Monday, June 18, 2007
Oh, Sorry. Did We Kill More Of You Civilian People?
US bombers have just killed a dozen more Afghan kids.The overall civilian toll is impossible to estimate. And it is propaganda for both sides. However the most reliable calculation puts the number at as high as eight thousand.
There are no statistics for the number of Afghans killed by Canadian troops but they too will be mockery of a mission designed to "get rid of the Taliban" (a new report says they are stronger than ever) and bring peace and stability to the country.
When Canada says it will help do this by bringing in a hundred huge Leopard tanks, you know what the truth is...or is not.
We mourn every Nato soldier killed in Afghanistan but we spare few thoughts for the Afghans. We should. Killing them in numbers far higher than those who died in the World Trade Centre will have two results: no peace and reconciliation; a tragic breeding ground for more hostility and hatred of the fair-skinned invaders. That means the Taliban will not be short or recruits to drive these latest marauders out, just have done to all the others in the past.
It is time to come home from Afghanistan and Iraq and then at least one side will have stopped killing.
Posted by John Scully at 3:12 AM 0 comments
Monday, June 18, 2007
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
PEARL AND SWINE
The movie about beheaded U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl goes on general release next week.It is called "The Mighty Heart." Pearl was executed because he was a journalist seeking truth, trying to expose wrong; In this case a link between Al-Qaeda and the Pakistani security service.That was in 2002.
This year alone,and it's only June, over 50 journalists and their assistants have been killed. Nearly 130 have been jailed and in a new form of terror against the press, nearly 70 so-called cyberdissidents have been imprisoned. Just take a look at where the assassinations continue to occur. (Note:a special thanks to the CPJ for the statistics):
RUSSIA: Under Vladimir Putin, 11 journalists have been murdered in the last five years. None of the cases has been solved.
PAKISTAN:Eight (including Pearl) killed over five years.
IRAQ:115 Iraqi journalists, 72 per cent categorized as murder, including reporters killed because they were women.
COLOMBIA:40 murdered in the last five years.
Few of the names are a famous as Pearl's but they all stood for pursuit of truth and died for it.
Someone should tell the CBS Evening News what truth in journalism means and explain that half-truths and innuendos might get higher ratings but insult all of those whom we remember lying in their graves having tried to tell the truth.
The story I'm talking about ran high in the line-up on June 11. Clearly it was a CBS attention-grabber. It sounded like there had been a dramatic new development in the hunt for a cure for Alzheimer's. In this newscast all the data about this pitiful disease was good.At least that's the spin CBS gave it. I thought I mis-heard. Did he say "might"? Did he say "could"? If so the whole story would be a gross over-hyped distortion, a desk-designed sleight of hand. So I went to the transcript. Be disgusted along with me if you believe in truth, and weep with me at a dishevelled network that'll get the audiences'attention at any price...as long as it does cost them their lives. (The capitals in the following edited extract are mine.)
CBS:For the first time, scientists are TARGETING what THEY BELIEVE MAY be a root cause of Alzheimer's: brain damage from clumps of a protein called beta-amyloid.
“We COULD be QUITE CLOSE to slowing or stopping the progression of disease,” said Dr. Paul Aisen of Georgetown University said.
There's other PROMISING news: Improvements have been made in diagnosing the disease through brain scans and blood tests.
Doctors BELIEVE THEY WILL ONE DAY approach Alzheimer's the way they do heart disease — by identifying who is at risk and prescribing drugs and lifestyle changes to keep them healthy." CBS News, June 11, 2007.
That is not journalism. It is cynical exaggeration, speculation and manipulation of a story that has no cold,hard facts. And the credibility of journalists sinks a little lower.
This is not what Daniel Pearl died for. Nor did those other brave, dead souls who held the sword of truth in our name.
This year alone,and it's only June, over 50 journalists and their assistants have been killed. Nearly 130 have been jailed and in a new form of terror against the press, nearly 70 so-called cyberdissidents have been imprisoned. Just take a look at where the assassinations continue to occur. (Note:a special thanks to the CPJ for the statistics):
RUSSIA: Under Vladimir Putin, 11 journalists have been murdered in the last five years. None of the cases has been solved.
PAKISTAN:Eight (including Pearl) killed over five years.
IRAQ:115 Iraqi journalists, 72 per cent categorized as murder, including reporters killed because they were women.
COLOMBIA:40 murdered in the last five years.
Few of the names are a famous as Pearl's but they all stood for pursuit of truth and died for it.
Someone should tell the CBS Evening News what truth in journalism means and explain that half-truths and innuendos might get higher ratings but insult all of those whom we remember lying in their graves having tried to tell the truth.
The story I'm talking about ran high in the line-up on June 11. Clearly it was a CBS attention-grabber. It sounded like there had been a dramatic new development in the hunt for a cure for Alzheimer's. In this newscast all the data about this pitiful disease was good.At least that's the spin CBS gave it. I thought I mis-heard. Did he say "might"? Did he say "could"? If so the whole story would be a gross over-hyped distortion, a desk-designed sleight of hand. So I went to the transcript. Be disgusted along with me if you believe in truth, and weep with me at a dishevelled network that'll get the audiences'attention at any price...as long as it does cost them their lives. (The capitals in the following edited extract are mine.)
CBS:For the first time, scientists are TARGETING what THEY BELIEVE MAY be a root cause of Alzheimer's: brain damage from clumps of a protein called beta-amyloid.
“We COULD be QUITE CLOSE to slowing or stopping the progression of disease,” said Dr. Paul Aisen of Georgetown University said.
There's other PROMISING news: Improvements have been made in diagnosing the disease through brain scans and blood tests.
Doctors BELIEVE THEY WILL ONE DAY approach Alzheimer's the way they do heart disease — by identifying who is at risk and prescribing drugs and lifestyle changes to keep them healthy." CBS News, June 11, 2007.
That is not journalism. It is cynical exaggeration, speculation and manipulation of a story that has no cold,hard facts. And the credibility of journalists sinks a little lower.
This is not what Daniel Pearl died for. Nor did those other brave, dead souls who held the sword of truth in our name.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
KILLED ANYONE NICE TODAY?
The fighting in the Palestinian camps in Lebanon is ominous. With tens of thousands of stateless refugees imprisoned in squalor and poverty for fifty years, it is no surprise. The civil war of the 1980s had a similar genesis. The hysterical US has sent in extra firepower to their surrogate Lebanese army to put down the internecine fighting.
Why? An anonymous tip said Al-Qaeda was behind the uprising. To the Americans, the fragmented guerrilla group is behind every killing, every mugging, every bag-snatching in the entire universe, except in places that don't matter like southern Africa.Meanwhile, Israel has continued its "targeted assassinations," or murder, of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders in Gaza. Ironically, it is the Palestinians who are labelled terrorists, not the Israelis.
So why worry about the fighting in the refugee camps, which has now spread south? Because it is designed by Syria, the US and Israel to keep the Palestinians from settling down and running efficient civil and military authorities just as Hamas and Hezbollah did before the latest farcical Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the continued pounding of Gaza by Israeli tanks and helicopter gunships.
The Israeli onslaughts evoke not a whisper of protest from our very own heroes, Georgie the bush and Steve harp seal. They have been too busy saving the planet by running from the G8 conference as fast as their fat little feet could carry them. With Geldoff and Bono yapping at their heels, you can't really blame them.But someone's got to yap. At least the pop stars have guts to yap, yap, yap. Steve was so outraged that anyone dare question his ability to make a decent, moral decision he refused to meet Bono but had a really nice chat with the lovely, journalist-butchering "Vlady, baby" Putin.
So I am not dead yet. Those few outburst should shorten the odds. Naa. Who cares about an aging blogger with a new book about to hit the streets. The book is called "AM I DEAD YET? A JOURNALIST'S PERSPECTIVE ON TERRORISM." It will be available on Amazon.com and Chapters/Indigo next month.It is blunt, controversial, harrowing, downright scary, cheeky and often very silly. C'mon. Would I lie to you?
Why? An anonymous tip said Al-Qaeda was behind the uprising. To the Americans, the fragmented guerrilla group is behind every killing, every mugging, every bag-snatching in the entire universe, except in places that don't matter like southern Africa.Meanwhile, Israel has continued its "targeted assassinations," or murder, of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders in Gaza. Ironically, it is the Palestinians who are labelled terrorists, not the Israelis.
So why worry about the fighting in the refugee camps, which has now spread south? Because it is designed by Syria, the US and Israel to keep the Palestinians from settling down and running efficient civil and military authorities just as Hamas and Hezbollah did before the latest farcical Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the continued pounding of Gaza by Israeli tanks and helicopter gunships.
The Israeli onslaughts evoke not a whisper of protest from our very own heroes, Georgie the bush and Steve harp seal. They have been too busy saving the planet by running from the G8 conference as fast as their fat little feet could carry them. With Geldoff and Bono yapping at their heels, you can't really blame them.But someone's got to yap. At least the pop stars have guts to yap, yap, yap. Steve was so outraged that anyone dare question his ability to make a decent, moral decision he refused to meet Bono but had a really nice chat with the lovely, journalist-butchering "Vlady, baby" Putin.
So I am not dead yet. Those few outburst should shorten the odds. Naa. Who cares about an aging blogger with a new book about to hit the streets. The book is called "AM I DEAD YET? A JOURNALIST'S PERSPECTIVE ON TERRORISM." It will be available on Amazon.com and Chapters/Indigo next month.It is blunt, controversial, harrowing, downright scary, cheeky and often very silly. C'mon. Would I lie to you?
Saturday, April 14, 2007
GLOBE AND MAIL DISGRACE
The Canadian national newspaper, the Globe and Mail, ain't a bad rag. It employs classy editors and writers, astute reporters, trenchant critics and it is proud of its adherence to the highest journalistic ethics. Yes, it has started to lean precipitously towards mindless Zionism and yes, it vacillates absurdly on Iraq and Afghanistan. But overall, it's still a good newspaper. Or at least I thought so until I heard what the paper did to its brilliant theater critic, Kamal Al-Solaylee. Until a couple of weeks ago, he was a rising star who displayed a fine knowledge of the theatre, had great insight and wrote frankly and very well about the works he had seen. He should have know better in 2007.
Kamal Al-Solaylee dared to criticise some of the garbage staged by Toronto entrepreneurs, the Mirvish brothers... the same Mirvishes who flood the Globe and Mail with pages of garish show-biz advertising, and that means lots of money for the Globe. So much money, it empowered the Mirvishes to demand Solaylee's removal from the theater beat. And what did those fine defenders of the highest principles of journalistic ethics at the Globe do? They grovelled to the Mirvishes and dumped Solaylee.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking and sickening. It is also dooming us poor readers to more cynical manipulation by men and women with money as they crush the jellied spines of those we entrust to uphold truth and integrity. Second-hand car sellers do a better job.
NOW WHAT YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!!!!!!
Coming up, my new book:"Am I Dead Yet?" It'll be out in a couple of months. Here's what the publishers have written on the cover:
"He’s faced his own execution, been fingered as an assassin, and had guns jammed to his stomach and head. Author John Scully’s remarkable career as a renowned television journalist has taken him to seventy countries to create award-winning news stories and documentaries for such giants of international broadcasting, the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
In this extraordinary memoir, Scully agues with terrorists in the Middle East, dodges landmines in Africa, bribes the Vatican, and travels with Evangelical Christians on a bizarre mission to Jonestown. From Vietnam to Beirut to the present troubles in Iraq, Scully examines terrorism, its roots and its reasons as he tries to answer the question, who is a terrorist? But Scully digs deeper, exploring the disastrous effects of colonialism from the Russians in Chechnya to the British in India and the United States in Iraq.
Dramatic, deeply insightful, and often hilarious, Am I Dead Yet? A Journalists's Perspective on Terrorism, points out just how little Americans have learned from history."
Kamal Al-Solaylee dared to criticise some of the garbage staged by Toronto entrepreneurs, the Mirvish brothers... the same Mirvishes who flood the Globe and Mail with pages of garish show-biz advertising, and that means lots of money for the Globe. So much money, it empowered the Mirvishes to demand Solaylee's removal from the theater beat. And what did those fine defenders of the highest principles of journalistic ethics at the Globe do? They grovelled to the Mirvishes and dumped Solaylee.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking and sickening. It is also dooming us poor readers to more cynical manipulation by men and women with money as they crush the jellied spines of those we entrust to uphold truth and integrity. Second-hand car sellers do a better job.
NOW WHAT YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!!!!!!
Coming up, my new book:"Am I Dead Yet?" It'll be out in a couple of months. Here's what the publishers have written on the cover:
"He’s faced his own execution, been fingered as an assassin, and had guns jammed to his stomach and head. Author John Scully’s remarkable career as a renowned television journalist has taken him to seventy countries to create award-winning news stories and documentaries for such giants of international broadcasting, the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
In this extraordinary memoir, Scully agues with terrorists in the Middle East, dodges landmines in Africa, bribes the Vatican, and travels with Evangelical Christians on a bizarre mission to Jonestown. From Vietnam to Beirut to the present troubles in Iraq, Scully examines terrorism, its roots and its reasons as he tries to answer the question, who is a terrorist? But Scully digs deeper, exploring the disastrous effects of colonialism from the Russians in Chechnya to the British in India and the United States in Iraq.
Dramatic, deeply insightful, and often hilarious, Am I Dead Yet? A Journalists's Perspective on Terrorism, points out just how little Americans have learned from history."
Saturday, January 20, 2007
COP THIS!
There he was, with his arm draped around the crooked lawyer who boasted no judge could touch him. This was before the lawyer was found guilty but Julie was there to show his support. Is this the kind of person you want to trust as your police chief? Julie Fantino is a cop with a troubling past filled with unpleasant accusations of racial and gender bias. He seems to believe cops can do no wrong, only us common as muck civilians are capable of breaking the law.Now he is the new head of the Ontario Provincial Police Force. I don't expect him to come intimidating us meek, cowering village folk of Dwight or stomp on other turf in rural Ontario...he'll leave that to others, But I must admit to being just a touch fearful of Julie who appears to have the humourless demeanour of a dyspeptic, cane-cracking Victorian schoolmaster.
But what brains! His first order was to change the colour of the OPP cars to black and white-far more police like than than namby pamby white cars with blue and gold stripes. This move will surely terrify every perp in Ontario into going straight
And talking of straight, there will be n0 more laughing at Sgt Cam Wolley's jokes! They are not funny! We are not funny!
No. You are ludicrous.
Perhaps, if we are lucky, the metaphorical Ides of March will come sooner than Julie expects.
But what brains! His first order was to change the colour of the OPP cars to black and white-far more police like than than namby pamby white cars with blue and gold stripes. This move will surely terrify every perp in Ontario into going straight
And talking of straight, there will be n0 more laughing at Sgt Cam Wolley's jokes! They are not funny! We are not funny!
No. You are ludicrous.
Perhaps, if we are lucky, the metaphorical Ides of March will come sooner than Julie expects.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
I FEEL A SURGE COMING ON
"Surge" is the new in-word. I used to think it meant to thrust forward, as in:"So I put my foot on the gas, surged from 80kph to 140 and made it from Dwight, Ontario, Canada, to Huntsville, 23 ks away in five minutes. The cop car surged, too, and now this is coming to you from the local slammer."
But there's something coined in Washington called a "troop surge,"sending another 20,000 soldiers to Bagdhad immediately. The aim is to win the war. Perhaps in years, or even months to come the word "surge" will be defined as "catastrophic stupidity" or "how to become bogged down in the mother of all quagmires."
As a journalist, getting to that quagmire is dangerous, especially for the accountants. The latest rate for a ride from the airport to the Green Zone is $10,000. That's right, ten thousand dollars. And there are no discounts if your vehicle hits a landmine, or roadside bomb.
But there's something coined in Washington called a "troop surge,"sending another 20,000 soldiers to Bagdhad immediately. The aim is to win the war. Perhaps in years, or even months to come the word "surge" will be defined as "catastrophic stupidity" or "how to become bogged down in the mother of all quagmires."
As a journalist, getting to that quagmire is dangerous, especially for the accountants. The latest rate for a ride from the airport to the Green Zone is $10,000. That's right, ten thousand dollars. And there are no discounts if your vehicle hits a landmine, or roadside bomb.
Saturday, January 6, 2007
BROTHER CAN YOU SPARE --A QUARTER??
Great news for the new year. The minimum wage in Ontario, Canada, has soared 25 cents to a sizzling $8 an hour. Man, that extra 25 cents will send stampedes of over-paid cashiers, fast-food friers, dish-washers and students to the chic local galleries, golf clubs and gourmet gratification centres, revelling in their new-found wealth, enabling them to avoid forevermore the greed machine created by Jesus-and-money-loving Sam Walton. Even my own cramped, dowdy, now-friendly Dwight corner store could be transformed into a pleasure palace the likes of which have not been seen outside of the Arab Emirates.....unless you include that brown and down Muskoka structure that passes itself of as an upscale resort , Deerhurst. No doubt they are preparing to be swamped with bookings from the newly-wealthy minimum-wage earners of Ontario.In monetary terms,the percentage rise is just over three. And what did our heroes, members of the Provincial Parliament just give themselves? A raise of over 20%.. Of course it's fair. And I'm a ham sandwich.
...MINIMUM RAGE
...by the members of the board of US Home Depot who fired their CEO of one year because of his catastrophically inept performance.Severance package awarded to him by outraged board? $210 million dollars
COOL-HAND STEVE
Another note of new year comfort comes from Steve who shuffled his cabinet as opposed to his wonderfully co-ordinated feet, The great news here is that Steve, with his steel trap of a mind, read opnion polls that concluded Canadians care about climate. (I can see a very bare Hidden Valley ski run from where I'm typing and the only snow I've come across this week is a dubious brown heap near my driveway), So Steve's brilliant gesture to save the world and Dwight from Farenheit 451 was to fire the hapless Ms Rona Ambrose and replace her with an unspeakably loud-mouthed robot called John Baird. Word has it, Baird is not to help the environment, and therefore earn the wrath of big business, but to shout down all those pathetic tree-huggers and naysayers who worry when huge chunks of the Arctic break off and see no snow in winter.
ALZHEIMER'S + A PLUG
One of the local rags has a whole page devoted to the mind-bogling complexities of tax breaks for folks who look after Alzheimer's patients at home.I have read the thing three times and I still do not understand who gets what. It's as though the plan were designed by a bureaucrat who did not want to give these brave, unsung caregivers a hope in hell of collecting what seems to be a pittance, anyhow.
Now the self-serving bit about Alzheimer's.. Next month, 360 Vision, the Vision TV current affairs programme nominated for a prestigious Gemini Award as the best current affairs programme in Canada, will run a powerful, provocative 20-minute story on Alzheimer's.
360 Vision's new season starts on Wednesday,January 17, at 10pm, with an explosive investigative documentary that should scare the hell out of you, the cops and the churches. The following week, a gripping, vitally important story about women leading a revolt in Islam right here in Canada.It is a revolt with world-wide ramifications.
For more details: http://www.visiontv.ca/
...MINIMUM RAGE
...by the members of the board of US Home Depot who fired their CEO of one year because of his catastrophically inept performance.Severance package awarded to him by outraged board? $210 million dollars
COOL-HAND STEVE
Another note of new year comfort comes from Steve who shuffled his cabinet as opposed to his wonderfully co-ordinated feet, The great news here is that Steve, with his steel trap of a mind, read opnion polls that concluded Canadians care about climate. (I can see a very bare Hidden Valley ski run from where I'm typing and the only snow I've come across this week is a dubious brown heap near my driveway), So Steve's brilliant gesture to save the world and Dwight from Farenheit 451 was to fire the hapless Ms Rona Ambrose and replace her with an unspeakably loud-mouthed robot called John Baird. Word has it, Baird is not to help the environment, and therefore earn the wrath of big business, but to shout down all those pathetic tree-huggers and naysayers who worry when huge chunks of the Arctic break off and see no snow in winter.
ALZHEIMER'S + A PLUG
One of the local rags has a whole page devoted to the mind-bogling complexities of tax breaks for folks who look after Alzheimer's patients at home.I have read the thing three times and I still do not understand who gets what. It's as though the plan were designed by a bureaucrat who did not want to give these brave, unsung caregivers a hope in hell of collecting what seems to be a pittance, anyhow.
Now the self-serving bit about Alzheimer's.. Next month, 360 Vision, the Vision TV current affairs programme nominated for a prestigious Gemini Award as the best current affairs programme in Canada, will run a powerful, provocative 20-minute story on Alzheimer's.
360 Vision's new season starts on Wednesday,January 17, at 10pm, with an explosive investigative documentary that should scare the hell out of you, the cops and the churches. The following week, a gripping, vitally important story about women leading a revolt in Islam right here in Canada.It is a revolt with world-wide ramifications.
For more details: http://www.visiontv.ca/
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