hieroglyphic stairway, by Drew Dellinger

(beginning of the poem; saw it posted in a comment over at Sharon Astyk's)

it's 3:23 in the morning
and I'm awake
because my great great grandchildren
won't let me sleep
my great great grandchildren
ask me in dreams
what did you do while the planet was plundered?
what did you do when the earth was unraveling?

Surely you did something
when the seasons started failing?

as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?

did you fill the streets with protest
when democracy was stolen?

what did you do
once you knew

anthropogenic global warming thread

Here's the comments threat for arguing about whether and to what degree anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming denialismis happening.(I'm about to mention AGW in another post, and don't want its comments thread hijacked by those wishing to argue about global warming. Argue here instead.)

Picture says it all

This is a classic. Graphic sexual dimorphism doesn't get any more eloquent than this.

Question for Jeff Pelline, re practices at The Union

Updated Tue Feb 27 and 28*

(for those who've tuned in late: Jeff Pelline is managing* editor of The Union, the local paper; he's been silently deleting my comments on their website* and is unwilling to grant me an interview regarding practices at The Union.)
Has The Union been engaging in the same practice (of printing stories from other papers without permission) as its sister paper the Greeley Tribune?

As of 4pm Tue., he's given me no on-the-record answer*, and hasn't been willing to answer another question*. But for those wanting to learn about how and what he thinks, you can do it:

• Informally, on NCFocus, he's engaged in dialogue in the comments* to this post, and has also left comments on other recent posts (in here, here and here)
  


• Formally, in the paper, he has a Saturday column, and yesterday, authored a less than laudatory(he disagrees with this description) Commentary on An Inconvenient Truth's having won an Academy Award* for Best Documentary.
  

(related - earlier this month, The Union ran this column against global warming, written(?) by an associate editor from Pittsburgh, who handed the floor to Timothy Ball, who said things like "the widely propagated 'fact' that humans are contributing to global warming is the 'greatest deception in the history of science.'" and "There never were holes in the ozone, by the way", which floored many of us, including our own Dr. Jim Hurley.

Feb 28 updates:

• to their credit, The Union did publish Jim's piece.*
  
• In an excellent and impassioned column today, Jon Carroll writes on an instance of irresponsible publishing which has parallels with The Union's publishing the Pittsburgh global warming denialism column.

-40- *

(Confidential to Russ and others: please don't addressstart arguing about existence/severity/cause of* climate change etc in comments to this post*; instead do so in this thread. Thank you.)

Scandal at the Swift-owned Greeley Tribune - and the larger picture

May 18 update: I know nothing, I never know anything, but I'm going to go out on a speculative limb and say that I don't think the timing of this shocking, shocking discovery was coincidental. And it could be that other aspects of this story shouldn't be taken at face value either. But as I said, I do know nothing.

Broken by the Coloradoan:
Former Greeley Tribune editor Chris Cobler is in hot water (but how common is this practice? particularly at Swift newspapers?) for having run other newspapers' stories in the Greeley Trib without permission, for years. A couple of the more inflammatory quotes - "'one-step-removed'" from plagiarism... tromping all over ethical standards that are accepted..."

Strangely, the Greeley Trib account doesn't mention that their paper is owned by Swift Newspapers (aka Swift Communications Inc - "Great people connecting communities"), where

Our media companies are run with local autonomy and management teams who are leaders in their communities.

and where

With a commitment to integrity, we bring light to truth, excellence to endeavor and strength to community. We are the preeminent provider of relevant, timely and trusted information. We are the leaders for the communities and customers we serve.

Maybe it'd be better to follow Poynter's ethics advice and phrase these statements as aspirations, not accomplishments. And, as we've noted before in this space, "local autonomy" is a nice way to say "lack of accountability".


If sunlight is the best of disinfectants, how healthy will an institution be that typically:
* wields great influence
* is not covered by the press
* is a monopoly, so hasn't benefited from competition
and whose people have been taught both their craft and its opposite?

Confidential to those who've been using the term: This is accountability.

Report: Town Hall Meeting with John Doolittle

Congressman Doolittle and staffers held a town hall meeting with Nevada County citizens from 4-5pm this afternoon in the Northern Mines building at the Fairgrounds in Grass Valley. Today's intermittent snow, rain, and hail likely kept the turnout down; maybe 200 people* showed up, about half of them supporters.

The meeting began with a 10+ minute PowerPoint presentation from Mr. Doolittle, followed by Q&A with the audience.

The Q&A process went like this -
At the door we were each given a brochure* with a blue card inside, upon which to write our name, optional contact info, and one question. County Supervisor John Spencer randomly shuffled the cards. Then he'd call out a name, the person would stand, Mr. Spencer would read the question, Mr. Doolittle would respond, the asker would get an optional followup question, Mr. Doolittle would answer. Any questions not reached due to time constraints would be given to the staff, and Mr. Doolittle would answer them later.

The questions addressed included* illegal immigration, taxes, the minimum wage, cellulosic ethanol as fuel, party loyalty, Iraq, Guantanamo, the Marianas, "Nevada County, hire a lobbyist" and (from your correspondent) the DeLay Rule.

The DeLay Rule was the House Republican Conference's 2004 voice vote to "change a rule requiring members in leadership positions to step down if indicted by state grand juries", and as suspected, Rep. John Doolittle did vote Yea; a "Yea" vote meant "don't make Tom DeLay step down."
(Since it was a voice vote, there'd been no record of the yea/nay breakdown, and so no accountability, unless we the constituents asked our Reps and got answers (this became a crowdsource project); until today, my attempts to get answers had been unsuccessful.)

Mr Doolittle elaborated on his 'I voted Yes' answer, saying: a) the Democrats have no rule requiring their indicted leaders to step down, and b) the DeLay Rule ended up getting repealed anyway.

Other snippets from my notes (which are very scanty and only address questions I was interested in):

• He was the lead author of the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act ("invests $300 million over 10 years into forest treatment, erosion control, and watershed restoration"*);
  
• "Guantanamo is for terrorists"; "no, I don't see it as a black mark on our nation's character"; "they're Prisoners of War, so..."(?);
  
• on voting to increase his salary while opposing a raise in the minimum wage: he didn't vote to increase his salary, it was an automatic cost-of-living increase; and he doesn't support the idea of a minimum wage.
  
• on the $10 billion misappropriation in Iraq:
  "government doesn't operate like a business", there's a lot more waste; "nobody ever provided answers" to how it was spent, which is very disappointing; hopefully we'll learn where it went.(?)
  
• On sex slavery, forced abortion and sweatshops in the Marianas:
  "those things are utterly deplorable" but "I did see these places, they were not sweatshops by any stretch of the imagination" and (??)he hasn't seen any testimony otherwise. And no, the Marianas should not be held to U.S. labor standards.
  
• On rationale for the "hire a lobbyist" recommendation: because empirically, it works. For groups that spend money on lobbyists, the returns are multiple.
  
• On rationale for being in Iraq: "we've got people trying to kill us", so "we'll take the battle somewhere else."
  

--------------
Impressions:

Mr. Doolittle did well in coming up here to meet with us, and in having the courage to face hard questions.

What I found interesting was the difference in dynamic between the "town hall meeting" questioners and, well, me. In a sense the others were more generous, albeit perhaps with unwelcome gifts - they wanted to deliver their stances and rationales on issues. Me, I just wanted an answer (and am happy to have received it); but it would be nice to have an "express lane" for quick yes-or-no questions.

--------------
Recording was prohibited, but we were told that a video of the event would be made available. Prediction: it will start off with Congressman Doolittle standing at the podium.

Socially responsible investing - real life and a loaded question

I watched The Corporation at the Magic Theatre a while back, and found its argument convincing.
As a commenter put it in here:

...[There are disturbing] similarities...between the behavior of corporations (as psuedo persons) and sociopaths. I wonder if we have begun creating corporations to do all the immoral and uncaring things we want done in (at least) business life without having to take blame for them ourselves.

Upon recently finding myself with a chunk of money to invest, here's what went through my head:

1. "which fund will give the highest return?"


2. [light bulb goes on...] "oops, looks like i am part of the problem"


3. "well yes i should look into socially responsible investing, but that takes time and energy - and could end up badly."
   and have a lower rate of return...


4. maybe just this time i could pretend the whole social responsibility issue didn't occur to me? Surely Good Works in Realm A will outweigh my investments' evildoing in Realm B? (besides, i don't even *know* (nor want to know) that they're evildoing.)

Do we have a moral obligation to actively consider and evaluate how our investments are affecting the world, and to use our powers for good?

(to see our dollar as our vote, as others (Astyk?) put it)

-----------
Confidential to everyone: yes, this one's ripe for parodying - but do it on your own blog, ok?

Applying Poynter's ethics to The Union

3pm Wed - minor edit
(This post overlaps with yesterday's, perhaps excessively so.
emphases mine, again)

Something tells me the folks at Poynter aren't locals.

From the recent overview to Poynter's Online Journalism Ethics:

3. Written ethics guidelines ...are an essential ingredient in the decision-making required in various forms of emerging media. Such guidelines will be most useful if framed as aspirations as opposed to rules and if compiled or revised with the active participation of the audience.

4. Transparency is a necessary dimension of the relationship that journalists and news organizations maintain with their audiences. Transparency must be linked with accountability -- institutional as well as individual.

Some wonderful excerpts from the main document (an Ethics Wiki):

Editorial integrity is crucial in maintaining the trust of the public and the credibility of the brand.
[...]
The consumer's experience is paramount. ... The consumer should be clear about content produced by editorial or commercial interests. Advertising and sponsorships should be labeled.
[...]
Credibility is earned over time by continually delivering on promises of accuracy, transparency and fairness. We consider listening and participating essential tools to achieve credibility.
[...]
We will never knowingly publish or air falsehoods.
[...]
We will seek to display as much transparency as possible in regard to our processes and our relationships, both institutional and personal.
[...]
How do you decide when a user should be banned from publishing on your site?
[...]

I want that paper.

Now, let's come back in Nevada County. First, take a look at The Union's quite reasonable Comment guidelines:

The comments feature of TheUnion.com is a service for our readers to discuss stories online with other readers, and provide feedback to the staff.
[and]
TheUnion.com article comments must abide by the following guidelines:
-No personal attacks
-No profane or vulgar language
-No racial, ethnic or religious slurs
-No unlawful use of copyright material
All comments go to a human moderator, so will not appear immediately. Comments not adhering [to] the guidelines will not appear.

How well are the guidelines enforced? The nice thing about blogging, you can judge for yourself. The following comments were submitted (to the comments to the editor's column), but were either not published at all, or briefly published but then deleted.
Your task: identify which guidelines they violated.

(FYI, they go into tedious detail on 'relevance' (in small font) because The Union's editor wants comments to stay "on message". sorry.)

1. Jeff P., this (current) comment addresses your request (in the column) "feel free to provide feedback and suggestions"; it also addresses your request (from your comment above) "why don't you just contact me directly...?" (when I asked if I could interview you in future)
   
   My (free) feedback and suggestions:
   
   Feedback: The Union is insufficiently transparent about how the paper operates. This is a longstanding problem; it started long before you joined the paper, but it is continuing.
   
   Suggestion: Given that sunlight is the best of disinfectants, increased transparency (on the workings of the paper) could help to effect great improvements in the paper, particularly with regard to the "informing the readers" metric.
   
   So, in short - please consider consenting to an on-the-record interview. Wouldn't it be only fair to give citizen journalists on-the-record interviews, since you expect us community members to do this for your journalists?
   
   or at the very least, if your answer is "no on-the-record interviews", say it out in the open.
   
   thanks (hope i've pointed out how this comment is apropos to your column, hope you'll consider it, sorry to put you on the spot) -
   Anna
   
   (the above comment disappeared, and in its stead an anonymous parody comment appeared, seemingly referring to my [Spring 2005] interview (followup Qs here) with the previous editor.)
2. Trackback for fellow readers - I've blogged about this column (and what happened here in the comments) at ncfocus - tinyurl is tinyurl.com/2aa297 - Anna
3. fyi for fellow readers - I've blogged about this column (and what happened here in the comments) at ncfocus today.
   (apologies if this comment's a duplicate; the first time it didn't get published for some reason)
   - Anna
   
4. Jeff, what is The Union's policy regarding anonymous story comments from its employees?
   (If there isn't a policy on this, you might consider implementing one - and, IMO, asking that employees comment under their own names.)
   
   note - I believe this (current) comment is on-topic since
   1) in your column you asked for feedback and suggestions,
   and 2) the issue arose in response to an earlier comment. (the "Jeff, could I interview you with 57 questions" one, which seems to be a parody of a comment I'd made which got published but subsequently - and silently - deleted)
   
   Thanks much -
   Anna
   

When you've identified the guideline violations, please explain them in the NCFocus comments below - keeping in mind that there is no "comments cannot be dull" guideline.
:-}

The Union - where rhetoric and reality meet, in mortal combat

Updates at end of post.

While the recent rhetoric was noble (The Union Readership Editor Dixie Redfearn saying "we're accountable"(link), and The Union Managing Editor Jeff Pelline saying "feel free to provide feedback and suggestions"(link)), the reality was not:

A civil, on-topic column comment providing feedback&suggestions - pointing out that the workings of The Union have not been transparent, and suggesting that the editor state publicly whether he'd be willing to grant an interview to this citizen journalist - was silently deleted from the editor's column comments, and it's been made clear that
a) I am not to request an explanation for why it was deleted
and
b) I am not to explain how this was made clear.

What a strange, secretive world.

------

(apologies to those of you who feel that the paper gets too much attention from this blog. you're right, of course, but when that red cape comes out...)

------

The story, with emphases added:

Readership editor Dixie Redfearn's otherwise worthy Friday paean to journalism strayed from honoring the profession to trash-talkin' those upstart bloggers:

Do you really want to get information on political candidates from a blogger? How can you trust them?... Newspapers, whether in print or online, will always give you in-depth information, and if we make a mistake, we correct it. We're accountable.

(I responded with what became four comments, in here, which ended up making the points that corrections aren't always made, that when they are made, it's not always done in a reader-friendly fashion, and, implicitly, that some bloggers do it better.)

Managing editor Jeff Pelline's next-day "Let's 'kick it up a notch' around here" column stated:

We sometimes come under caustic, cursing soliloquies, such as the one I received Friday from the woman at my favorite hair cutter in Nevada City, after a polite introduction. But the outbursts rarely include enough constructive comments to do anything. So be specific. If you're bringing up something that happened years ago, it's hard to help you.
...
We hope you like the changes we are making. As always, feel free to provide feedback and suggestions.

In the column's comments, I asked:

Hey Jeff, could I interview you on-the-record about the paper, sometime in the (likely near) future?
(also, just asked Dixie in a comment, what the paper's policy is, on online corrections - perhaps I should ask you instead...
Thanks
Anna
p.s. great news on the new govt reporter!

Jeff P.'s reply comment:

Anna,
Hello. As you know, we're trying to keep these message boards focused on the subject matter at hand -- in this case, a column that is not about any of the subjects you've raised. (albeit the P.S.) Reply to Dixie's column, where warranted on corrections, and as I've suggested before, why don't you just contact me directly about other requests? [555-1234]. Thanks!

Phoning leaves no paper trail, so instead I emailed:

>Hello again Jeff, sorry to terrorize you (though I *do* do it with my real name :-))

Would you be willing to let a citizen journalist (me) interview you about The Union?

(not an off the record chat, an interview)
thanks
Anna
p.s. it wouldn't be immediately - I want to finish and write up several of my uncompleted projects before taking up your time.

and I also posted the following online comment (which initially did get published):

Jeff P., this (current) comment addresses your request (in the column) "feel free to provide feedback and suggestions"; it also addresses your request (from your comment above) "why don't you just contact me directly...?" (when I asked if I could interview you in future)

My (free) feedback and suggestions:

Feedback: The Union is insufficiently transparent about how the paper operates. This is a longstanding problem; it started long before you joined the paper, but it is continuing.

Suggestion: Given that sunlight is the best of disinfectants, increased transparency (on the workings of the paper) could help to effect great improvements in the paper, particularly with regard to the "informing the readers" metric.

So, in short - please consider consenting to an on-the-record interview. Wouldn't it be only fair to give citizen journalists on-the-record interviews, since you expect us community members to do this for your journalists?

or at the very least, if your answer is "no on-the-record interviews", say it out in the open.

thanks (hope i've pointed out how this comment is apropos to your column, hope you'll consider it, sorry to put you on the spot) -
Anna

This comment, with its request that Jeff Pelline (as editor) give a public answer to my interview request, was subsequently deleted from the his column Comments page.
In a reply to my email, it was made clear that no interview will be forthcoming. (I'd like to share the reason given, but since I'm told email communication is private, I expect this would be considered impermissible.)

What a strange, secretive world.
"If you can't blurt out the truth, what business are you in?"

----------------
Updates:

~2pm: had second thoughts, removed a section of this post.

4:45 pm: Jeff Pelline dropped by in the comments (thanks Jeff) explaining why he felt justified in declining to be interviewed. No explanation about the deleted and censored comments though.
(beyond the original deleted comment, twice today I attempted to make a 'trackback' comment at The Union (on the column comments page) alerting Jeff P.'s readers to this post; neither one appeared.)

Confidential to the "Heinz 57 questions" commenter, should s/he run across this post: what are the 57 questions?

or - gawd I'm slow, it really did only just now occur to me - was the "57 questions" comment ("Hey Jeff, could I interview you with 57 questions where I expect explicit answers? As a truth teller, I hope that you would reply in kind and not just stick me in the recyle bin like your predecessor.") just meant as a parody of my (deleted) "Jeff, may I interview you" comment?

Oops. like i said - i'm SLOW.

(fyi, no more email interview attempts upon reluctant interviewees - it takes too long, and it makes stonewalling too easy.)

Food for thought, on social status

What people really seem to want most is a better place in the pecking order. ...legacy of our evolutionary origins. ... one wonderful thing about status. It can be manufactured at low cost.
...
Both domestically and internationally, we're collectively trending toward mass humiliation of opponents. Why not try to make as many reasonable people as happy as possible when it costs so little?

- Jaron Lanier, from here in the NY Times

Yes, it's Valentine's Day

Love is in the air...

or rather, on the sleeve


Happy Valentine's day, folks.

Related, a nice thing about this time of year - you can tell where all the ponds in the neighborhood are, without having to look.

Best writing on peak oil and climate change

Jim Kunstler (e.g. this) for testosterone, Sharon Astyk for estrogen.
Stayed up way too late last night reading her blog - start with My Children's Century, Part I and you'll likely have trouble stopping too.
"Wealthy nations are literally killing poor people by the millions by our choices, and climate change is poised to accelerate this. ..."

Both religious people and activists represent a kind of resistance against a populace that often seems to adhere to no principles at all, that exercises no discipline upon desire, and often seems to care for nothing greater than the next thing.

and

peak oil is not about petroleum geology, or economics when you get right down to it... Peak Oil is a justice movement, plain and simple. It is about fairness, morality and justice - we in the rich world have chosen to steal from the poor in our own country and other nations, and from our children and grandchildren, and we need to stop it right now.

and

Americans routinely believe that America stands for freedom (even when it doesn't) - but we never think of America standing for responsibility.
...How do we change ourselves from a people who believe that our freedom is bound up in consumption, and in the right to become rich, regardless of the consequences, to a people who think it is more important to ensure that their neighbors also have food and shelter? How do we make ourselves into a people who willingly endure some hardship for the greater good?
...And how do we convince adults to look critically at the consequences of their own actions?

Elizabeth Kolbert's series The Climate of Man, which appeared in the New Yorker in 2005 - I, II, III

Global warming myths and lies