Posted under Uncategorized on Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 11:52 pm
(photo credit: Steve Clemons, The Washington Note)
(This article is appearing simultaneously at TheAtlantic.com)
News is breaking that the prosecutor's case in the rape allegations against former IMF Director and French political kingpin Dominique Strauss-Kahn is collapsing.
According to reports, the accuser who worked at New York's Hotel Sofitel has allegedly been engaged in money laundering activities and has had substantial contact with an incarcerated drug dealer. Strauss-Kahn's bails and terms of detention are reportedly going to be lightened today -- and others are suggesting that felony charges may be dropped against him.
Maybe he did harass this woman -- but it is also possible that he did not. That's what the system of justice is for -- to presume innocence until guilt is determined. That no longer sounds likely in this case.
But this week, former French Finance Minister Christine Legarde was named Strauss-Kahn's successor at the International Monetary Fund, and back at home, French Socialist Party Leader Martine Aubry declared her candidacy for President.
Strauss-Kahn, who may be innocent, who even Sarkozy said should be presumed innocent unless evidence led to a different conclusion, now cannot return either to the IMF or to his position as the next likely President of France.
One of the fears that I often hear from people when talking about the growing power of social network sites, blogs, as well as micro-journalism and micro-comment platforms is the one of scandalmongering, or a tsunami of mistruths and reputational attacks that take down some high profile person.
A good read on this sort of thing is the late William Safire's historical novel, Scandalmonger, which shares what slander blogging might have been like in late 18th century America in the person of James Callender who doggedly pursued, occasionally inventing, sleazy stories about both Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson.
I have generally argued, and may be wrong, that the internet is a much more honest and disciplining arena than print, that errors, mistakes, or misreporting would be instantaneously sniffed out and corrected by a global audience. I know I have gotten things wrong before and had emails or posted comments that helped me put my information on a better, more accurate track. But that isn't always the case, particularly in growing clusters of same-thinking people who care less about sorting out the facts than they do about the frame (or bias) they bring to some respective issue.
But in today's fast-paced world, a reputation can be destroyed rapidly -- and if, as in the case of Strauss-Kahn it seems, the consequences of charges made actually precede the processing of those charges, then we as a society are no longer extending the benefits of presumed innocence that are core to our form of democracy and our legal system.
I realize given the proliferation of commentary about Strauss-Kahn's alleged womanizing and the bandwaggoning criticism of him that built after his arrest that he is perhaps a flawed and tragic figure.
But the problem of reputation wrecked still stands whether the target is warm and likeable or a brilliant storm, as I see Strauss-Kahn, and that lesson is a bad one for people on the internet, who are becoming commentators and writers, to learn. They see the successful effects of attack, whether based in truth and credibility or not, and sense that the downsides of backlash and consequence to an accuser's or scandalmongerer's credibility are not serious.
When Georgia State USDA rural development director Shirley Sherrod was fired by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack for making 'alleged' racially-tinged remarks, we also saw consequences meted out before the entire story of that video, brought to light by Andrew Breitbart, was properly considered.
There is no clear fix to these problems. We don't have a system that would let Strauss-Kahn have his job back, and Aubry is not likely to step aside in her presidential quest and let DSK go back and take the top spot challenging Sarkozy.
Again, I am not saying that I know if he did or didn't engage in lewd conduct against a hotel chambermaid -- but his legally-based presumed innocence has been inconsequential to the penalties that he's already received, and that's something that should worry us.
-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic and can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons
Posted under Technology on Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 11:34 pm
AFP - Japanese office equipment and camera maker Ricoh on Friday said it would acquire Hoya Corporation's Pentax digital camera business in a deal effective October.
Posted under Technology on Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 11:23 pm
AFP - A vengeful Australian man who wrote on his Facebook page he was "bout to kill ma kid" minutes before stabbing his two-year-old daughter to death was jailed for life on Friday.
Posted under Uncategorized on Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 10:53 pm
By Leonard Maltin
Stupid Movie Season continues apace, but there are alternatives for any smart moviegoer who wants to make the effort. If you still haven't seen Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, Michael Winterbottom's The Trip, or Don McGlynn's Rejoice and Shout, you owe yourself that triple-treat. As usual, a couple of documentaries have commanded their fair share of attention alongside fictional fare.
What's more, two of the year's most interesting films are now available for viewing on demand, as well as on DVD: Barney's Version, a free adaptation of Mordecai Richler's novel starring Paul Giamatti as a lifelong wastrel who finally finds true love, in spite of himself, and the stunning French import Of Gods and Men, which takes place in Algeria, where an outpost of Trappist monks must decide whether it is safe for them to stay and continue their mission.
Posted under Technology on Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 10:45 pm
Reuters - Thais face jail if they campaign during Sunday's election on social media sites such as Twitter, with more than 100 police monitoring sites to make sure the law is enforced.
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Posted under Uncategorized on Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 10:30 pm
Israeli artist Ori Gersht has two new shows at Angles Gallery in Los Angeles, which both examine cultural heritage and memory. "Falling Petals" examines the significance of the cherry blossoms in Japanese culture. Cherry Blossoms boom for a short time every year and have appropriated many meanings throughout Japanese history.
Gersht's film "You Will Dance For Me" features Auschwitz survivor Yehudit Arnon, who, at 19 years old was forced to dance for Nazi officers at their Christmas Party. Arnon refused and vowed that if she survived she would dedicate her life to dance, and she did. At 85, she has restricted mobility, but in Gersht's video portrait of her, she dances one more time.
Posted under Uncategorized on Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 9:16 pm
By moving from its usual big top on Randall's Island to the magnificence of Radio City Music Hall, Zarkana ups its theatrical impact. Set in an abandoned theater in a stylized art deco New York, the latest Cirque extravaganza is darker, more mysterious and cinematic than its predecessors.
Billed as a rock opera, Zarkana has borrowed its visual cues from Art Nouveau, Klimt and the colorful film Moulin Rouge. Its multimedia set design and choreography is wildly artistic -- and more than a little menacing. And it's that dreamy, otherworld aura that best utilizes Radio City's superb technical capabilities.
Set designer Stephane Roy's singular landscape, coupled with beautiful lighting and inspired costumes, propel the tale of Zark, a magician who has lost his mojo and his lover. On a journey to recover both, he is distracted by a series of surreal creatures. This being Cirque du Soliel, the story is abstract; the real joy is the extraordinary acts Zark meets along the way. Read More...
Posted under Technology on Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 9:00 pm
Appolicious - Whether you are looking for the best way to share personal pictures with friends and family members, or want a new casual game to download after conquering Angry Birds, there are several new applications you can tap into on the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and Android devices. Here are five of the best apps that were released in June.
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Posted under Uncategorized on Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 8:09 pm
Something I believe in is the spirit of Greece and the ultimate force that brings her people together in times of crisis and need. Anyone who doubts me need only read the last hundred years of this tiny nation's history. Read More... More on Greece
Posted under Politics on Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 8:06 pm
Daily Caller - The popular blogging platform, Tumblr, has a new set of adopters. Government agencies, from the State Department to the National Archives, are using the microblogging site to give people a look at their inner-workings.
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Posted under Technology on Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 7:35 pm
Digital Trends - Facebook is building buzz about a mysterious new feature they will be launching next week. What could it be?
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Posted under Uncategorized on Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 7:15 pm
Do you hear a noise like power saws cutting away at your Social Security benefits? That's the sound of the politicians promoting the "chained CPI," Washington's latest gimmick for tricking voters and cutting their hard-earned benefits. Read More... More on Social Security
Posted under Uncategorized on Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 7:00 pm
As we celebrate the New York marriage vote and the 42nd anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, it's time to take real pride in the LGBT organizations that do us proud every day of the year. Read More... More on lgbt
Posted under Technology on Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 6:37 pm
Mashable - A new userscript style makes Google+ look even more like Facebook.
Since its launch earlier this week, Google+ has frequently been compared to Facebook, both in its focus and its user interface.
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Posted under Uncategorized on Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 6:28 pm
There are roughly two kinds of books written about the financial crisis, much as there are two broad reactions to events that culminated in the implosion of 2008: There are those that view the events as an intricate historical tangle that needs to be combed through and understood, and that tend to see ignorance, failure, error and ambiguity as presiding deities over a systemic crisis. In this approach, few escape complicity; the game is to discriminate between greater and lesser evils. Then there are the books that make a more focused argument for an eternal war of good and evil, for a more political and more moralistic perspective. Terrible events presuppose the presence of terrible people and terrible decisions. Malefactors must be punished. All history culminates in disaster and has to be judged by that disaster. These books tend to feature powerfully simple arguments, full of characters wearing black hats and white hats. In the former category fall books as disparate as Andrew Ross Sorkin's "Too Big to Fail" and Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera's "All the Devils Are Here." In the latter case, we have Simon Johnson and James Kwak's "13 Bankers" and the long-awaited dissection of the mortgage crisis from The New York Times' Gretchen Morgenson and Graham Fisher & Co. mortgage analyst Joshua Rosner, "Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon."
The title of Morgenson and Rosner's book fully captures the thrust of their argument. It's about ambition, greed and corruption -- not intellectual error, a failure of understanding, incompetence and cosmically bad luck mixed with greed and corruption. It's not about breakdown or failure, but "Armageddon." It is thus a highly moralistic tract that argues that the subprime crisis, literally and figuratively, stemmed from a group of powerful men who deliberately turned housing finance in the United States to their self-interested ends. It argues that the mortgage "bubble" was at the heart of the crisis, and that other issues from easy Federal Reserve money to trade imbalances to globalization to overwhelming systemic complexity to financial innovation were either secondary or beside the point. This point of view allows Morgenson and Rosner to simplify the complex evolution of mortgages to what they view as an illicit takeover of the business and recast the two big mortgage government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as the necessary ignition of implosion (they don't explain how the crisis spread internationally).
Posted under Uncategorized on Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 6:15 pm
The "problem plays" Shakespeare uncorked in the early 17th century contain enough problems that there's no call for directors and players to add new ones. That, however, is what's transpiring in the Public Theater's summer 2011 Central Park offerings. Read More... More on Central Park
Posted under Technology on Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 5:14 pm
Yahoo! News - On July 7, YouTube will be live streaming the red carpet premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 from Trafalgar Square in London. Many famous faces are expected to appear at the event, including author J.K. Rowling, …
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Posted under Technology on Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 5:14 pm
Yahoo! News - On July 7, YouTube will be live streaming the red carpet premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 from Trafalgar Square in London. Many famous faces are expected to appear at the event, including author J.K. Rowling, …
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Posted under Technology on Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 5:08 pm
Digital Trends - The third and possibly final Call of Duty: Black Ops map pack, Annihilation, has been released for Xbox Live (with PC and PS3 releases due out soon), and if this is the final release, Treyarch is going out in style.
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Posted under Technology on Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 5:07 pm
Digital Trends - Twitter is about to get a lot more serious. On July 6, President Obama will use the same social media network we turn to for the ranting of friends and musings of Shaquille O’Neill to host a live town hall meeting, marking the first-ever Whitehouse town hall meeting to use Twitter. Specifically, the official site states that the President will answer questions about the economy and jobs, but we sure hope that he will be tackling more topics then just those two.
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Posted under Uncategorized on Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 4:48 pm
Originally published on Youthradio.org, the premier source for youth generated news throughout the globe.
By: Sayre Quevedo
During the beginning of my freshman year, the carbonated citrus drink Orangina was big on campus. When I had extra change to spare, I would schlep across the school quad to the vending machines and grab one. Then one day, Orangina and sodas disappeared from vending machines at my San Francisco public high school in compliance with a state law banning the sale of soft drinks in high schools during the school day.
Now, a new California law aims to promote even healthier drinking habits by making water more accessible to students throughout the state. SB1413 requires schools to provide access to free fresh water in cafeterias by July 1st, 2011.
Some schools have gone as far as installing full-blown hydration stations, allowing students to fill reusable bottles (preferably not plastic) with filtered water. Other schools are making due with water fountains. And then there are schools that plan to utilize an opt out provision that allows schools to claim financial hardship. Many critics call the provision an unnecessary loophole that will adversely affect students' health.
My school, Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in San Francisco (SOTA), is going the route of relying on water fountains to comply with the new law. But rumors of lead-laden pipes and germ-covered spouts keep many of my fellow students from actually using the fountains. Instead, a lot of my friends tend to drink minimal amounts of water, taking sips from the fountain only when absolutely necessary or buying bottled water or energy drinks from the vending machines.
This month, I put water fountains across San Francisco Unified School District to the test with the help of Darleen Franklin, a researcher in San Francisco State University's biology department. She examined the bacterial content of fountain water in three district schools. Our reporting also looks into the water supply at Oakland Unified School District. For more than six years, the East Bay Academy for Young Scientists at UC Berkeley's Lawrence Hall of Science has enlisted students to test mineral content in samples from water fountains across that district, where they've reported lead levels above EPA standards.
Check out the slide show to find out the results of our water tests, and to learn more about the challenges of getting students and schools to make water a priority.
[ED NOTE: CLICK "SHOW INFO" TO SEE CAPTIONS]
More Info:Youth Radio Investigates is an NSF-supported science reporting series in which young journalists collect and analyze original data with professional scientists, and then tell unexpected stories about what they discover.
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