Oppenheim Arts & Letters

Other Wrap-Ups on Journalism Gone Astray in 2009

My inbox just happened to lead to this by Joan Walsh for Salon: "So many bogus stories, so little time": http://www.salon.com/opinion/walsh/politics/2009/12/21/bogus_stories_of_2009?source=newsletter

Walsh mentions Balloon Boy and "Sarah Palin's death panels" and goes that extra mile to report the "Top Bogus Stories of 2009": http://www.salon.com/news/bogus_stories_2009/.  On the list: "Death Panels", "Cheney Attacks Obama", "The Twitter Revolution", "ACORN", "Slightly less than one million tea partiers", "the Heene family debacle", "Sympathy for Roman Polanski", "Obama bows", "Unreleased photos show Abu Ghraib rape", "Going Gaga", "The Climategate e-mails".

About.com features a more extended wrap: "The Top Ten Developments in Journalism in the 2000's: A Decade that Saw the Rise of the Web and the Deline of Print": http://journalism.about.com/od/trends/tp/topstories2000s.htm

Also in the Big Picture category: "The Reconstruction of American Journalism" by Leonard Downie, Jr. and Michael Schudsen in the Columbia Journalism Review, November-December 2009: http://www.cjr.org/reconstruction/the_reconstruction_of_american.php.

My best and worst?

Best: the expansion of the Internet's penetration or reach and the continuing development of Google Translator.

Worst: not the emergence of optimism about a globalized cultural or social future for mankind but the appearance and in some quarters prevelance of the wearing of rose colored glasses. 

I have visited peace groups this year for whom, perhaps, the covenants of the Hamas Charter or the activities of a still lingering Palestinian Liberation Organization would seem not to exist for the want of peace; in the Islamic Small Wars, there seems as much confusion and denial on the part of many over the actions of Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood and the potency of the intellectually informing across-the-Internet waves of Jihadi Islam and of the inherent architecture in Islamic thought and clericism unable to with reason temper issues crystalized over loyalty and the sword.

In 2009, we published, surfed, and skimmed with abandon.

Perhaps in 2010, we will again learn how to focus, dig, reflect, and report accurately, completely, and in depth.

# # #

Honest Reporting's Lessons for Scribblers

Reference:

http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/new/Dishonest_Reporter_Award_2009.asp

All struggle with two broad and fundamental approaches in the development of opinion, reporting, and rhetoric: subjective self-interest and objective universalism.

Do we speak for ourselves?

Do we speak for all?

Do we "bend and twist it some" for our persons, family, relatives, and business and political loyalties, or do hew to other rules and tools to discern true states of affairs that we may then report dispassionately albeit with a deeper and altogether more considerate passion?

First person or third?

Honest Reporting's year-end wrap on pundits with pinheads indirectly addresses the questions I've posed and similarly provides a few lessons in criticism and journalism gone astray.

Starting with the egregious rolls of the biased in the coverage of the war in Gaza -- e.g., "And when Hamas fired a rocket from a foreign press building, an Al-Arabiya journalist's delighted reaction was caught on camera for YouTube posterity" -- Honest Reporting goes on to cover Pat Oliphant's cartoon of a head, goose-stepping, Star of David pushing goon, The New Statesmen's enabling Ken Livingstone to "guest edit" and make a propaganda sheet of the mainstream staple, Max Blumenthal's comparison in the Huffington Post of Iran's protest-stomping Basij Militia and the Israeli Defense Force, and sundry other indulgences in the language of subjective--and pernicious--self interest. 

# # #

Rest Goes Hard on the Heart

Perfectly subjective, all that follows --

Activity circulates blood; inactivity leaves the heart to do all the work.  Sleep has become more difficult than wakefulness, but wakefulness and activity have become suddenly treacherous.

My not-so-novel response to my introduction to common Lisinopril: hyperawareness, hypervigilence, and one really good bout with panic underwritten by some kind of sensory experience.  As with automobiles these days and their computers, I suspect the body has to "reset" and "recallibrate" its autonomous alogorithms when its chemistry has been abruptly altered. 

Well, no need to feel alone in that respect:

http://www.medications.com/se/lisinopril/anxiety-attacks

Sow now I'm looking around for "cardiac rehab" guidance: how much effort should be applied to producing a training effect in the heart?  How much would be too much?

I've just learned 30 minutes out in the winter of 2009's first snowstorm, with a last uphill climb through 15 inches of powder back to my building, seems enough exercise for at least half a day. 

Booties on around here, and hot tea in the cup.

Thirty minutes out walking twice a day hasn't done me in, not even with snow up to my shins, but I do wonder if so minimal an effort has done my heart any good.

Last blood pressure reading 30 minutes after five minutes of exercise with ten-pound dumbells: 125/75 79 -- not bad, but what does it mean? 

I've complained here in 19th Century Modern about being made Borg before my time--before anyone's time.

Now I wonder to what extent that sentiment may have been subconciously driven by rising blood pressure and awareness of changes brought about through my comparatively inactive state.

Somewhere back in my history, I had three or more years of stellar cardiovascular fitness sustained by routine 45- and 90-minute jogs and runs; more recently, or since the building fire o' 2006 and the move to the low mountains, I've drifted far into the "mouse potato's" life: life online, blogging, researching, teleconversing with typing endlessly--and offline: photography, much of which today involves the same computing platform. 

Add for refreshment in recent years: a great girlfriend, now ex-girlfriend, and . . . restaurants!

More drink, more food, more rest, little physical activity . . . more death.

I have this week with a pill about the size of the head of a pin entered middle age with undeniable finality, and it seems my first job, the one without which no other is possible, is to stay in it for as long and as well as I may.

Goodbye, my old black volcanic coffee bean.

Hello, decaf.

It's not so bad.

I've just passed a week without the aforementioned morning coffee or the evening's equally medicinal bar drink. 

Of hamburgers and pizzas, much less barbecue, and other salty and sweet delectibles I have but memories.

Of late and away from office and kitchen (and theater), I've been outdoors and moving along a few times.

I've also played my guitar and sung for more than an hour at a time, a first return to practice after months if not years of low-level maintenance of the skill and talent.

So last night, fairly alcohol, caffiene, fat, and salt free, also exercised and one might even say "venillated", I poured about two ounces of wine for Kaddish and noticed I could smell the bouqet of that small amount of Girasole Vineyards' Pinot Noir from several feet away.

Odd, that.

But kind of cool.

# # #

Gold Leaf Snow

"Gold Leaf Snow" - 2592x3872 - Print 13x19 inches.

# # #

From Field to Photoshop

 

# # #

Strawgirl's First Snow

Strawgirl's my "Wilson".

# # #

Eritrea - Clever News

NAIROBI, Dec 16 (Reuters) - A group of mostly elderly Christian women said to have been arrested last week for practising a religion not endorsed by the Eritrean government have been released in the capital, a diplomat said on Wednesday.

Credit writer Jeremy Clarke and editor Giles Elgood with composing just the right phrase that both report and challenges earlier stories involving the persecution of Christians in Eritrea (see OA&L "Eritrea - Gaming in Dark Infospace": http://commart.typepad.com/oppenheim_arts_letters/2009/12/10-1005.html).

The story of the arrest of about 30 Christian women gathered together in an outlawed splinter of the Methodist Church may or may not be true, but the condition of the story jives with similar journalism issues associated with the regimes of other "presidents (and / or clerics) for life".

1. Where is the byline?

2. How many degrees of web-separation are there between the byline and an e-mail address or other fast contact (e.g., international telephone) data?

3. Where is other press "in-country" to check or cover the same story independent of prior coverage?

4. Proper nouns: who was arrested, first-name, last name; where and when; and . . . what did they say or what did any interlocutor, lawyer or government official, have to say about their arrest in their stead? 

Arrested one week . . . released another . . . organizationally incestuous coverage (one story, each source credits another beneath its own roof for breaking it) . . . inability to develop independent second, third, and fourth party corroboration  . . . all of that, as I like to say: "positively Orwellian."

In terms familiar to those who shamelessly publish propaganda, the damage is done with merely the accusation--no need to go into it.  The reader catches the headline, "Jewish doctor harvests organs for transplant", and that's enough, and if there's a seed for the libel, its character will always differ wildly from the header.

According to Nationmaster, a compiler of good-to-know state statistics, Eritrea supports 5 ISP's and 120,000 users.  I'd gamble on their being one or two English-typing "citizen-journalists" in that population.  However, even with laptop journalists prevalent, autocracies generally inhibit unofficial coverage of sensitive subjects, and the likelihood of seeing this story more fully investigated and vetted may be slim. 

Reference

Nationmaster.  "Africa > Eritrea > Internet."  http://www.nationmaster.com/country/er-eritrea/int-internet

# # #

'Twas Gluttony That Brought Him Low

Fiddling with high blood pressure, with which I suppose one should not fiddle too much, I finally managed to move the steak and potatoes to fish, usually salmon, and chicken and to embark on a recuperative walking program.  So after a tough Friday night, I awoke Saturday morning without my ears ringing, the first time in a long time for that, and alert and breathing easily.

An old friend called and wanted to drive his red Corvette up the mountain, out of central Maryland, out here to the cusp of Western Maryland, always a pretty ride for those down-state slicks, and I said, "Sure."

There's a book to be written about highways and restaurants, and one could do worse than to start with Interstate 81 in West Virginia, speed limit 70-miles-per-hour, and end with a beer, sandwich, and ribs at one of the state's finest barbecue and pool joints, which I'll refrain from mentioning here given the health-orientation of the post overall.

However, let me tell you this: if that Bud, barbecue, and ribs out of the Wild and Wonderful should turn out my last supper, be assured it was a great one.

Best get to it while you're healthy (and young wouldn't hurt either).

I rather knew what I was getting into.

Ears ringing, possibly another symptom or two . . . I'm going to step out in the rain for a short walk.

If it's icy, or ice is on the way, I'll be in sipping water, one of the killers as retention drives the problem; if not, I may see you on the other side of America's medical industry, which has made itself a monster to be avoided at nearly all costs.

# # #

Eritrea - Gaming in Dark Infospace

NEWS ALERT: Asmara Detains 30 Christian Women, Group Says

December 7, 2009

Security forces in Eritrea have detained dozens, mostly elderly, Christian women in the capital Amara as part of a crackdown on evangelical activities, an advocacy group said Monday, December 7.

Source: http://www.worthynews.com/7038-news-alert-asmara-detains-30-christian-women-group-says

NEWS ALERT: Asmara Detains 30 Christian Women, Group Says

Posted on: 2009-12-07 02:57:19 By Worthy News Africa Service

ASMARA, ERITREA (Worthy News)-- Security forces in Eritrea have detained dozens, mostly elderly, Christian women in the capital Amara as part of a crackdown on evangelical activities, an advocacy group said Monday, December 7.

Source: http://www.christianpersecution.info/index.php?view=7038

. . . The U.S. Department of State in its 2002 report on religious freedom in Eritrea reported:

"The Government instituted new restrictions on religious groups known collectively as 'Pentes.' Pentes include all groups that do not belong to the four principal religions--Orthodox Christian, Muslim, Catholic, and Evangelical Christian--such as Pentecostals, Born Again Christians, Seventh-Day Adventists, Baha'is, Buddhists, and other Protestants. In 2001 the Government began closing Pente facilities. Following a May 2002 government decree that all religious groups must register or cease all religious activities, all religious facilities not belonging to the four principal religions were closed by the end of the period covered by this report. The Government also continued to harass, detain, and discriminate against members of the small community of Jehovah's Witnesses" (USDOS 7 Oct 2002). [1]

Source: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,USCIS,,ERI,,3f5209b84,0.html

That last source not only provides a citation record for itself, but it notes the date on which reader accessed it.

Finally:

NAIROBI, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Eritrea said on Thursday it was not aware of reports of an alleged mass arrest of Christians that a rights group says took place in the capital Asmara last weekend.

Eritrea's Information Minister Ali Abdu told Reuters by phone that he had not seen any reports of arrests and that any arrests would not have been religiously motivated.

Source: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/GEE5B90SO.htm

Ah, the blogger's second row seat to history, which may not be far from the seats of analysts elsewhere mining similar compilations, has its many joys.

Without being told, you should see the problem I do, but you may not see it the same way I do.

First, let me list the information path and motivation for interest.

1. Reuters AlertNet's list service has sent me e-mail with this teaser: "Eritrea says not aware of mass arrest of Christians http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/GEE5B90SO.htm."

2. Using Google's search engine, I track for "Asmara Christian Persecution", and that returns the UNHCR bulletin from January 2003 ("last accessed December 10, 2009"), which is really a Homeland Security Document--at least it carries the logo plus a bureau imprimatur), and which in turn has its own contributing rivulets.

3. Heading to the source of AlertNet's conveyance, "christianpersecution.info" in the U.S. credits "worthynews.com" reporting from Africa with the story, which Worthy News credits to Christian Persecution.

A simple byline and an e-mail address would be helpful at this stage of sniffing the story to see if there really is a story.

I certainly do believe that from Bethlehem in the Palestinian occupation or quasi-democratic ersatz provisional thugocracy to Lahore, Pakistan, that Christians do indeed face persecution for beliefs and activities undertaken in the name of Christ in Muslim-majority lands, but Eritrea, a less aligned dictatorship, may have a different interest in the control of Christian enthusiasms:

--In 2002, government spokespersons began comparing Pentecostal/charismatic and evangelical churches with Islamists and branded them a danger to national security.

--As a consequence of this, all churches not belonging to the Orthodox, Catholic or Lutheran denominations in Eritrea were ordered to close in May 2002.  [1]

Dictatorships serve the dictator, in Eritrea, Isaias Aferwerki who led the ranks in breaking away from Ethiopia and has presided provisionally since May 1993, and the same does not need his job made any more difficult than it already is.

Human curiosity and the Internet being what they are, search string "eritrea religious freedom" yields quite a different view of this issue:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=1&oq=Eritrea+religious&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4SUNA_enUS250US250&q=eritrea+religious+freedom

In 2007, the Catholic News Agency conveyed this hearsay, "The expulsion of 14 Catholic missionaries from Eritrea two days ago is part of a plan of the Maoist dictatorship of President Isaias Afewerkito to destroy the Catholic Church in Eritrea, reports CISA": http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=10989.

A Voice of America opinion piece had this to note earlier this past year:

The Eritrean government severely restricts freedom of religion for groups that it has not registered and infringes on the independence of its registered groups. Following a 2002 decree that religious groups must register, the government closed all religious facilities not belonging to the country’s four main religious communities: the Eritrean Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Eritrea, and Islam.

The Eritrean government continues to harass, arrest, detain, torture, and kill members of evangelical groups, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and a reform movement within the Eritrean Orthodox Church. The government has failed to grant registration to any religious groups that applied for it in 2002. Religious meetings are restricted, and individuals are arrested during religious ceremonies, gatherings, and prayer meetings in private homes.

For religious zealots of both Christian and Muslim faith, Eritrea would seem ripe for picking on and for prosyletizing.  Where are the mujahiddeen of Eritrea?  Well here is the voice of one by proxy:

After the colonial powers such as Britain, France and the Netherlands withdrew in the 1950s and '60s, most African countries fell into the hands of communist or fascist dictatorships. Most of these post-colonial regimes followed a policy of systematic intimidation of Muslims, and indeed are still doing so."

Source: http://www.harunyahya.com/spring10.php

I'll take Harun Yahya, a Turkish intellectual, at his word.  On the same page, he goes on to assert this:

One of the reasons for the endless conflict, anarchy and war in Eritrea, one of the poorest regions in the world despite its socio-economic and geo-strategic importance, is the strategy of countries that dominate regional policies there, which is based on their own interests, totally ignoring the needs and demands of the people living in this region. Israel comes first among these countries.

Previous Ethiopian and Eritrean regimes had only one thing in common with the state of Israel: their anti-Islamic line. As we saw at the beginning of this book, Israel sees Islam as the greatest danger to its dominance over the Middle East, itself built on cruelty, violation and oppression. That is why there is always an Israeli presence in all regions where Muslims are oppressed and face extinction, from Bosnia to the Philippines, from East Turkestan to Eritrea. In his book The Israeli Connection: Who Arms Israel and Why? Professor Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi of Israel's Haifa University characterizes such activities by his country all over the world over as "Israel's world war." As prominent Israeli newspaper columnist Nahum Barnea has noted, "Israel will become the Western vanguard in the war against the Islamic enemy.'"

What happened to the Maoists, the godless, the People of the Little Red Book?

I don't know, and I would well invite Harun Yahya to survey and detail the architecture of ideological thought and practice within Isaias Aferwerki's regime.

Oddly, Eritrea has for several years been linked to the conveyance of arms to Islamist anti-government insurgents in Somalia. 

Try swallowing this from an Al Jazeera story on a UN Security Council report:

In an accusation backed by some security experts and diplomats, Somalia's government said earlier this month that Eritrea continues to support al Shabab fighters with AK-47 assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons.

Eritrea rejects the accusations that it sends weapons to the al Qaeda-linked groups fighting Somalia's government.

Source: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2009/05/200951603447360512.html 

And, of course, Eritrea doesn't persecute Christians and Muslims either.

Autocratic institutions and private kingdoms produce themselves, if you will, out of the light.

Burma, Cameroon, Phillipinnes, Zimbabwe, Iran, Eritrea may differ in atmosphere or cultural flavor, but they are all alike, and we, a global readership, may confuse ourselves with the vestigial alliances with which we have previously filtered our perception of events elsewhere and not yet vigorously drilled down to the core drivers of conflicts and of the world's tyrannies.

I am Jewish and I am pro-Israel and pro-Israeli, and with that comes the inclination, perhaps the obligation, by no means exclusive, to look into the darker regions, geopolitical and psychological, and contribute to the illumination of their gears and hinges.  Whether the most adverse of human processes are anchored in language, so much a part of the Islamic Small Wars, or in behaviors so myopic and narrowed to me and mine as to debase and dehumanize you and yours, which may indeed form the basis of a case against the west, I want to see certain inner workings, and I want you to see that intellectual and social machinery with me.

It is a hard thing transporting the better values of cultures and religions into more honest and noble alignments, but the ends cannot be otherwise in a globally and vigorously communicating social environment.

Cited Reference

Note: without question and neither to detriment nor honor, I write as I discover--definitely not a 19th Century research method here--and try for some control by keeping narrow in my interests and consequently able to recover information of which I've made myself aware and carry that into an integrating and synthesizing communication.  Above I've provided short reference inline for most quotations and hope that will suffice for readers surfing off on relevant tangents.

1. Department of Homeland Security, United States Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services.  "Eritrea: Information on the Persecution of Evangelical Christians in Asmara, Eritrea."  January 28,  2003, ERI03002.ZAR, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3f5209b84.html [accessed 10 December 2009]

Other Reference

YNet News.  "Eritrea's Last Native Jew Tends Graves, Remembers."  Jewish Scene, January 5, 2006: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3246419,00.html

End Plate

Mendacity! Do you know what that is?
It's lies and liars!

  
  
Who's been lying to you? Maggie?

  
  
No, not one lie or one person.
The whole thing.

Source: Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/c/cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof-script.html

# # #

Leibler on Shepherd's Latest Book and Leftward Europe's Final Treason

People who had spent their lives campaigning for the rights of women, homosexuals, ethnic minorities and pacifism are now making common cause with some of the most violent religious bigots on the planet. This has also encouraged European elites to labor under the false illusion that they can coexist with radical jihadist elements by appeasing them.

Shepherd also describes how the Jews, who in the immediate post-war era still enjoyed warm relations with liberals and the left, have now been rejected by them. He shows in brutal terms, how these groups continue expressing concern and commemorate dead Jews, but are less inclined to support the living, especially when it comes to those residing in their Jewish homeland where, to use the lexicon of Engels, they became transformed into a "reactionary people." [1]

Above: columnist Isi Leibler commenting on Robin Shepherd's analysis in his still new book, A State Beyond the Pale: Europe's Problem with Israel [2], of the political psychology--I would call it political psychosis--characterizing a part of Europe's attitude toward the Jewish state.

Leibler makes the statement in the context of his own most recent encounter with the European intellectual community engaged on the surface in observing European-Israeli relations, but, apparantly and tragically adrift in its own appeasing and ethically ambivalent soup.  Challenged by circumstance to confront the discrepency between its open society ideals and those of the company it prefers to assuage and whose influence drowns it in hypocrisy, it mouths a demonizing and useless agenda to the ears that always listen: Israel's.

See no evil: Hamas, Hizbollah, the Palestinian Liberation Organization and assorted and related company.

Speak no evil: the suppression and persecution of Christians in the hot zones of the Islamic Small Wars, all of them civil wars, essentially, involving the tension between medieval and modern ideation; also, denial of the full suite of oppressive and draconian social policies in force in every patch ravaged by the Islamic Small Wars.

To remind my European readers of one of the the true locations of the MIddle East Conflict and the source of the erosion of their values in light for their drift and their voices, here is my favorite passage from the Hamas charter:

"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

"After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying." [3]

It's not enough to merely change the direction of the pointing fingers.  The cruelty inherent in the sustained Islamic Small Wars demands a path toward resolution, not one conducive to the encouragment of further animosity, barbarism, political chaos, and global division.  To construct that path, however, we may have to dig down further into the language-driven psychology that licenses and motivates the latest indulgences in the dark mirrors that transform Jews into Nazis and their persecutors into innocent underdogs.

There are reasons, many, for Adolph Hitler's Mein Kampf becoming a bestseller in Gaza earlier in this decade. [4]

Reference

1. Leibler, Isi.  "Candidly Speaking: Europe Has Forsaken Israel."  The Jerusalem Post, December 9, 2009, updated December 10, 2009: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1260181033850

2. Shepherd, Robin.  A State Beyond the Pale: Europe's Problem with Israel.  London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2009.

3. Hamas Charter: http://www.mideastweb.org/hamas.htm

4. Pryce-Jones, David. "Their Kampf: Hitler's Book in Arab Hands." National Review, July 18, 2002: http://www.nationalreview.com/29july02/pryce-jones072902.asp

# # #