Profiles of Bias in the Media - Jennifer Loven

John Kerry in typical fashion, implied that only stupid people join the military. Here's what he said: "You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.” Now political operatives posing as independent journalists do their best to spin. Take Jennifer Loven of the Associated Press. Let's breakdown her article (my comments are italicized)

White House, Kerry Trade Accusations -- Jennifer Loven, AP

The White House and Sen. John Kerry traded their harshest accusations since the 2004 presidential race on Tuesday, with President Bush accusing the Democrat of troop-bashing and Kerry calling the president's men hacks who are "willing to lie."

Ms. Loven tries to bore you to make it appear as if it is just "politics as usual," so you skip reading. She starts off with Bush to boot as if it some petty fight. If it had been a Republican she would have written: "Senator John Kerry is under fire tonight from veterans organizations for implying that only the uneducated go into the military."

The war of words, tough even for this hard-fought campaign season, came after Kerry told a group of California students on Monday that those unable to navigate the country's education system "get stuck in Iraq."

Unable to navigate the education system? That's a euphamism if I ever heard one. It would have read "Kerry told a group of California students on Monday that if you are smart you succeed other you'll be forced to go to Iraq."

The two parties are searching for any edge amid indications Democrats could take back the House and possibly win control of the Senate in next week's midterm elections. Though neither Bush nor Kerry is on any ballot, the bitterness with which they fought each other as 2004 rivals spilled over as both campaign hard for their parties in a race shaped in large measure by public doubts about the Iraq war.

Again she is trying to downplay it, and make it seem as if typical politics. If it had been a Republican it could have easily read: "Despite Kerry's claims, the all volunteer military is more highly educated that the average American. Every officer in the military is required to have a college degree. 92 percent of all enlistees have high school diplomas, compared with 79 percent of the American population."

On Iraq

From the below story from Newsweek, and I highlighted some of the email sections that stuck out. I think people can tend to fall into two camps whether they like Bush and decry anything critical of the war or they hate Bush and will smother any good news.

What people should be doing is focusing on victory and actively trying figure out how best to do that with the least amount of American casualties. The left wants to retreat but the Bush administration doesn't seem to want to change tactics.

While it is easy to play Monday morning quarterback, many people including myself, were saying the Muqtada Al-Sadr should have been dealt with over two years ago. Bush said he wouldn't appease terrorists, but as soon as Saddam fell, we began appeasing terrorists (Al-Sadr)

Some people don't think the Iraqis can govern themselves and need an iron fist. Many of those people are liberals, but to say that they imply that the Iraqis (and Arabs in general) are inferior people.

Nov. 6, 2006 issue - Robert Secher had a passion for history. Until his death in Iraq on Oct. 8, the 33-year-old Marine could recount all the major battles of the Civil War

His job there was one of the toughest in Iraq: making raw Iraqi recruits ready and able to take over the fight against the militants. Secher found the task exasperating and often discouraging; in e-mails and letters home, he expressed doubt that the Iraqi military would ever be ready for a handover, and criticized the way the Bush administration had directed the war. "Without the U.S., this army will fail and get eaten alive by the insurgents," he told his father in an e-mail this past April. Chatting with a friend during a brief leave five months later, he spoke of suspicions that some of his trainees were loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr and would have no compunction about betraying their American instructors if the radical Shiite cleric told them to.

At other times Captain Secher's messages expressed fondness for his Iraqi trainees and respect for their courage. He was no pacifist. His parents describe him as an unswerving Republican, and his own dispatches consistently defend the invasion of Iraq even as he anguishes over its dwindling prospects of success. "Don't mistake us for Cindy Sheehan," Pierre Secher told NEWSWEEK at his Memphis home ... "To me, pacifism could have led to Hitler's victory. We might have all been speaking German and Japanese right now." But as President George W. Bush speaks positively of setting benchmarks for Iraqi troops to "stand up" and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declares that their training is going well, Captain Secher's messages from the front give a more complicated picture....

[From his emails:]

"Anytime an American fires a weapon there has to be an investigation into why there was an escalation of force. That wouldn't have stopped us from firing, but it prevents us from just firing indiscriminately. We have to have positively identified targets. That is why I am now a big fan of having the Iraqis with us. They can fire at whatever the hell they want, we call it the "Iraqi Death Blossom."

"My 3 month informed opinion (based entirely on what I see in the Hit region) is that this war is futile. Even the Iraqi soldiers tell us that when America leaves, they'll quit. They trust us because they know Americans can take care of them, but they don't trust their government, or the Ministry of Defense, and they especially don't trust their officers"

"And anyone who calls those young Marines killers should think twice. War puts perfectly ordinary young men in situations that can't be judged by laws. They are the situations of survival. The dirty little secrets of war, no one would want to know the horrible things that the "greatest generation" did to German and Japanese soldiers and civilians. [...] If you really want to win a war you have to be brutal. You have to be Sherman and raze Georgia as you march to the sea."

"The biggest lesson I have learned over 6 months here is that the Iraqi culture is incapable of maintaining a western style military. The Arabic-style military [...] is distasteful to western soldiers: officers who hit their men; officers and senior enlisted men who regularly steal from their men; using leadership to openly grant yourself more food and 'standard of living' items while your men go without "

"This is such a long process. Maybe 20 years from now I'll look back with pride that I helped make a difference in Iraq, but right now I'm just not into it. I just want to come home alive. [...] The war in Iraq itself, yeah, it was the right thing to do, but the way it was carried out, man, Bush, Rumsfeld, and Cheney have nothing to be proud of."

Will Paris Burn Again?

During last year's Paris riots by unidentified "youths" I stated to "look for another excuse to riot with in 2 years, where the Muslims will demand even greater concessions". Well, looks like that time is now.

PARIS - Mixing rap music with memories of France's revolutionary past, youths from poor neighborhoods of largely Muslim and African descent marched through Paris on Wednesday to present a collection of 20,000 complaints to lawmakers.

The march by several hundred people came ahead of Friday's first anniversary of the riots involving disaffected youths from immigrant Parisian suburbs. Many in France fear new violence, with tensions rising in recent weeks.

"The context is still the same, nothing has changed. So the situation is propitious for other events like last year," said Samir Mihi, co-founder of the AC-Le Feu group that collected the grievances from minorities all over France.

The demonstrators held ragged-looking notebooks filled with complaints while crossing southern Paris toward the Assembly, the lower house of parliament, after a stop at the Senate.

"Immigrants scare the French" read one unsigned entry. Another entry, by a 17-year-old boy from Besancon in eastern France, urged companies to use their profits to create more jobs. AP

Trackback: Paris Burning

CNN, Al Jazeera - no difference

On October 19, 2006, Michael Ware of CNN reported on and aired a video of snipers killing a Marine.

Representative Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, asked Donald Rumsfeld to removed CNN embedded reporters.

Will Rumsfeld do anything? Is weak and feckless?

Love Your Body Day?

All University of Texas students received the below email on "Love your Body Day". Do we really need to spend state money to do this? Is this really necessary? My taxes are going to pay a 5'4", 275-pound Californian and a "star" of a transsexual documentary to tell 18 year olds to play with themselves? Do they really need the extra instruction?

Campus Fusion brings "Week of Dialogue" to The University of Texas at
Austin Sponsored by The University Co-op, The Multicultural Information Center, and Student Government.

Campus Fusion, a collaborative vision built by the Multicultural Information Center and Student Government at The University of Texas at Austin, and sponsored by The University Co-Op, brings a "Week of Dialogue" to campus from October 16-19.

Through different programs during the week-long event, the campus community recognizes the importance of talking about diversity issues at the University.

The Kick-off Rally took place this morning on Gregory Plaza and in the Gregory concourse. Also on Monday, October 16, the Gender and Sexuality Center at The University of Texas at Austin will be holding Love Your Body Day at 8 pm in the Texas Union's Santa Rita Room. Love Your Body Day will feature Raci Ignacio, star of Transgenerations, and Marilyn Wann, author of Fat!So?....

Retrying Failed Housing Policies in Houston

In a opinion piece in today's Houston Chronicle, an owner of many apartment complexes and housing advisor the mayor, David Mincberg offer solutions to the so-called problem of Houston housing costs, which are terribly misguided. Anyone with a basic understanding of economics knows that his solutions will only raise rents. Investment of capital to improve some neighborhoods will increase the desirability of to live in those apartments and hence an increase in rent. Removing a couple buildings in complexes might improve green spaces, but reducing supply will only increase prices. Tearing down and rebuilding apartment complexes will also increase prices as builders must recuperate their costs.

None of his options actually involve increasing the number of apartments, which is the correct solution if Houston is expecting an increase in population. The easiest way to cut rent prices is to increase supply. If builders construct new apartment complexes, Houstonians with higher incomes will likely move there. Then the complexes that are older will be forced to lower rent. Every city that has dictated rent control and created open space laws, end up with high rents and slums.

Houston already has some of the more affordable housing in the country, especially with contrast to its size. It’s significant that one person on minimum wage can afford to make rent and have some money leftover. Let’s not forget that good workers don’t stay at $6/hr for long. Houston’s costs are much lower than many other major cities, because it lets the market work. The other half of the equation is that Houston likely has an oversupply of unskilled labor due to illegal immigration. However, other locations need people and hence some may need to move.

As a final thought, it seems suspicious that Mincberg is championing policies that would actually raise rent. Perhaps he would like to increase profits without having to build. Very dodgy indeed. If the CEO of Exxon was the head of the Council on Alternative Energy, everyone would be rightly concerned.

Barbara Ehrenreich, the journalist who recorded her experiences living on the low end of the legal economy in her book Nickel and Dimed, learned first-hand the truth that all low-wage earners in America face today: lack of access to affordable housing is an enormous problem. That problem exists in Houston today.

It may not be glamorous, but the crisis in affordable housing impacts us all. Lack of housing increases homelessness, increases truancy and juvenile delinquency, and decreases economic opportunities for otherwise hardworking people. A city can not survive or prosper in these circumstances.

Half of Houston's population lives in rental housing. One million people. When you look

at the incomes earned by Houstonians, they don't fall in a neat bell curve. Instead, we have a two-hump curve; one small hump of high wage earners, like engineers. A much larger hump on the income curve is the number of people employed in Houston making $6 or $7 an hour, or maybe $60 a day.

Doing the math is pretty easy.

Sixty dollars times five days is $300 per week. Four weeks per month means $1,200 per month of total income. Since half the households in Houston are composed of one or two persons, this means total household income for a substantial portion of our residents is just that: $1,200 per month. With the cheapest apartments renting for $500 per month plus utilities, many families double up, live in cars, or make the tradeoff between food and electricity.

Drive in some neighborhoods and you'll notice the large number of little hibachi grills in the front yards of apartment units. Barbecue lovers? No. People without electricity.

Low incomes explain the large number of homeless and near-homeless employed persons in Houston, because people who want to work must have a car to get to employers. Look through the Chronicle's Help Wanted section, and you'll find more than 4,000 current job openings, mostly in places not accessible by public transportation. If you can get to La Porte, you can make $20 per hour as a painter's assistant. Forklift drivers in northwest Houston earn $9-$10 working in a warehouse. An ice cream shop is hiring scoopers in a convenient location on Kirby — at $6.25 per hour.

Many Houstonians ask: Aren't there programs? Aren't there vouchers? Aren't there places for people to stay?

The answer is a qualified yes. Some programs do exist, but the waiting list for assisted housing has the names of more than 18,000 families.

The 2000 U.S. Census predicts that Houston will add 350,000 more people over the next five years, with the greatest demand coming from workers requiring housing that costs $400-$600 per month. The apartments that are available in this price range are frequently in terrible condition. Every week, it seems we read another report of poor living conditions and rampant crime in apartment communities. This condition needs to change, now, if Houston is to remain a growing, viable city.

Houston has three options to help multifamily communities.

• First, the rehabilitation of existing units through significant dollar investments will improve properties in targeted neighborhoods.

• A second choice is the teardown of one or two buildings within selected complexes to decrease density and create green or community space as appropriate.

• Finally, the complete teardown and rebuilding of non-livable apartment properties may be appropriate. Each of these options will improve the quality of life for the 50 percent of families not able to own their own home yet. Having enough safe, decent, affordable housing units helps Houston draw a qualified workforce and keeps our economy strong. Government, civic leaders, businesses and all people that call Houston home have a stake in the success of getting enough affordable housing units here in Houston.

David Mincberg, chairman and CEO of Flagship Properties Corporation, currently serves as Mayor White's special assistant for Multi-Family Housing Policy. Houston Chronicle