Call to the boomers

In an earlier post I had harsh words for the baby boomers.

They helped to overspend and whine us into the fix we're in today. They could and should have taken up their responsibility for stewardship of the nation back in the 1970s and 1980s, when they became politically active, but instead, they lived up to their reputation for self-centeredness and embraced the promise that they could still have it all.

Bill Keller's opinion piece "The Entitled Generation" is more measured but thinks there's still room for them to help.

Fellow boomers, we have done more than our share to make this mess. It’s not our fault that there are a lot of us, but we have resisted any move to fix the system.

I stand by my harsh words because I doubt Keller or anyone else can change his generation's longstanding disinterest in the rest of us. I'd be delighted to be proven wrong.

A cop's take on the Aurora tragedy

I should have linked to this opinion piece by Michael A. Black when I first read it Thursday, but I got busy.

Black was a Chicago police officer for thirty years and has this to say about those who clamor for easing restrictions on gun ownership and concealed-carry laws:

Imagine the scene: speakers blasting, larger-than-life heroes and villains on the screen, and suddenly real gunshots, a man in a gas mask firing one of three weapons — a shotgun, handgun and rifle, with extended magazines for extra ammo capacity — into the panicking crowd. Even a highly trained, armed police officer would have been caught off guard. Try adding a bunch of untrained, armed civilians into the mix — this type of intervention could have made things much worse.

What I imagine is random firing by guys who own guns but who aren't used to thinking clearly when literally under fire. What I imagine is a police officer coming onto the scene, trying to figure out who the bad guy is (or who the bad guys are).

Which of the gun toters was the aggressor and which were merely defending themselves? Do the gun toters themselves know? What if, in the heat of the moment, the true aggressor diverts law enforcement's attention to a self-defender: "That guy in the tan jacket just started shooting!" You might think your fellow innocents, armed and not, would attest to your own innocence, but even assuming they are all law-abiding (and that nobody in the crowd holds a grudge against you), how many of them will have been thinking clearly enough to have been able to keep track of who started what in the chaos?

Oh, and by the way, if a bystander was hit by a shot from a self-defender, does that make the latter an aggressor by circumstance?

Yes, you're entitled to defend yourself against someone shooting at you. The thing is, if a lot of guns are floating around, it becomes a lot harder to sort out who started a gunfight or a shooting rampage. The likelihood of other people being hurt goes up a lot, too. Cops are trained to avoid hurting civilians; can you say the same for your neighbor who is merely a gun enthusiast?

Phone-hacking charges filed

I have to admit, I kind of lost interest in the British phone-hacking scandal from last year. While I delighted in seeing Murdoch's minions get hauled over the coals in the press, the actual legal fallout was excruciatingly slow in coming.

The first drops have finally hit.

Here's the Guardian's take.

Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks, who both edited the News of the World, were among eight people charged with 19 counts of conspiracy over the phone hacking scandal, with prosecutors alleging that the tabloid also targeted Labour cabinet ministers and celebrities – including at least one person associated with the Hollywood power couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Coulson served as Prime Minister David Cameron's director of communications for a time. Brooks was "Rupert Murdoch's closest confidante in London".

The charges all derive from the illegal interception of communications, or, to use the popular but irritating phrase, "phone hacking". Be it remembered, however, that there is a separate investigation into whether News International employees made illegal payments to Scotland Yard officers for information. That investigation, "Operation Elveden", appears to be still active; according to the BBC two journalists were questioned on 11 July 2012, bringing the total number of journalists "formally arrested" to date to thirty-four.

This is getting juicy.

More coverage of the charges filed against Coulson and Brooks is available in the Independent, the BBC, and for a more tabloid take on things, the Daily Mirror. The BBC has a good, very brief timeline of the key developments in the case in a separate table that is part of each of its articles on the scandal.

(To see more of my entries on this subject, click on the keyword "journalism" at the end of this post and look for the July 2011 entries with "phone-hacking" in the title. A minor but intriguing side development occurred in September 2011, too.)

The Paternos miss the point

It seems kind of harsh to criticize the late Joe Paterno's family right now, but ... well, read for yourself what they had to say in the wake of the record-setting penalty levied against Penn State by the N.C.A.A.:

“The N.C.A.A. has now become the latest party to accept the report as the final word on the Sandusky scandal,” the family’s statement said. “The sanctions announced by the N.C.A.A. today defame the legacy and contributions of a great coach and educator without any input from our family or those who knew him best.”

Joe Paterno's legacy is tarnished beyond repair by the report prepared by Freeh, Sporkin & Sullivan, which stated bluntly:

Four of the most powerful people at The Pennsylvania State University - President Graham B. Spanier, Senior Vice President-Finance and Business Gary C. Schultz, Athletic Director Timothy M. Curley and Head Football Coach Joseph V. Paterno - failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade. These men concealed Sandusky's activities from the Board of Trustees, the University community and authorities. They exhibited a striking lack of empathy for Sandusky's victims by failing to inquire as to their safety and well-being ...

I cannot imagine that the Paterno family could say anything that would mitigate these damning findings. The family's statement suggests that they want to introduce character testimony painting Joe as a loving father, husband, colleague and friend.

None of that means a damned thing to this matter. Not a goddamned thing.

To repeat: Paterno and the other three men "failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade". They concealed Jerry Sandusky's despicable actions.

I'm sorry the Paterno family has to watch Joe Paterno's name dragged through the mud, but he helped to create this disaster. It's a shame he didn't live to suffer the consequences of his terrible judgment. But if all they have to add to the maelstrom of commentary about Sandusky's crimes is a sentimental plea to remember Joe's many victories or his positive contributions to Penn State, I wish they'd do all of us a favor and say nothing.

Unless the Paterno family can prove the Freeh report inaccurate or incomplete, nothing they can say will help either the situation or Joe Paterno's reputation.

Why I like Craig Ferguson

If you've read much of this blog you'll know I'm a big fan of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. An hour of concentrated daily observations on the news and politics (and whatever else strikes either of them or their writers as funny) is a lot to absorb if you're paying close attention, and with these two especially it pays to watch closely rather than treating them as background. That's why I haven't added any of the other late-night shows to my routine. (Well, I'd never add Leno. Not unless you paid me as much as he makes.)

If I could add one, though, it would be Craig Ferguson. He's a smartly self-deprecating and often delightfully goofy host. The times I've tuned in, he has traded in gentle but pointed give and take with his guests which has been entertaining enough, but for my money the reason to watch is for what he does when no one else is on stage with him. He trades in absurdity and pulls off silly routines with props that would fall flat in anyone else's hands. (He, rather than Stewart, should be the one doing the absurd "Gitmo" hand puppet bit, for instance, even though the political content is squarely within Stewart's milieu.)

The reason Ferguson came to mind is that he was unexpectedly put into a tough spot last Friday. As he explains in the video embedded in this Hollywood Reporter article, he had to ditch a segment of his (prerecorded) Friday night show because it made reference to the new Batman movie, a subject that was obviously taboo in light of the mass murders in Aurora, Colorado. Though his impromptu explanation of the incident was unwontedly solemn, his natural charm still peeked through.

"Please don't talk about me when I'm gone"

In a New York Times article, the gunman who killed twelve people in Aurora, Colorado, James Holmes, was described thusly by the chancellor of his undergraduate university, UC Riverside:

“I think he was kind of quirky, just the way you expect smart people to be,” the school’s chancellor, Timothy P. White, said in an interview on Saturday. “Quirky in the sense that he probably had a wry sense of humor. He kept to himself more than he socialized. But he was social. He wasn’t a hermit or an introvert. He wasn’t a loner.”

It sounds like this man was groping for a way to describe Holmes as a weirdo without getting the university sued.

UC Riverside has over 18,000 undergraduates at present. Are we supposed to believe that its chancellor just happens to be familiar with its most notorious recent graduate? Anyway, if White had any idea who Holmes was he wouldn't have had to theorize about Holmes' sense of humor.

Tim, this is why big institutions have spokespersons. Let them do their jobs.

But White isn't the problem, though he contributed to it. The problem is that articles that try to read the tea leaves of an attacker's life after the fact are useless. They seek reasons and explanations: laudable goals, but impossible to attain. Time-limited reporters scurry about looking for anybody who might have known the subject, digging for factoids that can be put together like ill-fitting puzzle pieces.

The reporters and their news organizations call the result a portrait of the killer. That's a lie: what they have is a connect-the-dots sketch. The reporters have an image of the subject in mind before they start interviewing; what they want from the interviewees is a dot that can be fitted into that mental image. That's why all these reports sound the same, and also why they're universally a waste of time.

Curbing the habit in the South

I was heartened to read that Atlanta has joined a number of other Southern cities in enacting bans on smoking in public places.

It's a good sign as far as I'm concerned. Smoking is a habit without any redeeming quality, save for making classic movies more interesting (I'm a sucker for smoking in black-and-white films).

I know that smokers feel besieged and angry. I probably would too if I were in their shoes. But we all need to recognize what smoking's real harm is.

Betty Price, a City Council member and doctor in Roswell, an Atlanta suburb, voted against her city’s ban on smoking in public parks. She said the city spent $20,000 on signs and has not issued any fines since the law took effect in 2010. Although Ms. Price called smoking “filthy” and “unhealthy,” she said people should be allowed to smoke outdoors if they are respectful of others.

“If someone wants to harm themselves by smoking, that’s awful, but it’s none of your business,” she said. “A constituent asked me, ‘Don’t you hate cigarette butts laying on the ground?’ Of course. But we have litter laws.”

Here we have somebody — actually, two people — willfully missing the point. Regarding cigarette butts on the ground, I can't get that worked up about a problem that can be handled with a broom. Compared with the other harm cigarettes inflict, litter is kind of trivial. Worrying about it first and foremost is like worrying first and foremost about the mildew in the aftermath of a tsunami.

Which brings us to smoking's bigger harm, the one that Price has to know about if she's any kind of competent doctor. And I'm not talking about the harm to the smoker: believe it or not, I agree with Price that people have the right to harm themselves if they really want. The trouble is that smoking harms other people. You have heard of secondhand smoke, haven't you, Dr. Price?

Your right to harm yourself becomes my business when your actions harm me. If I'm standing at a bus stop, I might be in a public space but I'm captive until that bus arrives. I resent having to endure the smoke from your cigarette, and I will support restrictions on your "right" to harm me in that space and anywhere else we both have the right to be and I don't have the option of moving away.