For My Brother, The Butterfly Collector

A song that is probably less applicable than is immediately apparent:

Fallen (Continued)

Rick Reilly has had front page commentary on ESPN.com all week with the headline "Tiger Will Be a Better Man." I would like to respectfully disagree. While I think humility and honesty in his marriage and public life are positive things at this point, Proverbs says that a "harlot" reduces a man to "a crust of bread." This is hardly something that can be taken back.

It is interesting to me, given the principles of Proverbs, that in the midst of a stunning public career, Mr. Woods has been so backwards in his private life. Things don't always work themselves out in reality in the way that we would think they should. David, living at ease and safety in a time of war, fell into adultery. So it would be less surprising that a man, laid up with a bum knee and time on his hands might similarly transgress. But it is apparent that Tiger has long been a dabbler among assorted women. Win a major event, stop off at the hotel, then fly home?

I get the feeling that everyone is embarrassed for Tiger. Talk about the rapacious gossip media that has scrounged all this up. Talk up the pressures and temptations of fame. But the reality is of a grown married man who has slept around for years behind his now humiliated wife's back.

I have been a fan of Tiger Woods for a while now. And it is upsetting to have another athlete-hero disappoint in this way. Lance Armstrong followed a similar path. Maybe I should not be surprised. With my own failings before me, I can only be saddened.

I'm signing out on this news topic. I won't read anything more about it and hope that Tiger will find a way to be a father and husband who no longer needs to lie and deceive. I hope he will be the better for it, for his own sake. We can be restored, public image be damned, by a higher source and power whose judgment knows no abating, and whose mercy has no end.

FALLEN

I have been watching developments regarding Tiger Woods' car accident last week pretty closely, but the news has developed slowly, often beginning as rumors covered by disreputable sources. I don't know that we've heard the last of it, and I want to wait and comment further as things are clarified. For now, a few questions:

Was the media absolutely naive or absolutely complicit in propounding what now appears to be the daft notion that this was anything but an issue of a domestic dispute over infidelity?

Tiger Woods, although he has long refused to cast himself as such, seems to be considered a model black athlete. 

Will race play a role in the way his apparent "transgressions" (his words) are handled?

Does Woods have a "right to privacy" on this? He is not an elected official, but he is a public persona.

Daydreams

Red berries go rapping on my window.

Scarlet beads are pinging on the glass:

Ringing little notes of their derision,

Suggesting I get back to books and work.

Yachtsmen Held

Released!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/world/middleeast/03sailors.html

Negative News- Inquiry Advancing
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6940058.ece

Staying tuned regarding news of detained yachtsmen from Kingdom of Bahrain. The detained sailors are for the most part in their twenties. The BBC is reporting that they were able to call home on a cell phone this week. Iran is doing its usual grandstanding. The saving grace for the sailors is that Iran is so concerned over its international image it will actually go out of its way to treat them well. Take a look at pictures of the British Navy from a couple of years ago, dressed up in suits, and formally thanking Iran's dictator for their release.

Eicher on the state of News Media

"Major news organizations relied on advertisers—rather than readers, listeners, or viewers—to fund operations. Using lowest-common-denominator content, they attracted mass audiences, sold them to advertisers, and severed the relationship between journalism and the people. The ad revenue model of financing news-gathering has crumbled and may not recover. Up against (1) an ailing economy, (2) a revolution of new technologies, and (3) a widespread public perception that their products lack journalistic integrity, elite news executives find themselves with little audience loyalty. This may help explain a movement among some industry insiders—as well as liberal activists—to push for taxpayer funding of newsrooms. It will likely come in the form of an expansion of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. One proponent, former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr., recommends Congress rename CPB the Corporation for Public Media, and fund it more lavishly." World, Nikolas Eicher

http://www.worldmag.com/articles/16062

News and Commentary

"...reporting seems to be merging with commentary just as surely as news is merging with entertainment." -S. Robert Lichter, Forbes

http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/14/fox-news-barack-obama-media-opinions-contributors-s-robert-lichter.html

Lichter gives some interesting reporting and analysis to CMPA's data on the coverage of President Obama, Senator McCain, and Presidents past. More interestingly, he notes something that has also not escaped the notice of World's Marvin Olasky. Reporting is giving way to editorials and critique. Interestingly, World magazine does an incredible amount of commentating, even within the body text of many of its "news" articles. I have felt slightly uneasy for some time now about the magazine's claim to journalistic excellence when it doesn't always feel very journalistic (besides the few incredibly good featured articles with each bi-weekly edition). As the magazine hopes to grow as a reader-directed news source, bucking the norm and direction of news media, they should expand their original reporting and preserve the art of journalism for the purpose of "knowing." Mortimer Adler would whole-heartedly agree.

"The worse the terrorist, the more rights he has?"

This from William McGurn, WSJ...

When it comes to terrorists, you would think that an al Qaeda operative who targets an American mom sitting in her office or a child on a flight back home is many degrees worse than a Taliban soldier picked up after a firefight with U.S. Army troops.

Your instinct would be correct, because at the heart of terrorism is the monstrous idea that the former is as legitimate a target as the latter. Unfortunately, by dispatching Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other al Qaeda leaders to federal criminal court for trial, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will be undermining this distinction. And the perverse message that decision will send to terrorists all over this dangerous world is this: If you kill civilians on American soil you will have greater protections than if you attack our military overseas.

"A fundamental purpose of rules such as the Geneva Conventions is to give those at war an incentive for more civilized behavior—and not targeting civilians is arguably the most sacred of these principles," says William Burck, a former federal prosecutor and Bush White House lawyer who dealt with national security issues. "It demolishes this principle to give Khalid Sheikh Mohammed even more legal protections than the Geneva Conventions provide a uniformed soldier fighting in a recognized war zone."

We don't often speak of incentives in war. That's a loss, because the whole idea of, say, Geneva rights is based on the idea of providing combatants with incentives to do things that help limit the bloodiness of battle. These include wearing a uniform, carrying arms openly, not targeting civilians, and so on.

Associated Press, Attorney General Eric Holder

The Sword for Battle

A review of news coverage for the past several years reveals the following:
(1) Military chaplains are needed more than ever, and (2) the chaplaincy, or more accurately evangelical chaplains, are increasingly under fire for practicing and providing witness to their faith. What I do not know is if there are no enough chaplains because there are less or just more need, whether chaplains are quitting because of pressure, and whether evangelical chaplains have actually gotten more outspoken bringing the additional attention.

Regardless, this seems to be a terrible time for there to be a lack of chaplains, regardless of denomination or sect. In general, I tend to think that people benefit by talking about the spiritual dimension of their lives, even if mistaken. Ministers tend to be good, if not excellent, counselors merely by rote practice and experience. Surely someone will disagree with me. But let's leave it at this- talking to someone is good.
 
"The U.S. Army reported Tuesday that the number of suicides among soldiers this year has already equaled the number for all of last year, and so will rise for the fifth consecutive year, in spite of a major effort to combat the trend. The Army's number two officer says he is significantly short of the type of professionals who could help reverse the trend."

http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-11-17-voa36.cfm

Those Speedy Hybrids

"The three freshmen were arrested shortly afterward with companion Marie Montmarquet, 22, also a UT student. She allegedly drove their getaway Toyota Prius in which police found a pellet gun and hooded jackets."