Sunday, January 17, 2010

Q Tips


NPR related comments welcomed.

52 comments:

geoff said...

I still wait 4 lifting of shroud of secrecy over the civil trial re MLK.

This is my comment to clueless Lianne's phone interview with Rev. Kyles. At least they didn't have to resort to interviewing CIA agent Marrell McCollough.

Rev. Kyles Remembers Martin Luther King, Jr.

The conclusion of the 1997 civil suit by a jury shows the accused guilty and finds that government agencies were parties to the assasination.

It's eerie that when you google "Martin Luther King" the official King Family web site, "martinlutherking.org" comes up before thekingcenter.org

The latter is the official family trust site while the former is is a prurient hit piece on the MLK legacy. How is it that martinlutherking.org site has a higher precedence? Is it number of hits? $$? It seems to me this is symptomatic of suppression of the truth about king (especially how his anti-war anti-US imperialism got him into trouble) and his assassination.

If you search npr.org and find information about the 1997 civil suit that found James Earl Ray was not the assassin, let me know. If you'd like to read for yourself: http://www.thekingcenter.org/KingCenter/Transcript_press_conference.aspx

geoff said...

OOps! Scrooged the pooch on that one: Move over Grumpy!

Of course, official King Family web site, is thekingcenter.org while the character assassination is "martinlutherking.org"

geoff said...

Not sure what to make of this: http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/dickmcmanus/gGg2Kg

miranda (pamela) said...

Do people really still believe the "lone nut" theory of this assassination?

Sadly, I fear the answer is yes. It's comforting, I suppose, to blame these predictable acts of political violence on random chaos and mental illness.

Anonymous said...

It's comforting, I suppose, to blame these predictable acts of political violence on random chaos and mental illness.

That's exactly right. It is comforting...

because it obviates the need to face the real reasons for the assassination of MLK.

Just as buying the argument that Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with OBL obviates the need to face the real reasons behind the invasion of Iraq

...and buying the argument that "the financial meltdown was caused by a bunch of poor people fraudulently claiming they could afford houses" obviates the need to face the primary reasons behind the meltdown

This stuff has little to nothing to do with reality and everything to do with perception (and denial).

Anonymous said...

very useful read. I would love to follow you on twitter. By the way, did you learn that some chinese hacker had busted twitter yesterday again.

Anonymous said...

I was listening to radio times when a guy named Farmer was on (legal beagle for 9-11 bi-partisan whitewash former NJ Attorney General) and Most-Inane asked him about "conspiracy" theorists. He went on to imply that people that believe something other than the "official" version were psychological unable to accept the panels findings.

This from the same guy that earlier had said that the panel was lied to. Yet both farmer and Most-Inane "accept" that truth. To me there is a psychological disposition that can not accept anything other than the "official" version because the world they think is real would come tumbling down around them. The ground they tread upon is firm as long as . . . you can "accept" a finding from a panel that was "lied to" (Farmer's book is Ground Truth). When I facebooked Radio Times asking how Most-Inane wouldcould blindly accept a finding from a panel that was "lied to" by government,why an Attorney General would allow two people of interest to testify in the same room at the same time, and why no one called Bush on this statement: ("If we had something to hide, we wouldn't have met with them in the first place," Bush said. "We answered all their questions . . .") because the Administration actually fought to avoid testifying.

And besides, you can't have a truly brave, progressive leader turned into a hero so we cut off his cojones and "celebrate" nothing about the real King.

edk

Nate Bowman said...

"It's comforting, I suppose, to blame these predictable acts of political violence on random chaos and mental illness."

I agree with Anon and Anon.

I also think that the converse is also true: That when is actually is random chaos and mental illness, it is made into a (comforting) act of political violence, if it suits the purposes of the villagers.

I am thinking Daniel Zwerdling and the Fort Hood Shootings.

Now, I don't know if it is random, mental illness, chaos, or political violence. Most likely, some combination. The point is, DZ doesn't know either. He is creating a self-reinforcing, self-referential, self-aggrandizing loop by "scooping" his one-sided theory with limited knowledge and skewed evidence.

Nate Bowman said...

Madeleine Brand interviews John Yoo.
Link at my name.

What I wrote:

Typical NPR meet typical Yoo.

"MS. BRAND-But, when we are looking at what is commonly called the war on terrorism, it's often seen as an unending war. And so, how do these powers get put back in the bottle if we have an unending war?"

"MR. YOO-I share your concerns. It's a hard thing, is how do we figure out when the war against Al Queda, the war with other terrorist groups is going to be over when they are not a nation state, there is no territory to conquer, there is no armies to fight in the field, how do we know when the war is over? I think that that is a fair and difficult question because it's that point when the president's powers will recede."

First, a sincere "Thank you" Ms. Brand for asking the pointed question. Then a "Where did you acquire your [lack of] journalistic skills?" Did you even LISTEN to the [condescending non-] response? Have you ever heard of a follow-up question? Can you at all speak truth to your interviewees?

Mr. Yoo completely avoids any answer to your question and consequently THE RAMIFICATIONS OF HIS MEMOS as well as his book. Ms. Brand, your acceptance of the non-response indicates an obliviousness to the importance of the issues involved.

larry, dfh said...

Didn't hear the yoo interview. It just seems obvious that the c.i.a. is playing cover-up after Scott Horton's irrefutable article about the murder-by-torture of Guantanamo detainees. It's the completely obvious connection between what yoo advocated and what is happening at Guantanamo and around the world that has to be scrubbed. npr: carrying spook water.

geoff said...

At Aftershock Provokes More Panic, Looting In Haiti I left the comment:

I beg NPR to cease the use of the term "looting" in reference to the victims of disasters such as Katrina and Haiti where vast swathes of extremely impoverished people are left without aid for days on end. It is repugnant, racist and classist to demonize the victims who are then victimized again by USG and the USMC who send guns, not gauze.

Nate Bowman said...

goog doggy on looting

I agree 200%. There are many good comments at that article.

There was a link (h/t Mark Harcourt) to a Democracy Now interview with Kim Ives by Amy Goodman. Stuff you're not likely to hear at NPR.

Some highlights:

"Security is not the issue. We see throughout Haiti the population themselves organizing themselves into popular committees to clean up, to pull out the bodies from the rubble, to build refugee camps, to set up their security for the refugee camps. This is a population which is self-sufficient, and it has been self-sufficient for all these years.

It’s not now that a bunch of Marines have to come in with big M-16s and start yelling at them. Watching the scene in front of the General Hospital yesterday said it all. Here were people who were going in and out of the hospital bringing food to their loved ones in there or needing to go to the hospital, and there were a bunch of Marine—of US 82nd Airborne soldiers in front yelling in English at this crowd...

the community organizations, we saw it the other night up at Matthew 25, where we’re staying, the community. A shipload—a truckload of food came in in the middle of the night unannounced. It could have been a melee. The local popular organization, Pity Drop [phon.], was contacted. They immediately mobilized their members. They came out. They set up a perimeter. They set up a cordon. They lined up about 600 people who were staying on the soccer field behind the house, which is also a hospital, and they distributed the food in an orderly, equitable fashion. They were totally sufficient. They didn’t need Marines. They didn’t need the UN. They didn’t need any of these things, which we’re being told also in the press and by Hillary Clinton and the foreign ministers that they need. These are things that people can do for themselves and are doing for themselves."

link at my name

Nate Bowman said...

Daniel Shorr goes off the deep end on Haiti.

link at my name.

"But it is important, as reconstruction work begins, that the United States and the family of nations agree on some central authority to supervise what may be the creation of a new state...

What is needed now is some generally accepted authority representing the family of nations. History provides some examples of benign governorship of countries not yet ready for self-government...

Trusteeship, which officially ended in 1994, was a way of guiding countries toward autonomy with shadow governments reporting to the U.N. Trusteeship Council. Among the territories that experienced some version of trusteeship are Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor and Cambodia."

Wow! And what do we know about the resulting autonomy developed by the UN trusteeship in those four countries, Mr. Shorr?

Grace said...

Nate,
I cracked up over Schorr's bit.
That was so absurd.
I think we did some good deeds under uh behind UN in Sierra Leone.
My memory is a bit fuzzy here but I recall we hired a country, maybe Nigeria to put down the popular RUF against a scam election.
By the time that nice effort was over, the whole country was butchered or dead and RUF locked up.
Miss Silly Albright even made an appearance to show we cared!!

GRUMPY DEMO said...

On Morning Edition (Thursday):

"Army Doctors Could Face Discipline In Fort Hood Case by Daniel Zwerdling"

NPR is “shocked, shocked, that there’s gambling in Casablanca”- er, or rather that the US Army is whitewashing it’s investigation and scapegoating the little fish.

This behavior is not new, just ask Pat Tillman's family, the General that covered up Tillman's death was not only punished but also promoted to head of US Operations in Afghanistan. He got a wonderful hagiography from NPR on his promotion.

Just like Abu Grave torture, shooting innocent civilian, and out right murder by troops, drones killing civilian wedding parties, the Pentagon sweeps it under the rug while NPR holds the broom for them.

The real issue: The military doesn’t have enough doctors to treat the too few troops that are on their fifth, sixth, more? deployment.

I guess since NPR has either ignored or under-reports prior Pentagon misconduct, it now has to act like its news that the Pentagon is caught, again, in misconduct.

Anonymous said...

RE: "looting"

What happened to reporting on things without "labeling"?

Apparently that only applies when the label is "torture" and when Cheney, Bush et al do it.

RE Daniel Schorr(is a nitwit)

"But it is important, as reconstruction work begins, that the United States and the family of nations agree on some central authority to supervise what may be the creation of a new state...'

funny, I don't recall Schorr calling for an outside "central authority" to supervise the creation of a new state after katrina.

What amazes me more than anything else about NPR is that nitwits like Schorr actually get paid six figure salaries for the BS they pass off as 'analysis" day after day.

Schorr is simply an idiot, but for some odd reason is treated as if he is some sort of genius.

GRUMPY DEMO said...

Kill Me NOW Department on today's Morning Edition (Thursday):

NPR and the State Department's Alec Ross lecture China on its terrible violation of its citizen’s privacy rights.

Silly China:

You don't violate your civilians' privacy rights on the Internet. You follow America's example: You violate citizen's privacy rights when they’re using their telephones.

"FBI broke law for years in phone record searches"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/18/AR2010011803982.html

Digital rights are more important than analog rights?

Remember: Our freedoms make us week: If we don’t give up our freedoms and abandon the rule of a law, the terrorists win.

Anonymous said...

"Haiti Quake Highlights Need For Daniel Schorr to Retire"

Anonymous said...

NPR and the State Department's Alec Ross lecture China on its terrible violation of its citizen’s privacy rights."

That's hilarious, given that in the US, pretty much everything that goes out over the internet (emails. texts, VOIP, blogs, websites, etc) is monitored by our government.

Following is from NY Times
Documents Show Link Between AT&T and Agency in Eavesdropping Case

"Mr. Klein's account and the documents provide new details about how the agency works with the private sector in intercepting communications for intelligence purposes.

The documents, some of which Mr. Klein had earlier provided to reporters, describe a mysterious room at the AT&T Internet and telephone hub in San Francisco where he worked ...[housing] equipment capable of monitoring a large quantity of e-mail messages, Internet phone calls, and other Internet traffic."

and then there is this

Cybersecurity Plan to Involve NSA, Telecoms

"The Obama administration will proceed with a Bush-era plan to use National Security Agency assistance in screening government computer traffic on private-sector networks, with AT&T as the likely test site, according to three current and former government officials.

"President Obama said in May that government efforts to protect computer systems from attack would not involve "monitoring private-sector networks or Internet traffic," and Department of Homeland Security officials say the new program will scrutinize only data going to or from government systems. "
///end quotes

yes, yes.

of course.

Anonymous said...

I'm sure they have a crack team of of white hats (headed up by Joe Lieberman, no doubt) devoted full time to "decoding" all the "subversive" comments on this blog.

Can't you just picture Joe Lieberman trying to use a mouse?

Makes me laugh.

Our tax dollars at work.

geoff said...

re privacy/lunacy, I talked with the chief IT guy where I work and he told me how they are required to record all internet communications and relay these to DHS. So I stream DN at work, in vain hope that watching it will help these miserable sods get a grip on reality.

Anonymous said...

goopDoggy

Looking for "terrorist communications" over the internet is like trying to find a needle in a haystack when there is no needle there.

The people who have something to hide (criminals, terrorists, etc) actually make an effort to hide it -- eg, by encrypting all their communications so that they are not flagged by keyword searches.

The people who have nothing to hide don't do this, so the pile of benign stuff is huge -- ie does not even contain what the "security experts" are looking for.

It's not only a wasted effort but ends up sending them off on wild goose chases to hunt down Joe Schmoe for making an offhand comment in a chat room (about Joe Lieberman)

What we really need in our government security services is not more computer power but more brain power (ie, common sense).

Unfortunately, the latter seems to be in short supply.

geoff said...

Ken Rudin's been mixing it up with Boulder Dude re the latest SCOTUS outrage. This was my last comment there:


That NPR listeners are "well informed" is a big conceit they like to repeat to one another in their echo chamber. The trouble is, so much of it is the wrong information. When we needed to know about the trouble the CIA was causing in Central American and South Central LA (see Gary Webb's book: Dark Alliance) they told us about Monica Lewinsky...non stop, as I recall. I could go on and on with examples like this, but instead I think I'll do a Mashup of Taps with Dirge without Music,
by Edna St. Vincent Millay. I am powerful depressed about the abyss NPR has led us all into.


Dirge without Music
Edna St. Vincent Millay


I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.

The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

Boulder Dude said...

~laughs~

Yes, my humble homage to Grumpy, I typod "Organization" and Kenny boy jumped all over it.

He now says he has disdane for idiots from both parties.

I am sure going to look forward to reading his next months postings to see an evidence of this amazing disdane.

Also great catch goopDoggy on the looting phase. It has always bothered me that the word only gets applied depending on your skin color or level wealth.

Nate, I heard the Shorr thing and it's like he somehow has no memory of us occupying the country multiple times already, multiple coups and keeping them deep in debt.

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Anonymous said...

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I have secret devices all over my room.

Now, if only I could remember where I hid them...

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Anonymous said...

New ombudsman post up.

It's on "looting".

Boulder Dude said...

Oh, goody, I'll have to go and read it.

In other news:

The Planet Monkey folks were very silly today.

GRUMPY DEMO said...

"my humble homage to Grumpy, I typod "Organization"

Those of you familiar with my work, know that I have never used the King's English in my life. "Organization"? what's next "bangers" for breakfast?

"You know what, buy GSM jammer to disable all secret devices in your room or at work."

It's not the secret devices in my room I'm worried about.

Me? I'm worried about the The Dream Police,.

(FYI, the best f****ing band that ever came out of Rockford, Illinois!)

JayV said...

On the Rudin "Supreme Court Ruling..." comment thread, here's my contribution. (Oops, some sloppy typos on my part - I should be more careful to avoid the Rudin gotchas! Ha!)

Yeah, right on to what boulder dude, Frumpy Demon, Nate Bowman have said. (To add to the Ken Quibble on spelling of 'organization,' if there is a British variant, too: 'organisation.' Ha!

Ken Rudin and others of his ilk at NPR ought just bloody to stop the pretence and introduce themselves as Pentagon/CIA/RNC/White House/corporate press officers (take your pick) rather than NPR journalists. (Selfishly, I want to avoid road rage, too, when I'm out and about with the car radio tuned to NPR news programing!)

I've also noted just today on this and other comment threads that the option to post comments on Facebook has been removed. What's up with that?

geoff said...

Ombot newspeak: "This is a tough one. What the listeners say makes sense, but it is also true that looting has taken place in Haiti." That is, it would be racist, classist and corporatist to harp on about looting, but we are all those things, so we will do it.

Anonymous said...

Adumb Davidson "We don't know how much we'll learn at today's announcement [about Obama on banks]. I'll say that, after a couple years of covering this, it is way, way, way too early to have any sense of what this means."

after he just said (in the same post a few lines above that)

"Later today, President Obama is expected to announce a radical new approach to the regulation of very large banks. In short, he's adopting the approach Paul Volcker has been calling for. There will be some sort of limit imposed on the size of banks and banks will not be able to make bets with their own deposits as freely as they have been."

Got that?

On Davidson's Planet (of the Monkeys), we don't know what it means, but (whatever it means) we know with certainty that it will be "radical".

Regulating banks so they can't speculate like some Monte carlo high roller is WAAAAY radical.

It's been, what, 20 years since the federal government prevented them from doing that (and the previous policies put in place by FDR (also way radical) only lasted a half a century.

Davidson does not even pretend to base his "assessments" on anything other than ideology.

It's absolutely pathetic.

Anonymous said...

"This is a tough one. What the listeners say makes sense, but it is also true that looting has taken place in Haiti."

This is a tough one. What listeners say makes sense... but since when does making sense mean anything?

The great thing about Alicia Shepard (and Adumb Davidson) is that you only need to read a few statements by them (at most) to know that they are completely clueless morons.

And you can pretty much choose any statement you want at random because they contradict themselves on an almost continual basis (sometimes in the very same sentence)

goopDood said...

The Dupont Journalism award: NPR, Michele Norris & Steve Inskeep
The York Project: Race and the 2008 Vote
.

I don't know what's weirder, that Wonderbread Inskeep (see my earlier posts re his palefaced background) is getting an award for reporting on race, or that Dupont is giving it. The National Family Farm Coalition has identified Dupont as part of a corporate conspiracy to monopolize the seed and farm industry and push neoliberal "free trade" agreements that have destroyed agriculture in, oh, say, Haiti, for instance.

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larry, dfh said...

Well, today is my lucky day: two pieces on npr that I liked! Laura Sullivan (neva hoid a her) actually gave a decent
human interest presentation
about how lousy our bail-bond system is. It was only about one case, it was only a slight beginning, but a good effort it was. And then, surprise of surprises, Radio (usually waste of) Times had an hour about
heroin
addiction and needle exchanges. The program was what I used to expect from public radio, informative, non-mainstream, and edgy; and although the host was obviously aghast with addicts calling in, she restrained herself from her usual priggish judgmentalism. It was a very good show.

Boulder Dude said...

@Larry, dfh

Did you hear the first part of Laura Sullivan's bail-bond piece from Thursday's ATC?

That was actually a good one too, it was Old School NPR, like it use to be back when I was in High School.

Boulder Dude said...

Also, some quality Liberal "Bias" here:

The Cato Institute:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122762284&ps=rs

The Heritage Foundation:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122762639

and the Human Rights Watch:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122764163

posted a question in the Ombudsman section and expect to be ignored, like everything else.

Anonymous said...

Inskeep getting an award for reporting on race is certainly no weirder than Adumb Davidson getting a (Mr Peabody) award for reporting on economics.

Ask Dean Baker what he thinks of that.

Most people in their shoes would be embarrassed to be getting an award for something they know nothing about.

But these folks are so clueless, they actually believe they are brilliant (see Dunning Kruger effect)

Anonymous said...

At least Obama is smart enough to recognize that he did not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

...but of course, he did not decline it.

That would have required something more than mere intelligence: character.

doopqoob said...

Anon, Adumb coulda been a slam dunk for the Mr. Peabrain.

Frumps said...

In response to this comment by Wall St trader Jeff Boarman (check out that link) I tried to leave this at the ombutt site

I wrote
Jeff, I would have thought you were too busy tweaking those "mechanical" trades to opine among the swine.
but I don't think it's going to make it by the censor. Swine? The Jeff Boarman character is the kind of rabid swine the grows up on Long Guyland and then just naturally thinks the world's an oyster in his stew. There are a lot of these types on WS and they are very dangerous, it seems. They certainly work hard to apply pressure on all our branches of govt: including the fourth estate. Viewed in this context, the behavior of NPR seems much more understandable.

Grace said...

I thought I had driven into another universe when I heard all that about China and internet privacy. This was after Schorr's Haiti comments had me laughing so hard I almost drove into a semi.
Most of this is so absurd or dark I have to laugh, sometimes cry and often yell.

BD, great comment on SCOTUS ruling. Unbelievable Mr Rude attacked your spelling!

goopDoggy, you add so much quality to NPR's comments / site I'm glad you "jumped in"!
Dirge..brilliantly beautiful.

The Boss of You said...

Schorr was off the hook today.

qoobdoop said...

Couple of points this AM:

1. The populist revolt in MA was mistakenly attributed to the Tea Party movement by bay state know-little journalist Audie Cornish, on the basis of...what, a gut feeling? She doesn't say. When police and teacher pension funds are squandered by Wall St. assholes like Lawrence Summers (another Bay stater) then you don't have to be a Tea Bagger to vote your outrage at their continued control over the levers of power.

2. Dan Schorr cooly dismisses Obama's significant move towards populism as cynical. I suggest listening to James Galbraith on the Saturday Morning Talkies to get a more mature (ahem) assessment.

Anonymous said...

Dan Schorr cooly dismisses Obama's significant move towards populism as cynical.'

To tell you the truth, I'm pretty cynical when it comes to Obama.

Obama's move to populism is more than a little suspect, coming just a day after the loss (read wakeup call) in Massachusetts.

Obama apparently believes not only that the American public are going to just quietly accept all the crappy hands he has dealt them from the bottom of the deck over the past year, but that they are also now going to accept that he is a Born-again Populist.

Obama should just quit talking and actually do something for ordinary Americans.

I'm growing tired of his BS.

Anonymous said...

"Three Card Baraky"

Boulder Dude said...

Good spot on Woodshredder, Frumps.

Grace, yeah, I suspect that Mr. Rude has become so use to people kissing his ass on the site that he is not use to the level of Snark I can toss out in a moments notice. =P I look forward to auditing his posts over the next month. His little Ad hominem attack was priceless without actually answering the question.

JayV said...

I just read this article. Recommended vis-à-vis NPR & mainstream media reporting on Haiti.

In CommonDreams,

"Covering Haiti: When the Media Is the Disaster," by Rebecca Solnit

Soon after almost every disaster the crimes begin: ruthless, selfish, indifferent to human suffering, and generating far more suffering. The perpetrators go unpunished and live to commit further crimes against humanity. They care less for human life than for property. They act without regard for consequences.

I'm talking, of course, about those members of the mass media whose misrepresentation of what goes on in disaster often abets and justifies a second wave of disaster. I'm talking about the treatment of sufferers as criminals, both on the ground and in the news, and the endorsement of a shift of resources from rescue to property patrol. They still have blood on their hands from Hurricane Katrina, and they are staining themselves anew in Haiti.

Buzztree said...

To give NPR a little grudging credit: This morning on WESUN, a piece on Cuban doctors in Haiti. They managed to hold the Cuba-bashing to a minimum ("Some critics say that Cuba's medical assitance is intended to spread the country's ideology" -- paraphrasing here) while offering a mostly sympathetic portrait of what the Cubans are doing to help.

larry, dfh said...

..."Some critics say that Cuba's medical assitance is intended to spread the country's ideology"...
Well, that's one time more than they've ever said it about the Peace Corps.