My Kitchen Table

Of bacon strapped cats

So I see that Mr. Weingarten's column in the Washington Post has stirred up a hornet's nest. Well, that is what a columnist should do. Provoke a reaction in his or her audience. It had been my intention to ignore Mr. Weingarten and the debate over his not -on-the-scene observations but so many people mentioned his column to me today and asked me for my take on it, I thought  I'd share it.

First, let me extend to Mr. Weingarten the same courtesy that he showed the Online News Association and its conference In Boston. I won't actually read his oeuvre before I write about it, and just rely on hearsay to opine about it. That at least puts us on equal footing.

Then again, I really don’t need to read it because I've read it a hundred times before. In papers and magazines. I've also heard similar rants on the radio and seen people talking about it on the tube.  Some of them have the feeling of a Sunday sermon. Jeremiads are a popular choice. Others have a nervous hand wringing tone. Some, like Mr. Weingarten, apparently try to use humor. That, at least, is a unique approach.

But the message is always the same. The Internet (digital media, blogs, twitter, Facebook, microblogs, user-created content, etc. etc.) and other forms of popular media will be the death of (Are you ready?…take a deep breath everyone) SERIOUS journalism. Serious is always said in capital letters in this case so that the great unwashed, will know that it's, well, serious.

First let me establish my credentials as a SERIOUS journalist. First, I'm an old fud. I've been working in this field for 35 years now. I've written for newspapers in Canada and the US, including the great Christian Science Monitor. I've worked for the CBC in Canada and NPR in the US. I'm a Nieman Fellow (that's my attempt at SERIOUS name dropping.)

I've been working online for about 20 years now, sometimes in combo with print and radio, sometimes only online. I also worked for the ONA for a few years as a part-time executive director, back when people thought ONA meant "Only Nubile Amazons" or "On No Account." Yes, after working in almost every form of journalism, my old fud view is biased towards online.

I could give you lots of reasons why I think Mr. Weingarten and his ilk fear the future, because I think that is at least part of what's happening here. Instead, I recommend you watch the excellent series Michael Lewis did for the BBC several years ago called "The Future Just Happened." Of particular interest will be the part about how technologies that begin at the fringes of society eventually undermine the priesthoods at the center, and how those priesthoods deal with the loss of control over the "message" as the means of control opens up to a large number of people. (I suppose Mr. Weingarten might not like being lumped in with a bunch of other fuds in a 'priethood', but you get my drift.)  The whines are always the same – the purity of the message is lost, these people don’t know what they're doing, only we can be trusted with this task…you know the drill.

But I have to stop now. I'm getting ponderous. Stroking my beard stuff. Well, if I had one. But here's the bottom line. Nothing is going to change.  The ball is rolling and it's not gonna stop. The task for us, as journalists, is to learn how to harness these new technologies so that SERIOUS journalism does not vanish. That's kinda what the ONA is really all about and what its conferences are all about.

And for my final note…wait. Is that Gene Weingarten with a piece of bacon strapped to him? Oh. Too bad. It doesn't make me LOL.

Cheating an All-American activity

I want to salute an all-American pastime

It's as American as apple pie. Or saluting the flag. Or watching fireworks on the 4th.

Or taking steroids to improve athletic performance.

I'm talking about that great American pastime, cheating.

Now I'm not necessarily talking about corruption here. Corruption is like cheating's first cousin. There are certainly nations that are more corrupt that we are, although we're no amateurs at it either. Nor am I talking about cheating on a spouse. I'll leave that to John Edwards and various GOP senators.

No, I'm talking about good ol' fashioned American cheating, like the huge scandal that has broken in Atlanta recently over the fixing of the standardized test scores of the city's schools. And surprise! …it wasn't the kids who were cheating.

This fine display of Americana came from the teachers, the principals and the administrators for the city's school district in an effort to boost scores to  reflect unearned levels of excellence, to ensure continued funding and to keep people from being fired for being lousy teachers.

But let's not just pick on the teachers in Atlanta. There are news reports that this may have happened in as many as 10 different states. Now that's what I call an outbust of patriotic spirit!

Yes, I know, we all teach our children not to cheat. I certainly teach that to my kids. But in a culture that cheats on almost every level (come on, admit it, you've tweaked you tax returns a bit or two over the years) and in almost every profession (steroids in baseball, track and field, cycling, football, Wall Street insiders cheating by getting inside information, health care companies cheating on the Medicare payments forms they file, farmers who report more acres than they actually have so they can collect more government hand-outs, healthy people who park in handicap zones etc., etc.) it hard to get them to listen to you when everyone around them is, well, cheating.

In fact, I would say that we kind of glorify cheaters. Few people are as famous as Bernie Madoff. Or Barry Bonds. Or the 1919 Black Sox (anyone remember even remember the name of the team that they played that year). Lots of people still think George W. Bush cheated when he became president in 2000.

Which begs the question why do we cheat so much? Well, that's easy. Fear of failure for one.  "Because everybody does it" is a great rationalization to cheat. But I think it's' often about the Benjamins and the fame. Baseball players took steroids so they could sign contracts that were bigger than the economies of small African countries, or because they would do anything to break an important record. Or, as in the case of Atlanta's test scores, people cheated to make themselves look good and keep the money and accolades flowing.

Oh yes, they do get caught now and then, and when they do the consequences can be drastic. Barry Bonds will never be in baseball's Hall of Fame. Bernie Madoff is probably in prison until the second coming. Many, many teachers and administrators across the country are going to lose their jobs over cheating on test scores. But even knowing those possible outcomes, they still cheated. Because we all think we can get away with it.

They say that cheaters never prosper. That might be true. Certainly that's the case in Atlanta. But Barry Bonds name is still in the record books. And last I checked, not all that many people have gone to jail for the Wall Street escapades that have put us all on economic life-support. Wall Street is recording record profits again.

So we can expect cheating to remain a popular activity for a while yet. The potential rewards are just too tempting.

The end of all religions

I've wanted to do this for a long time. But Friday's murderous shooting rampage in Norway has become my tipping point, I guess. It's not that I think that everyone who believes in a religion is a bad person, or needs to be chastised, or is worthy of scorn. I know from personal experience that there are many good people of faith in the world. Religion, or a belief in a divine being, does not always necessarily translate into a negative, even if I believe that such a belief is a mistake.

But something is happening. Religions are increasingly being overwhelmed by extremists and fundamentalists: Christian right-wing fundamentalists in the United States, Islamic extremists in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, ultra-Orthodox Jewish settlers in the West Bank.  It's not that they necessarily represent large numbers within their particular denominations or faith, but technology and modern-day weapons have made it possible for just a few of these extremists to have a much louder voice and effect on the world than their more moderate compatriots. The time has come to speak up against these people, regardless of their religious affiliation.

The country in which I live, the United States of America, is in danger of being overwhelmed by a right-wing fundamentalist Christian, xenophobic, homophobic, bigoted, misogynist, racist ideology. And it's time to start to fight back. This group, largely represented by people who define themselves as tea party "patriots," are threatening to undermine the very values that make America the great place that it is. I believe this with my heart and my soul.

So we have a choice. To do nothing or to speak out against these forces.

To be perfectly honest with you I was surprised that this horrible shooting happened in Norway. Perhaps because it was so much easier for the Norwegian shooter/bomber to obtain the fertilizer that he needed to make a bomb and the guns that he needed to shoot down 84 children that it happened in this relatively peaceful Scandinavian country. I am surprised it did not happen in the United States of America where violence hangs in the air like the noxious odor of cheap cologne in a strip club.

I guess I've reached the point where I just think we'd all be better off without religion

I think I will try to use this space to talk about issues and incidents were I see religion overwhelming good sense and the common welfare of all Americans. I'm sure I'll have a lot to write about.

Last Post by Sand Monkey in Egypt before his account was suspended

This was Sand Monkey's last post before he was attacked, maybe arrested and his account suspended. Please read and pass on the link....

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I don’t know how to start writing this. I have been battling fatigue for not sleeping properly for the past 10 days, moving from one’s friend house to another friend’s house, almost never spending a night in my home, facing a very well funded and well organized ruthless regime that views me as nothing but an annoying bug that its time to squash will come. The situation here is bleak to say the least.

It didn’t start out that way. On Tuesday Jan 25 it all started peacefully, and against all odds, we succeeded to gather hundreds of thousands and get them into Tahrir Square, despite being attacked by Anti-Riot Police who are using sticks, tear gas and rubber bullets against us. We managed to break all of their barricades and situated ourselves in Tahrir. The government responded by shutting down all cell communication in Tahrir square, a move which purpose was understood later when after midnight they went in with all of their might and attacked the protesters and evacuated the Square. The next day we were back at it again, and the day after. Then came Friday and we braved their communication blackout, their thugs, their tear gas and their bullets and we retook the square. We have been fighting to keep it ever since.

That night the government announced a military curfew, which kept getting shorter by the day, until it became from 8 am to 3 pm. People couldn’t go to work, gas was running out quickly and so were essential goods and money, since the banks were not allowed to operate and people were not able to collect their salary. The internet continued to be blocked, which affected all businesses in Egypt and will cause an economic meltdown the moment they allow the banks to operate again. We were being collectively punished for daring to say that we deserve democracy and rights, and to keep it up, they withdrew the police, and then sent them out dressed as civilians to terrorize our neighborhoods. I was shot at twice that day, one of which with a semi-automatic by a dude in a car that we the people took joy in pummeling. The government announced that all prisons were breached, and that the prisoners somehow managed to get weapons and do nothing but randomly attack people. One day we had organized thugs in uniforms firing at us and the next day they disappeared and were replaced by organized thugs without uniforms firing at us. Somehow the people never made the connection.

Despite it all, we braved it. We believed we are doing what’s right and were encouraged by all those around us who couldn’t believe what was happening to their country. What he did galvanized the people, and on Tuesday, despite shutting down all major roads leading into Cairo, we managed to get over 2 million protesters in Cairo alone and 3 million all over Egypt to come out and demand Mubarak’s departure. Those are people who stood up to the regime’s ruthlessness and anger and declared that they were free, and were refusing to live in the Mubarak dictatorship for one more day. That night, he showed up on TV, and gave a very emotional speech about how he intends to step down at the end of his term and how he wants to die in Egypt, the country he loved and served. To me, and to everyone else at the protests this wasn’t nearly enough, for we wanted him gone now. Others started asking that we give him a chance, and that change takes time and other such poppycock. Hell, some people and family members cried when they saw his speech. People felt sorry for him for failing to be our dictator for the rest of his life and inheriting us to his Son. It was an amalgam of Stockholm syndrome coupled with slave mentality in a malevolent combination that we never saw before. And the Regime capitalized on it today.

Today, they brought back the internet, and started having people calling on TV and writing on facebook on how they support Mubarak and his call for stability and peacefull change in 8 months. They hung on to the words of the newly appointed government would never harm the protesters, whom they believe to be good patriotic youth who have a few bad apples amongst them. We started getting calls asking people to stop protesting because “we got what we wanted” and “we need the country to start working again”. People were complaining that they miss their lives. That they miss going out at night, and ordering Home Delivery. That they need us to stop so they can resume whatever existence they had before all of this. All was forgiven, the past week never happened and it’s time for Unity under Mubarak’s rule right now.

To all of those people I say: NEVER! I am sorry that your lives and businesses are disrupted, but this wasn’t caused by the Protesters. The Protesters aren’t the ones who shut down the internet that has paralyzed your businesses and banks: The government did. The Protesters weren’t the ones who initiated the military curfew that limited your movement and allowed goods to disappear off market shelves and gas to disappear: The government did. The Protesters weren’t the ones who ordered the police to withdraw and claimed the prisons were breached and unleashed thugs that terrorized your neighborhoods: The government did. The same government that you wish to give a second chance to, as if 30 years of dictatorship and utter failure in every sector of government wasn’t enough for you. The Slaves were ready to forgive their master, and blame his cruelty on those who dared to defy him in order to ensure a better Egypt for all of its citizens and their children. After all, he gave us his word, and it’s not like he ever broke his promises for reform before or anything.


Then Mubarak made his move and showed them what useful idiots they all were.


You watched on TV as “Pro-Mubarak Protesters” – thugs who were paid money by NDP members by admission of High NDP officials- started attacking the peaceful unarmed protesters in Tahrir square. They attacked them with sticks, threw stones at them, brought in men riding horses and camels- in what must be the most surreal scene ever shown on TV- and carrying whips to beat up the protesters. And then the Bullets started getting fired and Molotov cocktails started getting thrown at the Anti-Mubarak Protesters as the Army standing idly by, allowing it all to happen and not doing anything about it. Dozens were killed, hundreds injured, and there was no help sent by ambulances. The Police never showed up to stop those attacking because the ones who were captured by the Anti-mubarak people had police ID’s on them. They were the police and they were there to shoot and kill people and even tried to set the Egyptian Museum on Fire. The Aim was clear: Use the clashes as pretext to ban such demonstrations under pretexts of concern for public safety and order, and to prevent disunity amongst the people of Egypt. But their plans ultimately failed, by those resilient brave souls who wouldn’t give up the ground they freed of Egypt, no matter how many live bullets or firebombs were hurled at them. They know, like we all do, that this regime no longer cares to put on a moderate mask. That they have shown their true nature. That Mubarak will never step down, and that he would rather burn Egypt to the ground than even contemplate that possibility.


In the meantime, State-owned and affiliated TV channels were showing coverage of Peaceful Mubarak Protests all over Egypt and showing recorded footage of Tahrir Square protest from the night before and claiming it’s the situation there at the moment. Hundreds of calls by public figures and actors started calling the channels saying that they are with Mubarak, and that he is our Father and we should support him on the road to democracy. A veiled girl with a blurred face went on Mehwer TV claiming to have received funding by Americans to go to the US and took courses on how to bring down the Egyptian government through protests which were taught by Jews. She claimed that AlJazeera is lying, and that the only people in Tahrir square now were Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. State TV started issuing statements on how the people arrested Israelis all over Cairo engaged in creating mayhem and causing chaos. For those of you who are counting this is an American-Israeli-Qatari-Muslim Brotherhood-Iranian-Hamas conspiracy. Imagine that. And MANY PEOPLE BOUGHT IT. I recall telling a friend of mine that the only good thing about what happened today was that it made clear to us who were the idiots amongst our friends. Now we know.


Now, just in case this isn’t clear: This protest is not one made or sustained by the Muslim Brotherhood, it’s one that had people from all social classes and religious background in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood only showed up on Tuesday, and even then they were not the majority of people there by a long shot. We tolerated them there since we won’t say no to fellow Egyptians who wanted to stand with us, but neither the Muslims Brotherhood not any of the Opposition leaders have the ability to turn out one tenth of the numbers of Protesters that were in Tahrir on Tuesday. This is a revolution without leaders. Three Million individuals choosing hope instead of fear and braving death on hourly basis to keep their dream of freedom alive. Imagine that.


The End is near. I have no illusions about this regime or its leader, and how he will pluck us and hunt us down one by one till we are over and done with and 8 months from now will pay people to stage fake protests urging him not to leave power, and he will stay “because he has to acquiesce to the voice of the people”. This is a losing battle and they have all the weapons, but we will continue fighting until we can’t. I am heading to Tahrir right now with supplies for the hundreds injured, knowing that today the attacks will intensify, because they can’t allow us to stay there come Friday, which is supposed to be the game changer. We are bringing everybody out, and we will refuse to be anything else than peaceful. If you are in Egypt, I am calling on all of you to head down to Tahrir today and Friday. It is imperative to show them that the battle for the soul of Egypt isn’t over and done with. I am calling you to bring your friends, to bring medical supplies, to go and see what Mubarak’s guarantees look like in real life. Egypt needs you. Be Heroes.

South Carolina and sex

I think being a politician is an incredibly difficult proposition. On the one hand, you have to be ego-driven to enter the fray, even if you're doing it for all the right reasons. On the other hand, in a 24x7 media world, with Internet and twitter and Facebook, etc., you surrender your privacy, and every mistake you may have made in your life becomes fodder for every person who has access to a keyboard.

Latest example: Nikki Haley, candidate for the GOP nomination for governor in South Carolina. Yesterday a conservative blogger and supporter of Haley said he had a brief affair with her several years ago when she was married and he was single. Haley has vehemently denied the allegation. The blogger, Will Forks, a well-know conservative in Columbia, said he came forward with the story because he was aware that it was about to be published in the media.

And it seems that Forks may be telling the truth. The Columbia Free Times quotes several politicians in an article about the revelation, and apparently the alleged affair was "common knowledge" around the state house for the past year. The Times reveals in the piece that they were one of the media outlets pursuing the story.

Meanwhile, Michael Brendan Dougherty at the American Conservative writes that "Columbia, South Carolina is one of the most treacherous, gossiping, and self-obsessed political capitals on Earth. Everyone there talks, and  whispers about an affair between Haley and Folks are nearly a year old at this point. Political consultants were wondering two years ago why Haley’s car was so often seen in front of Folks’ home." Dougherty believes the allegations are true after talking to sources in South Carolina, and writes that the AP and other South Carolina sources have been researching the story for the past year.

Itf the allegations are true, it could be the end of Haley's bid for governor ... or South Carolinian could rally around her. The recent romantic adventures of current Governor Mark Sanford may make that more difficult.

The other two people who may be hurt by this affair if it turns out to be true are Jenny Sanford (the governor's wife) and Sarah Palin. Both women have strongly backed Haley but Palin has gone a step farther, denouncing the allegations and comparing them to things said about her and her family. 

I wish we were more like the French when it came to this sort of story. If we disqualified every person male (mostly male, let's be honest) or female who has made this kind of mistake, there would be few people in public office. Or in the schools, or in the churches, or just about anywhere.

And being from the religious right doesn't seem to help (ask John Ensign). People are people when to comes to sex.

Miss USA not so welcome in Hizbullahland

While conservative bloggers foam at the mouth over the Lebanese "Hizbullah" connection of Miss USA Rima Fakih, her victory is not being celebrated by Hizbullah supporters in her home town, according to this piece from Now! Lebanon

Chickens come home to roost

There are moments in life when the underlying ridiculousness of the American electoral system becomes painfully obvious.

And how appropriate it takes a chicken to illustrate it.

As you might know, Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sue Lowden made an unfortunate comment a few weeks ago when she remarked that we should allow doctors to go back to the barter system, where people would trade things like chickens for health care.

Lowden's idea is not necessarily a bad one, but there are so many more issues these days that make the idea untenable: would doctors have to pay taxes on the items bartered?; could you bring a chicken to a doctor's office?; who would set a price list for services rendered - one chicken equals a flu shot? It was an ill-thought out remark.

The real problem was using a chicken as an example, of course. Democrats gleefully used every chicken metaphor and joke they would think up to throw at Lowden, and it hurt her in the polls.

But now, in the interests of 'fairness,' Nevada's electoral commission has ruled that people cannot wear chicken costumes to the polls because it would be an obvious advocacy statement against Lowden. (Democrats have attended Lowden events wearing the costumes.)

OK, that seems kosher I suppose. So people can't wear chicken costumes because it might affect the outcome of an election.

Meanwhile, a couple of months before Lowden made her infamous chicken remark, the Supreme Court, in the Citizen's United case, a ruling overseen by the court's conservative majority, overturned decades-old law and ruled that corporations can spend as much money as they want during elections season. That's free speech, the court said.

OK, so let me get this straight.

A multinational corporation can spend millions trying to influence the public against a particular candidate or party, and that's fine, but if you wear a chicken costume to a polling station, that's going too far?

America. Land where anything is possible. Even really, really stupid bad things.

"Lost" in a "24" Hour "American Idol" nightmare

The nightmare is in fact the amount of ink spilled and 1s and 0s that have been wasted on speculation about the ending of these shows. To be honest, I couldn't care less.

I have never watched a single episode of Lost. I saw one episode of 24 during its 9 year run. And I watched 15 minutes of the very first installment of American Idol. Meanwhile, never saw any of the Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Mad Men, Dancing with Stars, etc. etc.

I do watch Bones and The Mentalist. And that's about it.

Otherwise I make do with old re-runs of Black Adder, the X-Files, Monty Python and Monk via Net Flix..

Rand speaks his mind?

I think Tom Scocca at Slate nails it on the head about GOP Kentucky Senate nominee Rand Paul. The problem with the Rachel Meadows interview that sparked all this bruhaha "was not that he said something terrible about civil rights. It was that he was afraid to say what he really believes about civil rights."

Meanwhile, my favorite comment on the Paul situation comes from the wearisome Sarah Palin: "Now he knows what it's like to be me." That's a scary thought.

Good weekend for Boston fans. Celts up 3-0, and Dice-K and Wakefield owned the Phillies.

Just trying out the connection between my blog, My Kitchen Table, and my Facebook account.

He's baacckkkk!

Geesh. I've been away too long.

Well, there was a lot going on. Had to deal with a few other important issues. But it's time to boogie.

Boy, this Typepad interface has really changed. Think I'll kick the tires a bit.

As always, the question, how much on Facebook, how much on the blog?

Tom Regan's Decoding Middle East Media

Traditional Media in the Arab/Iranian World

1. (Right) Jerusalem Post (especially Caroline Glick's column)- http://www.jpost.com

2. (Left) Ha'aretz (especially Brad Burston's “Special Place in Hell” - http://www.haaretz.com/

3. Palestinian News Network - http://english.pnn.ps/

4. BBC News (Middle East) - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/default.stm

5. Al Jazeera (English) - http://english.aljazeera.net/

6. Magharbeia.com (Northern Africa) - http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/homepage/default

7. Albawaba.com (Great gateway site) - http://www.albawaba.com/

8. Hurriyet (Turkey) - http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/home/
9. Daily Star (Not great reporting, but a great opinion section) - http://www.dailystar.com.lb/

          Rami Khouri - http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=102988

11. Jordan Times - http://www.jordantimes.com/

12. Islamic Republic News Agency (Iran) - http://www.irna.ir/En/?idLanguage=3

13. Gulf Times - http://www.gulf-times.com/

14. The Peninsula - http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/index00.asp

15. Dawn (Pakistan) - http://www.dawn.com/

16. Watching America - http://watchingamerica.com/News/

17. Doha Center for Media Freedom - Under construction

18. Al-Masry Al-Youm - http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en 

19. The National (UAE) - http://www.thenational.ae

20. Al Arabiya (Satellite) - http://www.alarabiya.net/english.html

21. Yeman Post - http://www.yemenpost.net/

22. Yemen Times - http://www.yementimes.com/

23. Kuwait Times - http://www.kuwaittimes.net/

24. Now Lebanon - http://www.nowlebanon.com/

America looks at the "Middle East"

Esquire, Nov. 1882 - The Man who Married Dan Rather

- "Moments" - somebody watches something and feels it, tastes it and knows it." (Van Gordon) Sauter wanted several such moments of 'intense feeling' in every broadcast."

- an emphasis on heart-tugging TV "moments"

Concentration of Media Ownership

In 1981, forty-six media companies controlled most of the book, magazine, newspaper, movie, and television industries. By 1986, this number had shrunk to twenty-nine and by 1989 to twenty-five. Then, in the 1990s, the process of conglomeration in the media was so rapid that one could scarcely follow the players. Disney bought ABC, Westinghouse bought CBS, and General Electric took over NBC. A new network, Fox, was able to supply some competition, but only because it was part of a huge global newspaper, book, and TV empire belonging to Rupert Murdoch. Time/Warner not only controlled magazines, movies, and books, but had also taken over Turner Broadcasting, CNN, and a wide swath of the cable TV distribution network.

By 1997, just seven giant companies had nearly cornered the vast multimedia markets of the United States: Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, Viacom, Time/Warner, Newhouse, General Electric, Westinghouse, and Disney.

Media ownership study ordered destroyed
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14836500/

The analysis showed local ownership of television stations adds almost five and one-half minutes of total news to broadcasts and more than three minutes of "on-location" news. The conclusion is at odds with FCC arguments made when it voted in 2003 to increase the number of television stations a company could own in a single market. It was part of a broader decision liberalizing ownership rules. At that time, the agency pointed to evidence that "commonly owned television stations are more likely to carry local news than other stations."

Humans prefer cockiness to expertise

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227115.500-humans-prefer-cockiness-to-expertise.html

No True Scotsman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_scotsman

Boston Globe series on Saddam Statue

http://www.boston.com/news/packages/iraq/galleries/statue/01.htm

Toppling of Saddam Statue

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Toppling_the_statue_of_Saddam_Hussein

When contemplating war, beware of babies in incubators

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0906/p25s02-cogn.html

NYT: We Made Big Mistakes On Front-Page Gitmo Story, But We Did Not Get Spun

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/06/nyt_editors_note_walks_back_claims_in_front-page_g.php

Seeing the news through "cultural values"

Several years ago, Karyn Karnheim, who was then at the AEI, noted that people filter their views through their cultural values. That's why a fact is not a fact to them, unless it aligns with their own views. She also added that reporters frequently don't understand when people seem to ignore what seems "indisputable" to them. What actually happened or what was actually said really matters very little. 

Social Media in the Arab region

Generation Mubarak/Generation Facebook

Arab women emerge as internet-savvy

Egyptian opposition, pro-government groups battle on Facebook

Khaled Said

Mohammed ElBardei Facebook page

Iran issues list of banned websites

Iran Green Movement

ElBaradei for President Facebook page

Blogs worth reading

Saudi Jeans
http://saudijeans.org/

Mona Elthhawy Blog
http://www.monaeltahawy.com/blog/

Saudiwoman's Weblog
http://saudiwoman.wordpress.com/

The Angry Arab News Service
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/

The Arabist
http://www.arabist.net/

From Beirut to the Beltway
http://beirutbeltway.com/

BeirutSpring
http://beirutspring.com/blog/

Rooz 1199 [Very good Iranian blog]
http://www.roozonline.com/english.html

Stop torturing us [Iranian blog written from inside Iran]
http://www.roozonline.com/english.html

Across the Bay [neocon flavor]
http://beirut2bayside.blogspot.com/

Informed Content [One of the best progressive blogs]
http://www.juancole.com/

The View from Fez
http://riadzany.blogspot.com/

Plus 361 (Lebanon)
http://www.plus961.com/

Egyptian Chronicles
http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/

The Religious Policeman [Saudi]
http://muttawa.blogspot.com/

Sudanese Thinker
http://www.sudanesethinker.com/

Fudzail [Saudi]
http://1426.blogspot.com/

Toot [Great blog aggregator]
http://itoot.net/

Best of the Arab Blogs
http://www.al-bab.com/arab/blogs.htm

360East [Jordan]
http://www.360east.com/

Elder of Ziyon [Pro-Israeli settler blog]
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/

JBlog Central
http://www.israelforum.com/blog_home.php

Jordan Watch
http://batir.jeeran.com/

Iraqi Blog Count
http://iraqblogcount.blogspot.com/

Pro-American Muslims
http://proamericanmuslims.wordpress.com/

Culture Unplugged
http://www.cultureunplugged.com/index.php

Salam Pax (The Baghdad Blogger)
http://salampax.wordpress.com/

How the GOP Lost Nancy Pelosi

They had her. They really did.

There was blood in the water and the GOP sharks were circling Nancy Pelosi, snapping at her as they edged closer and closer. It was only a matter of time, and the GOP could claim a major victory - the scalp of the Speaker of the House.

And then it was gone.

Like the air going out of a balloon, the GOP effort to sink Pelosi was deflating, largely because of their own ineptitude. The president delivered the coup de grace with his Sonia Sotomayor nomination. The momentum switched back to the Democrats. The beltway media, a pack of lemmings at the best of time, were on to the next story. The GOP was in disarray once again.

Same old, same old.

Now, I'm not the biggest Nancy Pelosi fan in the world. I think the
statement she made about the CIA lying to her about waterboarding
detainees smacked of a desperate politician trying to manipulate her
way out of a debacle of her own making. And for my taste, she's a bit too interested
in being speaker, and not enough in doing what's best for the country.

But more than any other incident that we've seen since the Democrats assumed control of the legislative and executive branches of the government, this one illustrates just how leaderless the Republicans are. Not that Rep. John Boehner and Rep. Eric Cantor aren't trying. But in a party where everyone thinks they are the leader, it's hard to march to the beat of only one drummer.

You could feel the tide going out over the weekend. First, media reports started to circulate that the GOP had overplayed its hand. Newt Gingrich called for her ouster (which, in a Democratic-controlled house, was never going to happen), and then former VP Dick Cheney, who had no business in this argument, took a few jabs at her. It started to become a lot easier for the Democrats to portray this as a partisan attack, moving the spotlight away from what Pelosi had actually said.

"The best thing for anyone, let alone Nancy Pelosi, is to be the
subject of a petty, venal, absurd attack by Newt Gingrich," said Rep.
Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.). "He’s the gift that keeps on giving."

Meanwhile Boehner was trying to slow down his colleagues. He believed, and I agreed with him, that if Republicans started calling for her removal before they had actually investigated her CIA claims, the opportunity would be lost.

Then on Friday, the Republican National Committee stepped in it. They released a commercial that compared Pelosi to the James Bond villain Pussy Galore.

As Andie Coller wrote in Politico:

"The wisdom of equating the first woman speaker of the House with a
character whose first name also happens to be among the most vulgar
terms for a part of the female anatomy might be debated – if the RNC were willing to do so, which it was not. An RNC spokesperson refused
repeated requests by POLITICO to explain the point of the video, or the
intended connection between Pelosi and Galore.

"But what isn’t open to debate is that the waterboarding conflict has
been accompanied by a cascade of attacks on the speaker, not as a
leader or a legislator, but as a woman."

Which is, of course, a recipe for Republican disaster. By focusing on the speaker's gender, instead of her mistake, the RNC and the mouths-that-roared on talk radio only further succeeded in undermining Boehner's plan of attack.

Even GOP members of Congress were outraged by the Galore comparison.

"I thought it was reprehensible, irresponsible and unpersuasive," Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) told Politico. "If we're going to regain the credibility of the American people, we're
going to have to stop with silly antics like that. It may get a snide
chuckle inside the Beltway, but it offends most people. We have to get away from the politics of personal destruction," he said of the video.

(Tell that to Rush, OK?)

Then on Sunday, Sen. Dick Durbin, who was debating Gingrich about the Pelosi statement on Meet The Press, reminded Gingrich that he himself had said that the CIA had "damaged our national security and misled the American people" over the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran in 2007. And he also reminded the former speaker that another GOP member in 2008 had accused the CIA of lying about an earlier report. Gingrich defended both statements, exactly what the Democrats wanted in their effort to paint the attacks on Pelosi as just another partisan effort by the Republicans.

Then over the weekend, news started to leak about Sotomayor, and Pelosi was gone. Any hopes the GOP had of undermining the speaker's authority had vanished. It was a genius political move by Obama - he took the heat off of Pelosi, thus earning an IOU from her, and threw the Republicans into confusion about how to attack Sotomayor - yet another example of too many leaders of the GOP.

Oh, they still might try to get at Pelosi. But it's too late. I've lived in DC long enough to know that the media is always looking for "the next big thing" to report on. Pelosi is, sadly for the GOP, old news. Newt is left sputtering, the RNC has egg on its face, and poor John Boenher has a massive migraine.

I hope he has a lot of Tylenol. I think his headaches are going to get a lot worse before they get better.

Conservatives having trouble finding way back to reality based community

My kids, I'm happy to say, love to read. They'll choose a good book over TV almost any time. (Although the computer will tempt them a lot.) Right now, they are going through a science fiction fantasy phase. One of their favorite story themes is the young hero or heroine who suddenly finds themselves plucked from their everyday life and sent to a strange new world, almost always ruled by a tyrant or being threatened by a strange menace. After numerous adventures, where they defeat the foe, they find their way back to our world, although it can be difficult and often jarring.

Strangely enough, this story line is very similar to the one we've been living the past eight years during the Bush administration. Republicans created a world separate from the "reality based community" that Karl Rove once dismissed in a New York Times magazine piece.

But after numerous challenges and the election of Barack Obama, we found our way back to the real world. No more make believe. A majority of Americans felt it was time that we got back to business after eight years of obfuscation, mismanagement and disastrous government.

But not everyone has adapted well to this return to the reality based community. Conservatives, and in particular those associated with the previous administration (or their media outlets like Fox News), are having a hard time giving up the notion that just because they say it's so, it's still so. Time and time again, these conservatives -- like Rove or former Vice President Cheney -- have acted as if the fantasy they worked so hard to create was still in place.

There are too many examples of this phenomena to list them all, so let's just go over a few.

For instance, their reactions to the release of the Bush torture memos by the  Obama administration. First, there is the "up is down" answer that says waterboarding isn't torture - despite official government documents that show we believe it is when other governments do it, or the fact that we've put people on trial in the past for doing it to American soldiers.

Or that by actually confirming that we did torture people, we won't be able to torture potential enemies in the future - despite the fact that President Obama has put an end to all these practices.

Or that by confirming that we did torture people, it will negatively affect the way the rest of the world looks at the US.

Uhm, perhaps this line is actually a poor attempt at humor, considering that one of the main "accomplishments" of the previous administration was that the only thing that fell farther than America's standing in the world was the stock market. And the Bush administration played a large role in that as well.

But really, it's the comments from Rove and Cheney in particular that show how hard these folks are holding on to a world that currently exists only in their own minds. When Rove criticizes Obama for being "too political" or "playing politics" or when Cheney says that Obama is making the US "less safe," it's as if (to borrow a conservative meme from 9/11) they are living in a pre-Nov. 4, 2008 world.

And with little leadership in Congress and with Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck et al. being the most vocal conservatives, many conservatives are not likely to find their way back to reality anytime soon. There are signs, mind you, that some conservatives have realized that they are back in Kansas and not in Oz any more. David Frum, David Brooks, Patrick Ruffini, Andrew Sullivan and Megan McCain come to mind as some of the best bets to create a new reality based conservatism.

And it's important that they persevere. There is a temptation for politicians of all strips to eventually wonder into some fantasy place that doesn't really exist. Democrats are not immune. If we're going to keep the Dems focused on reality, we'll need thoughtful, reality based conservatives to help keep them there.

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