The day was Sunday, August 1, 2010. Former Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan appeared on Meet the Press. When asked to discuss the Congressional debate on tax cuts, the man known to move markets, a person who leans to the "Right," offered a decisive decree. In direct disagreement with Republican officials and the profitable corporations that fund countless political campaigns, Mister Greenspan declared, "Look, I'm very much in favor of tax cuts, but not with borrowed money. And the problem that we've gotten into in recent years is spending programs with borrowed money, tax cuts with borrowed money, and at the end of the day, that proves disastrous. And my view is I don't think we can play subtle policy here on it."
This statement was as a slap in the face to corporations, or more correctly to the tycoons who head these firms. Multi-millionaire media moguls might understand this best. These television and radio Executives experience firsthand that influence over an industry can translate into influence over an outcome. Cable News Network Chief Officers are among those who actively make use of this truth. Tax cuts expired? "Never;" say network Administrators and the newscasters such as Allan Chernoff, who do their bidding.
Channeling Brad DeLong, why oh why can't we have a better press corps?
On April 20th, Roll Call published a guest piece from Andrea Lafferty, the whack-job from the Traditional Values Coalition, listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. In it, she called ENDA a "time bomb", moaned that public schools "will not be able to discriminate in hiring transgender teachers", hinted that drag queens will now all be teaching our kids, and whined that such laws "should not be forced upon the dissenting majority" (waiting for Andrea's thoughts on civil rights in the 1960s). This is the same person who once referred to an ENDA hearing as a "freak show" and the bill as the "Barney Frank She-Male Shower Bill".
Today, The Washington Post publishes a piece by Mary Ann Akers which quotes- you guessed it:
The Traditional Values Coalition, on the home page of its Web site, asks: "Do you want men dressed as women teaching your kids? Will this be the ENDA of innocence?"
The group warns that, under ENDA, "your children will be trapped in classes taught by drag queens and transgender activists" and they will be "forced to learn about bizarre sexual fetishes."
The coalition's executive director, Andrea Lafferty, has been lobbying members of Congress, and she describes them as "freaked out" by the bill. She tells members if they vote for the bill, they'll be allowing "she-males" with "serious mental disorders" into children's classrooms, leaving parents with no legal recourse.
To Roll Call and the WaPo, controversy is more interesting than journalism. If you want to present a two-sided view, there are lots of different organizations and people that have that perspective in a reasonable way- Barney Frank, in the piece, responds to two concerns about the transgender provision. But Akers, and her editor, think it's much better copy to find the most offensive, bombastic language possible from a hate group with a known history of lying about ENDA. "She-males" is just as offensive a term as nigger, kike or fag, but because Akers and her editor know that probably none of their readers know anyone who's transgender, it's no big deal to them to print a word that essentially labels an entire oppressed community as fringe.
Sometimes people bemoan to me the death of the traditional media, and I sympathize, partly as someone who gets the WaPo and NYTimes delivered on Sundays, and appreciates valued research. They also whine about blogs having no editorial control or oversight. Then I read more and more examples of bad journalism in the traditional media, including this latest example Chris posted by Mark Fournier, and wonder more and more if it's a few bad apples or prevalence across the entire landscape, and what to do about it.
This is the first of a two-part series to Africa Harvest, in Johannesburg, South Africa. Cross posted fromNourishing the Planet.
In our Nourishing the Planet project we're looking at how farmers and researchers all over the world are combining high-tech and low-tech agricultural practices to help alleviate hunger and poverty. One place they're trying to do this is at Africa Harvest/Biotech Foundation International. The organization's mission is "to use science and technology, especially biotechnology, to help the poor in Africa achieve food security, economic well-being and sustainable rural development."
And while the biotechnology component of their mission may be controversial to some, Africa Harvest is determined that Africa will not be left behind when it comes to the development-and use- of the technology by African researchers and farmers. As a result, the organization is focusing on breeding African crops for Africans. "If you want to make a difference on this continent," says Daniel Kamanga, communications director for Africa Harvest, "you have to look at African crops." These include staples such as banana, cassava, and sorghum, which are all important sources of nutrients for millions of Africans.
But these are also crops that are heavily impacted by diseases and pests. Bananas, for example, are susceptible to sigatoka virus, fusarium, weevils, nematodes, and others. To combat these problems, Florence Wambugu, the CEO of Africa Harvest and a scientist who formerly worked with Monsanto, helped develop Tissue Culture Banana (TC banana). Banana diseases are often spread through "unclean" planting material. But TC banana technology allows scientists to use biotechnology for the "rapid and large scale multiplication" of disease free bananas-a single shoot can produce 2,000 individual banana plantlets.
Africa Harvest is also working on biofortifying sorghum with Vitamin A, creating "golden sorghum."
"But of course, there remains the thorny issue of control-among the biggest stumbling blocks for sharing any technology across countries and regions. Biotechnology has so far been largely owned by the private sector." So, in addition to researching crop production, Africa Harvest is also working to improve capacity building for scientists all over Africa. "If we're going to have GMOs on the continent," says Kamanga, "we want scientists who know how to do it." Along with that, Africa Harvest is working to strengthen regulatory systems for biotechnology.
And how does Africa Harvest respond to criticism about the development and use of biotechnology in agriculture? According to Kamanga, it's an "old debate" and one that takes place in 5-star hotels, not in farmers' fields. The issue now, he says, is how we make the best use of this technology.
Okay team, don't forget to dispose of this memo when you're done reading it. Anyway, clearly we need a late-October surprise. Here are the possibilities I've come up with. Some may sound outlandish, but I'm willing to do anything and spend any amount to win this bullshit election.
In the final stages of the presidential election, there is certainly no disputing that the national spotlight has shifted to Barack Obama rather than John McCain, whether rightfully so or not.
While listening to a Fox Radio broadcast, a republican strategist put out a bold analogy in a similarly bold topic, quoting:
The party that can lose [Dem.] has nominated a candidate that can't win, and the party that can't win [Rep.] has nominated a candidate that can't lose.
Although the quote isn't exactly historically accurate (its very debatable), nor do I necessarily agree with what the man said, he certainly raises a very good point.
Although I am a (obviously non-racist) liberal Obama supporter who frankly doesn't care about his previous political involvements, I know for a fact that many other people don't share my views - whether they support Obama or McCain.
Above is video of Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC complaining bitterly about lack of press access in Iraq and Afghanistan. I wish I had a longer clip that had Andrea Mitchell responding to the idea of the military being too positive to the Obama campaign. The idea is laughable on its face. General Petraus has no particular reason to be overly friendly to Obama, as he and Obama clash on opinions about what to do in Iraq (in today's news conference, Sen. Obama asserts that this clash is appropriate - that the generals on the ground have a single mission while the president, or any candidates for that office, have to think about the country as a whole, and not just one aspect of the country's strategic objectives). My point is - it seems highly likely that McCain is the favorite of the military, NOT Obama - and if the press was shooed away from the goings on in Iraq and Afghanistan it was either for their protection, or because the candidate wanted an opportunity to do as close to a genuine assessment as he could - which likely necessitated being away from press view.
Look men, enough pussy-footing around (more pussy than footing for some of you!) The biggest problem I face is my age. And there are 2 areas where my age is clear to the public-
1) My lack of knowledge about the internets.
2) Little pieces of food stuck to my face.
Problem #2 is easy - we hire someone to make sure my face is free of schumutz or chutzpah or whatever the Jews call it. But Problem #1 is harder. We have to prove I know my way around the intertrode. Here are some ways we can do that:
Opening with a mention of the media's (lack of serious) coverage of the Pennsylvania primary, Elizabeth hits the nail on the head and calls the press out for what it has become: shallow. She also notes that she is not alone in this observation.
I'm not the only one who noticed this shallow news coverage. A report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy found that during the early months of the 2008 presidential campaign, 63 percent of the campaign stories focused on political strategy while only 15 percent discussed the candidates' ideas and proposals.
The picking of our president is too important a task to approach without good, solid analysis of a candidate's policies and positions.
STATE BLOGS
