Newspaper Corrections I'd Like To See

For the last 10 years or so, I've been very interested in the way our society is managed and sculpted by the news media. The news that makes it to air/print is as important as the news that DOESN'T make it to air/print, and that revelation has been profound for me.

One aspect of news media that needs a different paradigm is the correction ritual. Newspapers are sometimes willing to acknowledge faulty reporting, but the "correction box" is routinely inadequate—the journalistic equivalent of self-flagellation for jaywalking in the course of serving as an accessory to deadly crimes.

Some daily papers are scrupulous about correcting the smallest factual errors that have made it into print. So, we learn that a first name was misspelled or a date was wrong or a person was misidentified in a photo caption. However, we rarely encounter a correction that addresses a fundamental flaw in what passes for ongoing journalism.

Here are some of the basic corrections that we'd really like to see:

• "Yesterday's paper included a business section but failed to also include a labor section. Yet the vast majority of Americans work without investing for a living. They are employees rather than entrepreneurs. The failure to recognize such realities when using newsroom resources is not journalistically defensible. The Herald regrets the error."
• "On Thursday, in a lengthy story about the economy, this newspaper quoted three corporate executives, two Wall Street business analysts and someone from a corporate-funded think task. But the article did not quote a single low-income person or a single advocate for those mired in poverty. The Herald regrets the error."
• "On Sunday, in a front-page article about the mayor's proposals for a sweeping new urban-renewal program, The Herald devoted 27 paragraphs to the potential impacts on real estate interests, store owners and investors. Yet the story devoted scant attention to the foreseeable effects of the project on poor people, many of whom have been living in the affected neighborhoods for generations."
• "Last week, The Herald reported on the history of human rights violations in Latin America without noting the pivotal roles played by the U.S. government in supporting despotic regimes during the 20th century. Such selective reporting had the effect of airbrushing significant aspects of the historical record."
• "Yesterday, when The Herald printed a correction about an obituary on the recently deceased government worker, it supplied the proper spelling of the first name of the deceased's daughter. However, the correction failed to correct the obituary's evasive summary of his lethal Machiavellian activities as a top official of the Central Intelligence Agency. The Herald regrets the error."
• "For nearly five years, The Herald has frequently printed the headline 'Deaths in Iraq' over the latest listing of confirmed American deaths in Iraq. This headline has been insidiously misleading because it propagates the attitude that the only 'deaths in Iraq' worth reporting by name are the deaths of Americans. Such tacit jingoism and nationalistic narcissism have no place in quality news reporting. The Herald regrets its participation in this repetition compulsion disorder of American journalism."
• "For more than five years, readers of this newspaper have encountered -- without attribution -- frequent references to 'the war on terrorism' and 'the war on terror.' While avidly used by architects and supporters of the U.S. government's military actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, such phrases are based on assumptions that could be substantively and effectively refuted. The Herald regrets that its news pages have relentlessly promoted such official buzzwords as though they were objective realities instead of terms devised to manipulate the public for endless war."

My Toe Has Healed (Mostly)

It took five months, 1 surgery, and grueling physical therapy, but today I can announce that my right Great Toe is more or less healed! I still can't bend the toe at the joint where the break was, but I can put weight on it now without crying like a Japanese schoolgirl. Hopefully, ongoing PT will give me back some flexion in the jointspace, but I was told by the surgeon that I'll never have full flexion on that digit again.

Bummer.

But the good news is that I can ride again. I can go back to doing what I love most in the world, and that's riding my bikes through nature and urban, challenging my body, and hanging out with all of my biking buddies after a long day hacking banks!

Peace and Tolerance

Christianity is the religion of peace and tolerance. Christians are bigoted assholes.

http://www.breitbart.tv/html/2957.html

Three people were arrested Thursday after staging a noisy protest as a Hindu chaplain read the opening prayer at the US Senate, branding his appearance an "abomination."

US Capitol Police said the protestors, apparently Christian religious activists, were ejected from the chamber and charged with an unlawful disruption of Congress.

As Hindu chaplain Rajan Zed started to recite his prayer, one protestor was heard chanting "Lord Jesus, forgive us father for allowing a prayer which is an abomination in your sight.

"You are the one, true living God."

Faith leaders from various creeds are sometimes invited to give the Senate's daily opening prayer, though it is normally offered by the chamber's Christian chaplain.

The pressure group Americans United for Separation of Church and State condemned the protest.

"This shows the intolerance of many Religious Right activists," said the group's executive director, Reverend Barry Lynn.

"They say they want more religion in the public square, but it's clear they mean only their religion."

The conservative American Family Association had been campaigning against the use of a Hindu prayer in the chamber, asking members to send emails and letters to Senators in protest.

It Never Wears Off, Does It?

Seriously, who isn't awed by the fact that you can go online and see a detailed picture of pretty much anywhere on the planet, taken either from a plane or a space satellite? That's the shit right there, yo!

Challenging Trail Feature Ahead

This is the sign that is situated in front of the 30-foot drop at Santos. If you click on the picture above, you can read the sign with greater clarity. Having seen the drop for myself, I'd say this sign is dead-on (no pun intended). These kinds of signs are all over the place in Santos.

Facing your own mortality on a bicycle is just SOP 'round these parts.

Small Drops, Big Drops, 1-2-3

You know, it's really amazing how something small can feel so much larger when placed in the right context. Take, for example, the above picture. The drop I'm riding off was only four feet up, five feet if I rode really fast off the ladder and landed farther out on the transition. Five feet. That's not that high. That's just a little bit lower than my standing height. But, when you ride off a five foot ladder drop on a bike that's going 15mph, that little five foot drop makes your stomach drop much the same way a 30 foot drop must. Small drops feel like large drops, and I imagine large drops feel like skydiving.

Either way, I like dropping off things with my bike.

It Is Hypocrisy That We Hate Above All Other Things

I used to think that, whenever another Christian Minister/Priest/Deacon/Authority was caught molesting yet another little boy, child rape was part and parcel to the brainwashing that accompanies organized religions. That was when I had a much less nuanced understanding of the behaviors and motivations of religious leaders.

Now, I understand that what I (for lack of a better word) enjoy about watching these fuckers fall from grace is the utter hypocrisy of it all. I don't enjoy child rape, and I certainly don't get a kick out of watching repressed, sick men suffer complete moral, ethical, spiritual, and social collapses (anymore). But I do admit that there is a certain schadenfreude to be savored when yet another religious leader buggers yet another innocent child.

Not schadenfreude for the child, of course! All child molesters, religious or not, deserve to have their balls cut off and shoved down their throats while being beaten with a shovel. No exceptions. I'm referring to the schadenfreude one feels when hypocrisy, in all it's ugliness, is exposed. And there is no sweeter hypocrisy than that of the fall of a religious leader.

When someone who professes to follow a specific belief system....nay, not follow, but lead others through a belief system, they carry on their shoulders the weight of history entire. They have much smaller room for error. They must be more than human. They must purge themselves of their own human failings as they strive towards the God ideal. People actually believe they can do this. I've met them (though not recently, thank goodness), particularly in the more rigid belief systems. Successful, non-hypocritical spiritual leaders don't fall into this trap in the first place. But the majority do, and their clock is ticking.

So, when one who dedicates themselves to purging their humanity in order to help others do the same fails, it is a source of pleasure for me. You see, it's not watching a follower of a belief system fail that makes me giggle; that's a given. All followers will fail their own system of belief eventually. It's inevitable; there is no belief system in existence (not one with any followers, anyways) which is set up to be 100% "followable". They are set up to fail the follower, to be an unreachable ideal with the most dire punishments for failure.

But this post is not about failure to follow systems. It's about the hypocrisy in believing you that you even can, that leading people down a failed path makes one a better human, then watching that person explode in plain site. Public failure, public hypocrisy, public downfalls, public collapse. Moral, spiritual, ethical, personal failure, all in full view of your own false leadership, in full view of your sheeple.

You see, when a leader fails, it is always because of something in their environment. Something outside of themselves "made" them sin. It's never their fault. But when a follower fails, it's always due to some internal failing, some innate fault that is an integral part of their humanity. It's always the followers fault for not following the system better, thus "allowing" sin to enter their minds and their lives. It's sick. In cognitive psychology, we call it Fundamental Attribution Error.

A few things brought this post to mind. One, yet another youth minister has been charge with raping children here. While this story is local, you can't go a week without reading at least three similar stories nationwide. Two, modern Christianity is so broken, so fractured, yet continues to gain followers daily. How such a doomed belief system succeeds can only be explained by the enticing allure of the Great Lie perpetuated by the hypocrites who smoke from their own supply. I really don't want to get into that topic right now; there's a book to be written there, and there are many more articulate critics than I who are much further along in the thought process.

It's late. There isn't much time.