Of course it was the weather

Weather forecast forces move indoors

Venue change goes from seating for 74,000 to 21,000

I love politics. If you believe that Thursday night’s big night for President Obama was moved inside to the arena where the rest of the Democratic National Convention is being held, instead of the football stadium where the NFL’s Carolina Panthers play, because it might rain, well … I will leave you to your delusions.

Of course that is not the reason, and yes, of course, the reason is that the Democrats were having a hard time coming up with enough people to fill the stadium to capacity … and every empty seat was going to be pointed out by the Republicans as evidence of the president’s slipping popularity.

This is an argument as old as … I don’t know, but it seems as old as time itself. Politicians always, given the choice, are going to play to a picked and packed house if they can arrange it. It is a matter of perspective.

For example, during World War II, the Germans bombed London, England, and as a result of one of those air raids during the Blitz as it was called, the building that housed Britain’s House of Commons was severely damaged and had to be rebuilt. Under the directions of Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill, probably one of the most astute politicians of his day and a statesman of the first order, when the House chamber was rebuilt for some reason there wasn’t enough room on the benches for all the members of Parliament to sit.

Of course, Americans who watch coverage of its Congress on the CSPAN cable network are used to seeing a sea of empty seats in the chambers when CSPAN is showing what is going on in each house. A lot of Americans, thusly, get the impression that their representatives are being remiss at their jobs and some fail to realize that the great speeches given on the floors of our legislature usually are given to nearly empty audiences.

Churchill, being the clever politician he was, solved this problem. By making it impossible to seat all the members of Parliament at one time (in fact, leaving a vast number stuck outside) he recognized that the movie and television cameras that would be recording events in the chamber always would have the leaders playing to a packed house. Packed houses being better at convincing the viewing public that not only was their business being attended to, but that a rousing debate was being conducted. Actually it was all part of Kabuki Theater to make people believe that was happening.

So are the speeches at the Democratic National Convention on Sept. 6. They too are a form of Kabuki Theater. It is better to play to a packed house (even if it is smaller) than to play to a partially empty stadium (even if it has twice as many people there).

Isn’t politics wonderful?

First Amendment concerns

Critiques' deletions cause censorship cries
You know, sometimes I really am impressed by how little a large proportion of the American people understand the U.S. Constitution and the “Bill of Rights” (the first 10 amendments to the Constitution).
For example: The right of free speech is guaranteed in the First Amendment, but most people don’t understand what “free speech” means.
It does not mean, for instance, that you can say anything you want about anything and anybody you want at any time you want. Sorry, but you can’t do that.
You can’t lie about other people, either verbally or in writing. You can’t damage the reputation of other people, either verbally or in writing (with some exceptions). You do that verbally, and you can successfully be sued for slander. You do it in print (or over the airwaves) and you can successfully be sued for libel.
You can’t say just anything that you want, like, maybe, yelling “FIRE” in a crowded theater. That also can get you arrested.
You can’t display things, calling it “art”, or do certain things that offend local community standards (or sometimes national community standards). It is called obscenity and will get you arrested.
You can’t call for the violent overthrow of the government. That also will probably end up getting you arrested, especially if you try to garner the means to accomplish your calls. It is called treason and sedition.
You can’t demand a third party print your libelous, obscene, treasonous or seditious material, or air it on television or radio or leave it on their servers on the internet. Sorry, that does not fall under your right of free speech.
Now, if you own the server, you can put whatever you want on it. But if it is someone else’s server or web page, then you have no rights at all. Besides, they can get (and probably would be) sued for your libel and they really don’t want that to happen.
You see, that is why web sites, servers and internet service providers (almost all of which are private entities and not government entities) will “censor” your comments. They don’t want to get sued.
The First Amendment only applies to the government(s – courtesy of the 15^th Amendment) in the United States. It says CONGRESS shall make no law infringing on the right of the people to the freedom of speech, expression, etc. It does not say that your neighbor, or your newspaper, or radio station, or your television station, or some web site or internet host has to allow you to have free rein on their platform.
Nope, you want the freedom to say or whatever, then you go get your own soapbox and put it on the public square, or buy a copy machine and use it as a printing press, or crank up your own radio or TV station (unfortunately, there you will have to get an FCC licenses due to limited bandwidth on the airwaves), or set up your own web site on your own server (although there too the government can shut you down if you violate the law, sorry about that).
You see, freedom doesn’t mean you have no responsibility. Not that at all as you are responsible for what you say and do. If there are consequences, civil or criminal, then you have to be prepared to face those consequences and accept them as a result of your actions while you were exercising your vocal cords or your computer terminal.
So, when a web site deletes your comment, get over it. It is their right. You may not like it, just as they don’t like what you are saying. But they own the printing press and they get to decide what they print. You don’t like it, go create your own web site.
You see, freedom really isn’t free. It doesn’t mean that there is nothing that can be licensed or censored. Freedom comes with a cost and part of that cost usually is acting responsibility and with dignity and respect toward the rights of others.

Fairy tales?

Real Life Sleeping Beauties

What was that song that Frank Sinatra used to sing about fairy tales.  Sinatra sings Young at Heart 

Well, it seems that some young ladies and young men in the Ukraine are feeling very young at heart … or at least they believe in the Sleepy Beauty fairy tale.

Tale of Sleeping Beauty

There must be an awful lot of hopeless romantics out there (shyly raising my hand because I prefer the Disney version) because this deal in the art museum in Kiev, Ukraine, has got to be out there. I mean who would sign a contract pledging to marry someone based on a kiss while they are allegedly asleep … and who would sign a contract pledging to marry someone if your kiss woke them up. I can see all sorts of problems here.

But, as Frank says, fairy tales can come true; they can happen to you; if … well, if you want to believe.

I hope these young people find their fairy tales coming true. I guess it is little different that the reality series in the U.S. called The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. I really am not sure I would want my “courtship” played out before television cameras. It would rather freak me out, to tell the truth. But that is because I am not the most suave and debonair person that you are going to see (far from it) although I am quite romantic in my own way (I think, you need to ask my beautiful, wonderful, talented and special wife if that really is true, however).

Anyway, who says fairy tales can’t come true? Just look at any political campaign in the US.

What reality?

Report of conflict in Syria
I watched the above news report by an Independent Television News reporter that was aired on NBC in the US with incredulity.
I was not shocked by the bombing. I was not shocked by the artillery shells going off. I was not shocked by the flames in the buildings. I was not shocked by the riflemen and grenadiers firing their weapons. I was not shocked by a six-year-old boy lying wounded in a hospital. None of that was any surprise to me. You know why? Because that is what war is all about.
It seems that Amnesty International didn’t get the meme from the International Committee of the Red Cross: What is going on in Syria is a war, a civil (well a very uncivil really) war.
The Amnesty complains that the bombs and artillery are “battlefield” weapons, as if the “battlefield” was some sort of prizefighting ring or jousting field for medieval knights. What alternate reality are these people living in? War is not a prizefight or a joust.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like seeing non-combatants get caught in middle of a battle, but that is going to happen, especially when the combatants decide to duke it out in cities.
War is not a place where you send in unarmed observers to keep a running tally on who does what to whom. That is a recipe for getting the observers killed. It amazes me how much the news gatherers of today seem to treat war as some kind of video game. Believe me, it isn’t and it never was. Still, we see these reports decrying the fact that the battles have any impact on “innocent” civilians.
Well, as we have seen around the world, unless you are under about the age of five, there are no “innocents” per se in a combat zone. You usually are for one side or the other. You just try to stay neutral in a combat zone and I will make a wager that neither side will trust or respect you. Both will think you are working for the other side, unless you are working for them.
Still, we have people in this world who put on the blinders and think that war is anything but the cruel, ugly, deadly, terrible thing that it is.
I am sorry people but war kills people, indiscriminately. It destroys things, indiscriminately. It maims things, indiscriminately. That is what bombs, and rockets, and artillery and mortar shells, and grenades, and mines, and bullets do. They are not discriminate. They don’t just hit the bad guys, or the bad places. Just ask the nine people wounded in New York City Aug. 24, 2012. The police did not intend for their bullets or the shrapnel from their ricochets to hit anybody but the killer that they were trying to put down.
I will pretty much guarantee that the pilots of the planes in that video or the gunners on the artillery or mortars that landed in the video or the guns being fired by the people in the video were not deliberately being aimed at non-combatants. Not on your life. Those gunners, bombers and shooters where just hoping that the rounds that they were sending down range were going to hit “the bad guys” and, you have to remember in war, the bad guys includes those who support and back the fighters.
Now, I suppose, in some alternate universe, the prizefight paradigm or the joust model exists and the spectators can line up in the stands and watch the battle without expecting any harm to come their way. However, that is not how it is in the real world; and in Syria, as well as many other places around the globe, we are living in a real world.
Whether it is diplomatic personnel in Mexico (even if it was two US Marines assigned to the embassy) or a bunch of people meeting with a terrorist leader in Pakistan, or a clash between tribal forces in Africa, that is the real world. Bullets fly, bombs drop and people are wounded or die. That is the reality of war.
It helps to remember that war is not glorious. War is not gallant flags waving.
War sometimes is necessary, unfortunately, and the only thing to do in a war is to apply enough force quickly and efficiently enough to get one side or the other to quit fighting because it is no longer cost effective, whether in human lives or wealth expended. To do anything else is, indeed, a war crime.
The human tragedy is that we cannot agree on what is good or bad, or who should be in power or who should not. All too often, because we are basically sore losers or the winners are not magnanimous, we end up with people taking up arms to make their cases. That really is all that wars are, political and economic discussions extended to a different sphere that uses violence, death and destruction to resolve the differences.
There apparently is no antiseptic alternative to war, unfortunately, although democratic societies where the people agree to compromise and abide by the majority rule, if it respects minority rights, come closest to it.
Regrettably, it seems that that willingness to compromise and share, to be magnanimous, is a quality that is sorely lacking in the modern world, despite what the people at Amnesty International and other people and organizations of like mindset want to believe.

Fire discipline

2 dead, 9 wounded in New York

Wounded hit by police bullets

19 hit by bullets in Chicago violence

Two dead, nine wounded. All of the wounded were from police bullets. What does one make of this?

Well, you can take away several lessons from it.

First, police are humans and can get very scared.

Second, scared people aren’t the best shots in the world.

Third, when bullets fly, they hit whatever gets in the way and not necessarily the target.

Ok, if I was going to criticize the police officers, I would say that they forgot one of the basic marksmanship rules I was taught when I first learned to shoot, and which was strongly reinforced when I went into the military: Always, always, always know where the bullet is going to go when you shoot it … or at least have a relatively good idea where it will impact. Unfortunately, when you are scared poopless – as most people would be looking down the muzzle of .45 caliber handgun at close range – remembering that axiom is pretty difficult.

In the military, I was taught in the Navy, never bother shooting warning shots and always shoot for the center of mass of the target. Why not a warning shot? Because where is it going to go? IF you shoot up, there probably are things above you that don’t take kindly to bullets and cost lots of money to fix. If you shoot down, the deck most likely is metal and the bullet most likely will ricochet off in God-knows what direction.

However, if you shoot for the center of mass of a person, a) you have a much greater chance of hitting what you are shooting at and b) when it hits the person, it is not very likely to ricochet off and hit something you don’t want it to hit.

In the New York City case, obviously, the police officers didn’t always hit the target that they were aiming at … and that was a major oopsie. Still, in a way, the fact that most police departments use hollow-point bullets actually worked in their favor this time. You see, when a hollow-point bullet hits something it usually breaks apart and loses a lot of its energy. When it hit a human body, it creates a god-awful wound. When it hits something else it breaks into smaller pieces and goes off in several different directions at a somewhat less speed which means that the people hit by the pieces are going to get hurt, but less likely to have a really serious wound like the person hit by the initially intact bullet.

The tragedy is that the police officers basically emptied their magazines in their pistols at the target. This is an understandable reaction when facing someone with a large-bore pistol (and all pistols look large-bore when you are staring down the muzzle of one). You want to make sure the guy you are shooting at is down and out of the game. However, with your adrenalin pumping and your instincts screaming - “WARNING EXTREME DANGER” - it is very hard to keep your brain engaged to remember that aimed shots work better than un-aimed shots. And since most police officers rarely find themselves in a shooting situation, they don’t have a lot of experience to draw upon in those cases. Soldiers will tell you it takes experience to know when to shoot and when not to shoot … especially when your life is on the line.

Now, a second point: It is interesting that the gunplay in New York City got national news play while a series of shootings in Chicago that left 19 wounded got zip. I suppose that may strike you strange, but then I understand it. It might be that I spent a lot of years in the news business and understand how these things work, especially for television.

Most of the gunplay in Chicago happened off in its various ethnic neighborhoods on the South Side – the basically who-cares-what-happens-there section of the city. The New York City shooting happened just outside a major tourist attraction – the Empire State Building.

That is No. 1. No. 2 is that it happened quite close to where the major television networks and cable news companies have their offices. In fact, a CNN news producer just happened to be walking by when it happened. The shootings in Chicago were all nowhere near the offices of the TV stations or newspaper offices. The NYC shooting could feature good video while the Chicago shootings featured none.

Strange world we live in isn’t it?

I bet it also is politically incorrect of me to point out that the mayor of Chicago also is the former chief of staff for President Obama and that the president points to his “hometown” as the model of America. Actually, it is irrelevant to the President or how he is doing his job. It is just an interesting coincidence.

Last point: The shooter in NYC was breaking the law. He didn’t register his handgun with city authorities. However, it is somewhat significant to point out that the pistol had been purchased 20 years earlier in Florida, quite legally. So, ratcheting up restrictions on gun purchases would have not done much in this case.

This is journalism?

"Palin lukewarm to Ryan" - Headline on CNN

"Axlerod calls Ryan ideological" – Yahoo

I want to take a moment to examine what passes for journalism on what I suppose we are to consider mainstream news sites on the web. The first is from CNN and the second is from Yahoo.

Now, I understand the new media “blogs” apparently have different rules than traditional journalism, but I think that is a mistake. What I write and say as a commentator is, and should be different, from what I write and say as a reporter. When I am reporting, it should be who, what where, when, how, and if an explanation is needed why. Assessing that information should come in a separate article, or so I was taught way back when when I was studying journalism in college. Well, we all know now that such a standard has changed, but it doesn’t mean that this old editor can’t rail against it.

In the first article, the reporter(s) are reporting a news release from Sarah Palin (who the heck cares what she has to say anyway) in which she praised presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney for selecting U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his running mate (he will be nominated as the party’s vice-presidential nominee) and then, apparently, launches into her standard tirade why the current administration of Barack Obama needs to be unseated in the November election.

Now, a relatively objective reporter would have reported the news release in just about those words but, apparently, in today’s journalistic climate that is not sufficient. Instead, the reporters have to apply their own perspective to the news. Let’s see, she only used Romney’s name four times and Ryan’s name three times in a 1,100-word release. Obviously, according to the reporters, Palin is not enthused about Romney or Ryan. (Is she supposed to be doing cartwheels in the street – I am definitely sure that is something I would not like to see a picture of) Oh, and we need to point out that in the Alaskan primary (months ago) she said she voted for Newt Gingrich (like that has anything to do with the story). The point of the spin is to make it look like Palin doesn’t want the Romney/Ryan ticket to win. She is just going through the motions.

You want to know something you silly reporters? I will make you a small wager that come November, about 50 percent of the people in the U.S. who are going to vote basically will be just “going through the motions.” They will not be voting enthusiastically for anybody, but wearily voting, merely glad the whole election campaign is over. They will be very tired of the overheated rhetoric, the claims that if the other side wins the world is going to come to a calamitous end immediately (which is entirely and utterly bovine scatology … it might wait until December 21 when the Mayan calendar ends it current cycle). That will be my bet.

Now, if the reporters were sympathetic to Romney and Ryan, the mere fact that Palin even mentioned them in the same release and said kind words about them would be being trumpeted as word from on high. Nope, that is not going to happen, except over the back fence between people who happen to like Sarah Palin (GASP! You mean there really are such Neanderthals? You mean there are people so clueless that don’t know she is now the third greatest threat to modern mankind?)

Now, the second article: I guess it serves a purpose, just like the talking heads that appeared the Sunday morning news talk shows on television. The Republicans said what they were going to say and the Democrats said what they were going to say … and any semblance to reality ends right there. For those who support Romney/Ryan, it was all pretty much how great the selection was. For those who support Obama/Biden, it was how evil and terrible and catastrophic the Republican ticket was going to be.

Guess what? Neither side is right. For those who are watching the U.S. elections from the outside, let me say this: This catfighting is normal for Americans. It goes back to the dawn of the republic. If you think it is bad now, you should have seen what passed for campaign rhetoric in say 1800, 1832, 1860, and any number of other elections.

Not that it is all that becoming, because it isn’t. But it is the way politics are played. I almost coming to the conclusion that the line I quoted my Pappy saying in an earlier post is most appropriate to apply to what is passing for journalism and political rhetoric today.

“Methinks the lady doth protest her innocence too much.”

Dr. O, Mr. B., Mr. M. and all my other mentors and professors in college: Where did we go wrong?

News placement

NBC News opinion poll

 

The above is an article about an opinion poll on American gun laws taken after the recent attack by a lone gunman in a Colorado movie theater.

I am not going to go into what I think about the attack, but I was struck by this story on the NBCNEWS.COM web site the day I downloaded the link.

Understand, I spent more than 30 years as a newspaper journalist, much of that time designing how the newspaper would present that issue’s news. Story placement often says a lot (although there are other factors that go into the equation like advertiser preferences when appearing in certain sections or on certain pages) about what the editor(s) think are the important news on a given day.

You see this in newspapers all the time. The big story always will appear “above the fold” so that potential readers can see what it is. In broadcast news (radio and TV), the big story always is the first one talked about. On web sites, well, the rules of the old newspaper world somewhat apply. In such cases as this, if the person putting the page together thinks the story is really important, than it will be on the first part of the site you see. That is a given. Where it is placed again will tell you a lot about what the “news editor” thinks you should read first. If it is in the top left corner with a large headline that usually is a signal that says “Read me first.” The reason for this is that in English, we read left to right (other languages read right to left, so putting the lede story at the top right would be in order) and so our eyes enter the page at the top left.

So, the first thing you see usually is the thing they want you to read. Of course, pictures play havoc with this, because if you have a really strong image, that will capture the eye first, mainly because it takes up more space and the implied action is stronger than just printed words … unless it is something like WAR but that would be an attention getter almost any time … particularly in large letters and standing alone.

Anyway, there is an art and science as well as a message to these story placements and the people at major news organizations are paid their “big” bucks to know all three.

In the case of the story above, it was the lede story at the time, which meant the editor wanted me to read it first. Being a guppy, I did.

What struck me most about the story was how the reporter seemed to be amazed that the shooting didn’t seem to sway a lot of people behind the necessity for new gun control measures to ban semi-automatic weapons like “assault” rifles (I have never really understood what makes an assault weapon, unless it is a fully automatic weapon, and if you are referring to “military” style weapons and you are an American, you need to brush up on your law concerning what weapons the unorganized militia is supposed to have) or limitations on how and where people got ammunition for their weapons.

Well, I know NBC News is a progressive group and progressives are enamored with the idea of disarming civilians but still it was very telling that it would put such an assault on the dumb masses for not understanding how correct the gun control advocates are and how wrong those who believe that an armed populace is the greatest guarantor against tyranny are.

So, much for the hows and the whys of the news biz and yet another reason I have gotten really sick of broadcast “journalists” … damn, I hate to use that word to describe any broadcast on-air airhead. My uncle was right … they are a whole different breed and not one to associate with by choice (and he was a former television news manager).