Bill O'Reilly famously "explained" the existence of "God" by pointing out that the tides go in and out. More recently, someone pointed out to Bill that the moon causes the tides. Here's O'Reilly's comeback, in classic know-it-all voice. How is it that the Earth has a moon and Mars doesn't. Except that Mars does have a moon. Two, actually. It must be fun, invigorating, to argue without evidence. It must feel so freeing, so powerful.
Now, in the midst of the popular uprising in Egypt, the mainstream media is educating us that Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt, has a well-documented history of being a brutally corrupt man who has been betraying and subjugating the Egyptian people for 30 years. And see here. But why hasn't the American media been reporting on this obvious fact until recently? Have they been too busy reporting instead on Michael Jackson, Lindsay Lohan, sexual indiscretions of politicians, sporting events, horserace politics, and bickering pundits? Maybe if the American media had been doing its job reporting, even a little bit, on world politics, Mubarak's despicable rule would not have gone on this long. The undeniable fact is that our highly consolidated mega-corporate media has been closing down foreign bureaus at a startling rate:
In closing all their outposts abroad, a number of newspapers -- most notably the Boston Globe, Newsday, the Philadelphia Inquirer and some Tribune Co. papers -- put an end to long, much heralded traditions of delivering foreign news in their own way to their own readers, of covering patches of the globe that their audiences had a particular, sometimes singular, interest in. They covered breaking news and big stories, to be sure. But, perhaps more often, correspondents from these papers were ahead of the news or off it completely, telling stories about interesting people, places and customs that you just couldn't read anywhere else. They had passports. They wandered. And they took their readers with them.
Many editors say that kind of reporting was a luxury. Now, with some noteworthy exceptions, it is a relic, gone the way of paper tape and the pica pole. Unlike those artifacts of days past, foreign bureaus were not replaced by new technology. They were not replaced at all.
What else are we missing because the mainstream media would rather not spend the time and money doing real journalism covering important world events? One further note. Why are we now, finally getting any coverage on this popular uprising in Egypt? Is it because our news outlets suddenly care about burgeoning democracies, or is it that they obsess over images of people fighting in the streets. Think, also, of how the coverage of the popular uprising in Iran faded once the easily photographed violence subsided. We aren't connoisseurs of world politics. Rather, we are avid consumers of conflict pornography.I had seen this several years ago, and enjoyed seeing it again tonight. Hence, into this blog it goes:
I decided to see how hard it would be to determine what information Homeland Security has gathered about me. I went to the Homeland Security Website and wrote an email to Homeland Security (foia@dhs.gov). Here is my email request:
January 23, 2011 Catherine M. Papoi Deputy Chief FOIA Officer Director, Disclosure & FOIA The Privacy Office 245 Murray Drive, S.W. STOP-0550 Washington, DC 20528-0550 FOIA REQUEST Dear FOIA Officer: Pursuant to the federal Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552, I request access to and copies of All records dated on or after January 1, 2006 concerning "Erich Vincent Vieth" in your possession. I would like to receive the information in electronic format. (CD-ROM.) I agree to pay reasonable duplication fees for the processing of this request in an amount not to exceed $150. However, please notify me prior to your incurring any expenses in excess of that amount. If my request is denied in whole or part, I ask that you justify all deletions by reference to specific exemptions of the act. I will also expect you to release all segregable portions of otherwise exempt material. I, of course, reserve the right to appeal your decision to withhold any information or to deny a waiver of fees. As I am making this request as an author and this information is of timely value, I would appreciate your communicating with me by telephone, rather than by mail, if you have questions regarding this request. I look forward to your reply within 20 business days, as the statute requires.[caption id="attachment_16372" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Image by Ssuaphoto at dreamstime (with permission)"]Now all I needed to do was sit back and wait for the federal government to disclose to me all of my emails that they've been reading and all of my phone calls that they've been listening to. We'll, actually, instead of getting information, I got a major league dose of bureaucratese. Here's the paper letter I received instead of real information. I've interspersed comments below in red and in brackets: [More . . . ][/caption] Thank you for your assistance. Sincerely, Erich Vieth
If you are a bicyclist who wants to clear snow. This is for you. The are other, less impressive versions too. And see here.
