Belo layoffs

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The DMN Doesn't Cover Hyperlocal News

I read The Dallas Morning News online. I read a handful of their blogs. I read other local blogs. I know what to expect to find - and expect not to find - on each. So, I was not surprised to read about another round of layoffs coming at the DMN on PegasusNews, not the DMN itself. PegasusNews links to the story on Frontburner, so there is another news source with the story before the DMN itself. Finally, four and a half hours after Frontburner's story, Bruce Tomaso refers obliquely to the layoffs in a blog item on the DMN Religion blog titled, "From Thomas Merton, a prayer for uncertain times." Talk about burying the lede. His blog item is not about the layoffs, but about a prayer for uncertain times. He does link to an external site (not PegasusNews, not Frontburner) that includes the Belo letter to employees announcing the cost-cutting plans.

Ironically, earlier this week, Mike Hashimoto, on the DMN Opinion blog, posted an item discussing the sad state of the newspaper business model. Numerous readers had the same solution. "Chuck Bloom" said, "Local newspapers need to concentrate on 'local.'" What's more local than something happening right in the newsroom, all around the reporters busy at their phones and keyboards? Who is in a better position to report and comment? Who actually does? Not the DMN. Ironic, no?

Good luck to all the employees in the news business, including those at the DMN. But this tiny anecdote says something about why things are the way they are.

Global warming

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Lake Erie is Iced Over

Rodger Jones casts doubt on global warming by passing on news from his mother in Cleveland that Lake Erie has completely frozen over. Let's assume he's making a small joke as way of introduction of his more serious point, which is to cite a minority staff report issued by Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) of the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee titled, "More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims."

Jones says (jokingly again?) that he wished he understood global warming science as much as he gets the politics. He mocks Al Gore for warning of temperature changes that "would bring a screeching halt to human civilization." But he doesn't even identify Sen. Inhofe, perpetual climate change denier and easily mocked himself, as the source of the press release listing the dissenting "scientists." It sounds like Jones does know a lot about how to play politics.

Let's take a look at Inhofe's list of 650 "scientists," up from 400 in a list he published in 2007. The list includes physicists, biologists and even TV weathermen, probably all with good credentials in their field, but which usually isn't climate science. Some of the people on the list aren't even climate change deniers. For example, meteorologist George Waldenberger was on the 2007 list. In response, he contacted Inhofe's staffers and requested, "Take me off your list of 400 (Prominent) Scientists that dispute Man-Made Global warming claims. I’ve never made any claims that debunk the 'Consensus.'" Guess what? He's still on Inhofe's updated 2008 list. Some estimate the list to be 80-90% bogus, leaving a few dozen credible climate skeptics, compared to thousands of qualified, practicing climate scientists who remain convinced of human-caused emissions being the dominant cause of climate change. It looks like the scientific consensus is still solid.

For more information about climate change, I recommend RealClimate.org.

The Reason for God

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Tim Keller book wins Christianity Today award

Sam Hodges, without comment, tells us on The Dallas Morning News Religion blog that Tim Keller's book "The Reason for God" has won Christianity Today's award for best apologetics/evangelism book of 2008.

The title sounded promising. Reason and God together. Could Tim Keller make a logically compelling case for the existence of God? The judges' blurb seemed to say yes:

"The best apologetics book of the new millennium. This powerful study by the charismatic pastor of New York's Redeemer Presbyterian Church synthesizes most of the strongest arguments for Christian faith, boldly answers the 'New Atheists,' and posits Christianity as the world's only hope for peace."

The book is divided into two sections. The first considers and rebuts the most common objections to belief in God. The second offers seven reasons for belief in the Christian God.

Sadly, the book does not live up to its promise. The rebuttals to atheists' arguments amount to little more than pointing out that atheists can never prove that God does *not* exist. God can do anything and his ways are mysterious, so suffering, injustice, miracles, etc., no matter how inconsistent with our notion of a good and loving God, or how inconsistent with our scientific knowledge, are all still possible, even if humans can't make any sense of God's doings.

No argument from me on this front. Atheists can't prove God does not exist. Likewise, no one will ever disprove the existence of Bertrand Russell's celestial teapot, orbiting the Sun between Earth and Mars, too small to be seen by even our most powerful telescopes. But don't take that as an argument for belief in its existence, either.

The second section offers reasons for belief in God. Keller eventually admits that "there cannot be irrefutable proof for the existence of God." Keller calls his reasons "clues" whose accumulated weight can be formidable. For example, he says everything we know in this world has a cause outside itself. So, he reasons that the universe itself must have a cause outside itself -- God.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that what we now know of quantum physics, the classical notion of cause and effect, what everyone considers common sense, is simply wrong. Things do happen without cause, strange as that might seem. Also, if the universe (which is everything, including time and space themselves) had a cause outside itself, then that cause is also part of what we call the universe, by definition. As logical as Keller thinks he is by saying the universe must have a cause, he is just as illogical by saying that there's something that isn't part of everything.

Keller's other "clues" are equally fallacious. Perhaps Keller's biggest fallacy is his inconsistency in reasoning. His implicit claim is that the accumulated weight of his clues for God makes a convincing reason to believe in God. But he does not accumulate the weight of all the clues against (remember? suffering, injustice, miracles, etc.). On Keller's balance scale, the clues against God get discarded one by one because individually they don't pass his proof test, leaving an empty balance pan on one side, whereas the clues for God get piled up on the other side until their weight tips the scale in favor of God.

At the end of his book, Keller talks about the plausibility of Christianity and calls on readers to make a faith commitment, an "all-or-nothing choice" of allegiance to Jesus. Keller doesn't say it, but that leap of faith is needed because reason alone won't get you there. And that's what makes this book ultimately disappointing. It fails to live up to its title, "The Reason for God."

Science curriculum; Education accountability

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SBOE: On Step Forward, One Back

Steve Blow, in The Dallas Morning News Metro blog, weighs in on last week's preliminary votes by the Texas State Board of Education on science curriculum standards. Blow's opinion? "The right-wing bloc basically wants humans exempted from evolution."

The way I read it, the right-wing bloc wants all life on earth exempted. The lost the vote to keep the requirement to teach "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution, then slipped in a requirement to teach arguments "for and against" common ancestry and "sufficiency and insufficiency" of evolution to explain the fossil record.

Wonder what kind of lessons that language would enable? During the hearing, Don McLeroy, the chairman of the State Board of Education and a dentist in private practice, suggested that the fact that teeth fit together so perfectly was a sign of the weakness of the theory of evolution.

When people say Texas is becoming the laughingstock of the nation regarding science education, I don't think they are exaggerating. Steve Blow cites a New York Times editorial on the subject:

"The lesson we draw from these shenanigans is that scientifically illiterate boards of education should leave the curriculum to educators and scientists who know what constitutes a sound education."

Texas voters should retire the SBOE members who want our kids to learn religion instead of science in science classes. SBOE members like Don McLeroy, Cynthia Dunbar and Terri Leo don't know the damage they are doing to Texas' reputation and, more importantly, the education of our children.

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TAKS' Mismeasured "Achievement Gap"

William McKenzie, in a Viewpoints essay in The Dallas Morning News, takes a crack at improving education in America. He bases it on his observation that Barack Obama is a product of Columbia University and Harvard Law School and Michelle Obama graduated from Princeton. McKenzie asks:

"Why wouldn't everyone in this country want to devote as much attention as possible to enabling every child to have those same opportunities? ... Why are we even having this debate? What parent doesn't want his or her child learning at grade level?"

Let me take a crack at answering. The measurement system called for by the federal "No Child Left Behind" act and the state program "Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills" (TAKS) defines a minimum level that students must achieve. It's all well and good to require our education system to do its very best to prepare children to get over that low bar. But let's not pretend that getting over that low bar will get our students into Columbia, Princeton, and Harvard. Only the top students will achieve that and then only if our schools pay attention to them, too. So, one explanation for some of the dissatisfaction with the TAKS system is not that it "teaches to the test" but that the test is only minimally helpful. We need programs tailored to all our students, from underachievers to overachievers. TAKS is not that program.

One of the ironies of TAKS is that it doesn't even necessarily measure one of the main goals of the program, what McKenzie calls closing the "achievement gap" between white and minority kids. TAKS measures how many kids get over that low bar, not by how much they exceed the standard. Say we reach the state where every last kid in class gets over that bar. TAKS would say the "achievement gap" has closed to zero. In reality, the minority kids all might be just making it over the bar, while the white kids are vaulting higher and higher each year. The real achievement gap between white and minority may be as wide as ever and even growing. TAKS is not designed to measure that.

Those are just a couple reasons why we are even having this debate. It's not that people have a problem with the goal that every child should learn at grade level. It's that many people want more than that. They want every child to learn to his maximum potential.

EightMaps.com

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Rod Dreher Comes for You

Last week, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, Rod Dreher defended the free speech rights of an anti-Islamic politician, Geert Wilders, who is being charged with inciting hatred and discrimation against Muslims. This weekend, in a Viewpoints column in The Dallas Morning News, Rod Dreher stands up for the contributors to the anti-gay Proposition 8 in California that discriminates based on sexual orientation. So far, Rod Dreher is being consistent, supporting the bigots in both cases.

It's the logic Rod uses in each case that twists his principles into knots. In the case of Geert Wilders, free speech is the overriding principle Rod defends. No matter that Wilders is considered to be a despicable bigot (a point Dreher never makes), I agree with Dreher that he has a right to speak his mind, no matter how much civil, enlightened people disagree with his vile politics (Rod Dreher excluded).

In the California case, however, it's the people exercising their free speech rights who Rod condemns and wants to suppress. California law makes public the names and addresses of donors to political causes. Someone has taken those long lists of names, sorted alphabetically, and reformatted them geographically, using Google Maps. He published the result on a web site EightMaps.com. How would such information be useful? Grass-roots organizers can use it to drive get-out-the-vote efforts, avoiding the strongholds of the anti-gay faction. Activists can use it to identify the locations of people to lobby to change their position. And everyone can use it to identify which neighbors might be a danger to their civil liberties. After all, if today they come for gays, tomorrow they might come for you.

In an older Opinion blog posting, Rod Dreher suggested he might become sympathetic to striking down the law that allows sites like EightMaps.com to exist. In his latest essay, Dreher has the effrontery to quote Robert Bolt's play "A Man for all Seasons" to support his inclination to suppress sites like EightMaps.com.

Roper: Cut a road through the law to get after the Devil? Yes. I'd cut down every law in England to do that.

More: And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned on you where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? ... I give the Devil benefit of law for my own safety's sake.

If there's a William Roper at work in Dallas, it's Rod Dreher himself. He may think the gay rights activists are devils, but he ought to give his devils the benefit of the law for his own safety's sake. The bigotry he aims against gays today may someday be aimed against bigots like himself.

Sportsmanship

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Covenant 100 - Academy 0

Rod Dreher, in The Dallas Morning News tells us that the headmaster of The Covenant School apologized to Dallas Academy for the school's 100-0 victory in a girls' basketball game, which the headmaster called a "victory without honor." Rod Dreher says "Bravo" for the way the school is trying to make amends, including a request to the league to have the win erased by forfeiture. I second Dreher's response to this situation. I don't endorse many of the reader responses.

"angi" says the apology is "too little, too late." It's never too late to apologize. It's never appropriate to snub an apology, even a late apology.

"PaulC" says "Apologize and stop parading the apology before the public." If the Academy girls were embarrassed by the loss, then publicizing the apology only exacerbates the embarrassment. But "PaulC" is assuming that Covenant is the one "parading the apology." I'm more inclined to believe the media is doing the parading and the story is out of Covenant's control now. But there is a lesson there. An immediate apology, coach-to-coach, the night of the game, might have prevented the story from escalating out of control.

"David" says "Here's what bothers me the most. The school, coaches, and team responsible for the run-up come from a well known Christian School." Christian schools aren't the only schools that teach sportsmanship. Secular schools do, too, and just as seriously. When any of them fall short, it's equally disappointing.

"jim mitchell" asks "Would 40-0 be beter? Or 10-0?" In a word, yes. Coaches understand how to keep from running up the score. Other teams appreciate the courtesy. When a coach does run up the score, he demonstrates poor sportsmanship. For most fans, poor sport is synonymous with loser, even when the scoreboard reads 100-0 in your favor.

Geert Wilders

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Free Speech on Trial in the Netherlands

Rod Dreher, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, reports that Geert Wilders, the far-right, racist, Islamophobic Dutch politician has been ordered to stand trial for incitement of hatred and discrimination against Muslims. Dreher is livid. How much of Dreher's outrage is in defense of free speech and how much is in defense of this bigot's anti-Muslim politics is not clear. Combine the two and you can be sure it gets the full Rod Dreher treatment.

"It boggles the mind to imagine it."
"It is infuriating to watch..."
"It's outrageous to think that now people in the Netherlands risk criminal prosecution for criticizing religion and religious believers."

Think back seventy years. The people Rod Dreher would be defending would be the Nazis. The free speech he would be defending would be Nazi incitements to hatred and discrimination against the Jews. The Dutch, who suffered in the Holocaust, naturally are less enamored of racist bigots exploiting free speech rights than is Rod Dreher, who himself doesn't have much good to say about Muslims, the targets of today's hate speech.

The lesson Dreher draws from this is a classic case of blaming the victim. He argues that "the Dutch court's action goes a long way toward vindicating Wilders' claim that the Dutch are losing their freedoms and their democracy because of the Muslim presence among them." In fact, Muslims are the targets of Wilder's hate speech, not the reason the Dutch are losing their freedoms. Lay the blame for that on Geert Wilders, who is testing the limits of free speech rights in the Netherlands with his despicable, racist, bigoted public utterances.

Personally, I stand for the right of free speech, not out of sympathy for the likes of Geert Wilders, but for myself. Thomas More, in the play A Man for All Seasons, dramatically said, "I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!" Geert Wilders is a despicable man with despicable politics. But free speech must be a right for the despicable if it is to be a right for the rest of us, too. The trouble with Rod Dreher's blog is that one can't help but suspect that Dreher admires Geert Wilders' extremism as much as or even more than he cherishes free speech.

I summarized the above in a one sentence comment posted on The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog: "I can't tell if Rod Dreher is upset because free speech is under attack or because a racist Islamophobe is under attack." I was censored. My comment was deleted. Ironic, no?

P.S. Before you apply Godwin's law to my post, note that Geert Wilders himself has compared Muslims to Nazis. So, a case can be made that I wasn't the first to raise Nazis in this debate. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

Inauguration; Hope

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Inaugural Prayers

Did it seem to anyone else that everywhere you looked in Washington, DC, the last few days, someone was praying? And someone was complaining about said prayers? Opening prayer at Sunday's kickoff concert at Lincoln Memorial. Inauguration day morning prayer service at St. John's Church. Inaugural invocation. Inaugural benediction. Blessing before Presidential luncheon. Prayer for Senator Ted Kennedy. Whoever said liberals banished God from the public sphere must not have been listening. The Dallas Morning News Religion blog had no shortage of topics, spilling over to the Opinion blog and Trailblazers blog.

The Rev. Rick Warren may have been given the prime speaking spot, with the inauguration invocation, but the Rev Joseph Lowery stole the show with the benediction. Long after people forget what Rick Warren said (like immediately), people will remember and smile at Joseph Lowery's closing:

"We ask you to help us work for that day
when black will not be asked to get back,
when brown can stick around,
when yellow will be mellow,
when the red man can get ahead, man,
and when white can embrace what is right.
That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen."

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Inaugural Hope

Blogger Bethany, in a post on her blog, The Eleventy Billionth Blog, reasonably points out that, "whether you were pleased with the results of the election or not, ... hope should be the overwhelming response of any Inauguration Day, regardless of who is taking the oath."

Leave it to Trey Garrison, in a comment, to disagree.

"I think the desire to rule over your fellow free men and women is a sickness. I’m further repulsed by the kind of drive it takes to achieve this power at whatever level, from city council to the office of POTUS."

Trey Garrison mischaracterizes the American experience. He sees government, not as us, but as them. He sees our President not as a leader of free people, freely chosen, but as an authoritarian ruler of a "nationalist, quasi-police state." He sees American government not as the world's longest-lasting democratic republic, but as anathema to liberty. Garrison says that "It’s far beyond the point that any viable man or party will enact my wishes -- for a government that leaves honest people alone to live as they choose -- so I won’t waste my time trying to reform it."

It must suck to be Trey Garrison. For someone who says he doesn't care what Obama and others of his kind have to say, Garrison sure does spend a lot of time criticizing it. Garrison is not able to rejoice in community, in common cause, in Abraham Lincoln's America and its noble cause of "government of the people, by the people, for the people." Garrison probably doesn't want my sympathy, he probably feels good about himself, but he sure makes depressing reading for others. He is Typhoid Trey, immune from the disease himself, but spreading pessimism and despair to others.

To get the bitter taste of Trey Garrison out of my mouth, I'll close with a quotation offered by Peggy Noonan yesterday. She quoted from William Wordsworth's poem about the French Revolution. The spirit of the early days of that historic time was similar to the feelings that many Americans will take away from yesterday's inauguration of Barack Obama:

"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!"

President Barack Obama

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Looking Back: Obama's Run for President

On this historic day, the inauguration of President Barack Obama, before our nation turns its attention to the future and the challenges we face, I look back at the improbable campaign of the 44th President of the United States.

Below is an excerpt from this blog the first time the name of Barack Obama was mentioned. It happened January 17, 2007, the day he announced his candidacy for President. Although I don't claim to have predicted his victory, my assessment of his candidacy looks pretty good in hindsight...

January 17, 2007

"... Lack of experience is a criticism Obama has to address early and often. Experience is always an issue. ... Except the voters sometimes choose style over experience. Barack Obama has style coming out of his ears. The stars are aligning perfectly for an Obama run for the Presidency. In this campaign, his lack of experience won't disqualify him; the country's sad history of race relations won't doom his candidacy. In this campaign, Obama can even turn the doubts about him to his advantage:

• His rock star celebrity is perfectly timed for a country that's made American Idol the number one rated television program.
• His intelligence, his disarming forthrightness, his smooth speaking style and soothing demeanor are the perfect antidote to years of listening to George W Bush trip over his own tongue telling obvious falsehoods.
• His lack of political experience means his opponents will have little personal history of his to smear.
• His short time in Washington means he won't be tarnished by the culture of corruption, the lying, the incompetence, the breakdown of government that has infested that swamp for the last six years.
• His stand against the Iraq War has been consistent from the beginning, so he won't have to spin his way out of charges of flip-flopping.
• His groundbreaking ethnic background won't be the focus in a race where the Iraq War will suck all the air from any domestic issues, particularly race relations.
• His strongest challengers are, in the primaries, a Democratic throwback to the contentious era of Clinton and Gingrich and impeachment; and in the general election, some candidate from the Republican Party, the party that has brought the country nothing but Iraq, earmarks, Abramoff, deficits, Katrina, etc., etc.

"Yes, the stars are aligned for Barack Obama in 2008. Only time will tell whether some fatal flaw will show itself and stop his ambition short of his goal."

Opening inaugural concert

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We Are One. No, We're Not.

Hundreds of thousands turned out Sunday afternoon on the Mall in Washington, DC, for "We Are One: Opening Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial." A good time was had by all. Well, not all.

Jeffrey Weiss, in The Dallas Morning News Religion blog, grouses (his word) that the only television coverage of the concert was on HBO. He asks what if Martin Luther King, Jr, sold exclusive television rights to his "I Have a Dream" speech to the highest bidder in 1963.

The analogy is not all that apt. This year's event was entertainment, a celebratory concert. 1963's was the culmination of a protest march on Washington. Obama's speech was covered by free broadcast television. Only the entertainment portion was reserved for HBO. To cover some of the costs of putting on such an extravaganza, the inaugural committee sold exclusive television rights. Even with that, HBO made the concert available to cable providers for free presentation to their cable customers. HBO also made the concert freely available on its Web site, HBO.com, for anyone with an Internet connection. Should Obama have paid for his inaugural festivities by holding some private $1000 a plate dinners for well-heeled donors? Or worse, held the concert indoors where only those well-heeled donors would have heard U2, Springsteen and the rest of the entertainers? I don't think so. The inaugural committee balanced the demands of paying for the concert against the desire to open it up to as many people as possible. Jeffrey Weiss' grouse is only that, a grouse.

Another controversy erupted over the invocation prayer by the Rev. Gene Robinson, the openly gay bishop of the Episcopal Church. First, the prayer was offered before the start of the show televised by HBO. Second, there was a sound system malfunction that prevented even the people on site from hearing the bishop's prayer, which included this passage:

"Bless us with anger - at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people."

The blogosphere lit up with conspiracy theories. Obama invited Robinson, but made sure no one would hear him. Obama deliberately suppressed the prayer. Reader "Mark" is certain it's a snub:

"I am horrified that once again 'WE' are to stay in the background, ignored and unrecognized. I am canceling my HBO service. I EXPECT AN APOLOGY from Barack Obama to all Gay people. This is not an acceptable CONSOLATION PRIZE."

Even before Obama takes office as the President most openly supportive of the LGBT cause in history, the LGBT community has decided that Obama has rejected their cause. They are now rejecting him. Politically, this is stupid, except that Obama is that rare politician who will do the right thing whether a constituency is for him or against him. He will continue to welcome and listen to all voices and promote equality and justice, whether the LGBT community appreciates it or not. The LGBT community would do well to take to heart Bishop Robinson's words:

"And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States. Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people. Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times."

Mexico (in)stability

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Mexico: Failed State or Improving State?

The Dallas Morning News published three essays "warning of grave instability on our southern border." That prompted Keven Ann Willey to ask, on the Opinion blog, whether Mexico is on the verge of becoming a failed state. The range of opinion was staggering.

The consul general of Mexico in Dallas, not unexpectedly, said the situation in Mexico is getting better, much better. Jim Mitchell points out that Mexico recently produced a $42 billion stimulus plan, not the sort of thing a failed state would do. Mitchell says that Foreign Policy recently listed what it classifies as failed states or at risk states. Mexico wasn't on the list of the top sixty candidates.

Reader "Seattle" says things are getting better in Mexico, with a growing middle class, better roads, new cars, shopping malls, better equipped and more professional police, and a government that is addressing problems. Reader "Ladise" agrees Mexico is not a failing country. "Ladise" attributes the concern to press coverage of border drug violence, which "Ladise" says Mexico is actually doing something about.

Less optimistically, Bill McKenzie says Mexico is not a failed state, but only because it was never much of a state to begin with. Reader "Will" says Mexico is on the verge of collapse. "There's no one left. They're all here." Finally, reader "GKS" says Mexico has been a failed state for decades, again measured by emigration.

Some of this perception of what's going on in Mexico is certainly influenced by American politics. But discounting that, I'm still struck by the sense that we, as Americans, don't really know what's going on in a huge country on our southern border. We know how it influences life in the United States -- drug violence, border tension, illegal immigration -- but we don't really know what's going on throughout Mexico itself. Even the professional journalists voicing their opinion seem to have more uncertainty than they do on many topics.

If you've read this far, you're probably expecting me to offer my opinion. Truth is, I don't know. Mexico could muddle along just fine for another fifty years. Or it could collapse in 2009. Neither would surprise me. What I do know is that the United States has enough on its plate that the US won't be in any position to influence which direction Mexico takes in the near future. It better muddle through, not just for Mexico's sake, but our own.

Gaza; Richardson PACs; GOP sarcasm

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Futility in Gaza

Rod Dreher, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, kicks things off by passing on a reader's report of seeing a bumper sticker with a picture of a mushroom cloud and the caption "Obliterate Israel." Dreher concludes that "Jew-hatred is getting to be very scary." Dreher is, of course, correct. Dreher doesn't point out that Muslim-hatred reached scary levels years ago, but selective umbrage is nothing new for Dreher. As usual, blog readers who pointed this out had their comments deleted.

But that's not what drew me into the discussion. One reader accused Israel of firing weapons containing white phosphorous into Gaza. White phosphorous has an incendiary effect that greatly increases the chances of collateral, civilian casualties. Reader "Peterk" dismisses the accusation with "the WP allegation is a non-starter." Reader "ce" pointed out that a UN relief and works compound had been hit by Israeli shells, which, according to a UN spokesman, allegedly contained white phosphorous, "according to breaking news on CNN." Reader "ce" then says, either defensively or sarcastically, "I realize this is not fair and balanced like Fox, but it is where I get my news."

Chalk up a minor victory for conservatives. People are all too aware that CNN's reputation has been tarred, that it is no longer considered a legitimate news source, that a news report can't be trusted until it's reported by Fox News. This has gone too far. Don't ever let anyone make you feel like you need to apologize that you get your news from CNN. Just make sure that you also check out other news sources as well, including Fox News. By the way, Fox News is reporting that UN "spokesman Chris Gunness says the building was hit by what was believed to be three white phosphorous shells." Also, that Ban Ki-moon "says Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has told him it was a 'grave mistake.'"

Over on the Religion blog, reader "DeSoto" defends Israel with, "If a group of thugs is threatening my family, I'm not going to be very judicial in my defense." With all due respect, the dilemma here is the very real doubt that Israel's tactics are making Israeli families safe or only perpetuating a cycle of violence. If Israel can capture or kill the "group of thugs" threatening Israeli families, all well and good. But perhaps Israel's actions spawn more "thugs" than they eliminate. If so, then Israel is not getting closer to its goal.

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Dirty Politics in Richardson

The Richardson Coalition sent out an email asking a lot of vaguely alarmist questions.

"Which City Council candidates got union PAC money during the 2007 election?"
"How much did they get?"
"What might that mean to our city?"

The accompanying editorial reports the results of a push-poll conducted by the Richardson Coalition to promote the allegation that union PACs are bad and city council officials who accept union PAC money are suspect. The question asked in the push-poll:

"During the last election, the largest contributor of funds to City Council candidates was a union-oriented political action committee. The primary receivers of this PAC’s funds are also the four newest members of the City Council. Do you see this as an attempt to influence votes to support the union’s cause?"

So what? Isn't any PAC contribution to political candidates an attempt to elect representatives sympathetic to the PAC's interests? The purpose of the poll and the email seems to be to cast doubt in voters' minds about certain City Council members, who just happen to be the most recently elected members and the newly elected mayor Steve Mitchell.

What the Richardson Coalition doesn't tell voters is that the Richardson Coalition is itself a Political Action Committee, or PAC, the same as the "union PAC" that the Coalition tries to scare voters about. This hypocrisy, this lack of transparency, this attempt to taint council members by association, amounts to nothing more than dirty politics.

I am generally sympathetic to the agenda of the Richardson Coalition, but I am disappointed by this attack. The Richardson Coalition should stick to promoting better government, not attacking others who get involved in local government as well, not using scare tactics to divide our city. The Richardson Coalition does Richardson no good with these tactics.

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Sarcasm is the Protest of the Weak

John Knowles, in "A Separate Peace," has his character Gene say, when reflecting on his youth, "This was my sarcastic summer. It was only long after that I recognized sarcasm as the protest of people who are weak."

Two essays today remind me of the wisdom in Gene's self analysis. The first, by former Dallas Morning News columnist William Murchison, is titled, "Those Poor, Poor Terrorists." The second, by NRO's Jay Nordlinger, is titled, "Cheney's a Monster, W.'s Stupid & Palin's a Bimbo." Both headlines drip with sarcasm. Nothing demonstrates more how weak the Republicans are.

By the way, I didn't bother to read either essay. Gene's reminiscences made valuable reading because of the benefit of hindsight (Gene's). Maybe someday, Murchison and Nordlinger will gain that wisdom of hindsight, too, but for now, sarcasm is all they offer, and there's not much value in that.

DISD job fair; Street parking

The Nightly Build...

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May I Have a Word? Job Fair

The Dallas Morning News set off a chain of events with a tweet. Yes, that's right. The DMN has its own Twitter feed. Anyway, the tweet that caused the ruckus:

"Hot after laying off 300 teacher DISD is ... hosting a job fair looking for 200 teachers. Stay classy, DISD."

Tim Rogers, on Frontburner, took exception to the snarky "Stay classy, DISD." Rogers views tweets as news, not opinion, and thinks this particular tweet blurs the boundary between those two domains.

Rogers' blog prompted DISD spokesman Jon Dahlander to object, too. He says the DISD event was not a job fair. It was an "information session." Apparently, the DISD is not hiring 200 teachers right now, just distributing information to individuals interested in becoming teachers next year. Rogers sided with the DISD spokesman, accusing the News of writing a "sloppy headline" and noted that the News changed its story headline to correct "job fair" to "job information session."

All this prompted Michael Landauer, on The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, to stand up for the reporters, tweeters, and headline writers at the newspaper. He asks, "since when do we let PR guys tell us that 'information sessions' for potential hires are not 'job fairs'?" Landauer insists that the DISD event was, in fact, a job fair. The DMN's interview with Dahlander certainly implies that the event was a job fair. He says DISD needs to be "recruiting," that this is the time of year the DISD "begins its search," and that "applicants need to be identified well before this school year ends."

In this little fracas, I'd say the advantage goes to Michael Landauer. Stay classy, everyone.

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Richardson Restricts Residential Street Parking

The Richardson City Council passed an ordinance limiting parking on residential streets to homeowners and guests between 2 and 8 a.m. Officials say the ordinance will only be enforced if they receive homeowner complaints. Adam McGill reported this on Frontburner, which set off a chorus of ill-informed complaints.

Homeowners know who their guests are. Officials will act only upon receiving a homeowner complaint. Yet reader "Jim" asks, "How do you know who is a guest? Unenforceable anyone?"

The ordinance was prompted by the lack of available street parking in residential neighborhoods. The ordinance will ensure that your neighbor doesn't use the street in front of your house as his regular overnight parking spot. Yet reader "Whisky Tango Foxtrot" asks, "I go to a movie at a theater behind your house at 5 p.m., and you come home from work at 6 and have nowhere to park, you’re SOL? ... Worst. Ordinance. Ever."

Again, the ordinance ensures that a homeowner will have parking available in front of his own home, whether he uses it for himself or for guests. Yet reader "amandacobra" says, "No more visiting friends, attending parties or stopping by to say hello. Just forget about it."

Reader "Steve" blames the parking problem on the "Asian population." Reader "Stuart" blames them and the "Hispanic population." As the commentary descends, reader "Brent D." laments, "@Dmagazine. My condolences for the trolls finally finding your once awesome blogs."

Future of news

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What Should Newspapers Look Like in the Future?

William McKenzie, a newspaperman, poses that question in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog. Online. It's like he already knows the answer, but can't bring himself to ask the more difficult question, "How Can Newspapers Make a Buck Online?"

Instead, he laments, if newspapers play even more to online readers, "what happens to people (like me) who like picking up a paper every day?" The cruel answer is that eventually they die, leaving the world to people who realize that anything printed on paper is, by the time it's delivered and read, no longer "news," making the word newspaper an oxymoron.

Another DMN editorial board member, Sharon Grigsby, comments that with the proliferation of online news sources, what makes up the op/ed page of a newspaper is changing. She explains how she tries for a unique range of content, while claiming that "what's fresh and interesting is what drives all the decisions." OK, then, how does she explain the regular space devoted to Mark Davis?

Sharon Grigsby's job of choosing content for an op/ed page is now available to every reader. Pick a feed aggregator (aka news reader, RSS reader, etc.), choose content (DMN, Dallas Observer, D Magazine, Dallas Business Journal, KERA, etc., etc.), then sit back and get overwhelmed by content, all collected in the same place, updated automatically. Grigsby's op/ed page and her job as editor of that page, are both already obsolete.

I've long since canceled my subscription to The Dallas Morning News. I had found that there was little in the paper that I hadn't already read online, word for word, either a wire service news story or an opinion column. The only things I turn to The Dallas Morning News for, even online, is *local* news that can't be found elsewhere. The Dallas Morning News seems to be aware of that, but isn't doing much to dominate the only niche left for it in the future.

Rod Dreher offered his own opinion, not as a comment, but as a separate blog post, needlessly forking the discussion. He suggests that something like the Amazon Kindle may be the next phase of newspapering. Perhaps as supporting evidence that he is, as he says, a "troglodyte," he says he was surprised to learn that you can subscribe to newspapers delivered via the Kindle.

Like the others, Dreher misses the point, too. McKenzie, Grigsby, and Dreher seem intent on finding a magic substitute for newsprint, something to let them continue to sell subscriptions to The Dallas Morning News, only delivered electronically to your Kindle (or something) instead of via paper to your front yard. What they miss is that the next phase of newspapering is already here. It's online. How online content is delivered is important, but there won't be a single method. There will be PCs and smart phones and Tivo and Kindles and new technologies like digital ink and portable, flexible display screens the size of newspapers, capable of being folded and rolled, just like... a newspaper.

The real problem for McKenzie, Grigsby and Dreher is that the new technology allows readers to get content from anywhere, to aggregate what they want, to act as their own editors. Nothing is ever going to be invented that will allow The Dallas Morning News to go back to charging the majority of residents of Dallas $250/year to subscribe to the content selected and presented by the team of editors in a building in downtown Dallas. What they should be talking about on the blog is a new business model, not new technology. The technology shift is already well underway. The business model shift? Not so much.

Craddick comeback; Kirpans; Mean blogs

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Craddick Comeback Depends on Lots of Luck

Paul Burka, on his own blog, asks if former Texas Speaker of the House Tom Craddick can mount a comeback in 2010 and regain the Speakership. To do so, Burka outlines a credulity-stretching series of events that must happen, some of them contradictory. He says Barack Obama must have a failed first two years of his Presidency, so the country turns against Democrats. Likewise, he says that the presumptive Texas Republican Speaker Joe Straus must have a failed term also. The result would be Texans electing a new Republican House in 2010, but with different Republicans. The new Republicans would be the old Republicans who would elect Tom Craddick to the Speakership again. I'd say stranger things have happened in politics, but I'm not sure that's true. This comeback, if it happens, would be the equal of the most unlikely political comebacks of all time.

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Of Kirpans and Letter Openers

Bruce Tomaso, in The Dallas Morning News Religion blog, reports of a Sikh woman who was fired by the IRS in Houston who is suing because she claims her freedom of religion was violated because the IRS prohibited her from wearing a kirpan, a ceremonial dagger that Sikhs wear as a duty of their religion.

What complicates the case is that the government allows scissors, letter openers, box cutters, and knives in the same building where the kirpan was banned. I don't know if the kirpan should be banned. I don't know if it should be allowed. But I do contend that kirpans, letter openers, and scissors are of similar size and shape and are equally capable of being used to stab, cut or slice. If one is setting security rules, and considering only the safety aspect, all of these should be treated alike. Either allow them all or ban them all. That's not what's happening in the Houston case.

What seemed simple logic to me obviously didn't seem simple logic to others. One reader, "sjjcrand," oblivious to the fact that Sikhs are not Muslims, exclaimed, "The violence associated with Muslims has to stop!"

A second reader, "Peterk," argues that a kirpan should be banned, but not the scissors or letter opener, because those latter objects have non-lethal purposes, but the kirpan doesn't. This reader is oblivious to the fact that security rules are based on the potential threat of objects, not whether the objects have common, everyday uses other than terrorism. Even if you accept this reader's logic, he ignores the fact that kirpans aren't used for stabbing, cutting, or slicing, unlike the objects he's willing to allow. Kirpans are often too dull to be of much practical use. Terrorists would probably prefer to be armed with a pair of scissors than some of the kirpans worn by Sikhs.

Another reader, "Heathen," offered the opinion that what makes the kirpan more dangerous than a letter opener or scissors is that "a religious zealot is attached to the kirpan." I'm not sure how he knows that, unless it's a blanket characterization that anyone who wears religious symbolism is automatically a zealot. Kind of a Catch 22 rule... You can wear a kirpan if you're not a zealot. But wearing a kirpan automatically makes you a zealot. Interesting logic, but difficult to apply in a nation with freedom of religion.

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When Snarkiness Sinks to Meanness

Tim Rogers, of Frontburner, unintentionally uncovered an example of what plagues all too many blogs. A regular reader and commenter, "Bethany," has been missing from the comments section for a while, Rogers noted. It turns out that "Bethany" explained why on her own personal blog...

"I’ve been a long-time commenter on D Magazine’s Frontburner. In the halcyon days when I first began commenting, it was fun. There was some good-natured ribbing here and there, but it was a pleasant read, and I was genuinely excited about taking part in some small way in the conversation when the ability to comment was added. But nowadays, it’s turned into a mean-spirited, modern-day Roman arena, where the object is more often than not to tear down and destroy, not engage in civil conversation."

Do you think this lament by "Bethany" caused Frontburner readers to reflect and resolve to raise their level of discourse on that blog? Think again. After a flurry of mean-spirited responses directed at "Bethany," Tim Rogers was forced to shut off comments. Ironically, in purging the remaining comments, even Tim Rogers' own announcement that he was shutting off comments was purged. What's left leaves no moral drawn, no lesson learned, no closure to this unhappy episode in the blogosphere. Perhaps that's to be expected from a blog that prides itself on being called "a snarky celebration of ignorance." Or perhaps all the blogosphere is infected with the virus.

College football playoff; Economic stimulus

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Another National Champion, Another Asterisk

Jeffrey Weiss, in, of all places, The Dallas Morning News Religion blog, rants (his own word) that college football doesn't need a playoff. He says it doesn't even need the so-called BCS National Championship game. He recommends that the NCAA "kill the BCS and go back to the wonderful free-for-all among the various bowls as they jockeyed for the best possible game." His justification? Entertainment. He offers the Fiesta Bowl contest between Texas and Ohio State as his exhibit A.

I think all college football fans would agree that the Texas touchdown in the final seconds to win the Fiesta Bowl was entertaining. But if Jeffrey Weiss wants to know what could have possibly made the game more entertaining, the answer is obvious: a game where the outcome actually meant something. Because Texas won, they finished the season ranked 4th and Ohio State ranked 9th. If Texas' final drive had fallen short, perhaps the final rankings would have been reversed. Big deal. But imagine if winning meant that Texas advanced to play USC, with the winner of that game playing the winner of a Florida/Utah matchup. Imagine the entertainment of that! Well, your imagination is the only place such entertainment is going to be staged. And that's not nearly as entertaining as the real thing.

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Education a Beneficiary of Economic Stimulus

Rodger Jones, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, is panicking over President-Elect Obama's economic stimulus package. Take education. Jones is disturbed by what Obama said about it:

"To give our children the chance to live out their dreams in a world that's never been more competitive, we will equip tens of thousands of schools, community colleges, and public universities with 21st century classrooms, labs, and libraries. We'll provide new computers, new technology, and new training for teachers so that students in Chicago and Boston can compete with kids in Beijing for the high-tech, high-wage jobs of the future."

Jones equates this with throwing money at a problem. He calls it sloganeering. He also objects to the federal government taking the initiative instead of local government. He says, "It's irresponsible to add to the federal debt for a core state or local obligation."

Jones fails to appreciate both the seriousness and urgency of the risk facing the nation. The speech that panicked Jones was not a speech on education. It was a speech on economic "recovery and reinvestment" plans. Obama is focused on jump starting our economy and doing it with spending that invests in our future. Spending on education does that. So does spending on buildings and bridges and energy and health care.

Obama does not pretend that money alone will solve our education problems. Much else is needed. The main purpose of the economic stimulus is to create jobs and get our economy growing again and to do it with spending that invests in our future. As a side benefit of getting our economy going again, we'll find ourselves with lots new schools, classrooms, labs and technology.

That the federal economic stimulus plan includes education in the spending plan will not hurt education in Texas. Fighting the federal stimulus plan does not help education in Texas. Rodger Jones could serve education in Texas better if he worked at reshaping the education system we have now in Texas, improving teacher training, recruiting more math and science teachers, fixing the broken system of funding education in Texas, etc. That way, when the economy recovers, Texas will be ready to take full advantage of all that spending.

Movie list

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What I've Been Watching

Here is a list of some of 2008 movie releases I've seen, in order of recommendation.

1. In Bruges
   An effing great gangster movie with a pair of effing great gangsters
2. The Visitor
   Worlds collide when mid-life crisis meets struggling immigrants
3. Iron Man
   An action movie that doesn't take itself too seriously
4. The Dark Knight
   The best Batman movie ever, which isn't saying much
5. Mamma Mia!
   Not bad at all for an ABBA movie, even if the stars can't sing
6. WALL-E
   Great first half, but unoriginal message movie once in space
7. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
   More of the same formula, but the formula is good fun
8. Encounters at the End of the World
   Antarctica, as much industrial trailer park as pristine wilderness
9. The Bucket List
   Nicholson and Freeman don't break a sweat in this feel-good movie
10. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
    Forgettable

Book list

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What I've Been Reading

Here is a list of some of the books I read in 2008, in order of recommendation.

1. Legacy of Ashes, by Tim Weiner
   60 years of blundering and malfeasance at the CIA
2. The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein
   How free marketers exploit catastrophes to remake societies
3. The Wordy Shipmates, by Sarah Vowell
   A very modern look at some very medieval Puritans
4. 13 Things That Don't Make Sense, by Michael Brooks
   Questions scientists will be working on for the next century
5. The Defining Moment, by Jonathan Alter
   How FDR saved capitalism and democracy in 100 days
6. The Way of the World, by Ron Suskind
   Intermixed personal narratives of ordinary foreigners caught in war
7. The Post-American World, by Fareed Zakaria
   Not about the decline of America, but the rise of the rest
8. A Splendid Exchange, by William J Bernstein
   A history of globalization; it didn't start with the Internet
9. The Age of American Unreason, by Susan Jacoby
   A grab bag critique of American anti-intellectualism
10. The Appeal, by John Grisham
    Melodramatic telling of how our courts are owned by big business

Fairytales; Icing Trees; Indy Star

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New Front in War On Christmas?

Dallas Blog extended its slide into self-parody for a second straight day with a story by Tom McGregor titled, "Demise of Fairy Tales to Political Correctness." Apparently, the counterattack against the War on Christmas has gone so well that Dallas Blog has decided to open a new front. Turn to Dallas Blog for all the latest news on the efforts to defend the Seven Dwarfs from vicious attacks by over-protective parents.

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What Not To Do About Icing Trees

Extending the parody theme, I am not sure whether Frontburner's Tim Rogers was kidding or not when he blogged that his tree is "so laden with ice that its lowest branches are drooping to the ground. Now then. My backyard thermometer reads 34. So I got my garden hose and sprayed some of the boughs, thinking that the warm(er) water would melt the ice." Rogers ought to just tape a sign on his back, "Kick me." Frontburner readers obliged, as expected.

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Not a Prayer

Jeffrey Weiss, in The Dallas Morning News Religion blog, reports that the Indianapolis Star made some changes to its newspapers. Change always elicits reader complaints. In this case, the most controversial move seems to be the elimination of the daily prayer on page A2.

Someone has to say it. At the rate they are losing readers, newspapers don't have a prayer.

Che Guevara

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Newsflash: Che is Still Dead

Dallas Blog continues its slide into self-parody with a story by Tom McGregor titled, "Che Guevara Undeserving of Heroic Status." Maybe it's the start of a series. Should we expect McGregor to tell us why Hitler, Stalin and Mao are all undeserving of heroic status, too?

Predictions

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Long Range Predictions for Science

Rod Dreher, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, asks readers, "What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?" Dreher himself says he expects "to see quantum physics lead the way in breaking down the barrier between science and spirituality."

I very much doubt that quantum physics is going to give scientists new insights into spirituality. On the other hand, what insights spiritualists like Rod Dreher will claim to derive from quantum physics is anyone's guess.

I expect to see genetic engineering advances that will enable us to create new species. More controversial will be genetic manipulation of the human genome to create babies with almost any physical traits the parents desire.