Fish Fear Me

Back At It

This wonderfully sunny Monday finds the week-long battle against my head cold all but over. The critical day was Thursday, when I was able to beat back its attempt to settle in my chest. Yesterday was the somewhat ghastly clearing of the sinuses and today I have just a few sniffles left. It's good to be able to smell the spring air again. Now if I could only get used to this daily shaving thing.

We've had good rainfall here that last few weeks and after our extremely dry winter that's good news. The timing hasn't been the greatest though. This weekend was once again pretty much a washout for getting stuff done in the yard. I should be able to get a few hours in this evening and tomorrow before the rains return.

John Huntsman(Sore Loser-Utah) is whining about the GOP again. After losing the GOP base with the brilliant strategy of disagreeing while being disagreeable, the ever arrogant and entitled-feeling Huntsman is shocked, shocked!, that the GOP shunned him for calling for a third party to go against, at least in part, the GOP. The man is so self-absorbed that he cannot even grasp the consequences of his own actions. 

And Huntsman can spare us the regurgitation of this stupid meme that's going around that Ronald Reagan couldn't get the GOP nomination today. If he truly believes that, he can start by showing me the page in Reagan's playbook where he wins the nomination by telling the base essentially to "shut up you stupid gits." Then he can show us how Reagan would love a federal government that feels entitled to dictate to us even to the point of telling us the kinds of light bulbs we can or cannot buy. Good luck with that. Finally, Reagan would be horrified at a Democratic party that has gone far beyond assuring a societal safety net and now openly espouses redistribution of wealth. He would be pounding Democrats with that far harder than Romney or Huntsman ever will. Don't kid yourself otherwise.

Over the weekend I read this depressing piece on the Trayvon Martin case from a man named Mansfield Frazier(via Bob Owens). Apparently Frazier has convicted George Zimmerman in the court of his mind and now, "The paramount concern has to be to avert a large-scale racial calamity." Frazier goes on to urge Zimmerman's attorney to arrange a plea bargain that would see Zimmerman back on the street within eight years. Otherwise:

"America can only dodge so many racial bullets, and a not-guilty verdict in this case could very easily turn the racial cold war into a very hot one."

Given Frazier's mention of the Rodney King riots it's not difficult to see what he means here. Anything less than jail time for Zimmerman at this point means rioting in the streets. Is that just an accurate reading of the situation or a threat? I don't know. It may be both. I've seen enough threats of violence on the web not to discount it.

This spring has already seen a small group of black young people attack passersby(white?) half a dozen times in downtown Minneapolis, culminating in some arrests after increased police patrols. So called "flash mobs" have also been on the rise across the country. My gut tells me that our urban black underclass was getting primed to explode even before the Martin killing. I can't believe that has made things any better.

Regardless, it's depressing to see someone like Frazier warn of a mob and then declare it must be appeased, or else. Whether Zimmerman decides to take a plea, is found guilty, or is acquitted, it is no matter to me as long as the system is allowed to work without threats of violence.

The Twins return home tonight against Boston. They managed a 2-2 split in New York and avoided a sweep in Tampa Bay over the weekend. Not bad as far as I'm concerned. I figured they had a good chance of going 0-7. And since I've been ragging on the $23 million/year man for his pathetic 2011 effort, it's only fair to note that Joe Mauer has played in all 16 games so far this season. He's not putting up $23 million/year numbers just yet, but the first step is just being there. Credit where due.

A just missed weekend for Gopher baseball on the road at Michigan State. They went 1-2 with both losses coming in extra innings. The series win earned Michigan St. a tie with the Gophers for second in the Big Ten. 

"Journalists" Suck (continued)

Defenders of our current mainstream journalism, please defend this from CNN:

Martin's family believes Zimmerman, 28, racially profiled their 17-year-old son, who was walking back from a convenience store, and unjustly killed him after disregarding a police dispatcher's request not to follow the unarmed teen.

Zimmerman contends he acted in self-defense. His family says he did not profile Martin.

The bolded text in the first paragraph above is false. There is no question about it. Here is the relevant exchange with the 911 operator, information that has been available for weeks now:

911 operator: "Are you following him?"

Zimmerman: "Yeah."

911 operator: "Okay, we don't need you to do that."

Clearly there was no "request" for Zimmerman to stop following Martin. The operator merely informed Zimmerman that he didn't need to do that. I think it is reasonable to question Zimmerman on the wisdom of following Martin, but claiming that he disregarded the 911 operator's request is false.

It's possible to read that first paragraph as straight reporting about what the Martin family believes. They believe that Zimmerman racially profiled their son and they believe he disregarded the 911 operator's request not to follow Trayvon. If that's the case though, why did they give space for the Zimmerman family's position on the first point in the next paragraph, and stay silent about the second point? The first point is debatable and contentious at this stage. The second point is not. So why not make it clear to the reader what the facts are?

Or is it that the reporters, Phil Gast, Vivian Kuo and Jessica Thill, are the ones who believe that Zimmerman disregarded the 911 operator's request? Could they actually be so astoundingly wrong about an important fact of the case? Or, to be cynical, do they just want you to be astoundingly ill-informed?

Journalism has hit a new low with the Trayvon Martin case. In some instances it has been so bad that even massive incompetence cannot seem to account for the incredible falsehoods that have been published and are obviously still being published today. It seems to me that some of this has do be done with malicious intent.

I truly hate to say that. I think journalists can, and in some cases still, do tremendous good for the public. But they can do, and are doing, tremendous harm right now by spreading false information in this case and far too many others. It has gotten so bad and is so blatant that I think it is time for blanket condemnation of every journalist who works at some our largest news media companies. 

I understand that may seem unfair to the "good" journalists who work in those organizations, but what are they doing to correct the falsehoods their "news" companies spew every day? Where are their protests over the corruption of news into the propaganda of one group over another? All I hear is silence from them. 

So fuck them too.

Noted Savage* Savages U.S. As "Nation Of Savages" For Not Savaging George Zimmerman

No, seriously. Mike Tyson has weighed in on the Trayvon Martin case:

"My personal feeling is that, as a young kid that was beat on by a bully, that was pretty much singled out—the guy [Zimmerman] stalked him, didn't follow instructions from a superior officer, when they said, 'Stop following the kid.' That tells you everything right there. But my all-around perspective, I wasn't there, I don't know what happened. But it's just so widespread and overt what happened. Even though this is the best country in the world, certain laws in this country are a disgrace to a nation of savages." 

Well alrighty then. I guess we should have just lynched the man. Uh...yeah:

"It's a disgrace that man hasn't been dragged out of his house and tied to a car and taken away. That's the only kind of retribution that people like that understand. It's a disgrace that man hasn't been shot yet. Forget about him being arrested--the fact that he hasn't been shot yet is a disgrace. That's how I feel personally about it."

Really, Mike? Have you been roaming the streets the last month, weapon in hand while you try to hunt Zimmerman down? 

Tell us, Mike, how would you do him? A shot to the back of the head? That might be too cold. How about a shot to the face? Would one do it, Mike, or would you put the whole clip into him? Come on, Mike, don't be shy at this point.

The truth here, of course, is the only thing Tyson is going to shoot is his mouth, or perhaps his foot. Unfortunately, some fool might listen to that fool and try to do something stupid, and ruin his own life in the process. 

I'm not big on any president getting personally involved in local cases like this, but when you have celebreties openly touting vigilantism and millions of people personally invested not just in a trial, but also a conviction, maybe it's time for President Hope and Change to act presidential and stand up for the rule of law and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. 

 

*The man is a convicted rapist and was once disqualified from a boxing match because he bit off a piece of his opponent's ear. "Savage" is one of the nicer terms I could use for Tyson.

NBC News: The Cover-up Continues

It looks like NBC News has now turned to the "not for attribution" leak phase of their campaign to avoid honestly confessing what happened to create the Zimmerman 911 call debacle. A couple of Reuters reporters have talked to two NBC insiders and filed this report:

(Reuters) - An internal NBC News probe has determined a "seasoned" producer was to blame for a misleading clip of a 911 call that the network broadcast during its coverage of the Trayvon Martin shooting, according to two sources at the network.

NBC News brass interviewed more than half a dozen staffers during its investigation of the misleadingly edited 911 call placed by George Zimmerman just before he shot the unarmed Florida teenager, said the sources, one of whom is an executive at the network.

According to the article:

The sources described the producer's actions as a very bad mistake, but not deliberate.

That is absurd and an insult to any reasonably intelligent person. There is no way that this...

Zimmerman: This guy looks like he’s up to no good. Or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.

Dispatcher: OK, and this guy — is he black, white or Hispanic?

Zimmerman: He looks black.

...gets edited down to this...

Zimmerman: This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.

...without that "seasoned" producer knowing full well how he has changed the perspective completely. I don't buy that "mistake" crap for one minute.

It also strains credulity that every single person in this chain would miss the selective editing:

The Today show's editorial control policies - which include a script editor, senior producer oversight, and in most cases legal and standards department reviews of material to be broadcast - missed the selective editing of the call, said the NBC executive.

I'm certain I would have caught the error if I had seen the original broadcast and I find it again to be incredible that those people, whose business is the news, would miss such a thing. It makes me wonder if there was actually no mistake here either. Perhaps it was that one or more(or all) of those people felt the selective edit was within the acceptable parameters set for covering the story by NBC News executives.

I was mocking the other day when I wrote about a culture of corruption at NBC News, but now that I see the cover-up continuing, maybe it really does exist. 

NBC Does The Modified Limited Hangout

NBC News has taken a page out of the Team Nixon playbook in response to the heat it has taken for broadcasting a deliberately truncated audio of a 911 tape in the Trayvon Martin case. The editing in question was obviously intended to make it appear that George Zimmerman was racially profiling Martin on the night that Zimmerman shot him. Hollywood Reporter has Ehrlichman's NBC's statement:

"During our investigation it became evident that there was an error made in the production process that we deeply regret," NBC News said in a statement e-mailed to The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday. "We will be taking the necessary steps to prevent this from happening in the future and apologize to our viewers."

When asked if anyone at Today had lost their job or had been reassigned as a result of the investigation, an NBC spokeswoman said: "We will not be commenting on our course of action."

The apology is fine but the rest of it is PR pap that is designed to hopefully make the issue go away for NBC. "Sorry about that. Nothing else to see here, though. Please move along."

If this was a simple case of a reporter or producer making an error, then this a terrible way to handle it. Not naming names now only broadens the list of possible suspects, and their work product, that the public can and will feel entitled to be suspicious towards. 

And this was also a blatant breach of trust. The best way for NBC to reestablish that trust with the public would be to take open and concrete actions toward that goal, not to thumb its nose and say "Now you can trust us." 

On the other hand, we have to remember that the fish rots from the head down. If someone high up in the chain was responsible for distorting the coverage on this issue, for example, managing editor and Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, then the modified limited hangout becomes a far more preferable strategy than admitting that your news operation is rotten to the core. If that fails, we all know what comes next.

Hey, can somebody go down to 30 Rock and see if they're building a stone wall?

Let's Play "No Way!"...

..."Way!"

NBC told this blog today that it would investigate its handling of a piece on the “Today” show that ham-handedly abridged the conversation between George Zimmerman and a dispatcher in the moments before the death of Trayvon Martin. A statement from NBC:

“We have launched an internal investigation into the editorial process surrounding this particular story.”

Great news right there. As exposed by Fox News and media watchdog site NewsBusters, the “Today” segment took this approach to a key part of the dispatcher call:

Zimmerman: This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.

Here’s how the actual conversation went down:

Zimmerman: This guy looks like he’s up to no good. Or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.

Dispatcher: OK, and this guy — is he black, white or Hispanic?

Zimmerman: He looks black.

I thought ABC News would be hard to catch in the race to be the worst news network in the world, but I didn't expect this valiant effort from NBC News. Way to go, NBC!

I think I'll take a moment now and pick up this MSM reporter hat that's just lying here. It's way too big for my ego, but I think I can pinch it in the back a little. Here we go:

This whole incident raises troubling questions that go to the very top management of NBC. Has NBC created a culture of corruption that led to this disgraceful incident? Exactly how could a news media giant lose its way so badly?

Why did it take four days to launch an investigation and why has it been bungled so badly? Shouldn't there be an independent investigation into this journalistic malpractice? How can we rely on a strictly internal investigation?

And then there's the racial aspect. Some people are wondering if race may have played a role in this despicable violation of journalistic standards. The reporter is black and the man he wrongly portrayed as a racial profiler is partly Hispanic. Does the reporter, Ron Allen, hate Hispanics? I haven't seen any evidence of that, but people are asking such questions as we await answers about this deeply disturbing incident. People are demanding a full investigation looking into any possible role that racism may have played.

Back to you, Matt. 

We'll see what NBC comes up with. This should shake them to their core if they still have any journalistic standards left. How they respond will tell us if they do or don't.

Does Not! Does Too!

The City of Sanford has posted the police station surveillance camera video that shows George Zimmerman being taken into and through the station with his hands cuffed behind his back on the night that Trayvon Martin was killed.

Some people, egged on by an irresponsible ABC News, have decided that it conclusively shows that Zimmerman was uninjured and his story about that night is a lie.

Others claim one moment does appear to show a mark on the back of Zimmerman's head.

You can watch the video yourself on YouTube at the first link. My take is that it is not of sufficient resolution to decide one way or another and that Zimmerman's red and black jacket makes it impossible to see any stains that may be there. I have a nifty idea though:

Let's wait until the investigation is finished and/or the closeup photos that the police almost certainly took are released. 

It's possible that the police didn't take any pictures of Zimmerman's injuries, but that would be incredibly inept. And on that point, while I've heard plenty of people charge the Sanford PD with bungling the investigation, none of them have actual knowledge of what was or was not done and their charges to now have simply been wild speculation, some of which has already been refuted.

For example, "Zimmerman kept his weapon." No, it has been seized as evidence.

"They just let Zimmerman go." No, as this video shows and the preliminary police report states, Zimmerman was disarmed, cuffed, and taken into custody for questioning. He was not charged and booked that night, but to just say he "wasn't even arrested" leaves a false impression that the Sanford PD didn't even care that he had shot someone.

I think it's 100 to 1 against the Sanford PD not having closeups documenting the extent of Zimmerman's injuries, or non-injuries, that night. Unfortunately, after today I suspect a fair number of people will not believe them if they do in fact show that Trayvon Martin injured Zimmerman. Nice work ABC News, I hope nobody eventually dies in some riot because of your yellow journalism.

Like most everything else about this case, I don't know one way or another. I'm just going to go where the evidence, the actual evidence and not wild speculation, takes me. Some of the hot heads on both sides might try that.

Hahahahaha...yeah, the hot heads might try that. Sorry, lost my head there for a second.

Spike Lee Is Still A Douchebag

Spike Lee has finally apologized to the Florida couple whose address he sent out to 250,000 Twitter followers when he mistakenly thought he was retweeting George Zimmerman's address. 

"I Deeply Apologize To The McClain Family For Retweeting Their Address.It Was A Mistake.Please Leave The McClain's In Peace.Justice In Court."

Not only is that apology several days late, even if the address had been accurate it was a stupid and reckless thing to do. What if somebody had taken that info and decided to act on it? An attack on the McClain's would have been horrific, but a vigilante attack on George Zimmerman would have been the same. 

"Justice In Court" is the right sentiment and I'm glad Lee has come around to it, but he needs to apologize for retweeting any address at all, not just the wrong one. 

Until then he's still being a douchebag as far as I'm concerned.

Monday Stuff

We have a bit of a cool down in the weather up here, which puts us closer to average temps for this time of year. Close, but not all the way there. It looks like the much above average temps will bounce back and if so, Friday will mark three weeks since the last time we saw temps below freezing. I didn't get as much done outside during this past weekend as I had hoped, but I'm going to try to plant at least some vegetable seeds by the end of this coming weekend. I'm still going to wait on the flowers and tomatoes a few more weeks.

This past Saturday night was the end of season FFL party, which is the major reason I didn't get much done on Sunday. I wisely stopped with the beers well before I had to drive home, but we continued to play cards and I didn't get home until a little before 2:00 A.M. Since I was disgustingly sober and not really tired, I naturally had to have a beer and a bump. Yeah, I was basically worthless yesterday.

Another shoe dropped today in the Trayvon Martin shooting with a partial leak of information from the official investigation that supposedly was never done by the Sanford PD. It is part of Zimmerman's account of what happened that night and seems to match what one witness saw, which was Zimmerman lying on his back and Martin on top him, punching him or slamming his head on the ground before the shot was fired. I think we need to continue to wait for the report to be released or presented as part of a trial before coming to conclusions, but I will point out a couple more things.

There was an initial investigation, contrary to what many have said. I've seen an awful lot of people call it shoddy or some such, and perhaps it was, but how can anybody tell if it has not been released in full to the public? It's not hard to predict that there will be more shoes dropping and I stand by my prediction that the full details of the case will be far more ambiguous than the narrative we were initially presented. I would not be surprised if one of those shoes to drop will be that Trayvon Martin's parents have known all along these details that are dribbling out. And how those details formed the legal basis for the Sanford PD to release Zimmerman that night and why the local DA has been so careful about pressing any charges. 

I have no idea how the Supreme Court will rule on Obamacare. I should be paying attention to it, I know, but I can't seem to muster up much energy. Maybe that's because my reading of the Commerce Clause is historically so dated as to make me a crank in most people's view. I'll still quietly assert though, that many of our current and future massive problems are due to our failure to maintain the constitutional boundaries between local, state, and federal governments.

I forgot to mention it last week, but congratulations to the University of Minnesota Women's hockey team for winning the national championship this year. The U of M Men's team qualified for the Frozen Four yesterday by beating arch rival North Dakota 5-2. They will face a very tough Boston College team in Tampa(Tampa?) on April 5.

"Journalists" Suck

Part of the reason for incivility in our public discourse is plain old nastiness, but I think part of it is also just how easy it is for different realities to exist around the same issue or circumstance. Most of our so-called intellectual and political elites are quick to blame the internet and its unwashed masses for causing that by spreading falsehoods and outright disinformation, and that certainly does happen. But the truth is the legacy media is just as capable of distributing false information as anyone else, and the damage they do with their facade of integrity is far worse to our political and social fabric than anything some obscure group or blogger throws out there. This morning gave us one more blatant bit of incompetence, or laziness, or maybe even outright malice that proves that point.

Here's a link to a clip and accompanying story from ABC News' Good Morning America this morning about the Trayvon Martin killing. ABC's Dan Harris interviewed George Zimmerman's legal adviser, Craig Sonner, and one of his friends, Joe Oliver. 

At around the 5:13 mark, Harris committed journalistic malpractice by asserting the following:

"You hear on the 911 tapes, the operator saying to George, do not pursue, and yet he did anyway."

I have heard something similar cited in a number of forums as a reason why Zimmerman was being reckless that night, and it's absolutely untrue. You can listen to the 911 tape yourself, which has been available to the public, not to mention ABC News, for days now. The relevant passage occurs at around 2:22, and nowhere else...

911 operator: "Are you following him?"

Zimmerman: "Yeah."

911 operator: "Okay, we don't need you to do that."

That's it. There was no "do not pursue," nor as I've seen elsewhere, "multiple orders to not pursue" that Zimmerman ignored.

This is not a minor point. It clearly makes it more difficult to claim self-defense if police ordered Zimmerman to stay where he was. I'm sympathetic to the notion that he was unwise to follow Martin, but he was neither asked nor ordered to do so.

For some reason Zimmerman's legal adviser didn't push back at that point and Harris brought it up again at about 6:35...

"But George was told not to pursue. We hear that. This is not a fact that is in question."

That time Joe Oliver did push back and pointed out how Harris was way off-base(see above). Dan Harris then failed at that moment of truth by completely ignoring it, and thus showed his total lack of integrity. 

ABC News proceeded to double-down with a text recap of the interview by one Chris Francesconi that not only completely ignored Oliver's truthful account of the 911 tape, but embellished Harris' original misinformation with the adjective "repeatedly":

"He began to follow Martin, and continued speaking with police, who warned him repeatedly not to approach Martin."

It's no wonder that our perceptions of the truth diverge when a major media organization such as ABC News is so blatantly incompetent, lazy, or outright malicious when it comes to telling the truth. This is just one point in the Martin-Zimmerman case, but like I said, it's an important one regarding the recklessness, or not, of Zimmerman's actions that night.

Now millions of people through first, second, and third-hand citations can cite ABC News as gospel that Zimmerman recklessly ignored police orders of "do not pursue" and did so "repeatedly," even though that is obviously not true. Even though for days now a simple 911 recording clearly says otherwise. And if you disagree with them it will not be surprising if they think you are a little bit nuts, and vice versa. This kind of garbage journalism tears at our social and political fabric.

I would feel better about the profession of journalist if I would ever hear another journalist take this kind of shoddy, or malicious, journalism to task. But I never do. There are no consequences when a Dan Harris, or Chris Francesconi, or ABC News, so totally fucks up the truth. The best one can hope for is perhaps a little dinky correction days after the fact. 

Nobody in journalism really gives a shit about the truth. And that's one reason we are increasingly fracturing as a society.