Lobster in a Bucket

Blogging/Journalism: my two cents

Good article in the Sunday Magazine for the Times on the actual way political bloggers function in reality as evidenced by the RNC. It’s hard to imagine political bloggers existing without the resource of establishment journalism. David would have stayed a shepard without Goliath. The basic argument about political bloggers is that their lack of unrealistic ethical principles and greater numbers in comparison to journalists, and skillful use of the web make them the more democratic alternative to the traditional, and increasingly elitist journalist. The blogger is such a better beast than the journalist, some speculate that one day soon the poli-blogger may even replace the aging “Dan Rather” journalist world.

I like the idea of blogging as a type of political revolution, and it definitely has changed the nature of this presidential campaign. It’s also seems more “democratic” to take the power of informing the populace about politics away from a couple dozen professionals and putting it into people that are concerned about politics on a level of principle. Plus, the fact that journalists always show some kind of bias annoys me. However, I find that I question the previous argument on almost every level.

While they are tedious, I find that the artificial neutrality of journalists is preferable to the unabashed slander, malice, and ranting of the strongly partisan political blogger. Political blogging, at least in tone, harkens back to the days of muck-racking and yellow journalism. Instead of fictitious illustrations, we now have adobe photoshop.

As for the open bias, while it is refreshing if you have a chip on your shoulder about the liberal (or conservative) bias of journalism, I fail to see the actual informative value. In other words, blatant bias is entertaining, soothing, but unhelpful.

While there are certainly greater numbers of people blogging on politics than there are journalists writing about politics. I am not sure that there are dramatically more bloggers doing original work on politics, than there are journalists doing the same. For every Instapundit or Wonkette, there are 10,000+ blogs that a bare handful of people read (like mine) that are little more than journals cut with a dash of personal vanity.

One of the lasting contributions of poli-bloggers will be their demonstration of the value of the Internet as a campaigning tool as well as the value of the Internet as a research tool. In 2006 you can rest assured that both sides of the aisle will use blogs as a means to generate buzz for candidates. But this is not journalism. People have been swept up in the multiple, diverse ways that blogs have been utilized this campaign season, and lumped them into the separate issue of blogs as the scourge/substitute of traditional journalism. Furthermore, while bloggers have broken big stories by doing untraditional research (like googling everything), these methods are going to be appropriated by journalists with time.

Bloggers are not going to replace journalists. Any revolution resulting in the annihilation of professional journalists would be bad. A world without journalists is not a world more free. Rather, you would have a world where information could be so unmediated that information would stop being useful. There is a sense where journalists are valued because there are few of them, because they are elite. After all, you can have too much democracy. There is a reason that we don’t just have a set-top box on our TVs, where we can watch CSPAN, and then vote for every piece of legislation introduced on the floor of Congress.

All that being said, blogs, especially political ones, are incredibly useful things. If the political blog turns out to be a fad(which I highly doubt) of the world of news, that would be a shame, for several reasons.

One of the best examples of bloggers outdoing journalists comes from Rathergate. For those of you not familiar with the story, CBS News anchor Dan Rather broke a story casting doubt on the truth of claims president Bush had made about his National Guard service. Conservative bloggers, through researching the story, found the documents to be fakes. Here is a shining example of the use of blogs for the world of news. The bloggers were able to shame the establishment journalists for not having a more rigorous commitment to research, and in no small part this was due to their outsider status from the journalist world. After all, it’s hard to imagine a journalist at ABC News researching the authenticity of the font of the typewriter used to type the document. After all the ABC journalist probably wouldn’t go into that detail for a story of her own, so she probably wouldn’t think it fair to expect others to fact-check with that degree of detail.

While I doubt that a blogger, given those National Guard records would have gone into that degree of fact-checking, that isn’t the point. Bloggers have nothing better to do, so they will, and the public is well served. However, here, we see a great example of the bloggers acting as a check, but not a substitute to journalists. This is one of the great assets that the blogger has, their niche is for the details.

Interestingly bloggers blessed status as outsiders is constantly being put in jeopardy with success. Bloggers, especially the ones that get read by as many people a day as traditional news sources, are on the verge of not being outsiders. As soon as this elite of the blogging world, become financially attached to establishment journalism, or formally politically connected to the major political parties (not necessarily individual candidates) they will become worse than journalists. As the Times article linked above shows, this is already happening. After all, these are only people, they desire wealth, fame and power just like the next person. A blogger making tens of thousands a year to report news about politics, from an openly democratic, or republican point of view is a propagandist.

Now, I don’t mean to use that term as a bad word. Propaganda existed before the fascists, and before the communists, our founding fathers used it well. In fact, the church has always been really good at propaganda. Propaganda only refers to material circulated to the public that is intended to propagate an opinion. Perhaps because we don’t have an outlet for propaganda in our country (besides campaign ads) political blogs are taking that place.

Plus, I would argue being able to live both as both a blogger and a journalist, would make the calling of journalism easier, the heavy load of objectivity lighter. I would imagine that being able to let off “steam” about politics on your blog, would help you keep editorializing out of your journalism.

It is a credit to our society that we have a profession where that professions stated mission is to report events as they happen, to provide mere facts open to interpretation for those who were not able to be there when it happened. Is this realistic? I don’t know. Is it admirable? Yes. Do we need both journalists and bloggers? Definitely.

How the American Empire is like the Italian-American Mafia at least according to Noam Chomsky and David Chase (maybe)

I read Noam Chomsky’s newest book, Hegemony or Survival, over the course of a lazy afternoon last week. I was surprised by the similarities between Tony Soprano’s role in his world and Noam Chomsky’s view of the American government in the world, particularly as it is manifested be the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush.

Consider(long),

1. Tony is willing to do anything, I repeat anything for the sake of his family. In his moral universe it is impossible to both be acting immorally and in his family’s best interest. Noam Chomsky delights in arguing that America has supported the most despotic of Third World rulers for the sake of protecting America’s family, the people from Communism and the supposed Axis of Evil.

2. Tony has a complicated idea of “family.” It’s not just those innocent people that he lives with, that God gave him to protect, his wife and children. His “family” also includes that murky web of business associates that Tony is unswervingly loyal too. Even when they mess up, and do horrible things, as long as they didn’t mess with Tony, Tony defends them. In the same way, Chomsky argues that America has its people, but it also has a web of alliances with countries all over the world, it’s “Coalition of the Willing” associates. These people America is unswervingly loyal to, provided they are loyal to us. If they betray us…well one need merely look at the case of Sadaam Hussein.

3. Tony has a sense of doing God’s work, it can be dirty, but he has a confidence that his life is a necessary evil that God sanctions. His mission is divine. Again, Chomsky argues that America has a profoundly eschatological sense of history. It’s God’s divine purpose for history that justifies its empire building, and just about everything else it does, including conceptualizing the conflict with the USSR as a dramatic war between two diametrically opposing worldviews that involved the whole world.

4. Tony’s immediate family is quite simple. He has his wife, Carmela the Christian. All moral decisions in her life are mediated through the dictates of Christianity. She is at times a hypocrite, but she consistently returns to her faith. Furthermore, she often pushes Tony to act according to her values. Chomsky also notes how American government, particularly our current administration, often has an open ear to the advice of Christianity, particularly it’s most conservative, reactionary form.

5. Tony’s bright shining pearl is Meadow. Meadow is self-sufficient, smart, and caring. She is educated at an Ivy League school. Meadow doesn’t share the religious views of her mother, or father. Meadow is like the liberal elite in Chomsky’s interpretation of America. Their success depends on the very backbone of Tony Soprano/American government, however they don’t hesitate to criticize the mouth that’s fed them. They love America, emotionally, but hate what they see America doing in the world. To Chomsky, the voice of “Meadow” America, with its newfound strength in the American national consciousness, is one of the most encouraging trends in our country.

6. Tony’s son and scion is Anthony Jr. “AJ” is young, but alarmingly apathetic. He appears intelligent, but seems to lack the drive to do anything. Chomsky’s book doesn’t really comment on this section of America, but within the context of America’s future, AJ would appear to represent the majority of youth, the voiceless majority that isn’t politically involved, that votes irregularly, and is very, very middle class.

7. Tony has an apparent need to always demonize someone. First it’s Jackie Aprile’s brother, then it’s Ray Pantaliono’s character. There’s always someone. In a similar way, Chomsky argues, America consistently finds an enemy, Monarchists, Indian savages, anarchists, Communists, Islamicists. For the American worldview, there has to be a bad-guy.

8. As the series goes on, Tony seems to float closer and closer to disaster. Usually, he avoids it through random, fortunate events, situations like having a dream that Pussy was a rat, or Meadow taking the bugged lamp out of the house. Chomsky argues that America over the years has increased nuclear tension almost universally, and that in doing so pushes us always closer to mass extinction. Miraculously, his chief example being the Cuban missile crisis, we have been spared. The point is, both Tony and America by their very nature push themselves closer to annihilation.

Potential Conclusions
1. Chomsky is right. Sopranos series creator David Chase is a genius. His extended metaphor comparing America as it behaves in the world to the mafia as it behaves in America is spot on, as born out by the work of Noam Chomsky.
2. Chomsky is wrong. His work is so ludicrous that it resembles good cable television. The idea that America acts in the world like the head of an organized crime syndicate is ludicrous. David Chase is still responsible for a great series called The Sopranos.
3. Chomsky isn’t entirely wrong or entirely right. Some of his examples are overblown, and assume the wrong kind of motives. His insistence on interpreting every decision of many different administrations as one coherent force is ridiculous. However, it is undeniable that often American foreign policy is blind to the particulars in light of the big vision. I.E. ignoring the trespasses of Mobutu because we only cared that he in theory opposed Communism in Africa. David Chase is still responsible for creating a great series that may have some interesting things to say about America as a whole.

Definite Conclusions
1. The work of David Chase is at least meritous, maybe inspired.
2. Noam Chomsky’s rhetoric does not help his case.
3. It is unfair to only judge the outcome of foreign policy as a whole when in fact it is not the work of one man or group.

Sorry

I haven’t updated in some time. This is due to laziness on my part. I have been sending out regular prayer updates every Monday evening. But if you aren’t on my mailing list, that means you haven’t gotten much by way of news. If you’d like to receive weekly emails, email me at matt (the domain is chattablogs.com). I’ve fallen into a good routine here. Teaching little kids is a lot more pleasant than I expected. Subsequently, I now have a lot more admiration, and even envy towards elementary education majors who studies this stuff for four years. Things are going really well with Luke too, he really digs settlers of catan, and so does my house-mate Josh.

Christ School Opportunity

Opportunity at Christ School

Since I arrived in BGO, I have been very open to the idea of teaching at the secondary school where much of my team works. The other night the headmaster, Kevin Barkovitch asked my to think about teaching a computer class at Christ starting with the new school-year this February. I’m excited about the opportunity to teach, but especially to have the opportunity to teach technology. I’ll probably just be covering the basics of word processing, spreadsheets and the Internet. However, technology has a very interesting effect on people here.

People here are about 15 years behind the information age. As consumers, in many respects, there just into the middle of the Reagan administration. Everyone has heard of computers, and many have seen them, but almost no one knows what they’re for. Many of the wireless technologies that we all are beginning to take for granted have huge potential to improve Africa. In Uganda the construction of land line information systems is difficult through the rugged terrain, and needs a lot on site upkeep in these same areas.

Whenever I use the Internet in BGO I get a lot of attention. I have to use it outside in a relatively busy area of the mission property in order to get a wireless signal. A second ago, an 80 year old cattle herder was looking over my shoulder as I laughed at something humorous I was reading. He was trying to scrutinize the page to see what was so funny, but I'm fairly sure that his inability to converse with me in English carries over into English's written form.

He was still interested though. His interest is magnified into hunger by kids that are in secondary school. My hope is that if I get to teach technology to Christ School kids, I will be able to turn their desire to learn computers, to get an education, to get a good job, to leave the district, into an understanding of my faith. Many of the kids are professing Christians, but like many missions contexts involving rich American's in the Third World, there are suspicions that there supposed faith is out of a desire to not disagree with us.

Education...Uganda Style

I have heard under-achievers in America whistfully pine for the British system of secondary school education. How you do in your classes doesn't really matter, so long as you don't fail out. All that really matters is that you marshall up the energy to do well on one single test. If you can do well on the test, then you can go to a good school. After seeing how the British system works, I'm pretty sure that it's only a good idea for the over-priveleged and under-stimulated. People like me.

In Uganda, it works out in really backwards ways. Ugandan students, that are faced with not the advantages in life someone like myself had, are forced to recon with this one test, to determine whether or not they can get the degree that will get them a good job, and let them escape poverty. So all their education leading up to their O-levels and A-levels becomes about telling them what they need to know to pass the test. It becomes really hard to educate, when you have to be afraid of not knowing the right, arbitrarily chosen information that is on the test.

It's kind of like a hyper-exaggerated credential based system. Here, everything is based on the credential that you get because of the score that you recieved. This further harms the process of education over time. In other words, the concerns that some voice in America that our country is caring too much about certification, and not enough about education, is really over-stated when compared to a country working under a British system.

The British system, in Britain itself, is working out problematically in another way. There, rather than being too hard for students, university entrance tests are becoming too easy. Too many people are doing well, because British authorities don't want to shut people out of university education. But this other extreme is really just as harmful for students. In both cases their educations suffer. In places like Uganda, because the all-important test is too hard, in Britain because it is too easy.

In either case, it seems that reducing everything to one universal test, while egalitarian, is too simplistic, and too restrictive.

A few observations

As I've now been in Bundibugyo for almost 5 days now, I thought I share a couple of the more interesting things I've noticed about life here.

In American domestic life, the squirrell is the greatest form of nuisance. It will steal your bird-food, drive your dog crazy, and even occaisonally scurry into your house. Basically they're our largest form of vermin. The lizard is the Ugandan squirrell, except like most of nature in Africa, it's magnified more than anything you deal with in America. Lizards are all over the place here. There's many varieties. They vary in size from an inch-long gecko to a foot-long minature iguana. Lizards outside are not too much worse than squirrels. However they differ from squirrels in two key issues.

It takes an extremely bold squirrel to come in your house. However, as far as I can tell, lizards would rather be in your house than anywhere else in the whole entire world. Not only do the love to crawl on my walls, they find the white plaster to be the ideal surface to deposit their excrement. I really hate them.

On Sunday I went to the mission church. It was interesting, the church has an attendance of over 100 people, which consists of many of the people in the immediate community. However, they don't have a pastor, and apparently they're better for it. Let me explain.

In the backwoods district of Bundibugyo there are two ways to make big money. The first is to start a school. You start a school enroll a couple dozen kids, charge them all school fees, run the school with as little overhead as possible, and you are bringing in the big bucks. Schools can be really profitable here because no one expects you to provide textbooks. So all you really need to run a school is a building and as few teachers as you can get away with. Needless to say, the perception among the Ugandans, that schools are a big dollar industry, has been hard for our school to overcome.

The other way to make money in BGO is to start a church. Here the pastor is unapoligetically the CEO. The offering pays his salary and or his building, which can be his home. So when New Life Bunfimulinga goes without a pastor, it's to rise above the ills of the area. While it is good to see a church run by it's elders, I think that the quality of teaching can suffer without official clergy.

However, here it seems like the elusive quality of unity in the church body as Paul talks about it, is being realized in a way not seen in the states. In a sense it seems like it's easier to really be one body without the office of priest. The whole priest class seems to run directly against the idea of one-ness unity. However on the other hand Paul clearly sets apart elders and deacons/deaconesses from the body. The idea of having the clergy is so deeply ingrained in my head I can't really imagine the church without them, however at the same time, I wonder what a church could look like if many were qualified to preach, and the role of pastoring didn't fall onto the shoulders of a particular, official, person.

Travel Pictures

Here's a couple pictures of where I was, and where I'm at.

This first picture shows the pool at the house I stayed at in Mombassa for 5 nights. Most of my team spent the time planning the next year, I spent my time playing with the kids, getting to know them outside of a classroom setting. It was good.

This next picture is from old town Mombassa. The old town is still inhabitted by the descendants of the swahili traders that inhabitted it. There's nothing more authentic than walking through an old quarter that is still filled with the life of non-gentrified inhabittants.

This final picture is from my trip over the ruwenzori mountains into the district of Bundibugyo. The mountains are beautiful. My home is tucked up right against them. On a clear morning after a rain, I can even see the highest peaks, where snow tops the mountains. It's really quite stunning.