NPR: The NPR News Blog

June 29, 2007

Cats First Domesticated People in the Near East

Our last piece of the week comes to us from the journal Science.

Research now indicates that the common cat (well, humans think they're common -- we all know what cats think) first became domesticated in the Near (or Middle) East. Meanwhile, all the cats that nowadays tear up the curtains ... or walk across computer keyboards ... or lie on top of the TV, one paw hanging in front of the screen, have common ancestors that lived in the Near East about 130,000 years ago.

And, as we all already knew, it's really the cats who domesticated people. Well, in a way. The Washington Post's report notes that the study indicates we didn't go looking for cats, they "sort of domesticated themselves," as a researcher put it. They likely came to us because we had a food source -- rodents that ate the grain stored in humans' first agricultural settlements more than 9,000 years ago, NPR's Nell Boyce reports. Fortunately, cats continue to let us hang out with them.

My cat, Alibey, is actually from Turkey -- my wife found her on a Turkish island during a research trip and brought her back to America. I have no plans to tell Alibey all this news about the Near East as the home of all cats. She thinks she's special enough as it is.

If you see anything interesting this weekend, don't forget to drop us a line at newsblog@npr.org.

Paris, Who Ya Gonna Call? ... Crisis Busters!

You know, if bottled water is a perfect symbol of U.S. culture at this moment in our history, then so is this: the crisis management consultant. When I was growing up, my "crisis management consultant" was my grandfather, and most of the time, his role consisted of telling me this: "Use the common sense God gave you, boy." It worked pretty well, actually.

But this is the age of Paris and Lindsay and Rush and ... well, the list goes on. Big-time celebrities who get in trouble and worry about how it will affect their bottom line. They end up hiring people like Michael Sitrick.

On Thursday, Day to Day's Madeleine Brand interviewed Sitrick, who's known as the "attack dog image fixer to the rich and powerful." (I wonder if he has that on his business card.)

When trying to rescue the image of a celebrity in trouble, Sitrick is known for using "truth squads" to counteract what media outlets or others are saying about his clients. He also talks about something called the "wheel of pain" -- an expression that describes efforts to bring out "facts" the other side might not want to be public in an effort to rehabilitate a client's image. Most of the people in his firm are ex-journalists.

There's something a bit unsettling about listening to Sitrick talk about what he does -- and what that reveals about the nature of celebrity and the media these days.

Rethinking Bottled Water

It's not often that I read or hear something that almost immediately compels me to change something I've done for a long time. But that's what happened when I heard a report about the bottled water industry in America on All Things Considered on Thursday.

Robert Siegel interviewed Charles Fishman, a reporter for the magazine Fast Company, who says that Pepsi's Aquafina and Coke's Dasani are basically purified tap water. That's something I didn't know. No magical springs bubbling out of a picturesque hillside in some rural American forest, visited by locals for years. Just plain old tap water.

The companies say they put the tap water through an "energy-intensive reverse-osmosis filtration process," but, to me, that seems like basically the same stuff we get by running our tap water through a Brita filter.

Fishman wrote in his article for Fast Company:

A chilled plastic bottle of water in the convenience-store cooler is the perfect symbol of this moment in American commerce and culture. It acknowledges our demand for instant gratification, our vanity, our token concern for health. Its packaging and transport depend entirely on cheap fossil fuel. Yes, it's just a bottle of water--modest compared with the indulgence of driving a Hummer. But when a whole industry grows up around supplying us with something we don't need--when a whole industry is built on the packaging and the presentation--it's worth asking how that happened, and what the impact is.

Not to mention what all those empty plastic bottles that are tossed aside are doing to the environment.

I seriously may never buy a bottle of water again. It just doesn't make sense. It's back to the tap for me, with a reusable plastic bottle. How about you folks? What's your thinking now about bottled water?

Notes from the Debate: Lots of Love for Obama, Clinton

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama signs autographs for supporters after the debate at Howard University on Thursday.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

(Note from Tom: All Things Considered editor Susan Feeney has sent us some thoughts from Thursday's Democratic presidential debate.)

You knew right off it was going to be a different kind of presidential debate at Howard University in Washington, D.C., on Thursday night when it kicked off with a warm-up act. The fantastic a capella quartet Soul Tempo sang the National Anthem. Then they slid into songs such as "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" and "The Lord's Prayer," which they sang in the movie The Preacher's Wife.

The Democratic candidate event was moderated by PBS' Tavis Smiley with questions from three more journalists of color, including NPR's Michel Martin. They shined a bright light on issues often left in the campaign shadows: Darfur, HIV/AIDS among blacks, racial disparities in the criminal justice system, poverty and the right of Katrina evacuees to return to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

One flaw was a total absence of follow-up questions, which could have extracted more in-depth answers.

Credit the U.S. Supreme Court with ensuring a most poignant event. It was at Howard, Sen. Barack Obama noted, that Thurgood Marshall and his legal team hatched plans that led to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. "If it hadn't been for them, I would not be standing here today," he said.

It was a Democratic crowd and one that whooped for all the candidates. But its heart clearly belonged to Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Afterward, all the candidates posed and waved at the foot of the stage. Many were sought out for autographs and handshakes. But it was Obama and Clinton who were mobbed. After 20 minutes, it was just the two of them, glad-handing marathoners, still smiling and greeting frantic well-wishers.

Michelle Obama had joined her husband and also was signing as fast as she could. Clinton did not bring former President Bill Clinton, who surely would have tipped the balance. But he's a double-edged sword for her, and one she unsheathes selectively.

In the end, only the Obamas went the distance and outlasted Clinton on the front line. Finally, event staff cleared the Obamas from the stage.

- Susan Feeney

Al-Qaida Regrouping Along Pakistani Border

All too often, al-Qaida reminds me of that old Timex watch commercial: It takes a licking, but keeps on ticking.

The leaders of the terrorist organization have been forced to retreat into the mountainous regions of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. But despite the harsh conditions in the area, senior U.S. military, intelligence and law enforcement officials say al-Qaida is "recruiting, regrouping and rebuilding," McClatchy reports. The "new sanctuary" along the border was made possible by last September's cease-fire agreement between the Pakistani government and pro-Taliban tribes in the province of Waziristan.

The threat from Islamic radicals there is more dangerous than from Iraq, according to intelligence officials.

The remote Pakistani region "is the real heart of the war on terror, and we're losing," said a U.S. intelligence official who, like most of his colleagues, requested anonymity because intelligence reports on the matter are highly classified and because their pessimism conflicts with the administration's public statements. "We took our eye off the ball when we went into Iraq."

TPMmuckraker has posted video showing retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste, a former division commander in Iraq who has become a critic of the war, warning the House Committee on Foreign Affairs this week about the dangers of focusing too much on al-Qaida in Iraq to the exclusion of other parts of the world. "I also believe we cannot attribute all the violence in Iraq to al-Qaida. There's a tendency now to lump it all together, and call it al-Qaida. We have to be very careful with that. ... Al-Qaida is a worldwide organization. It recognizes no national boundaries. And it's in areas where we ought to be focused," he said.

June 28, 2007

Thousands of Venezuelans March for Press Freedom

It seems that Venezuelans are not going to just sit on their hands when it comes to free speech. On Wednesday -- Press Freedom Day in Venezuela -- thousands of the country's citizens joined a march in Caracas to protest a government decision to close a TV station that had often been critical of President Hugo Chavez.

An Associated Press photo shows the throng of marchers as it moved toward the headquarters of Radio Caracas Television, which stopped broadcasting May 27 after the government refused to renew its license. Many journalists taped their mouths shut in protest of the government's actions.

The march occurred during the Copa America Soccer Tournament, one of the most important soccer tournaments in the world, which is being held in Venezuela for the first time. As the Gateway Pundit blog notes, having such a huge march happen during the tournament could turn out to be a major embarrassment for Chavez.

However, he wasn't there to see it in person. Chavez was on his way to Russia for a state visit.

Former Leaders of 'Ex-Gay' Ministry Apologize

There are few more controversial issues in America than gay rights. And wrapped up in that larger debate is the question of whether homosexuality is a lifestyle choice or determined at birth. Many religious groups tend to accentuate the former, while scientific research seems to be increasingly pointing to the latter.

In an example of how complicated the debate has become, the Los Angeles Times reports three former leaders of the ministry Exodus International apologized Wednesday for their efforts to convince homosexuals that their sexual orientation could be changed through prayer. They said those actions have led to a "wrenching human toll" for gays and lesbians the ministry worked to convert.

The Associated Press reports that the former leaders -- co-founder Michael Bussee, who left the group in 1979; Jeremy Marks, former president of Exodus International Europe; and Darlene Bogle, the founder of Paraklete Ministries, an Exodus referral agency -- said that, although they had acted sincerely in their years with the Christian group, they had become disillusioned with promoting gay conversion.

"Some who heard our message were compelled to try to change an integral part of themselves, bringing harm to themselves and their families," the three said in a statement.

Their message was timed to coincide with the opening of Exodus International's annual meeting in Irvine, Calif.

The Times reports that Exodus President Alan Chambers disagreed with the organization's critics and said his group has helped many people who want an alternative to living as a homosexual. The Orlando, Fla.-based group includes more than 120 ministries in the United States and Canada and more than 150 ministries overseas.

Right-Wing Show Host Repeats Obama Misinformation

Speaking of Barack Obama, a few examples in recent days show right-wing commentators are continuing to try to link him to Muslim extremism, including reviving a widely discredited rumor that he once attended an Islamic religious school, known as a madrassa.

That claim, which first appeared on the conservative site InsightMag.com in January, has been investigated by CNN, ABC and The Associated Press and found to be baseless. While Obama was living in Indonesia from the ages of 6 to 10, he attended a public school with both Christians and Muslims for two years and went to Catholic school for two years.

But that didn't stop far-right shock jock Michael Savage from repeating the allegation on his show Monday. The liberal Media Matters posted audio in which Savage, whose Savage Nation radio show has 8 million listeners weekly, says Obama was indoctrinated by Muslims at a madrassa and highlights his middle name, Hussein.

Meanwhile Monday, another conservative pundit used Obama's middle name to insinuate potential connections to Muslim terrorists. Ann Coulter, while commenting on a speech Obama had given about religion, told Fox News' Hannity and Colmes, "I do think anyone named B. Hussein Obama should avoid using 'hijack' and 'religion' in the same sentence."

In May, when a poll showed that Obama would beat many leading GOP candidates if he were the Democratic nominee for president, Coulter said the statistic may have been made up and that it "might help al-Qaida."

Poll Shows Surprise Leader among Democrats in N.H.

You'll never guess who's leading the pack of Democratic presidential contenders in New Hampshire in a new poll. No, it's not Barack Obama, who took the state by storm a few months ago. And Hillary Clinton falls back when this man's name is in the mix.

Let's just say that it's an inconvenient truth to the other Democratic challengers that the poll shows Al Gore is the most popular in New Hampshire. Yes, Al Gore, who has insisted he has no plans to run for his party's presidential nomination.

Without Gore in the race, the WHDH-Suffolk University poll shows 37 percent of Democratic voters supporting or leaning toward Clinton, compared to Obama's 19 percent. John Edwards and Bill Richardson are next at 9 percent each. But if Gore were to toss his hat in the ring, Clinton would lose about quarter of her support and Obama almost half. The Washington Times reports that Gore would lead 32 percent to 26 percent over Clinton if he decided to run in the state.

"Gore is the only Democrat, including Hillary, who can instantly melt the field," said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, which conducted the survey.

He also points out that Gore would actually take more votes from Obama than from Clinton. "I think a chunk of Obama voters in New Hampshire are anybody-but-Hillary Democrats," Paleologos said.

The pro-Gore result comes a few days after the University of Wisconsin Survey Center's Badger Poll asked resident of that state for their impressions of both declared and undeclared presidential candidates in both parties. Gore and Rudy Giuliani had the most favorable scores for their respective parties.

June 27, 2007

Senior Dems May Try to Bring Back Fairness Doctrine

Last week, a liberal think tank released a report showing that talk radio programming is overwhelmingly conservative. Since then, lots of politicians and bloggers on the right have been crying foul over talk of bringing back the Fairness Doctrine, a federal policy killed in the 1980s that required stations to make an effort to give even consideration to opposing views.

The conservatives' reaction seemed over the top, considering only a couple Democratic congressmen were saying they wanted to revive the doctrine.

However, The Hill reports today that two senior Senate Democrats, Dick Durbin and Dianne Feinstein, are also saying they're interested in bringing the doctrine back to life.

If Democratic leaders are serious about pursuing it, that would confirm those conservative concerns.

One has to wonder what advantage the Democrats see in such a move. President Bush would likely veto any such bill if it ever hit his desk. It's the kind of issue that would unite the GOP base in a year of party unrest over Iraq and the immigration bill. And the demographic that listens to talk radio seems unlikely to swing massively to the left, even if it does hear more liberal points of view.

Then there's the fact that conservative dominance of talk radio didn't stop the GOP from losing control of Congress in the 2006 elections.

Still, Republican Rep. Mike Pence, who worked as a syndicated talk radio host in Indiana before winning election to the House, wants to keep the doctrine in the grave. He's introducing legislation that would codify the Federal Communications Commission's decision to kill it.

Cutbacks in Gas Allowance Spark Iranian Violence

Oil, oil, everywhere, and not a drop to pump. I wouldn't be surprised if Iranians are singing a similar ditty today.

The BBC reports that several gas stations were torched in Tehran after the government announced fuel rationing that limits private vehicles to about 26 gallons of fuel per month at the subsidized price of 38 cents per gallon.

Although the government had been warning for months that it might make such a change, Iranians were only given around two hours' notice before the new rules went into effect.

It's a hard concept to get one's head around. Iran, one of the top petroleum producers in the world, in the grips of a fuel crisis? But Iran imports 40 to 50 percent of the fuel it uses because it lacks refining capacity.

The Associated Press reports President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has come under growing criticism, even from former supporters, for dramatic rises in the past year in food, housing and oil prices.

The Missed and Won't Be Missed at 10 Downing Street

Cherie Blair speaks with the media as she leaves 10 Downing Street.

Carl De Souza/AFP/Getty Images

I guess she just couldn't help herself, standing there in the street outside the prime minister's residence, surrounded by the media, which her husband recently called a "feral beast."

Cherie Blair, who has always had a reputation for saying what's on her mind -- even when it got Tony in hot water -- turned to the TV camera nearest her and said, "Goodbye. I don't think we'll miss you."

Meanwhile, as the BBC writes, the now former Prime Minister Tony Blair will be enormously missed in the United States, both inside and outside the White House. For instance, at last count, ThankYouTony.com (a site where Americans can write thank-yous to Blair) had received 89,953 messages. The e-mails are "are printed on paper, and wire-bound into books of 250 messages. Message books are shipped to 10 Downing Street in London weekly."

Well, not to 10 Downing anymore, I guess. Perhaps now they'll address them to the Middle East, as it's been announced that Blair will be the new envoy representing the Quartet (the United Nations, United States, European Union and Russia) in that region.

Companies Seek to Promote Free Speech, Yet Still Do Business in China

In the past several months, Internet and telecommunications companies like Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft have taken some pretty intense heat for their interactions with governments in totalitarian countries. Critics say the companies have turned over information about users' activities that allowed these governments to track down -- and jail -- dissidents or have cooperated too much in government censorship.

So I read with interest Rebecca MacKinnon's post at her blog, RConversation, about her involvement with a process to establish "a set of global principles on free speech and privacy protection for internet and telecoms companies."

The list of companies who have joined the process is the real story -- it includes Vodafone and the three above, who "admitted publicly" to taking part earlier this year. (Interestingly, MacKinnon notes, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is not involved, despite its launch of MySpace in China, where it also has been criticized for too much censorship.)

MacKinnon, a former CNN journalist who is now an assistant professor at Hong Kong University's Journalism and Media Studies Center, writes that the purpose of the principles is not to "impose Western values" on China. Instead, it's to seek a way to help companies in all countries conduct their business "while doing all they can to protect their users' interests against government encroachment globally."

MacKinnon writes that she wishes Yahoo! would apologize to the families of Chinese journalist Shi Tao and other dissidents jailed after the company turned over information about their Internet activities to the government. She says it's unlikely, but she notes that Jerry Yang, one of the company's founders and the new CEO, discussed some of the measures that Yahoo! is taking to protect free speech and privacy at a shareholders meeting earlier this month.

Japan Dismisses Call for Fresh Apology for Sex Slaves

Japan has brushed off a resolution by the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs that called on the country to issue a fresh apology for using sex slaves, known as comfort women, during World War II.

The BBC reports that the committee's resolution urged the Japanese government to "formally acknowledge, apologize and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner" for the coercion of young women into sexual slavery.

The sex slaves issue is increasingly becoming an obstacle in Japan's relationship with many countries in Asia and the West. In 1993, Japan did apologize for its treatment of women forced to be sex slaves for its soldiers during World War II. But a new, more conservative government shaded that apology, saying there weren't many women involved and there was no proof that the women were forced to become prostitutes. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe later apologized for those remarks, but it did little to placate critics.

Historians believe hundreds of thousands of women were forced to work as sex slaves in military brothels during the war.

June 26, 2007

Examining the Prosecution of a Former Ala. Governor

In a case that has held the attention of Alabama for more than two years, the sentencing hearing for former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy began today in Montgomery. Birmingham Weekly reports that about a year ago, a federal jury "found Scrushy and Siegelman guilty on charges of bribery, conspiracy and mail fraud. Siegelman was convicted also on an additional charge of obstruction of justice."

Siegelman, a Democrat, is fighting his possible 30-year sentence by alleging that his prosecution was engineered by White House strategist Karl Rove, the Los Angeles Times reports. And one former Republican attorney general and several Democrats think there may be reason to investigate his claims.

"From start to finish, this case has been riddled with irregularities. It does not pass the smell test," Grant Woods, a Republican former attorney general of Arizona, told the Times.

Scott Horton, a human rights and armed conflict lawyer who writes the No Comment blog for Harper's Magazine, has written a stinging critique of the case against Siegelman.

His piece reads like a "J'Accuse" of the political, legal and media establishments in Alabama. Calling it one of the darkest moments in Alabama justice since the trial of the "Scottsboro Boys" (the 1930s trial of nine black teenagers accused of raping two white girls), he claims that there are clear signs of Rove's fingerprints on the prosecution of the former governor. Horton also says that the politicization of the Justice Department was a key factor in Siegelman being prosecuted in the first place.

The Times story notes that White House officials say they can't talk about the case while it remains in court. And the U.S. attorney whose office brought the case, Leura Canary, whose husband is a Rove protege, called the allegation that her politics influenced the case "a ridiculous assertion." Canary recused herself from the case after Siegelman's lawyers complained.

What Will We Look Like in a Few Thousand Years?

An interesting piece in The New York Times science section today describes how new findings from decoding human DNA appear to show that we didn't stop evolving long ago, but, in fact, are continuing to evolve right now.

People have continued to evolve since leaving the ancestral homeland in northeastern Africa some 50,000 years ago, both through the random process known as genetic drift and through natural selection. The genome bears many fingerprints in places where natural selection has recently remolded the human clay, researchers have found, as people in the various continents adapted to new diseases, climates, diets and, perhaps, behavioral demands.

Some of the changes that look to have evolved more recently include the pale skin of Europeans -- perhaps around 7,000 years ago (a heartbeat in the evolutionary time scale) -- and the emergence of lactose tolerance in adults first in northern Europe about 5,000 years ago, but also possibly only about 3,000 years ago in part of Africa.

Who knows what we'll look like or be able to eat in another few thousand years?

Germany Bans Use of Military Sites for Tom Cruise Film

You can say what you want about Scientology, but there's one place where they just plain don't like it -- Germany.

The BBC reports that Germany has banned the makers of an upcoming Tom Cruise film from shooting at military sites there because Cruise is a Scientologist. The German government says Scientology is a cult that "masquerades as a religion to make money," according to the BBC. Scientology officials reject this description of their beliefs.

Scientology has been monitored in Germany in the belief that its activities are "directed against the free democratic order" in the country.
Its status there as a commercial enterprise has prompted repeated protests from the organisation.

In the movie, Valkyrie, Cruise will play Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, leader of the failed 1944 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler using a bomb hidden in a briefcase. The movie is set to premiere next year.

Von Stauffenberg's son also says he objects to the casting of Cruise to play his father because of the actor's belief in Scientology.

So, What's Really the Story with 'Bandwidth Shaping'?

Last week, we posted a piece about "bandwidth shaping" -- a method Internet service providers use to slow down users when demand is high. Sensing we might be looking at a tip-of-the-iceberg thing, I called BBC Internet expert Bill Thompson, a source for a piece we had linked to in the post (and systems administrator for a site used by British MPs), to learn more.

First, don't call it "bandwidth shaping," Thompson says. That's corporate speak. He says he calls it what it really is -- "throttling," the same as throttling back a train.

"It's like falling off a cliff" -- that's how fast your Internet connection can suddenly slow down these days, Thompson says, adding sometimes ISPs will slow down the whole network, not just heavy users, to handle peak periods.

Most Internet users haven't noticed that their connections are slower because they're not online a lot, he says. But it has attracted attention from early Internet adopters (who are apt to follow what's happening on the Web), gamers and other such folks who spend a lot of time online.

Thompson also reminded me that this isn't the first time online consumers have seen their bandwidth cut back. When companies started offering "unlimited access" instead of making customers pay for dial-up per hour, users flocked to those ISPs, and it created a problem. So ISPs redefined "unlimited" as a certain number of hours a day -- an attempt to pull back heavy users, whose accounts could be affected if they went over.

Thompson believes we could soon see the same kind of limited "unlimited access" descriptions applied to broadband connections.

How about you folks? Has anyone else noticed problems with their broadband connections of the sort we've been talking about? Has anyone heard from their ISPs about "bandwidth shaping"?

Baghdad: In Pictures by Iraqis

Since before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iraqi bloggers have often presented a view of life in their country that is darker than the one presented on American evening newscasts or cable network news shows. For instance, most American media outlets, for a variety of reasons (and many of them good ones), have largely refrained from showing pictures or films of the bodies of those killed in the fighting.

But using blogs and other tools like YouTube, some Iraqis have opened a window on daily life -- and death -- in a war zone.

Healing Iraq is one Iraqi blog I read regularly. Its author, Zeyad A., a former dentist turned blogger/journalist has been featured in publications like The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. Zeyad writes that he "had become frustrated with the negative media coverage from Iraq so I decided to start a personal blog to present the positive side which was not getting enough attention at the time."

And yet, over time, Healing Iraq has chronicled "Iraq's daily deterioration," as the Journal put it.

I would like to share two recent Healing Iraq posts. One contains several YouTube videos about the plight of Iraqi refugees, a subject Zeyad notes is seldom covered on American TV.

The other post contains pictures taken by residents of western Baghdad in the months of April, May and June. You should know that some are quite graphic, but as Zeyad writes, "they provide a glimpse of life in the Iraqi capital four years after the ... American invasion."

June 25, 2007

A Totally Subjective Top 10 Movies List

Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly star in Rear Window, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Paramount Pictures/Archive Photos/Getty Images

After I posted an entry late Friday on the American Film Institute's top 100 films of all time, commenting that the list was just too subjective to be taken seriously, a friend at NPR challenged me to name my 10 favorite films and then ask you guys to send in your nominations.

So here goes. My top 10 desert-island films, in no particular order:

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back: Absolutely the best (and darkest) of the six-movie set.
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: The best trilogy in film, but this one gives the other two that feeling of magic.
Wings of Desire: Wim Wenders' version, not the dumb one with Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan.
To Kill a Mockingbird: Atticus Finch for president!
Rear Window: Hitchcock's best. But who could look out the back window with Grace Kelly in the room?
Three Kings: A great, flawed film about the first Gulf War.
Casablanca: More great lines per minute than any other movie ever made.
Toy Story 2: The only cartoon film with a message deeper than "buy our toys."
The Life of Brian: Brilliant, brilliant satire.
Apocalypse Now: I can still remember walking out of the theater with several hundred other people, all of us completely speechless.

Close but No Top Ten Cigar: When Harry Met Sally, It's a Wonderful Life, Bull Durham, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, A Clockwork Orange, Singin' in the Rain.

Now, over to you ...

Al Gore's 'Do What I Say, Not What I Do' Message?

When I saw An Inconvenient Truth, I walked out of the theater certain that the end was nigh. How could you not? For the 100-odd minutes of the documentary, former Vice President Al Gore sounded like a prophet who had showed up in Sodom and Gomorrah a couple of weeks before Lot and was trying to give a heads up.

And while the documentary argued persuasively that global warming is a serious problem that humanity needs to take action against, I wasn't so sure how people would react to Gore's "be afraid, be very afraid" approach.

So I was interested to read Slate's Emily Yoffe's take on Gore's message in today's Washington Post. She said she found herself put off by his relentless "gloom and doom." "An essential part of the global warming awareness movement is the belief that scaring us to death is the best way to spur massive change," she writes.

She also notes that for Gore, this seems to be a bit of a contradiction:

In his new book, "The Assault on Reason," Gore denounces what he sees as today's politics of fear. Yet his own campaign of mass persuasion -- any such campaign -- is not amenable to contradiction and uncertainty. It's about fright and absolutes. But just because something can be plotted on an X and Y axis does not make it the whole truth.

I'd love to get people's thoughts on this one.

General: Hearts and Minds Surge Needed in Iraq

The U.S. general in charge of working with the Iraqi population says the current troop surge is being jeopardized by the lack of an equivalent hearts-and-minds surge among the general population. In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Lt. Gen. Jack Stultz also said that cultural differences between U.S. and Iraqi soldiers were endangering the effort to train Iraqis to take control of security.

"You can't treat everyone as if they're an American soldier," Stultz said. "Everyone's culture is different." The Telegraph notes that British commanders have held this belief for a long time, but it's "remarkably frank" coming from an American general while the troop surge is under scrutiny.

In a May interview, the American Forces Press Service noted the general, who is on a four-year leave of absence as operations manager of Proctor & Gamble, tends to think as much like a businessman as a three-star general. This approach is evident in the Telegraph interview when Stultz talks about the need for U.S. troops to adopt a different approach with their Iraqi cohorts. He relates a story told to him by a major under his command:

"The Army Reserve soldier had a different perspective of how to handle the situation from the active army. He said, 'the first reaction working with the Iraqi soldiers from the active army was the traditional drill sergeant approach: just yell at the guy. ...'"
The general said the major had told him that "those of us in the Army Reserve who deal with the civilian population of America would never scream at a customer because I know he would just walk away".

"You've got to build trust with the local people, to say, 'Help us,'" Stultz said. "If we're going to turn around the situation, we need to have the local population identify [insurgents]."

Judge Takes Swipe at Handling of Domestic Spying

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, the former chief judge of a secret national security court, had some harsh things to say about the administration's handling of the recently halted domestic spying program at a meeting of the American Library Association on Saturday.

McClatchy reports:

Lamberth declined to say whether he believes the National Security Agency's wiretap program was illegal. But he said he has "never seen a better way" to conduct domestic spying than under the national security court created by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The court secretly approves warrants for wiretaps and searches in counterterrorism and espionage investigations.
"I've seen a proposal for a worse way," Lamberth said. "That's what the president did with the NSA program."

Lamberth said he had insisted from the beginning that information the NSA gathered from the domestic spying program not be mixed with intelligence collected under court warrants. He said he never had to rule on the legality of the president's spying program.

The Jurist reports that Lamberth said he understands the need to act quickly during national emergencies, but that the president's wiretapping program went too far. "We have to understand you can fight the war [on terrorism] and lose everything if you have no civil liberties left when you get through fighting the war," he said. Lamberth also said that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court "keeps [the executive] honest."

Warning to French Politicians: Beware 'Les Blogueurs'

There are two things you can be certain of in life: French male politicians like to have a mistress (or several, if time permits) and the British love to tweak the French about anything they can.

These truisms came together marvelously last week when two stories in London's Daily Telegraph detailed the latest marital woes of two top French politicians: President Nicolas Sarkozy and the woman he defeated for that office, Segolene Royal.

First, Sarkozy has been kept busy denying rumors about the breakup of his marriage to his wife, Cecilia (bloggers around Europe have written extensively about alleged affairs on both sides). Then a video appeared on YouTube that appeared to show the president looking a little tipsy at a press conference during the G-8 Summit. He later explained that he was merely "out of breath."

Then came news that Royal was splitting from her longtime partner and the father of her four children, Socialist Party leader Francois Hollande, after he had an affair. But the news didn't come from the traditional French media, which has always looked the other way at these sorts of things. It was the work of "les blogueurs." The Telegraph says bloggers may undermine the country's notoriously strict privacy laws.

Pierre Dominique, a Paris-based political commentator who regularly contributes to French websites, said: "This was a clear example of how blogs are gradually eroding French privacy laws. Important issues can be raised without fear of prosecution, and this can only be a good thing for democracy. Our political leaders have a terrible record in stifling important information about what they get up to."

By the way, the bloggers' work seems only to be upsetting the politicians. The voters couldn't give a hoot. More than 80 percent said they would still vote for a candidate if he cheated on his wife. Oh, the French!

June 22, 2007

AFI: 'Citizen Kane' Still Greatest Film of All Time

Finally this week, the American Film Institute has released a new version of its top 100 films of all time, and the winner is the same film that topped the list when it first appeared a decade ago -- Orson Welles' Citizen Kane.

Which makes sense with all those flashbacks and camera stunts that Welles practically invented. The only thing missing was bullet time.

And I'm sorry, I love The Godfather, but it's no Casablanca. I totally disagree with them switching places at two and three. DeNiro and Brando together couldn't carry Bogie's dinner jacket.

And Hitchcock's 1958 thriller Vertigo going from No. 61 to No. 9? ... What's up with that? How does a film move 50 places in 10 years? It just goes to show how subjective this list is -- it has all the authority of my kids picking their favorite ice cream flavor this week.

There is one change I heartily approve of. Dances with Wolves, which had been No. 75, disappeared from the list. Woo hoo! I still have nightmares about Kevin Costner in buckskin. OK film, but top 100 of all time? Not a chance.

We'll see you on Monday. Don't forget to e-mail us at newsblog@npr.org if you see something interesting.

Canadian Anglicans to Vote on Blessing Gay Couples

It's a move that could reignite the debate in the global Anglican community about whether the church should marry homosexuals.

On Saturday, the Canadian church's general synod will vote on whether to allow same-sex blessings. The Associated Press reports that bestowing a blessing is one step away from performing gay marriage. Gay marriage has been legal in Canada for four years.

The Victoria News reports that many Anglican ministers are split on the issue -- some say they may even leave the church if the blessing measure is approved.

CanWest reports that African bishops have threatened to throw the Canadians out of the Anglican communion if they approve the measure. However, a top Anglican official in Britain says, regardless of the outcome of the vote, Canada will not be expelled.

(Tom Update: After the discussion of blessing same-sex marriages went into the late hours of the evening, debate was suspended until Sunday. The gathering did defeat a resolution that would have required 60 percent of those voting to approve a same-sex blessing measure in order for it to pass. Any measure will now only require 50 percent of the delegates' vote for approval.)

(Tom Update II: The motion to allow Canadian Anglican dioceses to decide for themselves whether or not to bless same-sex unions was defeated Sunday. Although the lay delegates voted 78-59 in favor and the clergy voted 63-53 in favor, the bishops voted 21-19 against. As a result the motion was defeated, since it required approval by each of the three orders to pass.)

Some Conservatives Fear Return of Fairness Doctrine

The sky is falling! The sky is falling! ... OK, maybe not. But a day after a report by the liberal think tank Center for American Progress and the Free Press organization said that talk radio features programming that is 91 percent conservative, fears of a return to the days of the Fairness Doctrine are rampant among some on the right.

The Fairness Doctrine, a federal policy that said broadcasters had to allow opposing views equal time on the air, was originally conceived in the '40s. When Congress tried to turn it into law in 1987, President Reagan vetoed it. It was after this veto that talk radio as we now know it was really born.

A spokesman for New York Rep. Maurice Hinchey tells The Washington Times that the Democrat is planning to reintroduce a bill that calls for a return to the doctrine, saying "The American people should have a wide array of news sources available to them." (Hinchey's proposal didn't make it out of committee last time.) In January, presidential candidate and Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich also said it was time to bring back the doctrine.

Libertarian Leanings writes that the failure of Air America shows that liberal talk radio is an oxymoron and that "audience reluctance to listen to the liberal drivel coming out of Air America is being translated to 'little free speech or free choice.' It smacks of desperation."

Bill Blocher, who comes down in the middle in the doctrine debate, concludes at The Ledger.com that liberals should forget about it and "get a life and find their audience where they live" -- on the Internet and Comedy Central.

Writing about the report on the Yahoo! opinion page, Blake Dvorak says that "behind this silliness is a very serious attempt to use the government to censor the airwaves."

Well, there's no Fairness Doctrine for the Internet, but we at the News Blog do like to give opposing views. So we turn to Tom Tomorrow at This Modern World, who notes that he's not holding his breath for the return of the doctrine, "but it's fun to listen to [Sean] Hannity and [Rush] Limbaugh desperately try to explain why 'equal time' = 'censorship.'"

Reports: Blair Plans to Become Catholic

British newspapers report that Tony Blair, the outgoing prime minister, has decided to become a Catholic and will travel this weekend to Rome to meet with the pope, where he may discuss his final preparations, according to sources in London and Rome.

The Guardian reports that Blair's decision could be officially announced either before or after he leaves office next week.

Blair's wife and four children are Catholics, and he has attended Catholic services for almost 30 years. Because of security concerns, Catholic Mass also has been held on Saturday evenings at Chequers, the prime minister's country residence.

Britain has never had a Catholic prime minister. This is almost surely the reason that his conversion has taken so long, The Daily Telegraph reports. Although there is no constitutional bar to the prime minister of the overwhelmingly Anglican nation being Catholic, it could have compromised the role Blair played in choosing Church of England bishops.

Religion also plays a much smaller role in Britain's political life than it does in the U.S. In one famous incident, The Guardian reports, Blair "dropped his wish to end a prime ministerial broadcast on the eve of the Iraq invasion with the words: 'God bless' on the advice of Alastair Campbell [his PR guru], who famously told him 'We don't do God.' "

Potential Breakthrough in Treating Brain Diseases

A team of American doctors and researchers have announced what could be a major breakthrough in the treatment of brain diseases, including Parkinson's disease, using the sometimes controversial gene therapy method. Parkinson's patients in an initial small study saw their mobility increase by as much as 65 percent in some cases after the new treatment, The Daily Telegraph reports.

The study, begun in 2003, was carried out on 11 men and one woman with an average age of 58, who had all had severe Parkinson's for at least five years and for whom current therapies were no longer effective. They were given injections of billions of copies of a genetically altered virus into part of the brain called the subthalamic nucleus ...
Three months after the injections, the patients had shown up to 30 per cent improvement. Several showed improvements of up to 65 per cent.

Scientist Live reports that the research team feels the new gene therapy method is in some ways superior to the deep brain stimulation method now used to treat Parkinson's patients because it's less invasive and would require fewer hospital visits.

The research team, lead by Professor Matthew During of the Weill Medical College at Cornell University, will report its findings in today's edition of the British medical journal The Lancet. The Associated Press reports that the scientists will use these initial positive results to conduct a larger test.

June 21, 2007

Officials Put an End to Free Food for Troops at Airport

For many of the soldiers on their way back to the U.S. from Iraq and Afghanistan, the treats they received from the troop greeters at the Bangor, Maine, airport were probably the first homemade food they had eaten in months.

But the cookies, brownies and whoopie pies are gone. The Associated Press reports that last month, airport officials informed the Maine Troop Greeters that they were enforcing a ban on the distribution of the food and beverages. Some of the greeters accuse vendors at the airport of pushing officials to close down the operation and force troops to buy things from them.

Airport officials say that no one complained to them -- they're enforcing the ban because of safety concerns about food prepared at home.

The Kennebec Journal did a story last year about the role the greeters (most of whom are elderly) play for the returning troops. Since 2003, about 500,000 troops have gone through the airport as they leave for or return from assignments overseas.

The Bangor Daily News reports that the greeters are willing to give up the food if it means they can keep their room, which is currently filled with memorabilia given to them by the troops. The greeters can still allow the troops to make free phone calls. The New York Times reports that airport officials will meet with the greeters Friday to devise an agreement about what kinds of food they can give the troops.

Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran...Version 2.0

Norman Podhoretz, considered by many to be a key thinker in the neoconservative movement, is praying that the U.S. will bomb Iran. He makes an appeal in the current issue of the magazine Commentary in a cover story entitled "The Case for Bombing Iran." As Think Progress writes:

Podhoretz's article appeals to President Bush, "a man who knows evil when he sees it" and who has been "battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory," to carry out military strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. U.S. diplomats are now pointing to the essay to pressure foreign diplomats to increase pressure on Iran.

In an interview, Podhoretz does admit that such an attack could unleash a tidal wave of anti-Americanism across the globe that would make present day sentiments look like a "lovefest." But he says it would be worth it to slow down Iran's nuclear program for five to 10 years.

But some folks disagree with this thesis. American Progress senior fellow Joseph Cirincione has argued that it would not slow down the Iranians' progress but speed it up, just as the Israeli attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor sped up that program in the '80s.

Would Rowling Really Kill Off Her Golden Goose?

July looks like it's shaping up to be national Harry Potter Month.

USA Today gives a preview of the coming Potter onslaught. On July 11, the fifth film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, will hit (and I do mean hit) theaters across America. Then 10 days later, at midnight, the last book, Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows, will take over the country's bookstores.

Some Potter fans are calling it a cross-promotional nightmare. Emerson Spartz, who founded the Potter fan site MuggleNet.com eight years ago, when he was 12, says, "I would think that both Warner Bros. and Scholastic would want to spread the buzz out for a longer period of time."

Oh, nonsense, I say. Won't make a philosopher's stone worth of difference. Both the book and the film will generate millions, dare I say, a billion or more dollars, for these companies and for author J.K. Rowling.

And this leads us to the question that has dominated Potter talk ever since Rowling hinted she might kill Harry off. Allow me to offer an answer: