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Flash Bulbs Catch Subway Flashers
The Daily News has a piece today on Thao Nguyen, who was flashed on a New York City subway and who used her camera phone to snap a shot of the criminal in, um, action. This story sounded familiar. A few weeks ago,Amy Langfield linked to BrooklynGirl, who caught a different flasher, but who didn't get any Page 1 headlines. One flasher looks creepier than the other. By Ed Moltzen · 28 August 2005
The Threat
Observation on air travel and National Security, 8/22: Lines, short waits at TSA security check points. The area where some passengers are pulled aside seemed busy with agents digging through luggage and scanning them with metal detectors. At about 6 a.m., a tall, Arab-looking male and, separately, a heavyset, middle-age white woman were taken aside for additional questions and searches. Nobody was complaining. You can't tell who is an air marshall, but one mental game that you can play before you board is to guess "Who's The Air Marshall?" You don't know for sure, who they are, but you know they're there. The six-hour flight was uneventful. Pre-Sept. 11, there were complaints about security lines. There were complaints about additional passenger searches. There was almost a 100 percent chance your flight had no air marshall. If there's another Sept. 11-scale attack, it's a lot less likely that it will happen using commercial aircraft. But people who should know think attitudes still haven't changed enough. Writes Andrew Cochran at the Counterterrorism Blog: "But I most worry about Americans going soft - about our taking the lack of attacks here for granted, and forgetting that al Qaeda took 7 years between attacks on the WTC." It was common to hear folks say, in the days after 9/11, "The World has changed forever..." Or, "This is a new kind of war." Or, "We should have the missiles in the air right now." (Remember how much impatience there was, in the days after 9/11, that we hadn't initiated military action within the first couple of days?) Now, we have people who downplay the threats America faces, and who are consumed - obsessed - with body counts in Iraq. Three thousand lives on Sept. 11? Those same people never mention them. But the fact is this: Those folks are in a minority. The question is: Will they remain so?
By Ed Moltzen · 23 August 2005
Unsettling
Getting ready to board a flight for the West Coast, and this is certainly is a disconcerting item to read. More thoughts on this later. By Ed Moltzen · 22 August 2005
NY Times Correction du Jour
Well, this certainly makes a difference: A listing in the Residential Sales table last Sunday for a 25-year-old colonial house at 11 Devoe Road in Chappaqua, N.Y., misstated the sale price. It was $1.145 million, not $995,000. By Ed Moltzen · 21 August 2005
Chill Out, Smooth Jazz is Back
New York used to have a "Smooth Jazz" radio station, until last year when CD 101.9 changed its format to what was all the rage for adult contemporary radio at the time - "Chill." Nine months later, the radio station has given birth to awful ratings and, according to this poster at the New York Radio Message Board, is now back to playing Smooth Jazz. Maybe other radio stations will learn their lesson the hard way, and late, that the Flavor Of The Month Format doesn't gaurantee Jack. By Ed Moltzen · 20 August 2005
Exhibit A
If anything happens to Rei, the jury will have to figure out who wrote this. By Ed Moltzen · 15 August 2005
On Iraq
President Bush, in his weekly radio address:
That's why the recent opinion polls are essentially meaningless. The only poll that matters to the president, it seems, is the one from last Election Day. He knows what he wants to do, and he doesn't have to campaign any more. He's just going to do it: finish the job in Iraq and keep killing as many terrorists as possible. And terrorists are being killed every day. The release of all those awful audiotapes and stories from the Sept. 11 attacks jarred many people who had forgotten or buried the absolute, unmitigated horror of that day. And then, by his words and actions, it becomes easy to realize that President Bush hasn't forgotten and has been reliving it every day since Sept. 12. By Ed Moltzen · 13 August 2005
Son of Sam Dot Com
David Berkowitz has found The Lord (and Web publishing). Evidently, he also has a book coming out next month: Son of Hope: The Prison Journals of David Berkowitz, Volume 1 Berkowitz won't see a dime from the book, writes his publisher:
Why just "a portion of the proceeds" will go to the victims, the publisher doesn't explain. And don't think this is charity. Under New York Law, any of his victims or their relatives could sue him for every dime, anyway. The statute is also known as "The Son of Sam Law." By Ed Moltzen · 11 August 2005
NY Times Correction du Jour
The dreaded "Editor's Note:" A Critic's Notebook article on July 20 about the Lincoln Center Festival examined the dance aspects of Robert Wilson's "I La Galigo" and Ariane Mnouchkine's "Dernier Caravansérail," and festival reviews on July 21 and 23 discussed the choreographer Shen Wei and Random Dance's "AtaXia." All three articles were by The Times's chief dance critic, John Rockwell. Mr. Rockwell joined Lincoln Center in 1994 as the founding director of the festival after working as a critic at The Times for 22 years, and he returned to the newspaper in 1998. While his activities at Lincoln Center had no relation to the works or the artists he reviewed this season, his connection should have been mentioned in a note to readers. The founding director of the festival wrote a critique of the festival. It must be hard to find good help in the artistic criticism department these days.
By Ed Moltzen · 9 August 2005
"We'll See You Again."
In his farewell speech to White House staff, sweat beading on his upper lip - just like during the Kennedy debates - he had a few words of advice: Always remember others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself. He knew what he was talking about. Pop historians give 1968 credit as being a critical turning point in modern times - a year when we lost Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., and Vietnam raged on. But the effects of 1974, the summer of 1974, continue to be felt even stronger. America wasn't just dealing with Watergate that year. Hundreds of thousands of American workers walked picket lines that year. Racial tension ran strong from coast to coast. Vietnam and Cambodia were still bloodbaths. The economy was battling inflation - a battle it would eventually lose when Jimmy Carter became president. The Middle East was a tinder box. And hit music included songs like "My Thang" by James Brown. Yet, the country got through it. It's clear, though, that some folks could stand to follow Nixon's advice when it comes to hating others. But it's also worth considering something else Nixon had to say, before he climbed into the helicopter on the White House lawn and offered up his victory salute: "...The greatness comes not when things go always good for you, but the greatness comes when you are really tested, when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes; because only if you've been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain." Tag: Nixon By Ed Moltzen · 9 August 2005
An UNSCAM For The Airwaves
Mark Steyn sums up the Air America Radio scandal in a sentence: Air America looks like the broadcast version of the U.N. Oil-for-Food program, whereby money earmarked to save starving moppets somehow winds up in the bank accounts of bloated self-described do-gooders with political connections. And David Reinhard, in the Portland Oregonian, says Air America listeners should take some initiative: First, its listeners should unleash their "we know better" candlepower and their you-can't-fool-us cynicism to get to the bottom of the Air America's kids-for-kilowatts scandal. And, clearly, a scheme that hurts children and Alzheimer's patients to fund left-wing outreach should appeal to progressives' dark sense of irony. Regardless of whether it's covered in The New York Times, this story has "legs" and it's not going away. It's not as easy to understand for most as, say, Michael Moore shooting a homeless panhandler, but the irony is there. By Ed Moltzen · 7 August 2005
The Iraq Polls
Just about every polling entity is or will be coming out with new data showing Americans are down on "President Bush's handling" of the war in Iraq. Newsweek is the latest, with this one: Sixty-one percent of Americans polled disapprove of the way President George W. Bush is handling the situation in Iraq; just 34 percent approve, according to the latest Newsweek Poll conducted Tuesday, Aug. 2 to Thursday, Aug. 4. That's pretty low approval. And then you may realize a small thing like Saddam Hussein's trial is around the corner, and then you may realize that the world will begin hearing - in graphic detail - why it was better that Saddam was removed than left in power. His trial will start this fall. He has been charged with ethnic cleansing against the Kurds; using WMD against his own people in Halabja; widespread slaughter of Kurds and Shia in 1991; the 1983 Barzani massacre; and the assassination of Shia religious leaders in 1974. That's just for starters. Saddam Hussein is a genocidal maniac who would still be filling mass graves, throwing children in kiddie prisons, offering terrorists sanctuary and presenting a threat to America were he still in office. Now, President Bush has not been in public, making these points, for some time. He simply has not been telling the other side of the story, and few have been telling it for him. So when public opinion shifts like it has, it's not surprising that it's because there has been a single side of the story geting airplay. But that will change once the gavel bangs down and Saddam's trial opens. By Ed Moltzen · 7 August 2005
Tag - You're It
A site update: On the right column, below the blogroll, is a list of Technorati Tags on a few subjects that routinely come up on Late Final. By Ed Moltzen · 6 August 2005
New Jersey Update
"Remember McGreevey?" Thomas Galvin's blog item suggests that could be a rallying cry throughout New Jersey that could make backers of Sen. Jon Corzine's run for governor cringe. By Ed Moltzen · 4 August 2005
Voter Fraud
Jo's Cafe points to a new study showing more voter fraud is committed by Democrats than Republicans and asks, "So...Jesse Jackson, what you got to say about that?" The group that did the study, The American Center for Voting Rights, which only formed in February, says it is non-partisan. Here's the kicker quote, though: "It should be easy to vote but tough to cheat," said Mark F. "Thor" Hearne, ACVR Legislative Fund Counsel. Most law-abiding citizens wouldn't have a problem with that. By Ed Moltzen · 4 August 2005
Outrage Watch
Steven Vincent was a brave and talented journalist who was murdered by extremists in Iraq because of what he wrote. Kathryn Jean Lopez wrote a particularly strong tribute to him earlier today. One has to wonder, though, whether Linda Foley, president of The Newspaper Guild, will continue to voice outrage over the death of a journalist when the "cavalier nature" of a reporter's killing isn't exhibited by the U.S. military but by Iraqi extremists. A strong statement by the Guild president on the despicable killing of Vincent might be expected, one would think. By Ed Moltzen · 3 August 2005
On First Reference
Is it too stuffy and old-fashioned to assume that, when referring to a United States Senator, the respect of a title should be used? Newsday covered a day of appearances yesterday by Sen. Hillary Clinton on Long Island. Headline: Hillary tours Long Island When the senior U.S. senator from New York visits Long Island, Newsday refrains from similar headlines, like, Chuck Comes To Cutchogue. Or when the governor of the state visits, George Galavants To Glen Cove. When Robert Kennedy was U.S. senator from New York, were there headlines like, Bobby Brakes In Brentwood? Or Jacob Javits? Jake Jaunts To Jericho? This isn't a conservative or liberal issue. It's a respect issue. Why do women get the first-name treatment and men don't? By Ed Moltzen · 3 August 2005
Joan Didion, Attribution And The Schiavo Case
Joan Didion is taken out to the woodshed by some for her essay on the case of Teresa Schiavo, published in June in the New York Review of Books. One critic, a doctor who she referred to in the essay, claims he was taken out of context; that Didion merely lifted what he had told the New York Times in an earlier article without talking to him herself. Didion responds by saying, yes, she took his statement out of a New York Times article, but that he wasn't quoted out of context. Here's the passage from her original essay referring to the doctor, Joseph Fins: Functional magnetic resonance imaging in particular has enabled neuroscientists to detect brain activity in patients previously diagnosed as being in persistent vegetative states. According to Dr. Joseph Fins, chief of the medical ethics division at New York Presbyterian Hospital–Weill Cornell Medical Center, one study suggested that as many as 30 percent of vegetative patients studied were in fact minimally conscious. On the basis of the ninety minutes Dr. Cheshire spent with Theresa Schiavo, he suggested that she could well be found to fit the more recent "minimally conscious" diagnosis. He observed that she held his gaze for about thirty seconds, smiled when she heard familiar voices or piano music, and seemed in the changing pitch of her vocalization to be communicating "emotional thought within her brain." Neurologists who had previously examined her described such responses as reflexive. Why is Joan Didion using New York Times reporting without crediting the New York Times? To be fair, she credits the New York Times and other publications elsewhere in the piece for other information, but attributes nothing about Fins' remarks to the paper. As Fins asks in his letter to the New York Review of Books,"Does this uncited point suggest that Ms. Didion and I had a conversation?" Well...yes. If a New York Times reporter used material from another publication, without crediting it, what would be the result? Oh, wait. Never mind. By Ed Moltzen · 3 August 2005
NY Times Correction du Jour
To some, it only feels like five and a half years: A front-page article yesterday about the decision by President Bush to use a recess appointment to install John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations misstated the number of years Mr. Bush has been in office, a period in which he has made 105 other recess appointments. It is four and a half years, not five and a half. But who's counting? By Ed Moltzen · 3 August 2005
Totten Vs. Cole
Prof. Juan Cole delivers one of his standard remarks about the threat of terrorism, and Michael Totten responds with a rather complete photo fisking. Anyone who wants to write or bloviate about terrorism from the Sept. 10 mindset ought bookmark Totten's response and look at it at least once a day. By Ed Moltzen · 2 August 2005
C-Span: Pod-unsafe
C-Span is offering some of its multimedia over the web in the form of Podcasts. That's the good news. The bad news: they don't want Podcasters (or Bloggers, it seems) to share the content: IMPORTANT NOTICE: Use of C-SPAN Podcasts and RSS Feeds is Restricted. Please Read Notice Below Carefully. Don't say you haven't been warned. But if non-profit C-Span's mission is public affairs cable-casting and web-casting, why put handcuffs on the public's use of its material to keep the discussion going? By Ed Moltzen · 1 August 2005
Retail Advice
Advice to anyone who works in the electronics retail industry: If a potential customer walks up to you and asks, "Are any of these MP3 players compatible with the Napster to Go service?", answer with anything - anything - other than a blank stare and a shrug. And a memo to Napster: You many want to start providing some free, easy-to-understand marketing collateral to the retail outlets carrying products by your hardware partners. Right now, according to an informal survey, By Ed Moltzen · 1 August 2005
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