| Number 185 | December 27, 2002 |
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This Week:
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Greetings, Reader Richard said to me that it would be a great idea to publish an “All-‘Quote’” issue of Nygaard Notes, and so it is. I figured the end-of-the-year issue would be the ideal time to do it. If I wanted to, I could publish a whole issue of “Quotes” of the Week that never got published. I typically nominate several before I select each week’s “winner” of the prestigious title of “Quote” of the Week. Two words about the “Quotes.” The word “Quote” is usually a verb, not a noun, so the section really should be called “Quotation of the Week.” Reader Aaron—a self-described “persnickety grammarian”—made this clear to me, but I like the sound of the shorter word, so now my grammatical error perpetually appears in quotation marks. Secondly, there are a few different reasons for choosing these quotations to highlight. Rather than explaining again what they are, you could go back and read my explanation “About the ‘Quote’ of the Week,”published in Nygaard Notes #121. Next week, if you wanna know, I plan to have a “Year In Review,” functioning as a sort of informal index to the year 2002. After that, we’ll plow into the new year, with who-knows-what on the agenda. See you next year! Nygaard |
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January 4: During a November visit with President Bush in Washington, South Africa’s Nelson Mandela expressed his unconditional support for the U.S. anti-terrorism effort, including the attack on Afghanistan. This week he acknowledged that those statements “may have been one-sided and overstated.” As reported in the New York Times (“All the News That’s Fit to Print”) on January 3rd: “In his public statement, Mr. Mandela questions the ‘labeling of Osama bin Laden as the terrorist responsible for those acts before he has been tried and convicted,’ a step that ‘could also be seen as undermining some of the basic tenets of the rule of law.’” January 11: “Many individuals’ suicidal depression is socially constructed and produced. The cure is to rectify the social injustice, not just the individual pathology.” Ronald Maris, Ph.D., of the Center for the Study of Suicide at the University of South Carolina. January 18: “Compounding the tragedy of loss of life, suicide evokes complicated and uncomfortable reactions in most of us. Too often, we blame the victim and stigmatize the surviving family members and friends. These reactions add to the survivors’ burden of hurt, intensify their isolation, and shroud suicide in secrecy. Unfortunately, secrecy and silence diminish the accuracy and amount of information available about persons who have completed suicide— information that might help prevent other suicides.” Surgeon General David Satcher, in his Call to Action to Prevent Suicide, 1999 March 8: From “Internal Displacement in Afghanistan: A Briefing Paper for the Afghanistan Support Group Meeting in Geneva,” March 2002: “More than half of the current caseload of Internally Displaced Persons was already displaced prior to the bombing campaign. Most of them had fled consecutive years of drought or the conflict between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance. The recent bombing campaign triggered new waves of displacement with people fleeing urban centres in fear for their lives. Central, South and East regions were particularly affected by displacement. Conservative estimates put the number of people displaced since September 2001 at 300,000.” April 19: Carmella Coyle, senior vice-president of the American Hospital Association, commenting on the fact that one in three hospitals in the United States—two out of three in urban areas—are now reporting that their emergency rooms are so crowded that they are forced to turn away ambulances: “Emergency department overcrowding itself is a symptom. It’s a symptom of a health care system that’s broken.” May 17: “With fifty percent of American children living in something other than a married-couple family with both biological parents present, and with the tremendous variety of male and female responsibilities in today's different families, the time for abstract pronouncements about good or bad family structures and correct or incorrect parental roles is past. How a family functions is more important than its structure or its formal roles.” Family sociologist and author Stephanie Coontz May 24: When welfare recipients approach their “five-year limit” for receiving benefits in Minnesota, they undergo an “exit interview” and assessment. Reporting on what welfare workers are learning, the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!) of May 5th had this to say, and I reprint several of the key sentences: “The scope of [long-term welfare recipients’] problems has surprised even longtime welfare workers. ‘The results of the assessments have been astounding to us,’ said Jan Mueller, who oversees the welfare program for about 1,000 recipients at Lifetrack Resources in St. Paul. ‘We were amazed at the low IQ levels...and learning disabilities,’ she said. ‘And more people had [physical] disabilities than we ever anticipated—everything from a person's ability to hold a pencil, to their ability to stand in a work environment. ‘A lot of these things had simply gone unnoticed and unreported,’ Mueller said. ‘What we've found are very obvious reasons why they've been on welfare a long time.’” May 31: “Although reduced caseloads are often cited as evidence of welfare reform’s success, such numbers say nothing of the quality of life these families find waiting for them once they have entered the labor market. It is their experiences that tell us whether the 1996 reform really worked. By this measure, the reform’s success is less than laudable.” Heather Boushey, in a March 2002 Briefing Paper from the Economic Policy Institute, “Former Welfare Families Need More Help: Hardships Await Those Making Transition to Workforce” November 8: “Meaning is extremely malleable.” Gary Burns, Professor of Communication at Northern Illinois University, commenting on the use of “anti-establishment” rock-and-roll songs being used in commercials to sell things like the Jaguar and the Mercedes Benz. The New York Times had him adding that “Giving songs new meanings works for advertisements.” November 22: Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, writing in the influential journal for journalists, the Columbia Journalism Review, the September/October edition, said: “In Pew’s biennial survey this year...public interest in international news...showed a small increase, but most Americans continue to pay attention to international news only when something important is happening.” Mr. Kohut did not speculate as to how often it was that the activities of 95 percent of the world’s population is “unimportant,” nor how the average United Statesian would arrive at this determination. Gratuitous Extra “Quote” of the Week, November 22: This is from the same edition of the Columbia Journalism Review, this time in an article entitled “Public Radio: Firewalls and Funding,” by Judith Hepburn Blank. “As government funding for public radio has dwindled in the last decade, stations have been forced to replace it with private money. This, in turn, has led to new partnerships, sometimes with businesses and foundations that have an interest in what gets broadcast. At the same time, NPR and much of public radio has moved from being an alternative news source to a mainstream one, ratcheting up the stakes for advertisers and sponsors (“underwriters” and “funders”) who now expect more bang for their bucks—more listeners for their messages. “Programming and content decisions [at National Public Radio] are made independently of the development office, and NPR has rules against accepting funds for covering specific issues. But there is some concern that success might spoil NPR. As the stakes rise, says [NPR ombudsman Jeffrey] Dvorkin, programming tends to become risk averse. ‘No one comes down to the news department and says, “Do more stories that are more accessible to a larger audience,” but I think that we’ve become addicted to money. And that becomes a kind of self-censorship; we know, at a sub-conscious level, what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable.’” December 6: When in need of comic relief, turn to the advertising press, I always say. And once again this week, they have come through. The Advertising column of the New York Times (“All the News That’s Fit to Print”) of November 21st, focused on the cranking up of a new advertising campaign to resurrect the neglected product known as “Mr. Coffee.” In this column, amid much tedious advertising minutiae (such as how to “contemporize” the product and deal with the “sexist” name of “Mr. Coffee”), we find the following gem from one Jonah Disend, who is a “corporate-identity consultant”: “We forget that coffee is like a drug for many people.” So much like a drug, it IS a drug, some might say. |
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Favorite Nygaard Notes “Quotes” of the Week 2002: Special War Against Terror (WAT?!) Section |
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February 22: “Today we are threatened by a new simplistic approach that reduces all the problems in the world to the struggle against terrorism. This is not well thought-out.” French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine, quoted in the Associated Press on February 7, 2002 April 12: “But now everyone is cashing in on the ‘war against terror’. When Macedonian cops gun down seven Arabs, they announce that they are participating in the global ‘war on terror’. When Russians massacre Chechens, they are now prosecuting the ‘war on terror’. When Israel fires at Arafat's headquarters, it says it is participating in the ‘war on terror’. Must we all be hijacked into America's dangerous self-absorption with the crimes of 11 September? Must this vile war between Palestinians and Israelis be distorted in so dishonest a way?” from “The Lies Leaders Tell When They Want to Go to War” by Robert Fisk UK Independent March 30, 2002 June 28: Here is Secretary of Defense (i.e., War) Donald Rumsfeld, explaining why the United States will not cooperate in any way with the newly-empowered International Criminal Court, which has been created to try individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide: “The International Criminal Court’s entry into force on July 1st means that our men and women in uniform—as well as current and future U.S. officials—could be at risk of prosecution by the ICC. [For this reason, the ICC] could well create a powerful disincentive for U.S. military engagement in the world.” He makes that sound like a negative thing! July 12: This week “President” Bush was forced to defend his serving on the board of directors of Harken Energy Corporation, yet another corporation that cooked its books in order to hide “huge losses” from the public. Asked if he approved of the illegal transaction at the time, “Bush shrugged,” according to the New York Times. The local paper reported that Bush “appeared irritated by the questioning” from reporters, and his answer to one of the questions was, “All I can tell you is that in the corporate world, sometimes things aren't exactly black and white when it comes to accounting procedures,” the Conniver-in-Chief stated. That didn’t go over too well, and (here’s the “Quote” of the Week): “[The President] glared at reporters in the White House briefing room when he heard titters after that answer.” FINALLY we get a report that the press corps is laughing at the President! July 19: “But the problem with the West and its media, including The Wall Street Journal, is that the only Iraqi mentioned among 25 million is President Saddam Hussein. The only approach they have to one of the world's oldest and most sophisticated cultures is devastating sanctions and military enforcement. The only perspective they have is their own and it seems to be beyond dispute that they have a moral right to bomb societies and oust leaders they just do not like. How the Iraqis think and feel after the wars with Iran, with Kuwait, with each other, with the West and after 12 years of utterly inhuman sanctions is of no concern.” from Press Info #152, “A U.S. War Against Iraq must Be Prevented Now,” a publication of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research. Read it at http://www.transnational.org/pressinf/2002/pf152_IraqUSwar.html. August 30: Here are the words of Phyllis Bennis, fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, speaking of the apparent differences of opinion among elites on the wisdom of attacking Iraq that we are increasingly seeing in the corporate media: “This division in Washington has filtered down to mainstream journalists and producers, as well as policy-makers themselves. [They understand] that there’s no one opinion on this and, in that moment, it means they are willing to hear other voices. That means that the importance of public voices—people calling their members of Congress, writing letters to the editor, sending faxes to their Senator—all of those things that we do all the time, have more importance than ever right now, because [elites are] divided. They’re divided, and they’ve got the November elections in their minds. They’re waiting to see: Are they going to pay a higher price for going to war, or a higher price for avoiding war? If they think they will pay a higher price for going to war, those troops will not be sent, Iraqi babies will not be slaughtered, the billions it would cost will stay here at home—things could be a lot better. It really matters what people do in the next several months." September 27: “The list of UN Security Council resolutions violated by Iraq cited by President Bush pales in comparison to the list of UN Security Council resolutions currently being violated by U.S. allies. Not only has the United States not suggested invading these countries, the U.S. has blocked sanctions or other means of enforcing them and even provides the military and economic aid that helps make these ongoing violations possible.” Author and scholar Stephen Zunes, from a September 13 article entitled “Bush's United Nations Speech Unconvincing.” Read the article on the website of Foreign Policy in Focus at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0209bushspeech_body.html. October 4: On September 27th, 2002, at a Republican fundraiser in Flagstaff, Arizona, George W. Bush uttered the following words: “To work for peace—that’s my goal.” October 11: The New York Times (“All the News That’s Fit to Print”) of October 10th reported on the CIA’s report that Saddam Hussein does not pose much of a threat to the U.S. The Pentagon and the “President,” of course, have been telling us that Iraq is the greatest threat in the history of the world. Here’s the Times’ comment on the rift among the elites: “Some officials say the differences reflect the CIA’s and White House’s different roles. The CIA has to maintain its credibility for objective estimates. The White House is mobilizing the public and preparing foreign nations for a potential American invasion of Iraq.” October 25: “A pre-emptive go-it-alone strategy toward Iraq is wrong. I oppose it.” Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone 1944-2002 |