Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 53

Steubenville Redux

As you may have heard, one of the perps in the notorious rape case has been allowed to return to the football team.  Good new Cleveland Plain Dealer piece on how this has (again) divided the town.

"It shows they don't care at all about women, they just care about their football team,'' she said. "That's just promoting rape culture. It's just saying, 'That's OK for you to do those things, but you're a good football player and what you did doesn't really matter to us.'"

Steubenville football coach Reno Saccoccia this week told WTOV-TV Channel 9 that Richmond has been back in school since January, after completing his sentence. He said Richardson earned his place on the team.

Only a Pawn in Their Game

Dylan,  at the March on Washington, 1963.   Song starts at 3:30.  Introduced  by Ossie Davis.

Wade in the (Hot) Water

Bother anyone else that this book on genetics and race has been debunked by so many experts (perhaps a record number for a major book) and called "racist" by some--and the author is a former longtime NYT science writer, Nicholas Wade?  The Times trusted this guy with journalism on an almost weekly basis?

They write: "Wade juxtaposes an incomplete and inaccurate account of our research on human genetic differences with speculation that recent natural selection has led to worldwide differences in I.Q. test results, political institutions and economic development. We reject Wade’s implication that our findings substantiate his guesswork. They do not." 

If there's been a more thorough repudiation of a responsible publisher's nonfiction work by experts in its field in recent years, we haven't seen it. (The publisher is Penguin Press.)

Arthur Tribute To Robin Williams

Fine rocker/singer/songwriter Joseph Arthur already out with tribute song for Robin Williams.

Another Shooting in Ferguson

Just updated by St. Louis paper--man critically wounded by police near spot of fatal shooting of Mike Brown and ongoing protests. Man accused of pointing gun and claim of gun recovered at scene.  Also:  after peaceful rallies last night, more trouble and tear gas in early hours.  A woman was shot in the head in a drive-by but not known if related at all to the protests. 

Snowden Gets 'Wired'

They pay Edward a visit.  And video below.

Fallon: Lost in Spacey

Here's part two of Jimmy's "House of Cards" parody (with Ellen Barkin and cameo by an "Orange is the New Black" character).

AP Journo Killed in Gaza

It's Simone Camilli, a videographer, and the first foreign journalist to die there (after a good number of locals).   AP reports:  "An Associated Press video journalist has been killed in an ordnance explosion in the Gaza Strip, together with a Palestinian translator and three members of the Gaza police. Simone Camilli, 35, died Wednesday when Gaza police engineers were neutralizing unexploded ordnance in the Gaza town of Beit Lahiya left over from fighting between Israel and Islamic militants.

"Camilli and a translator working with the AP, Ali Shehda Abu Afash, were accompanying the ordnance team on assignment when the explosion occurred. The police said four other people were seriously injured, including AP photographer Hatem Moussa. Camilli, an Italian national, had worked for The Associated Press since 2005."

Tuesday Music Picks, Special Woodstock Edition

Special Woodstock edition, marking 45th anniversary of the famous fest coming later this week.  So, below, all from performers who performed, and all live, though not necessarily from Woodstock. (See, earlier today, my two cuts from The Band.)  First up, The Who, talking bout their/our/my generation. Next, Creedence (like The Band and Janis Joplin, they were cut of the film version) visit the bayou.

 Next,  Janis at Monterey on the night that made her career.  Many forget the opening day Woodstock was folkie-oriented, including the great Tim Hardin.  Here he is a few years later in a live duet with...Twiggy.

Iron Dome Cracked?

Ted Postol has been around a long time and is something of a controversial figure, but his seemingly too cynical claims about lack of success of our old Patriot missiles turned out to be on the money so why not now?  He surfaced a week or so ago with claims that Israel's much-ballyhooed Iron Dome actually wasn't destroying nearly as many Hamas rockets as claimed.  Now, based on this TPM story, he is getting support from some other experts.  Jury still out, however.

My concern, as usual, is with media reporting and bias, and if Postol is even halfway right,  U.S. media outlets (which usually fail to question official Isareli military sources) have been hoodwinked on this, repeatedly referring to the amazing track record of Iron Dome.  But in a way, it's part of the propaganda battle.  Israel wants people to believe that Hamas rockets would be killing thousands of their citizens (instead of two or three) if not for the Dome.  The flip side is that these rockets are very small, crude, unguided devices with little or no warheads which basically just cause damage from their weight crashing into a wall without a huge explosion--and the vast majority just land in the desert.  So if a Dome missile, as Postol claims, explodes near the rocket but doesn't destroy it and it continues on--and does the usual damage (very little or none)--that's quite a different media story.

So it's important for the IDF--via friendly media--to point to the Dome rather than the rather pathetic nature of the Hamas arsenal. If the Dome has actually performed very spotty, that changes perceptions a bit.