spit and caw

I feel I owe some explanation for my spat with newspaper reporting. In their insistence to always cover the alternative Palestinian view, to print quotes from the mother of Ifram Quaran who was convicted of murdering Israel’s minister of tourism, to continue to talk as though Israel committed a huge massacre in Jenin and managed to leave behind no evidence…

At their worst, newspapers speak against the constructs of reality to present the ‘other side,’ but as they spit and caw they do so in unison. They are no longer the antithesis, because the thesis has been quieted and forced into the blogosphere. The news is supposed to accurately reflect the reality of events, but increasingly I get the feeling they’re reporting on what should have happened, what should be correct, rather than what is. If you want to fabricate your own reality, fine. I don’t care. Just please don’t tell me you’re in the business of truth-seeking, and don’t call it news.

And don’t write crap send-offs like this:

Ziad Mousa, a lecturer in linguistics at Bir Zeit University in Ramallah, brought his two granddaughters by the same barricade. Mousa, who splits his time between Ramallah and Irving, Texas, said his younger grandaughter Zania, 2, knew only two words: “Jews” and “Sharon.”

“She is afraid of them,” he said. He was not opimistic that Israel was prepared to talk peace.

“They are afraid of peace, and they are afraid of war,” he said. “They like a state of no war, and no peace. This is the climate where they can survive.”

Because a climate where 28 Israelis are shredded to bits during Passover is obviously a climate where Israelis can survive.

Let’s switch gears.

The hubble telescope has beamed back some awesome pictures with its new digs. It’s just a low-res Yahoo site, as the official Hubble site has been been overrun with everyone lookin’ at these pretty pics.

It’s a happy, happy, happy Universe!