meta-appalling news

Some of the news isn't appalling. It's simply about how appalling the news is. I'm including a must-read editorial by Paul Krugman from the NYT. If you don't religiously read Krugman (twice a week, every week) then register for the online times and just do it. Bob Herbert is also good. Kristof and Dowd are excellent; Kristof tends to raise issues about how we fail to notice tiny things like genocide in Sudan, and Maureen Dowd writes great essays, but ends them terribly. I'm not sure why this bothers me so much, but it does. I always feel like I've missed a page when I get to the end of one of hers.

Amy Goodman in a Democracy Now! interview gets a similar meta-news thing going with Ted Koppel. Lots of good news about news articles on the democracy now home page...  

Triumph of the Trivial
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: July 30, 2004
Under the headline "Voters Want Specifics From Kerry," The Washington Post recently quoted a voter demanding that John Kerry and John Edwards talk about "what they plan on doing about health care for middle-income or lower-income people. I have to face the fact that I will never be able to have health insurance, the way things are now. And these millionaires don't seem to address that."

Mr. Kerry proposes spending $650 billion extending health insurance to lower- and middle-income families. Whether you approve or not, you can't say he hasn't addressed the issue. Why hasn't this voter heard about it?

ABC's Ted Koppel Refuses To Apologize For Pre-War Iraq Coverage
Koppel tells Democracy Now!, "I don't think an apology is due. If what you are saying is could we all have been more critical? I think the answer is yes."

Jimmy Breslin: “The Media Should Have Their Licenses Revoked” for Lack of Convention Coverage
We speak with Pulitzer prize-winning columnist Jimmy Breslin about the intense scripting of John Kerry’s coronation ceremony at the Democratic National Convention.

conventions make the news boring

Honestly.

I had the idea for this blog because I used to print out all the horrifying news stories every day and file them away so I could, sort of like Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory, track the decline of our country page by page. I could find dozens every day that were subtle but connectable, (but, c'mon, earthquakes in Turkey? Puhleeze.)

I'm having problems this week. The news is all about the convention, which is as spontaneous and newsworthy as the farm report. Hey, I'm a democrat, and I'm not even buying into this love fest.

In any case, I've asked friends to send in some good candidates, and I got a few:

APPALLING NEWS

CEO pay hikes double
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The CEO's at the nation's largest companies saw their raises more than doubled in 2003 as the median raise handed out by S&P 500 companies to their top executives was 22.18 percent, according to a study by The Corporate Library.

and yet...

Americans' incomes fell for two years
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Americans' overall income shrank for two consecutive years after stocks plunged in 2000, the first time that has effectively happened since the current tax system was put in place during World War II, according to a published report Thursday.  

FORK
 
This isn't strictly NEWS (due to it's not being new) but I'm vaguely shocked that these things no longer qualify for "News of the Weird." 
 

today's appalling news

I'm trying to keep a record of all the news items each day that I run across that I find absolutely appalling. Either because they individually make me want to stick a fork in my eye, or because taken together they provide a panoramic snapshot of our daily descent into "the government formerly known as democracy".
 
It's hard to know how best to record these, since some of these sites require registration, and for others, in 2 weeks, many of these news items will be archived and available only for a fee, so I'm going to try a few ways of documenting abstracts without taking away from the impact of the big picture.
 
Why do I try to explain these things in so much detail? I don't know. Screw it. I'm doing it this way now. If I change it, just follow along.
 
Computer glitches lost voting data
Lost Record of Vote in '02 Florida Race Raises '04 Concern - MIAMI, July 27 - Almost all the electronic records from the first widespread use of touch-screen voting in Miami-Dade County have been lost, stoking concerns that the machines are unreliable as the presidential election draws near.

The records disappeared after two computer system crashes last year, county elections officials said, leaving no audit trail for the 2002 gubernatorial primary. A citizens group uncovered the loss this month after requesting all audit data from that election. 

Similarly:
Fear of Fraud - Paul Krugman - NYT
It's election night, and early returns suggest trouble for the incumbent. Then, mysteriously, the vote count stops and observers from the challenger's campaign see employees of a voting-machine company, one wearing a badge that identifies him as a county official, typing instructions at computers with access to the vote-tabulating software.

When the count resumes, the incumbent pulls ahead. The challenger demands an investigation. But there are no ballots to recount, and election officials allied with the incumbent refuse to release data that could shed light on whether there was tampering with the electronic records.

This isn't a paranoid fantasy. It's a true account of a recent election in Riverside County, Calif., reported by Andrew Gumbel of the British newspaper The Independent.

White House to Project Record Deficit - By ALAN FRAM Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON — The White House will project soon that this year's federal deficit will exceed $420 billion, congressional aides said, a record figure certain to ignite partisan warfare over President Bush's handling of the economy.
 
FORK Husband walks in on 9/11 scam of 'widow,' cops say - ROCKFORD, Mich. -- A woman who collected more than $70,000 from the Red Cross after claiming her still-living husband died in the Sept. 11 attacks has been accused of fraud, authorities said.

The scam fell apart when Donna Miller's husband walked in while a detective was interviewing her at home, authorities said. Miller, 49, of Sparta, was charged Thursday with three felony counts of false pretense and released on $10,000 bond.

FORK Subway ad riles DeLay - Legislator says fat Lady Liberty shown in Germany is un-American
[ed. note - Get over it Tom. Would we like to make the Patriot Act now apply to German advertising?]