Media Coverage of Tsunami vrs. Sudan

The biggest factor in media interest (at least for TV news) is dramatic images.
The video clips of waves washing into costal cities and luxury resort hotels are very dramatic. There is no video of the Sudanese holocaust (does this word apply?)

Another factor is familiarity. In two years, the death toll of Americans from car crashes is about the same as the tsunami death toll. More Americans died in car crashes in Sept. 2001 than from the WTC attack. In two years the death toll of Americans from car crashes is more than the number of Americans killed in Vietnam. I would guess that nearly every adult has lost at least one friend or relative to a car crash. Yet people are fairly blasé about it.

The last factor is the ability to identify with victims. The Isreali-Palistinian conflict is controversial because different people identify with different sides. Tsunami victims who are American or European decent get more attention than victims who were born there. The Sudanese massacres involve Arabic speaking black Africans and non-Arabic speaking black Africans. Most Americans don't identify with either group so people care less, as shallow that may seem.

Choosing the Blue

The Website Choose the Blue is a handy guide to companies and their political affiliations as measured by their political campaign contributions.

While the authors of the website would prefer that you put your money were the Blue is, it could just as easily be called Choose the Red, because Red-leaniong folks can use the guide to find companies who express aggrement with their values through the political campaigns they contribute to.

One interesting note: Fox News and the Fox Cable Network is listed as Blue companies.

Go Figure.

Christmas is not completely Christian

Christmas is both a religious and a secular and a religious holiday. I don't think Jewish children and other non-Christian children should be subjected in school to songs about the birth of Jesus, but songs about winter weather, decorated trees and Santa Claus don't infringe anyone's rights because these are not religious symbols.

I'm an atheist, but I have a Christmas tree in my house, and I exchange gifts with family members. Show me decorated trees, Santa Claus, Rudolf the red-nose reindeer or family gift exchanges in the Bible and I'll change my mind. But I agree that banning all Christmas symbols is an over reaction.

The Defense of Marriage Amendment

Here's one version of the proposed Defense of Marriage Amendment from a religion website called First Things:

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred on unmarried couples or groups.

From the both the text of the Amendment, and from the explanation on the same page, it is clear that the aim is to disciminate against gays because gay sex doesn't appeal to them.

Well speaking personally, gay sex doesn't appeal to me either, but neither do pickles or anchovies. But I'm not trying to pass laws making it illegal to eat pickles or anchovies. While such laws will protect me from the unpleasent surprise of biting into a pickle slice hidden in a deli sandwich or fast food burger, it infringes upon the rights of people who enjoy pickles needlessly.

It would be a protection against a nonexistant danger. While I don't care to taste pickles in my food, pickles don't cause me any harm. And the long essay on the page linked above never actually states what harm would come if Adam and Steve got legally married.

And by denying "the legal incidents thereof," civil unions are banned and the Constitution is modified to limit civil rights, rather than expand them.

If the concern, as some supporters of the Amendment claim, is that they don't want Judges redefining marraige for them, then here's an alternative constitutional amendment.

Each State shall have the right to define marriage and who may enter into marriage. Legal incidents granted between persons by any State shall be honored by all other States.

This version of the Amendment transfers the power to define marraige from judges to the people, while protecting the rights of couples to establish relationships as they choose (as Vice President Dick Cheney said ought to be allowed). While same-sex couples may not be considered "married" in certain states, their rights & responsibilities with respect to each other would be protected wherever them may travel or choose to live.

On Gay Marrage

The objections to gay marrage don't make any sense. Most anti-gay marraige arguments warn of terrible consequences for the institution of marraige and the well-being of children.The seem to beleive that if society allowed same-sex couples to marry, then all married people would divorce and re-marry same sex partners, and dump their children in the street. I'm not sure why they think everyone would do this, but if they fear that is what they would do, then they're not that committed to heterosexual marraige in the first place.

Not Moving to Canada

While other talk about moving to Canada, that's not for me. I'm a patriotic, red-blooded American, even when I vote blue. In fact, in my mind that's WHY I voted blue. If I'm going to have any part in changing America for the better, I not going to do it from north of the border. Canada is a fine place to ski, but it ain't home.

DO they all look the same?

One of my secret hobbies is to identify people's ethnic backgrounds by how they look, talk, etc.

I don't think most of us are as good at this as we think. There is a young woman who works at a shopping mall in downtown Seattle I was sure was Russian based on her appearance and accent. But when I asked, she was Greek.

Here's an online test to test your ability to identify if an asian person is Chinese, Japanese or Korean. I didn't do well here either.

Alan Alda for President!

On NBC's The West Wing, it appears that rather cancelling the show after the Bartlett presidency leaves after its second term, the cast will be repaced by a more topical Republican administration lead by Alan Alda as Arnold Vinick.

The Vinick character is being positioned as a moderate Republican from California who seems to offer honesty and integrety despite being a Republican. Josh Lyman seems to be impressed by him, and it looks like he may switch sides and stay in the cast as an aid in the Vinick administration.

Switching The West Wing to a cast of Republican characters led by a moderate and likeable character may make the show more topical to current events, and allow discussion of issues the Republicans debate amonmg themselves. I'm looking forward to shows discussing issues like flag burning (addressed in last night's episode), teaching creationism in public schools, and other goofy positions taken by some Republicans.

Also: Penn & Teller did NOT burn a flag at Zoe's birthday party. We didn't actually see flames rising off the flag, nor did any ashes fall to the floor. Magicians are always inserting objects into other objects which then turn out not to be where you throught they were. This is slight-of-hand and proabably more than 70 percent of professional magicians' tricks are variations of this. You'd think someone who saw the trick would have explained that to the media.

Drugs: Legal, Not legal and ????

The other story on 60 Minutes was about "Adult ADD." When Pharmicuitical comapies are allowed to promote the chemical solution for such gerneral and vauge problems in life, then why is it so shocking that athletes would want to improve their performance through chemistry. Can you really then argue that it is immoral to use marijauna or anything else they beleive makes their life easier. Is there really a difference between doctors/pharmacists/pharmicuitical companies and street drug dealers other than that the former group is licensed?

60 Minutes: Bush's First New Broken Campaign Promise

Last night 60 Minutes shows a segment called Old Soldiers Back On Duty. One of Bush's campaign promises was that we would continue to have an "all volunteer Army."

But when service people have have completed their contractual service several years ago are called back and compelled to serve in Iraq, is it really an "all volunteer" military force?

A Common Sense Approach to Election Recounts

The point of doing a recount should be to get the most accurately count possible. Here's a common-sense approach on how to do it.

Machines are going to count more accurately than people, for the ballots that machines are able to count. The recount for machines readable ballots should be by machine, and any ballots that cannot be counted by machine should be examined by people to determine if the intent of the voter is discernable. The examination should be done by a two person team representing the parties of the two candidates in contention. If the democrat and the republican representative agree that the voter intended to vote for a specific candidate, did not vote on the race in question, or did not mark the ballot in a conclusive manner, then the ballot should be counted that way. There should be no alteration of the ballots except for the initials of the two examiners and how they agreed the ballot should be counted.

Recounts should include all ballots cast in the race, not specific counties or percents, as any geographic selective recounting will favor one candidate or the other and will not create the most accurate possible count. There should not be incremental or country-by-county results announced. All results of the hand count should be secret until the entire process is complete. Having a daily "horse race" of announced results only creates a media circus and increase the likely hood for lawsuits to interfere with the process.

This way, there is only one recount. It will represent the most accurate count possible, so unless a box of uncounted ballots is discovered, there is no reason for further recounts. This is what should have happened in Florida in 2000, and what Washington should have been doing in the past month.

Is Anyone Out There?

OK, It's one thing to start a blog, it's another if anyone reads it. With a million blogs out there, is anyone reading this one? Honestly, I don't have all day to sit around and read blogs, and the majority of them aren't that interesting anyway. So is anyone reading this one? Is this even worth it when there's no audience?

If you're out there reading this, please either post a comment or send me an email to let me know you're out there.