Saturday, June 29, 2002
Friday, June 28, 2002
INTO ACADEMIA: Two articles of note in the "New Republic." First, Peter Berkowitz criticizes postmodern maven Stanley Fish for two pieces he wrote in the aftermath of Sept. 11. Here's part of Berkowitz's analysis:
His current argument about the relevance of postmodernism to September 11 and the world it created has this same, characteristically charming audacity about it. It is also rank sophistry. Either Fish is confused about exactly what postmodernism means, or he is willing to say anything--no matter how internally inconsistent--to win an argument. Or maybe both.
And here's the part that addresses campus speech codes. It ought to be relevant to those elements of the left who see "oppression" in strongly worded contrary opinions:
Hate speech--"speech hurtful to women, blacks, Hispanics, and gays"--is one thing, argues Fish. But political speech, such as criticism of the U.S. war effort, or the expression of sympathy for Al Qaeda, is quite another, he argues, noting that political speech lies at the heart of what is protected by the First Amendment. He's right on that last point. But Fish's flight into formal distinctions obscures the underlying reality. Campus speech codes encourage students, faculty, and administrators to recharacterize political opinions with which they disagree as statements that are hurtful and oppressive and which therefore must be forbidden. This produces habits of mind and intellectual norms that, when the winds shift, are easily extended to other topics and issues, posing a looming menace to the free inquiry to which our universities should be unflinchingly committed.
Next, Eric Arnesen deconstructs advocates of "whiteness studies" in a very long piece. A key excerpt:
If, after a decade of "theorizing," the concept of whiteness remains a muddled catch-all, something that seeks academic and political legitimation as a cover for its intellectual incoherence, its proponents' goals, too, remain unclear. In response to the left's perennial question--"What is to be done?"--Roediger might answer: bring about a withering away of whiteness, or alternatively, an abolition of whiteness. Ian F. Haney Lópezhas argued that whiteness, since it "perpetuates injurious racial identities," "should be abandoned." Whites should "renounce their racial identity as it is currently constituted in the interests of social justice." That scholar-activists of whiteness and its abolition can seriously advocate these outlandish propositions is surely a reflection of their disillusionment with the often naïve class politics that they once advocated, and a rejection of the romanticized white working class that they once championed. It also reflects, to some degree, a methodological preference among some segments of the academic left for the cultural studies-ish interpretation of texts over "old-fashioned" archival research.
Just read the whole thing.
His current argument about the relevance of postmodernism to September 11 and the world it created has this same, characteristically charming audacity about it. It is also rank sophistry. Either Fish is confused about exactly what postmodernism means, or he is willing to say anything--no matter how internally inconsistent--to win an argument. Or maybe both.
And here's the part that addresses campus speech codes. It ought to be relevant to those elements of the left who see "oppression" in strongly worded contrary opinions:
Hate speech--"speech hurtful to women, blacks, Hispanics, and gays"--is one thing, argues Fish. But political speech, such as criticism of the U.S. war effort, or the expression of sympathy for Al Qaeda, is quite another, he argues, noting that political speech lies at the heart of what is protected by the First Amendment. He's right on that last point. But Fish's flight into formal distinctions obscures the underlying reality. Campus speech codes encourage students, faculty, and administrators to recharacterize political opinions with which they disagree as statements that are hurtful and oppressive and which therefore must be forbidden. This produces habits of mind and intellectual norms that, when the winds shift, are easily extended to other topics and issues, posing a looming menace to the free inquiry to which our universities should be unflinchingly committed.
Next, Eric Arnesen deconstructs advocates of "whiteness studies" in a very long piece. A key excerpt:
If, after a decade of "theorizing," the concept of whiteness remains a muddled catch-all, something that seeks academic and political legitimation as a cover for its intellectual incoherence, its proponents' goals, too, remain unclear. In response to the left's perennial question--"What is to be done?"--Roediger might answer: bring about a withering away of whiteness, or alternatively, an abolition of whiteness. Ian F. Haney Lópezhas argued that whiteness, since it "perpetuates injurious racial identities," "should be abandoned." Whites should "renounce their racial identity as it is currently constituted in the interests of social justice." That scholar-activists of whiteness and its abolition can seriously advocate these outlandish propositions is surely a reflection of their disillusionment with the often naïve class politics that they once advocated, and a rejection of the romanticized white working class that they once championed. It also reflects, to some degree, a methodological preference among some segments of the academic left for the cultural studies-ish interpretation of texts over "old-fashioned" archival research.
Just read the whole thing.
LEAKS AND BOUNDS: Jack Shafer of Slate has an interesting piece today on the "Washington Post" trashing one of its own stories in order to protect secret sources. It all revolves around that June 20 story on the NSA receiving messages about the Sept. 11 attacks on Sept. 10. Apparently, that angle had been reported as early as 11 days after Sept. 11.
REGISTER A COMPLAINT: J.D. Lasica of "Online Journalism Review" has a series of articles on newspaper Web sites and those damned intrusive registration forms we've got to fill out.
I HATE registering for sites. HATE IT! It's complete bullshit so that my e-mail inbox can get flooded with spam. And here's the clueless newspaper executive defending the decision to go to registration:
"Two years ago if you asked anybody in the industry, the response would have been overwhelmingly negative," says Elaine Zinngrabe, executive producer of Latimes.com. "In 2002 we've come to realize that it's a business necessity. Consumers are becoming savvy about opt-out and privacy policies, and they've come to expect this sort of customer interaction."
What hogwash.
I HATE registering for sites. HATE IT! It's complete bullshit so that my e-mail inbox can get flooded with spam. And here's the clueless newspaper executive defending the decision to go to registration:
"Two years ago if you asked anybody in the industry, the response would have been overwhelmingly negative," says Elaine Zinngrabe, executive producer of Latimes.com. "In 2002 we've come to realize that it's a business necessity. Consumers are becoming savvy about opt-out and privacy policies, and they've come to expect this sort of customer interaction."
What hogwash.
BIAS AND FAIRNESS: Susanna Cornett has an excellent post today on this story from the "Washington Post." Susanna says everything I would have said, so go check it out.
Thursday, June 27, 2002
MORE ON THE LEFT: Here's an e-mail from a reader about yesterday's Warbloggerwatch post:
Dear Media-minded.
When you write this sentence.
"While we're at it, it's worth checking out Gitlin's much-blogged article from a couple of months ago on the knee-jerk anti-American left."
Its clear that you are endorsing Gitlin's view that there is an anti-american element to the left. WARBLOGGERWATCH! was within bounds to make this point.
Geez. Some on the left are really starting to sound like Ann Coulter. One more time: There certainly seem to be certain elements of the left that are anti-American. And elsewhere on the left side of the political spectrum, there are people whose views, while not anti-American per se, certainly qualify them as "useful idiots" of terrorists. To paraphrase George Orwell "Pacifism is objectively pro-Islamofascist."
Meanwhile, here's another article from a prominent leftist decrying the anti-American tendencies of many on the left. Michael Walzer of "Dissent" wrote "Can There Be a Decent Left?" about the response of many on the left to the attacks of Sept. 11. Check it out. And here are endorsements of Walzer's piece from (gasp!) David Horowitz and "National Review."
Dear Media-minded.
When you write this sentence.
"While we're at it, it's worth checking out Gitlin's much-blogged article from a couple of months ago on the knee-jerk anti-American left."
Its clear that you are endorsing Gitlin's view that there is an anti-american element to the left. WARBLOGGERWATCH! was within bounds to make this point.
Geez. Some on the left are really starting to sound like Ann Coulter. One more time: There certainly seem to be certain elements of the left that are anti-American. And elsewhere on the left side of the political spectrum, there are people whose views, while not anti-American per se, certainly qualify them as "useful idiots" of terrorists. To paraphrase George Orwell "Pacifism is objectively pro-Islamofascist."
Meanwhile, here's another article from a prominent leftist decrying the anti-American tendencies of many on the left. Michael Walzer of "Dissent" wrote "Can There Be a Decent Left?" about the response of many on the left to the attacks of Sept. 11. Check it out. And here are endorsements of Walzer's piece from (gasp!) David Horowitz and "National Review."
MORE ON COURIC-COULTER: Here's Lloyd Grove's report. And Henry Hanks has been all over the story.
OK, so Couric wasn't being honest in the exchange about calling Reagan an "airhead." I'm still not a Coulter fan, because she practices the same scorched-earth policy she accuses liberals of engaging in.Not only that, Katie looks 1,000 times better in a short skirt than Ann does.
OK, so Couric wasn't being honest in the exchange about calling Reagan an "airhead." I'm still not a Coulter fan, because she practices the same scorched-earth policy she accuses liberals of engaging in.Not only that, Katie looks 1,000 times better in a short skirt than Ann does.
Wednesday, June 26, 2002
FACT-CHECKING A-GO-GO: Tim Blair looks into some dubious-sounding quotes from Shimon Peres that were reported in the Australian media. Was it a mistranslation, or a deliberate attempt to distort the news? Check it out.
KEEP THE LETTERS COMING: The "Boston Globe" has a story today on how pro-Israeli advocates are pressuring media outlets to provide more balance in their coverage of the Middle East. Here's two telling quotes:
''I've never seen anything like this,'' said WBUR-FM general manager Jane Christo. ''The rhetoric and the hysteria [are] really high.'' Added NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin: ''It's just part of the landscape now. I don't think any journalism organization worth its salt can do this kind of story without coming under criticism.''
Keep the pressure on them.
''I've never seen anything like this,'' said WBUR-FM general manager Jane Christo. ''The rhetoric and the hysteria [are] really high.'' Added NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin: ''It's just part of the landscape now. I don't think any journalism organization worth its salt can do this kind of story without coming under criticism.''
Keep the pressure on them.
I MADE WARBLOGGERWATCH! Hey! I've arrived! And I'm not even a "warblogger." One of the twits at Warbloggerwatch is taking me to task for referring to the "knee-jerk anti-American left." However, the idiot ignored (deliberately or undeliberately - it's hard to tell with these guys) the painfully obvious fact that I was referring to this article from veteran leftist writer Todd Gitlin that appeared in "Mother Jones" back in January. Gitlin was the one writing about the "knee-jerk anti-American left." I was just agreeing with him. So much for expecting intellectual honesty from some of my critics.
It's so ironic. Neale Talbot outlines a slew of standard leftist positions that apparently are above criticism, then blames me for pointing out one of the most trenchant criticisms of some of those silly ideas from a leading man of the left. Check out what Gitlin wrote:
But in the wake of September 11 there erupted something more primal and reflexive than criticism: a kind of left-wing fundamentalism, a negative faith in America the ugly. In this cartoon view of the world, there is nothing worse than American power—not the woman-enslaving Taliban, not an unrepentant Al Qaeda committed to killing civilians as they please—and America is nothing but a self-seeking bully. It does not face genuine dilemmas. It never has legitimate reason to do what it does. When its rulers' views command popularity, this can only be because the entire population has been brainwashed, or rendered moronic, or shares in its leaders' monstrous values.
Or this passage:
Soft anti-Americans, by contrast, sincerely want U.S. policies to change—though by their lights, such turnabouts are well-nigh unimaginable—but they commit the grave moral error of viewing the mass murderer (if not the mass murder) as nothing more than an outgrowth of U.S. policy. They not only note but gloat that the United States built up Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan as a counterfoil to the Russians. In this thinking, Al Qaeda is an effect, not a cause; a symptom, not a disease. The initiative, the power to cause, is always American. But here moral reasoning runs off the rails. Who can hold a symptom accountable? To the left-wing fundamentalist, the only interesting or important brutality is at least indirectly the United States' doing. Thus, sanctions against Iraq are denounced, but the cynical mass murderer Saddam Hussein, who permits his people to die, remains an afterthought. Were America to vanish, so, presumably, would the miseries of Iraq and Egypt.
This inability to exercise self-criticism, the anti-Americanism wrapped in moral piety and the dishonest manner in which debates are framed encapsulates why I parted ways with the left a decade ago, and it seems a nice summation of the numb-nuts at Warbloggerwatch. For what it's worth, I never meant to write that I consider all elements of the left to be knee-jerk anti-Americans. However, there are still plenty of doofuses out there that piss me and others off when they spout their nonsense, and we're going to continue to call them on their bullshit.
It's so ironic. Neale Talbot outlines a slew of standard leftist positions that apparently are above criticism, then blames me for pointing out one of the most trenchant criticisms of some of those silly ideas from a leading man of the left. Check out what Gitlin wrote:
But in the wake of September 11 there erupted something more primal and reflexive than criticism: a kind of left-wing fundamentalism, a negative faith in America the ugly. In this cartoon view of the world, there is nothing worse than American power—not the woman-enslaving Taliban, not an unrepentant Al Qaeda committed to killing civilians as they please—and America is nothing but a self-seeking bully. It does not face genuine dilemmas. It never has legitimate reason to do what it does. When its rulers' views command popularity, this can only be because the entire population has been brainwashed, or rendered moronic, or shares in its leaders' monstrous values.
Or this passage:
Soft anti-Americans, by contrast, sincerely want U.S. policies to change—though by their lights, such turnabouts are well-nigh unimaginable—but they commit the grave moral error of viewing the mass murderer (if not the mass murder) as nothing more than an outgrowth of U.S. policy. They not only note but gloat that the United States built up Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan as a counterfoil to the Russians. In this thinking, Al Qaeda is an effect, not a cause; a symptom, not a disease. The initiative, the power to cause, is always American. But here moral reasoning runs off the rails. Who can hold a symptom accountable? To the left-wing fundamentalist, the only interesting or important brutality is at least indirectly the United States' doing. Thus, sanctions against Iraq are denounced, but the cynical mass murderer Saddam Hussein, who permits his people to die, remains an afterthought. Were America to vanish, so, presumably, would the miseries of Iraq and Egypt.
This inability to exercise self-criticism, the anti-Americanism wrapped in moral piety and the dishonest manner in which debates are framed encapsulates why I parted ways with the left a decade ago, and it seems a nice summation of the numb-nuts at Warbloggerwatch. For what it's worth, I never meant to write that I consider all elements of the left to be knee-jerk anti-Americans. However, there are still plenty of doofuses out there that piss me and others off when they spout their nonsense, and we're going to continue to call them on their bullshit.
COURIC VS. COULTER: Ann Coulter, who called Katie Couric the "Eva Braun of morning television" in her new book, "Slander," was just interviewed by Katie on the "Today" show. Didn't see all of it, but it looks like Katie managed to keep it on an even keel. Coulter didn't come off as very credible, in my opinion. I say that even though I agree with the thesis of "Slander": Conservatives are far too often portrayed as semi-Nazis or worse.
Tuesday, June 25, 2002
INTERNET POWER: I missed this yesterday. Slate reports on Thomas Mallon, who wrote a scathing review of "Portraits of Grief," the vignettes of the World Trade Center victims that ran in the "New York Times" in the weeks after the 9/11 attacks. Mallon wrote his piece in the small-circulation journal "American Scholar," and the article wasn't available online. Tim Noah, who wrote the Slate story, has his own theory on why there weren't howls of outrage over Mallon's dissent.
Chatterbox interprets this not as shocked silence but as a reluctance by the public to acknowledge what is so obviously true about the "Portraits."
Another possible explanation: The power of the Internet (and not just the Blogosphere). If the piece had appeared online, I'm certain it would have been linked to by someone (Arts and Letters Daily probably would have done it). E-mails would have started flying, and in a week or so, there might have been a story in a newspaper or magazine somewhere. Now that Noah's piece has appeared on Slate, I'm sure Mallon will get a response. After all, the guy is saying nasty things about dead people he didn't know personally, so what does he expect?
Chatterbox interprets this not as shocked silence but as a reluctance by the public to acknowledge what is so obviously true about the "Portraits."
Another possible explanation: The power of the Internet (and not just the Blogosphere). If the piece had appeared online, I'm certain it would have been linked to by someone (Arts and Letters Daily probably would have done it). E-mails would have started flying, and in a week or so, there might have been a story in a newspaper or magazine somewhere. Now that Noah's piece has appeared on Slate, I'm sure Mallon will get a response. After all, the guy is saying nasty things about dead people he didn't know personally, so what does he expect?
OH MY OMBUDSGOD! There's a new media blog out there tracking what newspaper ombudsmen do. It's the OmbudsGod. Check it out.
Monday, June 24, 2002
ANTI-SEMITISM AND THE LEFT: Todd Gitlin bemoans the rise of anti-Semitism among some elements of the left in this excellent article:
This is no incidental issue, no negligible distraction. A Left that cares for the rights of humanity cannot cavalierly tolerate the systematic abuse of any people -- whatever you think of Israel's or any other country's foreign policy. Any student movement worthy of the name must face the ugly history that long made anti-Semitism the acceptable racism, face it and break from it.
While we're at it, it's worth checking out Gitlin's much-blogged article from a couple of months ago on the knee-jerk anti-American left. Here it is.
This is no incidental issue, no negligible distraction. A Left that cares for the rights of humanity cannot cavalierly tolerate the systematic abuse of any people -- whatever you think of Israel's or any other country's foreign policy. Any student movement worthy of the name must face the ugly history that long made anti-Semitism the acceptable racism, face it and break from it.
While we're at it, it's worth checking out Gitlin's much-blogged article from a couple of months ago on the knee-jerk anti-American left. Here it is.
WHEN OMBUDSMEN ATTACK! Two interesting ombudsmen-related pieces worth pointing out today.
The first is from "Washington Post" ombud Michael Getler, who works in a dig at FAIR for running with a false story of free-speech oppression at President Bush's commencement address at Ohio State University, a story that has been thoroughly debunked.
Next, "Boston Globe" ombud Christine Chinlund gives clueless Beantown readers a primer in spotting the difference between an opinion column and a genuine news column. Hey, sometimes it's hard for us in the business to tell the difference, Christine.
The first is from "Washington Post" ombud Michael Getler, who works in a dig at FAIR for running with a false story of free-speech oppression at President Bush's commencement address at Ohio State University, a story that has been thoroughly debunked.
Next, "Boston Globe" ombud Christine Chinlund gives clueless Beantown readers a primer in spotting the difference between an opinion column and a genuine news column. Hey, sometimes it's hard for us in the business to tell the difference, Christine.
ANN LANDERS, RIP: As you all know, advice columnist Ann Landers died the other day. She was a newspaper staple. We'll miss her.
Friday, June 21, 2002
'THE BILL OF RIGHTS IS NOT A SUICIDE PACT': That quote crops up in this column, and its theme is echoed in this column by Jonah Goldberg. Read them both, and see which one makes more sense.
WE DIG THE DIGGING OF DIRT: William Powers has another excellent story today. It's about how recent scandals (Enron, Catholic bishops, even Martha Stewart) have journalists salivating:
We live to see proud people brought down, exposed for all their hideous weaknesses and failures. It's a sick pastime and quite ruthless. But it's our way of rooting out corruption, and generally speaking, it works. It's working right now, which is why, for journalists, it's a glorious time to be alive.
We live to see proud people brought down, exposed for all their hideous weaknesses and failures. It's a sick pastime and quite ruthless. But it's our way of rooting out corruption, and generally speaking, it works. It's working right now, which is why, for journalists, it's a glorious time to be alive.
LOONY NOONAN? Here's an interview with Peggy Noonan that makes her sound like a complete loon. Don't quite know what to make of it.
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