Congratulations to the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies, with which I am proud to be affiliated, for being ranked among the world’s most influential think tanks.
The ranking report is titled “The Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program.” Of interest (on page 12 of the PDF): The most thoughtful regions of the world, measured in the number of think tanks they produce, are north America and Western Europe. Unfortunately Africa tanks.
Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Journalism, Media, Middle East, South-Africa, The West, War
I’ve said it before: The Al Jazeera news network practices better journalism than its American cable counterparts. Al Jazeera is as partisan as the local cable cretins, however, it does know news–the art of reporting.
Writes Eric Calderwood, for the Boston Globe:
[I]n a larger sense, Al-Jazeera’s graphic response to CNN-style “bloodless war journalism” is a stinging rebuke to the way we now see and talk about war in the United States. It suggests that bloodless coverage of war is the privilege of a country far from conflict. Al-Jazeera’s brand of news – you could call it “blood journalism” – takes war for what it is: a brutal loss of human life. The images they show put you in visceral contact with the violence of war in a way statistics never could.
For an American, to watch Al-Jazeera’s coverage of Gaza is to realize that you’ve become alienated not just from war, but even from the representation of war as a real thing. As Americans, we’re used to hearing the sound of heavy artillery, machine guns, and bombs in action films and video games. Yet here on the news, they seem strangely out of place. You could argue that Al-Jazeera uses images of civilian violence to foment public outrage against Israel. This might well be true. At the same time, these images acknowledge human suffering and civilian death and stand strongly against them – and in doing so, foment outrage against war itself.
The complete essay is well-worth reading.
Worth watching is Al Jazeera’s “Saving Soweto”, a superb report detailing the heroic work of Christian and Jewish medical men in ministering to the multitudes. What would South Africa do without such people?! (Scroll down to “DESPERATELY SEEKING BOLLYWOOD’S BRANGELINA”)
Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Journalism, Media, Middle East, South-Africa, The West, War
I’ve said it before: The Al Jazeera news network practices better journalism than its American cable counterparts. Al Jazeera is as partisan as the local cable cretins, however, it does know news–the art of reporting.
Writes Eric Calderwood, for the Boston Globe:
[I]n a larger sense, Al-Jazeera’s graphic response to CNN-style “bloodless war journalism” is a stinging rebuke to the way we now see and talk about war in the United States. It suggests that bloodless coverage of war is the privilege of a country far from conflict. Al-Jazeera’s brand of news – you could call it “blood journalism” – takes war for what it is: a brutal loss of human life. The images they show put you in visceral contact with the violence of war in a way statistics never could.
For an American, to watch Al-Jazeera’s coverage of Gaza is to realize that you’ve become alienated not just from war, but even from the representation of war as a real thing. As Americans, we’re used to hearing the sound of heavy artillery, machine guns, and bombs in action films and video games. Yet here on the news, they seem strangely out of place. You could argue that Al-Jazeera uses images of civilian violence to foment public outrage against Israel. This might well be true. At the same time, these images acknowledge human suffering and civilian death and stand strongly against them – and in doing so, foment outrage against war itself.
The complete essay is well-worth reading.
Worth watching is Al Jazeera’s “Saving Soweto”, a superb report detailing the heroic work of Christian and Jewish medical men in ministering to the multitudes. What would South Africa do without such people?! (Scroll down to “DESPERATELY SEEKING BOLLYWOOD’S BRANGELINA”)
America, Barack Obama, Media, Politics, Pop-Culture, Pseudo-history, The Zeitgeist
A Vomitorium: “A passage situated below or behind a tier of seats in an amphitheatre, through which crowds can ‘spew out’ at the end of a performance.”
The Obama orgy in the fleshpots of Washington has not yet begun in earnest, and I’m already in gag mode.
The beaming tele-twits, their racial-pride roster of guests, the MLK montages, the hyperbolic homilies to the Messianic Man and The Historical Moment; the posturing from pious pundits, the overwrought, empty waffle—how low can a country, and a once-great culture, sink?
Hang in there. I’ll be back shortly with a few, recommended, DVD distractions to help get you through the next few days. I promise. (You’ll also need some grog; no getting around that.)
Update I: A spluttering Jonathan Alter of Newsweek to “Countdown” Keith: “The inauguration… here… in the capital built by Michelle Obama’s slave ancestors. …”
In case you get swept up in the tide of “history from below”: The people who established the political order described by Thomas Jefferson as “a composition of the freest principles of the English constitution, … derived from natural right and natural reason,” were predominantly British Christians.
Where’s the gratitude?
Update II: The Day of the Crowning (Jan. 20): MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow effused last night about the historical necessity–nay, obligation–to formulate an answer to the “Where Were You When” question.
A wonderful line from Peter Schiff resonates right now: “our country became great not because of what politicians do, but what they didn’t do.”
Send us word about how you’re coping with the Barack Bacchanalia.
Some more headlines from the intrepid press around the world (This segment is being constantly updated):
Black Washington looks to Obama (BBC)
What a black president means to me
Scientists optimistic over Obama
From segregation to inauguration
Difficult to Capture the Moment (MSNBC)
Watch Juan Williams Have A Wobbly
As to the last headline: Really? Let me take a timid bash: slushy, weak-minded sentimentality; senseless slobbering.
Update III: Even Sen. Ted Kennedy could not take it; he had a seizure mid-carnival. That is, another seizure. Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Republican, also Kennedy’s official “Praise Singer,” was on hand to comment on the Kennedy conniption.
I’m surprised at Michelle Obama’s awful ensemble. It is a yellow-greenish sequined affair that makes her skin look like old cheese. Not very flattering.
To Barbara’s sartorial comment: If it’s a cold, wintry day, I say dress for the weather. Draping yourself in flimsy fabric on a bitterly frigid day makes one look like a high-school girl trying to show skin.
(Update V Jan. 21): First Lady Michelle Obama’s evening gown was only slightly better than the lime number. She should have gone with a veteran, big-name designer. The white tunic resembled a curtain with bulky tussles, and did not flatter her well-toned figure. An off-the-shoulders garment is not the best fit for a woman with such a wide, amazon-like build.
As for Rev. Joseph Lowery; I’d like to see him tarred and feathered. Here’s his coruscating attack on white folks, delivered in childish, churlish prose:
“Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, 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 will embrace what is right.” …
F-ck you too, Lowery!
Update VI (Jan. 21): Jill Biden’s inaugural gown was lovely. I don’t much like red, but the lines of this frock are rather nice.