Nightline and Doonesbury and Proper Memorials

It is Memorial Day and yesterday the comic strip Doonesbury printed a list of names of the soldiers who have died in the current U.S. invasion of Iraq. Tonight, on the ABC television program Nightline, the entire program will consist of the reading of the names of the soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan since last Memorial Day. These so-called "memorials" are actually political statements to show opposition to the "war" in Iraq and Afghanistan and it is a shame that such statements are being made in the guise of paying tribute to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.

If Garry Trudeau and Ted Koppel wanted to pay tribute to the "fallen", they should have included the names of Capt. Arthur G. Bonifas and Lt. Mark T. Barrett among those they listed. They were shot and killed on August 18, 1976, on the Korean Demilitarized Zone, while attempting to trim back the branches of a tree that was blocking the view from a U.N. guard post. They should have included the name of Cpl Terry W. Abbot and the 240 other U.S. Marines who were killed on October 23, 1983 by a terrorist bombing in Beirut, Lebanon. They should have included the name of Air Force TSgt Joel C. Mayo and the seven other U.S. servicemembers who died at a nameless spot in the Iranian desert on April 26, 1980 during the failed attempt to rescue the U.S. hostages in Iran. They should have even included the name of Capt Dean Martin Jr. who died in the crash of his fighter jet while on a routine training mission on March 21, 1987.

Today is the day that we pay tribute and honor all, repeat ALL of the men and women who died defending our nation. It is not a day to be making political statements against or for positions taken by the current administration and those who use it for such should be ashamed.

All the News that's fit to slant.....er print.....or air

Somehow, somewhere that line between journalists and opinionists has gone from blurry to non-existant and the slanting of the news grows ever more tilted. This becomes especially true whenever the media is covering a story involving illegal immigration into this country.

Consider a story done on Los Angeles area television station Channel 7's "Eyewitness News" involving this critical issue which has been in the forefront of the news recently since the Gubinator was forced to retract a statement about closing the borders citing a "language difficulty" as his excuse for backpedaling". Newsanchor David Ono read the lead-in to reporter Carlos Granda's standp-up saying "Yesterday the governor praised a vigilante group which patrolled the border in Arizona". While it is true that President Dubya did incorrectly label the Minuteman Project a vigilante project, the actual work done by the Minutemen themselves in no way, shape or form qualifies for that particular characterization. If you don't want to consult your own dictionary, the definition of vigilante is: "One who takes or advocates the taking of law enforcement into one's own hands."

That's bad enough in and of itself but it got worse very quickly. Democratic Party flack Art Torres said "The Governor should apologize and refrain from encouraging this type of illegal and violent behavior. Now nothing the Minutemen have done so far has been the cause of any charges to be filed against them, they are not facing any indictments, nor have they been accused of any crimes at all. But would Granda call Torres on this? No, of course not. A liberal politician makes a statement and a reporter wouldn't dare question a liberal politico now would he? No way. Later in the same report, Granda played a sound bite from a MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund) who accused the Minutemen of having detained border crossers at gunpoint.  Since there are no accounts of such incidents to be found anywhere on the net, this claim appears to be specious.

Another news report on another Los Angeles station mentions a MALDEF suit against the Minutemen for detaining illegals at gunpoint, but no record of the lawsuit can be found anywhere. There is a lawsuit pending about an incident where a landowner held some people at gunpoint, but that has nothing to do with the Minutemen project.

If reporters want to be columnists, then they need to get out from behind the microphones and start writing op-ed pieces and label them as such. But if they want to report hard news, then they need to stick to the facts and remember to question people on both sides of the political aisle, even if that means that their own political biases aside in the interest of getting at the truth.

If it doesn't feel wrong, is it wrong?

"I don't feel I'm doing something wrong." So said Eamon Cannon, an 18 year old high school student during an hour long seminar hosted by United States Attorney General Alberto B. Gonzales on digital piracy. Cannon, a child of privilege whose divorced parents are both successful actors in Hollywood, attends an exclusive private school on Los Angeles' upscale Westside was defending his illegal downloading of movies and music from file-sharing sources on the internet.

Now if this spoiled, entitled computer pirate were to walk into a Blockbuster Video store, I feel confident that he would not begin to even consider taking a wrapped DVD movie that he wanted, slip it underneath his sweater, remove the protective marking that would set off any alarm and then walk out the door without paying for it. That would be a crime known as shoplifting. For some reason that only Eamon can explain to us, the difference between shoplifting and digital piracy somehow makes one a crime and the other nothing more than something that isn't doing anything wrong. This moral relativism is why digital piracy is the pervasive problem that it is, and it is why government faces such a difficult task in trying to stop it.

As long as the majority of teens feel as Eamon does, any serious effort to try to stop digital piracy is doomed to fail before it begins.