Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
On Saturday I was citing a Gallup poll that says — essentially — none of us trust the media reports from Iraq. I would argue this is about the only correct decision people are making on a large ocean-to-ocean scale nowadays. We’ve come to realize the reports from Iraq are saturated with unsubstantiated, personal opinion from those who bring them; more often than not, the bias is apparently injected without the conscious knowledge of those who are the source of it. It seems Iraq would be a big mystery-land, a “Dark Continent” of sorts, save for one thing and one thing only. It has to do with everyone having an opinion about what to do about it. None of our politicians seem sufficiently talented to shape these opinions into a course of action that will appeal to a critical mass among us — it looks like a chore not unlike building a castle out of dry sand. And, among the individuals, what to do about Iraq is a matter of principle. And so, with the vortex that appears between those three forces, we have a situation where we “know” what to do about it, without achieving a good understanding of what’s happening there.
Some of us believe in making any conflict go away by simply ignoring it, and thus setting an example for those engaged in the conflict. Others of us believe this is foolish. We believe in Churchill’s definition of “appeasement”: “An appeaser is one who feeds the crocodile hoping it will eat him last.”
And that brings me to Deb Saunders’ latest. She’s noticed, about Saddam Hussein’s execution, exactly what I’ve been noticing. We have all been instructed to believe it was “botched.” By contrast with an American execution, Saddam’s last public performance had some chaotic elements to it that could inspire a reasonable observer to think it was botched, but it’s oversimplistic to simply ponder whether the adjective applies. It’s disingenuous. Saddam’s execution was pre-botched. Those who tell us it was botched, were ready to tell us this, breathlessly, probably since Saddam was wrestled out of his spider-hole.
These days, the first rule of war coverage is that nothing — not even military victory — will improve Iraq’s prospects.
The second rule is that everything is botched. So Hussein’s trial was not fair, the appeals process was too swift and the execution was insufficiently solemn.
In the 24-hour news cycle, you can kill your own citizens with impunity, subject them to starvation and lead them into an avoidable war. But, if later you are brought to justice, coverage of your trial will be not so much about the carnage as about the “deeply-flawed” trial.
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Indeed, critics are so busy trying to transform Iraqi prosecutions into an O.J. Simpson trial that they fail to notice that the families of Kurds and Shiites who were tortured and murdered for rebelling against Hussein now know that the Butcher of Baghdad can no longer hurt them. That’s why there was dancing in Dearborn, Mich., home to a large community of Iraqi Americans who fled their homeland while under Hussein’s rule. Hussein cannot come back, as he did in 1963 after he fled to Syria and Egypt. He will never terrorize his countrymen again. He will hold no more power on this earth. Somehow, that’s no biggie.
Don’t ask me to explain it. I do think we have something broken in our system of reporting anything. The problem goes beyond Iraq. Those of us who are not in journalism, get to read things online and watch television and buy newspapers, and learn what’s going on from people who are in journalism — as they see it.
And they don’t see things the way “real” people do. It’s like the old joke where God decides to end the world, and they see women-and-minorities as hardest hit. Superman himself could be swooping around Iraq fishing kittens out of trees, and they’d say that was botched too.
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