I made it to last night’s final Festival of Ideas speaker, Ken Auletta, who talked about media bias.

Unfortunately, I was incredibly tired (still am actually) so I didn’t take notes or write anything when I got home. That leaves you an article in the DP (you’ll notice that the DP article talks about him, but gives very little substance of the talk. Considering the quality of the DP, this is unsurprising, but somewhat appropriate, given the subject) or the article in the Daily Athenaeum. Sorry.

He did mention the four things he believed were most wrong with today’s media: Synergy, lack of humility, hubris, and bias. I think he’s right on as far as that goes. Synergy covered one of the biggest problems (at least to me) and that is the fact that news stories are written to sell copy, not to inform the reader. I was reminded of the summer of 2001 when the story that dominated the news was Shark Attacks! (do you remember that?) All you heard about were shark attacks, and the dangers of sharks, despite the fact that there really had not been an increase in shark attacks that year.

My point is that it seems as if the media often manufactures a crisis that they think will see papers, because the real crises today aren’t sexy and glamorous. Homelessness and unemployment aren’t glamorous. Lack of quality housing and health care aren’t sexy. So the real crises in America go unaddressed while there is a media circus around spectacles that are unimportant.

Anyway, that was the gist of last night’s talk.

No excuse voting for the WV primary begins Wednesday the 21st. For statewide information, see the Secretary of State webpage. (Warning: the website was redesigned after Manchin took office, and has some serious issues. Be forwarned that if you’re using anything other than IE, you may run into difficulty. [And this may be a reason I won’t vote for Manchin for governor. No state official should have a website that is inaccessible to anyone, or that works poorly. The secretary of state’s website provides information about voting to the entire state, and as such should be accessible to the entire population. (But I rant.)])

Call your county courthouse to find out where early voting will be held in your area. (Last primary in Monongalia county it was in a building across the way from the Mon County Courthouse.)

For more information in candidates in your area, see: Project Vote Smart.

Remember: VOTE! It’s your true patriotic duty.

Well I know who I am NOT voting for in the WV Governor’s rate.

Driving through town I noticed that McCoy 6 properties have signs supporting Monty Warner.

Well, if McCoy 6 is supporting him, that’s a good enough reason for me NOT to vote for him, and almost good enough reason to actively campaign against him.

As of 5 April 2004, 607 U.S. service members have died in Iraq.

Dear God. The last 11 soliders killed were all under the age of 25.

Chronological list of soldiers killed.
Alphabetical list of soldiers killed.

I’d not mentioned this for awhile, becuase with the one year anniversay of the start of the war, the press seemed to be talking about about casualities. But I think it’s about time now, especially with all the furor over the mercenaries who were killed. I don’t have anything to say about that situation, other than I think it is taking attention away from soldiers who were killed in the line of duty.

What frightens me the most about the situation in Iraq is that I can’t decide if the situation is more like Iran in the 70s or Afghanistan in the 80s. Neither comparion bodes well for the future of US involvement in the region, or for women’s rights.

WVU’s Riflery team will, as of July 2004, be reinstated as an athletic team.

It took a $100,000 grant from the state legislature, but Hardesty finally got the point.

It never made any sense to me why the programs that were chosen were cut. Riflery is for men and women, which makes it a good Title IX sport, and it’s also a sport that has much to do with the history of the state. I mean, our school mascot even carries a rifle!

But, what was done can be undone, and so riflery, much to the consternation of Hardesty, has been reinstated.

May more national championships ensue!

Read what the DA says.

Read what the DP says.

The Innocence Projects and Forensic Science
Barry Scheck (from Cordozo Law School)

Barry Scheck was the third speaker for WVU’s Festival of Ideas. He talked about his work with the Innocence Project, which has used DNA and other forensic evidence to exonerate 142 men who had been convicted of crimes they did not commit, and had lost all appeals, and most of whom had been in jail for more than 20 years.

Barry Scheck had much praise for WVU’s Forensic Identification Program, saying that it was one of the premier intuition of its type in the nation. He also said that there was much WVU could do to further the program, especially in becoming a leader in conducting independent audits in cases where forensic analysts have been shown to be incompetent or corrupt, such as happened in WV with Fred Zane, or in other states with other analysts. He did praise WV for the way it handled the Fred Zane case, in how we went back and started looking into all the cases where Zane did the forensic work. Other states and other areas have not done so when other analysts have been proven wrong repeatedly.

His talk was interesting, though he did use a lot of names and numbers in his presentation, which were necessary, but did get a tad bit overwhelming after awhile.

Some of the more important numbers presented were that of those cases presented to the Innocence Project, 75% go unresolved due to a destruction or loss of evidence. This is partially because of the amount of time that has elapsed since the crime was committed, and partially because there is little incentive for police departments and prosecutors to cooperate, since the project is in essence saying that they made mistakes in doing their jobs.

One of the more interesting figures he presented was that there is about a 50/50 split of innocence and guilt in the cases they investigate (40/60 across the country), which surprised me. For whatever reason, people who are truly guilty will go through this process, only to have their guilt proven inconclusively, which makes little sense, but then humans frequently make little sense. However, the more important thing is that half of those who continue to insist that they are innocent actually are so. As he said, there is no way to extrapolate this figure to the general prison population, or even to prisoners on death row, but it is a sobering figure to consider.

Some of the other numbers he mentioned that of the 142 post conviction exonerations, there were 35 homicides with 15 innocent men sitting on death row. More importantly, with a second look at the DNA evidence, in 44 cases, the guilty party was found. This is something that he stressed throughout his talk. That when a man or woman is convicted and sent to prison for a crime they didn’t commit, the guilty party, the person who actually committed the crime, is walking around free, able to commit further crimes.

He presented a brief history of DNA testing, saying that the FBI began DNA testing in 1989, typically for rape and or murder cases, and typically found that in 20 to 30% of those cases, the primary suspect is proven to be innocent of the crime. Again, these numbers can not be extrapolated to the general prison population, but it is something to consider. An important point he made about DNA testing, is that the results are not being collected by anyone, despite the fact that this would be an incredible opportunity to learn about the criminal justice system, primarily as a way to fix things.

Although there is no national data, he was able to share data on what led to false convictions in the cases researched by the innocence project: 65% were mistaken identity, 24% were false confessions, 17% were jailhouse snitches, 45% were due to prosecutor misconduct, 51% were due to police misconduct (both of these were due primarily to suppression of exculpatory evidence) and 30% of false convictions were due to a bad defense.

One of the things he repeated as imperative was the need of forensic departments and analysts to be independent from police and prosecutor departments, and also the development independent audits. He also suggested that the US needs to create an Innocence Commission. Just as the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) goes in after a transportation disaster and asks questions to keep such a tragedy from happening again, an Innocence Commission would look at cases where an innocent has been falsely convicted and ask “what went wrong?” and more importantly, “how can we make sure this doesn’t happen again?”

ADDENDUM the FIRST:
Do not e-mail me asking for Berry Sheck’s contact information. I do not have it. Go to the Innocence Project.

Education Secretary Rod Paige said Monday that the National Education Association, one of the nation’s largest labor unions, was like “a terrorist organization” because of the way it was resisting many provisions of a school improvement law pushed through Congress by President Bush in 2001.

Paige’s comments, made to the nation’s governors at a private White House meeting, were denounced by union President Reg Weaver as well as prominent Democrats. Paige said he was sorry, and the White House said he was right to say so.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden of Making Light and John Cole of Balloon Juice have both weighed in on the subject.

As I come from a family of teachers, the words disgusting, vile, and offensive aren’t nearly strong enough to express my feelings about that statement.

Gina had considered writing a diatribe on “No Child Left Behind” but has not yet gotten around to it. Some of the highlights:
95% of the children in a school must test at grade level.
All children are to be tested, and all test scores count. This means that if a school has a large number of special education students, those student’s scores must be counted.
The 95% mark is for students registered in the school, not students taking the test, so schools with attendance problems will automatically fail, even if all their students do well, if they have problems with absenteeism.
Immigrants have one (1) year to attain proficiency in English. After that year their scores will be counted.

Those are some of the more obnoxious points Gina has mentioned, but there are lots more. Hopefully she’ll find the time to write something up.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden has an excellent post (as usual) in response to an e-mail missive floating around cyber-space.

What I infer is that its creators view their target audience, not as fellow citizens, nor as brothers in arms, but as a bunch of suckers.

I’m resisting the urge to send this to my (Republican) mother-in-law.

Neil Gaiman posted:

And if the result of this mysterious panel’s deliberations was that the US Department of Education was to declare over 200 TV programs (almost no cartoons, except for things like Prince of Egypt. No more sports. Precious little drama…) were now inappropriate for closed-caption funding…

Yes, that’s right, sports will no longer receive funding for captioning, nor will several other types of programming.

You can read the complete list of approved/disapproved programming. The disapproved list includes:
Bewitched, Classic Cartoons, College Football, Law & Order, NBA, NBC Sports, NCAA Basketball, NFL, Power Rangers, and Powerpuff Girls.

You can also read a National Association of the Deaf (NAD) press relief on the subject.

529 U.S. service members have died in Iraq, as of 6 February 2004.

View a chronological list, with photographs, of those who have died.

View an alphabetical list of those who have died.

I cannot believe that this story is being ignored.

Over the past year harrowing first-hand testimonies from North Korean defectors have detailed execution and torture, and now chilling evidence has emerged that the walls of Camp 22 hide an even more evil secret: gas chambers where horrific chemical experiments are conducted on human beings.

If this is true, how can we as human beings stand by and let it happen?

(via Philosoraptor)

Oh yeah, the economy is in GREAT shape.

1) WVU IMPOSES HIRING RESTRICTIONS TO HELP MANAGE BUDGET CUTS
In a memo to deans, directors, major administrators and regional campus presidents, Vice Presidents Scott Kelley and Robert D’Alessandri along with Provost Gerald Lang announced today the implementation of a hiring restriction on classified and non-classified state-funded staff positions until further notice. The measure is being taken to help manage the impact of a 1 1/4 percent mid-year rescission and a recommended 2.5 percent budget cut for higher education in fiscal year 2005. Decisions for making exceptions to filling critical positions must be made at the vice presidential level.

And just think! WV tends to lag behind the rest of the nation in economic recovery!

See that’s the thing about trickle down/vodoo economics. It’s not so great if you’re the one waiting for the damned trickle.

Why I don’t like Bush, Part IV, Environmental Policy (Part I, Part II, Part III)

As I mentioned before, being an “environmentalist” is how I was raised. It’s part of the respect that I was raised to have for others. But as I don’t see how someone can live on this planet and not be an environmentalist, I also don’t see how it is possible to be an environmentalist and support Bush.

Mountiantop Removal

This one is personal.

For several decades now, there has been in West Virginia a shift towards tourism, with West Virginia Tourism becoming a major source of income for the state. Which is a good thing, because it’s beautiful here. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem likely to remain beautiful here as the Bush administration is pushing to reduce restrictions on Mountaintop mining and watershed pollution. For an idea of what I mean, check out this site full of aerial photographs of mountaintop removal and coal slurry impoundment sites. We (as a state) are trying to bring people into the state, so I can not comprehend why knocking mountains tops off of into valleys should be considered a good idea.

It’s possible that the horrors of strip mining and clear cut logging and mountaintop removal are only clear when you actually see the sites for themselves. If you’ve seen a wooded mountain for years, only one day to come upon the entire area, completely devastated. You can trust me that it brings a sick feeling to the pit of your stomach.

Clean Air Act

The Clean Air Act was created in the 1970 to combat the health dangers of air pollution. The Bush administration has attempted to weaken the Clean Air act with its changes to the “routine maintenance” clause for older, higher polluting power plants that would allow such high pollution plants to avoid adding making costly upgrades to reduce pollution.

Why is this important? Air pollution isn’t just a matter of depleting the ozone and increased levels of greenhouse gasses (although these things are bad.) Because air pollutants have health effects and can cause problems such as: asthma, reduced lung function, chronic respiratory diseases, and they can exacerbate heart disease.

Appeals court blocks Bush clean air changes

Clean Water Act

The Clean Water Act was created in 1972 in response to public concerns over water pollution. Unlike the clean air act which focuses upon health problems caused by air pollution, the Clean Water Act deals with water quality that affects recreation and fishing. The Bush administration wants to stop applying Clean Water Act protections to most intrastate, nonnavigable wetlands and headwater streams despite an EPA report stating that doing so would have “profound and far reaching impacts”

Why is clean water important? Besides the pleasure of clean streams and rivers, dirty water can spread a variety of diseases, including cholera, giardiasis, amebic dysentery, hepatitis A, and cryptosporidium. Other problems stemming from polluted water are pfiesteria and dead zones.

Mercury

The Bush administration also wanted to relax regulations on mercury pollution, to roll back the deadlines for emissions reductions for industry, despite the dangers that mercury poses.

“(I)ndividuals whose diet included large amounts of fish had dangerously high levels of mercury in their blood. Fish accumulate methylmercury in their blood, and it cannot be cooked out. Even modestly excessive exposure to mercury has been shown to impair human immune, reproductive, and cardiovascular systems.”

CAFE Standards

The Bush administration, instead of increasing CAFE standards for SUVs, which would increase fuel efficency, and decrease gasoline consumption, proposes to make it easier for SUVs and other light trucks (which are used not as trucks but as passenger vehicles). Combined with the fact that contrary to common opinion, SUVs are not safer than cars, and in fact are no safer than compact and sub-compact cars. Combine that with the SUV tax credit that allows small businesses to take a tax write-off of up to $25,000 for a vehicle weighing more than 6,000 pounds, and you arrive where we are today, a country where light trucks outsell cars. Needless to say, legislation to improve the situation has gone nowhere.

“The difference between the fuel efficiency of new vehicles and that of the nation’s existing vehicle fleet continues to shrink and may even have disappeared.”
“In the United States, the transportation sector accounts for one-third of our total energy consumption and produces one-third of our CO2, the principal global warming gas. The US transportation sector is 97 percent dependent on petroleum. About half of the oil used by the U.S. is imported. In a “business-as-usual” scenario, the Energy Information Administration predicts transportation fuel use to grow by nearly 50 percent by 2020.”
“Jeffrey Runge … the US government’s road safety chief, and a former ER doctor, (is) calling on the automobile industry to make these beefed-up hybrids of cars and vans much safer. In testimony to Congress last week, he said that some types of SUV are so dangerous that he will not let members of his own family drive them.”
“(T)he U.S. government grants massive tax breaks to purchasers of SUVs. The original intent of the provision was to increase capital investments by farmers and other small business owners who rely on light-trucks or vans (ie. construction companies).”

Why I don’t like Bush, Part III (Part II, Part I)

The apropriate follow-up to my last post is of course religion. Get all those things you’re not supposed to discuss in public RIGHT out in the open.

First things first, although I currently am at loose ends theologically, I was raised Catholic. Being raised Catholic means, for me, possibly something quite different than it does for others, so let me explain further. I was raised to believe that it is my duty to care for others. That is, after all, what the bible says: “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.” When you lay out the details, it means caring for others and caring for the world that will be left for those who come after us. Pretty simple. It’s not about me, it’s about everyone else.

I, of course, fail miserably in my attempts to achieve this, but that doesn’t mean I don’t try. That’s part of the whole works over faith thing. You get points for trying, even if you don’t succeed. You just have to keep on trying, and perhaps one day you’ll succeed.

Thus, one of the things that enrages me most about Bush is the way that he is held up as a model Christian, but from where I’m standing, he’s gotten it completely wrong.

Yes, I know I’m missing the ‘Do not judge, and you will not be judged’ ideal here (I’m also doing a terrible job of “love your enemy”, but I am trying), but we are talking about politics, and about making choices. Let’s agree that I’m trying not to judge his soul, but his fitness for office, and leave it at that.

Poverty

There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land. Deuteronomy 15:11
Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Psalm 82:3
All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor. Galatians 2:10
Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Luke 12:33

Those statements, and others like them throughout both the New and Old Testaments are pretty unequivocal.

Care for the poor.

Not care for the rich and give corporate welfare. Not give tax cuts to the rich and hope that they use the money to buy more luxury items that will provide jobs with minimum wage pay and no benefits. But that is, unfortunately what Bush has done.

Bush’s tax cuts widen the gap between the rich and the poor.
Market wages do not meet these basic needs for low-income workers.
“[We] believe that poverty reduction, and not case load reduction, should be a principal goal of our national welfare policy. It is not enough to cite the decline in case loads – we must make sure that work pays and families do not remain below the poverty line.”

Health

When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. Luke 9:1-2

Universal health care has been widely opposed in the US, despite any success it has had in other developed countries. In the US health care is provided by employers, unfortunately, health care costs are rising, and those costs are either passed onto employees, or employers no longer provide health insurance. And there are many people who, despite working, have no access to health care, because their employer does not provide health insurance, and they can not afford health care on their own. These working poor slip through the cracks and their health suffers for it.

The share of the population without health insurance rose in 2002, the second consecutive annual increase. An estimated 15.2 percent of the population or 43.6 million people were without health insurance coverage during the entire year in 2002,up from 14.6 percent in 2001, an increase of 2.4 million people.

War

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Matthew 5:9
But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness. James 3:17-18

As I said previously, the war in Iraq happened, there is nothing we can do to change that, but I am bothered by the way that our troops, past and present are being treated, but it is quite obvious that Bush has a militant stance. Whether such a stance draws us into further wars, it is hard to say, but I can only hope not.

The Outcast

When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”
On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Matthew 9:11-13

Jesus walked among the outcast of the time. The outcast today receive little or not support from the government, and in most cases are persecuted, just as they were two thousand years ago. Bush is doing nothing to change this, and everything to uphold the status quo.

It’s a walk the walk thing. You can call yourself whatever you want, but talking about religion is in no way the same as living a moral life, and following the directions set out in the Bible, or the Torah, or the Qu’ran. If you are going to claim to be a Christian, then you need to do far more than just talk the talk.