Summer In The City
June 29th, 2002 - by: danny
WORLD FINANCIAL CRISIS
PRESIDENT TO BE SEDATED, OR IS HE?
AIDS CONFERENCE BLOCKS JOURNOS
Maybe I hadn’t noticed but summer is here, and with a vengeance. It has been hot and muggy in New York after a virtually non-existent winter. Apartments empty out and the streets clog with people, animals, and whatever else lives here as people flock outdoors. No wonder TV viewing goes down in warm weather. But if vacation mania is upon us, the world’s conflicts are barely taking a pause.
BREAKING NEWS
In pursuit of wanted men, Israel levels part of a Palestinian HQ in Hebron. Who I wonder will pay to rebuild after all this carnage? It doesn’t seem to matter to the Generals in Tel Aviv.
Off the coast of Korea, a North Korean navy vessel had a shoot out with a South Korean ship carrying marines. 4 South Koreans Dead, 18 others wounded. The good feelings of the World Cup have dissipated as a new crisis erupts.
In Pakistan, 18 El Qaeda “foreigners” have been reportedly arrested after a shoot out there.
And, oh, yes, the Zerox’s financial condition may be worst that was reported yesterday. These company by company meltdowns obscures a much more serious economic crisis that is building almost out of media view. That’s because exo stories are rarely covered in terms of trends or any deeper analysis. George Soros is worried. And when Soros is worried, I get worried. I received this in my email, missed the source:
COMING APART AT THE SEAMS
Soros Says World Financial System is Collapsing As a Result of the ‘Bush Factor’
“Billionaire investor George Soros on Thursday blamed President Bush and his team for the fall in the U.S. dollar and declared: ‘The international financial system is coming apart at the seams. I think we’re in fairly serious trouble. I do think we’re in a crisis situation,’ said the Hungarian-born hedge fund king-turned-philanthropist in a speech to the London Business School on Thursday evening. ‘We have the Latin American crisis and we have the declining U.S. dollar, which means that the motor of the global economy is basically switched off,’ said Soros. ‘There is a lack of confidence. That’s what I call the ‘Bush factor’ in the economy… What worries me is that there doesn’t seem to be any great desire on part of the authorities to do much. There is still a belief, particularly in the United States, that the financial markets will correct themselves. But markets cannot be left on their own. You need to correct them,’ said Soros.”
BUSH SEDATED
Speaking of the President, who is about to be “sedated” for a medical procedure (Sometimes I think he is sedaded) his “vision” thing continues to evoke skepticism from thoughtful jounalsists like Tony Karon of Time.com who writes his own weblog with these items:
“On Bush’s speech, don’t get me started. Actually, the best summary I read (which made me laugh out loud, if bitterly) was from the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland. Before they can have Palestine, the Palestinians must turn themselves into Sweden, under the tutelage of such doyens of liberal democracy as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and JordanS As the Israelis put it, the reason Bush waited so long to deliver the speech was that the White House was waiting for it to be translated from Hebrew. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4448474,00.html
” But you don’t have to read between the lines to know that Bush isn’t serious, he’s just trying to create a pretext for disengaging from any involvement in Middle East peacemaking. http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1200661
Not surprisingly, Israel’s more thoughtful analysts were as depressed as their Palestinian counterparts.” http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/PressReview/27_06_02/PR1.htm
BABY KILLERS?
Other Israelis are enraged because of the latest sensation in their press: AP reports about a photo that had NOT been authenticated at the time of publication. (Disinformation?)
“JERUSALEM (AP) – The Israeli army distributed a photograph of a wide-eyed Palestinian baby dressed like a suicide bomber – complete with a Hamas headband and what appeared to be an explosives belt – stirring anger Friday among Israelis, who accused Palestinians of arming their children with hatred.
” The authenticity of the picture, which was splashed across the front pages of Israeli newspapers, and whether the explosives and ammunition were real could not be verified. But the picture incensed Israelis, who have been targeted in 71 suicide bombings that have killed 251 Israelis in the past 21 months.
” “Terror in Diapers” read the headline on the front page of the Israeli newspaper Maariv along with the picture of the baby, who appeared to be 12- to 18-months-old. The daily Yediot Ahronot also ran the picture on Page 1, under the headline “Chilling Costume.”….
THE PAIN OF SPAIN
What is going on in Spain where the government is hosting an international AIDS conference, and at the same time, blocking AIDS sufferers and journalists from coming? Newsday’s Laurie Garrett, one of the world’s top AIDs journalists complains about this in a letter to the people running things:
“I previously sent you a note regarding the dastardly situation with visa denials by the Spanish government, for attendance to the Barcelona XVI International AIDS Conference next week.
” Now I have learned that NONE of the visa applications from Congo (DRC) have been approved by Spain. I am learning of vast numbers of scientists, journalists and activists who have either been denied visas outright, or have simply been unable to garner a response from the Spanish government in time to make their flights to Spain. My immediate concern is our Journalist-to-Journalist program, which is scheduled for Barcelona prior to the main meeting: our people are hoping to fly to Europe this Monday or Tuesday. It seems our gathering will be severely damaged by this reprehensible situation. Imagine the gall of the Spanish government: denying visas to journalists! Is Spain not a member of the EU, a signator to the Helsinki Human Rights Declaration and a frequent critic of discriminatory and repressive regimes worldwide?
” But it is amazing to me that the same visa-denial appears to be true for scientists.
” How in the world can Spain speak of human rights, in any context, while apparently systematically denying visas to Africans, and possibly Asians? How can the IAS endorse this gathering? Considering the decisions and resolutions that followed the flap over the Boston meeting a decade ago, this would appear to violate the fundamental tenants of the International AIDS Societies and the biannual meeting. No nation previously has so-disrupted an AIDS meeting for what, at best, appears to be inceompetent bureaucratic reasons, but might be interpreted as blatant political, perhaps racist, reasons.
“As a journalist I find it astounding that an EU member state would deny visas to fellow-journalists, simply because they come from poor, developing nations. I intend to share this information with every journalists’ organization I know. As someone who has been covering the AIDS epidemic since its inception in 1981 I can see no precendent for this behavior: in the 21-year-history of this epidemic no nation, to my knowledge, has so-discriminated against journalists, scientists and activists trying to attend the International AIDS Conference.
” I doubt there is time to salvage this situation for our Journalist-to-Journalist gathering, which was sponsoring 72 reporters from developing countries for special training regarding HIV, and support for their efforts to cover the pandemic. This is a genuinely savage blow to our efforts. (Because I am directly involved in the J2J program I cannot write about this situation — it would consitute a conflict of interest. I sincerely hope, however, that my colleagues in the Fifth Estate will examine the story closely.)”
ON INTELLECTUAL TOLERANCE IN OUR TIMES
From Today’s Times: “A group of prominent conservatives abruptly withdrew from a conference on the philosopher Sidney Hook after the black studies scholar Cornel West was invited.” http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/29/arts/29HOOK.html?todaysheadlines
PRAISE BILL MOYERS
Chris Duran writes to complain: “I’m disappointed about MC’s failure to mention the great work PBS’s ‘NOW’ with Bill Moyers is doing every Friday evening. Failure to even recognize this important work will compromise my willingness to see MC’s ‘News Dissector’ as a real supporter of truth!.” Note; I am a supporter of Bill’s work and have written about and praised his program. The problem is that by Friday night, I am usually blotto after doing this log all week long and usually crash before it goes on. I plead guilty with an explanation. Will you accept it? I did catch NOW last night with a fine report on radiologists who can’t read mammograms. Was not surprised.
C-SPAN POSTPONES
Just had a call from C-SPAN which was supposed to have me on this morning. They want to wait for the Mediachannel to resume its full publishing sched. That’s why I wasn’t on. I guess this weblog was not considered worthy enough to discuss.
Have a great weekend. I am off tomorrow. You can write anyway to dissector@medichannel.org
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The Business Of America Is Business
June 28th, 2002 - by: danny
ZEROX IS THE LATEST
MILLIONAIRES IN HIGH PLACES
SALUTING TIM WHITE
Zerox this: Now its Xerox as the corporate scandal rolls on with more brand name companies under scrutiny with a friend of mine quipping that greedy American businesses will undo U.S. society far more effectively than Al Qaeda. As US airspace over prominent US monuments from the Statue of Liberty to Mt Rushmore is shut down in anticipation of a new wave of July 4th terror threats, and computer company execs warn of cyber attacks (“It is inevitable that we are going to get hit and get hit in a big way,” predicts Michael Capellas, President of Hewlett Packard), there seems to be more anxiety about the daily bombshells about corporate malfeasance.
BANKS DESPAIR, TONY SOPRANO MAY HAVE TO COLLECT
The banks who financed World Com are in a pickle, facing requests to give them more money inorder to get some of the old money back. And the New York Post tells us that fired World Comm CFO Scott Sullivan is busy — finishing his $15 million mansion in Boca Raton Florida. We also learn this AM that there is a media industry fallout on another scandal — the bankruptcy of Adelphis, the cable company, which owes $171 million to creditors including cable companies like HBO, MTV and Showtime.To illustrate this story, the Post uses a photo of fictional mafia boss Tony Soprano from the HBO series. The truth is that these corporate rip-offs make Mafia criminals look like amateurs. Paul Krugman writes in the New York Times today that “sach of the big business scandals uncovered so far suggestsa different strategy for executive self-dealing.”
As we think about the role of big money in the economy and politics, I was struck by an item in the new IN THESE TIMES which reports that the Guiness Book of World Records has established that President Bush “assembled the wealthiest cabinet in American history by appointing more multimillionaires to top posts that any previous president.” Of 16 cabinet members 13 are millionaires. I learned that Secretary of State Colin Powell has assets of $ l8.6 million, not bad for a career military man. (Speaking of IN THESE TIMES, a mediachannel affiliate by the way, a new book “Appeal to Reason”edited by Craig Aaron from Seven Stories Press collects 25 years of ITT stories. The book is introduced by Robert McChesney with a foreword by founder James Weinstein. Disclosure: I wrote a column on the media for the Chicago based publication in the 70′s.)
ISRAELI WINNING? US LOSING?
The Israeli army continues to batter Palestinians in Hebron as the Sharon led reoccupation of the West Bank is now complete. President Bush’s new policy postion of virtually unqualified support for Israel is being challenged in the British press. Here are two views. The first from the Times, a Murdoch owned newspaper. Here is Anatole Kaletsky:
“America has spent most of the past decade lecturing the rest of the world on how to run its affairs: telling the Arabs to replace their leaders, the Japanese to restructure their industries and the Europeans to reorganize their societies and ways of life. Now this hubris is making way for nemesis.
For most people around the world, the most important event in America this week was President Bush’s speech on the Middle East. There was a chillingly Orwellian quality to his proposal that Palestinians should vote for leaders approved in advance by Israel and Washington. For Mr Bush, however, this week’sMiddle East challenges paled into insignificance beside the challenges from Wall Street. To judge from his brief appearance on TV from the G8 summit in Canada, the accounting scandal at WorldCom aroused much deeper emotions in Mr. Bush than any event in the Middle East and, in a way, this order of priorities was understandable. The adage that “the business of America is business” has never been truer than it is today. Washington is run by an Administration that looks, behaves and thinks exactly like the board of a Fortune 500 company.”
FISK: THAT “VISION THING”
The Independent’s Robert Fisk zeroes in on the reasons that the “Bush doctrine” is unlikely to work.” George Bush Junior gave up last week. After all the blustering andgrovelling and the disobeyed instructions to Israeli Prime Minister ArielSharon and all the hectoring of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and all the”visions” of a Palestinian state, the President threw in his hand. Therewill be no Middle East peace conference in the near future, no seriousattempt to halt the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, not awhimper of resolution on the region’s tragedy from the man who started the”war for civilisation”, the “war on terror”, the “endless war” and, mostrecently, the “titanic war on terror”. Mr Bush, his ever moreincomprehensible spokesman Ari Fleischer vouchsafed to us last week, “hascome to some conclusions”. And – this really took the biscuit – “when thePresident determines the time is right, he will share it”.
“I love the idea of this increasingly incompetent strategist on Middle Eastaffairs quietly weighing, like Frederick the Great, the odds on the rightsof three million Palestinian refugees to return, the future of Jerusalem,and the continued growth of settlements for Jews on occupied land – only todecide that these weighty matters of state must be withheld from his loyalpeople. After lecturing the pompous and pathetic Arafat on his duties toprotect Israel it only took an Israeli shell fired into a crowdedPalestinian market – another of those famous Israeli “errors” – to shut Bushup again. Just a week ago, as we all know, Mr Bush had another of his famous”visions”. They started in the autumn of last year when he had a vision of aPalestinian state living side by side with Israel. This particular visioncoincided quite by chance, of course, with his efforts to keep the Arabstates quiescent while America bombed the poorest and most ruined Muslimcountry in the world. Then this dream was forgotten for a few months until,earlier this year, Vice President Dick Cheney toured the Middle East to drumup Arab support for another war on Iraq. The Arabs tried to tell Cheney thatthere was already a rather dramatic little war going on in the region. Andwhat happened? George Bush suddenly had his vision thing again.”
US MEDIA AND AFGHANISTAN
In Afghanistan, the new government is debating what to do about a Cabinet position for women. An Ammunition dump blew up, reportedly injuring 50. How to assess the US role there? Steve Rendell of FAIR assessed it this way on a recent Counter/spin program:
“The New York Times reported on June 16 that FBI and CIA investigations ofal Qaeda conclude that the US war on Afghanistan did not have the effect ofdiminishing the threat of terrorist attacks. As a matter of fact, ‘the warmight have complicated counterterrorism efforts by dispersing potentialattackers across a wider geographic area.’ The effect has been described ashitting a beehive with a baseball bat.
“You could say that hindsight is 20/20, but the fact is there were manypeople who argued strongly that the war was not going to reduce terrorismeven before the bombs began to drop–it’s just that those voices werenowhere audible in the mainstream media debate. Certainly not at the Times.A FAIR survey of the Times’ op-ed page for the three weeks following Sept.11 found that the paper ran 12 opinion columns calling for a militaryresponse. How many columns argued for nonmilitary solutions–that might nothave had the negative impacts that we’re now hearing the war had? Zero.”For more on this, check out THE SILENCE OF THE LIONSby Paul Rodgers on opendemocracy.net, He asks,”what has become of al-Qaida? Are GeorgeBush’s policies and rhetoric playing into their hands?”
AFRICA DAY AT THE G-8
Yesterday was Africa day up at the G-8 meeting in Canada. CNN reports: “Aid agencies say a new African development plan announced at a summit of richnations fails to provide a solid commitment to help the continent break freefrom poverty.” Jim Cason elaborates on allafrica.com, a vital source of Africa news:
“South African president Thabo Mbeki and Nigerian head of stateOlusegun Obasanjo arrived in Calgary, Canada this week to lobby theworld leaders gathering for the annual Group of Eight – or G-8 –summit to deliver on promises of more foreign aid and investment forAfrica, faster debt relief and lower trade barriers for African goods…
“This is the first time that leaders of countries that are not part of theG-8 have been invited to attend these meetings, and there have beenconsiderable expectations in Africa that the world leaders gathering inKananakis would approve an “Action Plan for Africa” that offeredspecific assistance to encourage the Nepad agenda. But theSeptember 11, 2001 attacks in the United States and the crisis in theMiddle East have edged other items onto the agenda. Adding to thepressure, the three-day meeting has now been collapsed into lessthan two days. Canada’s intention that the Summit would end with aunified pledge of dramatically increased development aid tied toNepad have been essentially abandoned because of pressure fromthe U.S. and Japan….”
MEDIA NEWS: HONORING TIMOTHY WHITE
Topping the media news this morning is one obituary and one threatened one. All of us at Globalvision mourn this morning at the news that Timothy White, a legendary writer about music and musicians and the editor of BILLBOARD died yesterday after a heart attack in the office building where he worked and also houses MTV. Tim was a friend of ours, a polished writer who wrote brilliantly about Bob Marley (“Catch a Fire”) and a new book “Music to My Ears.” Condolences to his wife Judith Garland and their twin sons. Years back, we had hope to work with him on a TV series that never came to pass, but deeply regret his passing….Perhaps it shook me up especially since it happened on my birthday….Also I must note the death of John “The OX” Entwhisle, the bass player of the WHO. One of his albums was called “Smash Your Head Against the Wall.”
Also, today, there is a death watch for Mediachannel affiliate SALON.com, the feisty online publication which rcently told the SEC it risks closure if it can’t find more financing. It has accumulated $76.6 million in losses over the last seven years.
ITALY: CRITICS SQUASHED
From Italy comes word of new government attempts to squash dissenting views. AP reports:” The Italian opposition and the journalists’ union denounced the removalfrom state TV of two well-known personalities who criticised PremierSilvio Berlusconi.
“State-run RAI has presented its lineup for the next season which doesnot include talk shows featuring the left-leaning political commentatorMichele Santoro and Enzo Biagi, one of the biggest names in Italianjournalism. Italian news reports quoted Fabrizio Del Noce, news directorof RAI’s main channel, as saying the shows were pulled because of poorratings.
“Opposition members, the journalists’ union and the commentatorsthemselves all said it was a move by Mr Berlusconi to silence dissent.”It’s a shame if they think they’ll drive out different opinions”, saidFrancesco Rutelli, head of the center-left opposition coalition. “Butit’ll backfire, because the Italian people are mature.”
FALUN GUNG TARGETS CHINA CABLE
Falun Gong reports that its practitioners have managed to get messages on another cable system in China. “In the past six months, the Falun Dafa Information Center has confirmed that Falun Gong practitioners in China have – on seven separate occasions – overridden state-run cable television signals with footage revealing the truth about Jiang Zemin’s persecution of Falun Gong and demonstrating the true nature of the practice. ” (China meanwhile came under fire from the UN for its inept anti-AIDS efforts. The UN says that China faces an aids epidemic of “titantic proportions.”
….Variety reports that Public Service broadcasters in Europe are being ordered to make their finanials public: ” The European Commission is set to act against six member states thathave failed to apply a law requiring financial transparency forpubcasters.”
CELEBRITY MATCH: COURIC v COULTER
Critics of the republican hard right seem to have been thrilled by a recent confrontation on the Today Show between host Katie Couric and guest Ann Coulter, a prominent rightist pundit. I cribed this item from the Not My President email list: ”
“Katie Couric took right wing fanatic Coulter to the mat this morning. Blasting her for mis-quotes in her(Coulters) book. Couric managed to get Coulter to ‘marry herself’ to Falwells comments that 911 was because of fags and the ACLU.
Katie basically took her apart, piece by piece, a full slam dunk!
There is a video available on this link, I recommend hi-speed connect though: http://msnbc.com/news/763069.asp (the video is about halfway down on the page). If you cant get the video they should have a transcript up by tonight …Katie rocks!”
THE DAY AFTER
And personal thanks to all of those who so kindly called or sent in birthday greetings or asked about my dad who is doing better. I usually wouldn’t make such a fuss but this was a big one, and with all that is going on, we do have to embrace life and its infinite possibilities. May I just quote one of many emails — this from Shebar Windstone who frequently takes me to task for missing one story or another, and sometimes getting it wrong. I do so because independent producers like ourselves are all too accustomed these days to getting turndowns and rejection letters. Letters like hers keep us going:
“!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!etc That’s an exclamation mark for every candle on your cake & feather in your cap, plus a few extras to ice the cake. You may be another year older & another year poorer, but for every gray hair (or lost hair) & wrinkle there’s a major accomplishment in news, media, politics, the Net & social change — a lot more to celebrate than most of us have. I’m surprised you have the strength to blow out your candles. But you’ve more than earned a big blow-out bash. I hope you have a great day, & many more!” And the same to all of you, and to journoagitator Greg Palast who turns 50 tomorrow, and to all of of us getting wiser…
MEDIACHANNEL ON C-SPAN: I will be interviewed tomorrow morning at 8:30 AM (EDT) on CSPAN talking about Mediachannel. Tune in. And keep your emails coming to dissector@mediachannel.org
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From The Sixties To Sixty
June 27th, 2002 - by: danny
Readers, surfers, friends, all
With your indulgence this morning, the 60th anniversary of this dissector’s travels, may I intrude upon your attention for a few moments for some verse that I scribbled a few weeks back as I flew back to the land that may no longer pledge allegiance to G-d. As the son of a real poet, I have, from time to time, tried to express myself this way. Last week, I was in Boston with my brother Bill. He has become enamored with Walt Whitman, that bard of bards, so I realize in that light that these droppings of mine may not qualify as “real poetry.” But here’s a reflection/introspection for your consideration.
FASTENING SEAT BELTS WHILE DESCENDING TO NEW YORK
Flight 400, Berlin to Babylon, June 2002
I was born in a June like this one, l942
A June like this one , early morning four wars ago
A child of the 40′s from a world that is long gone
Decades back a Century past.
See it on the History Channel.
**
We were on our way into Berlin then,
I just found my way out
Home again, JFK, again
Passport scrutinized, stamped, welcomed home
I blinked, wondering how many more trips
there are for me to take
No matter where I go
That’s where I am
**
I blinked again, and suddenly l960 became Sixty
Another marker, a new transition point
Ignition sans tuition to erudition
The Mission: staying the moment we are in,
Search for more room to have a say, ey
Keep on, keeping on
**
I am flashing back now on
the itineraries of a life without a travel agent
Without drivers meeting me at customs
Without a road map,
Dan Eldon was right, cliché or not–
“The Journey is the destination”
**
Life’s learning flashes through neurons
RLS Elementary School in Boogie Down Bx
Fannie Lou Junior High a Delta away
IF Stone Media University
BA: Clinton News, Dialogue
MA: Ramparts, WBCN
Ph.D: CNN, ABC 20/20
Post Doc: GV, MC, Imagining TV
And in that life beyond media life
From sds to SDS, LSD to LSE, yippie
**
In Motion, always commotion
Zero to 60, watch me Fly
In the flicker of that blinking eye
Shifting gears on own navigation system
Slipping into overdrive
Steering on
A frequent flyer phasing
Into Life, Act Three
O say can YOU see
Ho, Ho, Ho
Here comes the Big 6 Oh
And Where to go?
Lo?
**
Flashing back in the descent to
That other June, so many Junes ago
A lifetime past, in the mind of a child
Dreaming then: ‘Hey Kids What Time is it?’
on the shores of Gitchy Goomey
Howdy, Doody and Clarabelle
M-I-C-K-E-WHY
Marching with those Mouseketeers
Without fears
Maybe a few tears, now
My light always green,
zipping through
**
Marching where?
Marching everywhere
Bronx mornings became
Mississippi Moons
Became Rasta Rants in JA
Became Beirut Breakfasts
Became Vietnam sunsets
Turning into Zulu afternoons
To the tune of a generation’s anthems
Telling it like it is, being there when it wuz
Motown blasting on the box,
Rocking to a soundtrack of my own
Boogieing from streets to suites
And later through Edit Rooms of hope
And the endless ether of media dope
Addicted to possibility
Undaunted by stop signs and
warning lights and
Injunctions to
slow down,
“Danny, Slow down.”
Trust me, I reply:
Who can not be down in this time of down?
**
And, then, eyes blink again, recalling a phrase,
Been down so long it feels like up to me
As landings turn into takeoffs.
Seat belts on, tray tops in the
Upright position
Upright position
**
What now
A straight cut or another dissolve?
Can I fix it in post or post it
In the fix I am in?
I am evolving
revolving
Into times I never wanted
Into the era of final laps
Senior years, senior moments
Senior wisdom, let us pray
Inshallah, oy vey
In a time of terror
We all may be running out of time
**
From the Sixties to 60
Feeling better than I should
Doing what I could
Forward ever
Backward never
Blink on
O ship of Fate
Blink on
And on
**
Bring it on.
**
Danny Schechter
June 27 2002
PS. Thanks to all who have sent greetings. Comments welcome: dissector@mediachannel.org
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About Danny Schechter
Danny Schechter is an Emmy award winning journalist, television producer and independent filmmaker who also writes, blogs and speaks about media issues.
His latest film is PLUNDER The Crime Of Our Time.
Mr. Schechter is NOT the Godfather of Soul.
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