Category: News

How else can we take this column?

I’ve used this column in the past as a means of issuing impassioned pleas to product designers. Now it’s time for another, at least as heartfelt as the ones in the past: Please, keep things quiet. Or at least give me the option of doing so.

I’ve noticed that over the past few years, more and more of my appliances want to tell me things, whether I want to hear them or not, something they accomplish via a variety of beeps and buzzes.

He then tells manufacturers to knock it off. For his own comfort, he would deprive the visually impaired of the ability to know when their dishes are done, when their laundry is done, or when their power to their televisions has gone out. Or he would give pranksters the ability to deprive the visually impaired of those same abilities.

Friends, I know the world we’re living in and its march to a cacophonous new world where silence must be broken to better serve the minority amongst us who cannot see or cannot see well. At a nearby intersection, the crosswalk now blares “Wait!” or “Walk sign is now on to cross” along with an incessant beeping to draw the infrequent visually impaired person to the push-to-cross button. It never stops, and it insists upon making its noise all the time for the benefit of the few.

Much like the occasional news story about visually impaired people who are endangered by the silence of hybrid vehicles. When they get their way, all hybrids will be outfitted with internal combustion engine sound simulators so that the minority is not endangered. Meanwhile, other minorities will continue to agitate for sound abatement expenditures to counter internal combustion engine sounds and the eventual loud safety mechanisms.

Me, I am preparing for the beeping, blaring future by buying ear-plug stock and turning up the music in my headphones so I can deaden my ear nerve endings.

According to the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission, it’s okay when the police officer lies to Federal investigators in an immigration matter:

The Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission voted Wednesday to overturn the firing of Police Officer Alexander Ayala, even though he lied to a federal agent as his brother was being investigated for adopting a false identity.

…
Ayala’s firing came after an internal investigation alleged that he had lied to immigration officials when asked May 30 about his brother’s citizenship status. He told a federal agent that his brother, Oscar Ayala-Cornejo, was a Mexican citizen living in Mexico, and that he had not spoken to him for a long time, according to testimony provided by witnesses before the commission Wednesday.

“At that moment in time, I was being a son and brother,” Ayala told commissioners Wednesday night as he pleaded for his job. “I was an immigrant, and it’s hard being an immigrant here.”

The rule of law takes another hit, or at least the perception does. When you have an accumulation of stories wherein suspects surreptitiously recording their own interrogations catch police detectives perjuring themselves, wherein police patrolmen are caught threatening to make up things to take citizens to jail by dashboard cameras in the citizens’ cars, and wherein police officers are allowed to keep their jobs after lying in an investigation and in supporting lawbreaking by family members, you’re facing an increasing suspicion on the part of the citizens that maybe the law enforcement officials aren’t exactly looking out for the citizens and that, instead of being held to higher standards, are held to lower standards.

Maybe law enforcement professionalism isn’t taking a hit. Perhaps the legislators’ eagerness to add ever-increasing numbers of police to the streets hasn’t actually lowered the standards for recruits or the training thereof. But the perception of rule of law, or lack thereof, will have a certain impact on citizenship, and not a good one.

Headline: Former state rep sentenced for fraud. Lead:

Former State Rep. Nathan Cooper, somber and tearful in federal court, was fined $6,000 and sentenced to 15 months in prison today for an immigration fraud scheme that derailed his political and legal careers.

Oh, yeah, sounds like the same old game, ainna? We don’t get the party affiliation until paragraph 8.

The Cape Girardeau Republican pleaded guilty in August to one count each of visa fraud and making a false statement to the Department of Labor.

Has AP paid attention to the right-leaning blogosphere’s game, or has it always let the party affiliation fall into the lesser paragraphs on some stories?

Foreign manufacturers, that is:

Missouri exports hit $12.8 billion last year, up 22 percent from 2005, and experts predict this year’s export sales will be even higher. Illinois exports totaled $42.1 billion in 2006, up 17 percent from the year before. Canada, Mexico, Japan, the United Kingdom and China are the top export countries for both states.

Oddly enough, the story’s headline, Local companies moving deeper into exporting, doesn’t mention the effect the lower exchange rates have. The story itself does mention it, though:

LaBounty and others attributed the recent growth in local exporting in part to the weak dollar, which has fallen more than 10 percent against a basket of currencies in November compared to the same time in 2006. What that means: The cost of U.S. goods is cheaper for companies and consumers abroad.

Still, one can see that this is a “good” economy story instead of a “bad” one, which no doubt would have mentioned the lower dollar in the headline.

I haven’t offered much commentary on the Scott Thomas Beauchamp Baghdad Diarist thing going on at The New Republic because I haven’t found it that interesting, but apparently the editor of the magazine offers a long-winded reasoning for why they thought the fabulous, though disputed, claims were not untrue (Fog of War, link seen on Instapundit).

What strikes me most about the piece, though, isn’t the tone or the high-handedness, but rather the sad indicators of what passes for shoe-leather journalism and fact checking by senior staff at a national magazine.

We’ve got Instant Messages rife with obscenity, written in the gibberish that passes for the communication by most people in that medium:

TNR: where did you see the crypt keeper?

Beauchamp: are you there?

TNR: yes

Beauchamp: the last thing i got was “where did you see the crypt keeper”

TNR: yes

Beauchamp: the dfac on falcon or chow hall, as it IS commonly called

TNR: what about kuwait?

Beauchamp: brb [be right back]

Nine minutes of silence

TNR: you there?

Ten minutes of silence

Beauchamp: ok just did a sworn statement

TNR: about?

Beauchamp: saying that i wrote the articles

TNR: ok

Beauchamp: theyre taking away my laptop

TNR: fuck is this it for communication?

Beauchamp: yeah and im fucked

TNR: they said that?

Beauchamp: because you’re right the crypt keep WAS in Kuwait

FUCK FUCK FUCK

this is bad isnt it

TNR: yes

where in kuwait?

Beauchamp: it did happen in kuwait

Camp Beuhring

tnr: why didn’t you tell us that?

Beauchamp: i thought it was on falcon

till somebody here convinced me that it wasnt i just talked to [Soldier A] and he convinced me that it was in kuwait when i thought it was on falcon fuck

TNR: if what you’re saying is true it’s not the end of the world

Beauchamp: ok

TNR: as long as we can confirm it

Beauchamp: good

i have to go like NOW though im so sorry

TNR: are you gonna be able to talk again?

Beauchamp: i hope so but i dont know

thank you again for everything

TNR: i didn’t do anything

what did you sign?

I mean, I know I am one of the six people in the world who use complete sentences and punctuation in IM conversations, but do we have to see how simpleton national media players can be?

Then, there’s this bit:

We’d left messages on his MySpace page for him to call.

Oh, goody. Postings on MySpace. Just like Woodward and Bernstein, except without the effort or the result.

Maybe I’m holding them to too high of a standard for effort or for actual journalism as I would expect it in a national magazine of purportedly lofty reporting and commentary; that is, I didn’t expect it to read like how two teenage girls discuss the latest pop idol.

But it probably is just me. After all, Foer says that the goal of the fact-checking was not to find out if the thing was true, but rather, if it was plausible:

Facing the difficulties of verifying the piece, but wanting to ensure its plausibility before publication, we sent the piece to a correspondent for a major newspaper who had spent many tours embedded in Iraq. He had heard accounts of soldiers killing dogs with Bradleys. These accounts stuck with him because they represented a symbolic shift in the war. Iraqis regard dogs as annoying pests. At the beginning of the conflict, Americans made great efforts to befriend these mistreated mutts. It seemed telling that Americans now treated dogs with as little regard as Iraqis did. He considered Beauchamp’s dog- hunting anecdote plausible.

And:

Among others, we had called a forensic anthropologist and a spokesman for the manufacturer of Bradley Fighting Vehicles. Nothing in our conversations with them had dissuaded us of the plausibility of Beauchamp’s pieces.

Not implausible and based on the finest Internet gleanings available, they ran with the story.

Pardon me if I further assume that anything that appears in a national publication is only as reliable as a blog account or Wikipedia entry. Or if I don’t bother to read national publications.

In Sudan, give a teddy bear a name, go to jail and fret as thousands demand your execution. This is widely condemned in the blogosphere.

In America, call a person a name on the Internet, and you will soon go to jail. This is widely applauded in the blogosphere.

Responding to a tragic incident with knee-jerk legislation will lead to unintended consequences. Don’t we know this by now, or don’t we care? And at what point do the consequences stop being merely “unintended” and start being “willfully negligent”?

A highly-paid master of metaphor at work. Marvel!

“If I’m going to get punched in the stomach, I’m going to take a knife out and get you right back,” said John Lapp of the consulting firm McMahon, Squier, Lapp and Associates.

Lapp considers himself one of a new breed of Democratic ad-makers who don’t hesitate to hit hard in the ad war.

“I’m going to use every single weapon I have in my quiver.”

The gentleman has a way with words. A bad way.

Spot the contrast:

St. Louis County Councilwoman Colleen Wasinger, R-Town and Country, plans to scrutinize next year’s county budget to find ways to save enough money to avoid a tax increase.

St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley has proposed a county budget of $505.4 million for next year. It includes a property tax increase of 2 cents for each $100 assessed valuation. Dooley estimates that will raise slightly more than $4 million.

Where’s Dooley’s D?

Problem: Neighbor downhill from you has a metal roof reflecting its light into your sensitive eyes.

Missouri solution: Sue the fellow, the metal roofing company, the neighborhood association, the township, and Hephaestus, probably followed by fines and potential condemnation by the local government.

The California solution: Put some glass insect sculptures on the roof to make it pretty colors.

Everyone note that the California solution, if applied in Missouri, would meet with the same response; namely, art on your property is cause for lawsuits and legal action.

Headline: Police officer tasers woman, 82. However, if you’re doing anything but scanning the headlines, you get a slightly different story:

Chicago’s Police Department is investigating an officer’s use of a Taser last month on an 82-year-old woman who was swinging a hammer when police arrived.

You’re forgiven if you thought cops were tasering another 82 year old woman.

A senior Congressman sees fit to inject his office into oversight of televangelism:

The top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee has launched a wide-ranging investigation into the financial dealings of six TV evangelists, including Joyce Meyer, the popular preacher who has built a $124-million-a-year empire headquartered in Fenton.

On Monday, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, asked Meyer to provide his staff with documents detailing the finances of the Joyce Meyer Ministries, including the religious group’s compensation to Meyer, her husband and other family members, as well as an accounting of their housing allowances, gifts and credit card statements for the last several years.

Congress shall make no law doesn’t say a thing about fishing expeditions into religious organizations, does it?

Update: James Joyner links to another article that describes other targets of the investigation and applies the adjective mundane.

So KMOV TV runs this commercial barking about its INVESTIGATION! into the fact that our government is woeful on its obligation to maintain highways and bridges so that they don’t, I don’t know, actually collapse into the Mississippi River.

However, it’s good to see some homeowners have their priorities in order:

Nearly 100 signatures have been gathered from residents whose homes sit along Interstate 270 in Kirkwood, calling for a study to see if a sound wall should be constructed to shield residents from traffic noise.

Whenever you see stories about people who bought homes along the interstate suddenly confronted with noise and who now clamor for government-funded remediation, remember that every last study conducted to see if it’s necessary and every last dollar spent on making their backyard decks more enjoyable is less steel and concrete to make sure the highways safe for everyone.

I don’t want to hear breakdowns of city/state/government funding or dedicated resources to these sorts of things because that same city/state/government funding could and should be dedicated to the basic repair of the roads.

I speak as someone who bought a house on an interstate. I got a better price because of the noise; I’m not going to expect you to make my cheap property more valuable nor to improve my lifestyle. Period. Especially not at the expense of vital infrastructure maintenance.

No, not the death threats; the spouse:

Ms Whitney, a CIBC analyst who is married to the former World Wrestling Entertainment champion Death Mask, prompted a near 7 per cent drop in Citigroup’s shares on Thursday, after suggesting that the bank needed to raise more than $30 billion to restore its capital cushion.

They sure know how to recruit male students, don’t they?

She is a freshman at Lindenwood, as are six Miss Missouri Teen USA finalists. Also among the student body are Amber Seyer, Miss Missouri Teen USA 2007; and LaTasha Lawrie, Miss Kansas Teen USA 2005. In total, the school says it has about 30 winners or top finishers in beauty pageants.

Lindenwood was sort of in the running for my collegiate dollar, somewhere between SLU and Washington University; however, because my first choice accepted me, it was irrelevant.

A program like this, however, might have altered the equation.

Enormous steel sculpture lifted 12 stories:

A massive steel sculpture installed Sunday on the side of a South of Market building tells a story of humanity’s past and its uncertain future, says the Seattle artist who spent two years on the project.

The five pieces of stainless steel, obliquely titled “Artifacts from a Coal Mine” and weighing well over 10,000 pounds, were affixed as public art to the outside of a contemporary brick and concrete condominium building at 177 Townsend at Third Street.

“They evoke a lost world and the uncertainty of climate change,” said artist Mark Stevens, pacing Townsend Street as one giant sculpture after another was hoisted 12 stories up by a 200-foot-high crane.

If you have to say what your tangle of metal is supposed to represent, it’s not actually evoking anything, ainna?

Girl falls off bike while riding in the road, parents sue road builders:

The mother of a girl severely injured in a bicycle crash in 2005 is suing the people who designed and built the road where she was injured, saying her medical expenses are likely to exceed $25 million.

Only fitting because:

a combination of a road that was too steep, and dangerous wooden posts

Combined with, I don’t know, an accident.

The face that an attorney has found a large number of defendants (6) for the maximum number of out of court settlements is now matter of course. It’s not even sad on its own any more, just one more pixel in a sad portrait of personal irresponsibility in modern America.