The Guardian, First Amendment erosion . . . Journalism's endangered mission and broken spirit

Ken Auletta's profile of the Guardian's Editor and survey of its recent history illustrates conditions accounting for our currently intimidated media: regarding editor Rusbridger's decision to pursue the Murdoch phone-hacking story to its end, a Guardian reporter observes that "[Rusbridger] has a really useful piece of equipment that most editors don’t have, which is a spinal column." Here's what happens upon publishing public-interest facts (that never should have required publication in the first place): 

On July 18th, Rusbridger received a call from Oliver Robbins, the U.K.’s deputy national-security adviser, alerting him that agents would be coming to the Guardian’s offices to seize the hard drives containing the Snowden files. Rusbridger again explained that the files were also on encrypted computers outside England, but his reasoning did not sway Robbins. Rusbridger asked if, instead, his staff members could destroy the files themselves, and Robbins consented. That Saturday, Rusbridger told associates to take the five laptops from the bunker to the basement and to smash the hard drives and circuit boards in front of two agents from the G.C.H.Q.

Regarding the First Amendment,

 Even if the Guardian was censored, [Rusbridger] was confident that the Times would be free to publish. Abramson was less certain. “I did worry about that,” she told me. She felt that the Obama Administration was trying aggressively to criminalize leaks. In early August, the Times was working on a story about an intercepted terror threat when James R. Clapper, the Administration’s director of intelligence, asked the paper’s Washington bureau to withhold certain details. Clapper warned that, if the full version were made public, the Times “would have blood on our hands,” Abramson recalls. The paper complied with the request. But, to emphasize that the government could not expect the Times to withhold information that is in the public interest, she travelled to Washington to meet with Clapper. During the meeting, he urged her not to publish the Snowden material. “The First Amendment is first for a reason,” she told him. (A spokesman for Clapper disputed this account.)

Clapper, it should be noted, has perjured himself before the Senate without even a veneer of remorse.

This spirit of The Guardian, personified in its Editor, is the spirit required for a free press to be anything more than a mouthpiece for the powerful. The paper endorses no party or organization out of course. While liberal, it is liberal in the original sense - free and discursively open. This is partly accounted for by its relative independence from financial pressures - "The Guardian doesn’t need to be profitable, so long as its losses are reduced and the trust can continue to subsidize them with its other businesses." - but its financial losses must be reduced, at some point, in order for its voice to remain heard. 


Journalists frame public conversations and debates, ideally serving as moderators between the public and the powerful. Such debates are the foundation for change, their absence the basis for inertia. In this case, the inertia regards the continued erosion of the role being described (or, to put it in Constitutional terms, the First and Fourth Amendments). But who can be counted upon to host such debates when the powerful don't want to have them? Editors and journalists with more fortitude that we might regularly be able to ask of our scribes. 

Midnight Blue, Stanley Turrentine

I love the head - harmonies, delayed gratification, casual transition into the solo.

Cut out the cut blocks

Last week 49ers defensive tackle Ian Williams had his ankle broken when "Seahawks right guard J.R. Sweezy dove at Williams’ left knee and continued to roll in his legs."

There's no place for this at any level of football. Helmet above the knees or a 15 yard penalty.

We need more bad arguments in the classroom.

If we want a functioning democracy we need to equip people to think critically about arguments. Logical fallacies - bad argument types - should therefore be part of the standard curriculum.

I think that sixth-graders could differentiate between an "Appeal to ignorance"  and a "Straw Man":

My opponent is trying to convince you that we evolved from monkeys who were swinging from trees; a truly ludicrous claim.

"Look! It's a strange beam of light moving through the sky. I don't know what it is, so it must be aliens visiting us from another planet. "

(These examples are pretty lame . . . I know. Put better ones in the comments if you're reading this.)

Educators consider residue - "learning that lasts" - in determining curricula and teaching methods. How will a student be affected by a course fifteen years after taking it? Exposure to logical fallacies will get students identifying arguments and thinking critically about them even if they aren't strong readers. And, fifteen years out, I'd wager that the average student would be much more likely to recognize a "straw man" than a "dangling participle."

The Incredible Jimmy Smith

The whole show's great and the cats are cool.

Our spineless media and its refusal to give a living ex-POTUS any ink

Who's afriad of Jimmy Carter?

Our spineless media and opaque executive.

(From a letter to Andrew Sullivan, June 7th 2013)

Think of how our current state of affairs happened. The Protect America Act contained details that went under the radar of all but the most vigilant non-government actors that allowed the essentially unchecked surveillance powers that the Executive Branch now has - and, lo and behold, has chosen to exercise - through its agencies.

We have a news media that fears losing access and is thus afraid to tell things as they are - if that chickenshit NY Times editor wouldn't let the word "torture" be used in print do you think he would allow a story to be run detailing the possible implications of the language of the bill? No - that would require a civic-minded spirit that trumps the desire not to ruffle the feathers of important people.

But you can't debate things that happen secretly! Classification of everything has exploded, prosecution of leakers . . . this administration has consolidated and expanded its power by severely restricting executive transparency. (It might be difficult to remember at times, but everything Federal that is not legislative or judicial is executive.) We're not capable of debating what we don't know to be actually happening. And with a media (fine, a "mainstream media") that is less and less willing to call a fact a fact combined with an Executive branch that is less and less willing to let anyone beyond it know anything of its operations: no, it doesn't augur a good future!

Part of my prescription for America's recovery is to quit being so goddamned "selfish and scared." Not easy to enact or argue for in a cogent and concentrated way. But the other part, the part that could involve you, is simply demanding that Obama keep the following campaign promise: more transparency. If transparency means endangering people, then maybe those people should be taken out of danger and their associated programs should be reevaluated. But I think increasing the lack of transparency has become just another way for institutions to protect their turf an increase their power - and they will all do that, it seems, if allowed to.

Clapper's perjury

(Written on July 2nd, 2013)

"Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" asked Senator Wyden.

He responded: "No, sir, not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly."

In his MSNBC interview, Clapper said he believed Wyden's question was unfair, akin to asking him when he was going to stop beating his wife. "So I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful manner by saying no," Clapper said.

* * * *

So Klapper perjured himself and it goes practically unreported in the papers. The NYT, for instance, could spare the space they spend writing *every day* about Snowden to actually inform people about the substance of the programs he exposed - let alone reporting that the head of the NSA straight-up lied to Congress under oath - but they would prefer to report on narratives that are inconsequential enough to keep their access or whatever other reason they have to justify their spinelessness. I shouldn't have to read a British paper to find out what really goes on in Washington.

Thoughts on guns in America and the recent unspeakable events

(This post was written on December 16th, 2012)

First:


I used to be moved by what seemed to be a constitutional guarantee of firearms to the citizenry so that they could wage guerrilla warfare against a repressive state. (Not so unlike the way that this country came into being.) But it has become clear: the salient consequence of having combat firearms with extended clips available to the general public is the multiplication of the devastation that nutjobs can wreak.


Recent reports indicate that the offending weapon was an AR-15. This is more or less the same gun that was used in Colorado recently. This gun can fire at least 20 to 40 rounds without being reloaded. The devastation in Colorado seems to have been actually limited by the gunman's using a 90 round drum magazine that jammed, as it is prone to.


I don't think that civilians have any need for guns that can get off more than three rounds without reloading. I don't think they have a need for handguns, either - and *certainly* not for a 30 round clip to go with a Glock 9mm. Not just because these characteristics reflect that they are designed to kill people, but also because nobody outside of a  combat situation (shooting to give cover etc.) needs that for any reason. When do you get more than two shots at a target outside of Hollywood? Who's going to hit *anything* with a pistol beyond point-blank range that doesn't practice regularly (and even that won't account for the adrenaline and poor lighting and moving target in an actual home invasion)? In short, I don't want to be around someone carrying a gun who doesn't have the kind of experience that one needs with one to effectively and safely - yes, safely - use it in self defense.


Second:


I grew up with guns (shotguns) and my experience with them was a really important part of growing up for me. The privilege of having a gun came with a lengthy list of rules about its use. About the angle at which the barrel points when it's held (regardless of whether it's loaded). About the angle it points when it's being loaded (in case of a firing pin sticking out, for instance, causing a discharge). And so on. And then the rules that are harder to codify, about when it's ok to shoot (wounding a bird that's out of range: not OK). I was what most of you might consider horrifically young when this started. Any time I broke a rule the gun would be taken away. It would be humiliating. Fair or not, I refuse to be within shooting range of someone whom I don't know to have been hunting with supervision since they were a pre-teen. And I admittedly think twice about someone who doesn't feel the same way.


I still hunt. I use a double-barrelled gun that can get off two shots before reloading. I don't think I have a sacred right to do it (although it does appear that I have some sort of right that is protected by the Second Amendment.) But it's a part of who I am and I'm not alone (as this excerpt from Robert Ruark's Old Man and the Boy indicates):


“Can I really shoot it now?, I said.


“Load her up,” the Old Man said. “Then walk in, and when the birds get up pick out one and shoot him.”


I loaded and walked up to the dogs and slipped off the safety. It made a click that you could hardly hear. But the Old Man heard it.


“Whoa,” he said. “Give me the gun.”


I was mystified and my feelings hurt, because it was my gun. The Old Man had given it to me, and now he was taking it away from me. He switched his pipe to the outboard corner of his moustache and walked in behind the dogs. He wasn’t looking at the ground where the birds were. He was looking straight ahead of him, with the gun held across his body at a 45-degree angle. The birds got up and the Old Man jumped the gun up. As it came up his thumb flicked the safety off and the gun came smooth up under his chin and he seemed to fire the second it got there. About 25 yards out a bird dropped in a shower of feathers.


“Fetch,” the Old Man said, unloading the other shell.


“Why’d you take the gun away from me?” I yelled. I was mad as a wet hen. “Dammit, it’s my gun. It ain’t your gun.”


“You ain’t old enough to cuss yet,” the Old Man said. “Cussing is a prerogative for adults. You got to earn the right to cuss, like you got to earn the right to do most things. Cussing is for emphasis. When every other word is a swear word it just gets to be dull and don’t mean anything anymore. I’ll tell you why I took the gun away from you, You’ll never forget it, will you?”


“You bet I won’t forget it, I said, still mad and about to cry . . . . “I don’t even know why you took it. What I’d do wrong then?”


“Safety catch,” he said. “No reason in the world for a man to go blundering around with the catch off his gun. You don’t know the birds are going to get up where the dog says they are. Maybe they’re running on you. So the dog breaks point and you stumble along behind him and fall in a hole or trip over a rock and the gun goes off—blooey.”


“You got to take it off some time if you’re planning to shoot something,” I said.


“Habit is a wonderful thing,” the Old Man said. “It’s just as easy to form good ones as it is to make bad ones. Once they’re made, they stick There’s no earthly use of slipping off a gun intil you’re figuring to shoot it. There’s plenty of time to slip it off while she’s coming to your shoulder after the birds are up. Shooting a shotgun is all reflexes, anyhow.”