OB Rag

PHILADELPHIA–Activists have won another victory against the slated budget cuts here. On December 30, the day before 11 neighborhood libraries were set to be closed, Judge Idee Fox issued an injunction, halting the closures. She ruled that Mayor Michael Nutter needs a vote from the City Council in order to shutter the libraries. Now, the mayor must win an appeal or get support from the City Council, which has already called for a six-month delay on any library closures. Nutter has proposed $1 billion in cuts in the next five years, much of which will come out of social services. Initial cuts included permanently closing 11 of the city’s 53 libraries, cutting seven fire companies, 68 public pools, leaf and trash pickup, and snow plowing. Many of these services are being cut in the poorest neighborhoods in Philadelphia.

It’s easily the most useful diagram I’ve found for understanding the practice of journalism in the United States, and the hidden politics of that practice. You can draw it by hand right now. Take a sheet of paper and make a big circle in the middle. In the center of that circle draw a smaller one to create a doughnut shape. Label the doughnut hole “sphere of consensus.” Call the middle region “sphere of legitimate debate,” and the outer region “sphere of deviance.”

That’s the entire model. Now you have a way to understand why it’s so unproductive to argue with journalists about the deep politics of their work. They don’t know about this freakin’ diagram! Here it is in its original form, from the 1986 book The Uncensored War by press scholar Daniel C. Hallin. Hallin felt he needed something more supple–and truthful–than calcified notions like objectivity and “opinions are confined to the editorial page.” So he came up with this diagram.

As the disappearance of honeybees continues, researchers are trying desperately to discover the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). General concensus at this point is that there is more than once cause and the latest culprit may be genetically modified crops. This is one area of research being neglected as mainstream scientists insist GM crops are safe.

For the last 100 years, beekeepers have experienced colony losses from bacteria, (foulbrood), mites (varroa and tracheal) and other pathogens. These problems are dealt with by using antibiotics, miticides and and other methods of pest management. Losses are slow and expected and beekeepers know how to limit the destruction. This new mass die-off is different in that it is virtually instantaneous with no warning of the impending collapse.

Last week the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that the City’s Police Department has decided to purchase a mobile observation tower. Paying the $119,000 price tag with funds from a Homeland Security grant, the SDPD has already tried the tower out out on numerous occasions, and expects delivery of the two-storied platform in February.
Police told the U-T that they had used the tower at the beach over Labor Day, had used it at UTC during the recent holidays and at Qualcomm when the Raiders played the Chargers. “It has assisted us in making arrests, ” police Capt. Shelly Zimmerman told the newspaper, “and has certainly been a huge deterrent.” We’re told that the El Cajon police use a similar tower at Westfield Parkway Plaza shopping mall to “monitor crowds.”

There are two kinds of San Diego City Councilmember’s: “staffers” and “legislators”. The “staffers” are Faulconer, Gloria, Young and Hueso and the “legislators” are Lightner, DeMaio, Frye and Emerald. “Staffers” are easily identifiable by their “institutional” mentality. They demonstrate a natural sympathy with the bureaucratic mind and identify more with city staff who come before them for “Council Action” than with the electorate.

Peace activists in the nation’s capital met for weeks last fall, brainstorming how they’d demonstrate their opposition at the inauguration of John McCain as president. Then Barack Obama won the election. What’s a liberal protester to do? “It was a happy dilemma,” said Barbra Bearden, spokeswoman for Peace Action, which is affiliated with the Activist Coalition of D.C.

Yup- that’s right. For over 12 or more hours now, our host server has been having troubles. We’ll soon have…

As I watch newborn baby lambs playing King of the Hill, bouncing and playing like their legs are springs, my heart fills with both joy and dread. I’m a city girl, a lawyer, who got into farming because I believe passionately that small, sustainable farms are our future ….

Among the wars currently being fought by the American government is one in which there can be no winners. Our prior law enforcement experiences warn us that the “war on terrorism” has spawned an internal “war on dissent” in which everyone loses.

Both Michael Moore, who produced “Sicko”, and Congressional Representative John Conyers are very critical of President-elect Obama’s choice for Surgeon General. Rep. John Conyers has written a letter to Democratic colleagues urging them to join him in publicly opposing the nomination of Dr. Sanjay Gupta for Surgeon General.

Sea bird experts up and down the West Coast are sounding the alarm about hundreds of California brown pelicans dying or becoming injured by bad weather or a mysterious malady. Reports of disoriented, malnourished and dead pelicans have come from Washington state to Baja California in recent weeks.

MARJORIE COHN: Since Israel began its war on Gaza nearly 2 weeks ago, more than 680 Palestinians — about a quarter of them civilians — have been killed. Some three thousand Gazans, including hundreds of children, have been wounded. Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead” marks an escalation of Israel’s two-year blockade of the Gaza Strip which has deprived 1.5 million Palestinians of necessary food, medicine, fuel and other necessities.