Abu Ghraib: The Rule, Not The Exception
Prisoner Abuse Began at Home, and Elsewhere

Politics

PRISONER-ABUSE

VanRamblings can’t keep track of all the articles and commentary coming out about prisoner abuse in the U.S. since the Abu Ghraib photos were first published.
In an article published yesterday in The Globe and Mail, torture expert Miles Schuman writes that “Americans are no novices to inflicting pain and humiliation;” that, in fact, “U.S.-sanctioned torment has a long and diverse pedigree.”
Talk Left points to this story in the Los Angeles Times, about conditions in the L.A. County jail, where five inmates have been murdered since October.
This L.A. Times editorial calls jail security an oxymoron.
Update: America. Prison Nation. That’s what many Americans believe the U.S. has become. Don’t miss this editorial in the Monday, May 17th, New York Times, ‘The Dark Side of America’. The abuses within the United States are at least as bad, and probably worse, than those abroad.

An Editor’s Hollywood Ties Pay Off
Carter Strikes Deals With People Vanity Fair Covers

Media

GRAYDONGATE

Graydongate continues to unfold with new, and more bizarre, revelations made available over the course of each passing hour.
David Carr and Sharon Waxman, at the New York Times, were first out of the gate with confirmation that “Graydon Carter, editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair, had received a $100,000 payment from Universal Studios in 2003 for suggesting years earlier that the book A Beautiful Mind be made into a film.”
Close on their heels, Claudia Eller, Michael Cieply and Josh Getlin, at the Los Angeles Times, rushed to press with the allegation that Carter “and three former colleagues shared a $1-million advance from the book division of Miramax Films for the rights to publish an anthology of material from the now-defunct Spy magazine, of which Carter was a co-founder and editor.”
Hollywood pundit David Poland weighs in on the controversy, suggesting that Vanity Fair “is not in the business of selling journalism,” and that as we see “Graydon Carter playing kiss-kiss with movie industry people” there’s no real conflict because “Graydon can’t be bought.”
As for VanRamblings, we’re in complete accord with veteran editor Ed Kosner, who writes: “You don’t do any business on the side with people you’re covering. You don’t pitch projects to people your magazine is covering.” Not enough that Carter is a highly paid ($1.5 million U.S.) editor of a prestigious publication, he feels he has to go out and seek to supplement his income by selling favours to the movie executives, directors, stars and publicists that his magazine covers?
Talk about cynical. Talk about avarice. In addition to being a story about conflict of interest, Graydongate is a story about greed. Where’s this story going? Only time will tell. But, Poland aside, it’s not looking good for Carter.

A Kerry Landslide?
Why the next U.S. election won’t be close

Politics

AMERICAN-PRESIDENTS




Conventional wisdom has it that the 2004 U.S. Presidential election will be extremely tight. But history shows that an election with an incumbent president tends to function as a referendum, which could mean a big win — or a big loss — for Democratic hopeful, Massachusett’s Senator John Kerry.
In a column written for The Washington Monthly, editor-in-chief of the National Journal’s Hotline, Chuck Todd, suggests the race for President may not be as close as most pundits believe. In fact, writes Todd …

“2004 could be a decisive victory for Kerry. The reason to think so is historical. Elections that feature a sitting president tend to be referendums on the incumbent — and in recent elections, the incumbent has either won or lost by large electoral margins. If you look at key indicators beyond the neck-and-neck support for the two candidates in the polls — such as high turnout in the early Democratic primaries and the likelihood of a high turnout in November — it seems improbable that Bush will win big. More likely, it’s going to be Kerry in a rout.”

In a prescient BBC article, published in December 2002, correspondent Paul Reynolds compares the presidencies of Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush, offering an analysis of what brought Carter down.
Although Reynolds suggests that George W. Bush intended not to be burdened by the same problems — the economy and foreign policy — that defeated Carter, in fact, given the events of the past few months, if you contrast the problems that plagued the Carter administration with those of the Bush White House, the current president’s tenure would seem uncertain, indeed, based on recent U.S. political history.

Clues For The Clueless: Explaining The World Around Us

Web & Tech

SCIENCE-EXPLAINED

Caltech string theory pioneer John
Schwarz explains science to the public

These days, laptop computers employ technology scarcely dreamed of during the Apollo moon missions. Physicians prescribe gene-triggering drugs that were fantasy elixirs a decade ago. And microchips have become so small that they’re measured in billionths of a metre. But more than 80% of adults still are not knowledgeable enough to digest a science story in a major newspaper. So how do scientists learn to explain without dumbing down?
As science becomes more complex, more prominent in everyday life and more dependent on the support of the public for research — through the government grants funded by the taxes we pay — universities across the globe are reaching out to the ‘clueless’ — that means, you and me.
The goal is to nurture popular support for scientific endeavours by making them easier to understand. And, in a world where the hope for cures to most diseases rests with the skilled endeavours of biotechnologists, and where the very definition of democracy is being redefined by the advent and continued maturation of the Internet, the more we know about science, the implications of the research that is being undertaken, and the moral and ethical questions involved in that research, the better off we’ll all be.
Writing for The Los Angeles Times, science reporter Paul Pringle — in a story titled Dense Matter Indeed — records the thoughts of people like you and me, who suggest to scientists that by employing more descriptive language, developing eloquent process imagery, as well as public-friendly metaphors that science might be brought down to Earth.
At which point, each and every one of us will benefit, as we feel better informed and more empowered in yet another aspect of our lives. More acute knowledge on a subject is almost always a good thing.