Thursday, October 25, 2007
Remembering Paul Wellstone (10:41 am)
October 2002, at least for me, was a pretty dark time. The Iraq war machine was revving up and Democrats were captiulating left and right. I don’t remember any specific day clearly from that time, just a sense of being in a sort of nebulous malaise, a slightly depressed funk. Except I do remember one day very clearly. It was five years ago today that I was having a pleasant phone conversation with an ex-girlfriend, and she casually mentioned hearing that some senator had just died in a plane crash, she wasn’t sure who. Given my automatic setting of cynicism and general distaste toward politicians (that was honed to an absolute fury at that specific time), I’m surprised my response wasn’t sarcastic and stupidly cold, something along the lines of “Oh, what a tragic loss.” Instead, I immediately blurted out, quite sincerely, “God, I hope it wasn’t Wellstone.”
And, of course, it was. Ezra Klein has a nice remembrance here, but I’ll always remember that immediate reaction of mine. Instead of responding brain-dead and cynically, I expressed a sincere hope for a different, happier outcome. Paul Wellstone inspired such a reaction in people, a living embodiment of the hope that we can overcome our knee-jerk cynicism and work together to build a better, more progressive world in the future. If the man doesn’t live on, that lesson he taught over the course of his life and work still does, and it’s one that, thanks to him, I can’t imagine ever forgetting. So thanks Paul, for showing us how it’s done.
posted by Brian Cook | start the discussion
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
The Air War in Iraq Gets Even Worse (11:05 pm)
About three months ago, I wrote an editorial noting that U.S. air strikes in Iraq had risen by more than 300 percent during the first four and a half months of 2007. According to USA Today, over the first nine months of this year, the number of air strikes has now risen by 400 percent.
You won’t find much context in the above article, nor any real sense of the massive number of human lives such airstrikes usually claim. For that, you need to read TomDispatch’s Nick Turse.
posted by Brian Cook | start the discussion
Another One Bites the Sensationalist Dust (12:14 pm)
The front page of the Chicago Tribune today led with the article, “Have you seen her Doll?” The article reported on the tear-jerker surrounding poor little Abby Ann Telan and her doll that was sent to “never-never land” because of a pressurization problem in the jetliner that carried Abby and her family home from vacation in Chicago (the purpose of their trip from Florida was to “attend sporting events and shop,” including a visit to the American Girl Doll store where Abby Ann’s now-missing Marisol Luna doll had her hair styled). Reading through the article, I kept waiting for the real news, but was appalled to find that almost the entire story focuses on how a little girl, “‘can’t even [see] her vacation photos because the pictures of the doll would upset her.’”
How about the kids whose parents can’t afford to go on vacation, much less an American Girl Doll (or the oft-under-reported 18% of U.S. children who live in poverty, according to the latest census bureau info)? Shouldn’t the lesson here be that the vacation experience is what is important, not the loss of a doll?
This article and those like it — reports on Paris Hilton’s misdemeanors or which musicians oppose which politicians — are a slap in the face not only to good journalism and people who care about the news, but the entire population. Media outlets, especially print, may be struggling to gain readership, but reporting on nonsense news like this is irresponsible and pointless.... read more
posted by Intern | 4 comments
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
BEYOND THE GREEN ZONE: Dispatches From An Unembedded Journalist In Iraq (8:36 pm)
In These Times is proud to co-sponsor the below events organized by Chicago’s inimitable Haymarket Books. Please make plans to attend. And don’t forget the Chicago anti-war rallies during the day on October 27th.
BEYOND THE GREEN ZONE
Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq
Featuring author and independent Iraq war journalist
DAHR JAMAIL
*
“While the powerful media conglomerates embedded on the ground with the invading and occupying forces, Jamail embedded with the suffering people of Iraq and uncovered the horrors of this war of `liberation.’ Dahr Jamail is the conscience of American war reporting, the quintessential unembedded reporter.”
–Jeremy Scahill, author, Blackwater
“Every conflict spawns a handful of journalists who are willing to not only brave the war zone but to seek out the stories ignored by the press pack. The Iraq War has brought us Dahr Jamail. If years from now, Americans are willing to read any books about the war, this one should be among them. It tells everything.”
—Mother Jones magazine
“From the earliest days of the war, Dahr Jamail has been a human conduit for the voices of Iraqis living under U.S. occupation. In the face of tremendous personal risk, his commitment to the crucial, principled task of bearing witness has never wavered, and this extraordinary book is the result.”
—Naomi Klein, author, No Logo and The Shock Doctrine
*
CHICAGO AREA EVENTS
6 pm on Oct. 26th
The World Beyond the Headlines
Speaker series of the Center for International Studies at the... read more
posted by Jarrett | start the discussion
Welcome Guardian America (1:01 pm)
Former American Prospect editor, Michael Tomasky, presides over the launch of Guardian America today. CJR is dubious. But, in this writer’s view, more Guardian is a welcome thing.
posted by Jarrett | start the discussion
Hypnotic, isn’t it? (11:06 am)
This nifty, low-budget animation chronologically charts the physical development of the United States. Very neat.
posted by Erin Polgreen | start the discussion
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Tolstoy On Defining The Time (1:23 pm)
“The character of the time, as some readers expressed to me when the first part (of War and Peace) appeared in print, is insufficiently defined in my work. To this reproach I have the following rejoinder. I know what this character of the time is that people do not find in my novel - the horrors of serfdom, the immuring of wives, the whipping of adult sons…and so on; and this character of that time, which lives in our imagination, I do not consider correct and did not wish to express. Studying letters, diaries, legends, I did not find all the horrors of brutality in a greater degree than I find them now or at any other time. In those times, too, people loved, envied, sought truth, virtue, were carried away by passions… If in our minds we have formed an opinion of the arbitrariness and crude force characteristic of that time, it is only because the legends, memoirs, stories, and novels that have come down to us record only the most outstanding cases of violence and brutality. To conclude that the prevalent character of that time was brutality is as incorrect as it would be for a man who sees only treetops beyond a hill to conclude that there is nothing but trees in that region.”
- Leo Tolstoy
“A Few Words Apropos of the Book War and Peace”
Published in The Russian Archive, March 1868
Included as an appendix to War and Peace
2007 edition translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsy
posted by Jarrett | 5 comments
Friday, October 19, 2007
No Cadet Left Behind (5:37 pm)
A new Marine Military Academy opens this Monday on Chicago’s near West side. According to this article from the Chicago Tribune, Chicago already “has the nation’s largest junior cadet program.”
Tensions surrounding Chicago’s Public School system are already high, because of recent reports that reveal a decrease in the number of children passing state exams required by No Child Left Behind. According to Chicago Public School Chief Arne Duncan, “What existed before simply did not work for far too many students,” and “[Junior ROTCs] are popular and have waiting lists, so that tells me parents want more of them.”
Waiting lists for these academies do not automatically translate into parents and communities wanting more military academies. It seems to me that people recognize that there is a problem with the current public school system and are left with few options when it comes to getting a decent education for their children.
Of course, the parents who are left with the fewest options are those with the lowest incomes. The Tribune reports that:
“More than 11,000 students are enrolled in the district’s five military academies — most of them low-income minority students — and nearly three-dozen high school-based Junior ROTC programs.”
These academies are targeting low-income minority families and claiming that they are not recruiting tools. You can read more about the military luring teens to enlist and the problems this creates here. This situation reminds me of the G.I. Bill and other education-based incentives used to recruit soldiers. And in a time when enrollment is low, no wonder the military is moving into troubled school districts to build these academies. The Military is exploiting people for whom public school systems have failed, and these people are the low-income and poor.
What “parents want more of” are not military schools, but a solution for the poor performance levels of the schools we already have.
by Becki Scholl, publishing intern
posted by Intern | start the discussion
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