Saturday, July 09, 2011
Congratulations South Sudan!
Congratulations to the Republic of South Sudan, the world's newest nation, which achieved independence today. To the country's government: it took you a long time to get to this day. Don't screw it up.
Friday, July 08, 2011
Those darn 11 year old teenagers!
A followup to yesterday's post about media hacks...
The Post-Star ran different articles yesterday and today about an 11 year old girl from Galway who appeared on the TV show Jeopardy!
In both cases, the headline referred to the 11 year old as a 'teen.'
While the prominence given to the Casey Anthony garbage (lead story on the front page for the 2nd day in a row today) doesn't inspire confidence in the 'news judgement [sic]' of the daily's 'professional editor,' repeatedly referring to an 11 year old as a teenager doesn't speak highly of the attention to detail provided by our region's most prominent news institution.
The Post-Star ran different articles yesterday and today about an 11 year old girl from Galway who appeared on the TV show Jeopardy!
In both cases, the headline referred to the 11 year old as a 'teen.'
While the prominence given to the Casey Anthony garbage (lead story on the front page for the 2nd day in a row today) doesn't inspire confidence in the 'news judgement [sic]' of the daily's 'professional editor,' repeatedly referring to an 11 year old as a teenager doesn't speak highly of the attention to detail provided by our region's most prominent news institution.
Thursday, July 07, 2011
Once a tabloid lemming hack, always a tabloid lemming hack
In a recent blog entry, managing editor Ken Tingley whined about the lack of content over the holiday weekend (as though this is different from the usual state of affairs in the paper). But then he expressed relief that there were some excellent wire reads available to us for the front page today.
In an older blog entry, Tingley pat himself on the back, bragging that One of the services you get with every newspaper is the news judgement [sic] of a professional editor.
One of the “excellent wire reads” as determined by the “news judgement of a professional editor” was a front page lead story about the Casey Anthony garbage, a ‘story’ that should be of no interest to anyone outside the local area of wherever it took place. Then again, this is the same “news judgement” that brought us other front page stories on a bridge in Scotland that dogs like to jump off and a house in Idaho infested by snakes.
If I want sensationalist tripe like this, I will just give my $1 directly to The New York Post. I suspect they do a better job at tabloid nonsense anyways.
I was also surprised that WAMC News wasted member donations by contriving a local 'story' out of this, since people tune in to public radio to avoid such tabloid garbage, but maybe I shouldn’t have been.
In an older blog entry, Tingley pat himself on the back, bragging that One of the services you get with every newspaper is the news judgement [sic] of a professional editor.
One of the “excellent wire reads” as determined by the “news judgement of a professional editor” was a front page lead story about the Casey Anthony garbage, a ‘story’ that should be of no interest to anyone outside the local area of wherever it took place. Then again, this is the same “news judgement” that brought us other front page stories on a bridge in Scotland that dogs like to jump off and a house in Idaho infested by snakes.
If I want sensationalist tripe like this, I will just give my $1 directly to The New York Post. I suspect they do a better job at tabloid nonsense anyways.
I was also surprised that WAMC News wasted member donations by contriving a local 'story' out of this, since people tune in to public radio to avoid such tabloid garbage, but maybe I shouldn’t have been.
Monday, July 04, 2011
Living up to the words
Today being Independence Day here in the United States, it's worth remembering the most famous lines of the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
It is thus poignant that the legislature and governor of New York chose to put those words into application so close to the anniversary of their authorship.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
It is thus poignant that the legislature and governor of New York chose to put those words into application so close to the anniversary of their authorship.
Saturday, July 02, 2011
'Cuz God says so' is not good enough anymore
"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.” ~James Madison, one of the main authors of the US Constitution.
I read a comment on a blog that two people of the same gender living together, having kids and getting married was “the slippery slope to moral decline.” Ten years ago, cultural warriors were telling us that people living together, having kids and NOT getting married at all was the slippery slope to moral decline. It’s a mark of the culture warriors' adaptability that, as society evolves, they can switch scapegoats so easily.
And that's what the passage of marriage equality in New York was such an achievement. The main benefit is, of course, to gay couples who want their union recognized by law and thus to receive the attendant benefits. It's also important to legislation reflect the equal protection of the law provisions of the state and federal constitutions.
But one of the secondary benefits was to strike a blow against theocratic tendencies. In the NYS debate, the main argument against marriage equality was simple: "God's law says marriage is between one man and one woman. And Man does not have the right to change it."
Except that the debate was not about changing God's law. It was about changing Man's law. The NYS marriage law was written by men and thus men (and women) have it entirely within their power to change that law. "God's law" remains unaffected. Man's law ought to be democratic. God's law can't be.
One reason marriage equality was such an important victory is that it reminds us that we don't live in Iran or Saudi Arabia. We live in a state run by secular and constitutional values. If you are going to deny equal rights to a group of citizens, if you want to change or defend any piece of governmental action or inaction, you have to come up with a better reason than just "Cuz God says so."
I read a comment on a blog that two people of the same gender living together, having kids and getting married was “the slippery slope to moral decline.” Ten years ago, cultural warriors were telling us that people living together, having kids and NOT getting married at all was the slippery slope to moral decline. It’s a mark of the culture warriors' adaptability that, as society evolves, they can switch scapegoats so easily.
And that's what the passage of marriage equality in New York was such an achievement. The main benefit is, of course, to gay couples who want their union recognized by law and thus to receive the attendant benefits. It's also important to legislation reflect the equal protection of the law provisions of the state and federal constitutions.
But one of the secondary benefits was to strike a blow against theocratic tendencies. In the NYS debate, the main argument against marriage equality was simple: "God's law says marriage is between one man and one woman. And Man does not have the right to change it."
Except that the debate was not about changing God's law. It was about changing Man's law. The NYS marriage law was written by men and thus men (and women) have it entirely within their power to change that law. "God's law" remains unaffected. Man's law ought to be democratic. God's law can't be.
One reason marriage equality was such an important victory is that it reminds us that we don't live in Iran or Saudi Arabia. We live in a state run by secular and constitutional values. If you are going to deny equal rights to a group of citizens, if you want to change or defend any piece of governmental action or inaction, you have to come up with a better reason than just "Cuz God says so."
Friday, July 01, 2011
Climate change undermines roads... literally
In NCPR's In Box blog, reporter Brian Mann linked to two piecces relating to climate change.
A column in the Albany Times-Union asked if extreme weather is the new normal.
The article in the Glens Falls Post-Star explained how climate change may alter the way highways and rural roads are constructed. It noted that the region had seen a rash of so-called "100 year events" (extreme weather that normally happens only once in a lifetime) this year alone.
Jon Alexander's piece noted:
"The books we've always used to design culverts, you can throw them all out," Dave Wick, district manager of the Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District, recently said. "What was once called a 100-year event is now a 50-year event, and a 50-year event has become a 25-year event."
Wick said that precipitation that once fell as snow is now reaching Earth as highly localized super-rainstorms, overwhelming culverts designed using potentially outdated pre-construction models.
For years, scientists have been tracking an increase in global temperatures. They predict the warming trend will generally lead to warmer, wetter weather in the Northeast's boreal forests, while desertification will continue to see places like the Sahara expand outward.
Locally ecologists are already seeing changes.
Ultimately, people who understand the threat of climate change need to just ignore those rejectionists who oppose it for ideological reasons that have zero to do with real science.
Rejectionists don't accept science, not merely climate science specifics but science in general (unless of course they're sick and need medicine) and they do so for ideological reasons. If you say 2+2=4, they will reject it not for any scientific or mathematical reason but solely because they fear the imagined POLITICAL consequences of the sum equalling four.
People who understand the threat of climate change ought to stop using scientific jargon to convince ordinary people and start referencing more practical issues. 350 is not something people can easily latch on to (sorry Bill McKibben), but they sure understand road collapses and damaging flooding.
Folks in the North Country may be of conservative temperament but they are also practical. And as pragmatic people, collapsing roads and flooding lakes in our own backyard, as well as the financial costs of such disasters, are things they can grasp much more easily.
Rejectionists blithely dismiss climate science as hooey. "The Earth's climate is always changing," they say, as though the world's pre-eminent climate scientists aren't aware of that. And they are right, even as human behavior is distorting this wildly; natural climate changes occur over centuries and millennia, not decades.
The threat of man-inflicted climate change is less to the planet itself. As rejectionists point out, the climate has changed before and will change again. But with such UNNATURAL climate change, the planet will survive, but it's an open question whether the human race would do the same.
Africa has been affected by climate change for a few decades. Hunger 'emergencies' have become regular staples of life in the African Sahel, a border between the expanding Sahara Desert to the north and the coastal rain forest to the south that stretches across the continent.
Africans don't need to argue about climate change's existence. They aren't twiddling their thumbs, letting themselves be hijacked by ideology. They see and experience it directly. They aren't wasting their time arguing about settled science. They have more important things to do, such as adapting to the reality they're already being forced to live.
People may not understand the number 350. But they do understand numbers like $1.5 million and $7 million.
The former is the annual budget for the Warren County town of Thurman. The latter is the amount of damage to roads and bridges caused by recent flooding. The number of severe flooding incidents in Warren County has significantly increased in the last few years. If flooding damage that amounts to more the six times a town's annual budget becomes more than a once in a lifetime event, will the ideology of climate change rejectionists still hold water?
Climate change is real and destructive and those who understand this can't be paralyzed by the rejectionists who refuse to be engaged in any rational way. We have real world consequences to deal with and, hopefully, prevent. It's these real world consequences we should be using to try to educate the open-minded part of the public and encourage to live in a more sustainable fashion.
A column in the Albany Times-Union asked if extreme weather is the new normal.
The article in the Glens Falls Post-Star explained how climate change may alter the way highways and rural roads are constructed. It noted that the region had seen a rash of so-called "100 year events" (extreme weather that normally happens only once in a lifetime) this year alone.
Jon Alexander's piece noted:
"The books we've always used to design culverts, you can throw them all out," Dave Wick, district manager of the Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District, recently said. "What was once called a 100-year event is now a 50-year event, and a 50-year event has become a 25-year event."
Wick said that precipitation that once fell as snow is now reaching Earth as highly localized super-rainstorms, overwhelming culverts designed using potentially outdated pre-construction models.
For years, scientists have been tracking an increase in global temperatures. They predict the warming trend will generally lead to warmer, wetter weather in the Northeast's boreal forests, while desertification will continue to see places like the Sahara expand outward.
Locally ecologists are already seeing changes.
Ultimately, people who understand the threat of climate change need to just ignore those rejectionists who oppose it for ideological reasons that have zero to do with real science.
Rejectionists don't accept science, not merely climate science specifics but science in general (unless of course they're sick and need medicine) and they do so for ideological reasons. If you say 2+2=4, they will reject it not for any scientific or mathematical reason but solely because they fear the imagined POLITICAL consequences of the sum equalling four.
People who understand the threat of climate change ought to stop using scientific jargon to convince ordinary people and start referencing more practical issues. 350 is not something people can easily latch on to (sorry Bill McKibben), but they sure understand road collapses and damaging flooding.
Folks in the North Country may be of conservative temperament but they are also practical. And as pragmatic people, collapsing roads and flooding lakes in our own backyard, as well as the financial costs of such disasters, are things they can grasp much more easily.
Rejectionists blithely dismiss climate science as hooey. "The Earth's climate is always changing," they say, as though the world's pre-eminent climate scientists aren't aware of that. And they are right, even as human behavior is distorting this wildly; natural climate changes occur over centuries and millennia, not decades.
The threat of man-inflicted climate change is less to the planet itself. As rejectionists point out, the climate has changed before and will change again. But with such UNNATURAL climate change, the planet will survive, but it's an open question whether the human race would do the same.
Africa has been affected by climate change for a few decades. Hunger 'emergencies' have become regular staples of life in the African Sahel, a border between the expanding Sahara Desert to the north and the coastal rain forest to the south that stretches across the continent.
Africans don't need to argue about climate change's existence. They aren't twiddling their thumbs, letting themselves be hijacked by ideology. They see and experience it directly. They aren't wasting their time arguing about settled science. They have more important things to do, such as adapting to the reality they're already being forced to live.
People may not understand the number 350. But they do understand numbers like $1.5 million and $7 million.
The former is the annual budget for the Warren County town of Thurman. The latter is the amount of damage to roads and bridges caused by recent flooding. The number of severe flooding incidents in Warren County has significantly increased in the last few years. If flooding damage that amounts to more the six times a town's annual budget becomes more than a once in a lifetime event, will the ideology of climate change rejectionists still hold water?
Climate change is real and destructive and those who understand this can't be paralyzed by the rejectionists who refuse to be engaged in any rational way. We have real world consequences to deal with and, hopefully, prevent. It's these real world consequences we should be using to try to educate the open-minded part of the public and encourage to live in a more sustainable fashion.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
WAMC: AWOL (guest essay)
by Mark Wilson
As the 2011 Legislative session in Albany was reaching its dramatic climax last Friday—with the tax cap/rent control/mandate relief bill, the same sex marriage legislation and the SUNY 2020 tuition indexing bill (among others) still hanging fire—listeners to WAMC and affiliated stations tuning in for the 9 AM Roundtable program were met with a surprise. Instead of an informative discussion of the unresolved issues before the New York State Senate, or an analysis of the political dynamics taking pace behind closed doors, the Roundtable staff—host Joe Donohue, producer Sarah LaDuke and WAMC President & CEO Dr. Alan Chartock—were broadcasting live from North Adams, Massachusetts at Mass MoCA, the site of the “Solid Sound” festival.
While Albany burned with speculation on the final day of government business for the term, WAMC “treated” its listeners to two hours of interviews with festival organizers, local officials, headliner acts, and a falconer friend of Dr. Chartock’s who informed listeners that nothing had really changed in his vocation for the past four thousand years. Not one word about the chaos that was coming to a head in their home state. Even the hourly newsbreak: BBC World News followed by four local/regional news reports (Rebuilding of a catholic school in Springfield, MA; 2 stories from Vermont; one from Connecticut) completely overlooked New York State news. They did manage to give the Albany weather, however.
While WAMC was on vacation, over at 1300 on the AM band, Fred Dicker was eating Dr. Chartock’s breakfast, interviewing E.J. McMahon of the Manhattan Institute. McMahon was describing last minute changes to the tax cap bill, particularly a bonding clause that substantially neutered the legislation’s impact.
WAMC has always had an affinity for the Berkshires. From Great Barrington to Tanglewood and the Edith Wharton estate in Lenox, to Williamstown and North Adams. Certainly no one could begrudge the hard-working journalists some time off during the summer. Still, it would be reassuring to those who follow New York State political news and government affairs closely to know that the WAMC news staff is committed to staying focused on their number one job until the lawmakers leave town.
As the 2011 Legislative session in Albany was reaching its dramatic climax last Friday—with the tax cap/rent control/mandate relief bill, the same sex marriage legislation and the SUNY 2020 tuition indexing bill (among others) still hanging fire—listeners to WAMC and affiliated stations tuning in for the 9 AM Roundtable program were met with a surprise. Instead of an informative discussion of the unresolved issues before the New York State Senate, or an analysis of the political dynamics taking pace behind closed doors, the Roundtable staff—host Joe Donohue, producer Sarah LaDuke and WAMC President & CEO Dr. Alan Chartock—were broadcasting live from North Adams, Massachusetts at Mass MoCA, the site of the “Solid Sound” festival.
While Albany burned with speculation on the final day of government business for the term, WAMC “treated” its listeners to two hours of interviews with festival organizers, local officials, headliner acts, and a falconer friend of Dr. Chartock’s who informed listeners that nothing had really changed in his vocation for the past four thousand years. Not one word about the chaos that was coming to a head in their home state. Even the hourly newsbreak: BBC World News followed by four local/regional news reports (Rebuilding of a catholic school in Springfield, MA; 2 stories from Vermont; one from Connecticut) completely overlooked New York State news. They did manage to give the Albany weather, however.
While WAMC was on vacation, over at 1300 on the AM band, Fred Dicker was eating Dr. Chartock’s breakfast, interviewing E.J. McMahon of the Manhattan Institute. McMahon was describing last minute changes to the tax cap bill, particularly a bonding clause that substantially neutered the legislation’s impact.
WAMC has always had an affinity for the Berkshires. From Great Barrington to Tanglewood and the Edith Wharton estate in Lenox, to Williamstown and North Adams. Certainly no one could begrudge the hard-working journalists some time off during the summer. Still, it would be reassuring to those who follow New York State political news and government affairs closely to know that the WAMC news staff is committed to staying focused on their number one job until the lawmakers leave town.
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