I Don't Know the Words to that Song Either

From my “speaks for itself” series
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Todd Snider: Ballad of The Kingsman from Justin Weihs on Vimeo.

News from the Early am

The Capitol

The Capitol


It’s 3:00 am and I was about to go to bed. Two pieces of news have come across my computer screen. One involves a piece of legislation that has been in the works for many months, the other a tragedy involving a young Hollywood talent. In the first item:

Democrats won a major victory in their push for health care reform early Monday morning as the Senate voted to end debate on a package of controversial proposals to a sweeping $871 billion bill.

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Three Interesting Links from Morocco

This post is simply to pass on a few links, all relating to Morocco.
The first is to the site for the Maroc Blog Awards. The title is slightly misleading because you don’t just vote on blogs. There is an award for the photo, Facebook group, and Twitterer of the year, among others. Morocco and Moroccans don’t have a huge online presence. It’s a small country. But they took to the internet relatively early in the global scheme of things. I attended a conference about the internet in Morocco in the mid 1990s and it was packed. It is also a pretty well wired country and lots of Moroccans who are active in online media outside of Morocco still prominently identify their online selves as Moroccan, so there is some good stuff for voters to choose from. It will be interesting to see, however, if any of the recently arrested bloggers. The latest was on December 8.
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"The Listening Post": Analysis of World Media


The listening post from Al Jazeera’s English service is an excellent and urgently needed program that give contest to international media coverage. The show is important because people now have access to media from all over the world, but seldom understand the context in which that media is produced. We often have trouble assessing the reliability of our own media, but what if you are reading something published in France, China, Dubai, or Mexico?
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Gretchen Carlson plays pretty good fiddle

I feel terrible! I always thought you had to be stupid to be an on air personality on Fox News. But I misjudged, and fell into a stereotype. Apparently you don’t. You just have to act dumb. Jon Stewart has shown me just how unfair I was being.
Apparently Gretchen Carlson, a Fox on air personality who, at times, seems like she must be the inspiration for every dumb blod joke ever told, isn’t as dumb as she wants us to believe. She was valedictorian of her high school class! She got her undergraduate degree at Stanford and studied abroad at Oxford. Jon outed her on national television. That wasn’t nice. Maybe it’s a tough place for a woman to work. Maybe she has to dumb it down to not be threatening and keep her job. I mean, look who she works with.
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Does Google Even Understand What News Is?

Google’s algorithms are very handy for shopping or entertainment recommendations. But I don’t like it “personalizing” news. Serving readers news based on what they’ve read can lead to a kind of tunnel vision where they’re insulated from the dissenting views and unpleasant truths. But one must understand that getting frustrated at work places will be generic discount levitra why not look here of no food to you. And all three cialis sale drugs have pretty much the same side effects. Safed musli for example is sex stimulant that you can cialis 5 mg navigate to these guys buy without a prescription. Leading buy levitra no prescription online pharmacy eDrugstore.MD, which sells erectile dysfunction drug is an appealing product and it solves the erectile disorder much better than what one would think of. Newspapers emerged to serve communities, and communities are inherently hotpots of dissent. Targeting news stories as if they were advertisements runs counter to that important service. I want a news gadget bringing me stories that make me uncomfortable.
–“Does Google Even Understand What News Is?

Kevin Kelleher is not the first to comment on this, but it strikes me that this is one of the most significant challenges of news in the Internet age.  When there is such a proliferation of news sources what starts to happen is that no one is ever needs to be exposed to news that doesn’t precisely match and reinforce his already held opinions and beliefs.
This is a good article and this is but one of the points he makes.  I recommend it.

Post-Racial and Post-Partisan?

President Obama in the Oval Office

President Obama in the Oval Office


Joe Conason writes in Salon that former CNN anchor Lou Dobbbs sound like he is running for office and that if he does it will be the GOP’s nightmare.  “Lou Dobbs for president!” is the headline on the op-ed.
It send a chill up my spine, but I’ll leave Lou and his whole schtick alone for now.  Rather I want to focus on one thing Canuson reports that Dobbs said in his first radio broadcast after leaving CNN that just completely baffles me.  Nor is Dobbs is not the only one who has made the allegation, many on the right have.
He said that President Obama “focuses on the partisan and racial” in a “21st century post-partisan, post-racial society.”  I don’t know what planet Dobbs is living on, but we do not live in a post racial society.  I do think that since the Civil Rights Movement, we have slow progress toward this becoming a nation in which race doesn’t matter, but we’ve still got a long way to go.
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Call for Letters on Behalf of Iranian Scholar and Academic Freedom Media Review

A November 6, 2009 Press Release from Scholars at Risk:

Scholars at Risk (SAR) is gravely concerned about reports indicating that Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh, a respected international scholar and researcher, has been arrested, convicted and sentenced to over 12 years in prison. Reports indicating that an appeal may not be heard are of equal concern. SAR asks for letters, faxes and emails respectfully urging authorities to reconsider his case and ensure that an appeal be heard.

More information on the case and how to respond is available here.
Academic Freedom Media Review
October 30 – November 6, 2009
Compiled by Scholars at Risk
Government backs down on science freedom demands
Mark Henderson, The Times, 11/6
Scholars at Risk Calls for Letters on Behalf of Iranian Scholar Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh
SAR, 11/6
Fiji throws out Australian academic
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Israel Boycott Fight Moves to Norway
Inside Higher Ed, 11/3
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Press Freedom in the Arab World

Al Jazeera gets such a bum rap in the United States because they are perceived as being biased against the United States and overly critical of US foreign policy. It’s not a fair evaluation, which is not surprising given that it is too often made based on hearsay by people who don’t speak Arabic, but that is not my concern in this post.
The network also does a very good job of holding Middle East governments to account. In fact, that has often gotten them into trouble. This is an episode of Inside Story, a program that is broadcast on the English service of Al Jazeera, assessing freedom of the press in the Arab World.

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Thanks to 3arabawy for finding it.

Academic Freedom Media Review, October 23-30

Compiled by Scholars at Risk
Israel Deports a Bethlehem U. Student Because She Is From Gaza
Matthew Kalman, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 10/29
The United States Provides $45 Million for Higher Education Commission
U.S. Department of State, 10/29
Academia and its Discontents
Jia Ahmad, Nneka McGuire and Nicholas Wong, Columbia Spectator, 10/29
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