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The FARC farce

AUSTIN, Texas -- Those of you old enough to remember the Vietnam War will recall the early years, when the majority of Americans couldn't find the place on a map and practically nobody could tell the difference between the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese. Well, it's time to look up Colombia on the map of South America and learn what FARC is.

When the history of this one is written, what will amaze everyone once again is how hopelessly clueless we all are -- the Clinton administration, Congress, the media. The media keep reporting "a $9 billion spending bill to help Colombia combat drug traffickers" as though it were just that simple.

(Actually, only $1.6 billion of the spending bill is for the "counter drug aid package for Colombia." There is $2.6 billion to pay for our military costs in Kosovo, $2 billion for disaster relief and then, somehow, amazingly, the thing came out of the House Appropriations Committee with the total price tag doubled by pure pork barrel.)

Broadcasters celebrate big gains from violence and greed

Does America have a military-industrial-media complex?

Whether you consider the question in terms of psychology or economics, some grim answers are available from the National Association of Broadcasters, a powerful industry group that just held its radio convention in San Francisco.

When a recent Federal Trade Commission report faulted media companies for marketing violence to children, various politicians expressed outrage. But we've heard little about the NAB -- a trade association with a fitting acronym. The NAB has a notable record of nabbing the public airwaves for private gain.

Nearly 40 years ago, a farewell speech by President Dwight Eisenhower warned about the "conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry." He said: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." That potential has been realized, with major help from media.

A season of news coverage: No cure for political blues

The media summer of 2000 is now history. As leaves begin to fall, let's consider a few key dynamics of the political season that has just passed.

Despite complaints about smarmy orchestration and chronic pandering, the Republican and Democratic conventions resulted in gobs of deferential coverage. Some journalists rolled their eyes or even shed a bit of light on the big money bags behind the Oz-like curtains, but each party got what its backers paid for -- a week of mostly upbeat publicity.

Meanwhile, Americans saw very little news about the iron-fist tactics that police used in the host cities to suppress thousands of social-justice demonstrators. Evidently, several days of militarizing a downtown area is the latest new thing for laying down the political law.

In Philadelphia, while the Grand Old Party partied, police raided a protest headquarters. The gendarmes proceeded to confiscate and destroy large numbers of handmade puppets being readied for deployment in the streets. The crackdown was understandable, since art can be subversive. Better to be on the safe side!

The power and limits of photojournalism

Despite all the emphasis on new media, photography has never lost the power to move us. Some recent photo essays in major American magazines, focusing on the poor and dispossessed, are efforts to break through abstraction and indifference. They tell us a lot about the potential impacts -- and common limitations -- of photojournalism.

The March 27 edition of Time devoted six pages to the haunting black-and-white work of renowned photographer Sebastiao Salgado. Bleak images evoke humanity struggling for survival and hope: Rwandans at refugee camps, women holding pictures of men abducted from a Kurdish village in Iraq, toddlers -- abandoned by destitute parents -- crawling at a care center in urban Brazil.

Big cheese endorses George Dubya

AUSTIN -- Watching our homeboy George Dubya as he wends his way -- somewhat unsteadily -- toward the presidency is a nerve-racking procedure. Face it, our reputation is on the line along with the governor's. All of us know that 20 million Texans can't be brought to agree on anything, including whether the guys who died at the Alamo were heroes or fools. Nevertheless, we are all being painted with the Bush brush, so whenever he makes a cake of himself, all of us get the blame ("Those Texans, so ignorant.'')

Relatively speaking, Bush is one of our better representatives on the national scene. In Washington, which seems to have been deeply scarred by LBJ's occasional lack of couth, we are still regarded as a tribe of Visigoths. ("And then, he lifted his shirt and showed us the scar!'') Every time Gov. Preston Smith, who had a terminal West Texas accent, went on television, I used to wince: "Our biggest problem after this hurricane is all the day-brees we got lyin' around.'' So, Dubya Bush doesn't seem like anyone we'd have to blush for.

The media’s lethal injection of numbing

SAN QUENTIN, Calif. -- The moon, a bit more than half full, glowed in a sky of stars and darkness. Only a faint breeze was blowing across the San Francisco Bay. A few yards from the dark water's edge, vans from local TV stations lined the road ending at prison gates. The state was ready to kill.

The premeditated murder went smoothly. Six minutes after midnight, a lethal injection began. Eleven minutes into the morning, observers reported, Darrell Rich's face changed color. The official time of death was 12:13 a.m., March 15, 2000.

The Associated Press quickly sent out a 270-word report that began: "A serial killer who threw an 11-year-old girl more than 100 feet to her death was executed by injection early Wednesday..." The dispatch did not mention that several hundred people had gathered at the gate to protest the death penalty.

By now, when the government takes a human life, it's usually not much of a national story -- maybe a few inches in the newspaper or a fleeting mention on a newscast. With 3,625 people on death row in the United States, and more arriving all the time, a macabre rhythm has taken hold.

Save gas, ride with a friend

AUSTIN, Texas -- Man bites dog! Or, how special interests accidentally steered us toward good public policy. In a pleasant change from the norm, we have a reversal of the usual dreary political story in which big donors and special interests shaft the public: House Republicans Drop Call for Rollback of Gasoline Tax.

Isn't that nice?

Leaving aside, as our elected leaders so often do, the wisdom of repealing the 4.3-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax, lo, regard with wonder the politics of the thing.

You may recall that this buffle-headed suggestion was made last week by Gov. George W. Bush, backed by some Senate Republicans. Dubya, as we know, has little interest in policy, but excellent political skills. And what could sound better, as prices at the pump soar across the nation, than an offer to cut 4.3 cents a gallon off the total? Great politics: Vote for that guy, or you'll have to be Bill Gates to fill up the pickup, not to mention those monster SUVs.

Tribute to a country banker with a heart

AUSTIN, Texas -- Walter Hall, that wonderful citizen, died Sunday at 92. Hall was, of all things, a liberal banker active in the public life of Texas for many decades. He has so many credentials on his resume that it could give you an inferiority complex just to read it.

To be called a "do-gooder" anymore is a sneering insult, but Walter Hall did good. In addition to all his work as lifelong liberal Democrat (and proud of it), he helped everybody from the Boy Scouts to the cause of clean water to tackling organized crime back when it ran rampant in Galveston County to schools to libraries to the Texas Bill of Rights Foundation to his alma mater, Rice University. One of his last, loveliest gifts was Helen's Garden in League City, Texas -- a park full of old oaks and flowers in memory of his late wife, Helen Lewis Hall, who so loved flowers.

He was one of the organizers of the Texas Independent Bankers Association and once owned banks in Dickinson, Alvin, League City, Webster and Bay City. At his death, he was chairman of the board and owner of Citizens State in Dickinson and the League City Bank & Trust.

...And if the government is failing, don

AUSTIN, Texas -- We've already seen how disgusting the results can be when politicians drag religion into politics, so perhaps we should be depressed at the news that education is going to be the major issue in this year's presidential campaign. Lord save the children.

However (she observed with lunatic cheerfulness), perhaps some good can come of it. Right away, I can think of a dandy demonstration project that could settle at least one significant policy difference.

One of George W. Bush's big applause lines is: And if a school is failing, we should cut its money. He wants to take all Title I money away from low-performing schools -- and give it in the form of vouchers to the families of disadvantaged students. The parents could then use the vouchers (worth about $1,500 per student) to pay for after-school tutoring or to help pay for private-school tuition.

If a school is failing, take away some of its money ...

The party's over

AUSTIN, Texas -- Oh, pooh, the fun's over. At least for a while (said she, always optimistic to the point of idiocy). But it was sure swell while it lasted.

Who can forget those glorious moments: George W. Bush railing against "terriers and bariffs," Al Gore wowing us with earth tones, Bill Bradley wowing us with ... um ... getting endorsed by Michael Jordan. Connoisseurs of political fun will have to look to the Reform Party for the nonce. However, we can hope that by fall we'll be ready for the clash of those titans Gore and Bush.

You must admit, at least this abbreviated primary season got folks stirred up, involved and out to vote. And that was fun. Everybody popping off with an opinion, lots of down-and-dirty campaigning, candidates being shocked and outraged all over the place.

Your cynics will conclude that all this proves is: (a) negative ads work, (b) you can't beat big money, and (c) there's not much democracy left in the U.S. of A. All of which is true. It was over before most of us had a chance to vote.

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