WORLD AIDS DAY

RIVERBEND IN BAGHDAD

PROTESTS AT THE BBC

Yes, It is World Aids Day. Again. For the last week, the New York Times and other media outlets has been chronicling the depth of the pandemic, and the devastation it is causing, especially in Africa. Why the sudden coverage?

Answer: It is World Aids Day, a “news peg” and contrived occasion like Black History Month which means that all the coverage of black Americans gets ghettoized in that month’s programming. Is AIDS reporting adequate in light of the spread of HIV-AIDS with other global health crises in the wings? You know it isn’t. The media industry knows it isn’t. And yet…

FIGHT IS FAILING

Patrick Friel, formerly with World Health Organization, writes: “Regrettably, while the global response to AIDS has gotten bigger and more complex in the past 20 years, while AIDS workers now access combined budgets that reach into the multi-billion dollar range, the fight against AIDS is failing. If we look at the numbers of its victims-20 million have died, 15 million orphans and upwards of 40 million people infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, we cannot avoid the conclusion that our efforts against AIDS are stalled.”

Why? And What can be done about it? Do you know that World Aids Day this year includes 16 days of action around the issues of “Women, Girls, HIV and AIDS”, by more closely examining how violence against women and girls affects and shapes the AIDS epidemic?

NEEDED: MORE RESOURCES AND CARING

Newsday’s Laurie Garret who has been covering AIDS for years says there’s plenty of blame to go around, and that you and I dear reader are not blameless. She wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review four years ago:

“Today, we can bring you death, live on TV from sub-Saharan Africa. In the comfort of your home, you can watch the plague. In Los Angeles, Paris, or Tokyo sipping Chablis while saying, “tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk,” you can watch the sad images of AIDS orphans and dying families in Zimbabwe or Congo, where the real suffering is going on. From the comfort of your Western home, you can relate to it just about as emotionally deeply as you can to Barbara Tuchman’s book about the plague of the fourteenth century.

“Larry Gostin, of Georgetown University, who has been in this game from the very beginning, has a term for this. He calls it Death Voyeurism. We of the Northern Hemisphere watch while the South suffers, and the media provide the bridge, displaying it in the living rooms of the North.”

The point is not to beat ourselves up but to do more and more regularly, to inform ourselves and engage — and not just on World Aids Day. Hey?

UKRAINE-OHIO

The Parliament in the Ukraine has narrowly voted to invalidate the election BBC reports:

“Ukraine’s parliament has passed a no-confidence motion in Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych as a crisis over the disputed presidential poll continues. MPs narrowly backed an opposition bid to dismiss Mr Yanukovych and his government on grounds of mismanagement. Electoral authorities say Mr Yanukovych beat the opposition’s Viktor Yushchenko despite claims of vote-rigging. Ukraine’s outgoing President Leonid Kuchma has formally proposed holding a new poll to end the stand-off.”

James K, Galbraith writes on Salon about the charges of election irregularities in the Ukraine, noting:

“… if the Ukraine standard were applied in Ohio — as it should be — then the late lamented U.S. election certainly was stolen. In Ohio, the secretary of state in charge of the elections process was co-chairman of the Bush campaign in the state. He obstructed the vote count systematically — for instance, by demanding that provisional ballots without birth dates on their envelopes be thrown out, even though there is no requirement for that in state law. He also required that provisional ballots be cast in a voter’s home precinct, ensuring that there would be no escape from long lines. Republicans fielded thousands of election challengers to Democratic precincts, mainly to try to intimidate black voters and to slow down the voting process. A recount, demanded and paid for by the Green and Libertarian parties, has been stalled in court, so that it won’t possibly upset the certification of Ohio’s electoral votes. “

CORN: ELECTION FLAWED, NOT RIGGED

In Ohio, the Washington Post reports that “Kerry Team Seeks to Join Fight To Get Ohio County to Recount” In the Nation, David Corn notes:

“The emails keep pouring in with charges of election irregularities, and a number of Americans believe George W. Bush won the election because the voting was somehow rigged. ,,,t hough the voting system is shaky enough to warrant serious concern, a strong case that the election was stolen has yet to be made.

“The General Accountability Office was right to agree to a request from Representative John Conyers and four other Democratic House members that it investigate election irregularities in the 2004 election. But the evidence to date is that the election results were not rigged but were produced by a flawed system.

www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=2037

DOES EVERY VOTE COUNT?

And to all who might care about making sure every vote counts: “[If you are not yet convinced of the need to do anything about the Ohio recount and allegations of vote fraud, read Jesse Jackson’s excellent recent article about this matter and what Ukranian election observers think of the US election! ”

www.suntimes.com/output/jesse/cst-edt-jesse30.html
www.moderateindependent.com/v2i22jthoreau.htm

HOMELAND INSECURITY

Former Army Sergeant and ex PA Gov Tom Ridge moves over into the private sector. It’s cash-in time. Fox News jokes that the odds are l000 to 1 that Tom Kean, chairman of the 911 commission will get the job. The bot money is on Commissioner Ray Kelly or Bernard Kerik, ex of the NYPD.

IRAQ: ANOTHER DAY, MORE ATTACKS

This morning, another suicide bombing on the road to the airport in Baghdad,In Iraq, Al Jazeera reports: ” A car bomb in a crowded market north of Baghdad killed at least seven civilians and wounded 18 on Tuesday as Iraq’s interim PM announced plans to fly to neighbouring Jordan in a bid to drum up support for upcoming elections.

Riverbend, the Baghdad Blogger provides us with some atmospherics: “for the last couple of weeks we’ve been hearing about the use of chemical weapons inside Falloojeh by the Americans. Today we heard that the delegation from the Iraqi Ministry of Health isn’t being allowed into the city, for some reason.

“I don’t know about the chemical weapons. It’s not that I think the American military is above the use of chemical weapons, it’s just that I keep wondering if they’d be crazy enough to do it. I keep having flashbacks of that video they showed on tv, the mosque and all the corpses. There was one brief video that showed the same mosque a day before, strewn with many of the same bodies- but some of them were alive. In that video, there’s this old man leaning against the wall and there was blood running out of his eyes- almost like he was crying tears of blood. What ‘conventional’ weaponry makes the eyes bleed? They say that a morgue in Baghdad has received the corpses of citizens in Falloojeh who have died under seemingly mysterious conditions.

“The wounded in Falloojeh aren’t getting treatment and today we heard about a family with six children being bombed in the city. It’s difficult to believe that in this day and age, when people are blogging, emailing and communicating at the speed of light, a whole city is being destroyed and genocide is being committed- and the whole world is aware and silent. Darfur, Americans? Take a look at what you’ve done in Falloojeh.

The situation in Baghdad isn’t a lot better….

BBC PICKETED FOR BIASED WAR COVERAGE

The BBC in Scotland and London is being picketed and protested by anti-war activists who consider their Iraq war coverage biased. My friend Paul O’Hanlon has been on the front lines outside BBC Scotland. These protests might surprise many Americans who consider BBC so much better in its reporting than the US networks.

Media Lens reports: “David Miller of Strathclyde University wrote earlier this year:

“BBC managers have fallen over themselves to grovel to the government in the aftermath of the Hutton whitewash. When will any of the BBC journalists who reported the ‘Scud’ attacks apologize? When will their bosses apologize for conspiring to keep the anti war movement off the screens? Not any time soon.” (Miller, ‘Media Apologies?’, ZNet, June 15, 2004)

www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfmSectionID=21&ItemID=5713

“A Cardiff University report found that the BBC “displayed the most ‘pro-war’ agenda of any broadcaster”. (Matt Wells, ‘Study deals a blow to claims of anti-war bias in BBC news’, The Guardian, July 4, 2003)

“Over the three weeks of the initial conflict, 11% of the sources quoted by the BBC were of coalition government or military origin, the highest proportion of all the main television broadcasters. The BBC was less likely than Sky, ITV or Channel 4 News to use independent sources, who also tended to be the most sceptical. The BBC also placed least emphasis on Iraqi casualties, which were mentioned in 22% of its stories about the Iraqi people, and it was least likely to report on Iraqi opposition to the invasion.

Andrew Bergin, the press officer for the Stop The War Coalition, told Media Lens:

“Representatives of the coalition have been invited to appear on every TV channel except the BBC. The BBC have taken a conscious decision to actively exclude Stop the War Coalition people from their programmes, even though everyone knows we are central to organising the massive anti-war movement…” (Email to Media Lens, March 14, 2003)

UNDERCOVERED WEAPON

Depleted Uranium or DU. Flash animation master Erich Blumrich treats the issue:
www.ericblumrich.com/pl_lo.html

EXPLOITING OBSCENITY

In the US, right wing groups are exploiting the TV obscenity issue says Frank Rich of the NY Times who shows how “hucksters of the right work their scam” and how the FCC and the mainstream media play right along.

www.freepress.net/news/5588

Robert Scheer, Los Angeles Times writes on the same issue: “The religious right continues to bash “liberal Hollywood” for the decay of moral values in the U.S., ignoring the real reason: the profit motive of media corporations.

www.freepress.net/news/5590

YOUR LETTERS: MORE ON “VOICES OF IRAQ”

Andrew Stone writes from New Mexico:

“My wife and I rented the Voices of Iraq a few nights ago, and it was not too long into it when we realized we were being tremendously propagandized. In fact, it left us feeling very sick. The largest anomaly was the simple fact that if you give a $1000 video camera to someone who is very poor and hungry, they’ll sell it on the black market. So the trickle-down videography scheme rang rather hollow.”

DON’T SAY VOTER FRAUD

Paul Ossenbruggen takes me to task for some of the language in my blog:

“I noticed some of your articles and in other news sources using the phrase “Voter Fraud”, and I think it may be misused. Voter fraud implies that the voter is fraudulent by voting twice or some other illegal act. This is what republicans are worried about, which very rarely happens in significant enough numbers to swing an election. This is something they say they are trying protect against by being overly strict about registrations and polling places, but is really an effort at suppressing votes. “Election Fraud” or a “Rigged election” more accurately describes the problem we are seeing in the last two elections. This is where the vote counters or officials modify the numbers to deliver the election to their candidate.”

Pamela Ruby Russell:

“TELL ME… PLEASE? WHY ARE THERE NOT CROWDS DEMONSTRATING IN WASHINGTON, DC, MAKING A LOUD NOISE? WHY ARE THERE NOT MORE VOICES BEING HEARD? DO WE NEED BETTER REASONS, BETTER EXAMPLES THAN THE PEOPLE OF THE UKRAINE PUTTING THEMSELVES ON THE LINE FOR A FAIR ELECTION? OR, PERHAPS THE THOUSANDS OF REPORTS AND EVIDENCE OF FRAUD AND VOTING IMPEDIMENTS IN OUR OWN ELECTION ARE ACCEPTABLE? Hmm-mm.”..

NO ELLSBERGS ALLOWED IN DENMARK

Pia Rau reports from Copenhagen:

“Today the now laid off Danish Intelligence officer, Frank Grevil was sentenced 6 months jail. The whistleblower “leaked” confidential intelligence info received from “foreign intelligence agencies” - that Saddam Hussein probably did not posses WMD’s. He explained that he felt obliged by his conscience to give public access to this info withheld by the government and the Danish intelligence service. The info being a very strong basis for the decision by the Danish Parliament for Denmark to join the Coalition and go to war in Iraq.

“The sentence said that his crime was to have jeopardized the Danish State’s status with foreign governments by “leaking their confidential intelligence info to parties to who’s concern it was not”!!!

Anna Taylor of DeepEndNews.com:

“Really good. You’re really good. I put up your questions . . . Maybe you could replace William Safire? (CNN’s question du jour yesterday; so I am forwarding this to them . . . except that much of the wider-awake side of the WarBaby generation is passed over, or downright suppressed, in the power game, something about which someone (not. Todd. Gitlin|) should write after we get a new election.)

FAMILY SECRET

Many of you have written to compliment my brother Bill Schechter for his story on our family’s history in Monday’s Boston Globe. If you missed it, go to:
www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2004/11/29/family_secret/

MEC writes from San Francisco:

“Your blog today was a mindblower. But your brother takes the cake. He wrote such an incredible story! I wasn’t able to access it last night when you first sent me the link. I was able to get it from your column just now, read it all and am still crying….

Kimberlie Ravenswood writes :

“What a beautiful article, story/history your brother has written! How nice for your family. Good news is so rare.”

Lynne Glasner seconds that emotion:

“Your family ‘news’ is quite amazing and inspiring - at least there’s some good news.”

Marita Adair writes:

“Thanks for telling us about your family story. How I loved it and am hungry for more. I hope your brother tracks some of those lives — or all of them — and writes about them. He CAN write.”

BUSH IN CANADA

Jack Shultz writes from Canada:

“George Bush is here in Canada, and he is looking for either military, financial or moral support from us for his war in Iraq. I believe that most Canadians agree with me that we refuse to give any kind of support to George Bush for his war in Iraq.”

ON ISRAELIS IN IRAQ

Andrew M. Fischer joins the debate on Israeli forces in Iraq:

You wrote “Then there was this by eye-opener, if true, from Rashid Khashana from the Arab newspaper Al Hayat:”

“and excerpted from it as if it were credible. Phrases like ‘the likudniks that control the Whitehouse’ were dead giveaways that, while there may be a kernel of truth (ie Israelis working with Kurds) this is more of the multitude of anti-Semitic baloney that is emanating in mass from Arab countries — along with the 9/11 was a plot by the Jews and the reprinting of the Elders of Zion slander.

THE WITCH QUESTION

Yesterday, I quoted former president Tom Jefferson who mentioned witches. I then made a smart-assed remark which prompted two readers to slap my wrists:

KC in New York:

“Not sure why your slam at witches is supposed to be uplifting. I suppose witches are truly the last acceptable group to hate and disrespect. Maybe keep that in mind next time when choosing an ‘uplifting’ passage.

Susan Taft writes:

“OUCH. ‘Witches’ may have been able to morph many a catastrophe into action and learning, but no, y’all had to burn us at the stake. Don’t give me that diagnosis about the civil war. A good realistic slim representation of traditional methods and materials of healing were in their prime when the women were slaughtered for….knowing an herb? Knowing a storm? Cherishing a ritual no less ludicrous than the priests’ puffing out billows of incense smoke up the aisle of a wee cathedral in St. Paul!!!??

“Gimme a break. Don’t say “witch” unless you care about THAT holocaust.”

CHARLIE BROWN CENSORED?

CMagil writes:

“On Thanksgiving night, ABC aired A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. Two years ago I saw this and towards the end I started flipping channels or something and when I returned to it they were running the credits while Snoopy was serving pumpkin pie to Woodstock. I wondered what had happened to the whole Turkey dinner, but since I was changing channels, I thought I simply missed it. Last year I missed the special altogether. This year, however, I saw and taped it and to my surprise they did what I thought they did two years ago — they cut Snoopy’s Turkey dinner out!!!

“As you may know, Peppermint Patty invites herself and others over for dinner and Charlie Brown has to come up with something to eat, so Snoopy is somewhat drafted to make the meal and what does he serve? Popcorn, buttered toast, and jellybeans! Patty gets mad at Charlie for it when Marcy has to remind her of who invited who. Then Charlie gets them all invited to Grandmothers house and off they go, through the woods…

“This is where ABC goes to commercial when they should have continued showing that all this time Snoopy had an actual Turkey dinner cooking in that never-ending dog house of his. This was the whole point or punchline of the special! And they cut it out! To make it worse, it’s Disney, who owns ABC, disrespecting the animated work of others and the viewers. How do they get away with it? This would be like CBS, who used to have the Peanuts rights, cutting out Snow White eating the poisoned apple if they aired that Disney film. Could it be they are worried about the impact of Woodstock eating one of his own kind? Nahhh…

“It’s sad, but here is positive proof that the networks will censor material for their own ignorant, biased, and/or greedy purposes — be it a traditional holiday special or war and political news. Here we have ABC playing Lucy and pulling the football out from under all of us kids - young and old. AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH…

NO EASY WALK

Finally, back to World Aids day. An American anti-Aids activist Gregg Gonsalves.was invited to write about AIDS activism in America for South Afrirca’s Mail and Guardian. His piece is called “No Easy Walk in Bush Land,” a play on Nelson Mandela’s “No Easy Walk to Freedom:

“I have watched in horror over the past four years as President George W Bush has begun to destroy what we fought for two decades, and to export the worst of a new Aids policy based on religious dogma and corporate greed. The president and his fellow crusaders have questioned the effectiveness of condoms, intimidated groups that talk about safe sex and drug use, pushed funding for programs that take an abstinence only approach to HIV prevention, twisted science to support their claims and denigrated researchers who disagree with them.

“The American republic was founded on a separation of church and state that the Bush administration would like to reverse. It’s no coincidence that the Vatican, the conservative Islamic states and the US all blocked a motion to endorse the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/Aids in 2001. I loathe the theocracies in Rome and Tehran, but the emerging god-state in Washington, DC, is only different from them in degree.

Have a look at my piece on the fight for “docu-democracy” on MediaChannel.org:
www.mediachannel.org/views/dissector/affalert293.shtml

Keep your letters coming to dissector@mediachannel.org