I asked Tom if countries always apologized when they had done wrong, and he says, `Yes; the little ones does.’
- from Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain

A strong people do not need a government.
- Emiliano Zapata
· Group protests, or collective action, may have health benefits for participants. [Max Speaks]

Politics of Powerful & Media of Powerless The art of seeing-the-whole-story

The insightful Melanie McDonagh has a refreshingly clear view of one of the two 'Home Alone' items currently clogging up the media until some domestic or foreign disaster provides some real news such as this story.

In case you are unfamiliar with the story, a middle class mother in London somewhat deranged by depression walked out of her house, abandoning Rufus, her 12 year old child, leaving him to fend for himself. He managed to do so for two weeks before someone noticed and reported him to Social Services, in spite of his attempts to hide the fact of his mother's absence. It was the fact that Rufus tried to conceal his mother's dereliction which caught Melanie's eye.

There is one further element of this story that stands out. It's the villain. It's the thing that Rufus does everything to avoid, that looms in his imagination like some sort of nightmare. That is the fear that he will end up in the hands of Wandsworth social services. And I can't have been alone in feeling my spirits sink at the news that Rufus ends his adventure in the hands of social workers, to whom he's been turned in by the police, even though they pass him on to family friends rather than to an institution. It wasn't irrational fear that made him do anything to keep himself out of their hands. He'd been in care before - another thing that sets him apart from the other pupils at Emanuel School - for some months after his father died and his mother succumbed to depression.
· Rufus Polak [Telegraph UK]

The Season Of Giving For Corporate Welfare

Who says that our current government in Washington, D.C. is filled with hard-hearted grinches? When it comes to handouts for corporate sponsors, it is the politicians' season of giving.
· Carrtels [Tom Paine]
· Reward! For Information Leading To The Identification Of The Eli Lilly Bandit [Father Tom]
· Character matters: A Confederacy of Cronies [Mother Jones]

If, like me, you asked Santa for lots of good investigative reporting for this Festive Season, you won't be disappointed by this week's top pieces. Among them are a series by the Louisville Courier-Journal on gambling in Kentucky and Indiana. The paper found that "gambling-related thefts, embezzlements and bankruptcies are on the rise, as are calls to hot lines. And many families in the region are paying the price."
· Gambling [Courier Journal]

Just 48 wealthy Texas families paid more than half the cost of the key campaigns that convinced 2.6 million voters to solidify the Republican hold on state government in last month's elections. Those families gave $34 million of the $64 million used for top GOP statewide races. The top donor, Houston homebuilder Bob Perry, gave $3.8 million.
· Donor, & Not the Red Cross Type [Chronicle]

Frank Main and Carlos Sadovi of the Chicago Sun-Times have the lead piece in a two-part series called Crime, Inc., focusing on gangs and the mob in Chicago. You might expect a piece about violence, but instead Main and Sadovi report on an interesting aspect of gang life: working as "political foot soldiers" in city elections.
· Chicago, Moscow, Sydney [Sun Times]

Using National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data and a state database of speeding tickets, the Indianapolis Star found that the Indiana state police's "heaviest ticketing isn't always done where speeding drivers are killing people." State troopers issue more than half of their speeding tickets on interstate highways and the Indiana Toll Road, while "nearly 61 percent of the injuries and deaths from speeding accidents occur on the other two types of roads they regularly patrol -- state roads and U.S. highways." The paper talks to residents who live near areas where drivers speed but see little enforcement.
· Ticketing [Indystar]

War within a war: the press and the Pentagon

While the Iraqis may permit a handful of correspondents into Baghdad in the hope of manipulating them, most journalists will be attempting to cover the war from the American side. Thus many news organizations are setting funds aside for war coverage, suiting up their war reporters with flak jackets and chemical warfare outfits, and sending them to media boot camps being run by the Pentagon.
· Two major campaigns will be under way. [CS Monitor]

Why I Don't Watch Mainstream News
Student Activist Bemoans Dumbed-Down Media
I’m an activist, taking a stand on many issues, and I need to keep an open mind and be able to gather information from different points of view. So I think I should be paying more attention to the news, even if I just want to criticize it.
· Stream of Ideas [Tom Paine]

Internet Top online journalism stories of 2002

The phenomenon of do-it-yourself journalism, from eyewitness accounts to analysis from amateurs, gained new prominence in the past year, according to a Pew Internet & American Life Project study. Growing numbers of Americans seem to want to use the Internet to supplement the information they get from traditional media, and Weblogging has had the most noticeable impact. A slew of journalists are now sharing their thoughts on their own personal Weblogs -— but that’s old news. The biggest news was the widespread extent to which mainstream media organizations jumped on the blogging bandwagon – everyone from MSNBC.com to Salon joined the game. Here’s a rundown of all the major media blogs, plus a look at the journalists blogging on their own. And a look back at reports on Weblogging as journalism in The Weblog Blog.
· First Draft [CyberJournalist.net]

Internet Free Speech -- Virtually

The Internet creates a veil of separation between you and other people. Don't be misled by the fact that you're sitting in a room, behind a locked door, at your computer. There's ways to find out who you are.
· Legal Constraints on Web Journals Surprise Many 'Bloggers' [WASHIGTON Post]

Image Conscious

I believe in the failure of reason. But that doesn't mean people have no responsibility for who they are. Things happen -- you know, the Holocaust, cruel parents, things like the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. We can't control the circumstances -- those are God's -- but people are responsible for who they become. Happiness is not something one finds, but makes.

Which means -- what? That America is the promised land? The end of a (death) sentence that began in Europe, or further back, by the rivers of Babylon, where we sat down and wept? That no text, not even a simple map, is wholly profane? Yes. America is where you can become what you want to be. Wilhelm becomes Bill; Leora's soccer-playing boyfriend, Jason, becomes diamond-cutting Yehuda. And yes, it is the end of a sentence if not all sentences, the place where a blank slide, a missing picture -- hers and Bill's memories of Naomi, her confusion over the gaps of logic so prevalent in the contemporary world -- is finally revealed to Leora as an empty canvas, waiting for her.
· Promised Image [Killingthebuddha]
· The most recent entry 13 Dec. about his love of Chicago bookstores [Identitytheory]
· Preservation and persistence of the changing book [FutureoftheBook]