Rep. Barney Frank speaks up to a Republican who claims that President Obama’s stimulus package is just a way to disguise the largest government spending bill in history.
http://www.youtube.com/v/mSw3QqSF_zU&hl=en&fs=1
Good for him, and I wish more politicians in our country would say things like this on national television.
In “Discipline and Punish” he writes:
It was as if the punishment was thought to equal, if not exceed, in savagery the crime itself, to accustom the spectators to a ferocity from which one wished to divert them, to show them the frequency of crime, to make the executioner resemble a criminal, judges murderers, to reverse roles at the last moment, to make the tortured criminal an object of pity or admiration.
Just found that interesting in light of all of these discussion concerning the closing of Guantanamo Bay and the United States’ role in extradition and torture.
There’s a fascinating article up on one of The New York Times’ various blogs about the most iconic photographs from President Bush’s tenure in office. Errol Morris sits down with some of the traveling Associated Press photographers and discusses at great length some of their favourite photographs.
Word today that all three major networks are pulling correspondents out of Iraq and shifting them to the “new hotspot” in Afghanistan.
Of course, the Iraq war has evolved and violence in the country has subsided. At the same time, President-elect Barack Obama and senior military strategists generally agree that tensions have risen in Afghanistan, leading to more violence and unrest.
In short, the story, certainly on television, is shifting to Afghanistan.
We saw what happened to public knowledge about the Afghanistan war when we invaded Iraq in 2003 is it too much to expect the public to forget about Iraq in a few years? It is tremendously irresponsible for the media to choose between covering one war or the other. It was irresponsible to forget Afghanistan in 2003 and it’s irresponsible to forget Iraq now. This proves to me that the media does not prioritize actual journalism and coverage, but rather works toward creating the most interesting and topical situation out there. Seems as though they are taking the attitude of “Yeah, the U.S. is in Iraq, but it’s been there for 5 years and frankly, we’re bored with that. We need something new and exciting.” This all reaffirms the often used saying that the media takes what is interesting and makes it news instead of taking the news and making it interesting.