Infospigot: The Chronicles, May 6-11

Thursday, May 06, 2004

Some military heroes Good New York Times story onsome of the military officers defending terror-war detainees inupcoming military tribunals. It takes a lot of courage, and belief inwhat are often termed basic American values, to fight the system: Last month, an audience at Oxford University in Englandwas stunned,witnesses said, when two of the lawyers, Lt. Cmdr. CharlesSwift ofthe Navy and Maj. Mark Bridges of the Army, said the tribunals were notcapable of producing a fair and just result. The several hundred people who hadgathered for a talk about the Guantánamo detention facility did notexpect to hear the American officers' objections. Murray Wesson, a Rhodes Scholar from South Africa who attended, wrote on his Web log: "What I was unprepared for, given that thesewere, after all, military lawyers, was how critical of the process theywere. Indeed, they went so far as to describe the tribunals as`fundamentally flawed' and insinuated that they would not amount to fairtrials." 2:05:34 PM    comment []

I was going to say ... .... something funny earlier this morning. But then I, and just about everyone else atTechTV, got laid off. It's not a shock -- the station wassold several weeks ago and it was clear from the grapevinethat the new owners (Comcast)wasn't toointerested in continuing our programming. Anyway, it's actually arelief to know what's happening and that our office will be shut down.The down side -- maybe it'sthis way every time a shutdown or layoff happens, though weupper-middle-class types might not think about it when the closureinvolves a can factory or poultry processors -- is the hurt among allthe people here who really have given their best to do something goodThe up side is that under the WARNAct,the federal law governing plant closures, we got 60 days' notice plus aseverance package. It could be a lot worse. More later. 1:14:13 PM    comment []

Friday, May 07, 2004

The layoff Wired News: "TechTV to Lay Off 285" News.com: "TechTV Lays Off San Francisco Staff" And there were other stories, too. Just to comment on one little detailin both of these: You'd think that Comcast gave us 60 days' notice outof the goodness of its soft ol' cable heart. Witness the quote from theG4 spokesguy (who is named David Shane in one of the linked piecesabove and David Shone in the other): "Today we gave notice to 285 employees that they'll be impacted by themerger. We wanted to give employees as much notice aspossible so that they can begin to make other plans." Uh huh. As I noted yesterday, though, Comcast and G4 had no choice inthe matter. The 60-day notice is required by federal law becauseshutting down a workplace of our size is considered a plant closing(the company needs to do other things under the law, too, likenotifying the mayor of San Francisco that it's putting a bunch ofpeople on the street). So I can now consider myself the beneficiary ofone of the few labor-friendly laws to get through Congress in recentmemory. The staff gets to meet with G4's CEO, Charles Hirschhorn, on Monday and hear whatelse is in store for us (for instance, will we continue producing ourdaily show all the way through July, when the 60 days is up?). 10:18:14 PM    comment []

More on torturegate (the word) The number of Google references was at 13 on Thursday and is 31 thisevening (mostly on blogs, and counting my two earlier posts). Nexisshows two mentions: One during "Hannity and Colmes" on Fox News onThursday and one in a short news item in a paper somewhere. Google Newsshows one reference, Yahoo! News shows zero, and Google's search ofUsenet groups shows three (all Thursday). "Torturegate" doesn't appearat all on two select indexes of blog content, Daypop and Blogdex. OK, so that's today's unscientific take on one new word. However, somepeople are trying to be a little more scientific about how new wordsand ideas spread in cyberspace. Wired News has a story today called "How the Word Gets Around," on an experiment to follow the spread of a new memeonline. After reading the article, I'm not sure what the projectproves, because it started out as and invited people to participate asa sort of self-conscious exercise. It'd be more interesting to trace anidea that just sort of gets thrown into the collective consciousness.Like "torturegate." 9:55:17 PM    comment []

Saturday, May 08, 2004

Nice dog!  By way of a post on Salon, we have this wonderful juxtaposition of images as well as this heartwarming story from the heartland: "Dog from Iraq Finds New Home in Area Town." From the Clinton (Iowa) Herald:  "A thin, hungry stray in Iraq, the dog's chances for a long, happy life were slim. Dogs are not welcome house pets in that country, but rather are forced to live off roots, bugs or whatever they can find to survive. Some of the animals, like Sheeba, even eat rocks that make them feel full." 11:03:56 AM    comment []

Sunday, May 09, 2004

George, Rummy -- listen up From Justice Louis Brandeis's dissent in Olmstead vs. United States: ... Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officialsshall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands tothe citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government willbe imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Ourgovernment is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill,it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If thegovernment becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invitesevery man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. ..." 11:57:45 PM    comment []

Monday, May 10, 2004

Not a lie, not the truth One of the tactics the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld Damage Control Team(BCRDCT) is using to try to contain Torturegate is to show the worldhow utterly forthcoming they are -- have always been -- about the issueof prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib facility. Rumsfeld testified,backed up by an official Pentagon timeline,that in January "the Central Command public affairs people went out andtold theworld. They toldeveryone in the world that there were allegations of abuse and theywere being investigated." That statement set everyone running to Weband news archives to find the January release. Saturday, the LosAngeles Times reprinted the information put out on January 16: "An investigation has been initiated into reported incidents ofdetainee abuse at a Coalition Forces detention facility. The release ofspecific information concerning the incidents could hinder theinvestigation, which is in its early stages. The investigation will beconducted in a thorough and professional manner. The Coalition iscommitted to treating all persons under its control with dignity,respect and humanity. Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the CommandingGeneral, has reiterated this requirement to all members of CJTF-7." The Times's story notes that the release-- what you might call understated, given the fact someone had justpresented officers with a pile of hot photographs -- was one of threereleased that day (the other two focused on U.S. military activities).BCRDCT did some Nexis homework before Rumsfeld hit the Hill on Friday,because one of the points mentioned to show how the authorities havedone their best to bring this whole situation to light was that themedia picked up on the story in January. And in fact, a Nexis searchshows that the bare facts of the press release did make it into dozensof news outlets the day after the release, almost always as one item inan extended digest of other developments. The Associated Press, NewYork Times and others talked to the Pentagon about the release, andcame away with statements saying that the abuse allegations were"serious" and "credible." The story got wide, but not deep, play inCanada. Two days after the release, London's Sunday Times ran a longerstory on detainee abuse, highlighting the case of a man who had falleninto the hands of U.S. forces, imprisoned, and beaten. But for the most part -- with notable exceptions, such as a March 3Salon story with detailed of abuses at Abu Ghraib -- the stoppedfor most of the media. Bottom line for now: the damage-control folksdownplayed the events in January and got away with it; it's hard toavoid the conclusion that most of the media never looked hard enough atwhat was there. 1:00:13 AM    comment []

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

They had it coming Sen. James Inhofe,Republican of Oklahoma, has had enough of the crying and moaning overtorture of Iraqi prisoners. It's real simple, he says: The guys whowere mistreated had it coming. As quoted by CNN and Reuters: "I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is moreoutraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment. I am also outraged that we have so many humanitarian do-gooders rightnow crawling all over these prisons looking for human rightsviolations, while our troops, our heroes are fighting and dying," hesaid. "These prisoners, you know they're not there for trafficviolations," said Inhofe. "Ifthey're in cell block 1A or 1B, these prisoners -- they're murderers,they're terrorists, they're insurgents. .... Many of them probably have American blood on theirhands. And here we're so concerned about the treatment of thoseindividuals." 6:12:03 PM    comment []

Torturegate, the word count Google: 102 Technorati: 15 Yahoo! News: 6 Google News: 6 Nexis: 2 Daypop: 1 Blogdex: 0 10:49:41 AM    comment []

Torturegate ... is on the air! I just got .15 seconds (yes, 15/100ths of a second, or about 12 gnatheartbeats) of fame deriving from my historic role as the father oftorturegate (the word). This sliverette of recognition arrived in myOutlook Express inbox from The O'Franken Factor at 8:45 a.m. PDT: Dan, I’d like to talk to you ASAP to ask a question about the word “torturegate”—my number is [deleted], or you could email me your number. Much appreciated! Ben Wikler Producer The O’Franken Factor Yeah, I got all hot and bothered about it. I called as soon as Isaw the note, having visions of snappy on-air repartee with Al Frankenand perhaps the spontaneous creation of a new career in radio. But thereality fell somewhat short of that. As Mr. Wikler told me, Mr. Frankenwas talking about torturegate (the word) this morning on the show, andspecifically the claim from Fox's Sean Hannity that the word wasinvented by Democrats who are part of a vast left-wing conspiracy topoliticize the abuse allegations and get rid of Rumsfeld. So, off the air, he askedme -- probably the world authority on torturegate (the word) -- whetherI was a Democrat? whether I had called for Rumsfeld's resignation?whether I was part of the vast left-wing conspiracy to politicize theabuse case (answers: yes; no; no, I think). I would love to have talked to Franken, though. 10:17:53 AM    comment []

Last update: 6/30/04; 11:36:14 PM.