balanced journalism 2

On CNN, the most surreal pronouncements of Israeli spokespersons are allowed to go unchallenged. A mouthpiece from the military explains that the difference between Israel and its opponents is that when Israelis kill civilians they are filled with anguish, but that when Israeli civilians are killed, "there is joy in Gaza."

Later in the afternoon, Howard Wolfson, Hillary Clinton's chief political advisor is interviewed. He uses the exact same formulation, word for word, to defend the Israeli air campaign, as if reading from talking points.

In neither case did any CNN "journalist" pursue the matter.

balanced journalism 1

NPR's roundtable on what the future holds for Cuba featured three guests. One was a Cuban "dissident," interviewed from Havana; one was an NPR reporter, whose undisguised hostility to Cuba was plain; the third was a member of the professional Miami anti-Castro lynch mob. If this is the way a responsible news organization demonstrates it's objectivity, I wonder what the biased ones are saying.

ten things to love about toronto

The spaces between neighborhoods where ethnic communities bleed together. For instance, the dozen blocks of Dundas west of Spadina where the Portuguese community casually morphs into a Chinese one.

The glide and twang of the long, stately streetcars.

Lake Ontario, and the Beaches neighborhood which, despite commercialization and gentrification, orients itself to the shore better than any great lakes city I know of.

Jane Jacobs (RIP) to whom I credit all this forward-thinking urbanism.

The great remaining independent bookstores- Pages, Book City, and my favorite, This Ain’t the Rosedale Library. Upon finding out that I’m from Milwaukee, the proprietor said he was there once, ten years ago, and had the strangest experience. He stopped by a downtown bookstore, and behind the manager’s desk there was a photo of his store. “That was me! I was that manager!” I got to exclaim.

The extra special attention music lovers receive at the sublime and perfect Soundscapes cd store on College. If every city had one like this the retail music business would have a future.

The ubiquitous hot dog stands. Nobody with $2.00 need go hungry on the street in Toronto (including vegetarians.)

The skyline, from a particular vantage point on the QEW in the early morning or late afternoon, looks exactly like Oz.

Dim sum at the biggest food hall in Chinatown, for the flavors and the spectacle.

“The Road to Guantanamo,” playing at a mainstream theatre to big crowds.

the mysteries of food service in ohio

In the Panera Bread store in suburban Dayton, Ohio at 8:15am, chaos reigns. After I score a coffee and a stale muffin, I get a table outside and am immediately joined by an employee on break along with two other off-duty part-timers. I’m used to the “break time as bitchfest” concept, and have participated in a few. But I was taken aback by the intensity of the invective directed at the store and its manager. “The only reason I stay is for the money,” said one. “I’d burn it down if I could get away with it.”

But at the Bob Evans restaurant in suburban Columbus at 7:40pm, the busy place hummed like a machine. Servers seemed overworked but were cheerful to the point of obsequiousness, though it came off as genuine, not forced, as if they made a point of hiring the naturally obsequious. Everyone seemed happy to be working there. They can’t possibly be making much more money than the Paneras. (Though maybe that is the secret- unless you owned the place, what besides the paycheck would get someone to work in such a high-stress job?) Maybe it’s great management? Whatever it was, it’s inconceivable that I’d hear these folks out in the parking lot talking about burning the place down.

Two observations: 1) Being treated with respect in a job counts. Why aren't more managers apparently aware of this truth? 2) In the public square, which is to say in the conversations I eavesdrop on in coffee shops and bars around the Midwest, work and the hassles thereof are by far the most popular topic of conversation, easily beating politics, religion, even sports. Some of us may be pre-occupied with the latest outrages out of Washington, but lots of folks are more focussed on the latest outrages of the boss.

souvenirs

I stopped for coffee at the Illinois turnpike plaza near O’Hare on the mind-numbing drive down to Dayton, Ohio. As I stepped back into the car, I noticed a huge billboard beside the highway. STOP THE INVASION, passing motorists were implored. Could it be an anti-war message about the US occupation of Iraq? Or possibly a quick response to the Israeli onslaught against Lebanon? Sadly, no. It was, of course, propaganda for the latest diversionary non-issue of choice, the “invasion” by immigrants from Mexico.

Our country has been taken over by lying, thieving mediocrities who have looted the public treasury and transferred the funds to their cronies. They have trashed the constitution, systematically dismantled the public sector, and sent thousands to their deaths in an illegal war. More than a whiff of fascism hovers over Washington, yet these gullible fools single out immigrants as the big threat. I guess it’s always easier to dump on the powerless than to face down the powerful. But talk about misguided energy. Imagine what the political landscape might look like if these sheep weren’t so easily manipulated. A coup d’etat is unfolding before our eyes, and they’re worried about Mexican families coming here to work.

Hyper-alert to signage, I continued down I-65 and noticed a new array of “security” messages posted on electronic signboards: REPORT SUSPICIOUS OVERPASS ACTIVITY, they commanded. What on earth could this mean? What “overpass activity” do they have in mind, and “suspicious” in what sense? And why single out the overpasses? What about “suspicious activity in passing cars?” Report to whom? But meaning is almost beside the point. The point is to advance fear on every front. Don’t think that just because you have a six hour drive on the interstate you can escape the New Normalcy.

I turn to music for solace, specifically the phenomenal Wax Tailer, a 19-track opus by a French avant-garde DJ. It’s an aural pastiche of pop music, forties film dialog and paranoia, beautifully stitched together and the perfect antidote to feelings of powerlessness. And “a lovely souvenir of the 20th century,” as someone on the disk self-referentially remarks.

What’s the bright side? Well, whatever you might think of Al Gore’s ecological infomercial, you have to thank the guy for drop-kicking the phrase “an inconvenient truth” back into the middle of public discourse. I hope that before the infotainment industry tires of using it (i.e. in the next ten days), we can take advantage of its currency by calling attention to a few inconvenient truths besides impending environmental catastrophe. Let’s start with: this country was founded by Spanish-speaking European invaders who practiced slavery and genocide. And how about: the social, political and economic deck is stacked in favor of the ownership class, always has been, and will only be redistributed when those of us who’ve been dealt out start putting up billboards and advising citizen vigilance about that.

what about russ?

Here in Denver, the Democratic Leadership Council is getting ready for a big meeting this weekend. They are coming here to learn the secrets of Ken Salazar's election to the Senate. As "centrist" democrats, i.e. republican-lite, they are hypnotized by the fact that he got 78,000 more votes than Bush in Colorado in the 2004 election. And this, according to them, is more evidence that the Democrats have to move right to win.

But Russ Feingold, despised by these people and held up as the epitome of a Can't Win Liberal, outpolled John Kerry in Wisconsin by over 100,000 votes. This means that thousands of salt of the earth midwesterners chose Bush for president and also voted for the biggest, most unapologetic lefty in the Senate.

Splain that, DLC.

beirut

Just heard via a friend from a Lebanese former colleague who now lives in Beirut. A re-assuring message, family and friends all ok, yet a terrifying litany of close calls. Hard to imagine these ordinary citizens in their ordinary neighborhoods as legitimate military targets.

Ironically, today's mail brought a finished copy of the new book by Hashim Sarkis, landscape architect, called Two Squares, about the reconstruction of downtown Beirut and its public spaces after the last war. A creative, hopeful, and- today- oddly poignant book.

"...without explaining why"

The growing size of the campaign for a recount in the Mexican election continues to inspire. Over a million people marched in Mexico City yesterday, causing all manner of delicious hand-wringing about whether Lopez Obrador can prevent things from "spinning out of control."

My favorite howler from the morning's Times report: Lopez Obrador called, among other things, for "a boycott of some American companies, without explaining why." That last phrase tells you everything you need to know about the world view of the segment of the US ruling class represented by the New York Times. There was no need to explain why American interests should be implicated in the theft of their election to Mexicans, who saw millions of US dollars and consultants and Roveian strategists pour into their country to swing the vote to Calderon. The American hand in anti-democratic shenanigans is self-evident, to Mexicans and to most of the world. If the Times consulted its own archives it would find recent stories about the introduction of "American style negative campaigning" to Mexican television. So this feigned innocence- why ever would they boycott an American product? -is just a variant of the ever popular "why do they hate us" game played in reporting conflicts the world over. It's both transparently fraudulent and perfectly revealing.

A bit of imaginary counterfactual history: suppose that Al Gore and the Democrats had called for millions to descend upon the streets of Tallahasee in November 2000 to reinforce their half-assed legal strategy? Is there any doubt that people would have responded in vast numbers? And that the chances of a recount would have been greatly enhanced?

While it remains to be seen whether the Mexican opposition is successful in securing a fair vote count, the contrast in strategy is instructive for those on this side of the border who still have illusions about what the Democratic Party is. Or, more to the point, what it is not: it is not a movement. It is incapable of truly organizing and leading because it's afraid of people in the streets. The Mexican opposition- which, not coincidentally, is unafraid to call itself socialist- has faith in people. Perhaps, in the spirit of free trade and open borders, we can persuade Lopez Obrador to establish a US branch?

lawrence kansas blues

The bookstore at the University of Kansas in Lawrence is fantastic, a snapshot of the best in contemporary publishing. Its excellence is largely due to the dogged commitment of a smart, experienced book-buyer with a firm sense of mission. But fewer and fewer students are buying books, a slow, drip-torture erosion that has given this season’s sales calls a depressing “end is near” undercurrent.

Booksellers have always been keenly aware of how precarious their project is, even in the good times, but the outlook has never seemed so gloomy. Sales migrating to the internet, sales evaporating into thin air, people spending hours online that previously might have been devoted to reading. And hovering above it all. the prospect of the digitized book future. Among a generation of book people nearing retirement age, the glimmer of hope is that “it”- the book business as we know it- will survive as long as we do, combined with a fear that it certainly won’t much beyond that. The optimistic among us envision bookstores of the future as collections of charming, antiquated artifacts, with the real business of publishing ideas of consequence taking place in the ether.

The atmosphere reminds me of my favorite book from the fall Harvard list, Jonathan Lear’s Radical Hope, in which he asks what happens to a people when their way of life disappears, yet physical life goes on. It’s absurd and presumptuous to compare ourselves, mere book people, to the demise of the Crow Nation and Chief Plenty Coups, the core of Lear’s story. But the book really haunts me and speaks to the sense of resigned loss I keep encountering among my book brethren.

Meanwhile, the funny, charming desk clerk at the downtown Lawrence hotel stuns me by off-handedly remarking that he’s enlisted in the army and is leaving next week. Temporarily incoherent, I manage to mumble “wow, that’s big,” or something to that effect. He says that “the hardest part” will be that he has to stop smoking for boot camp.

Mexican election actually about something

The commentary and reporting on the Mexican presidential election has been pretty lame, even by current dumbed down standards. What strikes me about the vote is that the Mexican people actually seem to have formed their political allegiances based on real, fudamental economic interests. If you are a farmer or a worker there seems to be no confusion that Lopez Obrador is your man. If you are of the professional or ownership class, Calderon speaks for you. This is actually how politics is practiced in most of the world. Imagine what our political landscape and elections would be like if Americans voted their interests, instead of being distracted from coalescing with others over common interests by irrelevant freakshows like flag burning and border walls, or being seduced by the hallucination that classes don't matter because anybody might get rich. Right.

wisconsin born agains have "awesome job" ahead

A surprising new poll shows the November anti-gay marriage/civil unions referendum in Wisconsin essentially tied. "There is simply not the support they are claiming for this constitutional ammendment," said Rep Mark Pocan, hopefully. If it goes down to defeat, Wisconsin would be the first state to win against the American Taliban's favorite trojan horse.

"It reminds us that there is an awesome job of education that must be done," said Julaine Appling, of the Family Research Institute about the poll results.

"If straight only marriage is thousands of years old and unchangeable like they keep saying it is, why do they have to do ANY education about it," asked Randy, my boyfriend, over coffee, in the bed we've shared for 27 years.

Frank Zeidler (1912-2006)

Frank Zeidler has died at 93. Milwaukee’s last socialist mayor (1948-1960), he’s been a local icon and inspiration, though is usually treated as some sort of quaint throwback to the heyday of “big government.” Surprisingly, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel gave his passing front page treatment, with a lengthy two page interior spread that, far from down-playing his socialism, dwelt on his “no regrets” allegiance to it almost as a badge of honor. Zeidler was the Socialist Party candidate for president in 1976, and received 5,427 votes- 4,300 of them from Wisconsin.

Zeidler once explained to a reporter why he joined the Socialist Party in 1933: “I particularly picked socialism because of several things in its philosophy. One was the brotherhood of people all over the world. Another was its struggle for peace. Another was the equal distribution of economic goods. Another was the idea of cooperation. A fifth was the idea of democratic planning in order to achieve your goals. Those were pretty good ideas.”

The front page headline today over his obituary was unintentionally amusing: “Mayor Served ‘the Public Welfare,’ " it read. Which aspect of that phrase is more revealing? The quotes around 'public welfare,' as if it’s some exotic, antique concept? Or the plain message that a mayor who served the public interest is now of sufficient oddness that it warrants headline treatment? I guess the seemingly self-evident idea that a politician would serve the public welfare now falls into man-bites-dog territory, journalistically speaking.