votes — and this will be a shocker — is to offer people an accurate view of the world and a set of policies that seem likely to produce good results. This is how you make voters happy."

I sure hope Mr. Brooks isn't advising any presidential candidates because he is dangerously out of touch with reality. (Or he's in third grade.) Politics has nothing to do with offering people an accurate view of the world. Politics has nothing to do with offering people a set of policies. Politics has to do with manipulating people's emotions and reducing your argument down to the simplest visual image possible repeated ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

Paris Hilton spends more time in Jail than Scooter Libby

I saw someone post that observation somewhere.

1. Obviously, the administration is full of hypocrites. Let's not pretend we discovered this fact today.

2. I wonder how FBI agents feel tonight? Libby's commutation is probably a great morale booster. Way to go, Mr. President! First destroy the effectiveness of our military forces, next destroy law enforcement and intelligence. Are we sure Bush isn't an al Qaeda operative?

Pope Forgives Mass Murderer?

L'Osservatore Romano via Associated Press

From the New York Times: Pope Benedict XVI met with President George Bush this week. Smiles all around for a man who is responsible for the deaths of hundred of thousands of people. These deaths are officially -- note: officially -- not counted, by policy of the Department of Defense. The United States -- the most moral nation on Earth; God's chosen country; leader of the free world -- kills people and officially refuses to count the number of victims.