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By Gregory Taggart, February 4, 2011 9:44 am

Journalists covering the revolt against President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt have found themselves the targets of widespread anger and suspicion in an apparently coordinated campaign that is intended to stifle the flow of news that could further undermine the government.

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By Gregory Taggart, February 3, 2011 10:16 am

Mubarak is a bumbling fool, but his bumbling will–or should–help Obama out of his box. Mubarak’s jackboot on the neck of foreign press and human rights workers will–or should–give Present Obama reason to finally choose sides in this mess.

We’ll see.

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By Gregory Taggart, February 2, 2011 3:41 pm

I’m linking to her BloggingHeads episode with Robert Wright.

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By Gregory Taggart, February 2, 2011 10:28 am

New York Times food critic Mark Bittman has a post up titled A Food Manifesto for the Future–the word manifesto is particularly apt–in which he attempts to set our tables in the future. What we eat; where and how it’s grown or raised; and whether it’s processed, subsidized, or advertised are all of concern to him. More importantly–and because he really has little or no power–he thinks it ought to be the concern of government, though he is careful to caution that

This isn’t nanny-state paternalism but an accepted role of government: public health. If you support seat-belt, tobacco and alcohol laws, sewer systems and traffic lights, you should support legislation curbing the relentless marketing of soda and other foods that are hazardous to our health — including the sacred cheeseburger and fries.

No, Mr. Bittman, one doesn’t follow the other; furthermore, if I accept your premise, where does the other end? If I accept sewer systems, should I also be okay with my government controlling what I read, listen to, or watch? After all, for example, your paper has drawn a straight line from Sarah Palin, right-wing talk radio, and the Tea Party to Tuscon, and we certainly don’t want any more of that nasty business.

Anyway, Mr. Bittman’s laundry list of things he’d like to prohibit or subsidize reads like a page from the rules implementing the Communist Manifesto (parentheticals are mine):

-End government subsidies to processed food. (Hey, I’m fine with that.)
. . .
-Begin subsidies to those who produce and sell actual food for direct consumption. (Oh, I see. He’s not against subsidies; he’s against subsidies he doesn’t like. Never mind.)
. . .
-Outlaw concentrated animal feeding operations. (I’m on the bandwagon again!)
. . .
-Encourage the development of sustainable animal husbandry. (I’m beginning to detect a pattern here.)
. . .
-Encourage and subsidize home cooking. (A very distinct pattern.)

Mr. Bittman goes on and on and on, but you get the idea. I also get the idea that he reads from the same playbook Al Gore uses. Bittman writes,

It’s difficult to find a principled nutrition and health expert who doesn’t believe that a largely plant-based diet is the way to promote health and attack chronic diseases . . . (emphasis mine)

Note the word principled. It’s purpose in that sentence can best be understood through substition:

It’s difficult to find a nutrition and health expert I agree with who doesn’t believe that a largely plant-based diet is the way to promote health and attack chronic diseases . . . (emphasis mine again)

And that substitution illustrates perfectly Mr. Bittman’s approach to food in our lives. He doesn’t like who’s picking the winners right now, so he wants new ‘pickers,’ a bias he betrays in one more bullet point on his list of winners and losers:

-Break up the U.S. Department of Agriculture and empower the Food and Drug Administration.

There, he says to himself in a very self-satisfied way, that will fix it. My elites will do much better than that last batch of elites.

I agree wholeheartedly with one item on his bulleted list, though I might disagree with him on how the idea is implemented:

-Mandate truth in labeling. Nearly everything labeled “healthy” or “natural” is not. It’s probably too much to ask that “vitamin water” be called “sugar water with vitamins,” but that’s precisely what real truth in labeling would mean.

I’m all for more information, as long as we leave it at that and let the masses in the market decide what to do with that information. I’m also all for eliminating subsidies–totally. Shifting them from one set of winners to another doesn’t cut it.

I’m going to continue monitoring the Food Czar at The New York Times, if for no other reason than to make sure I get to read the rest of the story behind this little teaser:

(Someday soon, I’ll write about my idea for a new Civilian Cooking Corps.)

I can’t wait!! Visions of fair-skinned culinary school graduates dressed in lederhosen are dancing in my head as I write.

Can it be? We’ll have to wait and see. But right now I have to cook breakfast.

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By Gregory Taggart, January 24, 2011 10:05 am

I really was going to write about this, honest. Just couldn’t get to it until today. But given that the controversy has been written about extensively already, I’ll just note the following: the Facebook Post that prompted me to want to write about Beck v. Piven in the first place.

On Saturday, my Facebook “friend,” Bruce Bartlett, wrote “More evidence that Glenn Beck is an idiot.”

As you can see, the post linked to Brian Stetler’s New York Times piece in which Stetler attempts to draw a straight line from Beck’s discussion of Piven on his program to the alleged threats Piven claims to be receiving. Unfortunately for Stetler’s theory–or at least Piven’s–that line may run through a variety of Conservative Web sites, including one or more operated by Andrew Breitbart–a fact reported in paragraph 14 of Stetler’s story.

As I read Bartlett’s Facebook post and the underlying story, my first thought was: and your point is?

You write something. Someone else reads it and holds you to it, and I’m supposed to rally around your flag? When I write, I’m always hoping someone will read it. My suggestion? Frances, don’t get mad. Get even. Monetize this opportunity.

And back to Bartlett, a protege of the late Jude Wanniski. From Bartlett’s many Facebook posts decrying the Tea Party, Conservatives, etc. I’m beginning to think he’s becoming unhinged. Woudn’t want that to get around.

Edited: to clarify and to correct a couple of typos pointed out by a (my only?) reader.

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By Gregory Taggart, January 23, 2011 9:53 pm

And I’ll bet she never knew even a single Mormon. Based on Sally Quinn’s question to Mormon historian and Columbia history professor emeritus Richard Bushman, it’s a safe bet Sally hasn’t. Regardless, she’s a rather credulous journalist practicing a supposedly cynical and skeptical profession if her questions and musings on Mormonism are any indication.

In a Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life almost four years ago titled Mormonism and Politics: Are They Compatible? she first asks Bushman–a rather famous Mormon historian–if he’s a Mormon. When he responds yes, she responds, “I’m sure you have heard of Martha Beck.” Again, the answer is yes. After reviewing briefly who Beck is, for the benefit of people in attendance who may not have heard of her, and after mentioning Beck’s then-recent book Leaving the Saints,”** Quinn says,

[Beck] went back [to Brigham Young University] and had an absolutely horrendous experience. She wrote another book called Leaving the Saints. She finally did leave the church. In her book, she revealed that her father had sexually abused her when she was a child. She talked about how she went back, and she had this Ph.D. from Harvard, and she was trying to fit in and bring her child into it, but she went to work as a teacher at Brigham Young University and found that the church was very unaccepting, very dogmatic, and that she couldn’t teach what she wanted to teach. Because she spoke out against some of the beliefs, she was in effect banned or banished from the church, she and her husband. Finally, they actually had to move away to Arizona because it became so untenable a situation.

And I think that reading a book like that – I have no knowledge of Mormons at all, really, but reading Martha’s books, I was absolutely appalled at some of the things that I read about the Mormon Church and the closed-mindedness and demands on people that they adhere to the beliefs or they will get banished.

So I think that kind of story is where a lot of these perceptions come from. I don’t know whether every word she wrote was true or not. It sounded pretty true. I think that sets the stage for my next question, which is, How Mormon is Mitt Romney? I mean, is he someone who would adhere to all of the beliefs of the church? In Martha Beck’s case, when she went against church policy, she was banned or banished. Would that happen if Romney disagreed with the church, and particularly their positions on women? (all bolded emphasis supplied)

These statements from a journalist and co-founder of the Washington Post’s On Faith “feature,” are revealing, especially in the context the of On Faith’s mission statement, a statement written by Quinn and co-founder Jon Meacham:

Religion is the most pervasive yet least understood topic in global life.

Maybe even at The Washington Post.

From the caves of the Afghan-Pakistan border to the cul-de-sacs of the American Sunbelt, faith shapes and suffuses the way billions of people-Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, and nonbelievers-think and act, vote and fight, love and, tragically, hate. It is the most ancient of forces. As Homer said, “All men need the gods.” Even the most ferocious atheists find themselves doing intellectual battle on a field defined by forces of the faithful.

Seems as though Quinn and Meacham have pretty much staked out the religious terrain, which, according to them, runs from caves to cul-de-sacs. That pretty much leaves out L.A., New York City, D.C., Paris, London, and any other place where sophisticates gather to help the rest of us “understand” the “least understood topic in global life,” especially, it appears, if that topic is Mormonism.

And so, in a time of extremism — for extremism is to the 21st century what totalitarianism was to the 20th — how can people engage in a conversation about faith and its implications in a way that sheds light rather than generates heat?

And Quinn’s very uninformed opinion of Beck’s book? What kind of light does it shed?

At The Washington Post and Newsweek, we believe the first step is conversation-intelligent, informed, eclectic, respectful conversation-among specialists and generalists who devote a good part of their lives to understanding and delineating religion’s influence on the life of the world. The point of our new online religion feature is to provide a forum for such sane and spirited talk, drawing on a remarkable panel of distinguished figures from the academy, the faith traditions, and journalism. Members of the group will weigh in on a question posed at least once a week, perhaps sometimes more often, depending on the flow of the news. We encourage readers to join the conversation by commenting on what our panelists have to say, offering their own opinions and suggesting topics for future discussions.

From the nature of evil to religious reformation, from the morality of fetal stem-cell research to the history of scripture, from how to raise kids in multi-faith households to the place of gays in traditional churches — of the asking of questions, to paraphrase Ecclesiastes, there shall be no end. We think that the online world, with its limitless space, offers us a unique opportunity to carry on a fruitful, intriguing, and above all constructive conversation about the things that matter most.

Blah, blah, blah, blah. If Quinn’s knowledge of Mormonism says anything about her knowledge of religion in general, this “feature” is in trouble. If Quinn’s lack of research before she participated in that Pew Forum on Mormonism is any indication of her work ethic and research skills, I have to wonder about The Washington Post, given her station and tenure there. If her credulity with regards to Beck’s book is any indication, she’s not skeptical enough to be a good journalist.

*Quoted by Israel Shenker, “Critics Here Focus on Films As Language Conference Opens,” The New York Times (1972-12-28).

**By the way, if you’re interested in how horrible Beck’s book is, go here. It’s really, really, really bad.

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By Gregory Taggart, January 21, 2011 11:24 am

This morning, as I drove to meet my brother and sister-in-law for breakfast, NPR’s Morning Edition treated me to a teaser lead-in to a story that taxpayers were soon going to get back all the money the government had invested in AIG during the bailout. The actual story (which I cannot find online) confirmed the headline, though it sort of hedged with words like “depending on stock performance” and such.

I own shares in AIG. Prior to the bailout, I owned 20 Xs more shares–but that’s another story. Point is, I watch the stock and news about the stock. And I watched recently as the share price climbed above $52 a share on January 7 (I bought those shares at the reverse split-adjusted price of $43.60 on 9/18/08). Since that high, the share price has fallen precipitously to just over $42.00 as I write, almost a 20% decline in two weeks. In other words, I’m worse off than when I bought the shares over three years ago. So exactly how are the taxpayers getting paid back–soon–if the market value of AIG has decreased? I understand that the government and/or AIG may sell off operating companies and repay the debt from the proceeds. Do the value of the parts exceed the value of the whole?

Or is this more Prava-like reporting of the sort that the Seattle Times debunked this morning? Referring to the White House’s recent announcement of $19 billion in new Boeing jet orders, an announcement timed to coincide with the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao, reporter Dominic Gates writes,

The deal President Hu signed does not include any new jet orders.

Delivering the formal approval during Hu’s visit is designed to make the Chinese government appear responsive to U.S. concerns about the balance of trade.

However, all of the airplanes in the sale were announced and booked by Boeing as firm orders over the past four years. Chinese airlines had already paid nonrefundable deposits and signed contracts for the jets, most of them as far back as 2007.

Gates continues,

The White House announcement said the total value of the orders was $19 billion.

But that’s the list price, which airline customers never pay.

Based on market data from aircraft-valuation consultancy Avitas, the actual price for those 200 planes is about $11 billion.

To be fair, Gates points out that Boeing says that the Chinese government’s approval is important, but . . .

Summing up the deal, Gates closes with,

Our verdict: The Chinese orders are real and will help keep Boeing workers busy here through 2013. Still, the White House announcement, while technically true, left a completely false impression.

The orders weren’t new. They weren’t really worth $19 billion. And Boeing isn’t soaring ahead of its big global rival with this deal.

An accurate headline for the news might have said: Hu finally signs off on old orders for U.S. jets, but Boeing still lags Airbus in China.

Likewise, an accurate lead-in for the AIG story on NPR might have said: Taxpayers will recoup their investment in AIG if the stars align and the stock price ever gets high enough, but that’s far off in the future.

Update: I found a Reuters story that I think the NPR story was based on. The three nut paragraphs:

In its third report on the bailout of AIG, the GAO said U.S. taxpayers’ risk exposure to the insurer increasingly is expected to be tied to the success of AIG and its value as seen by investors in the company’s common stock.

“The government’s ability to fully recoup the federal assistance will be determined by the long-term health of AIG,” the report said.

A Treasury official said taxpayers were in a strong position to recover “every dollar put into AIG.” (emphasis supplied)

I’m virtually certain the two quotes appeared in the NPR story. The second quote resembles the NPR headline. Alert readers will notice that the first quote basically takes all the zing out of the second, and thus the headline of the NPR story.

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By Gregory Taggart, January 18, 2011 9:46 am

Like maybe standing up straight and looking Hu in the eye, for example?

This was too easy.

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By Gregory Taggart, January 17, 2011 1:08 pm

Financial columnist and Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman has a decent piece in the New York Times about the Euro crisis, titled Can Europe Be Saved? I won’t spend any time debating what he says about the Euro. In fact, he seems spot on to me; however, in telling the story of the Euro’s problems, Krugman refuses to discuss the elephant in the room, the very same elephant he introduces at the beginning of his piece, but only to praise what he calls “perhaps the most decent societies in human history.” Why? Because the European countries “combin[ed] democracy and human rights with a level of individual economic security that America comes nowhere close to matching.”

As Krugman argues in the second paragraph of the story:

Not long ago Europeans could, with considerable justification, say that the current economic crisis was actually demonstrating the advantages of their economic and social model. Like the United States, Europe suffered a severe slump in the wake of the global financial meltdown; but the human costs of that slump seemed far less in Europe than in America. In much of Europe, rules governing worker firing helped limit job loss, while strong social-welfare programs ensured that even the jobless retained their health care and received a basic income. Europe’s gross domestic product might have fallen as much as ours, but the Europeans weren’t suffering anything like the same amount of misery. And the truth is that they still aren’t. (elephant in bold)

I’ll come back to that elephant in a moment. But first, a summary of Krugman’s story of the Euro: Essentially, European leaders made the case for a single European currency by citing facts that supported a single European market–ignoring the fact that the case for the former was much weaker than the case for the latter. Yes, a single currency would make for easier trading among countries and peoples: Italians visiting England could do so without changing currencies; Germans and French could set contract prices without worrying about fluctuations in the exchange rate. But, if Spain’s real estate market tanked or if Ireland tipped uncomfortably on the edge of bankruptcy, an important tool would no longer be available to them to help resolve the crisis: They could no longer devalue their currencies to deal with wage and prices that are out of line.

In short, those countries no longer have flexible exchange rates in their tool boxes, and as Kruman writes,

These achievements [aka the elephant] are now in the process of being tarnished, as the European dream turns into a nightmare for all too many people. How did that happen?

He then launches into an interesting story of the Coal and Steel Community, Emulsified High-Fat Offal Tubes, the transition to the Euro, and what he calls the Iceland-Brooklyn issue, essentially a metaphor that illustrates what Milton Friedman said, as paraphrased by Krugman: “forming a currency union [such as what Europe did with the Euro] means sacrificing flexibility. As they say, read the whole thing.

Now back to the elephant. Krugman hinted at the elephant problem in that last block quote, but he never draws a bright line from those very expansive, very strong, and way too expensive social-welfare programs and the equally strong labor protections to the economic crisis at hand. That may to too much for the Nobel Prize-winning economist to admit to, given his praise for these “most decent societies.” He does–in spite of himself, but to his credit–draw some dotted lines, as he discusses wage demands, real estate bubbles, borrowing, and the like.

He fails miserably, however, when he discusses the public debt crisis–take Greece for example–and never once ties that debt crisis directly to the social-welfare safety net and labor protections in Europe.

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By Gregory Taggart, January 16, 2011 7:39 pm

I’ve always wondered why the front page of The New York Times has no hyperlink to Religion in its online edition. There’s a link to U.S. and N.Y./Region, to Technology and Sports, to Science, Business, Arts, and Sports, among others, but Religion? Apparently not important enough or big enough for a link of its own.

What about The Washington Post? I wondered. Sally Quinn used to edit a section or department called something like On Faith, I remembered, largely because I recalled reading a panel discussion where she betrayed an almost total–maybe it was total–lack of knowledge about Mormonism, my faith. In fact, the only knowledge she had came from Martha Beck’s horrible little book Leaving the Saints. So I check out The Post, and to my surprise, there is a hyperlink to a Religion section on the front page. The link leads to On Faith. Sally Quinn lives!

Of course, even The Times covers religion, where the practice seems to be to cover the subject by region of the World. For instance, The Vatican Welcomes First Anglicans appears in a subsection devoted to Europe, Egypt Sentences Muslim appears in the subsection Middle East.

But The Post’s, approach is more deliberate and gives the impression that the paper takes religion more seriously. That said, Sally Quinn is in charge, so the religion of choice is often the United Church of Perpetual Palin Bashing (the comment at 8:48 PM on January 16 is priceless, reminding me of James Taranto’s Two Papers in One nuggets in Best of Web, which always seems to catch one section of The Times contradicting the other).

Anyway, unless I missed something, The New York Times, its failure to give religion its own section or department is an important and telling omission. Not that The Times ignores the subject. But hey, religion and belief (or non-belief) are a major part of our culture. In contrast, The Washington Post at least has a section devoted to religion and faith. Does the difference matter? Is the difference more than skin deep? I hope to answer these and other questions over the next few weeks.

Next Sunday, I’ll sample the writing on the subject of religion in each paper to see if The Times can redeem itself.