I'm ambivalent about this story from ABC News, coverage of a leaked NRA brochure that "drafts its Second Amendment mission in alarmist terms." I'm not sure "alarmist" is accurate -- the NRA's fears are very real -- but the statements are overdramatic and insulting. For the record, the brochure was stolen in production, so it likely wouldn't have come out exactly like what's been seen.
From the story:
"'Freedom in Peril,' a rough copy of which was leaked onto the Internet last Friday, takes aim at the enemies of gun rights: from New Orleans policemen who confiscated weapons during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to 'one-world extremists' of the United Nations, animal-rights 'terrorists,' and illegal alien gangs. "It also takes shots, with unflattering caricatures and descriptions, at personalities like Katie Couric, Rosie O'Donnell and Michael Moore and politicians such as Speaker-in-waiting Nancy Pelosi and Sens. John Kerry and Hillary Clinton.
"'Second Amendment freedom today stands naked in the path of a marching axis of adversaries far darker and more dangerous than gun owners have ever known,' reads the foreword to the brochure. 'Acting alone and in shadowy coalitions, these enemies of freedom are preparing for a profound and foreboding confrontation in which they will not make the mistakes of their predecessors. We'd better be ready.'
"NRA leaders Wayne LaPierre and Chris W. Cox co-write a letter in which they assert that America's anti-gun forces will disguise their true aims under the cloak of anti-terrorism, describing a scenario in which gun owners will be disarmed through legislation."
Well, for starters, the brochure is not a "pre-emptive strike," as the article declares three words in. Many of the next Congress's leaders have made anti-gun agendas clear and introduced or backed anti-gun legislation -- Clinton and Pelosi, most obviously. There's nothing "pre-emptive" about going after one's long-term political enemies.
Two, most of the facts stated are accurate. The New Orleans gun confiscations were problematic, UN activists have tried to overrun sovereign gun laws, illegal immigrants often join Hispanic gangs (though I'm not sure a gun rights brochure is the best place to bring that up), there are animal rights terrorists (I love how they word it so as to imply the NRA called all animal rights supporters terrorists) and many leaders have used terrorism to lash out at gun rights.
The one thing Wonkette has a point (and picutures) on, though, is that while these threats are real, the gun rights supporters in Congress haven't changed much. Pro-gun Republicans lost out, but pro-gun Democrats (e.g. Jim Webb, whom the NRA tried to submarine) often won.(An aside -- Wonkette does not have a point in saying going after George Soros is equivalent to anti-Semitism. Maybe they were just trying to be funny.)Putting one's political views into a comic book is a little juvenile, though. See the Wonkette link for some examples, or here's a summary from ABC:
"The work also contains dramatic illustrations of an armed man defending his home from armed gangs roaming the streets in the aftermath of Katrina-like catastrophes, hairy-legged female animal-rights activists marching alongside snarling dogs and scowling pigs and multicultural gang members flashing gang signs. The media is not spared -- television news reporters are portrayed as a giant malevolent head and a vulture clutching a microphone."I wonder why ABC was so quick to denounce the piece! The NRA quite possibly didn't mean them, however, as John Stossel is pretty pro-gun.
I also think the word "multicultural" is a riot here. Would they prefer the NRA single out any one race? It is standard practice in the shooting industry to make stand-in "criminals" white -- the ads in the NRA's magazines always have shady-looking Caucasions with red dots on them; the photos on shooting targets likewise feature the pale-skinned.
Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://www.therationale.com/ and http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com/.
Friday, December 29, 2006
I smell a YouTube sensation
Saddam Hussein will be dead by Sunday, and the Iraqi government will tape the execution. CBS News wasn't able to find out whether the footage will be publicly available.
From the story:"'We will video everything,' National Security adviser Mouffak al Rubaie said. 'All documentation will be videoed. Taking him from cell to the execution is going to be videoed, and the actual execution will be documented and videoed.'
"Iraqis, members of the coalition and international representatives will witness the execution, Pinkston reports. It's not clear whether the videotape will be broadcast on Iraqi television."
(Just as interesting, the government won't release the exact date of the event, robbing insurgents of a day of martyrdom.)
The story doesn't mention anything about the death penalty debate -- activists are mostly keeping low profiles because if anyone has it coming, Saddam Hussein does -- but this brings up an interesting ethical issue. Executions are government proceedings, paid for with taxpayer dollars. Should governments make and release graphic records of them?
Anti-death penalty folks have said "yes," with the rationale that if the public saw how brutal killing is, political support for executions would drop. My response to this line of thought is, OK -- but first, let's watch a video of the criminal doing what got him put to death. A hanging, firing squad or lethal injection would often look cathartic in that context.
Pro-death penalty activists have sometimes also come out in favor of public executions, on the grounds that readily available, grotesque visuals would deter criminals.
But moving back to the more bureaucratic reason, that of government transparency. I'd argue it's unnecessary, as basic record keeping with dates, method and trial transcripts provides enough information for the historical record. People want executions taped either out of morbid curiosity (if it makes it to YouTube, I will most definitely watch it) or the activism reasons sketched out above.
I would like to hear more from the Iraqi government, however. The story does not dwell on the issue of taping or give any defense of the practice.
Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://www.therationale.com and http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
NYT: Black nannies won't work for other blacks
Hat tip to John Lott for this very insightful New York Times piece. It turns out that nannies -- including black nannies -- try not to work for black families.Of course, you have to look past the absurd editorializing:
"Like hailing a cab in Midtown Manhattan, searching for a nanny can be an exasperating, humiliating exercise for many blacks, the kind of ordeal that makes them wonder aloud what year it is."
Those poor, put-upon wealthy folks who can't find nannies! And if black nannies are part of the problem (as black cab drivers are, Dinesh D'Souza showed in The End of Racism), it isn't a throwback to America's racist past. Unless blacks have a pervasive bias against their own race (they don't).
Here's the best line (though, as Lott points out, the NYT is too afraid to run with it):
"Numerous black parents successfully employ nannies, and many sitters say they pay no regard to race. But interviews with dozens of nannies and agencies that employ them in Atlanta, Chicago, New York and Houston turned up many nannies -- often of African-American or Caribbean descent themselves -- who avoid working for families of those backgrounds. Their reasons included accusations of low pay and extra work, fears that employers would look down at them, and suspicion that any neighborhood inhabited by blacks had to be unsafe."
Kudos to the Times for including this, but the logical questions become, Why would someone say that about her own race if it weren't true? Are there any numbers we can find to back this up? Low pay is debatable from my limited understanding, as blacks seem to pay more for cars while tipping less. There has to be some reason blacks fear other blacks will be more likely to look down on them, but the journalist didn't bother to ask. And a fear of high-crime black neighborhoods isn't exactly an irrational one.
Another un-PC fact left unexplored:
"In visits, telephone calls and e-mail exchanges across the country, nannies of all colors spoke of parents in sweeping ethnic generalizations: the Jews this, the Indians that."
Now, I'm against equating individuals with group norms when it's not necessary. But the journalist seems to take it at face value that the problem is with the nannies, and that these stereotypes have no basis in reality. Supported by no evidence whatsoever that all ethnic groups treat nannies similarly.
One nanny who expresses prejudice is "basing her conclusions on working for a single black family years ago;" apparently, in the loads of interviews conducted, the journalist couldn't come up with a single discriminatory nanny with more experience than that.
And:
"The problem may be as much about class as race, said Kimberly McClain DaCosta, a Harvard sociologist who is researching how blacks care for family members. For nannies, working for an employer of the same background or skin color 'highlights their lower economic status,' she said, but 'the fact that their employers are black just makes that more intense.'"
It's the nannies' fault. It couldn't possibly be that the employers also contribute to "highlighting" class-plus-race tensions. (This isn't necessarily a criticism of the expert, as journalists often leave out crucial bits of interviews.)
The second expert has a more interesting take on it:
"African-American professionals, who constantly battle the stereotype that blacks do not speak proper English, sometimes hesitate to hire Caribbean nannies who speak with lilting accents or island patois, said Cameron L. Macdonald, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison."
Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://www.therationale.com and http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com.
"Like hailing a cab in Midtown Manhattan, searching for a nanny can be an exasperating, humiliating exercise for many blacks, the kind of ordeal that makes them wonder aloud what year it is."
Those poor, put-upon wealthy folks who can't find nannies! And if black nannies are part of the problem (as black cab drivers are, Dinesh D'Souza showed in The End of Racism), it isn't a throwback to America's racist past. Unless blacks have a pervasive bias against their own race (they don't).
Here's the best line (though, as Lott points out, the NYT is too afraid to run with it):
"Numerous black parents successfully employ nannies, and many sitters say they pay no regard to race. But interviews with dozens of nannies and agencies that employ them in Atlanta, Chicago, New York and Houston turned up many nannies -- often of African-American or Caribbean descent themselves -- who avoid working for families of those backgrounds. Their reasons included accusations of low pay and extra work, fears that employers would look down at them, and suspicion that any neighborhood inhabited by blacks had to be unsafe."
Kudos to the Times for including this, but the logical questions become, Why would someone say that about her own race if it weren't true? Are there any numbers we can find to back this up? Low pay is debatable from my limited understanding, as blacks seem to pay more for cars while tipping less. There has to be some reason blacks fear other blacks will be more likely to look down on them, but the journalist didn't bother to ask. And a fear of high-crime black neighborhoods isn't exactly an irrational one.
Another un-PC fact left unexplored:
"In visits, telephone calls and e-mail exchanges across the country, nannies of all colors spoke of parents in sweeping ethnic generalizations: the Jews this, the Indians that."
Now, I'm against equating individuals with group norms when it's not necessary. But the journalist seems to take it at face value that the problem is with the nannies, and that these stereotypes have no basis in reality. Supported by no evidence whatsoever that all ethnic groups treat nannies similarly.
One nanny who expresses prejudice is "basing her conclusions on working for a single black family years ago;" apparently, in the loads of interviews conducted, the journalist couldn't come up with a single discriminatory nanny with more experience than that.
And:
"The problem may be as much about class as race, said Kimberly McClain DaCosta, a Harvard sociologist who is researching how blacks care for family members. For nannies, working for an employer of the same background or skin color 'highlights their lower economic status,' she said, but 'the fact that their employers are black just makes that more intense.'"
It's the nannies' fault. It couldn't possibly be that the employers also contribute to "highlighting" class-plus-race tensions. (This isn't necessarily a criticism of the expert, as journalists often leave out crucial bits of interviews.)
The second expert has a more interesting take on it:
"African-American professionals, who constantly battle the stereotype that blacks do not speak proper English, sometimes hesitate to hire Caribbean nannies who speak with lilting accents or island patois, said Cameron L. Macdonald, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison."
Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://www.therationale.com and http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Duke lacrosse defender seeks federal intervention
I've kept pretty quiet about the Duke lacrosse team rape allegations, but this new development raises some odd questions. The defense attorney is seeking federal intervention, accusing the prosecutor of misconduct:
"Cornacchia said Nifong had mishandled the case in his identifying of the three young men, his public statements and by withholding evidence. "'He knew that the DNA didn't match before he indicted the [defendants],' Cornacchia said. '[When I was a prosecutor], I didn't accuse anybody unless I had … reasonable doubt.'
"'Accusation is destruction,' he said."
There are two angles here. The first is that the prosecutor's handling of the case is extremely questionable. This summary is pretty damning:
"When prosecutors interviewed the accuser for the first time — last Thursday — she said she was uncertain whether there was penetration, which differs from statements she made to police in April.
"At that time, the accuser said she was brutally raped and beaten by three men during a lacrosse team party at a house near the Duke University campus, claiming that she was 'vaginally penetrated by a male sex organ,' without a condom. The accuser and another woman were hired as exotic dancers and paid to strip at the party."
When the victim changes her story about a rather crucial piece of testimony, the logical reaction would be to dismiss her claims entirely. But the lawyer keeps clinging to every possibility of a trial.
On the other hand, though, federalism -- the notion that state/local and federal processes should be basically independent -- could take a blow here. It's true that "accusation is destruction," but DAs need a certain leeway in exploring cases and pressing charges.
In fact, if a prosecutor could be held liable for pushing cases without enough evidence, that would pretty much defeat the purpose of a jury trial. The idea behind the process is that prosecutors try to convict, defenders try to acquit and the judge or jury makes an unbiased decision. If the feds step in whenever a prosecutor presses charges with evidence short of "reasonable doubt," by definition they'll have to step in with every acquittal.
The odds are already stacked against the prosecutor in the "reasonable doubt standard," so I am leery about attempts to further interfere with law enforcement's job.
Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://www.therationale.com/ and http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com/.
UPDATE: It's come to my attention I didnt make this clear enough -- my point about federalism is in response to the defense attorney's comment that he'd only prosecute when he had "reasonable doubt"-caliber proof. That might be good advice, but it's not a standard the feds can hold state and local prosecutors to because, again, by definition, a DA would go down with every acquittal.
However, to expand my first point on the DA's mishandling of the case, the Constitution grants certain rights to accusees, and those rights now apply to the states as well. If the prosecutor did indeed suppress evidence -- beyond pressing charges without enough evidence -- he should be held accountable.
"Cornacchia said Nifong had mishandled the case in his identifying of the three young men, his public statements and by withholding evidence. "'He knew that the DNA didn't match before he indicted the [defendants],' Cornacchia said. '[When I was a prosecutor], I didn't accuse anybody unless I had … reasonable doubt.'
"'Accusation is destruction,' he said."
There are two angles here. The first is that the prosecutor's handling of the case is extremely questionable. This summary is pretty damning:
"When prosecutors interviewed the accuser for the first time — last Thursday — she said she was uncertain whether there was penetration, which differs from statements she made to police in April.
"At that time, the accuser said she was brutally raped and beaten by three men during a lacrosse team party at a house near the Duke University campus, claiming that she was 'vaginally penetrated by a male sex organ,' without a condom. The accuser and another woman were hired as exotic dancers and paid to strip at the party."
When the victim changes her story about a rather crucial piece of testimony, the logical reaction would be to dismiss her claims entirely. But the lawyer keeps clinging to every possibility of a trial.
On the other hand, though, federalism -- the notion that state/local and federal processes should be basically independent -- could take a blow here. It's true that "accusation is destruction," but DAs need a certain leeway in exploring cases and pressing charges.
In fact, if a prosecutor could be held liable for pushing cases without enough evidence, that would pretty much defeat the purpose of a jury trial. The idea behind the process is that prosecutors try to convict, defenders try to acquit and the judge or jury makes an unbiased decision. If the feds step in whenever a prosecutor presses charges with evidence short of "reasonable doubt," by definition they'll have to step in with every acquittal.
The odds are already stacked against the prosecutor in the "reasonable doubt standard," so I am leery about attempts to further interfere with law enforcement's job.
Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://www.therationale.com/ and http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com/.
UPDATE: It's come to my attention I didnt make this clear enough -- my point about federalism is in response to the defense attorney's comment that he'd only prosecute when he had "reasonable doubt"-caliber proof. That might be good advice, but it's not a standard the feds can hold state and local prosecutors to because, again, by definition, a DA would go down with every acquittal.
However, to expand my first point on the DA's mishandling of the case, the Constitution grants certain rights to accusees, and those rights now apply to the states as well. If the prosecutor did indeed suppress evidence -- beyond pressing charges without enough evidence -- he should be held accountable.
Monday, December 25, 2006
Journal Nature ends online peer review
This is one of the more disappointing stories of the Internet age: The journal Nature discontinued an online peer review process after scientists didn’t use it enough.
A little background on how scientific journals work: Basically, researchers do experiments and submit write-ups of them. A board of editors – or, in this case, the whole community – goes through them and decides what is good enough to appear in print. After reading about the experiment, other scientists might want to replicate it, challenge the interpretation or do complementary research.
Journals are quite useful, then, in many fields. The main problem was that the “gatekeepers” who edited the journal had tons of power and could squelch controversial research. This experiment was supposed to fix that.
From the story:
“During Nature's trial, only 5 percent of 1,369 papers ranging from astronomy to neuroscience that were selected for traditional peer review were also posted on the Internet for open commentary. Of those, 33 papers received no comments. The rest received a total of 92 technical comments.
“The journal concluded that many researchers were either too busy or had no real incentive in evaluating their colleagues' work publicly. In addition, none of the editors found the posted comments influenced their decision whether a paper gets published.
“Nature, published by an arm of Macmillan Publishers Ltd., is highly selective of the research it publishes. Of the 10,000 papers it receives every year, the journal rejects about 60 percent outright. Only about 7 percent of submissions are published.”
The situation is really sad -- an era where blogs like this one attract critical-minded readers, but scientists see no value in offering advice on their colleagues’ work. I would almost argue that participating in this kind of experiment is the job of a researcher. Additional perspectives are always in the best interest of free debate and scientific advancement.
Perhaps what’s needed is an incentive beyond a “thanks to so-and-so” line in the paper. The field of science greatly rewards publication (“publish or perish”), so maybe it needs to reward helping with others’ publications as well.
Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://www.therationale.com and http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com.
A little background on how scientific journals work: Basically, researchers do experiments and submit write-ups of them. A board of editors – or, in this case, the whole community – goes through them and decides what is good enough to appear in print. After reading about the experiment, other scientists might want to replicate it, challenge the interpretation or do complementary research.
Journals are quite useful, then, in many fields. The main problem was that the “gatekeepers” who edited the journal had tons of power and could squelch controversial research. This experiment was supposed to fix that.
From the story:
“During Nature's trial, only 5 percent of 1,369 papers ranging from astronomy to neuroscience that were selected for traditional peer review were also posted on the Internet for open commentary. Of those, 33 papers received no comments. The rest received a total of 92 technical comments.
“The journal concluded that many researchers were either too busy or had no real incentive in evaluating their colleagues' work publicly. In addition, none of the editors found the posted comments influenced their decision whether a paper gets published.
“Nature, published by an arm of Macmillan Publishers Ltd., is highly selective of the research it publishes. Of the 10,000 papers it receives every year, the journal rejects about 60 percent outright. Only about 7 percent of submissions are published.”
The situation is really sad -- an era where blogs like this one attract critical-minded readers, but scientists see no value in offering advice on their colleagues’ work. I would almost argue that participating in this kind of experiment is the job of a researcher. Additional perspectives are always in the best interest of free debate and scientific advancement.
Perhaps what’s needed is an incentive beyond a “thanks to so-and-so” line in the paper. The field of science greatly rewards publication (“publish or perish”), so maybe it needs to reward helping with others’ publications as well.
Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://www.therationale.com and http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com.
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