News Cut: July 1, 2009 Archive

Five at 8 - 7/1/09

Posted at 7:36 AM on July 1, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)

1) Eric Ostermeier, who writes the Smart Politics blog, does not disappoint as he puts a bow on the U.S. Senate race. He puts the margin of victory in historical context. But enough of then. What about now? Time looks at the five areas where Franken can make a difference in the Senate. Monica Davie, the New York Times political reporter, does one of those segments where the NY Times tries to be a radio station, but provides a little analysis (Listen), including some thoughts on Norm Coleman's future.

Better analysis comes from Stephen Colbert, of course.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Al Franken Finally Declared Senator
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Jeff Goldblum

What's your message for Al Franken? Go here.

Franken was Morning Edition with Cathy Wurzer this morning.



2) From the looks of things, the great uprising in Iran is over. In the end, did Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and the other social networking sites make a difference? "As great as Twitter was for getting the story out, it overstated the revolution," Frank Rich said at the Personal Democracy Forum. But, the Wall St. Journal blog, Digits reported, the real surrender seems to be coming from Rich here at home. He said the consumers of news will get they want, and they want celebrity news.

Arianna Huffington gets a good grilling on the Twitternournalism from the BBC:



3) In a world where everyone wants to talk about either politics or Michael Jackson, someone has assembled the 50 greatest movie trailers of all time.

4) The joy of tinkering. A new TED video:



5) Few of us, I guess, still think that rocketing into space is cool. If you're one of them, you'll love Dick Gordon's The Story talk with Dr. John Grunsefeld, who had a long commute to work. He was the Hubble repairman.

Bonus: Is there a difference between politicians' affairs and the affairs of the little people? In the Loop explores.

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Midmorning - More on Al Franken in the first hour. Second hour: Dave Pirner, lead singer of Soul Asylum.

Midday - At noon, more on the Franken win. Political analysts Todd Rapp and Tom Horner will be in the studio. Coverage of the Franken rally at the Capitol.

Talk of the Nation - First hour: The gay community helped put Barack Obama in the White House. Now, many feel betrayed. What's next in the relationship? Second hour: Joe Alonzo had a plan -- college, job, marriage. Then the economy bottomed out. He's part of a generation trying to start out in the worst economic crisis of their lives. TOTN looks at the prospects for Generation Next.

All Things Considered - Tim Pugmire takes a look at Gov. Pawlenty's unallotment and the prospects for challenging the go-it-alone budget balancing strategy. Euan Kerr talks to Garrison Keillor about 35 years of A Prairie Home Companion. We get the second shoe in NPR's series on health care from the doctors' perspective. Today: What the younger docs think. Barbara Bradley Hagerty looks at the gay marriage issue and the African American church.

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Harassment during Pride

Posted at 10:30 AM on July 1, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)

A news release from the Minneapolis Police Department regarding harassment during the Gay Pride parade last weekend:

Currently, there is a video on YouTube of an incident that occurred sometime during the Minneapolis Gay Pride Festival. There has been some speculation that Minneapolis Police Officers were in that video. The Minneapolis Police Department wants to assure the public that those security officers who casually walk by during this incident were not from our department. We have a strict uniform policy and those were not our uniforms or our police officers. This is unacceptable behavior that would not be tolerated by the Minneapolis Police. Action would have been taken immediately to stop the harassment that is depicted in the video.

Aside from settling the issue that it wasn't the MPD who didn't step in to help, the video is most troubling because of the kids who've been taught to "hate gay people."

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The amazing shrinking and expanding Minnesota

Posted at 11:44 AM on July 1, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Health, Surveys and trivia

Oh for the love of the sweet, sweet paradox.

Two stories in the news today could be related. But they're not.

First:
We're shrinking.

Second:
No, we're not.

As long as we're on the subject, let's talk about obesity and the half-full/half-empty coverage.

Twenty-five percent -- one in 5 3 4 of us -- in Minnesota aren't just fat We're obese. Twenty-three percent of Minnesota kids are overweight, according to a survey out today from The Trust for America's Health.

"Obviously, Minnesota is doing something right," said Serena Vinter, one of the authors, told the Star Tribune.

We are?

Here's a line from her press release:

Adult obesity rates increased in 23 states and did not decrease in a single state in the past year, according to the F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies Are Failing in America 2009.

Maybe we're not as fat as, say, Wisconsin, but how is it possible to categorize this as a success story?

The situation remains a disaster waiting to happen -- except it's happening now. Since the data shows Minnesota is not improving, this 2003 MPR series -- The Fight Against Fat -- remains timely.

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Franken faces

Posted at 1:01 PM on July 1, 2009 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Faces in the crowd at today's rally for Sen.-elect Al Franken. You'll need to click the image to enlarge it.

It's near impossible to keep that Election Night excitement alive for 8 months.

11/4/08

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Obama's staff

Posted at 3:05 PM on July 1, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

The Obama administration today released the list of salaries of White House employees. Find it here. $172,200 is the most any employee not named Obama can make.

It also shows the kinds of jobs available in the White House. There's a senior writer for proclamations who makes $50,000, a $62,500 deputy director of video, a $78,000 director of African American media, $153,000 director of online resources, a $75,000 director of surrogate booking, and a gaggle of $36,000 correspondence analysts, who we presume are the people who read the mail.

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The 'T' word

Posted at 3:27 PM on July 1, 2009 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Media, News

Catching up.

When NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard was on Midmorning a few weeks ago, she said the Public Radio audience was angry that NPR won't call waterboarding torture. She said she'd have an article about that by the end of the day, but she didn't and I forgot to check.

She explained the policy last week:

... the problem is that the word torture is loaded with political and social implications for several reasons, including the fact that torture is illegal under U.S. law and international treaties the United States has signed.

That earned over 400 comments, most of which did not agree with Shepard. She wrote a follow-up post yesterday, noting that she brought the audience concerns to the editors and that NPR is apparently resolute on the matter:

One can disagree strongly with those beliefs and their actions. But they are due some respect for their views, which are shared by a portion of the American public. So, it is not an open-and-shut case that everyone believes waterboarding to be torture. Many in NPR's audience obviously believe it is, but others do not.

The main argument of my column was that NPR should describe waterboarding rather than use coded language to characterize it. Another alternative is to quote responsible officials who have described it as torture, for example President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder.

Media critic Dan Kennedy, who writes Media Nation, took Shepard to task last week for "getting it so wrong."

Perhaps NPR can eschew the T-word and instead describe waterboarding as "an interrogation technique once considered so heinous by the United States that it hanged Japanese officers for doing it to Americans."

To which, he says, Shepard responded...

I'm not trying to say what is and is not torture, but is every abuse classified as torture now or are there degrees? When a police officer throws a suspect to the ground and handcuffs them, is that torture or simply abuse?

And to which he -- Kennedy -- responded today:

As John McCain and others have pointed out, the United States executed several Japanese military officers for waterboarding American prisoners of war after World War II. And as I wrote last week, if NPR really can't bring itself to use the T-word, perhaps it can describe waterboarding as "an interrogation technique once considered so heinous by the United States that it hanged Japanese officers for doing it to Americans."

So yes, if I were an editor at the Boston Globe, you're damn right I would refer to waterboarding as torture. That seems about as solid as referring to oil as a fossil fuel, or baseball as a sport. By eschewing the term "torture" to describe a practice that the entire international community regards as such, NPR is not being neutral. Rather, it is embracing a euphemism that places the network squarely on the side of the torturers and their enablers.

NPR should not use enhanced interrogation techniques on the English language.

On Midmorning, Shepard said she's not just NPR's omudsman, she is "the ombudsman for Public Radio," which seemed to be news to the people at MPR News I talked to.

So, is there an MPR policy preventing reporters and hosts from using torture instead of waterboarding? No.

FYI, Ms. Shepard will be on Talk of the Nation on Thursday at 1:40 p.m. (CT) to talk about the issue.

(Photo: Getty Images)

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