ctrp302 Terrorism and Transparency

Can a government be effective in deterring terrorism while still being completely transparent? Glenn Strachan has been asking this very question on twitter, and several weeks ago, I noticed. As someone who has worked in development for many years and travelled to almost every corner of the globe, Glenn is both interested in transparency as well as reducing the amount of terrorism in the world… yet he wonders if the two are mutually exclusive?

Glenn on Twitter

Music:

  • Metric – Gimme Sympathy
  • Constantines – Time Can Be Overcome

bmtv101 Journalists Held in North Korea

cross posted on the Metroblogs Global Conspiracy

It has been more than a month since CurrentTV journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee were detained by North Korean authorities on the China-North Korea border. Yet relatively little has been made public about what their status is as well as what the US government or their media corporation is doing to ensure their fast and safe release. If convicted of the crime of entering the country illegally, they face something between 5 and 10 years in a North Korean prison. The following video entry explains the situation.

(click play on the viewer or the link below)

References in this video include:

Huffington Post on Laura Ling and Euna Lee’s arrest.

Reporters Without Borders

Trial That Sould be Center Stage

“If the Corps didn’t do its job, somebody should be held responsible. Somebody’s got to answer to something.” – The words of a former Lower Ninth Ward resident who lost a daughter to the flood waters that would swallow up his entire house.

The lawsuit filed by New Orleans based Katrina victims against the Army Corps of Engineers has begun, the slow quest for answers and accountability all these years later, has finally landed in the courtroom. The specific grievance, the Army Corps’ failure to maintain the MR-GO channel who’s 20 breaches were largely the cause of flooding in the lower ninth ward following Hurricane Katrina.? Between 10 billion and 100 billion $ in damages hang in the balance, but well beyond the money, for victims of the federal flood, this case is about holding government accountable, and breaking the long held assumption that the Army Corps is immune from any legal action for their actions.

I can remember in 2007 when I was in NOLAContinue reading “Trial That Sould be Center Stage”

Stats can lie

David Simon, creator of The Wire, was on Bill Moyers journal this past week.? Before getting into the world of writing and directing television, he was a journalist in Baltimore for many years. At that job he got to watch how the police force, city government, and school system work, or perhaps we could say, don’t work.

At one point in part 1, Simon touches on a topic that says alot about how our world works – the use of statistics to justify some plan or political goal.?? Specifically he says:

You show me anything that depicts institutional progress in America… anything that a politician can run on, anything that somebody can get a promotion on, and as soon as you invent that statistical category, 50 people at that institution will be at working trying to make it look like progress has been made when actually no progress has occurred.

Simon gets into how when the mayor of Baltimore wanted higher arrest numbers and the police department wanted to show those stats, they would go around arresting anyone they could including people sitting on their front steps (loitering in a drug-free zone). But he points to how the same logic applies in the school system where students are taught only what they need to get test answers right and increase the test scores. Or how the media are more concerned about winning awards and pleasing managers rather than doing difficult investigative reports and connecting those reports to the bigger picture.

As Simon mentions, this same way of thinking can be found in the current financial crisis… showing good numbers to please investors even if those numbers are based on toxic assets and loans that people can’t pay back.

Its enough to make a person think twice when they rely on the old logic “Just the facts m’am”, as journalists so often have throughout history. Stats can be , and often are,? used and abused. It takes alot more than stats to tell a story and understand an issue.

ctrp301 Observing Change in El Salvador

Report from El Salvador featuring Warwick Fry.

Shipping Carbon Dangers

Back in 2007, following my trip to New Orleans, I did a podcast with my friend Damian who works down there, on the topic of emission from the shipping industry.? In case you missed that one, here’s the link.

The basic concern that led me to do that podcast was that much of the climate change talk at the time was focused on emissions from automobiles, energy producing facilities, and to some extent, air transport.? Yet so much of the world’s trade and transport is done via the sea and those massive container ships pulling into the world’s ports, day and night.? So my question for Damian was of course — What about the carbon that boats produce? Shouldn’t we be concerned?

I haven’t listened back to that podcast in about a year, but his words I still remember,Continue reading “Shipping Carbon Dangers”