"One top reporter said, “We are inevitably the mouthpiece for whatever administration is in power."
— Greg Mitchell in his spiked article for The Washington Post at his blog Pressing Issues. That Piece Killed by the ‘Post’
Almost everyday I read posts online that interest, infuriate, stimulate, inspire, or otherwise move me. Almost everyday I'll share three short snippets.
Ask me anything
March 25, 2013
March 19, 2013
"The core problem Harper faces is that their students are going to school in a war zone. That war zone is the product of social forces far beyond the control of the hardworking and brave people at Harper: the flood of handguns in the neighborhood, gang rivalries that began with the drug trade and now center on multi-year patterns of vengeance and revenge."
— Ethan Zuckerman at My Heart’s in Accra. Harper High School, and finding solutions to complex problems
March 19, 2013
"Suck on that, Mr. Friedman."
—
David Corn at Mother Jones. Iraq 10 Years Later: The Deadly Consequences of Spin
Those who questioned the case for war have won the fight over history. But that won’t bring back the tens of thousands of lives lost.
March 16, 2013
"[T]here must come a point when the weight of the new evidence makes the old interpretations of these scandals intellectually untenable and when treasured sayings – like “the cover-up is worse than the crime” – are swept into the historical dustbin."
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Robert Parry at Alternet. Shocking New Evidence Reveals Depths of ‘Treason’ and ‘Treachery’ of Watergate and Iran-Contra
New evidence continues to accumulate showing how Official Washington got key elements of two major presidential scandals of the Nixon and Reagan administrations wrong.
March 8, 2013
"The job of the writer should be one of humility, I think, one of being ignorant and learning—not to stand up and pretend to know everything,” he said. “I’m not a consultant or a race expert."
—
Ta-Nehisi Coates at NPR Fresh Air Tumblr.
New York Observer article by Jordan Michael Smith. Fear of a Black Pundit: Ta-Nehisi Coates raises his voice in American media
March 1, 2013
"What kind of country makes communicating with the press for publication to the American public a death-eligible offense?"
— Yochai Benkler in The New Republic. The Dangerous Logic of the Bradley Manning Case
February 25, 2013
"The political class now speaks as it dresses: in matt navy suits and open-necked white shirts. Elaborate adjectives have suffered the same fate as flowery ties. But this is not moral progress, it is just fashion."
— Ed Smith in The New Statesman via 3Quarks Daily. Don’t be beguiled by Orwell: using plain and clear language is not always a moral virtue
February 25, 2013
"But as journalists learned in El Salvador and in other dangerous places such as Colombia, professional solidarity is essential in stemming reprisals. Defending a single journalist who is under attack, no matter the individual’s position or perspective, ends up protecting the practice of journalism for everyone."
—
Frank Smyth in The Committee to Protect Journalists. Lessons From El Salvador: Security Begins With Solidarity
Nearly 25 years ago, as the Berlin Wall was coming down in Europe, El Salvador’s leftist guerrillas launched the largest military offensive of the nation’s long civil war. The rebels took over parts of the capital and other cities from a foundering U.S.-backed Salvadoran military. After four days, the military high command decided to fight back in the way it knew best—by murdering the unarmed critics whom it had accused of being rebel sympathizers.
February 25, 2013
"Neck-deep in the worst foreign policy disaster since Vietnam, Manning surmised that if American citizens had some clue of what was actually happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, it might help avoid such disasters in the future. In Manning’s own words, he wanted “people to see the truth… because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public”."
—
Chase Madar in Aljazeera.
Why massive national security leaks are good for us
Until our dystopian classification system is overhauled, leaks remain an essential public service.
February 17, 2013
"The problem is that we don’t live in a post-racial, post-discriminatory world, and acting as if we do can reproduce the same inequalities that we should want to avoid."
—
Jamelle Bouie at his blog. AND READ ALL OVER
An implicit network, not overt racism, keeps tech writing dominated by white men.
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Anonymous asked: Sam, I don't want kids. Why do people keep asking me when I'm gonna have children? It's scary to me the thought of raising another little human being in this world. This world is cruel and cold. I feel it's more compassionate to spare my offspring from coming into this world in these troubling times and maybe he or she can come in when it's less of a mess. If I had a choice I would go back if I could, wherever it is we came from.
If you are destined to have children you will when and if you are ready. The sorrows of this world were given to us as a gift. I know this is hard...
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“When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people; as I grow older, I admire kind people.”
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This highly unorthodox piece of Chinese calligraphy hangs above my desk in my office, so it’s pretty much the main thing I see while working, aside...
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Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks
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“Most soldiers get used to the dying in war because it always happens to the other guy. It is the killing that gets to you. At first it sickens...
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Syl Johnson Sexy Wayz
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Bartholomaus Traubeck
‘Years’, 2011
Disks of wood
Traubeck made a computer program that photographically ‘reads’ the rings,...
