Day: May 24, 2005

Little Green Footballs notes that a Memri transcript has an idiot from Newsweek appearing on Al Jazeera after to effectively whitewash its retraction of its story claiming that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay flushed a Koran down a toilet,

Host: But there is no proof that it did not happen either…

[NewsweekÂ’s Washington Bureau Chief Daniel Klaidman] Klaidman: We are neutral on whether any form of Koran desecration took place. There are allegations out there, but the allegations have not been subjected to the kind of scrutiny or legal processes that normally areÂ… you need before you can establish whether they are true and we certainly know that the military has not confirmed any of these allegations, and so what we are saying is we did not have the information we needed to go forward with this story and we are also saying that this specific act of Koran desecration was not confirmed by the US military investigators, and that is what we reported. As to whether these things happened or not, we are, like the rest of the people out there and news organizations – we donÂ’t know. We have heard the allegations, we continue to report, and the US military and other entities are investigating, and as I said, we are neutral on whether any of this ever happened.

Leaving aside why Newsweek felt the need to run to Al Jazeera to clarify its retraction, its interesting how when journalists get caught doing something wrong that they immediately turn into politicians complete with passive voice explanations of their behavior.

So, Klaidman won’t say “We didn’t do enough to confirm the story” but rather nonsense like “. . . the allegations have not been subjected . . .”

The line, “We are neutral on whether any form of Koran desecration took place” could have easily been lifted from any cover-your-ass Pentagon or Congressional report. Its complete bureacrat-speak.

Of course you could say this about pretty much anything. For example, did Bill Clinton rape Juanita Broderick? Hmm. . . “We are neutral on whether or not any rape occurred.” Don’t remember anyone from Newsweek every saying anything like that (nor should they have).

I was telling someone the other day that journalism is not brain surgery. The way Newsweek practices it, its not even veterinary medicine (apologies in advanced to veterinarians).

For the past couple months I have been very distracted and not keeping all of my websites updated because my grandmother has been in and out of the hospital for most of the year. My father died about 15 years ago, followed by my grandfather, leaving my brother and I the only close relatives she has in this area. Of course, my brother and grandmother are estranged, to put it mildly, so taking care of her pretty much falls to me (my grandmother’s brothers and sisters are very helpful, but they are dispersed around the state).

Anyway, my grandmother had a stent operation last summer, but began experiencing chest pains toward the end of last year and had to go in for another operation to repair a very diseased artery. She spent a couple weeks in a nursing home at that time, and then went back to her apartment. Then in April she was readmitted to the hospital after complaining of numbness in her leg — the diseased artery was once again on the verge of failure and doctors had to replace it with an artificial one.

She was in the hospital for several weeks after that and has been in a nursing home for physical therapy for the past six weeks. Frankly, for someone who was never very active and smoked much of her life, she’s in pretty good health for being 81. But she’s also reached the point where my wife and I are no longer comfortable having her live on her own in Battle Creek, which is about 20-30 minutes from Kalamazoo, where we live.

So we’ve talked her into living with us. Which created an immediate problem because we currently rent a house in which the bathroom is on the second story, and there’s no way grandma can do stairs anymore. So, we’re wrapping up buying a house that is a bit further from where we work, but a bit closer to my daughter’s school (currently we only live about 1 mile from the university we both work at).

We’ve had to do this in record speed, since my grandmother is going to be discharged from her nursing home any day, and we want her to spend as little time in her apartment as possible. So, we looked at several houses last Wednesday, made an offer on one on Friday, had that offer accepted today, and hope to have the requisite inspections, etc., finished this week so we can close on the damn thing in early June and be all moved in before the end of June.

Thankfully, Lisa has taken care of handling most of the details, as I absolutely abhor the sort of convoluted processes that are required to do something like buy a house. In fact, we keep having our realtor and mortgage rep tell us that we’re doing things backwards, but that’s because the normal way is just plain silly IMO and would take forever.

Bill Maher recently dissed the American military by alluding to the reported problems the Army and other branches have had recently in meeting their recruiting goals,

More people joined the Michael Jackson fan club [than the military].We’ve done picked all the low-lying Lynndie England fruit, and now we need warm bodies.

My biggest problem with this is the same problem I’ve had with Maher throughout his “career” — he’s just not funny. Never has been.

But Republican Rep. Spencer Bacchus decided to give Maher some free publicity by claiming that this “joke” borders on treason,

I think it borders on treason. In treason, one definition is to undermine the effort or national security of our country.

Where does the Republican Party keeping finding these idiots obssessed with finding treason everywhere they look? Maybe the Party should consider administering an IQ test to its potential candidates and start rejecting those who score below 80.

The Republicans are starting to make the Libertarian Party look like crafty politicians in comparison. Hell, the Natural Law Party has people who make more sense than many Republican politicians these days.

Source:

Alabama Rep. wants Bill Maher off the air. Howard Gensler, Philadelphia Daily News, May 24, 2005.