me, I got issues.

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irrelevant stuff from 05

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Thursday, January 26 2006

The Courier-Journal’s ombudsperson has an article about the Ray Nagin “Chocolate City” comments. The paper had changed the mayor's characterization to “a majority African American city.” Why? The short answer: We messed up. It's not a monumental goof, but it's one that fuels suspicions some readers have about the news media in general and this newspaper in particular. That's why I'm addressing it today. A copy editor who worked on the first day's wire story paraphrased Nagin's remarks because he did not want to give offense to readers. It’s the job of a copy editor to change what a public official says in order to prevent giving “offense”? I know that giving offense is a sin, provided it's the right kind of offience Some kinds of offense are fine, depending on who’s being offended. I don’t care if the lingerie ads offend the burqua demographic, or whether a picture of a mixed-race couple in the homes section makes bigots knit their brows and hum a few bars of the "Horst Wessel Song" until they reach a centered place again. But who would be offended by the mayor’s remarks? Certainly not those who agreed with him. Perhaps those who agreed but preferred the sentiment to remain unsaid. Or perhaps those who wre offended by the desire for cultural and racial preeminence in the rebuilt city, and who thought the mayor’s opinions – let alone his theistic justification – was not exactly “inclusive.” (We must be inclusive, lest we offend.) A mayor who declared that God or Zeus or Cthulu had decreed that his town remain a white as a bedsheet would be excoriated, and rightly so. You'd expect that would be reported without worrying whether it offended minorities, unless you want to suggest they can't handle blatant racism coming from civic officials. In short, as public utterances go, it was stupid enough to deserve a few days’ kicking from the locals, and Here’s the punchline: Though the editor's personal sensibilities are to be admired, this time they did not serve the readers, or the newspaper, or journalism. This time. Apparently it’s happened before, and you have no idea how many times something has been changed because the editor’s personal sensibilities – the editor’s admirable personable sensibilities – led him or her to paraphrase the truth for your protection. When they say they have gatekeepers, they aren’t kidding. WILEY CARTOONIST, SUPER GENIUS: Shut up you small people typing on the internet! Your presence alarms cartoonists noted for isometric layouts featuring the same lumpy guy in a suit staring blankly at a sign! Go back to consuming media instead of creating it! You're spoiling everything! AARON MCGRUDER CAN'T SAY THAT, CAN HE: In a similar vein, Boondock's ultra-timely Mad Cow Disease week kicks off with the Stabbing Glare of Huey, rips off Peanuts for some fall-down-funny & brilliant political humor (Bush is teh stup1d lol), doubles back for more Mad Cow humor that suggests Cheney is evil AND confronts our quavering resolve with the Stabbing Glare in a two-panel shot, then winds up the crucial, ripped-from-the-headlines Mad Cow week with a long-form single-panel masterpiece that combines the Stabbing Glare with a "other white meat" joke. And the other white meat, in an unexpected twist, is pork! How does he get away with it? (Perm link)

Monday, January 23 2006

Let’s say that George Galloway, Ramsey Clark, and other luminaries of the international progressive movement got their wish. Let’s say Saddam was still in power. The war never happened. How would he have reacted to the Iranian nuclear program? * You guys go ahead, I’ll stick with Russian artillery pieces. Besides, those things are more trouble than they’re worth! The testing, the maintenance, the hiding – it’s like having six wives! No thanks. I’ll sit here in my palace and smoke my cigar and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism, thank you. * Or: Colorful Tikrit-specific profanity; hurled ashtrays, and a crash program that laundered oil-for-food kickbacks into a secret weapons program facilitated by Libyan and North Korean assistance with information from the A. Q. Khan network, conducted under the indifferent eye of a world tired of pretending they cared about Iraq. Some would actually prefer option number two, since it would give the region a “balance of power.” Well, tell that to Egypt, which came out against Iran’s nuclear-bomb plans right around the time VP Cheney dropped by. Huzzah: that annual $2 billion bribe is finally paying off. Tell it to the Saudis, as long as you’re in the neighborhood – Prince al-Faisal opposes the Iranian bomb, although he blames Israel for the problem in the first place. Damnable pesky nation, insisting on surviving: the sheer cheek of those Jews. Tell to IAEA Director-General Mo ElBaradei, sporting the rented testes diplomats like to use when diplomacy has proved futile, borrowed some teeth and threatened the Iranians with “force” if additional palaver fails. No one wants Iran to have the bomb, except the apocalyptically-minded mullahs. For them there is no God but Allah, and Robert J. Oppenheimer is his messenger. At least it’s not that bad. Scott Ritter could be defending Iran. So what now? The Iranian situation has the creepy eerie overtones of the Iraq debate – the gathering threat, the nuclear ambitions, the frowny faces of UN diplomats preparing the thirteenth Strongly Worded Document, complete with threatened revocation of parking garage privileges. But things are different now. The American left believed in Iraq’s WMDs and terrorist links in the 90s because it gave them much-needed hawk cred; it was Viagra for their dovish side. Also, it was true. But they've spent the last two electoral cycles preaching defeat, insisting that the Administration says something’s a threat, it’s a lie, a diversion tactic, an election ploy, a floorwax AND a dessert topping. Oh, they’ll suggest that Iran should have been the main target in the first place, but if the US had invaded Persia in 03, we’d be looking at huge casualties, an occupation that continued to this day (quaqmire!) and evidence that the Iranians were still years away from a bomb. Years! And we invaded on that slender pretext? Impeach! Well, something’s going to happen. Iran is taking delivery of some anti-aircraft missiles from Russia in March, press reports say (Thanks, Vladimir! Anything we can do for you? Besides having the NYPD put the boot on all your UN limos?) One suspects that President Bush is disinclined to do the long slow gavotte with the UN again, especially when half the big players have been in bed with Iran so long they feel comfortable enough to complain about the Khomenie-patterned sheets. (Honestly, monsieur; c’est creepy.) The US may attempt a political change, since the great mass of urban educated decent Persians would rather rejoin the outer world than blow it up. The mullahs, however,, looked brittle and nervous a few years ago; now they look downright insane, and seem determined to turn their nation into one collective suicide bomb. If there are attacks that set back the program, and they don’t inspire a wave of nationalism that strengthens the mullah’s hands, and the threat is pushed off three years, and the Bush administration ends with the neutralization of the region’s worst actors – well, you can imagine what the progressives will say. “What about North Korea? You did nothing about North Korea. We’re no safer than ever. Oh, one more thing - don’t you DARE do anything about North Korea.” You can’t win. But we must. (perm link)