BoPL » Politics

Measure of the Man

Paul — Thu, 13 May 2010 19:51:00 +0000

Here’s a piece. about the utter vacuity of people who describe homosexuality as a choice. The following paragraph is as moving a thing as I’ve read this year:

He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn’t the measure of the man.

The Daily Mail, journalism at its slightest

Paul — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 09:31:47 +0000

For those of you lucky enough to have lived thus far without bumping into it, the UK has a ‘news’paper called The Daily Mail. I say ‘news’ rather than news because it has several facets, none of which are particularly concerned with news. Online it’s primarily interested in which reality TV tramp has slept with which boy band vacuity. In print it’s primary issues are:

1. The outrageous intrusions into our lives carried out by the government on an hourly basis, and
2. Crime/indecency/exploitation/other outrages, and when is the government planning to do something about it.

What it isn’t worried about, however, is accuracy. A couple of weeks ago they had a brilliant piece on kid’s school lunch boxes, claiming that they contain as much sugar as 10 doughnuts. They illustrated this with a picture of a lunch box containing, among other things, 2 doughnuts. Amazingly, if you chuck another 5 doughnuts in there it would contain as much sugar as 15 doughnuts! As an added bonus, they show a picture of a disgustingly high-sugar drink, only the picture they chose was for the low sugar version.

But today they did even better. In a piece alleging, in passing, that Jackie O. had an affair with her brother-in-law they included the following:

Jackie O's brother in law, apparently.

You’re not a journalist (probably), so you might be forgiven for not noticing that he looks a little worn out for a man who died when he was 42. You might not twig that his attire is rather contemporary for someone from the 60s, especially as most of the common pictures of him are in black and white, not colour. In fact, you’d probably not wonder about it at all, unless you knew that he had a son, also called Bobby Kennedy (Junior, this time), who has grown to look older than his father ever did because he has lived to be older than his father ever did, and dresses in the styles of today because he’s alive today.

Of course, if you were a journalist you’d know that immediately, wouldn’t you?

(Update: Here’s the link, if you must)

S&P

Paul — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:04:48 +0000

An interesting bit of trivia, I think: If you play with the graph here you can show that since Obama came to power the S&P 500 (which I chose because it’s a better indicator than the Dow of the overall market, though still far from perfect) has fallen around 10%. That’s pretty shocking. Not as bad as the previous incumbent, though, who experienced a drop of over 12% in the same timeframe. This doesn’t indicate anything, of course, it’s just a curiosity.

On Chimps

Paul — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 20:23:11 +0000

Here’s an interesting article on the perception of African American as apes even today:

The researchers consistently discovered a black-ape association even if the young adults said they knew nothing about its historical connotations. The connection was made only with African American faces; the paper’s third study failed to find an ape association with other non-white groups, such as Asians.

In case you’re wondering about those historical connections, this (perhaps biased) source has a couple of pointers.

Ballot Writing

Paul — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 10:10:07 +0000

There’s a recount going on in the Minnesota Senatorial race between Norman Coleman (R) and Alan Franken (D). The vote highlights the inadequacy of much of the US voting system – the variability of the voting methods used means that if this was a science experiment they’d have to give a margin of error. That’s fine in a poll, but not in the actual election, so the theoretical ‘best’ result would be a do-over (a race I suspect Coleman would win).

Anyway, both sides are challenging ballots because of assorted flaws. Perhaps the most impressive challenge is from the Coleman camp, who have challenged a ballot because it contained the text “Thank you for counting my vote!“. That might technically be grounds for rejecting it, but morally I’d say not, especially as I’ve written the same thing on my ballot before now (and having counted ballots as well, I wouldn’t have hesitated to let it through).

Man of Honour

Paul — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:14:16 +0000

From the BBC:

A reservist, Darrel Vandeveld was called up as a military lawyer after 9/11 and served in Iraq, Bosnia and Africa.

In 2007, he became a prosecutor for the military commissions which tried terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, a role he took enthusiastically.

“I went down there on a mission and my mission was to convict as many of these detainees as possible and put them in prison for as long as I possibly could,” he told the BBC.

“I had zero doubts. I was a true believer.”

But his zeal did not last long.

When he arrived, he says he found the prosecutor’s office in chaos, with boxes scattered around the floor, files disorganised, evidence scattered in different places and no clear chain of command.

And more seriously, he soon discovered that defence lawyers were not receiving information which could help clear their clients, including evidence that suspects had been “mistreated” in order to secure confessions.

Best. RSS. Feed line. Ever.

Paul — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:41:35 +0000

“Sen. Robert Byrd, 91, announced that he will give up the chairmanship of the Senate Appropriations Committee to Sen. Daniel Inouye, 84. The torch has passed to a new generation.”

Truthdig

Time to think for Republicans

Paul — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 07:12:37 +0000

From Think Progress:

“We are now free to start thinking again, acting again, and doing the right thing by what our constituents and our country need.”

That’s exactly what I’d say (or at least hope), but these words actually came from the policy committee head for the House GOP.

Black Man Given Nation’s Worst Job

Paul — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:52:06 +0000

From The Onion:

WASHINGTON—African-American man Barack Obama, 47, was given the least-desirable job in the entire country Tuesday when he was elected president of the United States of America. In his new high-stress, low-reward position, Obama will be charged with such tasks as completely overhauling the nation’s broken-down economy, repairing the crumbling infrastructure, and generally having to please more than 300 million Americans and cater to their every whim on a daily basis. As part of his duties, the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind. The job comes with such intense scrutiny and so certain a guarantee of failure that only one other person even bothered applying for it. Said scholar and activist Mark L. Denton, “It just goes to show you that, in this country, a black man still can’t catch a break.”

Do better

Paul — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:12:28 +0000

By rights I should be torn about who to support in today’s election. I’m a Jesse Ventura politically; socially liberal, fiscally conservative, uncomfortable-looking in a suit. I should want the Democrats to win to help people who need it and to stop laws trying to govern my morality. I should want the Republicans to win to keep budgets in check and, ironically, to stop laws trying to govern my morality. And yet I can’t conceive of supporting the Republicans, because they’ve demonstrated over many years far more interest in managing my bedroom than managing the government checkbook. I now know that both parties would take my money, but at least the Democrats will claim to try to help people with it; the Republicans will just give it to their friends.

So to win people like me over the Republicans needed to do two things. First, they had to show that they are what they’ve traditionally claimed to be. Second, they had to show that Democrats are what they’ve traditionally been stereotyped to be. I’m not sure how they could achieve the former – fool me once shame on you, fool me a couple of trillion times and I won’t be fooled again – but it’s what I want to see. I want to know what YOU are going to do, how YOU will fix problems (even if that’s by getting out of the way), how YOU will make me safer/richer/happier (again, even if that’s just the two words ‘limited government’). And then you can spend a little time attacking Obama as a Democrat, without being particularly negative, on issues like balanced budgets, abortion (yes, even for a liberal like me), experience (overrated, but still an issue), and standing up to the power structures in the country (what used to be a strength for McCain, and seems a weakness for Obama).

Instead what I’ve seen from the Republican side is:

And the list goes on. I understand the desire to belittle your opponent – the left certainly likes to make cheap and sometimes cruel jokes about Republicans – but I want more. If the media doesn’t want to play (I think most of the apparent bias of US media is because they’re useless, not because they’re partisan, but there’s certainly something there) then go to the people direct, or repeat yourself until they have to report on it, or shout louder, or tweak your message. Don’t lower yourself or demean yourself or stand around whining. Do better, because democracy deserves better.