Learned Helplessness

(photo compliments of the Pentagon)

NPR and it's stealth Xtian-extremist, Barbara Bradley-Hagerty [yes, her!], must think its listeners are like the poor dogs of Martin Seligman's learned helplessness experiments: after being subjected to pain that they cannot control, they simply lie there and whimper when subjected to shock after shock - even when a way of escaping is provided.

Fortunately, listeners are not always as ignorant as NPR must think they are. On Thursday's ATC, Bradley Hagerty reported on the Army's "Spiritual Fitness" test, and kept the focus solely on the legal/Constitutional issues of the story, while completely ignoring very important facts and context that are essential to a full understanding of the case. Fortunately some of the commenters at the NPR site were not about to let her distort the history of the case.

One listener, providing the relevant link wrote:

"NPR left out a major part of this story, which was reported last week by Truthout.org and then reported by Countdown with Keith Olbermann. The person who is responsible for coming up with this crazy idea is Martin Seligman, who was also the inspiration for the CIA's torture program."

The listener noted that no credit was given to Truthout.org for the story.

Another listener, complimenting the mention of the Truthout.org piece, noted that Salon.com had covered the war-profiteering and slippery ethics of Martin Seligman angle of this story even earlier. Unsurprisingly, NPR and Bradley Hagerty, made no mention of this either.

Understandably, to fully cover this story, NPR would have to violate its own tortuous Torture-That's-Not-Torture policy. Readers here are under no such restraints and should feel free to read more about Seligman's "unwitting" involvement in the Bush era (now Obama era) torture programs. Martin Seligman's rejection of being complicit with torture is interesting, Scott Horton's Q&A with Jane Mayer is helpful, and Andrew Sullivan's ruminations are worth looking at, too.

I should note that General Warlove appreciated Ms. Bradley Hagerty's narrow focus.

Barbara Bradley Hagerty - God Help Us

(Update I & II below)
I received a heads up on Facebook regarding Monday morning's piece by Barbara Bradley Hagerty about THE HUGE SCHISM that has atheists ripping each other apart (not). The tip mentioned that Hagerty has been the recipient of a fellowship from the Templeton Foundation (a subject of controversy for being a conservative front organization with a religious devotion to the "free" market and openness to intelligent designers - see Wikipedia). On Hagerty's web site her bio states,

"She was one of 10 journalists selected for a Templeton-Cambridge fellowship in science and religion in 2005, where she and her colleagues spent weeks questioning world-class scientists and theologians at Cambridge University."

The first thing I did was see if Hagerty's "work" had appeared on the NPR Check radar. Well, what do you know, she garnered NPR Check honors twice :

(In May of 2007) Hagerty gave a sympathetic report about the creation museum...seriously. Here is some of what Hagerty noted back then:

• "...the vast majority of scientists say dinosaurs predated man by 65 million years."
• "this is as much a Bible museum as an attempt at science. The museum tries to use scientific evidence to show that Genesis is true"
• "the creation museum argues that everyone works from the same material...they only differ in interpretation, but this interpretation is nothing if not controversial....one of the museum's founders says it's more than educational..."

(In February of 2009) A even more dishonest piece of Hagerty's journalism was on display as she put a positive spin on the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival and its organizer, Doug Phillips. Hagerty completely ignored the Christian dominionist Vision Forum that backed the festival.

No surprise then that Hagerty is back this morning trying to stoke anti-atheism by focusing on the most radical actions of atheists (e.g. desecrating communion wafers) and simply conflating it with the more uncompromising positions of popular atheist authors Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.

The thing that really ticked me off, as an atheist, is that I think there is interesting material for discussion and debate about the more dogmatic approaches of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens versus a more accommodationist approach. But Hagerty's piece does little justice to this terrain - and her sneering contempt for atheists that runs throughout her feature becomes especially evident when expected interviews fall through at the Center for Inquiry Office in Washington, D.C., and she says

"Now, he could speak his mind, since he's a volunteer. But interviews with others associated with the Washington office were canceled shortly before we arrived — curious for a group that promotes free speech."

Maybe the folks there did a little background check on Hagerty and decided to avoid the hatchet job that her past sympathies indicated was in the works.

Update I: This post by P.Z. Meyers - whom Hagerty interviewed in the story - describes the distortions and dishonesty of the piece. Looks like the folks at the Center for Inquiry were right!

Update II: If unethical journalism was a crime, Ms. Hagerty would have quite a rap sheet:

• March 2004 - Atrios on Hagerty's ties to the "unapologetic Christian point of view" World Journalism Institute.
• May 2004 - Better Angels points out Hagerty's long list of documented mideeds and ties to rightwing Christian organizations.
• May 2004 - About.com's Austin Cline outs Ms. Hagerty's lousy, dishonest reporting.
• May 2005 - Media Matters takes the witness stand.

Any Damn Thing Considered

I guess now that President Science himself is gone, NPR feels compelled to take up the slack and give as much airtime as possible to complete creationist BS dressed up as science. For a while it seemed that NPR was expelling some of this Intelligent Design sludge every year or so [e.g. May 2007 and April 2008], but - gad! - it's getting to be a weekly thing now [e.g. Feb. 13th and today]. I guess this is how Fair and Balanced NPR celebrates the centenary of Darwin's Origin of Species.

Today features Jon Hamilton presenting a typical "he said, she said" debate on Intelligent Design and the "problem of the mind." Now, those of us who actually use our minds are well aware that the mind is a complex and mysterious entity, and if you are a believer in God or a nonbeliever like me, hopefully if fills you with wonder and curiosity to know more. But if you are a creationist always angling for a way to present your bankrupt ideas (or a news organization wanting to promote creationists as legitimate skeptics) then the fact that "scientists don't know [exactly] how the brain causes the mind" is a golden opportunity. As Hamilton explains "here's where the Darwin doubters come in." He might as well have added that the doors to NPR studios are also where the Darwin doubters come in.

I don't have a problem with NPR covering the resurgence of creationism under its various guises - it's a sad and important phenomenon in our country. But to treat this warmed-over creationism again and again as legitimate scientific skepticism and to give it equal footing with the the scientific community is both irresponsible and misleading.

You just have to love the neurosurgeon creationist NPR turns to in this report. We are told he believes that "an intelligent designer that had a hand in producing not only the brain but all living things and certain features of the universe." According to Hamilton, this man believes that "without this designer, the brain would be just a meat computer made up of brain cells." Given the content of NPR of late, maybe he's got a point!

Squirrels, Rabbits and The Greatest Frickin' Generation

Saturday with the Simonizer found him putting a shine on those two pillars of nationalism - God and country. He was having a little chat with two of Billy Graham's shysters grandchildren who have written a book glorifying their humble grandpa who lives in "log cabin" and who we find out "used to preach to squirrels and rabbits." Funny how the corporate/mainstream media like NPR love books that lionize Billy Graham but just can't seem to find the time to cover books that are well researched (and critical of America's greatest war preacher).

Just wouldn't be militaristic enough for Scott Simon without a gooey tribute to the warrior ethos. What better way than a grandfatherly sort who reenlisted after September 11th and now at the age of 60 is in Iraq. Ignoring that the war in Iraq has made many of us citizens of the planet poorer, unsafe and - of course - dead, we get to hear his wife tell us how her granddaughter "who's in about the fifth grade...was very happy to know that Papa Jim was trying to do something to keep the country safe." Aargh...

Lastly, I was struck by a piece from Jackie Lyden on Sunday's ATC. It's a decent enough report about the problems that the tanking housing market has created for WWII era retirees. When I heard her start the story I thought she called them the "Grayest Generation" which seemed a witty turn of Brokaw's sloppy "Greatest Generation" cognomen. But alas, NPR and Leyden have decided that this inaccurate (and propagandistic) label should stand as objective truth.

Gosh, and I didn't even get around to mentioning Sunday's fluffy, feel-good "This I Believe" piece about the power of Teddy Bears...from a veteran of Bagram in Afghanistan...yeah, that Bargram - home of cuddly, feel-good American soft-power...

A Provocative Piece

For once, when anti-Muslim/anti-Arab hatemongers in the US lay their ignorant, xenophobic cards on the table, wouldn't it be refreshing if the media (in this case NPR) simply called it out for the racist ideology that it is? Sadly, as Arianna Huffington has pointed out in her latest book, Right is Wrong, the establishment media (such as NPR) have gone to great lengths to accommodate and normalize the most extreme views of the right wing:

"A key to understanding the fanatical Right’s takeover of the Republican Party and how these ideas spread to the rest of the country is looking at the role of the media—not the Fox News pseudo-newsmen or the talk radio blowhards—but the respectable, supposedly liberal media. Without the enabling of the traditional media—with their obsession with “balance” and their pathological devotion to the idea that truth is always found in the middle—the radical Right would never have been able to have its ideas taken seriously."

So when the venomous Michele Malkin and the Little Green Brownshirts Footballs blog attacked Dunkin Donuts for featuring Rachel Ray wearing a scarf that looked like a keffiyah, it would have been great for NPR to put such anti-Arab/anti-Muslim activism in context. Given all the Arab/Muslim bashing in the media, is it any wonder that US torturers at Gitmo have included anti-Islamic tactics in their repertoire, that a Marine was filmed singing an anti-Islamic song, that a US soldier used a Quran for target practice, and that a Marine in Fallujah was evangelizing the locked-down residents of that city with "Christian" coins?

Instead of just naming the anti-Keffiyah attacks as another example of the far-right's strategy of expanding the general Islamophobia that pervades the US, NPR treats it as reasonable, or at best subjects it to some slight ridicule as if it's just harmless overreacting. And so on Thursday's ME we get Robert Smith trying to be funny: "conservative commentators noted that the look was popularized by fashion icon, Yasser Arafat. Perhaps they have uncovered a vast donut conspiracy...." Jamie Tarabay follows up on Thursday's ATC, sadly opening the piece with

"Rachel Ray is one of Dunkin Donuts most prominent spokespeople...there's a provocative piece of black and white clothing draped around her shoulders in one online ad...."

Provocative piece of black and white clothing? I'm sorry but what's "provocative" about it, unless you are walking in lockstep with a bunch of hardcore pro-Zionist, Islamophoic rightwingers? Tarbay's piece does include some criticism of the anti-keffiyah attacks, but overall it presents this latest far-right action as deserving balanced, mainstream consideration. Not surprising really; that was the same premise that underlay the really disturbing NPR "Intelligence Squared" segment I heard in April on whether radicalism dominates Islam (imagine them doing a similarly inflammatory slant on Judaism or Christianity).

The Apology that Wasn't from the Story That Isn't

A little flashback to Tuesday ATC's story on Rev. Hateful Hagee's apology and it's acceptance by the William Donohue, President of the Catholic League of Rightwing Bigotry and Hate. Here's Michelle Norris' report:

"...a controversial supporter of Senator McCain's issued an apology today. It came from John Hagee, and evangelical pastor. McCain sought his endorsement earlier this year despite Hagee's habit of making comments that many find offensive....But now the pastor has sent a letter to the head of the Catholic League, William Donohue, expressing quote 'deep regret for any comments that Catholics have found hurtful.' Donohue quickly issued a statement accepting the apology and he wrote, 'This case is closed.' Senator McCain...called Hagee's letter helpful."

Norris puts in some nifty rhetorical slights of hand. She simply calls it an apology (even though it's a typical non-apology). She also qualifies Hagee's slimy bigotry as "comments that many find offensive" and she simply notes Donohue's acceptance without any information about Donohue's extreme right-wing anti civil liberties bona fides and allows his "case closed" pronouncement to stand unchallenged.

Non-journalism Meets Non-science

NPR had a great opportunity with the opening of the creation "museum." NPR could have interviewed scientists who would have laid out the overwhelming case that there is no science in this farce "museum" just as there is no science in the creation "science" movement. NPR could have contacted the NCSE for some experts and information, instead of turning things over to the woefully ill-informed Steve Inskeep and Barbara Bradley Hagerty.

This statement of Inskeep's is a stunner: "A scientist might argue, a conventional scientist might argue, he or she is looking at the evidence and following that evidence where it goes. Your starting point is that it’s already known that the world is only 5000 years old and that it was created in seven days and you must look at the evidence in a way that fits what you already take as true." Notice how Inkseep says, "A scientist might argue" but then corrects himself and says "a conventional scientist might argue." The implication is that "conventional scientists" are just one version of scientists, no more worthy of legitimacy than so-called creation-scientists!

Hagerty is no better - maybe even worse. She says that one of the literalists touring the facility "drove from Lancaster Pennsylvania to see evidence for what she already believes...that God made the universe in six days..." There's one problem here: there is NO EVIDENCE! Hagerty also states that "the vast majority of scientists say dinosaurs predated man by 65 million years." Like Inskeep, Hagerty is sadly confused. The fact is that ALL legitimate scientists agree that dinosaurs predate humans. Yes there may be a few who insist on the fiction of human coexistence with dinosaurs just as there may be a few scientists who think that the Apollo missions were faked or that the sun revolves around the earth. Vast majority implies that there is legitimate scientific debate about creationism - there isn't.

Of course this is all taking place within the context of an idiot President who hates scientific research and truthiness (as Colbert so aptly puts it.) It's sad to see NPR give these anti-rationalists a stage in which they are presented as one side of a reasonable debate.

Our Own Mullah Omar

For any of those sad souls out there who still maintain that NPR leans even gently to the left - or has a balanced approach to the news, consider the death of the one of the founders of the the American Taliban - Mr. Falwell, our own Mullah Omar. Over the past two days NPR has given extensive coverage to the passing of Falwell. So far I've heard only from supporters (Paul Weyrich and fawning students at the laughably named "Liberty University"), critical supporters, and NPR's own journalists. What I never heard was a spokesperson such as Gary Leupp or Chris Hedges who would explain the very real Christo-fascist tendencies of Jerry Falwell and his contemporary crop of clones like James Dobson. There was some mention of the "hatefulness" of some of his remarks, but I never heard any one journalist or commentator remark on how shocking it is that a religious extremist leader who championed the assault on our country's precious tradition of secular government founded by secularists is praised by most of the contenders for the Republican nomination. Disgraceful...

For God's Sake

I should first say that I am an atheist and secular humanist. However, I have a great deal of respect for people of faith who wrestle with the complexities of belief and try to live an ethical life. The one principle that I've retained and cherish from my Catholic upbringing is the Golden Rule.

What does disturb and disgust me is religion in the service of power, domination and violence - and news reports like those on Morning Edition today that present the most reactionary religious organizations as if they were mainstream, legitimate and reasonable.

Take a listen to the first report in which NPR visits the National Convention of Religious Broadcasters in Orlando, Florida. In this brief report about Republican candidates wooing the religious extreme right we hear from representatives of such groups as the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, and Salem Communications.

Following this report NPR looks at Democratic candidates through the lens of Michael Comartie , vice president of the neoconservative Ethics and Public Policy Center. Comartie makes several bogus claims about how "nonreligious" the Democratic base is and how only conservatives have religious values.

The story NPR should be covering is the one featured on Democracy Now! this week: the infiltration of the government and military achieved by the extremist religious organizations that they portray as mainstream. It would also be refreshing to hear from progressive Christians who reject the Dominionist ideology of the far right (including this evangelical group from my hometown of Jacksonville, Florida!).

Who Created a Sensation?

"Honoring Rome's gods and goddesses was considered a civic obligation and, at times, a law."

When I heard that Keith Ellison was going to use a Quran during a swearing-in ceremony, my reaction was "Well, duh!" In a secular democratic state, with religious tolerance enshrined in its Constitution that elected officials must swear to defend, what other sacred text would a Muslim choose to swear on (except maybe the Hadith)?

So why on ATC tonight does Michele Norris say, "Newly elected Keith Ellison created a sensation last month when he announced that he planned to take the oath of office on the Quran." Ellison didn't "create" the sensation; a bigoted rightwing columnist and an ignorant, racist representative created the sensation. Media Matters early on pointed out how misleading it is when the media attributes the controversy to Ellison and not to the bigots who want to make worship of the Judeo-Christian Bible a litmus test for holding office (and even citizenship in the case of Goode). How is this firestorm of bigotry described by Norris? She says "His decision to use the Muslim holy book...drew criticism."

That is kind.