In this morning's New York Times, Stephen Labaton, Lorne Manly and Elisabeth Jensen have a lengthy article entitled "Republican Chairman Exerts Pressure on PBS, Alleging Biases." Read it. See if it doesn't enrage you the way it has me. (The topic, not the writing.) From the article:
The Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is aggressively pressing public television to correct what he and other conservatives consider liberal bias, prompting some public broadcasting leaders - including the chief executive of PBS - to object that his actions pose a threat to editorial independence.
Without the knowledge of his board, the chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, contracted last year with an outside consultant to keep track of the guests' political leanings on one program, "Now With Bill Moyers."
In late March, on the recommendation of administration officials, Mr. Tomlinson hired the director of the White House Office of Global Communications as a senior staff member, corporation officials said. While she was still on the White House staff, she helped draft guidelines governing the work of two ombudsmen whom the corporation recently appointed to review the content of public radio and television broadcasts.
Mr. Tomlinson also encouraged corporation and public broadcasting officials to broadcast "The Journal Editorial Report," whose host, Paul Gigot, is editor of the conservative editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. And while a search firm has been retained to find a successor for Kathleen A. Cox, the corporation's president and chief executive, whose contract was not renewed last month, Mr. Tomlinson has made clear to the board that his choice is Patricia Harrison, a former co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee who is now an assistant secretary of state.
Is there a point to PBS? Seriously. Instead of challenging Mr. Tomlinson, we get two people familiar with PBS (one currently there, one who's recently left -- no we won't name the chickens) and they refuse to fight. They refuse to defend PBS. They offer lame things like "well maybe there's a point" and other nonsense.
They caved and caved for so many years and watered down the programming repeatedly that at this point, I'm not sure they have the right to depend on viewers in this battle. They don't appear to appreciate the viewers.
PBS's programming today is largely crap like Antique Roadshows. Or "music" specials that appear to be shot as one concert and then packaged into many specials. You watch and you think, "Wasn't Judy Collins wearing that outfit when she sang two songs on that other special?"
Frontline has gone far from the brave journalism program that once defended utilizing Jessica Savitch as a host. Today, Savitch would probably be too "hard hitting" for them. That's not to say that there aren't a few episodes each year to get excited about. But it's supposed to be a hard hitting series each episode. When they initially used Savitch as the host, there was huge internal criticism that she'd make the show appear to "soft." These days Savitch would come off not only as a seasoned pro (were she alive) but a flaming radical.
As PBS has buckled under each attack, they've encouraged further attacks. They've taken the public attitude of "We'll try not to be so lefty, we'll make changes!" And they've moved away from strong journalism with each attack. They've encouraged each attack by playing appeasement.
Viewers have defended PBS when PBS wouldn't defend itself.
Idiot Tomlinson is worried about viewer numbers and yet, that's really not something that PBS was created for. Easy to forget in this age of "PBS Stores" and other nonsense.
It was created with a set of core principles. Tomlinson doesn't appear to know what those are.
As anyone who knows the history of PBS is aware, today's problems could have been prevented from the onset. There were suggestions to create the funding for PBS in a way that would allow it to not ever worry about bowing to political pressure. (Similar to the way the BBC didn't have to worry too much over the years -- until Tony Blair decided to retool "New" Labour and buddy up to Murdoch.)
When Jane Alexander practiced appeasement as she headed the NEA, she enraged people who should have been on her side (and destroyed her own reputation in the process). PBS has reacted similarly over the years. In the process, it has become less and less about what it was created to be.
I'm sure as people read this and news drift out, various calls will be made about how we've got to save PBS from yet another attack (this is one of the most public in a long line of attacks). I'm sure I'll get many calls and e-mails myself today.
But when does PBS save itself? When do members of the CPB board either fight back publicly or resign in disgust to make a statement?
This is digusting. And I'm sure I'll end up signing on to some "Save PBS!" action in some way, but it's really past time that PBS fight back. Where is Jim Lehrer defending the right of PBS to do journalism? A charge is made and, yet again, no one wants to stand up. While it's not surprising that Lehren once again refuses to weigh in, there's something really sick about a man who's made a career at PBS refusing to defend it.
Christy Carpenter (who left the board in 2002) and Bill Moyers are in the article defending PBS.
That's it. Others take the attitude of, "Well we need to examine every charge, no matter how baseless, and work towards appeasement."
Which no doubt means more money for Billy Bennett's half-baked cartoon doodles and more conservatives (like Tucker Carlson) hired because Daddy serves on the CPB.
I don't know what the answer is and I don't pretend to know. Again, whatever action is decided upon, I'll probably end up signing up in some way. But it's really past time that PBS started engaging in its own defense and stopped waiting for someone else to save it. My opinion.
E-mail yours to common_ills@yahoo.com.
[Note: Cedric caught my mispelling Jim Lehrer's name ("Lehren") and that's been corrected. Clarity's been added re: Savitch, per Shirley.]
Monday, May 02, 2005
Sunday, May 01, 2005
Medea Benjamin on The Laura Flanders Show, Jim Wallis interviewed by Powell's Books, Luke (wotisitgood4) providing a Sibel Edmonds link
Three quick items. Later today (about nine hours from now, but check my math always) on The Laura Flanders Show (7pm to 10pm is the eastern time zone):
Sunday 7pm-10pm
Iraq didn't have W.M.D., but the U.S. continues to and this Monday, world leaders, and citizens from around the world will converge on the United Nations to decide the fate of the endangered Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Some politicians are standing up: we'll talk to British Member of Parliament BRIAN SEDGEMORE, who left the Labour Party just days before a general election to protest Tony Blair's lies on Iraq. Then JACKIE CABASSO, Executive Director of the Western States Legal Foundation and United for Peace and Justice will tell us what anti-war activists can do to on the anniversary of the Vietnam War's end. And hear from THOMAS H COREY, President of Vietnam Veterans of America and we'll get the whole perspective. Finally, in studio for the full hour: MEDEA BENJAMIN, co-founder of CodePink and co-editor of "Stop The Next War Now: Effective responses to Violence and Terrorism".
And Don't miss Laura's latest appearances and book tour:
Tour 2005 Bushwomen: How They got Their Man in the White House
BOULDER, COLORADOMonday 5/2, 4 pm Lecture at University of Colorado, Old Main Building, followed by reception with the Womens Studies Department at Womens Studies Cottage.
7 pm Word is Out Womens Bookstore.
DENVER, COLORADO Tuesday 5/3, 12-1 Denver University Gender & Womens Studies Department.
5:30-7:00 The Denver Womans Press Club. 30 minute talk with reception.
7:30 The Mercury Cafe.
BOULDER, COLORADO Thursday 5/5, Aft Commencement Keynote at CU Womens Studies Graduation ceremony.
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI Thursday 5/12, 7 pm, Left Bank Books.
Medea Benjamin, among others, on The Laura Flanders Show later today, that is your heads up.
Powell's Books has an interview with Jim Wallis (of Sojourners and author of God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It). From the interview:
Farley: If you don't mind shifting back a little bit, you referred to the coarsening of the culture. In the book you went so far as to say that the culture is broken. You hear all the time from the Right that the cause of this coarsening is "liberalism," which I think is just more self-serving scapegoating. But, I'm curious if you have any insights where this coarsening is coming from? What is the real cause?
Wallis: Well, that is exactly the right question. And I would like to get a number of religious leaders together from across the political spectrum who would agree that the coarsening of the culture is a problem and say here's the common project. Let's agree on the things that are most offensive in the culture — the gratuitous sexuality, the hedonism, the greed, the banality... all these things — and trace them back. What are there points of origin? I believe their points of origin, by and large, are the corporate culture.
Farley: What do you mean by that?
Wallis: I mean, these problems are mostly tied to an economic motivation. It's the Fox network. Fox is the favorite network of the conservatives. But how do the conservatives just give a pass to Fox? Some of the worst shows have been Fox. The other networks, too, but Fox has been praised by conservatives, Murdock runs it, so why not better programming?
Lastly (but not leastly) our friend Luke of wotisitgood4 e-mails to highlight something.
And you're asking where is it? We're getting to it. But this keeps running together in the posting stage so I'm hoping that providing this non-link paragraph will act as a barrier.
Here's what Luke wrote in to advise us about:
i see that you pointed to the Sibel Edmonds case the other day - here is another piece - http://tomflocco.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=109
[. . .] she made this statement [. . .]: " I'm telling you that not a single newspaper covered what happened to me on Thursday when I went into court,"
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
Sunday 7pm-10pm
Iraq didn't have W.M.D., but the U.S. continues to and this Monday, world leaders, and citizens from around the world will converge on the United Nations to decide the fate of the endangered Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Some politicians are standing up: we'll talk to British Member of Parliament BRIAN SEDGEMORE, who left the Labour Party just days before a general election to protest Tony Blair's lies on Iraq. Then JACKIE CABASSO, Executive Director of the Western States Legal Foundation and United for Peace and Justice will tell us what anti-war activists can do to on the anniversary of the Vietnam War's end. And hear from THOMAS H COREY, President of Vietnam Veterans of America and we'll get the whole perspective. Finally, in studio for the full hour: MEDEA BENJAMIN, co-founder of CodePink and co-editor of "Stop The Next War Now: Effective responses to Violence and Terrorism".
And Don't miss Laura's latest appearances and book tour:
Tour 2005 Bushwomen: How They got Their Man in the White House
BOULDER, COLORADOMonday 5/2, 4 pm Lecture at University of Colorado, Old Main Building, followed by reception with the Womens Studies Department at Womens Studies Cottage.
7 pm Word is Out Womens Bookstore.
DENVER, COLORADO Tuesday 5/3, 12-1 Denver University Gender & Womens Studies Department.
5:30-7:00 The Denver Womans Press Club. 30 minute talk with reception.
7:30 The Mercury Cafe.
BOULDER, COLORADO Thursday 5/5, Aft Commencement Keynote at CU Womens Studies Graduation ceremony.
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI Thursday 5/12, 7 pm, Left Bank Books.
Medea Benjamin, among others, on The Laura Flanders Show later today, that is your heads up.
Powell's Books has an interview with Jim Wallis (of Sojourners and author of God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It). From the interview:
Farley: If you don't mind shifting back a little bit, you referred to the coarsening of the culture. In the book you went so far as to say that the culture is broken. You hear all the time from the Right that the cause of this coarsening is "liberalism," which I think is just more self-serving scapegoating. But, I'm curious if you have any insights where this coarsening is coming from? What is the real cause?
Wallis: Well, that is exactly the right question. And I would like to get a number of religious leaders together from across the political spectrum who would agree that the coarsening of the culture is a problem and say here's the common project. Let's agree on the things that are most offensive in the culture — the gratuitous sexuality, the hedonism, the greed, the banality... all these things — and trace them back. What are there points of origin? I believe their points of origin, by and large, are the corporate culture.
Farley: What do you mean by that?
Wallis: I mean, these problems are mostly tied to an economic motivation. It's the Fox network. Fox is the favorite network of the conservatives. But how do the conservatives just give a pass to Fox? Some of the worst shows have been Fox. The other networks, too, but Fox has been praised by conservatives, Murdock runs it, so why not better programming?
Lastly (but not leastly) our friend Luke of wotisitgood4 e-mails to highlight something.
And you're asking where is it? We're getting to it. But this keeps running together in the posting stage so I'm hoping that providing this non-link paragraph will act as a barrier.
Here's what Luke wrote in to advise us about:
i see that you pointed to the Sibel Edmonds case the other day - here is another piece - http://tomflocco.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=109
[. . .] she made this statement [. . .]: " I'm telling you that not a single newspaper covered what happened to me on Thursday when I went into court,"
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
This morning's Times ay-yi-yi
Let's get the bad out of the way first. Reporting on the shooting of the car carrying Giuliana Sgrena, the Times still won't tell the readers that Sgrena says the car was shot from behind.
Considering that the military report the Times announces depends on the car being shot as it "approached," this is rather sad. Whether the Times believes Sgrena or not, this is a part of the story Italians have heard. The rest of the world. Democracy Now! viewers (listeners, readers).
So why the Times has such a problem with a simple sentence stating that "Sgrena disputes that the car was shot from in front."
Evidence, such as it is, does make one wonder why the driver in the front seat wasn't shot but Sgrena and Nicola Calipari sitting in the back seat were shot. The Times notes recommendations the report makes about checkpoints. Recommendations that anyone following the checkpoint situation for the last two years already knew.
Whether the paper believes Sgrena or not, for Americans to understand why Italy isn't buying this story, the paper needs to inform the readers of Sgrena's claims.
As with the 60 Minutes II report, there's selective editing here that goes far beyond pruning.
Dominick and Eli both e-mail in regarding Lizette Alvarez's "Chased by the Past, Sinn Fein's Leader Looks Ahead." Both note that Alvarez's article appears even-handed but wonder why the paper wants to take a softer tone (because Gerry Adams and his party appear to be sitting pretty) and act as though allegations were made elsewhere. (Dominick clipped the Times editorial and intends to hold on to it.) They agree that Alvarez was right to mention the tentative nature of the peace, but wonder why it never occurred to the editorial board that seemed intent on inflaming the public. (It didn't take.)
Kara e-mails to note that Scott Shane's grabbed the mop but decided to mop up after John Bolton in "a fluff piece that would do Elisabeth Bumiller proud." Kara also notes, "If Bolton's being Bork-ed, as the right wing claims, he's Bork-ing himself. He looks ridiculous with that mustache and someone should have asked him to shave it off some time ago."
The Nepal article we noted yesterday (because it was available online yesterday morning) appears in today's paper, for anyone wondering.
Liang found Bernard Weinraub's article on "30 Years Later, Cake and Credit Cards in Saigon" to be "insulting in it's lack of basic awareness."
And as though they wanted to prove me right about their concern for social justice, the Times front pages a story (Katie Hafner's "First Come Cellphone Towers, Then the Babel") about the ugly eyesores that are causing blight to Mendham Township, New Jeresey which, as the paper quickly notes, has citizens who are "among the wealthiest in the nation." Where there is money to throw around, the Times is there! Not quite the Red Cross motto but then I doubt the Red Cross would employ the likes of Judith Miller. (I could be wrong.)
Keep front paging those "hard-htting issues!" Town & Country shouldn't be the only ones addressing them!
Moving on (I hope everyone got that the paragraph above was intended to be humorous), we'll note two should-be-front page stories. We'll start with Don Van Natta Jr.'s "U.S. Recruits a Rough Ally To Be Jailer" which actually did make the front page.
Here's the opening:
Seven months before Sept. 11, 2001, the State Department issued a human rights report on Uzbekistan. It was a litany of horrors.
The police repeatedly tortured prisoners, State Department officials wrote, noting that the most common techniques were "beating, often with blunt weapons, and asphyxiation with a gas mask." Separately, international human rights groups had reported that torture in Uzbek jails included boiling of body parts, using electroshock on genitals and plucking off fingernails and toenails with pliers. Two prisoners were boiled to death, the groups reported. The February 2001 State Department report stated bluntly, "Uzbekistan is an authoritarian state with limited civil rights."
Immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, however, the Bush administration turned to Uzbekistan as a partner in fighting global terrorism. The nation, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia, granted the United States the use of a military base for fighting the Taliban across the border in Afghanistan. President Bush welcomed President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan to the White House, and the United States has given Uzbekistan more than $500 million for border control and other security measures.
Now there is growing evidence that the United States has sent terror suspects to Uzbekistan for detention and interrogation, even as Uzbekistan's treatment of its own prisoners continues to earn it admonishments from around the world, including from the State Department.
On page A23, you'll find another story, one that's also front page news, but the Times needs to inform us the blight of cell phone towers on rich communities instead, Neil A. Lewis and Eric Schmitt's "Inquiry Finds Abuses at Guantanamo Bay:"
A high-level military investigation into accusations of detainee abuse at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has concluded that several prisoners were mistreated or humiliated, perhaps illegally, as a result of efforts to devise innovative methods to gain information, senior military and Pentagon officials say.
The report on the investigation, which is still a few weeks from being completed and released, will deal with accounts by agents for the Federal Bureau of Investigation who complained after witnessing detainees subjected to several forms of harsh treatment.
For anyone who hasn't heard, 60 Minutes has a report that's supposed to be worth viewing tonight. No, not the Goldie Hawn story! (Although I'm sure that will be nice. And Hawn has a book due out.) (Or did, last I heard.) "'Sex-Up' Tactics at Gitmo" is the report I'm referring to:
A former Guantanamo Bay translator says prisoner interrogations were staged to give visiting congressmen, senators and generals the impression that valuable intelligence information was being gleaned from cooperative detainees on a regular basis. He also says detainees were treated in sadistic ways, including being taunted sexually. Former Army Sgt. Erik Saar talks to Correspondent Scott Pelley in his first interview, to be broadcast on 60 Minutes, Sunday, May 1, at 7 p.m. ET/PT. Saar spent six months at Guantanamo and believes "only a few dozen" of the 600 detainees at the base were real terrorists, and that little information was obtained from them. Visiting authorities were led to believe otherwise, says Saar.
(Note, the online summary of Goldie Hawn doesn't mention it, but she does have a book and it's due out Tuesday. The title is A Lotus Grows in the Mud.) (And yes, I too can already hear the pithy review from Janet Maslin, or what passes for "pith" from Maslin.)
So I grab the Book Review to see if they have a slam, er review -- they're always fair, right -- on Hawn's book (advance copies were made available to some outlets, guess not the Times, hard to be a player in Hollywood for the paper still?) and find instead a wet kiss (to steal from Harry Reid) from Fareed Zakaria to Thomas L. Friedman (the neos live to stick together!) The Times run this today. Read this sentence and ask yourself how they can ever again accuse anyone of being "a soap opera queen" or whatever Maslin accused Fonda's writing of:
And while this book is not as powerful as Friedman's earlier ones . .. its fundamental insight is true and deeply important.
"True and deeply important?" Zakaria's reviewing a book here or inscribing a yearbook?
"True and deeply important." Sing it and it's practically a Savage Garden song!
Ay-yi-yi.
In other book news, since I opened the section, Jane Fonda's My Life So Far remains at the number one spot, for the second week in a row, on the nonfiction best sellers (hardcover). Thomas Friedman has slipped to number two. (More wet kisses, Zakaria, pronto!) If you haven't picked up My Life So Far, it's a strong story well told. (Scanners like Maslin miss that. Folding Star, who's an actual reader, loved it.)
Juan had a comment on the two book reviews of My Life So Far that the Times has run (Maslin first, then Maureen Dowd last Sunday).
Juan: As you noted in your review of Maslin, she avoided mentioning the fact that the Times trumpeted Jane Fonda's arrest on drug charges but buried the later news that they were just vitamins. Dowd managed to miss that too. Which is strange since one of the photos the paper chose to illustrate Dowd's review was a mug shot of Fonda.
Yes, that was strange. Especially since they ran a mug shot.
But ours is not to reason why, ours is but to . . . wait and wait and see if the paper ever arrives. (I promise Dallas, I haven't forgotten about the entry I need to write.)
Usually we do our Sunday evening thing about what's being reported in the rest of the world.
I would like to do that tonight and hope to. However, Rebecca's going to talk me through some software that she's used which I really need to learn if I'm going to be able to share a contribution from one of our community members. Watching America is a site we link to on the left, always on the left, so feel free to check that (and other sites) out. If you have suggestions for stories from around the world, please e-mail them in and I'll make every effort to share them. But Rebecca's going to be teaching me the software during The Laura Flanders Show and that's usually when I hunt down things to share.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
Considering that the military report the Times announces depends on the car being shot as it "approached," this is rather sad. Whether the Times believes Sgrena or not, this is a part of the story Italians have heard. The rest of the world. Democracy Now! viewers (listeners, readers).
So why the Times has such a problem with a simple sentence stating that "Sgrena disputes that the car was shot from in front."
Evidence, such as it is, does make one wonder why the driver in the front seat wasn't shot but Sgrena and Nicola Calipari sitting in the back seat were shot. The Times notes recommendations the report makes about checkpoints. Recommendations that anyone following the checkpoint situation for the last two years already knew.
Whether the paper believes Sgrena or not, for Americans to understand why Italy isn't buying this story, the paper needs to inform the readers of Sgrena's claims.
As with the 60 Minutes II report, there's selective editing here that goes far beyond pruning.
Dominick and Eli both e-mail in regarding Lizette Alvarez's "Chased by the Past, Sinn Fein's Leader Looks Ahead." Both note that Alvarez's article appears even-handed but wonder why the paper wants to take a softer tone (because Gerry Adams and his party appear to be sitting pretty) and act as though allegations were made elsewhere. (Dominick clipped the Times editorial and intends to hold on to it.) They agree that Alvarez was right to mention the tentative nature of the peace, but wonder why it never occurred to the editorial board that seemed intent on inflaming the public. (It didn't take.)
Kara e-mails to note that Scott Shane's grabbed the mop but decided to mop up after John Bolton in "a fluff piece that would do Elisabeth Bumiller proud." Kara also notes, "If Bolton's being Bork-ed, as the right wing claims, he's Bork-ing himself. He looks ridiculous with that mustache and someone should have asked him to shave it off some time ago."
The Nepal article we noted yesterday (because it was available online yesterday morning) appears in today's paper, for anyone wondering.
Liang found Bernard Weinraub's article on "30 Years Later, Cake and Credit Cards in Saigon" to be "insulting in it's lack of basic awareness."
And as though they wanted to prove me right about their concern for social justice, the Times front pages a story (Katie Hafner's "First Come Cellphone Towers, Then the Babel") about the ugly eyesores that are causing blight to Mendham Township, New Jeresey which, as the paper quickly notes, has citizens who are "among the wealthiest in the nation." Where there is money to throw around, the Times is there! Not quite the Red Cross motto but then I doubt the Red Cross would employ the likes of Judith Miller. (I could be wrong.)
Keep front paging those "hard-htting issues!" Town & Country shouldn't be the only ones addressing them!
Moving on (I hope everyone got that the paragraph above was intended to be humorous), we'll note two should-be-front page stories. We'll start with Don Van Natta Jr.'s "U.S. Recruits a Rough Ally To Be Jailer" which actually did make the front page.
Here's the opening:
Seven months before Sept. 11, 2001, the State Department issued a human rights report on Uzbekistan. It was a litany of horrors.
The police repeatedly tortured prisoners, State Department officials wrote, noting that the most common techniques were "beating, often with blunt weapons, and asphyxiation with a gas mask." Separately, international human rights groups had reported that torture in Uzbek jails included boiling of body parts, using electroshock on genitals and plucking off fingernails and toenails with pliers. Two prisoners were boiled to death, the groups reported. The February 2001 State Department report stated bluntly, "Uzbekistan is an authoritarian state with limited civil rights."
Immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, however, the Bush administration turned to Uzbekistan as a partner in fighting global terrorism. The nation, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia, granted the United States the use of a military base for fighting the Taliban across the border in Afghanistan. President Bush welcomed President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan to the White House, and the United States has given Uzbekistan more than $500 million for border control and other security measures.
Now there is growing evidence that the United States has sent terror suspects to Uzbekistan for detention and interrogation, even as Uzbekistan's treatment of its own prisoners continues to earn it admonishments from around the world, including from the State Department.
On page A23, you'll find another story, one that's also front page news, but the Times needs to inform us the blight of cell phone towers on rich communities instead, Neil A. Lewis and Eric Schmitt's "Inquiry Finds Abuses at Guantanamo Bay:"
A high-level military investigation into accusations of detainee abuse at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has concluded that several prisoners were mistreated or humiliated, perhaps illegally, as a result of efforts to devise innovative methods to gain information, senior military and Pentagon officials say.
The report on the investigation, which is still a few weeks from being completed and released, will deal with accounts by agents for the Federal Bureau of Investigation who complained after witnessing detainees subjected to several forms of harsh treatment.
For anyone who hasn't heard, 60 Minutes has a report that's supposed to be worth viewing tonight. No, not the Goldie Hawn story! (Although I'm sure that will be nice. And Hawn has a book due out.) (Or did, last I heard.) "'Sex-Up' Tactics at Gitmo" is the report I'm referring to:
A former Guantanamo Bay translator says prisoner interrogations were staged to give visiting congressmen, senators and generals the impression that valuable intelligence information was being gleaned from cooperative detainees on a regular basis. He also says detainees were treated in sadistic ways, including being taunted sexually. Former Army Sgt. Erik Saar talks to Correspondent Scott Pelley in his first interview, to be broadcast on 60 Minutes, Sunday, May 1, at 7 p.m. ET/PT. Saar spent six months at Guantanamo and believes "only a few dozen" of the 600 detainees at the base were real terrorists, and that little information was obtained from them. Visiting authorities were led to believe otherwise, says Saar.
(Note, the online summary of Goldie Hawn doesn't mention it, but she does have a book and it's due out Tuesday. The title is A Lotus Grows in the Mud.) (And yes, I too can already hear the pithy review from Janet Maslin, or what passes for "pith" from Maslin.)
So I grab the Book Review to see if they have a slam, er review -- they're always fair, right -- on Hawn's book (advance copies were made available to some outlets, guess not the Times, hard to be a player in Hollywood for the paper still?) and find instead a wet kiss (to steal from Harry Reid) from Fareed Zakaria to Thomas L. Friedman (the neos live to stick together!) The Times run this today. Read this sentence and ask yourself how they can ever again accuse anyone of being "a soap opera queen" or whatever Maslin accused Fonda's writing of:
And while this book is not as powerful as Friedman's earlier ones . .. its fundamental insight is true and deeply important.
"True and deeply important?" Zakaria's reviewing a book here or inscribing a yearbook?
"True and deeply important." Sing it and it's practically a Savage Garden song!
Ay-yi-yi.
In other book news, since I opened the section, Jane Fonda's My Life So Far remains at the number one spot, for the second week in a row, on the nonfiction best sellers (hardcover). Thomas Friedman has slipped to number two. (More wet kisses, Zakaria, pronto!) If you haven't picked up My Life So Far, it's a strong story well told. (Scanners like Maslin miss that. Folding Star, who's an actual reader, loved it.)
Juan had a comment on the two book reviews of My Life So Far that the Times has run (Maslin first, then Maureen Dowd last Sunday).
Juan: As you noted in your review of Maslin, she avoided mentioning the fact that the Times trumpeted Jane Fonda's arrest on drug charges but buried the later news that they were just vitamins. Dowd managed to miss that too. Which is strange since one of the photos the paper chose to illustrate Dowd's review was a mug shot of Fonda.
Yes, that was strange. Especially since they ran a mug shot.
But ours is not to reason why, ours is but to . . . wait and wait and see if the paper ever arrives. (I promise Dallas, I haven't forgotten about the entry I need to write.)
Usually we do our Sunday evening thing about what's being reported in the rest of the world.
I would like to do that tonight and hope to. However, Rebecca's going to talk me through some software that she's used which I really need to learn if I'm going to be able to share a contribution from one of our community members. Watching America is a site we link to on the left, always on the left, so feel free to check that (and other sites) out. If you have suggestions for stories from around the world, please e-mail them in and I'll make every effort to share them. But Rebecca's going to be teaching me the software during The Laura Flanders Show and that's usually when I hunt down things to share.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
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