Magpie

Friday, April 8, 2005

We're back from Seattle.

Normal posting should start again tomorrow. See you then!

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:40 PM | Get permalink

Thursday, April 7, 2005

The most inane pope story ever?

We all knew that when Pope John Paul II died, there was going to be a media feeding frenzy. Most of us just turned off the TV and radio or braced ourselves for the onslaught. But our comrades over at CJR Daily had a higher calling. They knew that somewhere, some media outlet would run a story that rose to an extreme level of scariness. But given that over 35,000 stories about the pope ran worldwide in just the first 24 hours after John Paul's death, the CJR folks knew that they couldn't possibly find that one massively inane story.

So they put out the call to their readers to nominate stories for the MIPSY (Most Inane Pope Story) award. And, let this magpie tell you, there were some pretty awful stories out there. We won't present the most inane story here — you'll have to go read the CJR story for that one — but we do have one of the finalists for you:

Our next honorable mention goes to the Fall River, Massachusetts Herald News, for its story, "Locals Remember Brush With Greatness." The piece is a perfect distillation of just about every pope-related clich we've come across in the last week. Polish people who thought it was great the pope was Polish? Check. Someone who got near the pope and was happy to have done so? Check. A series of events involving the pope that could be considered miraculous, or could be explained away by coincidence? Check. What really pushed this one over the edge, though, were the details involving the husband of a woman who met the pope. We'll let Emma Fennell, who submitted this piece, explain what it tells us about the man. He "remarkably shares a number of similarities with the pope. People have told him 'for years' that he looks like John Paul II, and he was even nicknamed 'as such.' And it is important to note that Alphonse is 83, 'one year younger than John Paul II.' Uncanny!" Uncanny indeed. We're just curious what the nickname of this somewhat-vaguely-popelike Massachusetts resident might be. J.P.? Ponty? Johnny Three, in loving homage to both the pope and Short Circuit? The Herald News fails to tell us, but hopefully the Boston Globe is flooding the zone as we speak.

Yow! This magpie's brain hurts already!

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:34 PM | Get permalink

Business as usual?

Nathan Newman has a an excellent rebuttal of the cherished liberal notion that the US federal courts — especially the Supreme Court — are a bulwark of protection against legislative assaults on civil liberties and the rights of minorities. Using examples, he makes a strong case that the liberal Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren was an exception to the rule, as was the period when the federal courts were loaded with liberal judges appointed by Democratic presidents.

What most progressives won't accept is that the US courts, like the similar anti-populist Senate filibuster, have been the instigators of murder against blacks and have prevented the democratic majority from protecting their rights.

When the NAACP began campaigning early in [the 20th] century for a federal law to ban lynchings of blacks, the majoritarian House voted as early as 1922 to ban lynchings (as they would in 1937 and 1940), only to see the bill die in the Senate at the hands of a filibuster.

And how did the Senators justify their filibusters? That the Supreme Court supported their position that federal anti-lynching laws were unconstitutional. [Emphasis his]

We agree with Newman. An examination of the struggle to end child labor and enact worker safety laws in the late 19th and early 20th centuries would show a similar pattern of the federal courts overturning legislation, usually on the grounds that it infringed on property rights, the prerogatives of owners, or on the 'right' of workers to labor as long as they liked under any conditions.

This magpie has long thought that political success of the right-wing in the US in recent decades has much to do with the way that the left by and large abandoned grassroots political organizing and legislative action in favor of making policy via the courts. Once right-wing Republicans had a few decades of filling federal judicial positions with right-wing judges, the strategy of using the courts was dead in the water.

Via NathanNewman.org.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:47 AM | Get permalink

Bumpersticker.

Seen in the back window of a car in traffic on Elliott Ave. in Seattle:

I Never Thought I'd Miss Nixon

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:41 AM | Get permalink

Sunday, April 3, 2005

17 techniques for supressing the truth.

David Martin has come up with a pretty full catalog of them:

Strong, credible allegations of high-level criminal activity can bring down a government. When the government lacks an effective, fact-based defense, other techniques must be employed. The success of these techniques depends heavily upon a cooperative, compliant press and a mere token opposition party.

1. Dummy up. If it's not reported, if it's not news, it didn't happen.

2. Wax indignant. This is also known as the "how dare you?" gambit.

3. Characterize the charges as "rumors" or, better yet, "wild rumors." If, in spite of the news blackout, the public is still able to learn about the suspicious facts, it can only be through "rumors." (If they tend to believe the "rumors" it must be because they are simply "paranoid" or "hysterical.")

4. Knock down straw men. Deal only with the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Even better, create your own straw men. Make up wild rumors and give them lead play when you appear to debunk all the charges, real and fanciful alike.

5. Call the skeptics names like "conspiracy theorist," "nut," "ranter," "kook," "crackpot," and of course, "rumor monger." Be sure, too, to use heavily loaded verbs and adjectives when characterizing their charges and defending the "more reasonable" government and its defenders. You must then carefully avoid fair and open debate with any of the people you have thus maligned. For insurance, set up your own "skeptics" to shoot down.

6. Impugn motives. Attempt to marginalize the critics by suggesting strongly that they are not really interested in the truth but are simply pursuing a partisan political agenda or are out to make money (compared to over-compensated adherents to the government line who, presumably, are not).

7. Invoke authority. Here the controlled press and the sham opposition can be very useful.

8. Dismiss the charges as "old news."

It's pretty obvious that Dubya and his handlers are very familiar with the list, eh?

You can read about the other nine techniques here.

Via Lab Kat.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:00 PM | Get permalink

Not a hiatus.

Just a week in Seattle, working on-site for our cruel employer. Without our laptop, unfortunately. (It's in the hands of Fujitsu in Memphis, hopefully to return soon, fully functional again.)

What this means is that between now and Saturday (the 9th), all out posting will be done between the cracks while we're at work. That may mean a bunch of posts; it may mean few or none.

But we promise that we'll be back to normal on the 9th.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:56 PM | Get permalink

Creationists lose one in Charlotte.

About a week ago, numerous media outlets ran a story about how pressure from the religious right was causing IMAX theaters at some US science museums to reject films that endorse the theory of evolution — notably 'Volcanoes of the Deep Sea,' a recent film on that mentions evolution just in passing. All of these theaters were, not surprisingly, in the southern states.

"Many People here believe in creationism, not evolution," said Lisa Buzzelli, spokeswoman for an Imax cinema in Charleston, South Carolina.

"We've got to pick a film that's going to sell in our area. If it's not going to sell, we're not going to take it," said Ms Buzzelli, though she did not rule out showing the film in the future.

The reports that pressure from creationists is affecting the films that science museums are willing to show has apparently generated enough of a backlash from non-creationists that one IMAX theater has reversed its earlier decision. The Discovery Place science museum in Charlotte, North Carolina has announced that it will be showing the volcano film later this month. Interestingly, the museum isn't admitting that creationist pressure had anything to do with their initial decision not to run the film:

[President/CEO John Mackay Jr said] the film's take on evolution was a "minor consideration" in Discovery Place not taking "Volcanoes" at first. In his statement Thursday, he said some surveys of those who had seen the 47-minute film indicated it might be scary for children, who make up a large part of the IMAX audience in Charlotte.

Yeah, right.

Via The Revealer.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:01 AM | Get permalink