Slants and Angles

In the wake of the unrest in Tibet, and the Dalai Lama's visit to the United States, Chinese students in the US are feeling that the Western (read: American) media has an anti-Chinese bias. Their reasoning for this seems simple enough: That American reporting of these events tends to elevate the Lama and the Tibetans at the direct expense of the Chinese, who often come across as the villains, and it doesn't take into account Chinese and Asian history, as understood by the students.

It is, to a degree, a fair charge. The "Western Media" tends to espouse liberal western values, and "China" doesn't. (Referring to the Western Media as though it were a single monolithic entity makes about as much sense as the idea that all Chinese think alike.) This does make the Chinese government into an easy target for outlets looking to burnish their democracy and human rights credentials. Another easy target is the government of Sudan. There are a lot of countries whose more nationalistic citizens would take exceptions to the portrayals of their nations on CNN, ABC or Fox News. (Russia comes to mind.) And it's a safe bet that when some copy editor for NBC cranks out another story about human rights abuses in China, that they don't stop to consider that Chinese who read these stories might feel hurt by the critical tone. Would it make a difference if they did? I don't know - the answer might well be: "Hey, the truth hurts sometimes." Americans have had enough of their own cherished stories torn down to be familiar with that. There is an entire industry devoted to telling us about the true facts of history. And it does seem that history's become a moving target. Anyone who dares say that the history they learned in school was free of careful revisions, self-serving omissions or even outright inaccuracies (sincere or not) would be laughed out of town. One commonly forgotten aspect of the Culture Wars is over the way American History should be taught - the battle over the right balance between extolling the times when America lived up to the ideals of its founding, and calling out the times that it failed.

Of course, it's not impossible to find more "neutral" news sources. But it does take some looking, as the big players present things they way they do because that's what gets eyeballs.

You Go, Mister

I'll admit - I'm somewhat inconsistent in the positions that I take on things versus what I respect in other people. For myself, I'm a firm proponent of the idea that if you give a man a fish, all you wind up doing is teaching him to depend on you. Much better, says my reasoning, to teach the man to fish, so that, as the saying goes, he'll eat forever. (Then you introduce him to a tailor and a carpenter who like fish, so that he'll eat clothed and sheltered from the elements.)

Be that as it may, I have to give props to one Bill Pond. Mr. Pond goes up to Seattle's Capitol Hill two evenings a week, and hands out soup and sandwiches to the homeless up there - although he doesn't put up with rude people. Although it's something that I wouldn't do myself, I have immense respect for what Mr. Pond is about. We need more people like him around. And as much as I normally dislike the fluffy human interest stories that newspapers use to fill space, I'm actually glad the Times took the time and space to print this.

Candid Camera

The United Kingdom has become a surveillance state beyond anything approaching reason - one community council used covert surveillance to verify that a family lived in the proper school district for the school they sent their 3-year old to. So while England is a very nice place to visit, I'm now convinced that I'd never actually want to live there. I'm waiting for the place to become the Truman Show, or something.

But the United States might be getting just as crazy... but the feds are also cheap, so they're not bothering to install their own cameras. They just tap the people who made the cameras that you have, and say "Hey, turn that on." The FBI has been able to monitor people by having General Motors turn on the microphone in their OnStar systems so they could covertly listen in. As law-enforcement takes a stance of crime preemption, rather than just criminal investigation, they're going to be looking for more and more ways of monitoring people who might be criminals. And, let's face it, just about anybody can come up with a means and a motive to do something illegal. So I suspect that we're going to see more and more monitoring in the name of public safety and security.

Ready, Fire, Aim

Three New York police officers were acquitted by a judge on all counts in the death of Sean Bell, who was killed after leaving his bachelor party at a strip club. This was a predictable outcome, mainly because such trials tend to focus on the narrow question of: "Did the officers have reason to believe that their lives were in danger?" Disproving that sort of assertion would require either a confession or some REALLY incriminating video.

After the Amadou Diallo shooting, nearly ten years ago, I was reading a paper that pointed out something that doesn't normally come up in these situations. While the police officers reacted in accordance with their training, when Diallo reached for his wallet (since it could have been a gun), if they'd followed their training up to that point, they wouldn't have been in such a vulnerable situation in the first place - that is, they would have been able to take the time to discern whether or not Diallo was armed without being sitting ducks if he had been.

I'm willing to bet that a similar situation unfolded with Bell. If officers were trailing him, because they thought that he or his friends might be armed, why didn't they take better care to not be in a position where he'd have the drop on them if he drew? Their sloppiness put them in a position where deadly force could have been the only thing keeping them alive. But that's not a criminal offense - but the fact that it seems to happen every couple of years should prompt us to look more closely at this, less sexy aspect of these shootings.

Another failure of training (or perhaps of standards) in this case is verifying the target. One of the officers shot a high-capacity semi-automatic dry, reloaded, and nearly emptied the magazine again (a total of 30 rounds), once another officer started firing, never realizing that no one was actually shooting at him. American soldiers in Iraq have complained that Iraqi soldiers tend to fire indiscriminately, not knowing what they're supposed to be shooting it. Sadr City is crawling with insurgents - New York isn't. If there is an expectation that barely trained men in the midst of what is arguably a civil war exercise basic fire discipline, why don't we expect the same of professional police officers when civilians are present?

Feeling the Heat

Another side effect of the "Mortgage Meltdown:" people torching their properties for the insurance money. Should have seen this coming. I believe the rule is that you have to have the home insured for enough to cover the mortgage, so if they don't catch you... (Hint - removing all of your expensive home theater gear before the fire makes you a suspect. Just saying.) But I guess it's still not very widespread, which is why there isn't a lot of coverage yet. But I suspect that we'll start to see more arsons as people try to find a way out from under a crushing mortgage that leaves their credit intact.