Editorial Roundup: Excerpts From Recent Editorials
The Associated PressExcerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad:
Feb. 12
The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, on the American Civil Liberties Union:
You've probably been somewhat confused in recent years about what the mission of the American Civil Liberties Union is.
Its raison d'etre is supposedly to "defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States."
So, you're thinking, maybe the ACLU will come to my defense when the federal government says I have no "reasonable expectation" of privacy on a cell phone.
Maybe later. Right now, the ACLU is more worried about protecting terrorists from America.
The organization is attacking America's use of unmanned drone attacks against terrorists, most recently utilized against terrorists holed up in the hills of Pakistan. It is demanding proof from the U.S. government that the drone attacks are legal.
"The American public has a right to know whether the drone program is consistent with international law," the organization said.
Frankly, it is — but, more importantly, it is consistent with one's God-given right to self-defense. Terrorists in that region have spawned attacks on forces in Afghanistan; America itself has been attacked. Congress authorized the use of force in Afghanistan and Iraq, and hiding just over the Pakistani border is no defense.
The ACLU worries about civilian deaths, and so should we all. But it is the terrorists themselves who are violating international law and wartime convention by not only attacking civilians unprovoked, but then taking refuge among their own civilians, inviting collateral damage and, obviously, luring the ACLU to plead their case.
The ACLU, clearly, isn't concerned with Americans' civil liberties so much as any left-wing cause that comes along, however unrelated to its supposed mission.
Its bizarre foray into foreign policy, sadly enough, is no better thought-out than most of its interloping in domestic affairs.
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On the Net:
http://chronicle.augusta.com
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Feb. 16
The Decatur (Ala.) Daily, on the University of Alabama at Huntsville shooting:
Harvard educated. A brilliant researcher. Denied tenure twice, once on appeal.
So Amy Bishop, biology professor at The University of Alabama at Huntsville took a handgun into a biology faculty meeting and, police say, killed three people and injured three.
Colleagues said they never saw that violence coming, which is obvious, yet, they characterize her as a social misfit.
Most associates were surprised to learn she killed her brother with blasts from a shotgun in 1986, although Massachusetts officials came to the controversial conclusion the death was an accidental homicide.
Massachusetts police reported at the time that Bishop, 19, fired a shotgun at least three times, hitting her 18-year-old brother in the chest.
Neither did colleagues know authorities questioned Bishop and her husband in a 1993 attempted mail bombing of the home of a Harvard medical professor under whom she studied. The case remains unsolved.
After the Feb. 12 afternoon tragedy, probing into her past uncovered the incidents.
This type of incident often leaves society asking why it happened. In this case, the issue may be how to prevent them in the future.
The personality sketches of Bishop thus far indicate a complex personality that apparently contributed to her not getting tenure and to her not accepting the rejection.
This case raises the question of how closely colleges and universities should screen and evaluate applicants.
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On the Net:
http://www.decaturdaily.com
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Feb. 15
The Staten Island (N.Y.) Advance, on the release of 9/11 photos:
We all have images of 9/11 burned into our brains. Some of us more than others, depending on our proximity to the World Trade Center on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
Even all those who watched the whole thing unfold on TV from miles away will retain vivid mental pictures of that day to the end of their days.
But most of what we remember is from a ground-level perspective.
Maybe that's why the aerial photos of the devastation in downtown Manhattan are so stunning. They showed the totality of a scene of horror far below the camera's lens.
The photos, taken by a New York Police Department detective from a police helicopter, were made public recently. ...
The question we have is why it took until February 2010 — eight years — for the world to get to see them.
The detective who took the shots, now retired, had shared them with friends and a few were published without authorization in a book.
The detective turned his film and digital images over the 9/11 Commission, which apparently transferred them to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which also investigated the attacks.
But it took a Freedom of Information Act request by ABC News to get the photos released to the public.
Why? Other than the shock of seeing 9/11 from different angle, there's nothing that would upset anyone any more than the widely broadcast images. And, after the event, there's nothing in those photographs that would threaten national security or public safety. ...
The best explanation seems to be that this is another example of the federal government's fondness for secrecy, even when it's not necessary in the least.
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On the Net:
http://www.silive.com
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Feb. 15
The Boston Globe on bullfighting:
The cult of the teenage prodigy has taken a sad turn in Spain, where 16-year-old matador Jairo Miguel Sanchez Alonso recently killed six bulls in a single afternoon. Since the teenager was badly gored in a 2007 Mexican bullfight, his success at a challenge usually undertaken only by top toreadors has in some tellings assumed overtones of a triumphant comeback. In fact, people should recognize this spectacle for what it was: the torment and slaughter of six innocent beasts, a barbaric ritual rendered even more lamentable — and dangerous — by the youth of the matador.
Although some consider bullfighting an integral part of Spanish culture, a strong majority of Spaniards — more than 72 percent in one oft-cited Gallup poll — say they have no interest in the brutal and bloody events.
TVE, Spanish public television, no longer broadcasts them. And late last year, lawmakers in Catalonia, responding to a petition with 180,000 signatures, voted to ban bullfighting in their region. That enlightened sentiment, rather than the sanguinary sadism of the bullfight, should be the true spirit of 21st Century Spain.
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On the Net:
http://www.boston.com
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Feb. 13
The Blade, Toledo, Ohio, on Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in jeopardy:
President Barack Obama appears to be putting negotiation of a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia in jeopardy in the name of installing a missile system in Romania.
The previous START negotiations with the old Soviet Union were launched by President Ronald Reagan in 1982. Signed in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush, the pact expired last December. Negotiations toward a new treaty, with deeper arms cuts on both sides, have been under way between Russia and the United States for some time. ...
Obama has been looking forward to signing a new START accord with Russia. At one point he had hopes of doing so at the Copenhagen climate change conference in December. Negotiations have been said to be proceeding smoothly.
Now, Obama has thrown a monkey wrench into the talks by obtaining the agreement of Romania to install missile defense facilities on its territory. ...
Is this a move by Obama to try to head off criticism of his administration's security posture, or is it just a case of mistaken priorities? If the president is willing to abandon a new strategic arms treaty with Russia to increase protection of Romania, or to fend off political criticism of his administration, this missile ploy makes no sense.
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On the Net:
http://www.toledoblade.com
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Feb. 17
Los Angeles Times, on Sen. Evan Bayh stepping down after two terms:
It is a ritual for politicians to say they are stepping down to spend more time with their families. Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., no doubt looks forward to that pleasure too, but he offered a different, and compelling, explanation for his decision not to seek a third term: his exasperation with the way hyper-partisanship has sabotaged the legislative process. ...
Who could disagree? Senate Democrats couldn't count on even one Republican to break ranks and support a health care reform proposal. Seven Republican senators who initially sponsored a commission on the national debt ultimately repudiated their own idea lest they hand President Barack Obama a political victory. Only nine Republican senators voted to confirm Obama's nomination of a superbly qualified Supreme Court justice, petty payback for the equally knee-jerk opposition of many Democrats to George W. Bush's nominees — and their use of the filibuster to delay or derail others.
The House too is poisonously polarized, and not only because trends have led to more ideologically monolithic congressional districts. When the House passed its version of health care reform in November, only one Republican voted yes. Republicans blamed highhandedness by Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Democrats insisted that lock-step GOP opposition evidenced a desire to embarrass Obama even at the cost of a bipartisan compromise. They were both right. ...
If there is any hope for a reversal of the trend Bayh decried, it may lie not with Congress or Obama but with voters. A recent New York Times/CBS News poll found that 75 percent of respondents disapproved of the job Congress was doing. Clearly not all the discontented pine for the productive bipartisanship Bayh celebrates. Some of their alienation may even stem from rare bipartisan exercises such as the banking bailout.
But most disenchanted voters aren't nihilists; they want members of Congress to act as adults and to behave out of something other than partisanship, ideology and self-dealing. Democrats and Republicans who confound that expectation run the risk of joining Bayh in retirement.
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On the Net:
http://www.suntimes.com
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Feb. 16
The Providence (R.I.) Journal, on the announcement by Patrick Kennedy not to seek re-election:
News that Patrick Kennedy will not seek re-election to his seat in the U.S. House, where he has served since 1995, surprised many people around America, but perhaps shouldn't have.
Congressman Kennedy has had many problems to deal with in the past several years. Chief among them is that he has bipolar disorder, which has contributed to, among other things, serious problems with drugs and alcohol. Amidst those issues have come the illness and death of his father and chief mentor, the powerful, iconic Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy. ...
These problems would have been a lot for anyone to handle while staying in the merciless game of politics. But, meanwhile, a growing anti-incumbency mood in the electorate, and fading adoration of the Kennedy clan — as the numbers of voters who remain to remember its golden age dwindle rapidly — compounded Mr. Kennedy's challenges in a tough election year.
Patrick Kennedy has helped push through some fine legislation, especially in health care in general and mental health in particular. Further, his well run offices in Washington and Rhode Island have provided very good constituent services even as his growing seniority (he is finishing up his eighth term) and his clout as a member of the powerful Appropriations Committee have helped bring federal funds to the Ocean State.
But given his health and family concerns, Mr. Kennedy is probably wise to bow out of politics, at least for a while. And we're sure that the congressman, who is, after all, only 42, can use his post-Capitol time well, to promote such issues as national health reform. We thank him for his service, even as we can't help but wonder about the future of his famous family in politics.
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On the Net:
http://www.projo.com
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Feb. 14
The Reporter-Herald, Loveland, Colo., on voter discrimination:
As the kickoff speaker at the National Tea Party Convention, Tom Tancredo, the former presidential candidate and representative from Colorado, stepped onto the stage and said, "Something really odd happened. Mostly because I think we do not have a civics literacy test before people can vote in this country (applause), people, people who could not even spell the word 'vote' or say it in English (applause, cheers), put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House — name is Barack Hussein Obama."
Before we go enacting civics literacy tests for voters, a brief civics lesson is in order.
Poll taxes and literacy tests were used in the Jim Crow South to disenfranchise minority voters.
Congress, far from finding a problem with non-English speaking voters, amended the Voting Rights Act in 1975 to force covered jurisdictions to provide ballots and other voting material "in the language of the applicable minority group as well as in the English language."
Tancredo, the country's illegal immigration opponent-in-chief, might be interested to know that the law singles out Spanish speakers for protection.
Illegal immigration is a problem, and the country requires new measures to combat it. Tancredo is correct in calling attention to the issue.
But barring citizens who can't spell "vote" from voting is a form of discrimination that we thought was behind us.
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On the Net:
http://www.reporterherald.com
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Feb. 17
The Vancouver (British Columbia) Sun, on Olympic online coverage:
NBC Universal's online coverage of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver illustrates both the opportunity and the challenge that the Internet presents for traditional media companies. In addition to airing 835 hours of live and tape-delayed events, recaps and highlights on five broadcast and cable networks, the company is offering more than 400 hours of live video and more than 1,000 hours of full-event replays online. That's a huge advance in volume from the previous Winter Olympics, but a sharp pullback from the breadth of online coverage at the Beijing Summer Games in 2008. Of the 15 sports contested in Vancouver, NBC is providing live streams on the Web of only two: hockey and curling.
It doesn't have to be that way. The network's cameras are ubiquitous on the Olympic grounds, and it could use the virtually unlimited capacity of the Internet to provide blanket coverage. But NBC is holding back largely because it doesn't want to cut into its prime-time audience. Like its broadcasting rivals, NBC Universal generates more advertising dollars from the people tuned to its TV networks than the ones watching on the Net. ...
But in trying to guard against the erosion of their prime-time audience, networks may be doing themselves a disservice. For one thing, they miss the chance to reach new viewers who weren't going to be tuning in on their TVs anyway.
And so far, at least, the programmers who've been most aggressive online have been the most successful on TV as well. Experience shows that avid viewers online and on mobile networks are also avid viewers of prime-time TV. ...
The sooner they close the gap between the Web and TV, the fewer opportunities they'll miss.
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On the Net:
http://www.vancouversun.com
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Feb. 17
The Guardian, London, on the likely sale of Abbey Road Studios:
If The Beatles had named their last recorded album Everest after their recording engineer's brand of cigarettes, as it is said they wanted to do, fewer people would have heard of EMI's Abbey Road studios, but there would still be reason to lament their likely sale.
Perhaps the heavily produced sound of the Beatles' Abbey Road has become too familiar, and that cover photograph of the Fab Four on the zebra crossing has been made very tired by repetition, but the studio deserves its place at the center of British recorded music history.
Long before postmodernist critics were reviewing rock bands alongside Schnittke, Noel Coward and Artur Schnabel were both recording at Abbey Road. Abbey Road was where Pablo Casals recorded Bach's cello suites at the height of the Spanish civil war, as well as where The Beatles made their name with "Please Please Me."
There is something British about the way an 1830s villa (with wine cellar) emerged as a hotbed of technical and cultural change, but now that the days of big record labels and their luxuriously large studios are ending, there is much to mourn. In 2005, almost as a farewell to a form of classical recording being made unaffordable by digital downloads, EMI recorded "Tristan und Isolde" at Abbey Road, with Placido Domingo and the Royal Opera House orchestra. ...
The studios themselves will surely outlast any sale, but the supply of great and original albums from Abbey Road may not.
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On the Net:
http://www.guardian.co.uk
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Feb. 16
Ha'aretz, Tel Aviv, Israel, on a pre-emptive Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities:
Israel should heed the friendly warning it received from the Obama administration, which opposes a pre-emptive Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, warned in Tel Aviv of the unexpected consequences of an Israeli attack on Iran, just as he did during the days of the Bush administration. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Qatar that Iran's neighbors, who are worried about its nuclear plans, must rely on the American defense umbrella. ...
Both Israeli and Iranian leaders have escalated the threats they have been exchanging over the past few weeks. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at Auschwitz about a new Amalek. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told his Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad that if Israel goes to war, "we need to put an end to the Zionist regime once and for all." And last week, on the anniversary of the Iranian revolution, Ahmadinejad announced that Iran will enrich uranium to 20 percent and declared that his country is capable of building an atomic bomb.
In these circumstances, the U.S. administration was right to send its senior officials to the Middle East in an attempt to calm both Israel and the Arab nations who are afraid of the Iranian nuclear threat.
U.S. President Barack Obama, after failing in his attempts at dialogue with Iran's leaders, has toughened his stance and is now trying to recruit international support for harsher sanctions against Iran than were imposed in the past.
The likelihood that the American move will succeed is unclear, but Israel is required to give Obama a chance, for one simple reason: Israel will need full American support for any actions it may decide to take against the Iranian threat. If Israel goes to war, it will need intelligence help, prior warning, military equipment and diplomatic support from the United States. ...
On the Net:
http://www.haaretz.com
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Feb. 16
Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review, Istanbul, Turkey, on earthquake preparedness:
The still unfolding tragedy from the earthquake in Haiti, with the death toll at 230,000, has captured the world's attention to the growing dangers of seismic safety. Turkey has done its part, in terms of both rescue efforts and aid. ...
The horror in Haiti has also once again refocused attention on earthquake dangers closer to home. Memories of the 1999 Marmara earthquake that killed 20,000 on the outskirts of Istanbul are the most vivid.
But it also important to keep in the public mind the fact that all of Turkey is at risk. The most devastating earthquake to hit what is today Turkey struck in 526 A.D. in southern Antakya. Historical accounts place the death toll at a quarter of a million. A more recent disaster was the 1939 Erzincan earthquake that killed 33,000. Three years later, in 1942, an earthquake in Tokat killed 3,000. The following year, another quake in Samsun killed 4,000. ...
Adding these numbers up is a mind-numbing exercise. ... While the human suffering overshadows economic loss, this is a dimension not to be neglected. Just the loss of productivity from the 1999 Marmara earthquake alone has been estimated at $2 billion.
The good news in the face of this is that huge strides in engineering and seismic safety can offer greater protection against the aftermath of earthquakes than ever before. The bad news is that in a fast-urbanizing world, the concentration of vulnerability is actually growing. And this latter trend applies to much of Turkey.
So the government's new plan to designate "earthquake buffers" throughout quake-prone regions ... can only be welcome. We fear, however, that it is too little and may prove too late. As several geologists note, this ignores both the danger of deep faults and the reality that building demolition in dangerous areas never gets far.
Yes, there is much real and present danger in Turkey to distract the public mind from threats that are abstract and, one hopes, far away. But this cannot excuse a lack of urgency in preparedness that defines the current state of readiness.
This is the real seismic danger to Turkey.
On the Net:
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com