http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/10/16/colorado.balloon.media.spotlight/index.html
’nuff said.
Archive for the ‘Journalism’ Category
And this is why we wouldn’t let anyone interview our daughter this summer…
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King Richard’s Faire in the news
Sunday, September 27th, 2009Well, she made it sound like I’m the only King Richard’s Faire patron who ever complained about it, said nothing about the fact that more importantly than the Kosher thing, the Faire’s policies discriminate painfully (literally) against people with medical conditions, let stand unchallenged a statement from the owner of the Faire that her policies are meant “to be fair to all visitors,” and said nothing about the fact that there is widespread hatred among the cast of the faire for the way the owner treats them and the vendors (of course, it’s possible that she was unable to get anyone to make such statements on the record, given that it would guarantee that they’d never work at the Faire again).
Nevertheless, Erica Noonan’s story in today’s Boston Globe does mention briefly what happened to us, and mentions that the Connecticut Faire is significantly cheaper, lets people bring in their own food, allows people to leave and re-enter the Faire, and has several acts that defected from KRF. So it’s not a total loss.
Click here to read the article if you’re curious.
The Obamas’ date in NYC: letter to the editor the Herald didn’t print
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009I sent this letter to the Boston Herald on June 8. Unfortunately, they declined to print it. Although I wasn’t reading the entire paper every single day around that time, I don’t recall the Herald printing a single letter, column or article defending the Obamas against the attacks on them for their “date night” in New York City. Shame on the Herald.
Another letter in the Herald
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009Here’s what I wrote:
To the editor:
Donnie Feener’s willingness to take time out of his own life and undergo painful surgery to donate bone marrow to save the life of a stranger is truly admirable.
Unfortunately, many patients who need transplants are unable to obtain them because a matching donor cannot be found.
Finding donors is particularly difficult for patients in certain minority groups, such as African Americans or Hispanics, because those groups are tragically underrepresented in bone-marrow registries.
There are frequent registration drives in the Boston area, and the cost of joining the registry is waived at many drives (to locate a drive near you, visit www.marrow.org and click on “Join the Registry” and then “Join in Person”).
Although some donations require surgery, many are instead accomplished through a virtually painless apheresis procedure that requires little, if any, recovery time.
Many tragic stories published in the Herald have had happy endings because your readers reached out to lend a hand. Surely if Joe Fitzgerald explained how easily your readers could save a life, they would jump at the chance.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Kamens
Here’s what they published:
Donnie Feener’s willingness to undergo painful surgery to donate bone marrow to save a stranger’s life is admirable (“Ex-sailor puts teen stranger’s life first,” May 4).
Unfortunately, many patients who need transplants are unable to obtain them because a matching donor cannot be found. Finding donors is particularly difficult for certain minorities who are underrepresented in bone-marrow registries.
There are frequent registration drives here, and the cost of joining is often waived (www.marrow.org). Although some donations require surgery, many are accomplished through a virtually painless apheresis procedure that requires little, if any, recovery time.
Many tragic stories in the Herald have had happy endings because readers have lent a hand. If readers knew how easily they could save a life, they’d jump at the chance.
- Jonathan Kamens, Brighton
Leave Louis Woodward alone
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008In response to “Killer nanny reinvents self as dance teacher in England” in today’s Boston Herald:
To the editor:
It is unfathomable to me why the Boston Herald thinks that how Louise Woodward is living her life is, or should be, news to your readers.
Every bit of Woodward’s conduct since Matthew Eappen’s tragic death has made it clear that even if she was responsible, it was nothing more than a tragic mistake. She is of no danger to anyone and thus should be of no interest to anyone.
It’s truly appalling to watch an unscrupulous reporter attempting to ruin Woodward’s life by spreading her past around to people who had no need to know it.
Please, leave Louise Woodward alone.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Kamens
Outrageously biased BBC News Hour story about the blockade of Gaza
Tuesday, April 15th, 2008To: worldservice@bbc.co.uk
Cc: letters@camera.org, kklose@npr.org, info@wbur.bu.edu
To whom it may concern:
I just heard on the BBC News Hour, broadcast on the NPR station WBUR of Boston, an outrageously one-sided story about Hamas and the blockade of Gaza.
Idiots who don’t know the difference between Democrat vs. Democrat and Democrat vs. Republican
Monday, March 10th, 2008Opines Mark Nevins, communications director for Clinton’s campaign in Pennsylvania, in a Reuters article: “You can’t really expect to win the general election if you can’t win Pennsylvania.”
Leaving aside for the moment the fact that Mr. Nevins is going to feel awfully stupid about having made that comment to the press if Clinton ends up losing in Pennsylvania on April 22… Why are there so many pundits, campaign staffers, academics, etc. who seem to fail to understand the obvious fact that Democrat vs. Democrat during the primary is completely different from Democrat vs. Republican in the general election?
When Clinton runs against Obama in the Pennsylvania primary, it’s a Democrat competing against a Democrat, with only Democrats voting on their preferred candidate. The result of this primary is only marginally relevant to the question of whether either candidate will be able to win the state in the general election, because the plain fact is that in November, the vast majority of registered Democrats who vote in November are going to back whoever the Democratic candidate is.
In states with open primaries, i.e., where people can choose in which primary they wish to vote, the results are even less meaningful. Now that McCain has sewn up the Republican nomination, many Republicans in such states will cross over and vote for whichever Democratic candidate they think McCain is more likely to beat in November.
The real question is not who can win the primary, but rather how many Clinton supporters will stay home or vote for McCain if Obama ends up being the candidate, and vice versa. There are polls which claim to try to answer this question, but frankly, I think they have little bearing on reality this far before the election.
Thomas: No Questions in 2 Years
Monday, February 25th, 2008The Associated Press ran an article recently about the fact that Clarence Thomas hasn’t asked a single question during oral arguments in the Supreme Court in over two years. Apparently, the last time he asked a question was on February 22, 2006, 144 cases ago.
Thomas claims that he doesn’t need to ask questions to do the job. When asked at a speaking engagement why his colleagues ask so many questions, he responded, “That’s a fine question. When you figure out the answer, you let me know.” He has also said that he sees no need to engage in the back-and-forth just to hear his own voice, which would seem to imply that he believes some of his colleagues do exactly that. These statements surely do nothing to endear him to his colleagues on the Court, but at least he’s being honest.
I’m no fan of Clarence Thomas, but it seems to me that he’s not being paid to ask questions; he’s being paid to produce opinions. Therefore, how many opinions he has authored seems like a far better measure of whether he’s doing his job than is how many questions he has asked. By that measure, he seems to be holding his own. I looked at all of the decisions issued by the Court in the name of a particular Justice since February 22, 2006. Here’s how many were authored by each Justice:
| Justice | # of decisions |
|---|---|
| Stevens | 21 |
| Scalia | 19 |
| Roberts | 17 |
| Kennedy | 17 |
| Ginsburg | 17 |
| Breyer | 17 |
| Thomas | 16 |
| Souter | 14 |
| Alito | 11 |
From these numbers, it appears that althought Thomas is not exactly a shining star in the firmament of Supreme Court Justices, he’s also not the do-nothing which the AP article might have us believe.
On the other hand, a more comprehensive analysis, which I am not qualified to perform and wouldn’t have the time for even if I were, would be to examine the complexity of the decisions issued by the Court in that time period with the goal of determining whether Thomas or any other Justice is authoring more “light-weight” decisions than the others.
I think it’s rather interesting that the author of the AP article, Mark Sherman, didn’t include an analysis of this sort. It’s a rather obvious thing to do, so I wonder if perhaps Mr. Sherman omitted it because it did not serve his agenda.
Smear campaign against Barack Obama targeted at Jews
Monday, February 25th, 2008I have been reluctant to write here about the smear campaign against Barack Obama that has been targeted at Jews. I had hoped that people would recognize it as the despicable pack of lies that it most surely is, but alas, it seems that some are not, so I feel the need to speak out.
I will tell you up-front that I voted for Obama in the primary and I hope to have the chance to vote for him in November. However, I hope that even were I not an Obama supporter, I would still be appalled at the character assassination being attempted by other Jews.
Letting blind people drive
Monday, February 18th, 2008On the topic of mandatory periodic retesting of senior citizens when they renew their driver’s licenses, my wife recently had this letter printed in the Boston Herald (under the completely nonsensical headline “Rights watered down”, thus proving yet again that the Herald really needs to hire some better headline writers):
Over a decade ago, it was a joke: A BU professor involved in a conference on rights for people with disabilities was hosting a visiting Italian professor. The visitor asked why the crosswalk light was beeping. “It’s for people who can’t see,” our professor explained. Her colleague yelled, “You let blind people drive?”
Apparently, now we do.
The story about the older men losing their eyesight (“What does being old have to do with it?” Feb. 12) was like running a sob story about an alcoholic who knows he will drive drunk but wants to be cut some slack to maim or kill since he visits his sister and likes to shop in Lynn.
We are not talking about “bad” drivers; anyone can be a bad driver and learn to be better one. We are talking about impaired drivers.
Older citizens should be using their political acumen to improve transportation and community networks so that individual cars are not lifelines, not lobbying for the right to knowingly drive impaired.
A… Kamens
