5 Under the Radar

Just when you thought GCI stock couldn’t be devalued any further, it plunged to $19.83 a share on Wednesday. Guess all those worthless stock certificates will make nice wallpaper for those empty Information Centers around the country. (Then again… sounds like they’ve finally seen the light and realized the value of that concept is less than Gannett stock.)
     So, how many millions will Dubious Dubow get in his severance package? Gannett raises the Peter Principle to new, shameful heights. Is it possible to impeach a CEO and his band of mindless upper managementoids?

On Friday Gannett stock closed at $22.87 a share. YIKES! I remember when it was trading around $90 a share! On Monday the poor employees at the Detroit News got the news that the paper must eliminate 150 jobs by July 18 — step forward to accept a buyout or else. That’s less than a month to decide if they want to stay with the orchestra on the Titanic… Get the full scoop over at Jim Hopkins’ http://gannettblog.blogspot.com/ I expect more bad news for Gannettoids is on the horizon.
     They’re not alone, of course. Here is a sampling of other grim news for other newsprint monkeys: The Star Telegram in Fort Worth; Dayton Beach News Journal; and The Sacramento Bee — all part of the McClatchy Group’s 1,400 layoffs.
     Time to go back to school and learn a new career. Perhaps vo-tech will be in some futures… Heck, you’ll always need plumbers and carpenters.

It’s always sad to learn of the passing of a fellow journalist. Today’s sudden passing of Tim Russert was especially heartbreaking, days away from Father’s Day — a holiday he gave more meaning through his poignant book on his relationship with his own father, Big Russ.
     As the videotape looped through endless tributes from politicians and his peers, it struck me that this man smiled all the time. (Not and easy thing today with the current cut-throat state of journalism.) Almost everyone commented on his strong faith, too, and how well he lived it. One of his last special moments on this earth was having a private audience with Pope Benedict XVI while visiting Rome to celebrate his son’s graduation from Boston College. They said Mr. Russert would pay attention to all the people under his wings as Washington Bureau chief for NBC. He was the one people would go to right away if they had a problem at home.
     Mr. Russert never gave an interviewee a free pass. He always asked the tough questions, yet delivered them with that same trademark smile.
     It’s a sad day. With the current chaos enveloping all forms of journalism, who could replace him? Would someone coming up through the ranks have the same work ethic? The same respect for friend or foe alike? It’s not certain. What is certain is that we will not see the likes of Tim Russert again.
     R.I.P.

Sorry for the length of my vacation away from this blog, but I was working on a big project.

So, while I was “sleeping” and Gannett’s stock was flirting with the $24 a share level this week, I missed some horrid, bastardly news. The mothership has frozen the pensions of all the employees except “120 exempt executives.” In it’s place is a new, improved, enhanced 401k with Xylitol! (Well it could have that in it for all I care.) Translation: We haven’t screwed our employees enough lately, and while we have them distracted with Pluck, it’s a good time to raid their futures. After all, it was easy enough to do to those idiot Brits we hoodwinked…

Of course, the best source for all of the latest on this highway robbery is Jim Hopkins’ Gannett Blog.

O P I N I O N

Politicians, heed this warning. Any time you use “they” in a sentence, as in “So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them…,” you’re just asking for it.
     “They” is a word used to lump people together, to make broad assumptions. It almost always turns on the person speaking the words that follow “they”.
     After his eloquent speech on race and the subtleties that exist in the words we use, you wonder why Sen. Barack Obama would use “they” sentences at a time when he knows the whole world is watching his every move. When Sen Hillary Clinton said the phrase displayed an elitist attitude toward the people of small town America, Sen. Obama responded by comparing her ire to “talking like she is Annie Oakley” and out there talking “like she’s out in the duck blind every Sunday.”
     Yikes! Did he further compound the problem with a condescending comment toward Clinton, as if she’s only good for entertainment and not a serious contender? If he didn’t mean to, sorry, but it sure comes across that way.

Today cities around the globe are celebrating Earth Hour, to highlight the impact individuals can have on energy consumption.
     At 8 p.m. your local time, do your part for energy conservation by turning off your lights and lighting a candle instead for an hour. Participating cities include Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Phoenix, Miami Honolulu and San Francisco.
     For more information on this global event, visit Earth Hour US or Toronto Earth Hour

World: The BBC is reporting that U.S. General David Petraeus is linking the bombardment of the Green Zone in Iraq Sunday to “Iran’s Quds Force, a branch of the Revolutionary Guards.” According to the general, “The rockets that were launched at the Green Zone yesterday, for example… were Iranian-provided, Iranian-made rockets.”

Living: CNN offers some useful tips on ways to beat the gas price crunch. They include not buying gas in rich neighborhoods and buying it on Wednesdays, when prices tend to settle down.

World: The Jerusalem Post reports that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is heading to Russia today in an effort to obtain assistance for building a nuclear facility. Egypt dropped its previous effort in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster.

Science: The Sydney Morning Herald reports that doctors in the Netherlands will be selling(!) a guide on how to commit suicide quickly and painlessly.

Business: Bloomberg.com reports that 34,000 Wall Street workers have lost their jobs in the past nine months — “the most since the dot-com boom fizzled in 2001.” This time job losses are related to “the collapse of the subprime mortgage market last year and the ensuing credit contraction,” Bloomberg says. According to Jo Bennett, a partner at executive search firm Battalia Winston International in New York, “This crisis is much worse than 2001 and we don’t know how long it’s going to last” and job cuts “could be more than 100,000 in a few years.”

UPDATE:  After I posted this yesterday, news came out that Sen. John McCain’s passport was also snooped upon. While the administration is scurrying to sweep this story under the rug, I have trouble embracing the “imprudent curiousity” line. (Call me cynical ~ I resemble that remark.) This is a story with legs that deserves a thorough investigation.

Election 2008: CNN is now reporting that Secretary of State Condoleezza Wright told both Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton that their passports were snooped by contractors with the State Department. Sen. Clinton’s passport records were snooped on in 2007; Sen. Obama’s were snooped on at least three times this year. Yesterday State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said it was “imprudent curiosity” by low-level contractors. If you think about it, you could also say the Watergate “low-level” burglars were “curious,” too.

Religion: The International Herald Tribune reports that Pope Benedict XVI plans to “meditate on the persecution of Catholics in China and the need for religious freedom during a Good Friday procession at Rome’s Colosseum.” At the same time, Macedonian Radio & Television reports that the Dalai Lama in “Seeking to put pressure on China, he said he was willing to travel to Beijing in a matter of weeks if there was a “concrete indication” that the Chinese authorities were prepared to negotiate and if the protests in Tibet had concluded.”

World: The Ottawa Citizen reports that blueprints of a new headquarters for an elite Canadian Forces counter-terrorism unit were “found in a pile of garbage on Bank Street.” The blueprints were found by the director of the “left-leaning think tank” the Rideau Institute on his way back from dinner, the Citizen reports. He brought them to the attention of the newspaper. According to the “The plans also show the electrical grid scheme for the unit’s computers and details about sewer systems, areas for workshops, sea container loading docks, and offices for the unit’s various troops. There is also a blueprint for the storage bay for the unit’s robots, which are designed to detect chemical and biological agents.” The unit, according to one of its officers, “handles “Jack Bauer-24″ type scenarios.”

Nation: Environment News Service reports bad news for those states in the heartland hit hard by flooding this week. Heavy snowfall and a predicted wet spring mean “above-normal flood potential is evident in much of the Mississippi River basin, the Ohio River basin, the lower Missouri River basin, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, most of New York, all of New England, and portions of the West, including Colorado and Idaho.”

World: The BBC reports that French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said he will reduce the number of his country’s airborne nuclear weapons by one third, leaving France with “half the maximum number of warheads we had during the Cold War.”

Nation: USA Today (via Stars and Stripes) reports that according to Air Force Col. Kenneth Cox, “The Pentagon delayed screening troops returning from Iraq for mild brain injuries for more than two years because officials feared veterans would blame vague ailments on the little-understood wound caused by exposure to bomb blasts.” Cox added “the Pentagon wanted to avoid another controversy such as the Gulf War syndrome. About 10,000 veterans blamed medical conditions on their service.”

Journalism: Editor & Publisher looks back five years to discuss which major newspapers did not support the war in Iraq — “at least one-third.” The Buffalo News editorial was prescient: “”The road to imminent war has been a bumpy one, clumsily traveled by the Bush administration. The global coalition against terror forged after the atrocities of 9/11 is virtually shattered. The explanation as to why Iraq presents an imminent threat requiring immediate action has not been clear and compelling.”

World: The Guardian wrestles with an inconvenient truth: just how many Iraqis have been killed since the war began five years ago today? After analyzing several reports, The Guardian found “The results range from just under 100,000 dead to well over a million.”

Nation: The New York Times reports that estimates of the cost of the Iraq War “were not close to ballpark” figures. Initially, the Bush administration thought it “would cost $50 billion to $60 billion to oust Saddam Hussein, restore order and install a new government.” The reality? “Five years in, the Pentagon tags the cost of the Iraq war at roughly $600 billion and counting. Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and critic of the war, pegs the long-term cost at more than $4 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office and other analysts say that $1 trillion to $2 trillion is more realistic, depending on troop levels and on how long the American occupation continues.”

Nation: Bloomberg.com reports on President Bush’s speech today marking the fifth anniversary. The president “said today the extra forces he ordered into Iraq last year have increased security in the country and paved the way for a ‘major strategic victory’ in the war against terrorism. That progress has made the ‘high cost in lives and treasure” in Iraq worthwhile…”

O P I N I O N

Five years by the numbers, according to Iraq Coalition Casualties:
3,990:
Number of reported U.S. military deaths
175:
Number of reported UK military deaths
40,229:
Number of reported U.S. wounded and medical evacuations
145:
Number of reported U.S. service personnel who took their own lives
4:
Number of reported U.S. service personnel missing or captured
155:
Number of reported world journalists killed/dead of other causes covering the war
426:
Number of reported U.S. dead in California alone — the highest tally of any state
1,001:
Number of reported worldwide contractor deaths in Iraq, as of June 30, 2007
74.73%, 10.72% and 9.4%:
The percent of reported deaths that are, respectively, white, Latino or Hispanic, and black.
102:
Number of reported female service personnel deaths among Coalition Forces
82,249 – 89,760:
Number of reported Iraqi deaths, according to http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/

     On April 6, 2007, the Christian Science Monitor reported that despite Pentagon official Douglas Feith’s pre-war assertion that there was a direct connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida (Feith called it a “mature, symbiotic” relationship), a de-classified Department of Defense report showed “the Intelligence Community never found an operational relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda; the report specifically states that,” and “the CIA and DIA disavowed any ‘mature, symbiotic’ relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida.”
     At the time, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Sen. Carl Levin said in a statement that accompanied the document’s release, “It is important for the public to see why the Pentagon’s Inspector General concluded that Secretary Feith’s office ‘developed, produced and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaeda relationship,’ which included ‘conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community.’ “ 
     In a report issued last week by the Department of Defense after gleaning through 600,000 of Saddam Hussein’s archives, it said that although the deposed dictator did had connections with terrorsit organizations, there was no “direct connection” with al-Qaida.
     There were lies upon lies upon lies that dragged us into this war. To date, few who disseminated them have faced any repercussions for their deeds. As many who left the Bush administration have said, war in Iraq was on the table from day one, months before the attacks of Sept. 11 that are given as the impetus for this war, to protect the homefront. The neocons were lusting after this fight before Bush was even elected. As a person who lost a friend in the attacks on New York City, I take umbrage with using his death as an excuse to protect our oil interests in the Middle East.
     What’s the most important thing to ponder on this anniversary? It is simply that the numbers above represent human life lost or altered terribly. Those numbers stand for:

Spc. Lori Ann Piestewa, 23, of Arizona, U.S. Army, 3/23/03
Enzo Baldoni, Italian freelance journalist, 8/26/04
Spc. Jonathan A. Hughes, 21, of Kentucky, U.S. Army National Guard, 3/19/05
Cpl. Marcus A. Cain, 20, of Louisiana, U.S. Army, 9/14/06
Sgt. Bryan J. Tutten, 33, of Florida, U.S. Army, 12/25/07
Cpl. William D. O’Brien, 19 of Texas, U.S. Army, 3/15/08
Let us all pause for a moment to reflect upon their lives as well as all lost through this conflict.

O P I N I O N

It was an issue he couldn’t ignore, one that shows the frightening power of the Internet to affect nationwide (and worldwide) opinion.Sen. Barack Obama chose the right time and perfect hour (for news cycles) to address an issue that continues to simmer in this nation: race.
     Obama was forced to address the issue now after videos of his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, surfaced on the Internet recently. Wright’s sermons were brutal in tone — an “us versus them” response to the state of black and white realities in America.
     This speech today, delivered brilliantly through Obama’s compelling gift for oratory, is one for the ages. While critics will say it fell short of Obama severing his ties completely with his opinionated pastor, Obama was able to show the nuances of racial mindsets that exist in America. His own white grandmother who he loved dearly, he explained, would make racist comments in front of him about her fears of blacks. Yet there is no way he would, or should be forced, disown her.
     Obama hit on a reality about race in America, how we act one way in public, but think and say other things in private. He said what his pastor suffers from is being mired in cynicism and not acknowledging the real change that is going on. He lauded the younger generations who grew up in a post-Jim Crow America and do not have the same fears or feelings toward other races and ethnic groups that their parents and grandparents did.
     When I was a child, I remember the horrible ethnic and race jokes that were spoken openly. You don’t hear that type of “humor” often from younger generations. Thanks to what some would call the politically correct movement in America, the Archie Bunkers of this country were forced to “stifle themselves.” The change is palpable in young generations, but as Obama suggested it’s right under the surface for older people.
     In my entire grade- through high-school education, there was one student from Latin America, two black teachers and two black students. Things were quite different at the newspaper where I worked. My coworkers were white, black, Latino, Asian, immigrants, old, young, gay and straight. These differences, though, you had to remind yourself about because in the regular workday, it just wasn’t noticed or an issue. I often thought it would be wonderful if the rest of the country could co-exist like that newsroom did.
     Let’s hope this speech will inspire new, open, and probably some cases brutally opinionated, dialogue about this issue that must be addressed. As Obama said, it keeps the nation from moving forward; it’s time to make our union grow stronger.
     Here is a brief excerpt from his speech:
     “The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country — a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old — is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know — what we have seen — is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope — the audacity to hope — for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.”

     You can read Sen. Barack Obama’s speech here.