Wake up, American media

Good news! John Mark Karr will not be charged in the JonBenet Ramsey murder case, thus guaranteeing the world another odd decade of intense suspense over the real perpetrator of the crime. I will now go throw up.

Even more depressing than the rampant media attention given this completely unimportant and meaningless case is what the media are not covering. American media are all too good at playing up a story for a set period of time — days, maybe weeks — and then completely forgetting about the issue.

Cases in point: Darfur and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Sure, there are a few random stories bumbling around — but hardly an accurate coverage of two immense tragedies. For a few days after Katrina, hopes were raised that, finally, the U.S. media would begin to cover the huge income disparities, largely based on ethnicity, in America. Of course, these hopes largely evaporated at the end of September 2005.

Katrina was in our own backyard — but Darfur is the scene of a horrific genocide, largely condoned by the Sudanese government. It seemed for a month late this spring Darfur would finally be the real “never again” scenario — a feeling proven much too naïve. The peace deal that was so heralded in May is now completely ignored — and has merely given cover for the main rebel group to attack its rivals.

Taken together, the media’s coverage (or lack thereof) of actual news is exceptionally worrisome. I find it hard to believe Americans are truly so ignorant to believe JonBenet Ramsey’s 10-year-old case is more important than hundreds of thousands of dead and displaced. Even if we merely restricted ourselves to national news, the social message so damningly displayed by Katrina and its aftereffects are all but ignored. Day by day, it appears American media have forgotten what it takes to uphold the profession of journalism.

Andrew Swift
editorial writer, columnist

Runways not the place for guessing games

The crash of Comair 5191 Aug, 27 in Lexington, Ky. marks an end to five years of nearly perfect airline safety.  While the investigation has just begun, the basic premise of the accident has become clear.

The early-morning flight was scheduled to depart the Blue Grass Airport at 6:05 a.m. EST. It was one of the first flights of the day, and at this time of the year, six in the morning is still considered "night" by the FAA. There are two main runways at the airport, runways 26/08 and 22/04 (airport runways are named based on their magnetic heading - add a zero to each number and you get their magnetic direction). All airline flights from the airport use the 22/04 runway, which has
an adequate length of 7,000 feet. With the wind calm, the Air Traffic Controller at LEX (the airport code for Lexington) would have assigned the aircraft to depart from the closest appropriate runway, which in this case for this size of aircraft would be runway 22.

However, to get to runway 22, the aircraft would have to taxi right by the end of runway 26. The two runways intersect a thousand feet or so away from their respective ends, and it is likely at the time of the accident the pilots could only see two runways of relative length stretching out into the infinity of darkness. That is, being on the wrong runway at this time of day would not look totally off, even from a pilot's perspective in the cockpit. Obviously, much more goes into making sure an aircraft is set for takeoff then just having things "look right," but visual cues in any activity done over and over again often give the operator an idea that something is wrong. In this case, a cursory glance by the pilots outside their window most likely would not have yielded an "oh shit" reaction until much later in the take-off - like when they realized they had about as half as much of runway available than they originally thought.
       
Of course, until the NTSB releases it's final report, which could take years, all of this is just speculation. The weary and frequent (or infrequent) traveler can take solace after this crash, however, because you can bet for a long while in the future making sure the correct runway is being used will weigh heavily in the minds of all pilots.

Eric Kochneff
columnist
Eric is a licensed commercial pilot

Anatomy on display is entertainment, not education

Two anatomical exhibitions, “Bodies: The Exhibition,” and “Body Worlds,” are being met with stiff controversy throughout their tours of the United States and Europe this year. The sketchy provenance of the human bodies and body parts on display has, so far, been the primary point of contention, along with the obvious ethical concerns raised by exhibiting human cadavers for entertainment and profit.

Dr. Günther von Hagens, the proprietor of the exhibition "Body Worlds" and inventor of “plastination,” which uses a polymer filler to preserve individual tissues and organs, came under scrutiny when the German magazine Der Spiegel found some of the exhibition’s bodies belonged to executed Chinese prisoners. Since then, von Hagens only gets his corpses from consenting individuals in former Soviet-bloc countries — although their “consent” and origin are usually impossible to verify because of his policy of keeping the donors anonymous, ostensibly out of respect for the dead.

One has to wonder, though, how respectful it is to pose people’s earthly remains so as to make it appear that they’re scissor-kicking a soccer ball, holding their own intestines out for you to look at, or roller-skating. Von Hagens’ rationale for the displays includes a kind of democratization of the corpse-viewing that has heretofore been reserved mostly for medical professionals. It should be clear, however, that “education” in these displays is significantly blurred with entertainment. As an NPR reporter observed, many of the people attending the current exposition in Florida came to gawk at “real dead people” in similarly garish poses. Some were more reflective, however; as one observer said, “I wonder who they are, where they came from.”

Although the people on display are quite incapable of caring about what happens to their bodies after they have died, it often strikes the living as freakish and unnatural. Regardless of your spiritual beliefs or lack thereof, many people react with a basic level of disgust and even sadness to the displays. The spectator’s use of the present tense “who they are” illustrates what seems like a basic human inability to completely dissociate human bodies from their personhood — or their minds. Although modern science continues to prove more and more that the two are the same, simple, irrational human empathy seems to dictate otherwise.

Tyler Bleau
editorial writer, columnist

‘Ethnic’ tribes may spark controversy

“Survivor,” at first glance, is in the midst of producing an enormous PR no-no. The new season, slated to air at the beginning of September, will, because of the amount of ethnic pride among the show’s applicants, divide the teams by ethnicity. The teams will be the White Tribe, the African-American Tribe, the Asian-American Tribe, and the Hispanic Tribe.
The question I’m sure you’re asking is, “What the hell are they thinking?” And while at first I wasn’t sure, I think I’m beginning to catch on.

The United States likes to pretend ethnic relations are A-OK, and while things have improved and are improving, the new season of “Survivor” could serve as a wake-up call and a sociological experiment to those unwilling and unable to discuss ethnic relations. It seems, nowadays, that the basic “safe” conversation is what was on television last night, and if what was on is making people discuss and confront controversial topics; I’m all for it. However, if “Survivor” goes as far to encourage stereotypes, then we have a serious ethical problem.

Because the only job “Survivor” has to fulfill for CBS is to make money, this could be viewed as a tasteless ploy to use controversy as a springboard into the living rooms of viewers. While attracting viewers will probably not be an issue, gaining advertisers could be.

Who is going to advertise and be financially associated with a program that may fail the very people advertisers mean to serve? It could be a painful few months for CBS — or an eye-opening experience for viewers.

John LaRue
columnist

Cable news: a waste of air space

So what the heck? JonBenet Ramsey? Are you kidding?

I was doing something or other this past week and had CNN on in the back ground when I heard the anchor utter the "breaking" news: "Authorities in Thailand have arrested a suspect in the JonBenet Ramsey murder case."

It caused a few different reactions for me. Firstly, I had to briefly refresh my memory as to what the JBR murder case actually was. Secondly, I had to make sure I had heard it was actually Thai authorities who arrested the suspect, and for a short period of time I was trying to comprehend some reason for that. Finally, a feeling of sadness washed over me as I realized the media in this country would again be covering the shit out of this story and I would unfortunately be subjected to endless speculation about the original murder and how this suspect may or may not be somehow tied to it.

That seems to be pretty much what has happened since then. The story has also, not un-expectedly, gotten even more bizarre. The suspect in custody claims to have been the one who killed JonBenet, however, he claimed it was an "accident" induced while strangling her after some sort of sexual act. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) his ex-wife's story does not match his. She claims he was in Atlanta with her on Christmas Eve of 1996. However, that is where the Ramsey's hailed from originally, and apparently they kept a house there and moved back after their daughter was killed.        

And recently, it was announced by multiple news outlets Karr had recently visited a sex change clinic in Thailand and consulted about a sex change operation.

Yeah, that sounds about right. Whatever the final conclusion, I like what blogger Nancy Nall (link: http://nancynall.com) had to say about it all: "I have no clue what's going on in this Ramsey case thing, other than perhaps this: John Mark Karr is a dark angel sent from hell to prove that watching cable news is a total waste of time."

Eric Kochneff
columnist

Computing news reflects odd interests

Are the machines learning from us? (Or, to recycle a well-used Bushism, “Is our computers learning?”) In times past, it was panicky, circulation-hungry editors and vacuous TV producers who gave voluminous and unending coverage to the most meaningless news items of their day. Remember Michael Jackson, not so long ago? He’'s famous, as well as bizarre, so his second child-molestation trial somehow warranted massive amounts of column inches and airtime. Remember the OJ trial? It got so much attention the media had to invent reasons why it was significant. (I'’ll grant that it helped illustrate the racial divide in this country, but it'’s kind of pathetic that anybody still needed illustrations of that from the trial of a previously minor celebrity.)

Now, though, Google News can help us focus on celebrity tittle-tattle without the need for any human agency. The service'’s “About Google News” page says that sophisticated algorithms are used to determine the placement of stories on the site’s main page. Incredible. Technology marches on.

Unfortunately, the site also states Google News’ choice of top stories is based on the “collective judgment of online news editors,” which probably explains why the last 10 or 12 times I'’ve logged on, there’s been some story like “"JonBenet Ramsey Suspect Picks Nose!"” right at the top of the page. As of yesterday, Google News links to 3,588 JonBenet-related items. The second top story, about nascent holy war in Iraq, links to 795. Apparently, the whole affair wasn'’t embarrassing enough for American journalism the first time around.

Clearly, the machines have learned much from us.

Jonathan Gold
columnist

Making headlines

The July 17 front page story of the Daily Iowan read: “McCain condemns Hezbollah.”

Well no shit.
       
Did anyone in the entire universe find it surprising that a United States senator would side with Israel in its conflict with Middle Eastern Terrorists? Not that I necessarily disagree with his condemnation of Hezbollah, but was it really that big of a news story that it belonged as the front-page, above-the-fold headline in the DI?

The main reason it was a front page story to begin with was because McCain made the announcement in Iowa while campaigning for Mike Whalan, Republican Congressional Candidate for Iowa’s first District. It seems like the real story here was simply McCain being in the state and making comments with an international relevancy while being here. I’m not
saying this isn’t a story, only that it is a story more suitable for aside-bar or anything else that isn’t the major headline of the newspaper.
     
 Let me also say I am not a headline writer, nor would I want to be one, and I think the DI people usually do a pretty good job of figuring out what is newsworthy and what isn’t, along with the actual level of newsworthy-ness of a
particular piece of news.  So we can probably overlook this gaffe. Let’s just hope in the future that the lead story isn’t something all of us know is going to happen anyway.

Eric Kochneff
Columnist

Sanctions on Iran should be last resort

Iran’s stonewalling of the benefits package offered by the Bush administration probably one of the most, if not the most, successful piece of proactive foreign policy the administration has produced — has weakened Iran’s position in its nuclear standoff. Russia and China, while still officially opposing sanctions on Iran, agreed last week to consider a U.N. security resolution that would require the “rogue nation” to halt certain nuclear activities or face sanctions.

This marks an important change; both countries have substantial economic interests in Iran and seem intent on forming a geopolitical counterweight to the West. The G8 countries also lent support to a Russian plan to establish international atomic-fuel centers, which would be useful in closing the gaping loophole in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that allows countries to synthesize fuel for “civilian” use. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin, despite their difficulties on other issues — for instance, Russia’s recently botched entry into the World Trade Organization — both voiced serious concern July 17 that Iran had still not responded.

Iranian and Syrian support of Hezbollah, which Iran has been cozy with since its militant Islamist revolution in the ’70s, appears to be raising the stakes for what seems like an inevitable confrontation.

If sanctions are imposed, it would only serve to make Iran more irate and inward-looking. Although an oil embargo has been suggested, it is “seen as highly unlikely and … could further rattle global markets,” according to a New York Times article. Other restrictions on the table include “travel restrictions on Iranian officials, a ban on cultural exchanges and visas for Iranians, financial restrictions, [and] political sanctions.” If these sanctions were adapted without an effective oil embargo, it would be for the worst; the Iranians would still have an ample source of money for nukes, and the bile in their throats would almost certainly rise to the vomiting point.

The benefits offered by the Bush administration, on the other hand, look much better. Support for Iranian entrance into the WTO, ending a ban on selling aircraft and parts to Iran, access to nuclear reactors, and much more are all included in the incentives package, which would make crucial progress toward giving Iran a real and legitimate interest in international stability. There are certainly cultural obstacles to this approach, but these have been overcome in the past — witness the long-gone Christian ban on lending money at interest.

Iran’s shrunken, largely state-controlled economy gives it little to lose, as things are now. If Iran can be brought into the fold, the chances for peace are much better.

Tyler Bleau
Editorial writer

Hot dogs over independence?

Today is National Hot Dog Day, a wonderfully fantastic idea for a holiday. In fact, the whole premise of random holidays — National Pirate Day, etc. — is an excellent concept. I’m extremely glad great citizens of this country can counterbalance the idiocy of the holiday powers-that-be with grass-roots action.

The hot dog is one of the greatest truly American foods — the hamburger, after all, derives its origins from Hamburg, Germany. While the hot dog’s origins are also in dispute (frankfurters from Frankfurt, Germany, are the inspiration for hot dogs), the term “hot dog” itself was coined within the United States — but legend disputes just exactly who first used the term.

But I have a few problems with the date chosen as National Hot Dog day. It would make more sense to have the holiday fall on two alternate days. One, obviously, would be the date of the first printed usage of the term — admittedly, it’s hard to determine the precise date. The other, however, is my personal choice, but a present holiday already falls upon it. I speak, of course, of the Fourth of July.

Why this precise date? Well, for one thing, we need to replace this day’s pre-existing holiday. It’s stupid and irrelevant. Besides, this date holds Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog contest — by far the best event of the entire day and, perhaps, the entire year. It would only make sense for the greatest athletes in the history of the world — for the last six years, Takeru Kobayashi of Nagano, Japan — to hold one of the world’s greatest sports on the greatest holiday of them all — July 4, the new National Hot Dog Day.

Andrew Swift
Editorial writer

UN must take active role in peacekeeping

Where are the blue helmets? Israel appears to be fending for itself without a Lebanese soldier coming close to the chosen people’s state, but is it enough? The United Nations needs to take an active role as a peacekeeper in the Middle East. Surrounded by enemies, Israel must be assisted diplomatically, as well as militarily. Not only are its current decisions based entirely on self-preservation, but no matter what course of action it takes to succeed, it will be biased.

The magnifying glass of the United Nations would accomplish a few important things. First, it would allow the organization to be taken more seriously around the world by becoming involved in the decisions of a “Western nation.” Second, it would take power out of the hands of the United States and put it into the world community. The second point is debatable, because the United States provides the majority of U.N. funding. Both of these things are vital for the stability of the region.

But the most pressing reason for acquiring stability in the region with the United Nations is Iran, which, while years from having a nuclear armament, has made several threats against the Jewish state, claiming it will blow Israel off the map. Hezbollah can only launch small-scale attacks against Israel, but any nation, no matter how large an army, can cause devastation with a nuclear weapon. By putting a multinational force in the region, it becomes everybody’s problem, and when it'’s everybody'’s problem, the world will be forced to make a decision.

With the international community at the drawing board, a decision needs to be made that will increase stability and benefit the entire region, not just Western investors.

John LaRue
Columnist

One step forward, two steps back

As if the escalating violence between the Israelis and the Palestinians in Gaza isn’'t enough, there is now another front: Hezbollah, Lebanon’s militant group, has seized two Israeli soldiers in the latest confrontation in the region. What’s most incredible is not so much the violence, given the already turbulent nature of the region, but rather how the situation has rapidly degenerated after slowly moving in the right direction over the past several years. Both sides a have a share in the blame, and neither wants to back down.

These recent events highlight how violence, though some believe it to be an easy solution, is heartbreakingly ineffective in remedying the problems faced. In 2000, Israel pulled out of southern Lebanon after years of occupation. In 2005 Israel withdrew from settlements in Gaza and the West Bank, and Lebanon held its first elections free from Syrian interference — three major moves toward a more stable situation that were a longtime coming.

Hezbollah received 23 of the 128 seats in the Lebanese elections, and then things started going downhill. This, coupled with Hamas winning the majority of the seats in the Palestinian Parliament, has made matters all the more difficult because both are considered terrorists groups by Israel, the United States, and the European Union.

This is not a clear-cut conflict. The term “terrorist” is hard to apply given the military imbalances and the options available to conducting any sort of confrontation in the traditional sense. Both sides are guilty of dubious acts, be it suicide bombings by Palestinians or the targeting of civilian infrastructure as seen in the recent incursion in Gaza by Israel. Setting aside the immoral nature of these tactics, there is a practical argument that can be made against their employment. So far every escalation by each side has been built upon the prior misdeeds of the other. When there are no just means of resolution, then an “eye for an eye” really will leave everyone blind.

Deceleration is what is needed, as hard as that may be. It’s simple to say, “Just work things out peacefully,” I realize that, but there are actions that could expedite the process. A start would be for Israel to work with the governments of Lebanon and Palestine, even though that would mean dealing with Hamas and Hezbollah. As John F. Kennedy so insightfully said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” Israel should jump at the chance to work with the Lebanese and Palestinian governments.

Peaceful resolution will fail when people feel they lack any political efficacy. I’d much rather have “terrorist” organizations try to work through democratic channels in resolving their conflicts than acting on their own.

Joe Dunkle
Editorial writer

Don't forget about NASA

For the American public and NASA, it seems the honeymoon is over. We never pay attention to it anymore. We've stopped with the little gifts: the new rocket series, the renovations, the 5 percent of federal outlays. Even the Discovery’s raggedy appearance has mostly gone unnoticed. Those little mistakes and imperfections, endearing when things were getting underway, are now just irritating — we wonder why we put up with it anymore. And then there was that falling-out we had over the Challenger.

That last remark was not only distasteful, it was a mild example of the sick jokes that pervaded American culture for months after the disaster. For instance, that the crash was due to the astronauts freebasing Tang — or the one about the shuttlecock. This apparent schadenfreude, according to an article in the journal Western Folklore, betrays a frustration with NASA’s failure, which was also a failure for the country it symbolized. Maybe, maybe not. But since then, save for a brief interlude with the Red Planet, the public, and hence lawmakers, seem to have simply stopped caring.

This has, perhaps predictably, reflected itself in the steady declination of NASA’s budget, which has forced cuts to vital education and scientific research programs in order to satisfy an unchanging list of demands. The Discovery’s launch this week, already iffy because of insulation problems (pieces of filler fabric were found to be sticking out from the insulation), was approved anyway in order to stay on schedule with the 16 shuttle flights to be made to the international space station before the agency’s aging shuttles are finally retired in 2010. The number of pork-barrel programs attached to NASA’s budget has multiplied in recent decades, from six a decade ago to 198 separate “special interest items,” totaling more than half a billion dollars.

Budgetary stringency brought on by the war in Iraq have turned an additional appropriation of $60 million into a $190 million cut. Incremental cuts can end up costing far more than their explicit value — repairs put off today, say NASA officials, cost exponentially more to perform later, and forced cuts to research programs undermine the whole reason for being up there in the first place.

Although it may not always be immediately visible, the benefits of such research — necessarily public, because no private company could be remotely similar to NASA and stay afloat financially — are deeply felt and long lasting. From nonstick pans to the future of the human race, NASA is vital. A spacecraft was sent to Venus in April, for example, to gather information that may shed more light on global warming. Much of the technology for commercial air travel in use today was worked out by NASA some 15-20 years ago. The benefits to our economy, not to mention security in this area, have been huge — Boeing is widely known to be the largest U.S. exporter, and its 787 and other planes are directly tied to NASA developments. And, of course, there is the more distant possibility of settling other planets, should we end up destroying this one.

NASA has been good to us, and it deserves better than this. We need to recognize what we have in NASA is something very special and unique — and act accordingly.

Tyler Bleau
Editorial writer

Hardly a Democrat

I am utterly sickened by Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn. I am pretty liberal, but being liberal doesn't’t translate to automatically supporting the misguided actions of everyone else who puts a donkey on their campaign materials. Besides, Lieberman is only a Democrat in the most technical sense. They may put a “D” after his name on TV news shows, but I have my doubts.

Lieberman supports — and has always supported — the Iraq war. To be fair, a lot of Democrats in Congress supported the war, but Lieberman wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal in 2005, harping on the progress being made in Iraq and upbraiding fellow Democrats who dared question President Bush’s motives in launching the war.
He also is a fierce opponent of the most dreadful scourge facing our nation today — video games. He chaired a Senate investigation into Mortal Kombat in 1993, and more recently rallied against Grand Theft Auto. If I were a senator, I would probably spend less time worrying about fake characters being killed on video screens and more time being concerned about American soldiers being killed in Iraq.

But, in the latest escapade making me furious, Lieberman is planning to run for re-election to the office of senator of Connecticut, even if he loses to popular challenger Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary. This kind of divisive, “me-first” careerism is exactly why the Democratic Party is unable to successfully unite in opposition to the Bush administration. Some days, I question whether the Democrats could unite to fight their way out of a wet paper sack.

Lieberman insisted to CNN that he has a “higher loyalty” to some things other than the Democratic Party. He said his loyalty was to his state and country, but I’m pretty sure he was referring to his steadfast commitment to himself and his own career.

Jayne Lady
Editorial writer

Parental guidance suggested

I love a good joke. So, I doubled over when I read a recent CNN.com news headline titled "“Christian film’s PG rating troubles Congress.”" I could only imagine how outrageously entertaining the story could possibly be. I was not disappointed.
"Facing the Giants" is a film about a football coach who likes God and tells his players to like God. That was a dramatic oversimplification, but, frankly, it’'s a pretty stupid premise, and I doubt whether anyone will see it other than those still believing humanity was created by intelligent design. Whoops.

Anyway, the PG rating, suggesting parental guidance, means the Motion Picture Association of America has deemed some of the movie'’s content not suitable for children. House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., in an uppity letter to movie-association Chairman Dan Glickman, wrote: “This incident raises the disquieting possibility that the [association] considers exposure to Christian themes more dangerous for children than exposure to gratuitous sex and violence.”
Frankly, Blunt hit the nail right on the head. Gratuitous sex and violence, no matter how much our “family values” experts tell us, don’t leave viewers completely brainwashed. If they did, daily life would play out like a scene from Grand Theft Auto Vice
City.

But who knows what information will seep into a child’'s mind after watching a lighthearted movie with Christian messages? Kids aren’t going to know what they really want or really want to believe at 3 to 12 years old. So why try to indoctrinate them with pop culture? Isn'’t the church pulpit enough?
America, think of the children.

Andrew Swift
Editorial writer

Swiftboating

A while back, I blogged about Representative Peter King's (R-N.Y.) wish to sue the New York Times over exposing a Bush administration program examining money-transfer records to hunt terrorists. Obviously, King is a complete loony. But Rep. King is going to have to bring his game up. Sadly (more like depressingly), he no longer wins first prize in the "Let's make the most outrageous statements possible" game.

Frankly, this story is the gift that keeps on giving. I was convinced King's statement could never be topped. But then, I saw a clip from Pravda - excuse me, Fox News that absolutely blew my mind away. Apparently Brian Kilmeade, co-host of Fox & Friends, has the answer to not only end this brouhaha, but to ensure security and liberty for America for the rest of time.

Let's create an Office of Censorship. Why? To vet all stories past the following question: "Does this hurt our country or is it of, you know, news value?" Kilmeade, you win this round.

But again, I'm still not all that impressed. In fact, I probably would have let this whole charade slide if it weren't for the name of the program: The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Transcommunication. S.W.I.F.T. Suing newspapers, offices of censorship - that I can handle. But Swiftboating my own name? That's simply too far.

Andrew Swift
Editorial writer