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When Journalists Report for Duty

In Time magazine's special issue about the events of Sept. 11, chilling photos evoke the horrific slaughter in Manhattan. All of the pages are deadly serious. And on the last page, under the headline "The Case for Rage and Retribution," an essay by Time regular Lance Morrow declares: "A day cannot live in infamy without the nourishment of rage. Let's have rage."

Exhorting our country to relearn the lost virtues of "self-confident relentlessness" and "hatred," the article calls for "a policy of focused brutality." It's an apt conclusion to an edition of the nation's biggest newsmagazine that embodies the human strengths and ominous defects of American media during the current crisis.

Much of the initial news coverage was poignant, grief-stricken and utterly appropriate. But many news analysts and pundits lost no time conveying -- sometimes with great enthusiasm -- their eagerness to see the United States use its military might in anger. Such impulses are extremely dangerous.

For instance, night after night on cable television, Bill O'Reilly

A Unanimous Triumph for Masters of War

On Friday, the Senate voted 98-0 for a war resolution. It says: "The president is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons."

This resolution, written as a blank check, is payable with vast quantities of human corpses.

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The black-and-white TV footage is grainy and faded, but it still jumps off the screen -- a portentous clash between a prominent reporter and a maverick politician. On the CBS program "Face the Nation," journalist Peter Lisagor argued with a senator who stood almost alone on Capitol Hill, strongly opposing the war in Vietnam from the outset.

"Senator, the Constitution gives to the president of the United

Terrorism, Television and the Rage for Vengeance

We stare at TV screens and try to comprehend the suffering in the aftermath of terrorism. Much of what we see is ghastly and all too real; terrible anguish and sorrow.

At the same time, we're witnessing an onslaught of media deception. "The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing," Aldous Huxley observed long ago. "Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth."

Silence, rigorously selective, pervades the media coverage of recent days. For policy-makers in Washington, the practical utility of that silence is enormous. In response to the mass murder committed by hijackers, the righteousness of U.S. military action is clear -- as long as double standards go unmentioned.

While rescue crews braved intense smoke and grisly rubble, ABC News analyst Vincent Cannistraro helped to put it all in perspective for millions of TV viewers. Cannistraro is a former high-ranking official of the Central Intelligence Agency who was in charge of the CIA's work with

Who saw it coming?

Tuesday's onslaughts on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are being likened to Pearl Harbor, and the comparison is just. From the point of view of the assailants, the attacks were near miracles of logistical calculation, timing, courage in execution and devastation inflicted upon the targets. Not in terms of destructive extent, but in terms of symbolic obliteration the attack is virtually without historic parallel, a trauma at least as great as the San Francisco earthquake or the Chicago fire.

There may be another similarity to Pearl Harbor. The possibility of a Japanese attack in early December of 1941 was known to U.S. Naval Intelligence and to President Roosevelt. Last Tuesday, derision at the failure of U.S. intelligence was widespread. The Washington Post quoted an unnamed top official at the National Security Council as saying, "We don't know anything here. We're watching CNN, too." Are we to believe that the $30 billion annual intelligence budget, immense electronic eavesdropping capacity and thousands of agents around the world produced nothing in the way of a warning? In fact, Osama bin Laden, now a prime suspect, said in an

Jesse Helms: 16th century thinkin'

AUSTIN, Texas -- I am indebted to Jon Stewart of the Comedy Channel and to "The Daily Show," the last real news program on cable television, for the idea of a collection of quotes from Sen. Jesse Helms:

-- On the subject of President Clinton visiting North Carolina: "Mr. Clinton better watch out if he comes down here. He'd better have a bodyguard."

-- "I'm going to sing 'Dixie' to her until she cries," of Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun after a debating her on the merits of the Confederate flag."

-- "The New York Times and The Washington Post are both infested with homosexuals themselves."

-- "The destruction of this country can be pinpointed in terms of its beginnings to the time that our political leadership turned to socialism.

They didn't call it socialism, of course. It was given deceptive names and adorned with fancy slogans. We heard about New Deals, and Fair Deals, and New Frontiers, and Great Society."

Years ago, Larry L. King, the Texas writer, observed in the wake of the political defeat of a couple of unusually unpleasant Texas congressmen,

Hot Air is Bad for Us

The current uproar over the posture of the Bush administration on global warming and, most recently, on power plant emissions vividly illustrates the political hypocrisy and opportunism imbuing debates on environmental issues.

First take global warming. The charge that the current phase of global warming can be attributed to greenhouse gases generated by humans and their livestock is an article of faith among liberals as sturdy as missile defense is among the conservative crowd. The Democrats have seized on the issue of global warming as indicative of President Bush's willful refusal to confront a global crisis that properly agitates all of America's major allies. Almost daily the major green groups reap rich political capital (and donations) on the issue.

Yet the so-called "anthropogenic origin" of global warming remains entirely non-proven. Back in the spring of this year, even the International Panel on Climate Change, which now has a huge stake in arguing the "caused-by-humans" thesis, admits in its Summary that there could be a one in three chance its multitude of experts are wrong. A subsequent report issued under the

Death, texas style

AUSTIN, Texas -- OK, let's try this again, Texans. We now have one of the highest execution rates in the entire world.

Here are the numbers according to Amnesty International and some math: In 2000, four countries around the world accounted for 88 percent of all the executions --- the United States, Iran, China and Saudi Arabia. Nobody else is even in the game, though there is no reliable information from Iraq. In 2000, Texas alone, one state out of 50, was responsible for 47 percent of the executions in America. Here are the best estimates for numbers per capita (using the highest guess, not from Amnesty, of 1,700 executions in China -- the number that sent the human-rights people into a frenzy over the Beijing Olympics): Iran executes one for every 874,000 people, China executes one for every 742,000 people, Texas executes one for every 521,000, and the Saudis one for every 170,000. So we're not rock bottom, we're doing better than the Saudis -- a role normally played for us by Mississippi. Let's not try for the Olympics anytime soon.

I saw a great pro-death-penalty cartoon the other day in "Thaddeus and

Globalization, Trucks, and Trade Treaties

AUSTIN, Texas -- The Mexican truck debate is a pip because it reveals so much about globalization and its attendant problems.

I have a dog in this fight: I live nestled on the shores of I-35, the main route north from Mexico, and spend a lot of time driving up and down it. To say that NAFTA trucks are already a problem is like calling a dwarf short. Driving south from Waco Tuesday night, I counted over 300 of them stacked up in one traffic jam.

This silly circus of a debate continues, with charges of isolationism and protectionism being volleyed back and forth, unmoored from reality in the ideological void. Look, if the windmill is running, the wind is blowing. Here's the question: Have you ever spent much time in Mexico? Pretty much answers the Mexican truck question, don't you think?

Blueprints for Wider Columbian War

The war in Colombia isn't about drugs. It's about the annihilation of popular uprisings by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla groups, or Indian peasants fending off the ravages of oil companies, cattle barons and mining firms. A good old-fashioned counterinsurgency war, designed to clear the way for American corporations to set up shop in Colombia, with cocaine as the scare tactic.

Last year, the U.S. Air Force commissioned the Santa Monica-based RAND think tank to prepare a review of the situation in Colombia. In early June, RAND (progenitor of many a blood-sodden scenario in the Vietnam era) submitted its 130-page report, called "The Colombian Labyrinth: The Synergy of Drugs and Insurgency and Its Implications for Regional Stability." RAND's

Circuses - no place for animals

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is a national organization looking out for us critters throughout the world. Below is an excerpt from their website about what I believe is an important animal rights issue that many people never considered -- are the animals at the circus happy? Are they actually having fun? Or are they tortured, abused, humiliated and forced to do unnatural acts? There is a growing list of circuses that do not use animals for this very reason. If humans want to dress in sparkly costumes and spin by their teeth high up in air, or wear oversized shoes and noses and squirt water at each other - let them. Leave us out of it!

PETA’s Report

In contrast to the glitter associated with circuses, performing animals’ lives are pretty miserable. Because animals do not naturally ride bicycles, stand on their heads, or jump through rings of fire, whips, electric prods, and other tools are often used to force them to perform. The smaller and poorer the circus, the more limited the animals’ access may be to water, food, and veterinary care.

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