Miami is getting spanked. People gonna have to stop talking about how Wade only makes himself look good.

The New Public Editor: Toward Greater Transparency
By BYRON CALAME

IT'S time to write Chapter 2 of the public editor chronicles at The New York Times.

Recently retired after almost 40 years at The Wall Street Journal, I've agreed to become The Times's second public editor - an outsider dedicated to representing readers and serving as a watchdog over the paper's journalistic integrity. In this first column, I hope to provide a sense of who I am and how I intend to tackle the job.

The first public editor, Daniel Okrent, boldly established the genuine independence essential to carrying out the job and elegantly dissected many of the major issues of journalistic integrity. A bit more of a nitty-gritty newspaperman, I hope to raise the blinds at The Times in some new ways to allow readers to get a clearer view inside the newsroom process. Greater transparency, I believe, can help you as readers better understand the news judgments that shape each day's paper - and hold The Times's news staff more accountable.

Over here after ConPermiso said:

Aristotle defines them as language used in argument [logos], character of the speaker [ethos], and emotional appeal [pathos].  logos, or logic, is given prominence because many like to argue that it is objective and empirical, while the other two tropes rely upon an audience's response to the speaker.

I wrote

I'm thinking about the posture one assumes when up on the soapbox. I'm thinking of what passes for persuasion nowadays...debate, Internet style. The denial of emotion only makes the emotion's impact more pronounced.

D.C. and Jobs (Cont'd)
Saturday, June 4, 2005; Page A16

IN A MAY 28 editorial we presented statistics that illustrated the degree of estrangement of D.C. residents from the D.C. job market. The data, drawn from a report prepared by the D.C. Department of Employment Services, showed that city residents fill less than a third of the city's 672,400 jobs; that during a period of growth in jobs, unemployment among city residents actually increased; that there is a serious mismatch between skill demands in the workplace and the job readiness of many District residents; and that joblessness in the city is heavily concentrated in communities where crime, the unskilled and many youth come together. We asked if the city had an answer. We report this week that it does. Now the question is whether the city's answer is enough or if it is really what is needed.

Saudis Rebuked on Forced Labor

The United States yesterday named Saudi Arabia and three other Persian Gulf Arab allies as having among the world's worst records in halting human trafficking, a rebuke that could subject the countries to sanctions if they do not act quickly to address U.S. concerns.

Crackdown Muddies U.S.-Uzbek Relations
Washington in Talks on Long-Term Use of Base
By Ann Scott Tyson and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, June 4, 2005; A01

The United States is negotiating long-term use of a major military base in Uzbekistan to expand the global reach of American forces, despite a brutal government crackdown on protests there last month, Bush administration officials said.

The talks have gone on behind the scenes for several months but have become more awkward for the administration since last month's unrest, which produced the heaviest bloodshed since the Central Asian country left the Soviet Union in 1991. Human rights advocates argue that a new pact would undermine the administration's goal of spreading democracy in the Islamic world.

Yes!

George Clinton Regains Possession of Funkadelic Masters
Friday June 3, 7:11 pm ET

LOS ANGELES, June 3 /PRNewswire/ -- In a sweeping decision on Thursday, June 2, 2005, United States District Court Judge Manuel L. Real returned to George Clinton possession of four master recordings. The four albums, produced and recorded by Clinton under the name of Funkadelic, are "Hardcore Jollies," "One Nation Under A Groove," "Uncle Jam Wants You" and "The Electric Spanking of War Babies."

The decision gives George Clinton sole possession of the masters, returning them to their rightful owner after more than 15 years, and Clinton has no obligation to lien holders.

Embryo adoption?

Seriously?

Of course it always has, it's just very stark in Africa.

Quote of note:

If the word "genocide" was on Mr. Bush's mind, it may be because he had dinner on Tuesday at Mr. Powell's home in Virginia. But Mr. Mbeki sat in silence when Mr. Bush used the term, refusing to declare that the Sudanese government was responsible for the killings in the region.

"It might be fine for some in the United States to make all kinds of statements," he said later. "If you denounce Sudan as genocidal, what next? Don't you have to arrest the president? The solution doesn't lie in making radical solutions - not for us in Africa."

Bush Maintains Opposition to Doubling Aid for Africa
By ELIZABETH BECKER and DAVID E. SANGER

C.D.C. Team Investigates an Outbreak of Obesity
By GINA KOLATA

For the first time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has sent a team of specialists into a state, West Virginia, to study an outbreak of obesity in the same way it studies an outbreak of an infectious disease.

Kerri Kennedy, the program manager at the West Virginia Physical Activity and Nutrition Program, said the state had requested the agency's investigation.

"We were looking at our data," Ms. Kennedy said, and saw that "we are facing a severe health crisis."

The state ranked third in the nation for obesity - 27.6 percent of its adults were obese, compared with 20.4 percent in the country as a whole. And, Ms. Kennedy said, "our rate of obesity appears to be increasing faster than the rest of the nation."

Where were these nominations up until now?

Bush Poised to Nominate Dozens For Judgeships, GOP Insiders Say
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 3, 2005; Page A21

The White House is preparing to send a raft of new judicial nominations to the Senate in the next few weeks, according to Republican strategists inside and outside the administration -- a move that could challenge the durability of last week's bipartisan filibuster deal and reignite the political warfare it was intended to halt.

The Bush administration has been vetting candidates for 30 more federal district and appeals court vacancies that have been left open for months while the Senate battled over previous nominations stalled by Democrats. Now that Democrats have agreed not to filibuster any new candidates except in "extraordinary circumstances," Republicans are eager to test the proposition.

If they had been submitted before the Frist Filibuster Feint, they would have either been

Black Churches and AIDS
June 3, 2005

More than two dozen prominent African American pastors met last week with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to talk about how black churches could use federal grants to fight the spread of HIV in Africa and help that continent's tens of millions of AIDS orphans. The need is enormous. So is the irony.

African Americans, who account for 13% of the nation's population, represent 51% of new HIV cases   and 69% of the new cases among women. Yet here at home, black churches have been even slower than their white counterparts to join in the fight against AIDS. Last year, for example, a well-known L.A. AIDS activist wrote to the leaders of 300 local black churches inviting them to a summit on HIV and AIDS in minority communities. She heard back from five.

The Quote of note comes from a previous post:

But the scary statistical stuff...the constantly reducing yields on the money in the Social Security trust fund that Greenspan convinced us was necessary. Do you know why the yield keeps falling? It's because the pre-funding was phased-in the proportion of funds collected to funds paid out was lower when pre-funding began.

Cracking the Nest-Egg Problem
A fundamental question colors the debate over Bush's personal-account plan: Is Social Security intended more for savings or for insurance?
By Warren Vieth and Joel Havemann
Times Staff Writers
June 3, 2005

Quote of note:

Though Koretz said no law enforcement groups opposed his bill, Republican lawmakers criticized it strongly. Assemblyman Todd Spitzer (R-Orange) argued that criminals could plant spent shell casings to mislead investigators.

"I'm incredibly concerned about the ability to frame innocent people through the use of this technique," Spitzer said.

And where would these criminals get the spent shells?

Think about that.

Legislators Pass Bills Requiring Ammo ID
Numbers would be put on new bullets and cartridges. Legislation to allow some illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses is OKd.
By Jordan Rau and Nancy Vogel
Times Staff Writers
June 3, 2005

Robert Johnson to Retire As BET Chief

By DAVID BAUDER
AP Television Writer

NEW YORK   Robert Johnson, who built BET into the leading TV network for black Americans, announced on Thursday he would retire from the company in January.

Debra Lee, the company's president and chief operating officer, will assume Johnson's CEO role upon his exit.

Johnson started Black Entertainment Television from the basement of his Washington home during cable's infancy in 1979. BET is now seen in more than 80 million homes in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean.

Johnson, 59, became the nation's first black billionaire when he sold BET to Viacom for $3 billion in 2000, joining the company that also owns MTV and Nickelodeon. He received a five-year contract to stay with BET after the sale.

This strikes most folks as truly bizarre shit. But it's not the only such gesture being made.

I feel it's connected to this nonsense of "tracking down" murderers of civil rights workers, arresting them on their deathbeds after they've had forty-plus years of public accolades. All very public rituals of the sort that has gone on since humans first developed culture.

I understand Dr. Cosby is not connected with the camp. Still...

The past comes to life in Ala. camp
A camp in Alpine, Ala. offers students a first hand look at slavery and an experience they won't forget anytime soon
BY SAMIRA JAFARI
Associated Press

ALPINE, Ala. - The girl stares at the ground, the man looming beside her. Directly ahead is a path for escape. Behind her, more little bodies stand rigidly with eyes cast downward.

"They're runaways, ain't they? You don't even have a concept of freedom, do you?'' the man barks at her face. "You a slave, girl?''

She nods gingerly, a few others give weak sniffles.

reality is a consensual hallucination.  because we can only perceive the world through our senses AND because the interpretation of our senses is subject to our cultural and social allegiances, reality is what everyone says it is. 

One is to let you know about an interesting-looking report that I haven't read yet.

The Segregation of Opportunities

Tom Luce, research director of IRP co-authored "The Segregation of Opportunities: The Structure of Advantage and Disadvantage in the Chicago Region" with John Lukehart of the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities and Jason Reece of the Kirwan Institute on Race and Ethnicity.

The report presents findings of a comprehensive review of race, housing and opportunity in the Chicago metropolitan area. The report, and the research behind it, works towards two objectives. The first is to analyze a variety of data and document the correlation between race, income, and access to different types of opportunities at the community level. The report updates what the Leadership Council has documented in past research; namely, that stark racial and economic disparities exist in terms of access to opportunities in the Chicago region. The maps in the report appendix demonstrate geographically the stratification of opportunity. In addition, the report is to serve as a vehicle for advocates and decision-makers working today to shape the Chicago region of tomorrow.

The other is to remind me to finish checking out the reason I haven't read the report yet.

Quote of note:

For example, as a religious (though non-Orthodox) Jew, I have many differences with Christians' theology. We differ on the Trinity; the divinity of Jesus; the identity of the messiah; the role of Torah, not to mention rabbinic law, on who is and who is not saved; and on such matters as faith versus works. Yet these theological differences cause almost no difference in our social and moral values, which are almost identical. Why?

Because conservative Jews and Christians share the belief that God revealed a text (a text, moreover, that we share). At the same time, liberal Jews and liberal Christians share the belief that this text is man-made.

Fundamental error.

Mr. Prager forgets that there is almost no difference in the social and moral values of any set of human beings...if you limit your examination to those the humans consider members of their in-group. And I don't find religion to be dispositive of in-group membership.

Still, this is an important insight. There is a real division here between those who see The Word as a defining a framework for righteous behavior as opposed to The Word as defining the limits of righteous behavior. That division, for obvious reasons, correlates almost perfectly with the divide noticed by Mr.Prager.

The (Culture) War of the Word
By Dennis Prager

lkspence, darkstar, cnulan, temple3...

Since Black elected officials are for sale, and seldom come with a high price tag, why don't we buy some. I have a few dollars saved up and would like to start the bidding for an electoral bundle that includes three State Senators in states with large agribusiness/farm subsidies, 2 city mayors with populations of less than 1 million in states with defense contractors, and 3 House sub-committee members. How much would that run a fella like me?

I don't think you can find that many buyable Black pols that fit your requirements (mayors of two small cities in a state with large agribusiness subsidies, three Black State Senators and three Black House subcommittee members).

Busted for Blackness at Middlebury
How a Bronx senior with a sterling record got kicked out of a tony Vermont college
by Aina Hunter
May 31st, 2005 11:09 AM

that ends like this:

Last week, while many of Walker's classmates were heading to beach homes and celebratory trips abroad, Walker was sitting in his mom's tiny apartment in the Bronx. Hyacinth Newby works as an attendant to the elderly; her son would have been the first in his family with a college degree.

"They threw him out like garbage," she says. "It really hurts, it's really painful. I'm proud of my son anyway."

starts like this:

Spin Doctored
How drug companies keep tabs on physicians.
By Shannon Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer
Posted Tuesday, May 31, 2005, at 3:13 AM PT

Doctors have long maintained that they are immune to the blandishments of drug companies. The lucrative consulting contracts, fancy meals, trips to exotic locales, free pens, flashlights, coffee mugs, and sticky notepads emblazoned with prescription-drug brand names none of these are supposed to cloud a physician's clinical judgment. Doctors like to think they decide which treatments to order and which drugs to prescribe because of scientific evidence, not marketing.

But the companies think they know otherwise. Last week, five whistle-blowers from government and industry gathered in Washington, D.C., at a meeting sponsored by the online scientific journal PLoS and the Government Accountability Project to discuss the pharmaceutical industry. Among the attendees were Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau, a former drug company representative and independent filmmaker, and an unnamed drug company researcher. They detailed for the group how the companies and the reps know right down to the pill whether or not their sales pitches are working and how to improve them. The industry's semi-secret weapon is prescriber reports, weekly lists of every prescription written by each of the 600,000 doctors in the United States. Relatively few physicians know about prescriber reports, also known as prescriber profiles. But their existence makes it far more difficult to imagine that pharmaceutical marketing has no effect on the doctors it targets.

Quote of note:

Here is what Norvell fessed up to in the May 20 Wall Street Journal Europe:

Even we at Fox News manage to get some lefties on the air occasionally, and often let them finish their sentences before we club them to death and feed the scraps to Karl Rove and Bill O'Reilly. And those who hate us can take solace in the fact that they aren't subsidizing Bill's bombast; we payers of the BBC license fee don't enjoy that peace of mind.

Fox News is, after all, a private channel and our presenters are quite open about where they stand on particular stories. That's our appeal. People watch us because they know what they are getting. The Beeb's institutionalized leftism would be easier to tolerate if the corporation was a little more honest about it.

Norvell never says the word "conservative" in describing "where [Fox's anchorpeople] stand on particular stories," or what Fox's viewers "know   they are getting." But in context, Norvell clearly is using the example of Fox News to argue that political bias is acceptable when it isn't subsidized by the public (as his op-ed's target, the leftish BBC, is), and when the bias is acknowledged. Norvell's little joke about clubbing lefties to death should satisfy even the most literal-minded that the bias Norvell describes is a conservative one. (Lord only knows where Norvell acquired the erroneous belief that Fox News is "honest" about its conservative slant; perhaps he's so used to Fox's protestations of objectivity being ignored that he literally forgot that they continue to be uttered.)

Fox News Admits Bias!
Its London bureau chief blurts out the political slant that dare not speak its name.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Tuesday, May 31, 2005, at 9:40 AM PT

Quote of note:

''In the three years since 9/11, the administration has yet to arrive at a clear definition of the enemy or the aim in the war on terrorism," says the study, ''American Grand Strategy After 9/11: An Assessment."

''To date, American policy has combined ambitious public statements with ambiguity on critical particulars."

''The costs of pursuing such ambitious but ill-defined goals have been high but tolerable," the report continues. ''The ongoing insurgency in Iraq, however, is increasing the costs . . . to the point where fundamental choices can no longer be deferred."

Bush strategy lacks clarity, report asserts
Aim of effort against terror found wanting

Summer of Code

The Summer of Code is Google's program designed to introduce students to the world of Open Source Software Development.

This Summer, don't let your programming skills lie fallow...Use them for the greater good of Open Source Software and computer science! Google will provide a $4500 award to each student who successfully completes an open source project by the end of the Summer. (payment details can be found in FAQ)

...much less do it in front of a camera.

Quote of note:

So should we be worrying about the deficit? Not if we can magically delay the retirement of the baby boomers for another 25 years, increase private saving and restore the nation to international creditor status, reinstate policymakers willing to take political risks to reduce the deficit and assume that we will repeat a streak of great luck.

In the real world, though, wouldn't it would be better to act before we're forced to do so?

We're All Living on Borrowed Time
By William G. Gale and Peter R. Orszag
William G. Gale and Peter R. Orszag are senior fellows at the Brookings Institution.
June 1, 2005

GERORGE [sic] E. CURRY: Slavery and the Second Amendment

by George E. Curry
June 1, 2005

...For those who missed it, Rice appeared on CNN s Larry King Live May 11 and talked about her father and his friends arming themselves against nightriders in Birmingham, Ala. in 1962 and 1963. She said,   We have to be very careful when we start abridging rights that our Founding Fathers thought very important. And on this one, I think that they understood that there might be circumstances that people like my father experienced in Birmingham, Ala., when, in fact, the police weren t going to protect you. 

I took issue with her. Since then, a reader directed me to a fascinating 100-page article in the University of California-Davis Law Review [Winter 1997] by Carl T. Bogus titled,  The Hidden History of the Second Amendment.  The Second Amendment reads:  A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. 

"There is a very strong sensibility in New Jersey that suburban meant white and urban meant nonwhite. That is passed down," said Clement Price, a history professor at Rutgers-Newark.

Delicately phrased...

Research also shows that black home buyers are less wary than whites of buying into racially mixed or mostly minority neighborhoods.

Gee, I wonder why...

Logan acknowledged that affluent black families who choose to live in black neighborhoods experience some advantages over moving to areas with more whites, especially if there is a history of stable black ownership and strong community institutions.

"But there are some real costs to the decision," said Logan, who mentioned public safety and quality of schools as top concerns.

No detail on what those "costs" might be, beyond the implications about the neighborhood these Black folks, who are in the upper fifth in income in New Jersey, live in. Why would such a neighborhood have issues of public safety and quality of schools? Do they not pay taxes?

And where do these quotes and questions come from?

Blacks, whites still living apart in northern New Jersey
May 30, 2005, 4:56 PM EDT

Quote of note:

"Corruption is the biggest threat to democracy since communism," he said.

New World Bank Chief Says Aiding Africa Is His Top Goal
By ELIZABETH BECKER

WASHINGTON, May 31 - When he becomes president of the World Bank on Wednesday, Paul D. Wolfowitz says, Africa will be his top priority.

"Nothing would be more satisfying than to feel at the end of however long a term I serve here that we played a role in changing Africa from a continent of despair to a continent of hope," he said Tuesday at his first news conference.

To underline that commitment, he will travel to Africa in June.

Quote of note:

The investigators found that most companies let their pension contributions lapse to some degree, even in good years. Every year from 1995 to 2002, they said, about four plans in 10 were less than fully funded. The weaker a company happened to be, the investigators found, the likelier it was to be operating a pension fund that was also weak and to be calculating its pension values in a way that would "depict plan funding in a more optimistic light."

"These plans have the potential to create additional financial exposure and thus risk to the P.B.G.C.," the investigators wrote, referring to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.

Some Big Companies Failed to Add to Pensions in 1990's
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH

As ridiculous as it sounds, this is the 10,000th post on P6.

Devoid of Content
By STANLEY FISH

WE are at that time of year when millions of American college and high school students will stride across the stage, take diploma in hand and set out to the wider world, most of them utterly unable to write a clear and coherent English sentence. How is this possible? The answer is simple and even obvious: Students can't write clean English sentences because they are not being taught what sentences are.

Most composition courses that American students take today emphasize content rather than form, on the theory that if you chew over big ideas long enough, the ability to write about them will (mysteriously) follow. The theory is wrong. Content is a lure and a delusion, and it should be banished from the classroom. Form is the way.

I understand but if this is what it takes

Quote of note:

Mr. Bo said the government would resist calls from Chinese manufacturers for a W.T.O. complaint over the restrictions or to take other retaliatory measures. But the announcement on Monday suggested that the trade fight over clothing was far from over. "If you place limits on Chinese products," he said, "we'll adjust our policies accordingly. If you place five ounces of pressure on our businesses, we'll remove eight ounces of their burdens."

China to End Its Taxes on Textile Exports in Retaliation for U.S. and European Quotas
By CHRIS BUCKLEY

BEIJING, May 30 - China said Monday that it was lifting self-imposed textile export tariffs in reaction to quotas on the exports by the United States and European Union.

Just Like Bodies, Psyches Can Drown in Disasters
By M. LAURIE LEITCH

Pairao, a 38-year-old Thai woman with vacant eyes, sits on the dusty floor of her temporary house in a refugee camp for tsunami survivors. Her face is dotted with cuts from debris that struck her as she clung to four family members, all of whom died in the waves. She has been having recurrent nightmares and flashbacks.

I sit with her as she tells how her son had gone to market that fateful day and, therefore, survived. I am there to work with the traumatic stress symptoms of survivors like Pairao. However, my first connection to her is as a mother, and I feel a surge of gratitude that my own children are alive and safe back home.

Despite Vow, Drug Makers Still Withhold Clinical Information
By ALEX BERENSON

When the drug industry came under fire last summer for failing to disclose poor results from studies of antidepressants, major drug makers promised to provide more information about their research on new medicines. But nearly a year later, crucial facts about many clinical trials remain hidden, scientists independent of the companies say.

Within the drug industry, companies are sharply divided about how much information to reveal, both about new studies and completed studies for drugs already being sold. The split is unusual in the industry, where companies generally take similar stands on regulatory issues.

...which means politics and crap are back.

I'm not really trying to put anyone on the spot because those I would have been angry at turned out to be okay. Yet that very fact is part of the reason for this particular entry, though I've been considering it for a couple of days now.

It started with the responses to that African display in the German zoo. I was pretty direct in expressing my position on the damn thing, and conscious folks understood. Patriotboy wove a link to the post into one of his satirical pieces in a way that brought a whole lot of eyeballs to it. Kerim (whom I knew of from his blog Keywords) linked from Savage Minds, a rather impressive looking (and reading) blog by a collection of anthropology students and professors. It looks like anthropologists have been talking about this for about a week or so before I heard about it, mostly in German...following the discussion via Babelfish caused me to change the title of the sidebar block to "For entertainment only"...and I found a nice article that goes into the nature of the problem of which the exhibition is an example.

I added a new block on the sidebar: the twenty most commented-upon threads. It's right below the Live conversations block.

There's a difference between the discussions I find most memorable and those that were most active.

This weekend...holiday, it's still the weekend...yesterday the NY Times ran an article titled The First Occupation by Edward L. Ayers that presents a parallel between post-war Iraq and post-war Confederate States of America.

White Southerners, unrepentant after their military defeat, treated their conquerors with contempt. They unleashed riots in Memphis and New Orleans, created the Ku Klux Klan and enacted legal codes that reinscribed as much slavery as possible. White Southern resistance, in turn, provided the fuel and the rationale for Radical Reconstruction, which began in the spring of 1867 and sought to recast the political and social order of the defeated South through direct military control, free elections and state-sponsored economic development. Those who cooperated with the Republicans found themselves denounced in the South as ''scalawags''; those who came from the North to help rebuild the South were sneered at as greedy ''carpetbaggers.''

Most white Southerners never accepted the legitimacy of Reconstruction. They crushed black voting and other freedoms through violence, terrorism and fraud. When Reconstruction was driven from the South 12 years after it began, the white Southern majority rejoiced that true law, true justice, had returned. Confederate soldiers were lionized and a culture of defiance flourished. Over the next half-century the white South waged, and won, a propaganda war over the meaning of Reconstruction.

Apparently after a month of discussion we still have things to say. So let's raise the last comment in that thread, by cnulan, to the front page and take it from there.

I will say this is a hell of a weekend to raise this particular comment  because I'm not touching anything this deep today. But I will get to it, trust me.

LATER : No, no, no, pick up the thread here!

Something CP wrote should be carefully revisited;

it's not like white supremacy and white privilege have disappeared; in fact, they are more dangerous than ever because their existence is hidden behind neoliberal, colorblind terminology. you can see it in laws which punish blacks and whites differently for the same charge; you can see it in a media which has trouble (i'm being polite) finding stories portraying blacks in a positive manner. it becomes a question of ideology - an ideology which lives off of its hate and fear of black people. is this an environment you want to raise your kids in? so arguing for segregation - an argument DuBois himself struggled with because he saw the need for a positive articulation of Black identity even as he longed for acceptance by mainstream America - would seem to be MORE important than ever.

Thought I'd try one of them open thread dudes.