sysrick.com

French's Mustard: Eat me! I'm not French!. Mustard-maker goes on the PR offensive amid nationwide fits of wartime anti-France fervor:

"The only thing French about French's Mustard is the name," the company announced. The mustard-maker said it felt obliged to hire a PR company to set the record straight after some media reports suggested it was being -- or should be -- boycotted because of its "French" links. A report on CNN apparently showed one restaurant replacing French's mustard with a Heinz product. "For the record, French's would like to say there is nothing more American than French's Mustard," it said, referring to its New York origins.

Link, Discuss, (via TKblog) [Boing Boing Blog]

So loud sound the drums of hate.... A Pyrrhic victory in a catastrophic "March of Folly"? - historian Barbara Tuchman asked: why do leaders persist in pursuing catastrophic policies? Regardless of Baath regime executions of Iraqis, the Islamic world will witness mainly "American Atrocities" - and be outraged by gruesome images, on Al Jazeera and elsewhere, of every single child killed by American bombs. Iraqi tactics - of suicide bombing, ambushes, and faked surrenders - will erase the civilian/combatant distinction, leading to more and more incidents like this (to be televised to an appalled Islamic world): and all this merely a foreshadow of what may be urban warfare on a scale seldom seen in the 20th century. Grozny comes to mind. Mainstream US media asserts that the solution for the whole "miscalculation" is just more US troops

But the war is tailor made to provoke tribalistic, Pan-Islamic fury (and corresponding, furiously tribalistic US patriotic support for war). Escalation is in the air: statements by Rumsfeld, Powell, and the US State Dept. indicate an awareness that the current war could spread, drawing in Syria and Iran. Consequences also could include the destabilization or the takeover, of nuclear armed Pakistan, by Islamic militants, and a Nuclear miltarization across a wide region, from Iraq to Japan.

If only this were "South Park: The Movie", where the onset of Armaggeddon can be stopped by an heroic act of sacrifice by Kenny. [MetaFilter]

Atwood: America is selling itself out. Margaret Atwood, Canadian literary star and author of "The Handmaid's Tale," wrote a stern open letter to the USA in yesterday's Globe and Mail. The war isn't what's got her upset, though: it's the Bush Administration's exploitation of the war to undermine the civil liberties that define America as the city on the hill, the democratic proving ground to which all other democracies can aspire.

You're gutting the Constitution. Already your home can be entered without your knowledge or permission, you can be snatched away and incarcerated without cause, your mail can be spied on, your private records searched. Why isn't this a recipe for widespread business theft, political intimidation, and fraud? I know you've been told all this is for your own safety and protection, but think about it for a minute. Anyway, when did you get so scared? You didn't used to be easily frightened.

You're running up a record level of debt. Keep spending at this rate and pretty soon you won't be able to afford any big military adventures. Either that or you'll go the way of the USSR: lots of tanks, but no air conditioning. That will make folks very cross. They'll be even crosser when they can't take a shower because your short-sighted bulldozing of environmental protections has dirtied most of the water and dried up the rest. Then things will get hot and dirty indeed.

You're torching the American economy. How soon before the answer to that will be, not to produce anything yourselves, but to grab stuff other people produce, at gunboat-diplomacy prices? Is the world going to consist of a few megarich King Midases, with the rest being serfs, both inside and outside your country? Will the biggest business sector in the United States be the prison system? Let's hope not.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Greg!) [Boing Boing Blog]

No Matter How Bad It Is, It's Lots Worse Than You Think © 2003, John H. Farr Every day brings more outrages. Every day it's another over-the-top insanity. One of these mornings I'll be able to tell you some good news, but not just yet. Take a gander at this and tell me why we're not impeaching the entire executive branch: "US Soldiers in Iraq Asked to Pray for Bush"[FarrFeed]

"Bill Moyers" [Daypop Top 40]

A sig that spread like wildfire. People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die. If you've been hanging around the net for a while, chances are you've seen this in someone's sig. In fact, it's so frequently quoted that it makes finding Jim Davidson's original post in alt.folklore.urban just a bit difficult to find -- but it's worth looking for! It sits in the middle of an interesting debate about how poisonous plutonium is, spurred on by the rumor(?) that it's one of the "most toxic poison[s] known to man." Deadly poison, Los Alamos Scientists, levitating hemispheres of metal... all it really needs to round it out is true love. [MetaFilter]

'TIME-TRAVELER' BUSTED FOR INSIDER TRADIN. Hey, it has to be true. It was on the Internet. Remember it was published in Weekly World News. Always check The Urban Legends Pages when in doubt. [A Man with a Ph.D. - Richard Gayle's Weblog]

Quotes of the Times

The best thing Maureen Dowd has written in years:  "We're stunned to discover that the local population treats our well-armed high-tech troops like invaders. Why is all this a surprise again? I know our hawks avoided serving in Vietnam, but didn't they, like, read about it?"

Garry Wills: "Bush has been very good at fooling the American people into thinking that Saddam Hussein was behind the attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington."

[EdCone.com]

Why Can't Reporters Do a Better Job? - Brad DeLong.

The Economist seems to be slipping lately in the quality of its economic reporting. One reads paragraphs like: Taxing Times: ...Economists are divided about the wisdom of slashing taxes in this way, without trying to balance the books. Last month, around 450 economists, including ten Nobel laureates, openly criticised the tax-cut plan: in response, the White House quickly marshalled support from economists who took a different view. Mr Bush has been arguing that his tax cut will itself have a beneficial impact on economic growth, and that as a result the deficits projected under current methods will turn out to be overly pessimistic... And one wants to scream. What "...economists who took a different view..."? Alan Greenspan--number one Republican economist--who says that now is definitely not the time to cut taxes? Douglas Holtz-Eakin--until two months ago Chief Economist at Bush's Council of Economic Advisers--who, now that he heads the Congressional Budget Office and is out from under Karl Rove's message discipline, politely says that it is "not obvious" why anyone would think the tax cut would have a beneficial effect on growth? Bush's own ex-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who says that shoring up Social Security would be much better than more tax cuts? The fact that the CBO--controlled by Republicans for a decade now--thinks that the dynamic scoring argument is a big fat zero? The fact that the Bush Administration cannot hold a significant fraction of its own appointees "on message" after they leave the Administration is a powerful and important signal that its "analytical judgments" are simply lies. Yet the Economist prefers to turn it into a "he said, she said" story--leading the average reader without copious spare time to conclude that this is just another random political dispute that outsiders cannot untangle. When I get annoyed enough to get in the face of reporters (not, I hasten to say, from the Economist) who I think fail to carry their weight, and ask them why they do this--why they turn everything into a Point-Counterpoint bald recital of positions, rather than helping guide their readers to understand what is the better argument, or the near-consensus position, I tend to get one or both of two responses:

• I can't do my job without White House cooperation: if I call them liars, they'll shut me out--then I won't be able to write any stories, and my editors will fire me. I have to keep my sources tamed.
• Besides, there are clues scattered in the article that a careful reader can use to understand what is really going on.

Just like everyone esle, 90% of the reporters are incompetant (Sturgeon's Law). I do like the reasons given, especially the clues one. Yeah that helps. And what if the editor removes the important clues? What a way to run a newspaper! But it is true that Ari will make them sit in the back if he doesn't like the way they ask their questions. As any press secretary is wont to do. Status is very important for the press at the White House. [A Man with a Ph.D. - Richard Gayle's Weblog]

Underpants gnome episode of South Park describes how many businesses think [FARK]

How to keep your job [The Pragmatic Programmers]

Great timing, guys.

[Outwardly Normal 2]

03/27/03: Life With TiVo. TiVo is going to change the world of television as we know it, and soon. [I, Cringely @ PBS Online]

The Forver War: time to read it again. I picked up a copy of Joe Haldeman's classic novel The Forever War last night as a gift for a friend, but I'm going to keep it. I got to re-reading it last night (for the first time in nearly 20 years) and couldn't put it down. Haldeman wrote this novel after returning from his tour of duty in Vietnam, and the book made the rounds, getting turned down by publisher after publisher, by editors who recognized the book's merit but questioned the political savvy of publishing a war-novel. Eventually, Joe rewrote one section of the book, softening it, and finally, the book saw print, becoming an instant classic. The new, author's preferred edition restores the original text, and is absolutely timely and engrossing. Link Discuss [Boing Boing Blog]

Saturday, March 29, 2003 6:23 PM. VIRGINIA WOOLF ON INFO-SURFING

From THREE GUINEAS (1938):

'Let us the begin by summoning, if only from the world of imagination, some daughter of an educated man who has enough to live upon and can read and write for her own pleasure and, taking her to be the representative of what may in fact be no class at all, let us ask her to examine the products of that reading and writing which lie upon her own table. "Look, Madam," we might begin, "at the newspapers on your table. Why, may we ask, do you take in three dailies, and three weeklies?" "Because," she replies, "I am interested in politics, and wish to know the facts." "An admirable desire, Madam. But why three? Do they differ then about facts, and if so, why?" To which she replies, with some irony, "You call yourself an educated man's daughter, and yet pretend not to know the facts -- roughly that each paper is financed by a board; that each board has a policy; that each board employs writers to expound that policy, and if the writers do not agree with that policy, the writers, as you may remember after a moment's reflection, find themselves unemployed in the street. Therefore if you want to know any fact about politics you must read at least three different papers, compare at least three different version of the same fact, and come in the end to your own conclusion. Hence the three daily papers on my table." Now that we have discussed, very briefly, what may be called the literature of fact, let us turn to what may be called the literature of fiction. "There are such things, Madam," we may remind her, "as pictures, plays, music and books. Do you pursue the same rather extravagant policy there--glance at three daily papers and three weekly papers if you want to know the facts about pictures, palys, music and books, because those who write about art are in the pay of an editor, who is in the pay of a board, which has a policy to pursue, so that each paper takes a different view, so that it is only by comparing three different views that you can come to your own conclusion--what pictures to see, what play or concert to go to, which book to order from the library?" And to that she replies, "Since I am an educated man's daughter, with a smattering of culture picked up from reading, I should no more dream, given the conditions of journalism at present, of taking my opinions of pictures, plays, music or books from the newspapers than I would take my opinion of politics from the newspapers. Compare the views, make allowance for the distortions, and then judge for yourself. That is the only way. Hence the many newpapers on my table."

Hence also the increasingly lengthy list of bookmarks on my browser, the most valuable of which seem to be multi-source indie synthesizing operations on the order of The Agonist.

FEARFUL SYMMETRY?

Message in a bottle, found on the Internet:

" Initiating preflight check..."

1. Cabal of oldsters who won't listen to outside advice? Check.
2. No understanding of ethnicities of the many locals? Check.
3. National boundaries drawn in Europe, not by the locals? Check.
4. Unshakable faith in our superior technology? Check.
5. France secretly hoping we fall on our asses? Check.
6. Russia secretly hoping we fall on our asses? Check.
7. China secretly hoping we fall on our asses? Check.
8. SecDef pushing a conflict the JCS never wanted? Check.
9. Fear we'll look bad if we back down now? Check.
10. Texan in the WH? Check.
11. Land war in Asia? Check.
12. Rightists unhappy with outcome of previous war? Check.
13. Enemy easily moves in/out of neighboring countries? Check.
14. Soldiers about to be dosed with our own chemicals? Check.
15. Friendly fire problem ignored instead of solved? Check.
16. Anti-Americanism up sharply in Europe? Check.
17. B-52 bombers? Check.
18. Helicopters that clog up on the local dust? Check.
19. Infighting among the branches of the military? Check.
20. Locals that cheer us by day, hate us by night? Check.
21. Local experts ignored? Check.
22. Local politicians ignored? Check.
23. Local conflicts since before the USA has been a country? Check.
24. Against advice, Prez won't raise taxes to pay for war? Check.
25. Blue water navy ships operating in brown water? Check.
26. Use of nukes hinted at if things don't go our way? Check.
27. Unpopular war? Check.

"Vietnam II, you are cleared to taxi."
[William Gibson]

Rumsfeld shows the strain as he comes in the line of fire. I have met many smart but arrogant men in my life. The problem that happens is when they make a mistake, which all of us do, no one gives them a break. Out comes the knife. The old saw about being treated on the way down the way you treat people on the way up is true. I am flabbergasted in the quote by Rumsfeld that this is Tommy Franks war plans. Well, yes, technically it is but only because he had to come up with the plan in the confines that Rumsfeld set. Guys like this have a hard time ever admitting they may have made a mistake and are awfully quick to point fingers. Watch to see how this progresses in coming weeks. There apparently have been big discussions in military circles about the two strategies being taken. I think the end of the article displays the viewpoints of two of the most important men in our government. A quote from Teddy Roosevelt in Rumsfeld's office::

Aggressive fighting for the right is the noblest sport the world affords.

And from Powell's, a quote by the Athenian historian Thucydides:

Of all the manifestations of power, restraint impresses men the most.

[A Man with a Ph.D. - Richard Gayle's Weblog]

Be a one heart- It is a time to celebrate and not allow yourself to get sucked into fear. 

Message from the Hopi - People of Peace
August 2002

You have been telling people that this is the Eleventh Hour,
now you must go back and tell them that this is the Hour.

And there are things to be considered:
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.
It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.
This could be a good time!

There is a river flowing now very fast.
It is so great and so swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold onto the shore.
They will feel they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination.
The Elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open and our heads above water.
See who is in there with you and celebrate.

At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally,
least of all, ourselves.
For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey,
comes to a halt.
The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!
Banish the word 'struggle' from your attitude and your vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones we have been waiting for.

The Elders
Oraibi, Arizona
Hopi Nation

TOP

 [MetaFilter]

The Best Voice for the anti war movement. Amy Goodman AMERICAN HERO but not on WAMC? Democracy now an informitive and hard hitting program produced by Pacifica Radio was asked for many,many times during WAMC's recent fund drive prompting WAMC's dictator in charge alan chartock to state "its on a lot of stations but not WAMC" Why is that? Afraid of rousing the ire of AG ashcroft?I think we should see if old alan is up to giving a good reason why! [MetaFilter]

Peter Drucker. "Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]

the fiction timeline collection. The Historian of Things That Never Were: Edgar Governo collects timelines, chronologies, and histories of events that never happened, to people and things that never existed. Like who? Like Dr. Who, and Final Fantasy VII, Gargoyles, Buckaroo Bonzai, Gulliver's Travels, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and many more. [MetaFilter]

From the "decisions that look bad in hindsight" department: Saddam Hussein received the key to the city of Detroit in 1980 [FARK]

Orson Welles. "Gluttony is not a secret vice." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]

Jon Stewart on Halliburton's Iraq contract. Jon Stewart -- who appears to be doing the best reportage on the air these days -- reports that the multimillion dollar contract to douse the Iraqi oilfires has awarded with no bid to Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's former company. Stewart's comment: "I feel like the government just took a shit on my chest." Here's a video capture of the segment. Link Discuss (Thanks Lisa!) [Boing Boing Blog]

Leading change.

Creating change.

From Dave Pollard's excellent new blog, How to Save the World, comes a piece of advice that could be helpful for people who want to effect change in just about any sphere of activity. It also hints at the challenge inherent in such an agenda.

[...] Change Management is all about getting people to do different things, or things differently. In business, the guru of the moment on this subject is John Kotter. In his book Leading Change he describes the eight steps to getting people to do different things or things differently, and they are irrefutable:

1. Establish a sense of urgency
2. Form a powerful guiding coalition
3. Create a vision
4. Communicate the vision
5. Empower others to act on the vision
6. Plan for and create short-term wins
7. Consolidate improvements 
8. Institutionalize the change

The underlying principle here is that, in business as in real life, you don't bring about sustained, meaningful change by edict. You need to persuade, enthuse, and engage people in sufficient numbers to change behaviours, laws or processes. If you want to do this in your business, buy Kotter's book, since that's what it's focused on. But the same preconditions apply to political, economic, artistic, scientific, spiritual or moral change. Whether the change agent is a preacher or a politician or a philosopher or a post-modernist, the process is the same. [...]

[Seb's Open Research]

Kotter's to do: list is remarkably succinct.  This could be a manifesto for anybody at work (which reminds me of Gary Hamel's assertion, I think in Leading the Revolution, that we can all be leaders, whatever our station).

[Curiouser and curiouser!]

Shuttle loss and death by PowerPoint. Here is a disastrous twist to the expression Death by PowerPoint. Edward Tufte: The 3 reports concerning the possible tile damage on the Columbia prepared by the Boeing engineers have become increasingly important as the investigation has developed. The reports provided the rationale for NASA officials to curtail further research (such as photographing the Columbia with spy cameras) on the tiles during the flight. Here is a close analysis of an important slide from a Boeing report. ... On this single slide, in a PowerPoint festival of bureaucratic hyper-rationalism, fully 6 different levels of hierarchy are used to classify, prioritize, and display 11 simple sentence... Read it all. [via Signal vs Noise]

See also: Faulty epistemology and the loss of the Columbia [Jinn of Quality and Risk]

Spherical bubbles in beer diverge light because the air they contain has a lower refractive index than the surrounding fluid [FARK]

Movies Follow-Up

I began by wandering around Blockbuster reading the backs of video boxes and taking my chances. From there I moved to Netflix and started working my way through Roger Ebert's top 100 list.

Witness the next stage in my movie evolution - suggestions from you.

The comments from my Movies post yesterday are wonderful and increasing by the hour. I don't want us to lose what is becoming an amazing and long list of movie (okay, and film) recommendations.

I'll wait a day or two until things slow down, then I'll create a movie page, listing all the recommendations and who made them.

This could become an ongoing project. I don't really feel like planning ahead that much, but who knows?

My Netflix queue is packed full. Thanks everyone. Keep em coming.

Preacher

[Real Live Preacher]

NYT op/ed on Clearchannel, the Dixie Chicks, and US media monopoly. In the NYT today:

By and large, recent pro-war rallies haven't drawn nearly as many people as antiwar rallies, but they have certainly been vehement. One of the most striking took place after Natalie Maines, lead singer for the Dixie Chicks, criticized President Bush: a crowd gathered in Louisiana to watch a 33,000-pound tractor smash a collection of Dixie Chicks CD's, tapes and other paraphernalia. To those familiar with 20th-century European history it seemed eerily reminiscent of. . . . But as Sinclair Lewis said, it can't happen here. Who has been organizing those pro-war rallies? The answer, it turns out, is that they are being promoted by key players in the radio industry — with close links to the Bush administration.

The CD-smashing rally was organized by KRMD, part of Cumulus Media, a radio chain that has banned the Dixie Chicks from its playlists. Most of the pro-war demonstrations around the country have, however, been organized by stations owned by Clear Channel Communications, a behemoth based in San Antonio that controls more than 1,200 stations and increasingly dominates the airwaves.

Link to NYT item, Discuss [Boing Boing Blog]

Public Service Tip No. 8: Scavengers Get Fatter than Predators. Among carnivores there are two primary means of finding food: killing your own and eating something that someone else has killed. The conventional wisdom is that it is better, and more respectable, to be a predator than it is to be a scavenger. The truth of the matter is that being a predator is dangerous. The animals that you're killing frequently fight back. What's more, being in control of your own destiny, so to speak, isn't necessarily the best strategy for getting fat. Scavengers frequently fare better than predators. [Phil Windley: Life as a CIO]

From the eMail Box...

"You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, The Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the US of arrogance, and Germany doesn't want to go to war."

Thanks to Dave Paulsen for sharing...

[A Public Space for Self Expression]

What he said.

Peter Shaplen, broadcast veteran, chimes in

My partner in production efforts, Peter Shaplen, who began his career as Walter Cronkite's desk assistant, chimes in. Alas, Peter is blogless, so I'm posting this for him:

Once again we are confusing technology with editorial substance. The ability to see a military column with night-scope technology and moving in the dark is neither a news event in itself nor indicative of anything strategic.

Asking a reporter to "tell us the latest" from there is gratuitous. First, from his perspective this milepost is not significantly different from the one 5 minutes earlier. Second, from his humvee and note it is NOT the command vehicle he is no better off than any other forlorn private in the convoy being carried along in the desert.

We have entered a media war with reporters and cameras embedded with troops, subanchors in Qatar and Kuwait, and if they could, news organizations would likely rent their own AWACS to create skyboxes much the way they are accustomed to covering political conventions.

But the sad reality is that they have little to say, little to offer in terms of news, and it seems from the first 4 days of coverage, they have little if any intention of gathering news.

They are doing a play by play. They are content to tell us about mile posts and sand as if that is a substitute for reporting on the progress of the war or the condition of the men or the leadership of the generals.

This has once again - become more about the media than the war.

In Gulf War I, Arthur Kent was dubbed the Scud Stud in some sort of weird accolade as the bravest or sexiest reporter on the beat.

We have yet to see who will emerge as the next Beauty in a Bush Jacket for Gulf War 2, though I am certain that, once again, there are countless talent agents hoping and coaching their clients to become the next Ashley Banfield.

War reportage is not about the personalities of the reporters covering the war. Thus far, those reporters embedded with the troops have done an appallingly poor job of truly introducing us to the men they are covering.

We have no sense of them, their view of the war, the perspective of the GI. We have no sense of how they view their commanders. We have little insight to how they feel about being there. And who could blame them? Speaking honestly in the military or expressing the counter-to-the-prevailing-wisdom opinion is not healthy for one's career.

So in turn, the media turns to itself to discuss and debate how the campaign is going.

The networks (and local stations) ploy of having a platoon stand and proudly, happily and loudly proclaim they are the "such and such of the whatever company, Good Morning America" or "Hi Mom, I love you and we'll be home soon" is a poor substitute for substance.

Murrow did find substance tho aboard the night bombing mission over Europe. He introduced us to the boys. He let them speak. We could listen and hear that they were truly just like the young men of our town. We knew them. We related to them. We felt their fear and their sense of mission.

Jack Laurence did it too with his work for CBS on Charlie Company. His book "The Cat From Hue: A Vietnam War Story" (2002, Public Affairs) should have been required reading for all of the reporters embedded in Gulf War 2. Its 848 pages are a chronicle of a tortured media experience covering a US led coalition.

But it took time. It took time weeks for Laurence to become part of Charles Company. It took a commitment from a network to enable him to do itŠ support itŠ film it. And they gave him air time. Not enough perhaps, but he won it by sheer reporting excellence.

That rarely exists today. While we are being treated to war 24/7, there is almost no time set aside for true reporting.

The vast amount of air time has become consumed by live shots and interviews with experts and listening to one anchor after another remind us that he/she was recently in the theatre of operations and which time they sawŠ or they were toldŠ or they heardŠ As if! As if their access and tour wasn¹t as scripted or controlled as anything we might imagine.

My point is that war, just like so many other stories the media claims to be expert at covering, does not unfold nicely, neatly or on a timetable. Yet many in the media who should know better seem to be looking for a perfect fit.

Once upon a time, war correspondents and photographers would file their dispatches that would be printed hours (or days) later. Attacks and counter attacks were long completed before the first dispatches ever appeared for the homeland readers. There were political debates of course. And in time, the memoirs of the generals and the politicians would be published to fill in whatever gaps remained. In some cases they were shocking accounts. In others, they revealed true strategy and surprise.

Today, we want the instant gratification of knowing where the troops are going, what they are expecting, what the outcome will be, and what will they see next.

It is as if the progression of the Third Marine Battalion into Iraq was a Discovery channel travelogue. But "My Journeys With Bravo Company on the Road to Baghdad" is not what this war is about.

One cannot fault Brokaw, Jennings, Rather or the others for at times tossing to the embedded reporter in desperation to hear anything new, but they should (and do) know better than to expect any truly astounding news. They can look sincere, concerned, puzzled and reflective until their crows feet grow deeper and become more embedded on their own faces, but the handoffs to the satellite-phone equipped field reporter is likely to garner very little that is "news."

In fact, there is very little news period. And that should be no surprise. This is war coverage. It is deliberate and progressive.

Following Coalition Commander in Chief General Tommy Franks news conference Saturday morning, NBC¹s Today show did a rather good recap between Katie Couric and Jim Miklaszewski featuring "Mik's" insight to what he heard that was significant and what he heard/read between the lines of Gen. Frank¹s statements. It was solid interpretation and offered value.

But what also seemed apparent was that the real value of the Couric-Mik dialogue was to fill the time required to get Matt Laurer¹s signal and Kelly O'Donnell into an IFB harness to report from Qatar.

No sooner did Couric handoff to Laurer than he tossed to O'Donnell to elaborate on her questions regarding Turkish incursion along the northern border. For any one who had been listening for more than 15 minutes, we had already heard her original question and Franks' answer. There had been no opportunity for follow up. There had been no other question asked on the subject. Once Frank had left the room on live TV, there had been no chance for additional questions with other senior officers as she was hustling to get ready for her live shot.

In short, O'Donnell's question had been asked and answered in the news conference. Now she was being called upon to merely regurgitate on national, live TV. Why? Because they had a signal to Qatar and needed to put something--anything--on it.

I am often critical of the way media local more than national covers a plane crash. For instance, how often have you watched as the NTSB has arrived at a crash site before a reporter earnestly asks for the cause of the accident. Any one who has watched more than 15 seconds of news knows that an accident investigation moves at glacial speed and can be as exciting as watching paint dry, nonetheless we watch from the sidelines as a reporter asks an unanswerable question. "So do you know the cause of the crash?"

It is like watching a traffic accident in slow motion. The reporter licks their lips take a deep breath knowing that they have the air and asks with a booming voice, "So what do you think was the cause?" And within a nanosecond, the grimace from the NTSB lead investigator reveals not only his/her contempt for the media but dismisses the reporter with a terse, "We only just arrived."

It will be months if not a year before the NTSB files its report. It will no doubt be considerably longer before that reporter learns how to be a journalist.

What is served by asking a question that cannot be answered at that time?

The same holds true at the Pentagon of JOC briefing. Reporters - standing there earnestly asking questions that they know are unanswerableŠ I am left to wonder, for whom are they performing? Are they posturing for the general? The TV audience at home--or more specifically for their bosses at 30 Rockefeller Plaza or West 57th and 67th Streets?

General Franks will not be tricked into divulging news. He has been too well media trained and is not going to reveal the secrets of the campaign on live TV.

We can watch our news anchors breathlessly throw to the reporters in the field for the latest updateŠ we can watch them twist slowly, helplessly in the wind as they chat amicably back and forth between the field and NY anchor podsŠ but we would be mistaken to think or expect that news is going to break out in these exchanges.

There are specific kinds of news from a war. There are of course the pictures. Dating back to Matthew Brady, there are pictures. Apart from a location caption, often times the pictures require nothing more.

The picture of the burning of London, St. Paul¹s Cathedral, or the faces of the huddled population in the Underground speaks volumes.

For any one who doubt the power of this with troops in the field, I refer them to the work of Larry Burrows of Life Magazine. (The magazine resources must be available somewhere; surely his book "Compassionate Photographer" can be found).

We continue to see a derivation of this in the live cameras from Baghdad. All that is really needed from those vantage points is the summary of "We're looking north...." or "the building on fire is the palace of...." We don't need much more because the picture itself is the story.

We don't need to be told the building is on fire if in fact we can see the flames. Telling me that is to tell me the obvious. Tell me instead what time of day is it, was the building likely occupied, were there air raid signals in advance of the explosion, were people seen running from the scene, are there ambulances removing the injured, are fire crews able to get to the scene?

We have heard none of that reporting.

We have heard plenty of hit-runs-and errors kinds of summary, "Oh that was a big one," or "Tonight¹s explosions were louder than last nights." Forgive me if I dismiss this is as not substance but rather play-by-play and color commentary punctuated by bomb blasts.

The next type of reporting is the on scene report. In Vietnam this was usually obtained by small crews (a reporter, cameraman and soundman) who truly risked their lives by traveling to a forward base, persuading the military PAO to put them on a chopper and ferry them to a hot spot. They shot their story, did a few interviews, asked some fairly decent questions both on and more off camera (for film was expensive and heavy), and then it became the responsibility of the reporter to put it all together. To add depthŠ to add perspectiveŠ to bring his or her knowledge and prior experience to bear and create a tapestry of the news.

In Nicaragua and El Salvador, we managed to get there on our own usually arriving as uninvited guests. Now in Gulf War 2, the media is being carried along as official guests. But thus far, the censored and self-censored coverage has been reduced to a play by play of a road trip.

The last kind of reporting and sadly it cascades out of the TV and radio is exactly what the press used to deride as the "Five o'clock follies" that was the daily staple of MACV (Military Assistance Command Vietnam the precursor of the JOC at the Coalition Command Post). There on a daily basis, senior officers would interpret the news and field reports for the Saigon based press corps.

The only difference today is that the networks have hired their own interpreters and experts from the retired ranks of the military to cut out the middleman. They do their own "follies." For it is surely a folly to ask an arm chair general in suburban Virginia to interpret a campaign about which he has little, if any, first hand knowledge.

We are also being treated to former journalists who have pitched themselves as experts to local media. In San Francisco, one former Vietnam reporter has been hired to sit on the set and explain in depth the military strategy. He is offering little more than what has been gleaned from the printed press from network pundits and from other, previously available sources. Yet sitting on the anchor set he and the host proclaim, as if they have just assessed this on their own, that the attack on Iraq "will be a coordinated one" or "will open with a blistering air campaign followed by ground columns from the south, west and north." As Homer Simpson eloquently says, "Well, doh."

We are receiving an overwhelming amount of noise in this war. Noise from the battlefield, from the JOC, from the Pentagon, and from the anchor desk.

Instead of sifting out the best to present that within the news window, the window itself has been expanded to "take it all in" and to present it back in often an unedited, unshaped fashion.

The press has abrogated its responsibility to be editors rather preferring to become facilitators.

Unable or unwilling to edit and shape the reporting, they are content to use technology to let it flow into our living room.

Unwilling to risk upsetting the political apple cart by taking a stand or showing something it fears would be unpopular or worse, deemed unpatriotic, the network/mainstream media has decided it is safer, politically wiser, economically advantageous to be a "pipe" rather than an editorial resource.

Yes, we¹ll get to "see it live" though it remains uncertain just what "it" is. If war is death and destruction and pain and blood and suffering and loss, then we surely haven¹t seen "it" yet.

Instead, we have seen and heard noise and bombast.

Live feeds, individual captions, blogs and so much more technology enable us to experience this battle, but often as not much more than a game show.

I have yet to see anything that shows me the war has begun that people are paying the supreme price and that the technology has improved either the editorial understanding of the campaign or will prevent us from new wars to come.

[RatcliffeBlog: Business, Technology & Investing]

[Curiouser and curiouser!]

Michael Kinsley on the Bush Doctorine. Well, at least you know where Michael Kinsley stands. We seem to have a greater Imperial Presidency than we did with Nixon. Perhaps, since we are at war, Kinsley's comments should be scaled back, as Supreme Court judge Antonin Scalia has stated. Of course, since there is not real endpoint to a war on terrorism, when would we get these rights back, Mr. Justice? [A Man with a Ph.D. - Richard Gayle's Weblog]

Statistical Pings.

"[T]he United States spends more on trash bags than 90 other countries spend on everything. In other words, the receptacles of our waste cost more than all of the goods consumed by nearly half of the world's nations." [Fast Company]

"There are nearly 5 million households in America with a net worth of at least $1 million." [Fast Company]

The number of appellate decisions ordered depublished by the California Supreme Court in 2001-02 was at a 20-year low of 23. The high water mark for the period was 1983-84, with 154. [Administrative Office of the California Courts]

[Bag and Baggage]

Mountain Fix © 2003, John H. Farr This picture is from Thursday morning. I never get tired of taking pictures of Taos Mountain because it's different every time. I also dig it because it belongs to the Indians. So does all the land in the foreground, for that matter. Something in me really likes that, probably because the Pueblo won't ever build a subdivision there. Okay, sure, another casino maybe, but let's count our blessings while we can. [FarrFeed]

The New York Times Editorial/Op-ed One Subsidy Too Many [requires 'free' registration]. "Americans are depleting their water supplies, especially their once-vast underground aquifers, at a rapid pace. Yet this alarming fact has failed to register with influential segments of the population, including developers who keep building unsustainable subdivisions and farmers who keep growing unsustainable crops. A case in point are the rice growers of Arkansas, who are on the brink of pumping one of the state's biggest aquifers dry and are now imploring the federal government to bail them [snowdeal.org | conflux]

Ebert was a hard-drinking badass back in the 70s [FARK]

In the fun house.

Just noticed the latest Get Your War On. Also Military Primises 'Huge Numbers' for Gulf War II: The Vengeance in The Onion. Oh, and Chastity Powers has joined the Wealth Bondage news team.

[The Doc Searls Weblog]

Sue Shellenbarger: Multitasking makes you stupid, studies say.

Sue Shellenbarger: People who multitask are less efficient than those who focus on one project at a time, says a study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. The time lost switching among tasks increases with the complexity of the tasks, according to the research by [David Meyer, psychology professor at the University of Michigan] and others. (Via Frank Patrick.)

[Tesugen.com]

Mainlining Habaneros

 

When it comes to food, I like it spicy and hot. Give me peppers, baby. I like my mouth to burn while I eat. That endorphin rush is what I love.

 

I don’t care for pickled peppers. They aren’t as hot and the heat primarily affects the tongue. Fresh peppers release a more aromatic heat that dances with your soft palate and flirts shamelessly with your sinuses.

 

The jalapeno has been my pepper of choice for years now, but lately it’s been letting me down. Not hot enough. I don’t know if I’m developing a tolerance or if the peppers around here are milder this year because of all the rain. Probably a little of both.

 

Last week I was rummaging through the jalapenos in the produce section, but my eyes kept straying to the habanero peppers one bin over.

 

Habaneros are bright orange and look like little pumpkins. They're cute, but you should be careful. They’re like that effeminate swordsman in “Rob Roy”. They look dainty, but they will absolutely cut you to pieces.

The jalapeno rates as high as 10,000 on the Scoville heat index. The habanero tops the scale at 300,000. It’s the hottest pepper on the planet.*