Category: News

CNN may finally be growing a set. My general disdain for talking heads on the news networks is exceeded only by my disdain for the GOP. This evening, though, I saw a brief glimpse of the breakdown of the cozy relationship between the talkaratti and the politicos.

Anderson Cooper had a brief chitchat with Mary Landrieu on CNN about the prepardness and the leadership from Washington, basically accusing them of a) being asleep at the wheel, and b) being self-contragulatory because they’re busy passing a $10 billion emergency supplemental spending authorization to “aid” those affected by the disaster. While I can only imagine what special interests the spending supports, the fact that he was arguing that the politicians are completely incompetent was stunning. After all, the two groups generally rely on and feed upon one another. To see him throw aside the general deference that they typically provide gave me brief hope that we could see a media that actually challenges the political class to help real people.

Getting the word out in New Orleans, I’ve now read and hear in more than two instances, has been extremely difficult. Cell phones aren’t working, phone service is dead, streets are flooded or blocked by debris, radio and TVs no longer work as electricity is gone.

One obvious thing I haven’t grasped yet is why we aren’t using portable megaphones to make announcements throughout the area. Is this too low tech? It’s not whizzbang by any stretch, but the announcements by politicians in Japan driving around the city streets works annoyingly well. There’s no reason I can’t see why someone can’t be driving by slowly in a boat announcing where to head to for food, water and shelter.

In the same week The Passion of the Christ and the evolution/creation debate arrived in my inbox. I hadn’t given much thought to either topic lately, primarily because I’m relatively content in my agnosticism, and my sense that evolution has won the debate, even if it has yet to win the hearts (or at leas the minds) of people.

All this makes a link like the one a friend of mine sent me amusing in an unintended way; it simultaneously misses and makes the key point. The creationist/intelligent design movement doesn’t seek to have ANY evolutionary theory taught. They specifically want their view taught and to discredit the scientific theory. And for, in my view, an entirely credible reason.

All religions inherently derive their power and influence by providing an explanation for the origin of man. If a higher power created us, then we, in turn, must respect the wishes of that power or face the consequences. To deny that God was not involved, in any way, in our creation, as evolution does, is to deny religion its legitamcy. The consequences of defying a God who didn’t create you are significantly smaller.

Which in turn leads me to agree that the two concepts are fundamentally opposed, and that I’ve long since made my decision about which one I accept.

On the Media asks: What do you think of Alan Greenspan?

Furthermore, he’s a bone fide celebrity!

BOB GARFIELD: What do you think of Alan Greenspan?

WOMAN I heard that if – whatever he says, the market follows.

BOB GARFIELD: What do you think of Dennis Hastert?

WOMAN I don’t know who that is.

BOB GARFIELD: What do you think of Alan Greenspan?

MAN: I think he’s doing a good job!

BOB GARFIELD: How about Vladimir Putin? Any thoughts?

MAN: Don’t know him.

BOB GARFIELD: What do you think of Alan Greenspan?

WOMAN I think he’s doing a good job.

BOB GARFIELD: With the–

WOMAN With the market and the situation, yeah.

BOB GARFIELD: And what about Justin Timberlake. How do you feel about him?

WOMAN Who is this?

BOB GARFIELD: Lead singer for ‘N Sync.

WOMAN Don’t know him.

The whinings of another liberal stick-in-the mud who just doesn’t get it.

A July 1 podcast of NPR’s On the Media program contained the most clearcut description of a reporter’s privilege regarding sources and why it should not apply in the Rove case.

GEOFFREY STONE: Exactly. The critical mistake, in my view, that the Times has made, and Time Magazine up till this point has made, is to mistake what is really a source privilege with what they would like to have as a reporter’s privilege. When we talk about the attorney-client privilege or the doctor-patient privilege, or the reporter-source privilege, the reason for the privilege is not to protect the lawyer or the doctor or the reporter. It’s to protect the person who’s disclosing the information from the fear that if he makes that disclosure, it will later get him in trouble. And that’s the entire reason for the privilege. The distinctive feature about this situation is that the individuals who made the disclosure were committing a criminal offense in doing so, and there’s no public policy in protecting their identities. In the doctor-patient privilege, when a patient seeks advice from the doctor not to treat a medical ailment but in order to commit a fraud on an insurance company, the privilege does not apply. All I’m saying is the exact same thing should apply in the journalist-source situation. I believe there should be a very broad journalist-source privilege that should cover 99 percent of the situations. I believe in a much more aggressive privilege than even most people who want a privilege. But I don’t believe it covers this particular situation.

More media attention shines on the filibuster protest. The students are now posting a schedule of when local politications will be stopping by, including their House representative, Rush Holt, who will be there at 2 pm today.

I stopped by Princeton tonight to check out the Frist Center Filibuster, now in its 61st hour. Rumor there has it Rush Holt maybe stopping by tomorrow around 2 pm.

Students at Princeton University continue to filibuster Frist this evening. A website has been set up to watch the filibuster online.

Campus activists at Princeton (yes, a college I have little love for as a proud Rutgers alum) are planning to filibuster Frist outside the Frist Campus Center. More information is available here on the latest Republican overreach.