Mahler's Prodigal Son

First there were bloggers changing the face of the way our news is reported to us, let alone how we "receive" it. Now a new dimension to the reporting news emerges from this piece in the NY Times . Newspapers may well become nothing more than wrapping-paper for fish and chips if things don't look up for those regular newspapers we are all used to. "Journalism has always been a product of networks. A reporter receives an assignment, begins calling “sources” — people he or she knows or can find. More calls follow and, with luck and a deadline looming, the reporter will gain enough mastery of the topic to sit down at a keyboard and tell the world a story. A new experiment wants to broaden the network to include readers and their sources. Assignment Zero (zero.newassignment.net/), a collaboration between Wired magazine and NewAssignment.Net, the experimental journalism site established by Jay Rosen, a professor of journalism at New York University, intends to use ...

It's the fourth annivesary of the invasion of Iraq. Even George Bush isn't all that bullish about how things are going in Iraq, as Reuters reports: "Striking a subdued tone on the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war, President George W. Bush pleaded for patience on Monday and warned skeptical Americans of dire consequences of a swift troop withdrawal. Bush defended his Iraq policy in the face of new polls showing Americans increasingly oppose the war and Iraqis with little or no confidence in U.S. forces seemingly unable to halt sectarian bloodshed bordering on civil war. With his approval ratings near the low point of his presidency, Bush made a brief televised appearance at the White House, appealing for more time for his plan to send in nearly 30,000 additional troops, mostly to stabilize Baghdad. He acknowledged, however, that "prevailing in Iraq is not going to be easy." Reuters also reports on a most interesting poll: "Only 18 percent of Iraqis h...

"The number of blogs has skyrocketed throughout the world over the last two years. France is a great contributor, particularly through the proliferation of blogs devoted to cooking. Fifteen culinary blogs monopolise the top steps of the podium in the ranking of the 100 most influential blogs in the land of Voltaire. Among the best-known culinary blogs in France are Clea Cuisine, Papilles et pupilles, La cuisine de Mercotte or C'est moi qui l'ai fait, one of the first French culinary blogs which appeared back in March 2004. 95% of these new forums of expression are run, with passion and creativity, by women. A former rally driver, a bookseller, student, housewife, a former computer engineer, a student in Germany, they live in French Guyana, Canada, Portugal, Germany, Grenoble, Paris or Bordeaux. Many of them have travelled extensively. Some of them dream of making a living from cooking. All of them experience great joy in sharing and making exciting new contacts in the four...

The West has courted Pakistan because it is said to be assisting in the war against terrorism. What seems to have been conveniently overlooked has been that General Musharraf is a dictator who seized power in a military coup. So, does the latest news out of Pakistan about the arrest of the Chief Justice come as a surprise? - or that the West has been circumspect in relation to any comments which have been made? Absolutely not! Things are obviously taking a decidedly nasty turn as this report from the Central Chronicle shows: "The situation in Pakistan seems to be heading out of control. Protests against the sacking of the Chief Justice Iftikar Mohd Chaudhry are spreading to other parts of the country. Amid intensified protests over suspension of Chaudhry, which saw the police enter the Lahore High Court and attack lawyers, President Pervez Musharraf on Saturday said a conspiracy was being hatched against him on the issue and vowed to defeat it. But the storm of protests...

Frank Rich , critic of the Bush Administration, author and columnist in the NY Times, revisits March 2003 on the 4th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq: "Tomorrow night is the fourth anniversary of President Bush's prime-time address declaring the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. In the broad sweep of history, four years is a nanosecond, but in America, where memories are congenitally short, it's an eternity. That's why a revisionist history of the White House's rush to war, much of it written by its initial cheerleaders, has already taken hold. In this exonerating fictionalization of the story, nearly every politician and pundit in Washington was duped by the same "bad intelligence" before the war, and few imagined that the administration would so botch the invasion's aftermath or that the occupation would go on so long. "If only I had known then what I know now ..." has been the persistent refrain of the war supporters who subsequently d...

Anyone who has had the good fortune to have met Tanya Reinhart will be shocked to learn of her sudden death in New York last Friday. She was quite a remarkable woman with a moral compass few can ematch let alone emulate. Her many books testify to her scholarship. Haaretz reports of her death as follows: "Linguist and left-wing activist Professor Tanya Reinhardt died in New York on Saturday at age 63. Reinhardt, one of the most outspoken representatives of the radical Israeli left, was a fierce critic of the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, saying they represented a perpetuation of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. She was also a proponent of an academic boycott of Israeli universities to protest the occupation. Reinhardt espoused the principle of non-violent resistance, and was among the leaders of the left-wing activists who called for boycotts of the 1996 and 2001 elections. She was active in recent years in Israel...

It is almost an oxymoron that to be seen "attacking" Israel is to invite an onslaught and barrage of accusations of being anti-semitic and anti-Zionist. If the "attacker" is Jewish the range of vilification knows no bounds. It will therefore be interesting what the resposne [outrage - you bet!] will be to this op-ed piece by Nicholas Kristof of all places in the NY Times [only available on subscription]: "Democrats are railing at just about everything President Bush does, with one prominent exception: Mr. Bush’s crushing embrace of Israel. There is no serious political debate among either Democrats or Republicans about our policy toward Israelis and Palestinians. And that silence harms America, Middle East peace prospects and Israel itself. Within Israel, you hear vitriolic debates in politics and the news media about the use of force and the occupation of Palestinian territories. Yet no major American candidate is willing today to be half as critical of h...