Commies suck

This post probably marks the bannination of my Web site from China.

Its formal name is the People's Republic of China, which is two lies for the price of one.

A) It is not a republic. The kind name for it is dictatorship.

B) It does not belong to the people. Tell the members of the Chinese Politburo to go slosh through a rice paddy and see what happens to you.

It already was bad enough.

It's getting to the point where people are beginning to forget that major convulsion that was the year 1989. But I remember. I remember this:



What happened to him? I don't know. I seriously doubt he's alive today, simply because he took a stand in a country and culture that does not place the same value on human life that the Western world does.

Nor do they place a lot of stock in the basic human rights, such as the right to information.

From the Washington Post via Reuters, China to begin controlling Internet news.

George Orwell may have written 1984 when the Soviet Union was the dominant worry, but history once again repeats itself and totalitarianism rears its ugly head.

And these are the people the United States does business with. Basically we promote this kind of dictatorship. We have an ongoing trade relationship with the country that has one of the world's worst records of human rights violations.

This may be the land of the free and the home of the brave, but I wonder just how much we are guilty by association...

Stick it to the man

The first three estates of government are the three primary branches: Executive, legislative and judicial.

The fourth estate is journalism, the press. When government fails, we will be the ones to step in and try to save the public's bacon.

It's hard to argue the government has made every effort to help. At every turn, finger-pointing and buck-passing has marred this operation. Thousands are dead, countless more have become victims of rape, murder and other horrible crimes and the police have sometimes been the perpetrators of crime against the very populace they swore to protect.

In disgrace, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been recalled to Washington for screwing up his duties of managing this catastrophe. He should thank his lucky stars this isn't the Soviet Union. If it were, he'd end up doing a lifetime of hard labor in the Gulag, the Soviet penitentiary prison system. And that's if he were lucky. More likely he'd have been shot.

And then the government, to protect the sensibilities of the public (AKA to try and mask how bad they've screwed up), decided to deny the media access to the disaster area.

I am not an anarchist. I believe our government, despite periods of spectacular incompetence, is doing the best it can and without it, we'd all be in a world of hurt.

But this is UNCONSCIONABLE!

Enter now, the hero of the hour. CNN.

CNN sues to cover Katrina aftermath

Moving to kibosh the completely unconstitutional and undemocratic - nay, seemingly FASCIST - actions of the government, CNN sued to allow media coverage.

And then a second miracle happened.

Judge grants temporary restraining order

So for now, the media will move in. Some will compare it to the actions of sharks or vultures. I'm sorry people see it as that. That attitude stems from unethical and insensitive actions of stupid and insensate journalists...

What the majority of journalists will be there to do is show the public the horrors of what has gone on there, and more importantly, the injustices that have taken place when the public was not allowed to see.

And I am proud of my profession, doing what it can to make sure people get the information they need.

That's funny, I didn't think Armageddon was spelled "Katrina"

The Bible laid it out pretty clean. Location is everything.

Don't build your house in a stupid spot.

Likewise, don't build a city below sea level on a coastline known for horrifically-powerful hurricane.

I'm not trying to be insensitive to the plight of all those down there. I'm just saying the decision to put a major city there, lo those many years ago, was not a great idea.

But I'm not here to rant about meteorology or geography or any of that.

Where disaster is, there are journalists, in the thick of it. Getting knocked over by hurricane-force winds, wading in waist deep water and taking photos.

And then the trouble starts.

A photo appearing on Yahoo's news Web pages showing a black man with a plastic tub loaded with beer, including a bottle tucked in his back pocket. The caption reads that he is looting. Another photo appearing on Yahoo, this one from Agence France-Presse/Getty Images shows white people with bread and sodas and bears the description that they are "finding" the items.

As a a photographer, in addition to being a writer, I can see how this happened.

The black man in the photos is obviously making off with a non-necessity. The photographer who took the picture, Dave Martin, saw the man enter that business and make off with the goods. Beer will not help you survive the greatest national disaster this country has faced since 9-11. The white people are making off with essentials (except the sodas, unless there was no bottled water), and the photographer, Chris Graythen, vehemently defended his caption, saying these people got things that were floating away from the rubble of a store, and not stealing out of it.

I think it would have been better if the photographer had made the shot wider so that people could get a sense that these folks had not, in fact, breaking into a business and stealing. The man with the beer has no such defense. Have fun with the Heinekins. It's simply the chance that these two photos would appear the same day. Whoops.


Now, if it's happening like this blogger showed, then it is pure, simple negligence on the part of the news organizations and photographers and all else involved. If it's looting in one picture where it doesn't clearly show where they got it, it's looting in another.
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Another issue has me applauding and blasting the media in the New Orleans area.

A radio station broadcast the mayor of New Orleans blasting the federal government for the lack of help. That's a positive way in which the media gets out the message from truly concerned public officials that help is needed.

Then CNN, my news station of choice (what, you were expecting Fox News?), went and pissed away air time showing President Bush hugging two victims of this tragedy.

WHO CARES?

Skip to the part where the President gets to the heart of the matter and promises the aid or whatnot. The president hugging people is NOT news.

There's so much more out there to discuss, and I'm just one man. This is a horrific tragedy and stories will pour in, both of tragedy, villainy and horror and others of wonder, joy and miracles. Let's wait and see.

- The Unrepentant Journalist