- HERE'S SOMETHING FROM BUSH'S U.N. SPEECH (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/09/20030923-4.html
) that doesn't seem to be getting that much attention:
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- There's another humanitarian crisis spreading, yet hidden
from view. Each year, an estimated 800,000 to 900,000 human beings are
bought, sold or forced across the world's borders. . . . We must show new
energy in fighting back an old evil. Nearly two centuries after the abolition
of the transatlantic slave trade, and more than a century after slavery
was officially ended in its last strongholds, the trade in human beings
for any purpose must not be allowed to thrive in our time.
-
- If you'll follow the link, you'll see that Bush spends
rather a lot of time talking about this.
-
- UPDATE: A reader sends a link to this National Geographic
article
- http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0309/feature1/index.html
- on the subject. Excerpt:
-
- There are more slaves today than were seized from Africa
in four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The modern commerce
in humans rivals illegal drug trafficking in its global reach - and in
the destruction of lives.
-
- I'm for legalizing drugs to deal with the evils of the
"illegal drug trade." That approach won't work for slavery, obviously.
-
- UPDATE: Reader Robert Racansky sends a link to http://www.Antislavery.org
for more information.
-
- posted at 07:49 PM by Glenn Reynolds
-
-
-
- ANOTHER MAJOR BLACKOUT, this time in Denmark. Are we
actually seeing more of these, or are they just getting more attention?
-
- posted at 07:28 PM by Glenn Reynolds
-
-
-
- JOSH MARSHALL FINDS THAT THE TRUTH HURTS. He's not happy
about Democratic Congressman Jim Marshall (whom Josh originally misidentified
as a Republican) saying that negative media coverage is getting our troops
killed. But Marshall the Congressman, and a Vietnam vet, was there, and
thinks negative publicity is encouraging the Baathist holdouts to believe
that they can pull a Mogadishu and get the United States to pull out. Marshall
the pundit might want to ponder the possibility that reflexive media negativity,
counted on by our foes to advance their plans, might actually, you know,
advance their plans. It's not the reporting of criticisms or bad things
that's the issue -- the first-person accounts I link below all have criticisms
and negative information. It's the lazy Vietnam-templating, the "of
course America must be losing" spin, the implicit and sometimes explicit
sneer, and the relentless bringing to the fore of every convenient negative
fact while suppressing the positive ones that's the issue. It's what the
terrorists are counting on, and it's what too many in the media are happy
to deliver, because they think it'll hurt Bush. And it doesn't get any
lower than that. UPDATE: Reader Richard Aubrey emails: "Do you think
the journalist Marshall might want to explain what, factually, is wrong
with Rep. Marshall's statement?" I hope he will. ANOTHER UPDATE: Henry
Hanks observes:
-
-
- Jim Marshall could very well run to replace Zell Miller
in GA and could also very well decide who controls the Senate in 2004...
Democrats would be well advised not to drive him too far away...
-
- Especially when he's, like, right.
-
-
- posted at 04:20 PM by Glenn Reynolds
-
-
-
- HERE'S ANOTHER FIRSTHAND REPORT FROM IRAQ featuring a
lot of stuff we're not hearing from the big guys. UPDATE: Read this, too:
-
-
- There is a sea change going on, right now, and CNN will
be the last place to learn about it. Remember that story early in the war
about the Iraqis attacking an Al-Jazeera van and destroying it and wounding
its crew? CNN barely covered it, but the Iraqis I have spoken to recently
said they are sick and tired of the "old" Arab media (which strangely
enough includes Al-Jazeera to them) reporting only the negatives and ignoring
the progress they've made and the fact that for many, things are better...they
see this as other Arabs trying to stir up trouble in "their"
country. And they resent it. They want Al-Jazeera and Manar out of there,
and they want to get on rebuilding their country themselves, thank you
very much. They don't need those guys making it worse by running erroneous
and unretracted stories like the one a few weeks back about US soldiers
raping Iraqi girls-- and thereby bringing even more violence. They want
a new country.
-
- And here's some support here for what he says about Iraqis'
dislike of Al Jazeera. UPDATE: Reader Elizabeth King emails:
-
-
- I'm not surprised that the media coverage of Iraq is
now being reported as unduly negative. I could tell back in June that this
year would be the Summer of the Iraqi Quagmire, much as last year was the
Summer of Kidnapped Children, and 2001 was the Summer of Shark Attacks.
Like mad dogs and Englishmen, the media spend too much time in the heat
of the day ... and it shows.
-
- I think they're spending too much time in hotel bars
with former Baathist minders, actually.
-
- posted at 02:03 PM by Glenn Reynolds
-
-
- HOWARD LOVY has some interesting observations on science
journalism that are occasioned by a story on nanotechnology, but that are
applicable to lots of other subjects. UPDATE: His permalinks are busted
now. Here's the site link -- just scroll down.
-
- posted at 01:29 PM by Glenn Reynolds
-
-
-
- IN CASE YOU HAVEN'T HEARD, the 9th Circuit, en banc,
has reversed the panel decision, so the recall is on. Here's the opinion.
Larry Solum has a big roundup post with comments, quotations, and summaries
of the opinion.
-
- posted at 01:25 PM by Glenn Reynolds
-
-
-
- ARNOLD KLING HAS AN INTERESTING LOOK at the United Nations
and American politics.
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- posted at 01:20 PM by Glenn Reynolds
-
-
-
- YOU KNOW, WHO NEEDS TO BASH THE MEDIA when they're so
busy doing it to themselves?
-
-
- Convicted child killer Joel Steinberg has a job as a
television producer waiting when he's released from prison next summer
after serving 17 years, his attorney said Monday. Steinberg will work for
``New York Confidential,'' an interview show on a local cable station,
attorney Darnay Hoffman said. ``He has contacts in prison,'' Hoffman said,
explaining that Steinberg, a disbarred lawyer, knows some of the state's
most notorious criminals. ``He knows how to go into a prison and get a
story.'' Steinberg, 62, is completing an 8-to-25-year prison term for manslaughter
in the death of his illegally adopted daughter, Lisa, and is expected to
be released next June.
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- Coming soon: Eric Rudolph on the women's-health beat.
-
- posted at 01:18 PM by Glenn Reynolds
-
-
-
- SPEAKING OF THE MEDIA AND IRAQ, the University of Tennessee's
Howard Baker, Jr. Center for Public Policy is having a rather impressive
symposium on the subject, to judge from the guest list, and it's being
webcast. You can stream it live from this page.
-
- posted at 09:39 AM by Glenn Reynolds
-
-
-
- THE IRAQ MEDIA-BIAS STORY has hit USA Today. There's
a survey of reporters with different views on how things are going, which
leads Virginia Postrel to observe that "There's good news and bad
news, not a single coherent narrative. . . . All of which explains why
I don't, from my perch in the United States, opine on the 'real' situation
in Iraq." And neither do I, of course. But what has been obvious from
here is that the bad news has been consistently overplayed and the good
news consistently underplayed, as demonstrated by the mismatch between
the very coherent "quagmire" narrative from the Big Media and
what we've heard from returning members of Congress, federal judges, touring
musicians, military bloggers, returning servicemembers and -- now, finally
-- members of the press. To make an Amartya Sen sort of point, what's unfortunate
about the slanted (and lazy) nature of most of the reporting is that it
doesn't point out real problems in ways that can let them be fixed, and
that will bring them to the attention of people who can fix them. When
the coverage continues to come from the same tired Vietnam template, applied
to a very different situation, it's not terribly useful and I suspect that
it's largely tuned out by folks in the White House who assume (more or
less correctly) that it's intended to hurt them. But that means that they
have to rely on the reports of people in the chain of command, who have
their own agendas. The press is supposed to be a check on that sort of
thing, but it's fallen down on the job in postwar Iraq. Fortunately, the
Internet has taken up some of the slack, and is (I'm being hopeful here)
spurring the Big Media folks to take a second look at what they're doing.
UPDATE: Jeff Jarvis has some comments. ANOTHER UPDATE: Susanna Cornett
offers perspective. YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Kevin Drum thinks that I can't
tell if the reporting is biased because I'm not in Iraq. Huh? When the
media reports are contradicted by the reports from all sorts of other people
in the region, and when even the reporters admit that they're not telling
the whole story, and when Dan Rather is freakin' apologizing, and when
we've heard the same "quagmire" stuff in the past only to have
it turn out bogus, I think I can tell. (And Kevin doesn't let his own distance
from Iraq stop him from offering his own opinion on what's going on there,
in the very same post.) The defensiveness that the left is showing on this
issue suggests to me that it's hit a nerve. The "quagmire" political
strategy is looking like a loser -- again. STILL MORE: And here's another
firsthand report:
-
-
- On the ground in Iraq, Iíve caught wind of and
read recent news articles back in the states. I figured I could clarify
some things. As usual, the news media has blown some things way out of
proportion. The countryside is getting more safe by the day despite all
the attacks you are hearing about. Imagine if every shooting incident or
robbery committed in Los Angeles was blown way out of proportion. This
is a country where most of the Saddam Hussein thugs are being chased around
like scared rabbits by coalition forces. It is literally open season on
them! We hunt them down like animals.
-
- We just keep hearing things like this.
-
- posted at 09:29 AM by Glenn Reynolds
|
