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July 27, 2005

Darfur-gate

In his latest column, Nicholas Kristof acknowledges that blame for passivity toward the ongoing genocide in Darfur does not lie entirely on President Bush's shoulders. In addition to being invisible on the political radar, Kristof says it is also invisible on the media's radar, too often overshadowed by celebrity trials and other more popular stories:

The real failure has been television's. According to monitoring by the Tyndall Report, ABC News had a total of 18 minutes of the Darfur genocide in its nightly newscasts all last year - and that turns out to be a credit to Peter Jennings. NBC had only 5 minutes of coverage all last year, and CBS only 3 minutes - about a minute of coverage for every 100,000 deaths. In contrast, Martha Stewart received 130 minutes of coverage by the three networks.
If only Michael Jackson's trial had been held in Darfur. Last month, CNN, Fox News, NBC, MSNBC, ABC and CBS collectively ran 55 times as many stories about Michael Jackson as they ran about genocide in Darfur ... And, incredibly, mtvU (the MTV channel aimed at universities) has covered Darfur more seriously than any network or cable station.

While Kristof makes a valid point, the blame-game can be taken a step or two further. Yes, the administration has done nothing of consequence in the region to stop the genocide and the media as all but ignored it, but wouldn't these two groups be a little more involved if they were pressured a little more by the public? I don't mean protests and petitions and any kind of active involvement. But what is the incentive of the government to fix a problem that its constiuents don't care about, and what will motivate the media to cover a topic that viewers don't care to watch?

Idealists may say our public institutions have a responsibility to work toward a common good, regardless of popularity or ratings. As one communications professor puts it, "The media give the public what the public wants, but maybe it’s time to give the public what it needs instead. Is it naïve or idealistic to expect the media to operate outside a capitalist and competitive system in which profit is the bottom line? Perhaps we should start exploring new ways to fund the media so they won’t be susceptible to market forces."

But what if instead the public changed what it wants? Afterall, this common good is defined by us, the public. It is what we value and talk about and desire. We have a responsibility, as much as the media and the government, in helping define what is the common good for our society. The media is just the forum through which we express it, and the government is just the tool with which we enact it.

Let me simplify what I'm trying to say: I don't know how many times, in casual conversation, I have heard phrases like, "Did you hear what Tom Cruise said about antidepressants?" or "Do you think Michael Jackson is guilty?" or "Did you hear about Tom Cruise and that girl from Dawson's Creek?"

I try to pretend I don't know the answers to these questions, but I do. The questions I don't have answers for are the ones that aren't being asked: "What can we do to stop the violence in Darfur?" or "What kind of impact will this genocide have on the rest of the world down the road?"

Like Kristof, I blame the government and the media for not bringing this to the public's attention, but I also blame myself. I read the Michael Jackson stories and I write blog entries about Tom Cruise.

We may not really care about Darfur until a decade or so down the road, when it's being taught in the classrooms and Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' child is winning an academy award for a film about the tragedy. Then we'll start to ask questions, the same question we ask about Rwanda and the Holocaust: "How many times does this have to happen before we learn to stop it?"

July 21, 2005

Harry Potter and the Half-wit Stance

Lot's of blogs these days are writing about Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, hoping to lure in a few readers from search engines who are looking for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. At Ablogistan, we would never write about Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince just to boost our Google rankings. But it turns out, there is actually something interesting about Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to write about.

Brought to my attention by the folks at Sadly, No! is an article at the Christian Worldview Network, a place that not only claims to be an antidote for Liberalism, but also for "Christian Happy-Talk." Personally, I prefer "Christian Happy-Talk" to the "Christian Fire-and-Brimstone-Angry-Talk" that seems to be growing. But to each his own.

The author, Jan Markell, has some problems with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, mainly all the FICTIONAL witches and wizards in the book. Let's take a look at a few particularly amusing exerpts:

"Chaos reigned in my home town July 16 at midnight. Little kids roamed the streets in ecstasy as they had just purchased the new Harry Potter book, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." Most were dressed like witches and wizards. They are addicted, but not to righteousness. And they just want to be like Harry and, if possible, attend Hogwarts' School of Witchcraft. When told it doesn't really exist, they are heartbroken."
"Harry Potter is a wizard. Excuse me, but how many times does the Bible warn of us wizards, witches, witchcraft, sorcery, spells, incantations, and more?"

"So the Potter plot may be fantasy/fiction, but the setting and characters promote an occult-based worldview that kids accept as truth in normal life."

It's hard to know how to respond to something like this. You could start by countering that HARRY POTTER IS A FICTIONAL CHARACTER!!! WIZARDS, WITCHCRAFT, SORCERY, SPELLS, AND INCANTATIONS DON'T REALLY EXIST!!!

As far as children believing that the world of Potter is real, well, they also believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and many other fictional *cough* invisible *cough* characters. I say, if kids want to practice witchcraft and wizardary, let them do it. It is harmless. It's not like they'll actually succeed. And if they do, then sign me up, because that's a helluva lot more interesting than anything I learned in 20 years of school.

But this is just isolated among a few radicals, right? Yes... if the newly appointed Pope can be considered radical. "It is good, [to] enlighten people about Harry Potter, because those are subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly," wrote (then) Cardinal Ratzinger in 2003.

I don't see why Harry Potter is so different than the thousands of other movies and books in the fantasy genre. I mean, if you ban witchcraft and wizardary, you miss out on some great entertainment: Lord of the Rings, Willow, Wizard of Oz, Bewitched, and any movie every made by Disney.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 10:07 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

July 20, 2005

John who?

Acinom the Intern and don't often see each other. His internship is conducted primarily online and over the phone. But a week or so ago, Acinom, myself, and my girlfriend had a chance to hang out and talk about the important things in life: politics, war, the greatest movies from the 80's (Ghostbusters!).

Well, the conversation turned to Bush's impending Supreme Court nomination, and I said I didn't think they should worry too much, because he probably won't nominate someone as radical as they feared. "Bush isn't as radically conservative as he portrays himself," I told them. "He normally just tries to please his constituents on the far-right, and I think he'll pick a moderate conservative with the fear of reelection past."

I looked across the table to see two sets of wide eyes staring back at me in shock. "Did you just DEFEND Bush?" Acinom asked. My girlfriend looked at me like I was a stranger and said she was scared.

The point is, I think I was right. Honestly, I don't know squat about Roberts, but the T.V. tells me that he's a mainstream pick, relatively. I mean, the worst trash I could find about him on the left side of the blogosphere was this (granted, I didn't put very much effort into my search):

ROBERTS, Circuit Judge: No one is very happy about the events that led to this litigation. A twelve-year-old girl was arrested, searched, and handcuffed. Her shoelaces were removed, and she was transported in the windowless rear compartment of a police vehicle to a juvenile processing center, where she was booked, fingerprinted, and detained until released to her mother some three hours later — all for eating a single french fry in a Metrorail station. The child was frightened, embarrassed, and crying throughout the ordeal. The district court described the policies that led to her arrest as ‘‘foolish,’’ and indeed the policies were changed after those responsible endured the sort of publicity reserved for adults who make young girls cry. The question before us, however, is not whether these policies were a bad idea, but whether they violated the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution. Like the district court, we conclude that they did not, and accordingly we affirm.
It was the start of another school year and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) was once again getting complaints about bad behavior by students using the Tenleytown/American University Metrorail station. In response WMATA embarked on a week-long undercover operation to enforce a ‘‘zero-tolerance’’ policy with respect to violations of certain ordinances, including one that makes it unlawful for any person to eat or drink in a Metrorail station. D.C. CODE § 35-251(b) (2001). ‘‘Zero tolerance’’ had more fateful consequences for children than for adults. Adults who violate § 35-251(b) typically receive a citation subjecting them to a fine of $10 to $50. Id. § 35-253. District of Columbia law, however, does not provide for the issuance of citations for non-traffic offenses to those under eighteen years of age. Instead, a minor who has committed what an officer has reasonable grounds to believe is a ‘‘delinquent act’’ ‘‘may be taken into custody.’’Id. § 16-2309(a)(2). Committing an offense under District of Columbia law, such as eating in a Metrorail station, constitutes a ‘‘delinquent act.’’ Id. § 16-2301(7). The upshot of all this is that zero-tolerance enforcement of § 35-251(b) entailed the arrest of every offending minor but not every offending adult.

So, Roberts isn't perfect. But he seems to be confirmable and rather tame compared to what a lot of people had feared.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 9:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Imagine41.com

Eventually, I will get back to posting regularly. Right now, I'm busy working on a website for my father, www.imagine41.com. It's an online auction site, as well as a computer store. It may not exactly look good, or even uniform, but I've always been a fan of substance over style.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 9:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 13, 2005

Happy Birthday

Well, today Ablogistan turns three months old, which means it is no longer officially a "new blog" according to those who run the mighty blogosphere. And since I'm busy repairing the damage I recently did to the website, we'll replace any insightful posts with a look back at the first three months of Ablogistan:

April 13-May 13
* The first post of the blog, nothing exceptional, but it was a start.
* One of my favorite early posts was about Mark Twain and poker.
* Who can forget this gem, which got posted on Fark.com and brought Ablogistan nearly 12,000 visitors in one day?
* I probably put the most effort into this article published on the anniversary of the erradication of smallpox.
* And finally from the first month, my second Fark.com article about the White House press dinner, brought in over 20,000 visitors in one day.
May 13-June 13

* The Adventures of Acinom, Ablogistan's lowly intern, made its debut.

* The last taboo is less political and more philosophical, which is where I'd like to take the blog.

* My first and only fiction entry: The Meaning of a Flush.

June 13-July 13

* I found a new definition for the Blame America First crowd.

* I read an interesting review of what seems like an interesting book, about an interesting topic.

And that's about it. I've been travelling a lot in the last month and haven't been posting quite as frequently. In fact, it's kind of depressing to think that in Ablogistan's first month of existance we had nearly 40,000 visitors, and now if you look at the site meter, the daily average is in double digits.

Well, however you choose to celebrate Ablogistan's birthday, make it a safe one.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 7:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 12, 2005

Down but not out

Ablogistan is back. Sort of. The archives are still here, just not on the front page. I still have to revamp the templates, redo some of my CSS. But never fear, faithful Ablogistonians, the site will return stronger than ever, with state-of-the-art spam blocking technology to keep the commments and trackback sections tidy and clean.

But in the meantime, please, discuss the greatness of my post by posting 20-dozen links to gambling sites.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 10:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Testing...

Ablogistan has been having a few problems recently. Well, one big problem: I accidently deleted my MySQL database. Which means, I deleted all of my files, usernames, and passwords. I haven't been able to log on and post new entries, and the only solution to the problem was to save what I could and start from scratch.

So... postings may be sporadic as I try to rebuild the templates.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 7:13 PM | Comments (0)