Study: Media Self-Censored on Iraq

Would the U.S. ever left Vietnam without reporters and photographers sending back gut-wrenching stories and disturbing images from the war? That's the question that occurs to me as I read this disturbing report on an American University survey of journalists working in Iraq. "In most instances, news managers self-censored coverage by choosing to run less-graphic images or putting details inside the paper and not on front pages." If Americans continue to believe that we should still be in Iraq, maybe it's because we haven't seen what's going on there. Who will tell us what's happening if not the journalists who have seen it? Read more on the study: http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/21538/

A Marine's mother, Boston Common - March 20, 2005 (Photo: Zak Patten)

Boycott Oil Companies that Drill in the Arctic Refuge

Senator Barbara Boxer and others are organizing a consumer boycott of any oil company that drills in the Arctic Refuge. If by using our pocketbooks we can convince these companies to do the right thing, we can protect the Arctic Refuge from destruction.

If you want to inform BP, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell that you will boycott their gas stations unless they pledge not to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge visit http://truemajority.kintera.org/anwr

Tundra Swans on Aichilik River (Photo: Subhankar Banerjee)

Sign this Petition to Preserve the Arctic Refuge

With the Senate vote last week, things are looking bleak for ANWR, the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. Please sign this petition to tell our elected representatives that you don't support destroying a national treasure for a fairly limited supply of domestic oil. http://www.savebiogems.org/arctic/takeaction.asp

A New Age of "Fake News"

No, I'm not talking about Weekend Update or The Daily Show, but rather government-driven propaganda pumped to the masses by the Bush Administration. Listen to a recent "On Point" for more:
http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2005/03/20050317_a_main.asp

Often, this propaganda comes in the form of "video news releases," or VNRs. According to The Center for Media and Democracy's Executive Director, John Stauber, "The use of VNRs amounts to systematic deception of viewers, both by the hidden interested parties behind them, and by news organizations with impure motives themselves."
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Video_news_releases

I would encourage you all to sign this petition to "stop news fraud," at freepress.net:
http://www.freepress.net/action/petition.php?n=fakenews

Carthage and Airplanes

This poem by Maine's Poet Laureate Baron Wormser reminds me of how distant our leaders can get from the ugly realities of today's world:

Carthage and Airplanes

Carthage likes to ride in airplanes.
Up in the sky he can forget
About the schedules of earth.
It is almost like thinking,
Gazing out the window at the clouds.

He likes to ponder.
“We’re pretty high up,” he says
To his aides.
“I wonder if we could go much higher.”
Everyone looks thoughtful.

Back on earth ten-year-olds heft Uzis,
People drop dead on sidewalks,
Friendship sours like old milk.
How much better it is in the sky!

Too bad you have to be going somewhere.
Too bad the endless limo will appear
And some suit or turban or daishiki
Will greet you and start
Telling you about what’s going
To happen soon or happened yesterday.

“Why don’t you fly around more?”
Carthage would like to say to them.
If you live in the sky, nothing happens.
You don’t even see the rain.
It is almost like thinking.

http://www.mtphiloinn.com/gallery/baron/

Is Bush Spreading Mideast Democracy?

Not according to Juan Cole, professor of modern Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. A snippet: "Bush's invasion of Iraq has left the center and north of the country in a state of long-term guerrilla war. It has also opened Iraq to a form of parliamentary politics dominated by Muslim fundamentalists. This combination has little appeal elsewhere in the region."
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2005/03/16/democracy/index.html

An old favorite, Arianna Huffington, makes a similar argument. I'd encourage you to read her column before Juan Cole's, as her writing is considerably more lively: "I just got back from a trip to the Happiest Place on Earth. Didn't ride the Teacups, though. Because I wasn't in Disneyland but in Washington, D.C., where everyone is walking on air, swept away by the Beltway's latest consensus: President Bush was right on Iraq, and, as a result, Tomorrowland in the Middle East will feature an E-ticket ride on the Matterhorn of freedom and democracy."
http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/column.php?id=763

Bush/Lebanese patriots

One-Day Fast for Darfur on Wednesday, March 16

This weekend, we visited the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. After seeing what was done in Europe more than 60 years ago, and then seeing at the end of the exhibit, what is happening today in Sudan, I feel compelled to do something to stop such suffering.

Please join me (and many, many others around the country) in taking a break from eating for one day. As the folks at http://www.darfurgenocide.org/ write, "A first step is to join together to stage the largest one-day hunger strike in US history on Wednesday, March 16th. Please demonstrate your solidarity with Darfur and sorrow over enforced starvation in Sudan. Click below to sign up for the fast and put your dot and testimonial on an online map of America: http://www.darfurgenocide.org/MarchStrike.html "

Women in Darfur, Sudan

"Stop altering reality and start reporting it"

Great article from Alternet's Rory O'Connor: "For some odd reason, Newsweek assistant managing editor/designer Lynn Staley thought it would be a good idea to create an image that combined a photo of (Martha) Stewart's face with another photo of someone else's body." http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/21412/

Will the *real* Martha Stewart please step forward?

How Dare Some Say, 'Support our Troops'?

From a letter written by the father of a soldier now serving in Iraq. This was published in the Portland (Maine) Press Herald:

"I am afraid for my son. I certainly worry about his being killed, but I am also worried about his being placed in the position of killing, too. Most of all, I am angry that we are sending our soldiers to a war that nobody can justify. Support our troops. Ask tough questions. Bring them home now."
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0214-23.htm

Fallen soldiers returning home

Our Godless Constitution

"The lesson the President has learned best--and certainly the one that has been the most useful to him--is the axiom that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it."
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050221&s=allen

Signing the U.S. Constitution