Socialist Sushi

Reading an article on the food problems in Haiti. On canada.com they have an article: Food riots topple Haiti’s governnment. Right next to it is an article for Biggest Loser.

Sad on so many levels.

(screengrab)

I came across an article yesterday about Nixzmary Brown. Her mother and step-father and charged with killing her. Specifically, the step-father is accused of killing this little girl “with a blow to the head while punishing her for stealing some yogurt.”

I could go on for days about the senseless cruelty this girl was subjected to, but what struck me was the callousness of the news site containing the article. There was a picture of this poor girl captioned with, “Authorities say Nixzmary Brown, who died on Jan. 11, 2006, was bound with tape, tethered to a chair and forced to use a cat litter box.” Underneath this was a list of “Related Slideshows.” And what, according to wcbstv.com, is related to a story of a child tortured and killed?

• Auto Show ‘08 Rolls Into Detroit
• Top 10 Most Popular Dog Breeds In U.S.
• Openly Gay Celebrities
• Celebrity Bump Watch
• Keira Knightley: Then & Now
• Jessica Simpson: Then To Now
• Hooray For The Red, White And Zooom!
• 2008 Presidential Hopefuls
• Zoo Babies: Cuteness Unleashed

To the side was an ad asking if I was paying too much for my car insurance. Below the text of the article were more links to stupid crap, followed by more ads.

We need to keep in mind when reading news, or watching it on TV, that they’re business is not news, but making money. And that money comes primarily through ads. So if they need to entertain us with stories of which actresses are pregnant, or try and shock us with stories about murdered kids, so be it. Death gets the views, too.

And I know: they have to pay the bills. But basic human decency should override that at some point. If you were to ask them why they didn’t publish pictures of the girl’s murdered body at the crime scene, or images of the Nixzmary’s dead, naked body on the autopsy table, do you know what the likely reply would be?

“That would be in bad taste.”

As if they know. As if any of us do. Afterall, they wouldn’t puts these ads up unless they thought we would be likely to buy insurance after reading about torture and murder.

Screenshot of the article in case it goes away.

So I noticed the other night that my WashingtonPost.com search feeds were broken. They changed their site layout.

I’d been parsing their page with regular expressions, which worked well enough but made it a bit difficult to change. This time around I used sgmllib, which makes things quite a bit nicer.

Adrian Holovaty has announced the washingtonpost.com mashup projects. Some nifty stuff. I even got something in.

Actually, I did a tag cloud, too, but someone did a much cooler one.

9 November, 2005

To the Congregation of Trinity Baptist Church:

I respectfully submit my resignation as pastor of Trinity Baptist Church, effective immediately.

Amber and I thank you for allowing use to serve with you these past few years.

In Christ

Rev. Bryan L. Fordham

Road rage incident injures children

A mother of three was declared brain dead after a road-rage accident that occurred early this morning as her family headed home from a Fourth of July celebration.

I’m not certain why they call this an “accident.” It was anything but accidental; it was a deliberate attempt to hurt people, resulting in the death of this woman.

“Incident” lacks the punch this deserves; “murder” seems to fit better, though I suppose “assault” would be best. But calling it an accident is ludicrous.

Friday before last (June 17) I stayed home from work in the morning. I had been feeling a bit off the entire week, so I decided to just sleep in and head to work about noon.

At about 11 or so Amber (who had the day off) decided to trim the dogs’ nails. No big deal. Then she asked me to help her do Toby’s. I said sure, grabbed the cat, and tried to restrain him in my lap.

It became apparent this was not going to work out. The mad cat began flailing around, so I grabbed the blanket on the arm of the couch and tried to wrap the cat in it. The flailing cat tried to escape by running up the side of the couch. I grabbed him to flip him over so I could wrap him in the blanket.

It didn’t work out. One of his flailing claws caught the back of my right ear. After holding my ear (and releasing the cat) for a minute, I went into the bathroom to survey the damage. When I looked in the mirror I had blood already dripping down my neck.

This is when the advantages of being married to a nurse become apparent. Amber doesn’t freak, but does mention that I might need stitches. Toby had caught me on the back of my earlobe. When I try to bend it forward to see how bad it is, it bends in a way it’s not really supposed to go. Amber suggests getting a second opinion from my mom, who is an ER nurse.

So off we go, Amber driving down the block and me holding a napkin to my bleeding ear. Mom cleans it out with a syringe and a water+hydrogen peroxide mix and informs me she can see light coming through the other side.

Off I go to Urgent One, since I wasn’t going to sit for 5 hours in an ER with an ear that my cat had managed to scratch, and that was by this time no longer bleeding. After 1.5 hours there I leave with a prescription for an antibiotic and 3 stitches in my ear.

Here’s the thing. I’ve broken one bone in my life: my little toe. And now I’ve had stitches exactly once: on the back of my earlobe. It’s like I’ve been injured, but not really.

Later that night, I grabbed Toby in the blanket and Amber trimmed his claws. The trick, you see, is to get him before he starts flailing.

And yeah, my ear is fine. Amber just took the stitches out. There’s a scar, but I can’t see it 8)

Go read this:

FBI agents posing as cocaine traffickers in Arizona caught 16 current and former U.S. soldiers and law enforcement personnel who took about $220,000 in bribes to help move the drugs through checkpoints, Justice Department officials said Thursday.

Those charged include a former Immigration and Naturalization Service inspector, a former Army sergeant, a former federal prison guard, current and former members of the Arizona Army National Guard and the state corrections department, and a Nogales police officer, officials said.

People ask why I’m concerned about law enforcement having too much power and not enough supervision. This is why — they’re no more perfect than we are.

“Many individuals charged were sworn personnel having the task of protecting society and securing America’s borders. The importance of these tasks cannot be overstated and we cannot tolerate, nor can the American people afford, this type of corruption,” FBI agent Jana D. Monroe, who directs the bureau’s operations in Arizona, said during a news conference in Tucson.

The Red Cross has found abuse of prisoners in Cuba.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has charged in confidential reports to the United States government that the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion “tantamount to torture” on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

I wish I could say I was shocked. I wish I was more hopeful that we’ll hear from so-called Pro-Life Christians who voted for Bush, that they’ll come out denouncing this. As I’ve mentioned before, time will tell.

Lawrence Lessing on what CBS things is appropriate:

It is appropriate to run a story that has nothing to do with the President’s current ability to run the nation, and that offers nothing at all helpful or informative about policy decisions we Americans are supposed to make.

Nice quote: “Just the sort of ‘news’ we get when the media is controlled by a few suck-up giants.” Yes indeed, which is why I liked this so much.