In the middle ages an Anchoress was a woman who lived in a small, sealed room inside a church;she would have visual access to the Sanctuary and to Holy Communion. Usually there was also a small side window at which she could converse with visitors, receive foods, etc. As a shy sort of person who prefers to hang in the background, the persona suits.
Consider this my window. Instead of passing me food, comments will do! I ask only that you be civil, because I do believe that decent people can disagree and still be decent people.
All posts are copyrighted, 2007 The Anchoress. Blog administrator is not responsible for content of comments. Note: All emails are considered fair game for publication, unless you specifically tell me not to quote you or use your name, in which case I am happy to comply.
Sometimes, when one becomes exceedingly busy and obligation-suffocated, it s best to simply throw one s hands to heaven and say, if something s gotta give, it will be the blog!
Starting in about three hours, I will be pretty much incommunicado (blogwise and email-wise) until next week, sometime.
Thus begins the week of re-posting.
For the next 7 days we ll be revisting older posts that may deserve a second look (or not) and I think most of them will be of a more spiritual than political bent, although I may slip in a few of those. Please check back - and scroll down, when you do, because most days I ll be posting more than one piece.
Today, since and its sad and cruel mission to entertain by making fun of people - by literally seeing them as things instead of people - is , and since to my way of thinking certainly meets Rosie O Donnell s definition of crap being served I thought I d repost these two pieces on and .
See you in a week!
Originally posted, January 23, 2006
I hope we have reached the nadir of Reality TV, now. It s all getting .
More than a decade after 16-year-old Amy Fisher had a sexual relationship with a much-older car mechanic and shot his wife in the face, the one-time Long Island Lolita and Joey and Mary Jo Buttafuoco have agreed to appear together in a televised reunion.
The man has sex with a minor, the minor blows a hole in the man s wife s face, and now they re all going to go on TV and revisit it. Again.
My brother Thom wonders whatever happened to the idea of shame?
I don t watch any reality TV shows. Buster has tried to get me to watch American Idol because sometimes there are talented people auditioning, and that may be - while I sat with him last week, I did see a few kids who seemed talented - but for the most part, I felt very uncomfortable with it.
There is something wrong with training the cameras on clueless people while others react to them with scorn or mockery and revulsion. I watched and thought - what does this say about us as a society? Are there so many people out there convinced that they are great simply because we have become a generation (or two) of parents who are so busy praising our children (to protect their delicate, way-overvalued self-esteem) that we re not being honest enough to say, honey singing is not what God made you for Are we, as a society, encouraging a generation of delusion?
70 years ago, the experts warned parents not to praise their children because it would give them big heads. That was not great advice. A family member used to tell a story about how she danced at a recital and then ran to her grandmother looking for praise, and her grandmother laughed and said, you dance just like an elephant
60 years later, when she related that story, you could still sense her pain.
The kid was crushed.
Obviously, there is no reason to completely dash a child s efforts, and if dancing gives them pleasure, let em dance! But there are better ways to gently direct their dreams elsewhere.
I think we ve gone too far the other way, now. I know when I had kids, the experts were telling us how important it was to validate and praise our offspring, and I watched myself (and the moms around me) really overdo it, until our kids became praise junkies. These days children are praised for every belch they blurt.
At every school event they all get certificates that somehow denote their specialness. Every kid on every team gets a trophy, no matter how crummy the season - they get rewarded for the effort. Nevermind that such a mindset has nothing to do with real life.
In real life, a bus driver who runs a red light and creates a traffic disaster is not rewarded for his effort. A doctor who makes a serious error is not feted for his good try
Many schools have discontinued Honor Rolls and Science Fairs because the distinction of excellence for a few kids is deemed hurtful to the vast majority of kids.
We hear, it s not fair to distinguish a few, because EVERYONE is special.
Which means, of course, that no one is.
Excellence is not to be celebrated, unless average-ness is celebrated too. The message it sends is not be all you can be, but average is the new superior, and mediocre is the new outstanding, and don t tell Johnny there is something he s not good at.
What delicate little wusses we are raising!
It seems to me the best way we can celebrate averageness is by accepting the fact that the great majority of us are pretty average individuals, faulty and human, and by understanding that there is something solid and dependable about all those average folks with average values who make up the world - who build its bridges and spaceships and guard its safety and grow its food. The world as we know it could not exist without average people, and that s plenty special.
Broadly considered, it is great. But we don t have to make a big fuss over it.
Perhaps our society seems so out of whack because everyone is trying so desperately to stand out from the great vast ocean of unremarkable specialness into which they have been thrust.
It is simply true that most people live their lives unknown to all but their immediate family and friends, and they die and in a generation or two, they are completely forgotten - except, perhaps, by people like me, who like to go to cemeteries and take rubbings from headstones. This has always been true, since the dawn of time, and there is absolutely no reason to downplay the dignity and effectiveness that comes with being an average human being.
There was only one Moses, but it was the whole anonymous gang of average Jews who eventually populated the Promised Land.
There was only one Martin Luther King but the whole anonymous gang of average marchers who made the trips to Mobile and to Washington DC. There was only one Churchill, but hundreds of thousands of average allied soldiers who put his policies into effect and beat down a great evil. There is only one Dubya, but 150,000 troops liberating Iraq and trying to make a risky-but-visionary effort succeed.
All those average men and women, who sojourned or marched or fought had a degree of greatness and nobility to them, and it could be found in their principles or their determination or their steadfastness - but they still, in each case, needed someone with a distinctive edge, with just a tad more greatness to bring them together. And there is absolutely no reason not to recognise it.
There have only been 43 American Presidents in 230 years.
There have only been 267 popes in 2000 years. There have been billions of other people. Greatness is not an illusion.
And it is not fomented with easy praise. I worry sometimes that our over-indulged, over-applauded youngsters may not have the requisite strength within themselves to find greatness when we will need it.
Winston Churchill was not a pandered-to child.
His father neglected him; his mother put high society before him. Only his nanny was faithful to him. He was shipped out to boarding school and suffered under a cruel headmaster and boys who thought him stupid because he could not excel in ancient languages.
No one ever applauded Winston or gushed at him. And yet he seemed to have the sort of inner-resources which today appear scarce in our children. After being paddled by a sadistic headmaster with a heavy hand, the young student Winston stood erect, looked the headmaster in the eye and said, I shall be a greater man than you.
When he did become a man, he began to self-educate - reading Milton and MacCauley and Gibbons and Pascal - and when early in his political career he made a speech that was well received he noted the pleasure he took in it, I had never been praised, before!
We are all worms, wrote Winston Churchill, but I do believe I am a glowworm.
Churchill understood who he was.
You would never have seen him stomping off from an audition with tears in his eyes insisting, I m a great singer! Everyone I know says it, and I don t care what you say!
My husband and I had a little disagreement recently.
Buster had sung a featured role in the school musical and - while he sang it beautifully and acted it very well, I couldn t help but remark that he would have been even better if he d remembered to face the audience. My husband thought I had done wrong to criticize, and said I may have hurt Buster s feelings because, the kid put his heart into that
Knowing Buster as I do, I doubted very much that I had hurt him, but my husband s promptings did make me wonder, so last night I asked him about it. I asked Buster if he had felt criticized or in anyway put down by my opinion.
He said, no, actually, if you watched, the next two performances, I made a point to face the audience more, and it played better. I would rather know what you really think than just hear how great I am all the time. If all you did was praise me, it would be meaningless.
Churchill had greatness in him, but it was not formed by a childhood and youth spent basking in unmerited praise. It was something he found within himself, when circumstances demanded it. I wonder if he would have been able to find that greatness, had he needed to first wade through an psyche filled with junk-adoration and delusions or, conversely, a psyche filled with scornful self-doubt.
Parenting involves balancing, trying to find the right way to encourage a child without filling his head with false notions of superiority or dashing her dreams by treating them with disrespect. Are we failing at this, are we out of balance? If so, the whole world, the great majority of us average folk, will pay for it.
Churchill. He would not have been a winner on American Idol - he would have been mocked for his tubbiness, and sent away by people who couldn t polish his shoes, and who likely would not understand a word he said.
Frank Sinatra and his glorious legato would have aced American Idol.
And too many would consider him, in the end, greater than Churchill, simply because of the glamour quotient. Our values are a bit skewed.
After one of Buster s school performances, over coffee, a good pal joked with Buster that he should audition for American Idol.
I m not wasting my 15 minutes on that, he said, surprising her. I am going to be the President of the United States.
Oh, she replied.
You sound just like Bill Clinton. He always said he d be president, someday, too!
Egad.
Buster s been saying that since he was 8. Heaven knows what damage I, a well-meaning mother, have done!
has more thoughts.
UPDATE: Maxed Out Mama on these thoughts, brilliantly. Jeanette has a very interesting perspective on which relates to this post.
Originally posted December 7, 2006
Actually, it s the best definition I ve ever read.
Once again I find myself flabbergasted by a bit of wisdom from a Terry Pratchett book. Actually, from one Terry Prachett book, Carpe Jugulum, which I wrote about , just the other day.
Apparently, I was not the only one taken with .
Siggy got inspired by it, too (commentingly eloquently at Happy Catholic) prompting Julie to send him more, which he posted .
“There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment about the nature of sin, for example,” said Oats.
“And what do they think?
Against it, are they?” said Granny Weatherwax.
“It’s not as simple as that.
It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.”
“There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby.
I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself.
That’s what sin is.
“No. It ain’t.
When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”
“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes –”
Yes, yes, yes!
!
It s the source of every sin. I used to think the source of sin was connected to vanity, pride and selfishness but even those things are all about treating others as things, or even treating ourselves as mere things.
We forget that we are created creatures, begotten - as in loved into being. In our exceedingly polarized world we increasingly lose sight of that, to the point where we - which always leads to bad stuff. Lots to think of here, and for me it s wrapping itself up - all stuff that s rattling around in my still-unquiet brain (I think I need to go on retreat - can t get quiet, and I need to).
It s all stuff I mean to write about, as soon as I can put it together.
Julie is always the one to be counted on to make us think. She always finds the gems and shares them with us.
She s the Diamond miner! In the meantime this seems like a book I ll have to read, even if I never could understand the Disc World series.
I think I can count on my hands the number of times I have revisited a past post specifically to discuss a response to it, but my post on generated a great deal of email (very little of it the usual hate mail, which surprised me), and a few interesting blogger responses.
Nate of blog took some issue with me, from a Catholic perspective and wondered if I have lost sight of the supernatural componants of this war:
If we fail to identify our enemies in a spiritual manner, and only see their material acts of violence, then our response with be on that material level and fail to address the underlying enemy - evil itself. For isn’t that what we are truly at war with - evil?
The Christ-like and Christian response to evil is merciful sacrifice - love to the end.
We must entrust ourselves to this new form of divine warfare - a spiritual battle for the heart of mankind.
Back during the Great Big Benedict/Muslim Debacle of 06, I wrote a piece for Pajamas Media on and said therein:
“Let’s keep God out of this and talk as men,” has been the tactic of governments and nations for decades, and it has not worked. Ultimately it cannot work for the plain and simple reason that Islamists are not secular-thinking people living in what is thought of as a “natural” world.
In fact, much of Islamic thinking - much of Islamic perspective - is utterly given over to the supernatural, to those things “seen and unseen.” And while governments “think as human beings,” Benedict, the Bishop of Rome, the man who sits on the Throne of Peter (whom Jesus advised to “think as God does,”) is perhaps uniquely qualified to deliver to these supernaturally-focused people something they cannot fail to understand, a supernatural challenge. And he does so while fully understanding that within the supernatural realm there are forces for the light, and for the darkness.
Clearly, I have been thinking not just materially but spiritually. I take Nate s point, and love, love, love is certainly the perfect solution to any problem, but it is never an expedient one; we re living in a reality that involves nuclear weapons, so expediency (at least in clearing away the underbrush of incessant Jihad so we can get to that love part) has some value, here.
In this case, I think I might take a line through , the eloquent Paragraph Farmer, when he makes an excellent paraphrase in Nate s comments section: “military force is regrettably necessary in this case because it buys the time we need to wage successful ideological and spiritual campaigns against Islamic jihadism.
”
Kevin from sent this bit of wisdom from G. K. Chesterton and his book, The Everlasting Man, in which Gilbert says it all so much better than I ever could.
As usual.
[A] man reading the Gospel sayings would not find a word of all that obvious rhetoric against war which has filled countless books and odes and orations; not a word about the wickedness of war, the wastefulness of war, the appalling scale of the slaughter in war and all the rest of the familiar frenzy; indeed not a word about war at all. There is nothing that throws any particular light on Christ s attitude toward organized warfare, except that he seems to have been rather fond of Roman soldiers.
Writes Kevin: When discussing the power of Christ s use of the comparative in several degrees (the comparing of a lower thing to a higher and yet that higher with a higher still; of thinking on three planes all at once. ), Chesterton observes that this faculty is not one that commonly belongs to these simplifiers of the Gospel; those who insist on what they call a simple morality and others call a sentimental morality. It is not at all covered by those who are content to tell everybody to remain at peace.
On the contrary, there is a very striking example of it in the apparent inconsistency between Christ s sayings about peace and about a sword. It is precisely this power which perceives that while a good peace is better than a good war, even a good war is better than a bad peace.
As I wrote last week.
No sane person wants war. But sometimes war comes. Islamofascist terrorism has been rising for the past thirty years and it shows no signs of abating.
Inexorable evil needs an .
I also got an email from a member of the military, D.R.
, and I am reprinting most of his email, because we can never hear too much from our soldiers:
Many of us in the military know about the political chatter swirling about. We just shrug and say, what else is new. The stakes in Iraq, Afghanistan, HOA, and elsewhere are enormous.
We would rather fight here than in our own streets. And, this is the point many Americans do not believe will happen if we leave this fight early. They see this as an abstraction, or more as fear-mongering.
It is not. The assumption that a Minuteman response would occur is like believing that a snowball won t melt in 100-deg weather. The Minuteman response would not happen simply because of fear and the terrible loss of life we ll see.
The terrorists we face over here are stone-cold killers. They would kill their own if it means they get to propagate their hate and evil. And, they are evil in every sense of the word.
They are not misunderstood, they are not the misforgotten, etc. They do know who they are. Many terrorists come from a world of privilege, more privilege than many of their kinfolk.
President Bush has done his absolute best. He s the right man for the time. This is not an easy war by any means a stretch of the imagination.
We do put in very long days and very, very short nights. Sometimes we see very good results, sometimes the results aren t so good. War by nature is very messy.
While we do our best to plan for contingencies, we adjust accordingly. With regard to the Vice President and former SecDef Rumsfeld, they ve been the best to us. They understand the stakes, and this is most important not the political usefulness.
You want people in leadership positions who understand the stakes, willing to make the hard decisions, and take responsibility regardless of the situation. The Vice President and Rumsfeld are such people. But, this is a point that can be argued at another time and by others.
For your son, keep him close. If he wants to join, encourage and support him. Military life can be difficult at times, but there s no other experience that is better.
If he wants to go another route, encourage and support him. Not everyone should see the face of war.
Thank you, D, and God bless you and your fellows.
Hopefully I will get to some blogging later today - if you ve emailed me and not received a response, I beg your pardon. I did some traveling early in the weekend and for some reason the house seems to be very busy, the past few days. I have a project due by Friday really, it s due by Thursday I m going to try to finish it by Saturday at the very latest
All of this by way of saying blogging will continue light-ish for a day or so.
Meanwhile, some links to keep you busy.
I missed all the excitement over Pamela Hess declaring - bravely - that by reporters who dare not look at anything beyond the politics of Iraq, who dare not ask what if we lose, what happens if we pull out, because to do so may leave a perception that they are carrying water for the president. Someone in the press needed to call out the rest of them.
I waiting for them to scratch their heads and say, ya know she s got a point there.
Meanwhile, . Our press is not free.
It is also almost sinfully incurious. And the nation is getting screwed.
Sometimes I think the parents of our men and women in uniform, to whom we owe so much debt, deserve their own medals for courage.
that is well-worth reading, if only to keep in mind the sort of folk we have over there.
And a very good, unusual piece about . I like the last graph, in particular.
H/T Sally.
if you d just been reading his damn blog, you wouldn t be so surprised at the good economic outlook. Gay Patriot has of just how remarkable the Bush economy has been, since he entered office.
Not that he s gotten any credit for it.
Roger Simon predicts . Egad, I can t imagine how insufferable Gore will be when he gets it, but maybe he hire someone better for his make-up.
That cover it scared me.
An interesting from Cuanas. I d never seen it before, anyway.
After a battle with cancer that simply could not be won, our friend Helen Schieber, AKA Aussiegirl, has passed at age 59.
Helen was very brilliant - a wonderful writer and a real scholar. Often she simply was too smart for me to fully comprehend, but I always admired her way with a phrase.
Her emails and comments were always keenly sophisticated and on the mark; she tended to see just past the edge of the rest of us, and so her conclusions were often uncommon.
It was through that one could truly get a sense of Helen s depth and generosity of spirit. She focused on beauty, she reveled in art, she didn t simply listen to music, she taught about it, so that all of us could listen with better appreciation.
Scroll down her page, check her archives - she shared of herself, her vision, her knowledge and she made the world so much more interesting.
Her death is a great loss, and she is gone much too young. All of my sympathies and condolences go to her husband and family.
Don Surber has moved his blog . If you blogroll him, you know what to do.
Also, Jeanette is shutting down , for several reasons.
She ll still be posting at , though.
I don t know how anyone can do more than one blog. I tried posting occasionally to and found it almost impossible to juggle between the two.
Tough enough just running one blog and keeping up with all the folks you want to link to!
Best of luck, Jeanette.
I am informed that Mr.
Eric Boehlert has (for the third time) referenced post in his unending series of rants about rightwing warbloggers and their supposed irresponsibility in (gasp!) questioning the Associated Press about a report and it s source. At least this time he has quoted me correctly, so that s .
Boehlert uses the quote to huff that I think there is no need for a press (!) and cites the (that bastion of enlightenment I do believe he is the only person still referencing) as evidence that, indeed when it comes to the US Military it might be best to take the uncorroborated word of Iraqi locals and stringers who lack evidence over our soldiers. Raise your hand if any of that surprises you.
Boehlert still apparently maintains that because Jamil Hussein exists, this is true. As I wrote :
Let’s test that logic with a syllogism, shall we?
Major Premise: The AP reported four mosques burned down and six people were murdered, and their source was Jamil Hussein.
Minor Premise: Jamil Hussein exists.
Conclusion: Therefore four mosques burned down and six people were murdered.
No, that doesn’t work.
The logic fails.
It seems odd to me. How does someone being extant automatically mean his uncorroborated story is simply true?
Why are people in a free country not allowed to question the press without having to face the rambling wrath of Eric Boehlert?
These seem like simple questions and yet the answers are slow in coming. Seems strange.
Whatever. I m bored, and this will be the last time I write about this issue or Boehlert s columns, at least until we get some more information (something beyond Jamil Hussein exists ) on the initial AP report, which has been changed (four mosques are now one, etc) but never corrected. All of the ranting and railing against right wing warbloggers has not managed to provide any sort of verification of the incident - but it has thrown up a nice smokescreen, and for some it has managed to obfuscate those questions we keep asking: What really happened?
Is the report real? Six people burned alive or none? Where is the evidence, , interviews?
This story went around the world!
To that question there answer seems to be: sound and fury, signifying nothing. And oh yes, a whistling and , wind.
.
To date, the warbloggers admissions of errors have been grudging and brief, despite the fact they wrote enthusiastically and freely while lodging their nasty allegations..
Heh. Where to start? Given his singularly cranky and that he d um, selectively quoted Seedubya, and his complete inability to admit that he also - by - mischaracterized my meaning, I m not sure Boehlert has room to talk.
He also implied that I hold contempt for the first amendment, a charge to which I do not take kindly.
And does Boehlert really want to talk writing enthusiastically and freely while lodging nasty allegations? My sides hurt.
And I m still not a warblogger.
Meanwhile, . This thing goes on and on.
On December 19, Eric Boehlert of Media Matters wrote in which he selectively quoted me (which is as good as a misquote) and mischaracterized this blog as a warblog.
While I detest intrablog pissing matches, I felt Boehlert s mischaracterization of my words and their intended meaning merited a response, and I made one, . At that time I also took issue with some of Boelhert s other assertions about warbloggers which I found to be either unconvincing or simply odd.
My post was civil in tone, engaged in no name-calling and simply addressed Beohlert s mistake - I will call it a mistake and not a maliciously intended distortion - and some of his other ideas.
I did not think to ask Boehlert for a public correction of his misquote; I assumed that he would simply provide one as a matter of journalistic pride and professionalism, and so I let the matter go. In fact, I was not interested enough to check out his column on this issue until just now, and I was rather surprised to see that - while Boehler begrudgingly and with little grace corrected in that previous column - he did not correct his similarly mistaken quote from me.
My post correcting Boehlert had been linked to by many in the blogosphere, including , which is seen by almost everyone, and so I think it is safe to assume that Boehlert probably saw it. But I ll give him the benefit of a doubt that perhaps he did not, and that is why he has still not corrected himself concerning my thoughts.
Boehlert made a point of featuring quotes by me two weeks in a row.
Since I posted my response, he has not named this blog in the steaming warbloggers rhetoric of his two pieces proceeding. That s very nice, but I would still appreciate it if he would publicly acknowledge his mistaken quote, in which - among other things - he mischaracterized me as being contemptuous of the first amendment. I am quite certain Mr.
Boehlert would not appreciate being misquoted in such a way as to utterly slander his view, and then having that misquote linger, uncorrected. I am equally certain this blog has never given him a reason to believe he would ever be subjected to such treatment.
Unfortunately, because Mr.
Boehlert has failed to correct the misquote, or his mischaracterization of this blog as a warblog, any charge he makes against the warblogs is still a charge against me, and I don t much appreciate being painted with his broad and rather indiscriminate brush.
Boehlert s latest column throws everything but the kitchen sink at the warbloggers, stating that they are indulging in personal name-calling (this blog has not - neither have some others whom he has also so characterized), that they have called for AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll s resignation (this blog has not, but Carroll has not exactly covered herself in glory, lately), that the bloggers are engaging in a press conspiracy (oh, come on, now) and that these warbloggers are defiantly refusing to apologize for maligning the AP.
To bolster his argument that a quick and humble apology is more than due, Boehlert claims that FOX News Brit Hume declared the AP vindicated.
In truth, as in a post that deconstructs some of Boehlert s piece:
as the transcript shows, Brit Hume said no such thing. Rather, he said that the AP had been vindicated as to allegations (made by whom, I wonder?) that Hussein didn’t even exist.
Hume said:
The AP was widely accused at the time of making up Hussein’s identity in order to disseminate false news about the war. No explanation was offered about why it took so long to confirm his name or why it is being disclosed now, but the AP, it appears, has been vindicated on this.
That is hardly the same thing as saying the AP was vindicated on the issue of the Burning Six, which is what Media Matters implies in its summary.
At least Media Matters included the transcript in its post. But its summary pushes the false narrative that lefties have been pushing for the last 44 hours or so: that the mere existence of Jamil Hussein means that The AP Has Been Vindicated on Everything, Because All Warbloggers Claimed He Was a Made-Up Person.
Let s test that logic with a , shall we?
Major Premise: The AP reported four mosques burned down and six people were murdered, and their source was Jamil Hussein.
Conclusion: Therefore four mosques burned down and six people were murdered.
No, that doesn t work.
The logic fails.
The fact that the AP itself could not find serious corroboration for the story, that it changed the four mosques to one but has not been able to provide a single picture, that it has never named the victims or talked to the victim s families or done anything at all to substantiate the story beyond saying we stand by it, seems not to matter to some. But it matters, and that is what the bloggers on the right, war or otherwise, have been trying to say.
A report matters. The credibility of a report (even if the story is brief ) matters. It matters because every time a horrible story crosses the wires and into the public perception, it plays on gut-level emotions and raises discontent among already warring local factions.
In the same way that some would use our own liberties to work against us, such reports embolden those who would take advantage of the fact that America is a compassionate country, that makes war only with relucance. Am I saying that ugly or troubling stories should not be reported? Of course not.
But they must be true.
Credible news reports matter because the press possesses the public trust and therefore they have a charge - a duty - to do all they can to ascertain that the information they pass on to the nation is as accurate as it can be. The embrasure of that duty is an honorable one and a privilege.
Honest journalism - whether popular or not - is as much a service to the nation as is a noble military or an uncorrupted government. Honest journalism tells the good and the bad without passion or prejudice, respecting the right of the people to know and the right of the government to hold classified what it deems truly necessary for the good and welfare of nations. Honest journalism respects the reader enough to trust him or her to receive information with an active mind, and welcomes the reader s ability to question what it reads, to look for clarification, if necessary.
The craft of honest journalism is less an imperious handing down of selected information by than a provocative waltz between writer and reader, both partners challenging, encouraging and turning in sync.
The credibility of reports - of reporters, newservices, papers and networks - matters because honest journalism is all that stands between any people and tyranny. When journalists fail to double and triple-check a story or confirm a source, or when they rely too heavily on unnamed informants, when they stop believing they may be questioned or held accountable by their readers, they may fall prey to temptation, abandoning the give-and-take of the waltz in order to merely lead and spin.
If and when that happens, the press fails to carry out its charge, and thus loses the public trust.
It is worrisome to see so many people who are willing to overlook a dubious story full of inconsistancies (and to pretend that such a questionable report is an abberation) simply because partisanship demands it. Throat-ripping instincts and arguments aside, we are all in this together and if we cannot come together on this one issue - the desire to see a well-run and reliable press service the nation - we ll fall together.
The credibility of the press matters. It should matter to everyone whether on the left or the right.
And the fact that I even have to write something that obvious speaks volumes about where we are in America - Anno Domani 2007 - and where we may be heading if readers are not to question the press, and if some are quite content to shrug off misinformation simply because they hate the questioners.
I haven t seen one left leaning blog that said a single word about the New York Times and his conclusion last week that there had been a major - very major - lie told in the pages of the NYT Magazine. Nor have I seen any retraction or correction from the New York Times. [- NY Times printed a correction .
- Admin] But the left is very fast to demand - demand, I say - retractions and corrections from right leaning blogs over sideshow issues to the real problems of the AP story.
Gaius also trys another syllogism.
UPDATE II: Big Lizard, guest blogging at while she is traveling, .
Nothing wrong, just a great deal of activity around here - lots of people in and out since my son is still home from college - that is keeping me from reading news or surfing the web, or writing. Hopefully tonight I can come up for air!
Real quick on the Jamil Hussein bit - I m not going to say anything until it all breaks a little more, because it asks more questions.
I did laugh my head off, though, to see how all of a sudden he was found, oh, look, there he is! He was right next to the Rose Law Firm Billing Records all this time!
The timing of the finding of Jamil Hussein is pretty interesting, too.
Right after AP Exec. Editor , we get
I m a little confused about it - he is now, supposedly, , but the AP doesn t want to identifying him because it might make him a target? What does quoting someone by name 61 times do?
Suddenly this is a worry? Whether he s identified or not he won t be charged with anything? Then why is he being threatened with arrest?
Who is he, really? What s his story, and why does he seem to report almost exclusively with the AP? What can we learn, from Jamil Hussein, about how news information is gathered and reported from Iraq?
So, let s see if this is the right Jamil Hussein and then let s hope someone gets to ask him about his story that 6 human beings were torched alive, that four mosques were burned down, etc. After that we ll know what s what.
Eason Jordan says and says, Many violent incidents reported by Captain Hussein via the AP were not reported by other western news organizations, raising suspicions about whether all those incidents occurred.
The controversy likely will linger in this area, with third party reporting being done to determine the accuracy of Captain Hussein s statements to the AP.
Jordan writes of mistakes and lessons learned. Perhaps when all of this is clear and confirmable, mistakes and lessons learned will be acknowldeged on all sides - which would probably be a good thing - but it doesn t seem like anyone is there, yet.
Seedubya says He writes: I implied that Capt. Jamil Hussein was a fraudulent source here and here. Now the MOI s admission has shown that implication was not correct, and the fraud or error concerning Hussein s identity was MOI s, not AP s.
But whether or not Capt. Jamil Hussein is an MOI employee changes very little in the overall situation concerning what happened in Hurriya on Nov. 24th.
I was interested in this matter since before the MOI denied his status, and noted at the time:
it looks less like Capt. Hussein is an eyewitness to this event, and more like he s just an unofficial spokesman. But a spokesman for whom?
At best, this is a policeman who is not authorized to speak for the Ministry of the Interior, being consulted for his version of events as if he were, and his version is being reported as if it were the official version because of lazy journalism. That s a problem, because we don t know how it is he s supposed to know the things he says he knows. Or why he s always inserting himself into these stories like some kind of Iraqi Greg Packer.
That s still the big question, and one of several problems that still stand about the reporting on Hurriya.
Read his whole post on the behavior of the AP.
As much as some on the left would like to pretend that this whole brouhaha has only ever been about finding Jamil Hussein, bloggers have been asking about the facts of his claims since day one, as .
And Curt at Flopping Aces . He writes: Whats curious is that no one other the AP has reported this verification of Jamil Hussein. Centcom hasn t.
The Iraqi MoI hasn t. Jamil Hussein has still not been produced.
As I said, I ll wait for more info I don t think anyone is certain of anything right now.
Lots of bloggers are writing lively about all this, though.
has a list of what the AP needs to clarify.
says things are getting lively and he is .
He seems to be having fun discussing how the AP has walked back a few componants of the original story, and that other witnesses do not seem to be forthcoming. As the AP says it continues to stand by its report, CY wonders which report that might be.
Democracy Project says should lead to media reform.
Moving on I never knew about Navy Corpsmen before the Iraq conflict, but I ve lately read enough about them. .
John Stephenson says very soon.
The 100-hour . Soon 100 hours will be, several weeks? Gateway Pundit has that should make you feel better.
Dr. Sanity says . Sigmund is .
Little noticed among all of this, including the : .
Do you need a change of pace? Sometimes you just have to read something that s NOT about politics or all the mudslinging, and remember that we all have some common experiences with which we can identify.
.
Blogging (and emailing) will be light for perhaps the next week. Family stuff, a project that needs finishing and trip-planning going on.
Please keep checking back.
That would be a 25 on . A 25 puts me in Bush 41 land, although I take issue with a few of the questions for which I thought the answers too broad.
I was conflicted, for example in having to choose between Ronald Reagan and FDR as best president. See what your score is.
Looking around the web, both and are thinking that -gasp- all the election year rhetoric of the Democrats and their was all, in fact, expeditious nonsense that they didn t really mean!
I m shocked, shocked. I need to lie down.
Actions speak louder than words.
The Dem words are not matching up to their deeds. That didn t take long.
The has nothing to do with Huffpo, and it s also very interesting.
But I am redundant.
From the Maybe they re all just one guy Department: Well, we ve found , but now it seems we must track down one ? Curt is saying, that this Quais Abdul Raazzaq is in fact is also Qais al-Bashir and Lt.
Maithem Abdul Razzaq then the AP is in for a s ^t storm they will not believe.
I can t keep track of all those names, so I ll just leave that with you. Also Jules Crittenden .
From the Numbers, schmumbers Department: . Yeah, but but at least Hussein wasn t Bush.
Writes Bizzyblog: And to personalize it, dear reader, unless you’ve gone on record in favor of abandoning the residents of the cities listed above to their own devices at the times they were (or are) extremely dangerous places to be, it would seem that you have no basis for contending that we should do that to the people of Iraq.
Dude, that s cold. Don t rock my world, man; Bush is the biggest terrorist! , and stuff.
All those numbers are just crazytalk.
From the You think health care s expensive now, wait until it s free Department: UK is stalling operations because . You didn t really need that by-pass, that transplant or you know, that cancerous growth removed.
And you Americans don t need to read about this, either. Move on. Nothing to see.
Socialized medicine will solve all our problems. EVERYONE will have the same crappy care except our elites in Washington, who are more special animals deserving of more special care. Their reality will not be the same as yours and mine.
But then again, Fitzgerald did say the rich were different from you and me.
From the Stop it, you re killing me with your love Dept: Bureaucrats because the kitchen wasn t up to restaurant code. The story ends well for now but Dr.
Sanity explains why some well-meaning people .
From the Nah, we don t like all that truth stuff, Barney Department: When NYTimes ombudsman (aka public editor ) Byron Calame s contract is up in May, the Times thinks it may just . So much easier to put the book review editor online to answer a few questions about his reading preferences, and no one asks any of those uncomfortable questions about whether or not vital security information should be leaked or, you know, .
From the So, what are you saying, you think we re wusses? Department: Jack Kelly looks at .
From the Let the begin Department: The House Ethics Committee released while you were sobering up from the holidays.
It seems George W. Bush is not the only in Washington. (H/T ).
From the Let s trash the president and GOP before the elections and then call the Dems a sleeper cell after they ascend Department: That about sums up , doesn t it? Let s see in Coulter s world, the Dems are horrible. Bush is horrible.
Let s just crown her now, shall we?
and his commenters have all the info you need on Jamil Hussein.
If you ever meet him, ask him to pull up his shirt.
Don t worry, he s used to it. The real Jamil has two pupiks. Also, you can say any phrase you want to him and he will turn it into an anagram, just like Dick Cavett.
He s slightly colorblind, plasma TVs give him a headache, and he s gonzo for Parker Posey.
* Joseph Wilson says that Jamil Hussein makes the best sweet tea in Baghdad.
* When Jamil Hussein wants to be left alone, no one can find him.
Not even Jack Bauer and Chuck Norris with the AP on their backs.
* Jamil Hussein can reverse time to restore torched mosques.
* Jamil Hussein behaves both as a particle and a wave.
* Captain Jamil Hussein once lost a your momma so fat contest against Notorious B.I.G.
Biggie was later murdered. Captain Jamil Hussein continues to insist that the two facts are in no way related.
* Like Isaac Asimov, Glenn Reynolds, Captain Flagg and the Dread Pirate Roberts, Jamil Hussein isn t so much one person as he is a concept.
* Jamil Hussein; some people call him Maurice, some people call him the gangster of love.
* You that thing goin on in the Bermuda Triangle? Jamil needs boats.
* If you ever need to send an e-mail to Jamil Hussein, simply use the address Jamil . The internet knows how to get it to him.
You may only do this once, in yor greatest hour of need.
Jamil Hussein does not like spam.
* Jamil Hussein inspired Bob Marley to write a song about him, you know, We re Jamil, I wanna Jamil wit you, we re Jamil, and I hope you like Jamil too
* The Greatest Trick Captain Jamil Hussein Ever Pulled, Was Convincing the World He Didn t Exist.
I do not accept the assertion, however, that Jamil Hussein can make Jack Bauer cry like a little girl.
Yes, there is profanity. And vulgarity. Some of it is too much.
Some of it is hilarious. You won t feel proud of yourself for reading it, but you ll laugh. You re warned.
When you re done with Ace, go over to to come up to speed with where the story is, and also read about her upcoming trip to Iraq (there s a paypal button to donate to defray costs). Michelle has asked Eason Jordan to use the money he would have spent getting her into Iraq to invite AP Executive Editor Kathleen lalalal, I can t hear you Carroll to join in the search for Captain Jamil Hussein, who was for before he abruptly went quiet right after about him.
Meanwhile, Confederate Yankee whose writers practice the art of compassion, tolerance and respect for their fellow humans.
I linked to lots of new years themed blogposts , but only just found which struck me as a particularly well-thought out list of resolutions. I like these bits:
Something in my gut tells me that beer is supposed to be drunk during the day with BBQ and Corn, not at night with peanuts and buffalo wings. I know this is the old man in me.
So if it s going to be a bar, let it be a piano bar in an upscale hotel. I got rid of titty bars several years back, so no more tacky bars. If the bartender is not over 30, I ain t staying.
Boy will soon be 13. Scholar will soon be 12. It s time to get them up the next level.
The bad habit to avoid is to stop pretending they don t know what s being said when they listen to the Black Eyed Peas. My job is to give them moral context and aids in discipline and respect. Which reminds me that it s about time to buy a nice sized wooden baseball bat.
Beautiful!
In his column the Times public editor (used to be known as an ombudsman a fine word sadly underused) has written a rather strong indictment against a controversial cover story in the Magazine, the story s writer and editors, and the top editors (he wrote that phrase twice) who rather pooh-poohed those who wrote with concerns as to the story s veracity.
Ombudsman Byron Calame (of whom I wrote disparagingly, ) takes some strong lines, this time.
THE cover story on abortion in El Salvador in The New York Times Magazine on April 9 contained prominent references to an attention-grabbing fact. “A few” women, the first paragraph indicated, were serving 30-year jail terms for having had abortions. That reference included a young woman named Carmen Climaco.
The article concluded with a dramatic account of how Ms. Climaco received the sentence after her pregnancy had been aborted after 18 weeks.
It turns out, however, that trial testimony convinced a court in 2002 that Ms.
Climaco’s pregnancy had resulted in a full-term live birth, and that she had strangled the “recently born.” A three-judge panel found her guilty of “aggravated homicide,” a fact the article noted. But without bothering to check the court document containing the panel’s findings and ruling, the article’s author, Jack Hitt, a freelancer, suggested that the “truth” was different.
You ll want to read all of it. Calame examines how the freelance reporter made assumptions that indicate either laziness or staggering naviete (or simply believing what he wanted to believe), and the editor seemed careless as to the legwork (possibly because , as Thomas Lifson notes). Calame also observes that the court documentation telling the whole story was easy to come by.
Calame saves his strongest disapproval for the response by Times editors to public queries as to the story s accuracy: The magazine’s failure to check the court ruling was then compounded for me by the handling of reader complaints about the issue. The initial complaints triggered a public defense of the article by two assistant managing editors before the court ruling had even been translated into English or Mr. Hitt had finished checking various sources in El Salvador.
After being queried by the office of the publisher about a possible error, Craig Whitney, who is also the paper’s standards editor, drafted a response that was approved by Gerald Marzorati, who is also the editor of the magazine. It was forwarded on Dec. 1 to the office of the publisher, which began sending it to complaining readers.
The response said that while the “fair and dispassionate” story noted Ms. Climaco’s conviction of aggravated homicide, the article “concluded that it was more likely that she had had an illegal abortion.” The response ended by stating, “We have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the facts as reported in our article, which was not part of any campaign to promote abortion.
”
After the English translation of the court ruling became available on Dec. 8, I asked Mr. Marzorati if he continued to have “no reason to doubt the accuracy of the facts” in the article.
His e-mail response seemed to ignore the ready availability of the court document containing the findings from the trial before the three-judge panel and its sentencing decision. [ ]
I asked Mr. Whitney if he intended to suggest that the office of the publisher bring the court’s findings to the attention of those readers who received the “no reason to doubt” response, or that a correction be published.
The latest word from the standards editor: “No, I’m not ready to do that, nor to order up a correction or Editors’ Note at this point.”
One thing is clear to me, at this point, about the key example of Carmen Climaco. Accuracy and fairness were not pursued with the vigor Times readers have a right to expect.
Good for Calame for doing his job and taking his publication to task. The Times stood by the story and seemingly is determined to continue to do so, even in the face of contrary evidence. Kind of reminds me of the AP the story of four torched mosques and 6 human beings even in the face of and ummm an and known source that can seem to verify.
Will the AP ? One hopes so. As demonstrated by Calame, media outlets (or individual press people) can correct themselves - admitting that maybe the readers who dare question them might be right, once in a while - without much fallout beyond what appears to be a mild sense of humiliation.
DO read Lifson s , which is a good analysis, with lots of background information on the freelance reporter and the rest of the players in the NY Times Magazine apparently fake story. And .
Sometimes I observe how audaciously some in the media press their perspectives, even if it requires some distortion, and I get angry because the disrespect for public intelligence is so insulting.
I feel a little like Hamlet facing his betraying friend, Guildenstern:
Hamlet: Will you play upon this pipe?
Hamlet: I pray you.
Guildenstern: Believe me, I cannot.
Hamlet: I do beseech you.
Guildenstern: I know no touch of it my lord.
Hamlet: It is as easy as lying.
[ ]
Guildenstern:[ ] I have not the skill.
Hamlet Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of
me! You would play upon me [ ] Sblood, do you think I am
easier to be played on than a pipe?
[ ]
- Hamlet, Act III
UPDATE: Andrew McCarthy says . He explains how and why. Disingenuous.
Disrespectful of readership, too. Here comes the new year, just like the old year. And Newsbusters is with one obnoxious media moment after another.
Don t miss . It blew my mind.
UPDATE II: No!
Journalists ? It can t be! I m shocked, shocked!
Meanwhile, .
UPDATE III: is writing on the AP and its methods.
UPDATE IV: Seems the NY Times does not like its ombudsman to do his job, and when his contract expires.
All that truth-telling makes them feel ooghy. La Malkin also talks about this in
In 2005 Buster made his predictions, and they .
in 2006, I made mine.
They were . Clearly I am no sage or prophet! Although I did get numbers 7,8, 10, 12, 13, 17, 19 and 21 mostly right.
Of course pretty much everyone would have predicted the same, so I m no good at this game!
2007 no . .
Anything can happen.
Ambivablog notes , although her suggestion at the end has merit.
Hang on tight, don t overdo, say your prayers, check out Fausta s and and we ll see you next year!
And God bless us, everyone!
I m not the only one not daring to predict 2007. Only a few here!
We are all going to have to rethink how we deal with this, because there are all these competing values Without any kind of editing function or gatekeeping function, what does it mean to have the right to defend your reputation? she said.
I don t have any clue about what we re going to do legally, regulatorily, technologically I don t have a clue.
But I do think we always have to keep competing interests in balance. I m a big pro-balance person. That s why I love the founders checks and balances; accountable power.
Anytime an individual or an institution or an invention leaps so far out ahead of that balance and throws a system, whatever it might be political, economic, technological out of balance, you ve got a problem, because then it can lead to the oppression people s rights, it can lead to the , it can lead to all kinds of bad outcomes which we have seen historically
MRS. CLINTON: Bill, I don t know what that s why I said I don t know what I m in favor of. And I don t know enough to know what to be in favor of, because I think it s one of those new issues we ve got to address.
We ve got to see whether our existing laws protect people s right of privacy, protect them against defamation. And if they can, how do you do that when you can press a button and you can t take it back. So I think we have to tread carefully.
So, after 6 years of listening to people on the left tell us how the terrible, nazi-ish Bush administration was crushing dissent (where?) and silencing opposition (where?) and blowing a chill wind which would cost us our right to free speech, etc (I believe Tim Robbins, wagging his finger, wrote a and on this issue, all of which were spouted off in public and widely disseminated belying his very claims), we did not have to wait long to feel the real chill wind.
And it s via , although I m quite sure Mrs. Clinton will happily ride on it, if it helps her ambitions.
There IS a chill wind blowing we felt it stirring this year, when it didn t like, but .
Pay attention. The right didn t like the kill Bush movie but it never tried to shut it down. It objected.
It did not try to silence. That s pretty telling.
Some might think that quieting down will be a good thing.
But if the right side gets silenced, the left will soon be shut down, as well.
As I wrote , bloggers adore the first amendment.
Ed Morrissey says be calm, but .
He quotes Tapscott who says: mere registration is never the only thing the politicians and bureaucrats in Washington want. After registration will come regulation of content, followed by prohibition of some kinds of content officeholders find threatening.
Morrissey adds: I m not sure I buy into the doomsday scenarios painted by Smith; after all, anyone making any political contributions already has to register with their legal name and full address, so anonymity has mostly gone by the wayside.
Let s focus on getting the politicians to fully and immediately disclose their contributions and their earmarks first, and then see where else we need to work to reduce or eliminate corruption. The Senate would be a good place to start.
But yeah, watch out for those grey areas.
There be monsters. And um who know what you ought to be allowed to know much better than you do.
And I have no idea where I found this, but it s a sort of , and it s interesting.
Also, Scott Ott writes a real - not satirical - .
My apologies to those of you who have been leaving comments or trackbacks and have wondered why they have not appeared.
While the site is moderated, I still have not seen fit to disallow any comment.
Unfortunately, I seem to be getting spam-bombed and my filters for some reason are calling almost everything spam at this point - including your comments and trackbacks. I am trying to keep up with it and release comments and trackbacks as I find them, but obviously I haven t the time to sit here all day and run through the spam. Also, going through even ten pages of the stuff looking for legit comments and trackbacks makes me feel like taking a bath.
I don t understand what people are thinking, sometimes.
Anyhow if you ve been commenting and feeling ignored, please know you haven t been banned and your comments haven t been deleted or judged too hostile (yet!) everything is simply trapped in hundreds of pages of spam.
Thanks.
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