By Sheila
Lennon
Bottom-up' journalism from the pros
Fair and balanced, too!
April 16, 2004, 6:00 p.m. -- (Last
week's weblog)
Gardeners,
start your seedlings: A beautiful weekend is predicted here,
highs of 65 and 70 Saturday and Sunday, so the garden centers will be hopping.
the New
England Gardening Forum at GardenWeb knows most of the answers, and you
can get inspiration from our newly updated Garden
Blogs page.
The pansies at right come from a new addition to Garden Blogs, a German blog, Metamorphine, with
great photos.
Many more New England garden
links are in projo's Garden section.
Link
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Protestors
to wash the flag Monday at 4 p.m. on the State House lawn.
Blogger Joel Sax at Pax Nortona suggested
this almost a year ago as a graphic
peaceful demonstration:
Flag Washing
A suggestion for protest.
There's blood on our national fabric. Lots of it. The blood of Afghanis and
Iraqis. The blood of American soldiers sent to fight the oil wars. The blood
of the founders who gave us the Bill of Rights. The blood of Liberty lost when
we gave Ashcroft the power to conduct pogroms in our name.
Americans see the flag as themselves. Do something to the flag and it is done
to them. This is why they become so irate when you destroy it.
So, do this: splash red on the flag -- your own blood and the blood of other
volunteers if you dare. Show it to others. Say this is what has happened to
our flag thanks to the policies of the Bush and the Clinton administrations.
Then take a bucket of cold water and gently wash the stains out. Say this is
what we must be prepared to do, clean the blood out of our national fabric.
Show the world that we are prepared to stop the horror.
Hold up the flag to those looking on. Say this is what is possible.
This will send two messages: first, that the nation has entered a state of
grave peril to liberty, justice, and peace. Second, that we who want this trinity
are for America.
Do this because you love America. Challenge others to do the same.
As symbolism goes, it seems gentler and more positive than the inflammatory
protests of yore.
A Christian Peacemaker Team washed
a flag "of the blood of innocent Colombians who have died as a result
of U.S. arms and military aid to Colombia." in 2002.
Link
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The
Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb:
This feature about Philip
Dick's "Valis" experience
was published in Weirdo comic #17 from summer, 1986.
It is an interesting graphic interpretation of a series of events which happened
to Dick in March of 1974. He spent the remaining years of his life trying to
figure out what happened in those fateful months.
You will find all 8 pages of this story here. The file sizes are rather large
(120-140K each) so that the text was readable and the detail visible.
Enjoy The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick. In typical Dick fashion,
you will find that it raises more questions than it answers.
Brought to you by R. Crumb, Weirdo magazine and your friends at philipKdick.com.
R. Crumb, for those too young to remember, created Zap Comics, Mr. Natural,
Fritz the Cat, Keep on Truckin' and much much more.
via Ye
Olde Phart, a fun geezer indeed
Link
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Books
and writers: Links to hundreds of biographies.
Link
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What bin Laden said: Here's the latest tape from OBL, posted on the Al Jazeera
news site. It's in Windows Media format, and English subtitles appear in
the video area of Media Player.
Link
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Blogging is a form, journalism is a discipline: NYU
journalism professor Jay
Rosen, in advance of tomorrow's BloggerCon,
again takes
on a question that seems to burn in the
blogosphere: Is blogging journalism?
This question baffles me, frankly. A blog is a form: dated items in reverse
chronological order, perhaps with external links, and optimally, with a permanent
link to the item so others may link directly to it. Comments are optional.
Journalism is a discipline. -- who, what, where, when, why. Get it
right, dig, tell a story, publish it. What you type into a blog might be journalism,
might even be "news" or it might be blowing smoke.
Doc Searls yesterday challenged bloggers
to make journalism:
...deconstruction isn't enough. We need construction too. Do we care about
a subject enough to report on it, and not just to opine about it? Then maybe
we should do the digging too.
Today,
he says about blogging,
Somebody with something to say can go directly to the reader, without intermediation.
This is especially important for technologists, who have a high need for thoroughly
informed dialog and a low tolerance for rhetorical packet loss and other forms
of distorition. But it's no less important for politicians and other public
figures who find their words misquoted or reduced to sound bites that serve
as building material for stories that have little nothing to do with what they
said in the first place. That was my recent experience with a long interview
for CBS, 22 seconds of which served as an intro to a story that was mostly
about what Joe Trippi was up to. (Guess I was lucky, sort of. Dan Gillmor and
Tim O'Reilly ended up on the cutting room floor.)
When politicians go "unmediated" to the airwaves, journalists fact-check
their ads. In Florida, an audience member asked me what I thought
about letting politicians blog on his news site. I said, "Let 'er rip,
but fact-check it right next to it."
Somewhere I still have cassette tapes of about 50 interviews I did in 1989
with Rhode Islanders who were at Woodstock in '69. Their words were extracted
and chopped up and fed into a Larger Picture that became a print series, but
they're an oral history, all by themselves.
Somewhere in the bowels of CBS, there's a long video interview with Doc (and
one of Dan
Gillmor and
another of Tim
O'Reilly) that should be put on the net. The print newshole
is severely limited, TV "magazines" edit
hours
of footage
into a "show," but the originals all exist somewhere, and could be
offered on the news organizations' websites.
There's even a word for this: Repurposing. As in, "We shot it for this
story, but Doc (or Dan or Tim) said interesting stuff that people might like
to see."
CBS could put it all out there -- Interviews with blog gods has a nice
ring, dont you think? -- but it probably doesn't occur to the TV division that
the Web division might usefully repurpose it.
Later in the post, Doc quotes Jay Rosen,
In reality, journalism is the opposite of "up for grabs." It's the
Establishment. A closed profession. Or worse. Journalism, for many who blog,
is one thing they are blogging against. Or instead of. (Or are they blogging "over" it?
Could be.)
So what is journalism?
Not sure, they say, but someone else owns it.
and Doc adds,
Even if that's so, bloggers are clearly improving it.
I agree bloggers are improving journalism -- and greatly improving news
distribution -- but I don't agree journalism is a "closed profession."
Bloggers aren't going to be hired off the street by newspapers to blog: There
are too many
people in the newsroom who'd grab that job ahead of them..
But if you're willing
to
start
at
a small paper
working
lousy
hours covering microlocal events and making lousy wages, you'll learn
a lot and get to move
to a bigger paper where you'll work lousy hours for a few more years for
better wages, cover some bigger stories, and eventually you may get to go "downtown"
to a beat
you
want.
A former
colleague was hired as a TV critic after working as a political press secretary
and radio talk-show host. He was sent to the bureaus for six months first to
learn the ropes and get some hard news experience.
By the way: Jay writes, "What bloggers call their
archive,
newspaper journalists call the morgue." I had that fantasy
about the morgue before I actually worked in a newsroom, where the archive
is the
archive and
the department that archives is called the library.
The morgue exists only in
fiction, I think. But sometimes I use the word morgue because everybody knows
what it means, whereas "library" sounds like reference books.
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April 15, 2004, 6:17 p.m. -- (Last
week's weblog)
Taxes on deadline!
Turin
Shroud 'shows
second face': BBC reports,
New
research into the Turin Shroud has added to the mystery surrounding the controversial
artifact.
A second ghostly image of a man's face has been discovered on the back of
the linen, according to a report published by London's Institute of Physics.
The delicate 14ft-long linen sheet is believed by some to be the cloth in
which Jesus was wrapped after being taken down from the cross.
It has been dismissed by others as an elaborate hoax.
The back of the shroud has rarely been seen as it was hidden beneath a piece
of cloth sewn on by nuns in 1534, after it was damaged by fire.
But the back surface was exposed during a restoration project in 2002.
A professor at Italy's Padua University, Giulio Fanti, thought he saw a "faint
image" in the photographs from this project and decided to investigate
it further.
"Though the image is very faint, features such as nose, eyes, hair,
beard and moustaches are clearly visible," he said.
"There are some slight differences with the known face. For example,
the nose on the reverse side shows the same extension of both nostrils, unlike
the front side, in which the right nostril is less evident."
Professor Fanti has dismissed claims that the image on the back confirms
that the shroud is a fake - with paint soaking from the front to the back.
"This is not the case of the shroud. On both sides, the face image
is superficial, involving only the outermost linen fibres," he said.
"It is extremely difficult to make a fake with these features."
Teh photo above shows the front and back of the shroud, respectively. There's
a follow-up story, Wrapped
in the shroud, with more photos and readers' comments.
Link
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Church and state: A reader comments. Margo Chaires of Mitchellville,
Maryland, writes,
Hello,
I am a Roman Catholic. I totally agree with you regarding your "Is
Kerry Catholic Enough?" article.
It is a wonderful article, especially,
"Separation of church and state mandates a leader with a conscience,
not a religious agenda.
We are of many religions and spritual notions in America, and we have, in
the past, largely come eventually to our senses when one group's beliefs were
thrust upon the nation. (Prohibition and divorce come first to mind.) We ask
other religions in the world to learn to tolerate each other.
But here is the Boston Globe reciting John Kerry's alleged sins. The Catholic
faith promotes examination of conscience, not promotion of the Vatican hierarchy's
policies. An American politician should not be an agent of any religious agenda.
Cardinal O'Malley's jabs at Kerry will be felt by every parishioner who has
ever thought birth control might be a blessing, abortion may sometimes be necessary,
a married priesthood would attract more good men, women might be priests, and
politeness demands we participate when we find ourselves at services of other
faiths.
They should be resented by everyone who values freedom of conscience. "
I believe that the American Roman Catholic Church ought to lose its tax exempt
status for being in violation of the Internal Revenue Service Code.
"Electioneering by all religions is prohibited by the IRS Code, which
states that organizations granted 501(c)(3) tax-deductible status may not "participate
in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distribution of statements),
any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for
public office." On July 5, the IRS pointed out in a reminder that church
voter forums and voter guides violate the standard if they show a preference
for or against certain candidates." http://www.wcla.org/00-autumn/bishops.html
Margo Chaires
Mitchellville, MD
Link
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Weekend mini-getaways: It's finally stopped raining, and looks like
a beautiful weekend ahead. If getting away to rural Rhode Island appeals to
you, you might want to make
a couple of stops:
-- The
Farnum Street Band plays rock n' roll
Friday night from
9 to 1 at
Cady's Tavern,
2168 Putnam Pike (Route 44)
West Glocester, R.I;.
(401) 568-0267
-- Shawna
Suffriti is showing her black and white photographs of Mexico and
Guatemala Saturday evening at Sophie's
Coffee in Exeter. She'll be there from from 6:30 to 8:30,
and there'll be food and drink. Sophie's is on Rte. 2 in Exeter, 4.5 miles
south of Schartner Farms and 1.5 miles north of the intersection of Rtes.
2 & 138.
More: (401) 294-8188.
If you want to defy all Rhode Island traditions and make a real trip --
as far as Boston -- two meetings may interest you:
-- BloggerCon,
Saturday at Harvard Law, welcomes all bloggers and those who want to mingle
with bloggers. 8:15 - 5:45 p.m. Admission is free, all are welcome. You're
urged to register. (Unfortunately, I won't
be
able
to make
it. Family
stuff.)
-- Discussion.Is
Iraq Vietnam?, John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Columbia
Point, Boston, Sunday,
2-3:30 p.m. (617) 514-1643. Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Halberstam
and NPR's senior news analyst Daniel Schorr discuss the current occupation
of Iraq in comparison to the war in Vietnam. NPR's Dick Gordon moderates.
Link
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Providence
rally
plans to protest exports of U.S. tech jobs: There'll
be an anti-offshoring rally at the IBM shareholders' meeting in Providence
Tuesday, April 27, in the plaza
outside
the
rotunda
entrance to
the Convention
Center at
about 11:30 a.m. (immediately after the meeting ends).
The sponsors include the Alliance@IBM/CWA Local
1701, Jobs
with Justice, the Programmers
Guild, TORAW (The Organization
for the Rights of American Workers). More information can be had at the link
on the headline above or by calling Ralph Montefusco at (802)
598-5613 or email him at Rmontefu@Sover.Net.
Offshoring -- sometimes called outsourcing -- is the practice of hiring workers
in countries that pay lower wages to do jobs formerly done here. Here's a page with
more information about it.
Offshoring permits companies to make more profits, keeping shareholders happy,
but leaves American workers unemployed. While those who favor outsourcing suggest
Americans need to educate themselves for more skilled jobs, it's hard to imagine
what jobs we might train for that Indians couldn't learn as well.
Gina Minks of Milford, Mass., whose Displaced
Techies blog focuses on offshoring/outsourcing, sent along the rally news..
And since it's tax day, I'll point again to an item from Gina:
Who is
checking your tax return?
Or maybe I should say, where is your tax return getting checked?
There is a good chance it's being done in India...
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A9
update: The Slashdot crowd has
some reservations about A9, which seem to have been anticipated, since there's
also a generic A9 that
doesn't save your searches (which might be seen by your company).
Link
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Thanks for the sweet sounds, Porky Cohen: Also, updating yesterday's
first news, former Roomful of Blues trombonist Porky
Cohen's obit is now online (his first name was Zolman) and Journal
music writer Rick Massimo offers an appreciation: R&B
all-star Porky Cohen left us swinging. (both reg.req.)
Link
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April 14, 2004, 7:27 p.m.
A9 -- Amazon's
new Web search engine -- is live: A9 launched its public beta
test today. It's a subsidiary of Amazon, but searches the entire web, not
just
the
retailer.
(Web search
results
are licensed from Google.) It will
search inside books, though. From the "What's
Cool" page:
Search Inside the Book™: In addition to web search results we present
book results from Amazon.com that include Search Inside the Book. When
you see an excerpt on any of the book results, click on the page number to
see
the actual page from that book. (You will need to be registered at Amazon.com.)
Dan
Gillmor suggests you notice the tabs on the right of your results page,
and points to an analysis on John Battelle's Searchblog: A9,
Amazon's
Search Portal, Goes Live: Reverberations Felt in Valley
Link
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Google search of "Jew" leads with anti-Semitic site: Search
Google for the word "Jew" and the first result is an anti-Semitic
site called jewwatch.com that bills itself as "Keeping
a Close Watch on Jewish Communities & Organizations Worldwide." (I
haven't linked to it, deliberately, because links drive it higher in Google's
rankings.
You know how to get there if you want to rubberneck.)
A site called Remove
JewWatch.org is collecting petition signatures to get Google to delist
it.
Google, in the name of free speech, has
refused to delist the site, since
it is not doing anything illegal. Instead, on the results page that leads with
the anti-Semitic site, Google has posted,
Offensive Search Results
www.google.com/explanation We're disturbed about these results as well. Please
read our note here.
and points to a
note at the Anti-Defamation League:
Google Search Ranking of Hate Sites Not Intentional
An e-mail campaign suggests that Google intentionally lists a hate site
as the first item that comes up when searching under "Jew" or "Jews." While
it is true that hate sites do appear when certain search terms are used,
their appearance and rank are not controlled by Google. Google employs technology
that automatically ranks sites based on a complicated formula called an algorithm.
The ranking of Jewwatch and other hate sites is in no way due to a conscious
choice by Google, but solely is a result of this automated system of ranking.
When searching under the term "Jew," the top result in Google at
the time of this writing is the hate site "Jewwatch." This site is
run by Frank Weltner, who also uses the online monikers "Von Goldstein
Mohammad" and "Couch Potato." "Jewwatch" has been
in existence since 1997. The longevity of ownership, the way articles are posted
to it, the links to and from the site, and the structure of the site itself
all increase the ranking of "Jewwatch" within the Google formula.
(Thanks to my colleague Don Sockol for this news.)
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Trombonist Porky
Cohen died today, according to my colleague Andy Smith, former
Journal music writer now covering TV. (There's no obit yet, though.) Cohen
had joined Roomful of
Blues in 1979 and was a high-profile member through 1988.
Andy did a profile of Cohen once, and said his only regret was that he had
a chance to tour Europe with Duke Ellington, but had just married and didn't
want to leave his new bride for months on the road.
MSNBC
reports, "He started playing trombone at 13 and considers Jack Teagarden
his most important early influence."
You can hear clips from the album at right at Amazon -- it's the headline
link.
Link
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Low-carb
diets blamed for increase in cattle rustling: The Washington Post
reports:
The growing national popularity of high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets has
kept beef prices high, even after the threat of mad cow disease arose in the
Pacific Northwest late last year. But law enforcement officials say that Americans'
new eating habits also appear to be inspiring a new generation of rustlers
to steal and sell cattle, particularly newborn calves not yet seared with identifying
brands, in illicit marketplaces for substantial profit.
Carbwire -- yet another
low-carb blog -- gives the "heads up."
Link
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Here's a transcript of President Bush's press conference last night.
Link
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War
Bowl: A series of three bowls made by melting toy soldiers,
ninjas and knights. 99 pounds from MosleyMeetsWilcox, but it's conceptual
art to me.
via BoingBoing, as was the previous item.
Link
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Veep-O-Matic 2004: The Washington Post, choose up to five characteristics
you might want in a running mate for John Kerry. I actually only saw four characteristics
that matter to me, so I got a slew of possibilities.
via J.D. Lasica
Link
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Suzy
Wetlaufer Preparing To Be 'Neutron Jackie': Trashy read of the
day. Retired General Electric chairman Jack Welch, and Suzy Wetlaufer, 44-year-old
former
editor
of the
Harvard Business Review, are to marry April 24 in Boston. The "Neutron Jackie"
reference is to Welch's unflattering nickname at GE -- "Neutron Jack."
Link
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April 13, 2004, 7:27 p.m. -- (Last
week's weblog)
EPpy
Awards' 2004
new media news finalists: EPpy
Awards are Editor & Publisher's
annual kudos -- they "honor the best new media work by media companies" --
and the nominees make
a nice set of links for browsing.
Many deal with important, serious subjects, but it's too late in the day for
that for me. Here are the cooler things that caught my eye:
• Onwisconsin.com's
coverage of Harley's 100th
• Court Tv's coverage of
the $300 million art heist from Boston's Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum
• USATODAY.com -- West
Virginia NewSong Festival
• N.Y. Newsday.com's 150 years of Central Park
Oh, and ... projo.com is again a finalist for our Station
Fire coverage -- again,
including my Station Fire
blog -- but we're not going there...
Related: Why
Pulitzer board couldn't come up with a features winner at the Keene (N.H.)
Sentinel. Via Romenesko,
who boils it down this way:
Keene Sentinel executive editor Tom Kearney was one of the seven Pulitzer
jurors for feature writing. "It was my first brush with Pulitzer madness,
and madness it is," he writes. "Some newspapers are absolutely crazed
about winning journalism’s top prize." WHY NO PRIZE?: "From
what I can glean -- all this is hearsay, but since the Pulitzer decision
has descended into gossip, hearsay seems okay -- each of the three finalists
had
its own constituency on the board, none of the factions would budge, no majority
vote was possible, so no prize was awarded."
Sounds like Survivor
in suits.
Link
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The
Killing Fields: Copyright Law and its challenges sounds heavy, but it's
not. J.D. Lasica writes at Mindjack:
For years, all was peaceful in the house of Horowitz. Jed Horowitz, a 53-year-old
New Jersey entrepreneur with sharply chiseled features and gleaming bald head,
had been running a small video operation called Video Pipeline that took Hollywood
films, created two-minute trailers to help promote them, and distributed them
to online retailers such as Netflix, BestBuy, and Barnes and Noble, as well
as public libraries. Then one day in 2000, the Walt Disney Co. sent a cease-and-desist
order, charging that Horowitz's company was violating Disney's copyright by
featuring portions of their movies online.
Horowitz was astonished that his seven-employee company--which, after all,
had always showcased Disney films in a favorable light--was being bullied by
a $90 billion behemoth. Horowitz decided to fight. He filed suit, asking for
a declaratory judgment. Disney filed a countersuit--and quickly made clear
they were playing for keeps. They asked for $110 million in damages.
During litigation, his lawyers advised Horowitz to keep quiet. But there was
no reason he couldn't make a movie about his ordeal. Earlier in his career
he worked at Roger Corman's low-budget movie factory, helping turn out such
classics as Slumber Party Massacre 2 and Rock 'n' Roll High School Forever.
Now he reached back to his documentary roots to tell his own story.
Originally, he planned to call his new first-person film Mickey and Me. But
as he heard of other, similar incidents, he realized the story had a larger
context. He and a videographer then spent several months and $15,000 canvassing
the nation to create Willful Infringement, a call-to-arms about the clash between
free expression and the ownership of ideas.
"My mother was a children's librarian, and she imbued me with a world
view that culture is a conversation, that you don't own stories, you share
them," he tells me. "What has happened over the past few decades
is that culture has become privatized to the point where we're now facing
a crisis. We need to remember we can still quote and sample, we still have
fair
use. As a free culture, we're still allowed to do things without permission." ...
Willful Infringement has a site
of its own, and you can preview it
here.
Unfortunately, $54.99 to buy it nearly guarantees few will see it.
Link
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Bitchbox
Revisited at mediabistro.com:
Two years ago, a young Hearst editorial assistant sent mb's "Bitchbox" an
anonymous rant about her job—which, after a Hearst investigation, she
didn't keep for much longer. Now she's unmasking herself and explaining why
she did it.
Link
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The war news is all bad. But if
this is true, this is the worst of
all. From the Telegraph (UK):
...One senior (British) Army officer told The Telegraph that America's aggressive
methods were causing friction among allied commanders and that there was
a growing
sense of "unease and frustration" among the British high command.
The officer, who agreed to the interview on the condition of anonymity,
said that part of the problem was that American troops viewed Iraqis as untermenschen - the Nazi expression for "sub-humans".
Speaking from his base in southern Iraq, the officer said: "My view
and the view of the British chain of command is that the Americans' use of
violence
is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are facing.
They don't see the Iraqi people the way we see them. They view them as
untermenschen. They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life in the
way the British
are. Their attitude towards the Iraqis is tragic, it's awful.
"The US troops view things in very simplistic terms. It seems hard
for them to reconcile subtleties between who supports what and who doesn't
in Iraq.
It's easier for their soldiers to group all Iraqis as the bad guys. As
far as they are concerned Iraq is bandit country and everybody is out to
kill them."
The phrase untermenschen - literally "under-people" - was
brought to prominence by Adolf Hitler in his book Mein Kampf, published
in 1925. He used the term to describe those he regarded as racially inferior:
Jews,
Slaves (Slavs?) and gipsies.
We're not even at war with Iraq, they're not the enemy. We're there to liberate
them.
Related: How
GI bullies are making enemies of their Iraqi friends. From Australia.
Link
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A First Look At Google's Gmail. At Forbes.
Related: Lawmaker moves to block Google's Gmail
April 12, 2004, 7:27 p.m.
JFK's religious issue returns as 'Is Kerry Catholic
enough to be president?'
From the Boston Globe (Kerry
celebrates with Communion),
Kerry's religious practices have been the subject of recent discussion as
some Catholics have questioned his support for abortion and the senator has
openly split with the church on some teachings, such as by supporting the concept
of priests marrying.
He also violated church canon last weekend when he took Communion at a Protestant
church, the Charles Street AME Church in Boston. The question of whether he
might be denied Communion yesterday was stoked by comments made by Boston Archbishop
Sean P. O'Malley and other church leaders.
Last summer, just before being installed, O'Malley issued a statement declaring, "A
Catholic politician who holds a public, pro-choice position should not be receiving
Communion and should refrain from doing so." But O'Malley also said, "It
is not our policy to deny Communion. It is up to the individual."
Kerry also divorced his first wife, raising further questions about his
eligibility to receive Communion, but an aide told the Globe in 2000 that
Kerry had that
marriage annulled. Last week, a Kerry aide reiterated that "the senator
is in good standing with his church."
Speaking with reporters last week in Cincinnati, Kerry rebuffed the questions.
"There is separation of church and state in America. We have prided
ourselves on that all of my lifetime," the senator told reporters Tuesday. "I
fully intend to continue to practice my religion as separately from what
I do with respect to my public life, and that's the way it ought to be in
America."
Separation of church and state mandates a leader with a conscience, not a religious
agenda.
We are of many religions and spritual notions in America, and we have, in
the past, largely come eventually to our senses when one group's beliefs were
thrust upon the nation. (Prohibition and divorce come first to mind.) We ask
other religions in the world to learn to tolerate each other.
But here is the Boston Globe reciting John Kerry's alleged sins. The Catholic
faith promotes examination of conscience, not promotion of the Vatican hierarchy's
policies. An American politician should not be an agent of any religious agenda.
Cardinal O'Malley's jabs at Kerry will be felt by every parishioner who has
ever thought birth control might be a blessing, abortion may sometimes be
necessary, a married priesthood would attract more good men, women might
be priests,
and politeness demands we participate when we find ourselves at services of
other faiths.
They should be resented by everyone who values freedom of conscience.
Democratic Nominee
John F. Kennedy addressed the "religious issue" in
a speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. at the Rice Hotel
in Houston, Texas on September 12, 1960:
"I do not speak for my church on public matters--and the church does
not speak for me.
"Whatever issue may come before me as President--on birth control,
divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject--I will make my decision
in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells
me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious
pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me
to decide
otherwise.
"But if the time should ever come--and I do not concede any conflict to
be even remotely possible--when my office would require me to either violate
my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office;
and I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same."
Here's an audio
clip. But please read the whole speech. He says things that need
hearing again. Like this:
"I believe in an America where the separation of church and state
is absolute--where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he
be
Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishoners
for whom to vote--where no church or church school is granted any public
funds or political preference--and where no man is denied public office merely
because
his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people
who might elect him.
"I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant
nor Jewish--where no public official either requests or accepts instructions
on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any
other ecclesiastical source--where no religious body seeks to impose its
will directly
or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials--and
where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church
is treated as an act against all."
And,
"I want a Chief Executive whose public acts are responsible to all
groups and obligated to none--who can attend any ceremony, service or dinner
his office
may appropriately require of him--and whose fulfillment of his Presidential
oath is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation."
Before this speech, many non-Catholics feared that Rome would dictate American
policy to Kennedy if he were elected. His eloquence largely calmed their fears.
Cardinal O'Malley risks forcing Kerry to choose between his religion and his
country when he threatens to withhold Communion from Kerry and other Catholic
politicians who think the political positions of the Church may not be
the best course for America. Indeed, Pope John Paul II opposed the war
in Iraq, for
which Kerry
voted.
We
have seen in the Middle East the dreadful cost of wars fueled by religious
beliefs.
The Bush administration speaks of exporting the secular state ("freedom")
to replace governments based on Islamic religious authority. But in the United
States today, conservative Christian politicians are introducing bills that
would write their churches' religious beliefs into our civil laws, while orthodox
Roman Catholics attack Mr. Kerry for not emulating them.
We're not far from fractiousness ourselves here.
The separation of church and state is a pillar of the Constitution, and of
this melting pot that freedom from somebody else's religion makes possible.
Beware, lest we become what we abhor.
Related: You might want to read the comments
at BeliefNet about church and state alongside Kennedy's speech. And, religionwriters.com has
a special report, Kennedy
to Kerry: Catholics and the White House with lots of links and background
information.
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The
Commercial Dispatch is
the hometown paper of Thomas Hamill, 43, a Macon, Miss., man being held hostage
in Iraq. Older
stories are here. From Macon
residents wait for word on hostage's fate:
Hamill works for the Houston-based engineering and construction company Kellogg,
Brown & Root, a division of Halliburton, which has hired
as many as 27,000 people, many of them Americans, to supply U.S. troops and
rebuild
Iraq's infrastructure.
... A Halliburton official visited the family Sunday
night but made no comment, and there has been no public word on Hamill, who
grew up in Noxubee County and left last September in hopes the high-paying
job in Iraq would bail out his family's financial obligations.
Several hundred residents, many wearing yellow ribbons and writing notes of
support for the family, gathered Sunday night for a vigil outside the Noxubee
County Courthouse to offer prayers and comfort for Hamill, his wife, Kellie,
who is on leave from her job as a 911 dispatcher, and their two children..
...Lamar White, who owns a country store, said he has known Hamill his whole
life and described him as a "good guy," a family man with a young
son and daughter.
Hamill was in the store recently when he was home on emergency leave during
his wife's open-heart surgery. At the time, they talked about Hamill's experiences
in Iraq.
"He said it wasn't bad over there once you got used to it," White
said. "He said it just takes a while to get adjusted, but when you do
it's all right."
... Hamill's father and uncle started a dairy farm 30 years ago, and Hamill
had taken over the operation, friends said. But like many other small dairy
operations, he fell victim to declining milk prices and high feed costs and
sold the last of his herd last summer. But the sale did not cover all his debts.
He knew the dangers, but his commitment to his family took him to Iraq, friends
said.
Other stories there: Kidnapping
draws war issues into community; Media descends on Macon for Hamill story
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Oyster art:
Machine Project announces the opening of Organized by artist Phillip
Ross...
Artist, amateur bio-engineer and member of the San Francisco mycological society,
Mr. Ross uses living organisms as the inspiration and means by which he makes
his work. Through the design and creation of highly controlled environments,
Mr. Ross manipulates, nurtures and transforms a variety of living species into
sculpture.
Phillip has worked collaboratively with a number of institutions. In 2001,
The Exploratorium in San Francisco invited him to be an artist in residence
for their Life Science Department. While there, he designed and constructed
a hydroponic garden and fountain for their Traits Of Life exhibit.
He has also worked with the Johnson Oyster farm in Tomales Bay, just north
of San Francisco, where he devised a method of growing a colony of oysters
onto an armature, a three-year process that produced a twenty-foot long architectural
structure composed of a mass of fused oyster shells.
Mr. Ross’s work lies at the disparate intersection of homegrown technologies,
folk art, materials science, and D.I.Y. cultivation techniques. The show
includes a series of Reishi mushrooms grown into highly artificed forms,
the aforementioned
sculpture grown out of oysters, and a self-contained survival capsule for
one living plant. These sculptures are at once highly crafted and naturally
formed,
skillfully manipulated and sloppily organic.
via BoingBoing
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McDonald's offers bunless option: UPI,
McDonalds restaurant officials say they will soon offer most of their sandwiches
without buns upon request at all of 13,600 U.S. stores.
William Whitman, company spokesman for the Oak Brook-based fast-food company,
said customers will be able to order any McDonald's sandwich without a bun,
except breakfast sandwiches, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
A hamburger, chicken or fish portion will be served in a salad bowl on top
of lettuce, with a knife and fork....
The bunless option -- which costs the same as sandwiches with a bun -- will
not appear on the menu, nor will McDonald's advertise the option. But the
company said it will mention the feature, among other nutritional information,
in its "McDonald's
and You" brochures.
Reports elsewhere say the stealth item will be available next month.
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When
the Edge Moved to the Middle: Thurston Moore, of the band Sonic Youth, in
the N.Y. Times,
"...When Kurt (Cobain) died, a lot of the capitalized froth of alternative
rock fizzled. Mainstream rock lost its kingpin group, an unlikely one imbued
with
avant-garde
genius, and contemporary rock became harder and meaner, more aggressive
and dumbed down and sexist. Rage and aggression were elements for Kurt to
play
with as an artist, but he was profoundly gentle and intelligent. He was
sincere in his distaste for bullyboy music — always pronouncing his
love for queer culture, feminism and the punk rock do-it-yourself ideal.
Most people
who adapt punk as a lifestyle represent these ideals, but with one of the
finest rock voices ever heard, Kurt got to represent them to an attentive
world. Whatever
contact he made was really his most valued success.
"You wouldn't know it now by looking at MTV, with its scorn-metal buffoons
and Disney-damaged pop idols, but the underground scene Kurt came from is
more creative and exciting than it's ever been. From radical pop to sensorial
noise-action
to the subterranean forays in drone-folk-psyche-improv, all the music Kurt
adored is very much alive and being played by amazing artists he didn't live
to see, artists who recognize Kurt as a significant and honorable muse. ..."
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3:47 p.m. Later today -- Kerry and Communion: The "religious issue" issue
is back. Also, art from oysters and mushrooms, and bunless Atkins burgers
at McDonald's.
Reader: 'What you did was just plain sick': In response
to Friday's 
"Moving
image: A mosaic of soldiers who have died in Iraq. In the full-sized
version, you can see every face," John K. White writes,
Nice way to tap dance on the graves of the soldiers who died in Iraq. I'm
no Bush fan either but what you did was just plain sick. The only person sicker
than you is the panty-waste liberal who created that image. You both must come
from great families. I'd love for you to justify to the families of these soldiers
how you came across the idea to exploit their deaths. But I doubt you would
have the courage to do so.
Being a liberal you don't have enough common sense to realize that people who
serve and go to war, do so in order that people like you don't have to. And
they also give you the opportunity to hide behind freedom of speach,which you
seem quite good at.
Perhaps someone should urinate on your grave after you are dead and buried.
I can tell you this, I wouldn't stoop to your level and do something like
that but I'd shake the hand of the person that did.:
Lynn Withrow writes,
Maybe someone can help me here? A mosaic of the presidents face out of dead
soldiers? Why? What is supposed to be the message in this? There is not
a day that goes by that I don't think about the men and woman who are fighting
for our
safety
and dying for it. I thank them in a way words cannot describe.
War is death, war is pain, war is a necessary evil that is needed to protect
all of the men who have died for this country in the past wars and the
present. The ultimate sacrifice. A mosaic like this is truly disrespectful
to the
families of these men and woman.
Maybe I am perceiving this wrong? It seems a bit anti-American to me.
We Will Never Forget? I think too many people have already, it is sad and
will devastate this country.
Art is meant to disturb, to rearrange our view of reality. I think the mosaic
of the dead soldiers' faces is extremely moving. I have not seen these portraits
gathered
together
elsewhere.
The President -- every President, as commander-in-chief -- is ultimately
reponsible for
decisions
that may lead to
the
deaths of America's men and women in military service. History will evaluate
the rightness of those decisions, but the responsibility is always his.
You may feel the Iraq war is justified
or not; you may believe the right to political dissent is part of
what Americans soldiers have always fought and died for, or you may believe
dissent is a luxury that is only affordable in peacetime.
You may argue your
views passionately with respect for those who disagree with you, or vilify
them in ways that reveal far more about you than about the rightness of
your cause.
But the dialogue matters: The free exchange of ideas is essential to American
freedom. And one of the responsibilities of journalists is
to foster the debate upon which democracy depends. Debate away...
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