Anyway, what I find funny is that I see Control Room as less about Al Jazeera than about the war in Iraq and how we didn’t see what was really going on (It’s on Netflix in Canada and it’s also here.) and that I see Mission Al Jazeera as more of a critique about our media and how far it is devolving than about Josh’s story. It answered all the questions I had and it was like sitting on the couch having him tell you what happened. Was well worth full price hehe.

This seems to be a theme in what I’m reading the last few days. With the truth vigilante question posed by The New York Times:

I’m looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge “facts” that are asserted by newsmakers they write about.

Then the fallout, which has been pretty awesome and hilarious. (I have come to the realization that whenever I see the word ‘fact’ now my brain says ‘prove it’) Cenk Uygur sums it up perfectly:

Then yesterday, this blog post by Kai Nagata came through my feed again. I had read it in the summer, but this time it clicked. http://kainagata.com/2011/07/08/why-i-quit-my-job/ We don’t seem to get a Canadian perspective on this often. It is well worth the read. Especially now that Harper is being Harper and what he is saying hits home to more of us. Also this would explain my girl crush on Anita McNaught:

The problem with the CBC:

Aside from feeling sexually attracted to the people on screen, the target viewer, according to consultants, is also supposed to like easy stories that reinforce beliefs they already hold.

Rawr..

I was thinking I didn’t have conclusion for this post, but I do. I’ve been wandering around watching this whole media/ journalism thing for about a year now. I know what I know from books. Other than in spurts, I haven’t been much of a news watcher, I have never been much of a paper reader, other than when they would be sitting around work on lunch breaks. I think this is why the difference is so jarring. To me it hasn’t been much of a slide because I haven’t watched; it is more of a jolt. I don’t quite understand when news stopped being news. I don’t see my news fascination ending any time soon, I don’t have much of a stomach for mindless TV now, other than a couple of shows.

I’ve got huge respect for what the reporters and journalists etc go through to bring us stories. I don’t know if they do it because they love it or they are crazy. But I think highly of most I have found this last year, but my idea of ‘media’ is pretty wide. Go through my Media list on Twitter and I’m not so sure they would be considered media to everyone else. There’s Media.. then there’s bloggers, and tweeters that I trust to send out good information.. and some media that get ‘downgraded’ to the people list because I don’t trust them so much..

Why this list gets so varied is 1. I like conversations in my list to round out what is going on. 2. The bloggers a lot of the time are the ones who seem to be doing the real investigative stuff. It isn’t the media, and that’s frustrating. It seem to be bloggers who find a lot and ‘journalists’ that regurgitate it, if they pay attention at all. With the Ethical Oil links to the conservative party coming up the last couple of days, why are bloggers finding it? Shouldn’t this be what the journalists should have been doing way back? We are just supposed to smile and nod and take it at face value? Who is telling us what the real facts are on the oil sands? There used to be a day, way back, where I trusted media more than people yakking on the internet, sadly it is the reverse now.

Twitter is to find out what is happening right now. The media is supposed to put it into perspective and go find the truth. If what I watch on tv or read in the papers can’t help me with that.. sorry I will go find other places that will. And I don’t really give a flying fuck about if you are losing revenue or not. If you can’t produce a decent product. Suck it. Which basically leaves me with articles I like, people I trust and AJE. I can’t honestly say there is any website or ‘news’ outlet that I really trust other than AJE right now, and even then.. well.. I still yell at my tv.. but it isn’t “you call that news??” That’s a plus..

Updating, Jan 20th:

Kai Nagata keeps coming up in my feed (not him, people talking about him) wonder if he knows he is the topic of conversation? He has another blog post that is worth a read: http://kainagata.com/2012/01/16/sustainable-journalism/ 

Something we could really use is an organized set of resources to support citizen journalism and to let us support each other. That’s one of my next projects. I think we need a free, open-source handbook that can fill in the gaps and make your journalism better, whether you’re a professional or not. What I like about the wiki model is it’s organic – it adapts both to external forces and the needs of its users.

Next I would want to couple the handbook with a network to allow skill-sharing and support, so that people in different communities could collaborate to get stories produced that might not be on the radar of the big outlets.

Phil Donahue came up in conversation the other day, oh yeah, talking about Titanic and how the domestic abuse wasn’t looked at then as it is now and how when it was tackled on Donahue it was still controversial. Then we talked about how I’m old because I know who Donahue is. Seems he is still around, I just don’t see him. Been digging through youtube today watching Donahue videos, I think he needs a show again.

Here he is talking about Media:

This, I did not know.. wow…

As I was going through the list and getting all excited, I realized that I’m not reading less this last year because of all the news I am consuming, I am reading less because I keep getting stuck on books that I feel I have to read instead of reading what I enjoy. I get worried about expanding my bubble but if I don’t like it I don’t HAVE to read it.

When I made my Goodreads list I was trying to remember the books I read and liked so I could get decent recommendations. My brain hurt and I gave up. Then I found the iphone app and the barcode scan and ended up scanning my bookshelf instead. When I went back to rate my books I was giving almost everything 4 or 5 stars. I started reading the ratings on some of the books I loved and people were giving 2 star crappy, pretentious reviews. I have come to these conclusions: 1. I don’t finish books I don’t like. 2. I sell books I don’t like at my garage sales :p 3. I am a reader, not a writer and I don’t have to rip apart and analyze a book, I can and do simply read it to enjoy it and hear what it tells me.

My conclusion is that this year I am going to read books I like and not get hung up on the ones I don’t, no matter how bad I feel about not finishing them.  The Obama books are going into the garage sale pile, I just don’t care. Blackwater is back on the bookshelf. As much as I want to know what’s in it, I can’t get past it sourcing everything it tells me and it just feels unreadable. I am hoping it ends up like War and Peace, which sat on my shelf for a year before I read it. As soon as I finished that book I read it again, it was sooo good. Maybe I just need to be in that frame of mind.

(oh, and in case anyone reads this.. the birth date on my Goodreads profile is totally true. Shush)

Feb 17th in Bahrain will always be stuck, this article is the one that struck me the most, that makes me feel less crazy. It is weird how what you see in the thick of it gets morphed and details stop showing up and the truth changes. I have no faith in history now, and I am much more firm in my belief that religion is corrupt. This is what happened when a story gets told and it gets revised, details change for whoever is telling the story’s purpose.  Speaking of which, I really miss the Bahrain Independent

Apathy toward international affairs evident in the Okanagan

“A sea of Saudi military tanks, taking back the Pearl Roundabout. An overtaking of Salmaniya Hospital. An order given that doctors not treat protesters suffering from injuries.

A rumour that over 50 bodies were taken across the bridge to Saudi Arabia in three refrigeration trucks.

An email warning in my inbox to not go to work and stay indoors.

A steady stream of propaganda from Bahrain TV. A label of sectarianism. A switch from rubber bullets to live ammunition. A higher death toll.”

Watching that night unfold on twitter was surreal. The disregard for human life, the pettiness of ‘royals’, the injection of a picture of a child who had actually been killed by a dog.. malicious and sick. Humanity is fucked up and I watched it in all its glory that night. In an odd way I’m glad there are so many ‘eggs’ they are the true face of all that is wrong with the world.

I am trying to back away from news over Christmas, but hopefully my senses will have healed enough by the new year to write about torture. Torture has popped up over and over again this year, and it is the thing that gets me the hardest. Not just Bahrain, it pops up in almost everything and I just can’t wrap my head around how it is so common in 2011. How have we not evolved? How do we still treat people like they are less than human. If this happened to a dog, people would be up in arms all over (not that it should happen to dogs either), but a human being.. meh..

LA MEDIA AND LAPD NEGOTIATED COVERAGE FOR RAID TO KEEP SITUATION ‘UNDER CONTROL’

“Several reports are coming out that police have not “allowed” press to cover parts of the police movement. This Fox affiliate explained that they negotiated coverage with LAPD to establish “ground rules” to keep the “situation under control.”"

30 Minutes of freedom 

“20 February i was in a protest in Tripoli like allot of people , wanting Gaddafi to stop the killing in Benghazi . Gaddafi’s forces was all over the city . all of the sudden they all left the streets very fast … news was spread about Gaddafi going to Venezuela . for a while we had almost ” 30 Minutes of freedom “

 

Loss and Hope

“

Shifting winds blowing more than 100 km per hour drove a wildfire straight at the town of 7,000. It leveled more than 700 homes and businesses — a third of the entire community — and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

There are nearly 300 AUPE members in the Slave Lake area, including health care workers, forestry workers, school division and college employees, staff in government offices, ATB Financial staff and others. Many were among those who lost their homes and nearly everything they owned.”

 

Oooh and a lovely post on how much the term Canadian of convenience pisses me right off. It absolutely disgusts me.

And then a post on how many Canadians seem to be stuck in other countries with stupid charges that our gov doesn’t give a shit about.

Anyway, I will throw more links in here as they come up..

The Stream: Bahrain after BICI Ok this is gold..These fools wouldn’t need so much PR if they weren’t so freaking ridiculous. Also, why pay PR companies when you are going to go on TV and be this arrogant, unashamed.. ?   By far one of my favourite episodes of The Stream.. It blows my mind how good this show has become after I hated it sooo much. There’s been so many good ones!

Oman Protests So Dan Nolan tweets that he is going to Oman to cover the protests. I’m all like Woot! He’d been doing meh topics for the most part since Egypt.

He gets there, he’s on camera, he does the voice overs, but can’t be named for his protection hahaha! I slept with the TV on during the Egypt coverage. Dan Nolan and Kamahl Santamaria’s voices would wake me up. If out cold, sleeping me knows that is Dan Nolan, so does everyone else. He goes in, does a report or two and then whoosh he is out again. No idea why. This was covered so poorly by Aljazeera.

I miss Dan Nolan. I hate that he is gone  and I hate that he isn’t tweeting either. I go check his twitter once in a while to see if he’s back. Funny thing, that stupid activity tab that Twitter gave us? Yeah, it outed Dan Nolan. It popped up when he followed @RealTimeWWII. So busted.. Who knew that creepy tab would have real value?

The Khalid Abdalla interview on AJE. Just a whoah moment. So passionate, well spoken.. it was a moment that you stopped what your were doing and listened. Loved this.

Parazit on The Stream. I found this whole thing so funny. Was good TV too..

Sebastian Walker’s Correspondent episode on Haiti. I can’t say enough good things about this. Out of everything I have watched this year, this is the one that hit me the most. Even my oblivious sister watched it and got pissed, so it is good.

I love how passionate Sebastian is in this. This feels personal to him, and to me that is what Correspondent is; telling the story that stuck with you. I can’t believe he didn’t punch anyone in the head. And if he did.. I hope there’s video somewhere. Sebastian is somehow becoming my fave AJE person and it’s weird because he is never on.

His Twitter is very good as well, but you have to follow him, not put him on a list because he retweets more than he talks and retweets don’t show in lists.

Shouting in the Dark. This is the one documentary that most resembles what I have watched go down in Bahrain. What pisses me off is how the important stuff that Aljazeera didn’t show while it happened is in there. They knew what was going on, but they didn’t show it.

And this bullshit excuse when he later says this… ARGH what.ev.er. (for the record, the Somalia coverage from AJE has been as crappy as Yemen, Bahrain etc too. They have newsHOURS, why it has basically 15 minutes of news  repeated is beyond me. Then there is the re-running of documentaries over and over. They have the time, they have the people..  report on it.)

Fault Lines on Bahrain. Yeah, we know the Adel Maymoon interview makes me laugh. The Sebastian nod.. the outlandish blindness .. did Sebastian know who he was interviewing when he went to this..  (about 8:45 in) This has kept my DMs full of jokes more than anything else that has happened all year.

This is the first thing I saw him in, somehow in only a couple of minutes he went from ‘who is this guy?’ to ‘wow, I love this guy!’

Gaddafi’s Hat One that isn’t AJE! This was the funniest, most beautiful interview.. <3

which of course means I have to put this..

AlJazeera Cameraman killed in Libya. If there is one thing that has been quite clear this year, it is as much as we mistrust media, there are people who put their lives on the line to tell people’s stories. For that I am so grateful. I’ve ‘watched’ media get arrested, beaten, detained, killed.. I don’t have the words to describe the feeling. As much as they seem to put a brave face on it, they are people too and we can care about everyone else and you! (EVAN HILL *nudge*)

Which I guess brings me to Mo Nabbous. He isn’t a story. He was a person who popped up early in the Libya revolution. Mo haunts me. There he was the first night, telling us about all the people in front of the courthouse that we couldn’t see because the camera couldn’t show it, screaming for help, to the last night; screaming for the NATO planes to protect them, calling Libyans for people in the chat room so they’d know their friends and family were ok.. then going out to bring us the news.. to the gunshot and the silence and the not knowing.. and then the frail voice telling us Mo was gone.

He was a person, with a name, a family, friends who love him and he is gone. He is one of so many, it kills me. I haven’t been able to watch Libya, Yemen and Syria properly since Mo died. I can’t absorb it anymore. It hurts too much.

Liliane Khalil – The dangers of social media, fake people and trusting ‘media’. And Marc is so cute.. hehehe

Loved the interview with the President of Iceland. He is such a grampa dude. I want to put him in my pocket and take him home. (oddly enough I have the same feeling about Kamal Hyder. I just love him! There is something so grampa adorable about him)

The Stream – Drones. The Stream seemed to have a little too much fun with their drones.. and it has Josh Rushing. Funny for how much I disliked him when I watched Control Room, I really like him. Everyone should age as well as he has..

Bat Fungus! I have no idea why this stuck so much. It just feels important and so sad! Bats are cute, and a pretty big part of our ecological system. And come on BAT FUNGUS!!!! Yeah, this is one of the first times I noticed Imran, even though I had seen him before..

The Stream -Jesse Ventura This one was really good, too. I concentrated really, really hard this time and hardly got distracted at all by how much he sounds like Kevin from the office.

Which I think is impressive considering I had seen this a couple of times and somehow never even noticed Imran in it hahaha

This is one of the best episodes of The Stream I’ve watched. It wasn’t long enough. Some episodes you just don’t want to end.. .

Since this turned into an AJE love fest, I might as well go all the way and gush over the AJE people who stood out as well.

Evan Hill Evan was the second person from AJE I found on Twitter. Not sure exactly how I found him, he wasn’t using hashtags, but that night, I’m sure it was Jan 27, he was wandering around, live tweeting the awfulness around Tahrir. I was on the edge of my seat, scared shitless for him all night. All I kept thinking is that this guy is a crazy SOB.. He also seems to be a nice, crazy SOB.  His articles are always good and his twitter is always a great source of info. He has always been number 1 for AJE on twitter to me. And yes, I freaked out the other night when he got hurt. Just because other people have it worse doesn’t mean we can’t worry about you too.. sheesh.

Kamahl Santamaria:
The moments that stuck are the things you can’t find on YouTube. The scrunching up his face when he asks hard questions, the puns he tells until his guest gives him a SMH (although it was pretty close to a facepalm), getting mesmerized by glow in the dark fish, commenting how pretty the moon is, wiggling his eyebrows about a prince marrying an Olympic swimmer, the middle of the night for him -prime time for us-when it must feel like no one is watching-mumbles and yawns (yes, we can hear you yawn, lol)
Not sure how to put it into words without it sounding insulting, but it isn’t. It’s like Kamahl has this poker face, he does the news all prim and proper (not like Adrian Finighan who makes it feel like you are on his couch and is telling you what happened in the world today, which is also awesome) then every once in a while his personality pokes through. It’s the oops smiles, the puns, the subtext you get when you follow all of Aljazeera on Twitter and you know he has no shoes on, or he’s telling jokes when the camera isn’t on him, or can’t seem to find a belt.. He is one of the funniest, most evil people I’ve met on Twitter. He makes me laugh. I don’t know anyone else who teases their followers as much as he does and then turns around and play all innocent victim when they get him back.

There was a Counting the Cost about tablets..  Sean decides that a tablet for me is a good idea and well “Kamahl says..”  That shopping trip was the funniest thing that has happened all year. Then the stinker decides he needs to make a poster of Kamahl to go over my desk. I hope I am not the only person in the world who has a Kamahl poster, cus it is really weird. (I moved it to the side of my fridge now, way less creepy :/)

And since we hit the Kamahl section, this not news but happened across this one day.. makes me laugh.. Who is standing behind Gabrielle?

Azad Essa –  Azad Essa’s writing impresses me each time I read anything of his. Zuma’s Bastard is already one of my favourite books. I read it for the first time in the summer. Pretty sure they smeared peanut butter or something on it because my dog ate it. It’s a keeper book, so I had to order it again. I read it again last week when I finally got through Beirut to Jerusalem by Dr Swee Chai Ang. That book was about the Sabra and Shatila massacre and was so brutal it kept giving me panic attacks and nightmares, so I needed to read something beautiful after to feel better. That would be Zuma’s Bastard. The writing is almost lyrical, for such short pieces, somehow he takes you wherever he is and you have vivid pictures of what he sees. It amazes me. It also makes me genuinely laugh, not a heh or a haha, it’s a smile all the way to my forehead and a laugh that makes me feel better.

Is it too early to whine for another book? I read what he posts on Aljazeera, but it isn’t the same as a book and it doesn’t have his thoughts at the end which are really the best part.

Imran Garda – Ok, so now we know that even though I had seen Imran over and over, it took a while for me to notice him. He is a well spoken, attractive man with a cool accent in a sea of attractive men with cool accents. Between the reports, The Stream and Twitter, his personality started to shine through. On The Stream he has the right energy for the program. (Derrick has actually got way better now too. It has gone from one of the shows I hate the most to top 3, where they really all fight for number one depending on the subject) Imran on Twitter is scathingly funny. I have this sarcastic, evil voice in my head that tells me jokes. Imran makes it laugh. A lot. I’m really glad he joined Twitter.

Anita McNaught I have a total girl crush on Anita McNaught. For some reason, her reports from the Rixos were captivating and I worried for her all the time. I have been just blown away by her all year. Her grace, class and professionalism were outstanding. Whenever she is on I stop and pay attention. She doesn’t tweet often, but her tweets are always good. There was an article about how Aljazeera doesn’t have media rockstars. I still believe wholeheartedly that this is the best thing about AJE. Everyone is so good, different reporters and newsreaders appeal to different people. There is no one stealing the thunder and making everyone else meh. Their bar is high, no one sucks. We gravitate to different people because we like them and everyone shines in their own way. We each get to have our own Anderson Cooper without the Anderson Cooper BS that drives us crazy.

Gerald Tan I don’t know what it is about some of the Gerald Tan stories, but they make me smile. They remind me of high school science class. I had the best Physics teacher in the world and for some reason these remind me of that. . I absolutely love them. I don’t know if he is officially on the Geek Beat, but that is what it feels like. I pay attention when these come up.

Ahmed Shihab-Eldin Ahmed has to be the person who works twitter the most out of all the AJE people I watch. He is connecting all over the place, retweeting, having conversations. He is the person who seems to get it and is using to get the most value out of it.  He knows what is going on and he is a fabulous hub. He comes across so real, so passionate about the causes that are close to him. If you are really lucky, Ahmed will flood your feed with poetry. Weirdest night: watching the world rip itself apart and Ahmed tweeting poetry all over. Was one of the best nights on twitter.

While other news agencies seem to think that their people should be link sending automatons, AJE seems to have the most plucky people I have seen. They have a point of view and they don’t seem to have any qualms about telling us what it is, yet they are professional and open when opposed (Even when they get trolled). I have to say it is immeasurable how much better it is to follow people with thoughts and feelings than it is to follow link generators promoting their own stuff.

Alan Fisher has a list of AJE people on Twitter. It is worth digging through it to find people to follow. I follow the list so I don’t lose it, but I find it much better to pepper my other lists with AJE people because the conversations I get to lurk are so incredibly interesting. This was the year I finally figured out the joy of lists. My twitter hasn’t been the same since. They are an art form!

Ok I am done now.. this took waaay too much time! But totally fun too..

Confronting All-American Muslim show shed light on the threat Islam and revealed more darkness in the American media.
Millions saw our message.
Over 700,000 emails collectively sent to all advertisers of the show.

Dear friend,

Florida Family Association’s efforts to influence advertisers not to support The Learning Channel’s propaganda show All-American Muslim drew tremendous national attention most of this week.

I was interviewed about our position on this show by dozens of news organizations. I knew that many of these organizations would not report our position fairly nonetheless they were going to report on it anyway so we wanted to at least present our message to whatever degree we could in their news.

And present our message we did to millions of Americans who need to know about the advancement of Islam with its Sharia code of conduct.

We hit a new record for emails sent through our sever. Close to 700,000 emails have been collectively sent thus far to the companies that advertised during All-American Muslim.

ABC, NBC, CBS, AP and numerous other organizations covered Florida Family Association’s efforts to confront the propaganda in All-American Muslim. As expected, most news organizations abused their need to objectively report the issue by changing the facts. And some media took their game plan right out of the playbook that homosexual activists use by calling anyone who expresses concern about the threat of Islam a hatemonger.

CBS News falsely claimed that I said “99.9 percent of Muslims agree with the principles of Sharia law.” I never said that during any interview. I do not believe that of Muslims in America. What I said was “most dictionaries define Muslim as ‘A believer in or adherent of Islam’ that Sharia law is the Islamic code of conduct for Muslims and I beg them to find any imams or clerics in the mosques of America that would sign a pact stating that they would never enforce Sharia law on any American including Muslim Americans.” I also said that “I would do cartwheels and handstands if the imams and clerics of American mosques were like many of the depictions of the Muslims in All-American Muslim.” We have NOTHING against Muslims. We just want to make sure that only American laws are enforced in America and that Islamic code or Sharia law does NOT change our way of life or diminish our liberty.

NONE of the hosts that interviewed me competently responded with any facts to counter this troubling contention, that most of the hierarchy of Islam wants Sharia law to govern where they live. This is the heart of the issue. It deeply concerns most Americans who want to keep their liberty and freedoms.

All most all of the media focused on making Lowes the target of their wrath while ignoring the fact that Home Depot was the first company to acknowledge in writing that they have no plans to advertise again during the show. Click here to read Home Depots email.

One national television news organization host blatantly lied in his challenge to my comments that Home Depot had pulled their advertising. He said at the end of the interview without giving me a chance to counter that “Home Depot never advertised during the show and we are waiting to hear from Home Depot on this issue.”

However, the Associate Press December 13th article added to our position when they reported “Atlanta-based Home Depot, which was cited by Florida Family Association as a company that stopped advertising, said Monday that it never intended to run any ads during the show. But spokesman Stephen Holmes said one commercial ran “’inadvertently and without our knowledge.’” Home Depot clearly states that they do not want to be on All-American Muslim but the company is ignored by the biased media. Click here to read Associated Press report.

We have been the target of much hostility with cyber attacks and hate calls and emails. The group Anonymous violated federal law by attacking Floridafamily.org. Our web master shut down our web site for a day, tightened security and returned us to the web. Thankfully we are back online. Additionally, I have received hundreds of emails and dozens of phone calls from people attacking my character and some making threats.

Please pray for our country. More people need to wake up to the fact that Islam and those who practice some of it’s deviant rules have been doing so for thousands of years and are a threat world wide including America.

Please consider supporting our efforts by clicking here to make a tax deductible, confidential gift online or mailing your gift to Florida Family Association, PO Box 46547, Tampa, FL 33646.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

David Caton
Executive Director
Florida Family Association

Floridafamily.org

To Unsubscribe: Click Here to UNSUBSCRIBE
Email: ffa@floridafamily.org

Florida Family Association, Inc.
P.O. Box 46547, Tampa, FL 33646-0105
Telephone 813-264-5888

I watch Aljazeera, I watch The Stream. I’ve heard of All American Muslim and it was all over Twitter. People talking about how good it was, people talking about how bad it was. People were talking about it. More seemed to like it than hate it, so I watched one episode, even though it isn’t the type of show I watch. I can’t be bothered watching people living their lives on tv. Not people with a bunch of kids, or people with a bunch of wives, rich wives, party wives, people who used to be famous.. UGH.. put em on an island and let them fight. That I will watch.

Anyway, the show wasn’t my thing, but there was nothing questionable about it. The people who didn’t like it seemed to be complaining that it didn’t represent them. It’s twitter, complete thoughts don’t tend to happen, but I am pretty sure the people who live in Jersey Shore feel the same. Probably more so.

This is really a disgusting mess. I had heard on twitter that there was a group trying to get advertisers to pull.. I facepalmed and kept going. Then a tweet from @hindmakki came through that Lowes had pulled their ads because of it. I checked their twitter and they were replying to people who were thanking them for pulling the ads. I checked their facebook page and people were thanking them there too. I was disgusted.

Then this popped up:

The first night it seemed to be mostly Muslims freaking out. The next day it was everyone. Twitter was flooded with people angered about it. The “thanks for standing up for America” disgusting tweets were finally overwhelmed by outrage. I felt better. This isn’t cool.

Now we have this:

This alone is enough to make me never want to shop at Lowes. This comment thread is the most vile thing I have read. THIS is the problem. There are people who are outraged that Lowes gave in to the emails and there are bigots cheering the decision and filling the comments section with hate and outright lies. When you decide that this is the public stance (never mind the things that happen in your head) and THIS is what your policies promote, there is a problem. As a human being, I can’t support this. This is disgusting and I don’t care what they do NOW. I am done with them forever.

This is not how you handle PR. At first I thought this was just a stupid social media person, however, when you read the articles on this, the statements from Lowes are saying the same thing.

When you think this is ok,

Or this:

And I sit here, in Canada and watch shit like this:

Lorne Gunter: Time to crack down on fraudulent immigrants

UGH!!!
Anyway, All American Muslim was on The Stream, the episode is here:

Articles on the Lowes ‘situation’

Sen. Ted Lieu today calls on CEO of Lowe’s home-improvement chain to apologize to American Muslims for ‘bigoted, shameful’ actions

American Companies Accused of Joining the All-American Anti-Muslim Bandwagon

‘All-American Muslim,’ business and bigotry: Lowe’s pulls advertisements from TLC series (column)

Russell Simmons blasts Lowe’s for pulling Muslim show ads: ‘This can’t happen in America’ — EXCLUSIVE

Now I want to see statements from every other company that supposedly pulled their ads after these emails. Will they do better? Until they explain, I am boycotting them too. We will see if it is just until they explain or forever like Lowes. And I do not think they should put the ads back on. That seems.. disingenuous. What I want to see is how they are going to help fix this bigotry issue which is rearing itss ugly head right now.

And of course the site that sent the emails :/

TLC’s “All-American Muslim” is propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda. Please send your email to advertisers.

UPDATE to add the statement from KAYAK (no idea who the hell Kayak is.. but whatever.. not great but not as shitty as Lowes’)

We Handled This Poorly
We would like to apologize to anyone who was offended by how we handled our decision not to continue advertising on All-American Muslim when it returns in January. We decided to advertise on it in the first place because we adamantly support tolerance and diversity. Our 150-person team includes people from all over the world, and from all walks of life. Our team includes people who are descended from early Europeans who came here escaping religious intolerance, and newer Americans who include many religions. We get what America is about.

- Robert Birge, KAYAK Chief Marketing Officer

On the other hand, a few people seem to have read the report and are trying, on personal levels to get it. Maybe if more do, they can wake up and maybe get rid of these evil assholes. I don’t see Bahrain hitting the tipping point where they can get rid of these fools.

I see the GoB losing and pushing and doing the exact same things they have in the past. Hopefully all the countries that back em and enable them while they torture, kill and abuse people will get it. I dunno.. I just can’t see how anyone in the country can be untouched by death, torture or detention. How do you stay sane when this happens to someone you love?

We are supposed to live in a world of laws. Laws have been broken. BICI points it out. If people who have killed are being held responsible, how is it that the GoB gets a free pass? No one is going to do anything about it? And are the people of Bahrain supposed to just play forgive and forget? I know I couldn’t if it was me.

Maybe it’s just me, but it feels like the pro-gov feel like the devil you know is better than uncertainty. They don’t want to live in chaos, they don’t want to live in a country like Iran, and they really fear that is what Bahrain will become. Since the politics aren’t so much my business, I don’t pay much attention to the actual parties, but maybe if away from the GoB they can somehow sit down and find a way to allay those fears they might get farther. I just don’t see the ground swell that they need. Like the video of the mall protest. There’s a lot of people who aren’t seeing it, and that has to change.

It’s frustrating and heartbreaking.

But this has made me giggle a little.. and oldie but a goodie! Stupid thing won’t let me set the place to start (or I’m not geeky enough) 8:39 I don’t think this interview will ever stop making me laugh. Sebastian’s nods and facial expressions kill me.

From what I can tell from his Twitter feed, he doesn’t need to read the report because he lived it! hahahahahaha Fucking hell.

Here is the full version:

Now watching the other end of that spectrum.. It is how predatory we are that strikes me. I want a $2 waffle iron. Fuck the world. Sick..

I can’t believe they think they are having fun.

There has been an air of no impartial media, everyone is biased and each side freaks out that their story isn’t told. Both stories are told in here. To me, there’s 2 levels to this report. One for the people; the Bahrainis and the people following along. The second for the Governments, both Bahrain and the governments that support them. (Although for the record, this seems to exonerate most foreign media coverage.)

For the average person living through this, I feel that they should sit down and read through the report. There are a few things missing from it, yes, but to me this isn’t the verdict on what happened, this is like a grand jury checking the evidence and seeing if anything should go forward. It points out many places where the investigations have been insufficient and what needs to be looked into. I would keep that in mind as you read it and try to keep an open mind about it. When both sides can stand back a little bit and see what happened through the chaos, maybe some of that healing can start. Forget the Government etc for a minute and look at each other, see what they feel and go from there.

Both sides are in there and I do think they were weighted properly. Yes, there were isolated incidents of violence from opposition, Sunni feelings got hurt and they were scared, and yes the gov did really horrific things.

The vibe on Twitter at least, ebbs and flows. Sometimes it feels like people are listening and getting along and then it will suddenly go nuts and the people who were moving closer to the middle get polarized again. There needs to come a point where everyone starts listening to the other and dealing with what happened, on a personal level, aside from what happens to the GoB. If the GoB really wants change to happen, the gov trolls need to be called off. They are not helping at all.

I honestly didn’t expect much from the report. I thought it would either whitewash the horror or pussyfoot around the issues. It did neither. It is quite blunt. This isn’t an examination which would really take months or years to delve into everything that happened, but it is a frank overview of the violence that took place.

Out of all of the stories the report told there were only 4 that I hadn’t heard. I think they were the most shocking simply because I haven’t processed them like the rest. I hadn’t heard about Jawad Ali Kadhem Shamlan. (1042) Zainab Hasan Ahmen Jumaa (1056) Jaafar Lutf Allah (1063) Or about the detention of the 110 MoI personnel (1199). Frankly, If that is all I hadn’t heard of out of this report, with me trying to piece together what’s going on most of the time, since everything seems to flip from English to Arabic when something happens, I find it really hard to believe the GoB (and the pro-gov supporters) don’t know this stuff. If you are actually THERE and speak Arabic, I have no idea how any of this is new.

What’s interesting, since the BNA and GDN don’t seem to understand what an actual news article looks like, is seeing what the GoB has done or knew about. Instead of a stupid tweet or 3 paragraph article that says they are looking for a serial killer, we see that maybe someone with some power has looked at evidence. Although to be honest with how they come across as bumbling fools all the time, I do not put much faith in it.

As for the GoB, the next logical steps (to me at least) Would be:

An apology, an honest heartfelt apology. Some shame for what has been exposed would be appropriate.

The state media should start reporting what the BICI actually said. It is insulting that after this report comes out articles like this are happening:
HRH Premier Lauds Security Bodies

There needs to be more than a few people sacked from their posts that oversaw these abuses.

A real inquiry had to be done, open, televised with everything open and where the fault really lies.

All the political prisoners and people being charged with anything not violent need to be released and cleared.

Until these things start happening, there will be no healing. As for who runs the country, that is still none of my business. But the fish stinks from the head. Does the fact that they are still using excessive force even after this report came out really need to be pointed out here? :/

And my list of thoughts as I read through the report:

Salmaniya: I am not exactly sure what I think of this section to be honest. For the most part it seems the doctors are cleared. If you put into context what was happening and that BTV was stirring the pot and scaring people away.. I dunno.. Right now I am reading a book called From Beirut to Jerusalem by Dr Swee Chai Ang. She worked in Gaza Hospital, the hospital for the Sabra and Shatila camp during the massacre. While the extent of the atrocities and different, the reactions to the events are similar. I found it striking. (the book is, for some reason I don’t understand, out of print, go find a used copy online, it’s very good) What it does seem to point out is that this whole mess needs to be investigated properly and transparently. IF anything happened that was illegal, real evidence needs to be shown, witnesses questioned and a proper investigation. Although it seems to be pointing that out all over the report.

(910)- No evidence that the demonstrators were armed with weapons. This was such a huge thing. The BICI doesn’t seem to believe that the weapon story from Feb 17.

If the excessive force was seen as early as Feb 14/15. Why wasn’t anything done then? Why did feb 17th happen? Doesn’t 1000 people to clear 1200 protesters seem excessive?? Especially in the middle of the night? This whole night was such an awful mess. I don’t think it has been dug into near as far as it needs to have been. I would also have liked to have seen how that might played out on twitter investigated. The comments from ‘royals’ that night were not helpful. If they want to talk about how twitter and facebook incite and spread sectarianism, that night would have been a good one to investigate.

(934) All I can say is seriously? I can see people getting that far and not reading on :/

Re: Civilians charged with murder. How much did the BICI dig into those cases? The credibility is so low and torture used so often, to be honest I really don’t have any faith that the people charged and/or convicted with any of the violent cases are the right people. if you are going to have a fair justice system, that is a problem.

The police officer’s deaths: The BICI doesn’t seem to have spent much space on something so heated and controversial. In a fair world, this would be investigated much more openly. This is divisive and needs way more investigation and attention.

I was struck that the BICI used ‘in a manner to inspire terror’ Every time I see the riot police casually walk down the street breaking cars, or hearing about the night raids and how awful they are, my first thought is ‘THIS is what terrorism is’ To see it in the report, floors me.

The report points out flagrant violations and yet this is happening right under the 5th fleet’s nose. Do they really not know?

(1242) Acknowledging that torture happened before Feb 14th. This isn’t new for Bahrain.

(1292) “The Commission recommends that all persons charged with offences involving political expression, not consisting of advocacy of violence, have their convictions reviewed and sentences commuted or, as the case may be, outstanding charges against them dropped” -THIS!!

(1299) Enforced disappearance- The talk about how this is a crime against humanity.. Feels like a warning, or a hint.. This has happened, and I am wondering if they couldn’t investigate it in depth enough. Whether they are warning the GoB about it, or that the people who are saying this has happened need to go do something about it. I found it interesting.

(1706) pointing out ‘under their mandate’? what does that mean? Do they think it has been done before or after?

What I would have liked to seen addressed:
Children detained
The demolition of the Pearl Roundabout
Surveillance: I would like to see more about blocked websites, about how text messages etc have been rumoured to have come up during interrogations. (I say rumoured, but I believe they are reading everything)

That’s my thoughts for now. I am sure I’ll add more later. Since this gave me nightmares again last night. Sigh.

While I don’t see Egypt, Libya, Syria or Yemen in the crackdowns. I can tell you that I felt like I was watching the Pearl Roundabout of February 17th again. It felt so much like it that I really don’t think I would have been shocked to see Salmaniya happen again.

The middle of the night crackdown, the 10 minute warning. How quickly they moved in, the people on twitter cheering on the cops and acting like it was a huge joke. The media blackout, arresting reporters. The tweets coming out of the park. The pile of tents dismantled, the home in the park destroyed in minutes.

We also have to remember how whitewashed our news is here. We tend to not be watching aljazeera. If you aren’t, did you really see what happened in these protests? The most telling to me the other day was a picture that was labelled graphic. The picture was the top one here: http://www.alternet.org/story/153134/caught_on_camera:_10_shockingly_violent_police_assaults_on_occupy_protesters/

I have been watching twitter and up until Mo Nabbous died, I had been watching the videos. I have seen bodies torn apart, exposed brains, horror no one should ever see. But that isn’t what we are seeing over here. This bloody picture is still graphic to us. Have we really seen the horror of what is going on over there? Plus they were so set on calling Egypt peaceful even that violence seemed to be rated PG. Death is still about statistics and not about human beings. We know 12 people were killed today, not that this poor child was shot in the head while sitting in a car, or this other child was beaten by cops and left to die.

And if the general population isn’t seeing the difference, the media has themselves to blame. It is their job to make sure that these voices get heard. Shake people’s bubbles and make them see the human being behind the death toll. It isn’t about condemning protesters in a park who feel connected to the struggles in their country.

And let’s get real here. Maybe some day they will get it. But it is the same struggle, and deep down it is the same people they want stopped. Money rules this world. War is the money making machine that keeps people oppressed and hungry. It is aid and military spending that keeps the people in power and keeps us small. As long as everyone keeps paying big money for bombs to kill us like insects, as long as aid isn’t really about helping people, but about sending big contracts to overpay westerners who send that money back home and don’t inject it into the economies it is supposed to help nothing is going to change. Would Mubarak have stayed in power that long if he didn’t have money and connection and the US couldn’t make money off the aid that was sent and the tanks they could sell?

Same people, different levels of violence tolerated. And we are the bugs. All of us. All across the world. If we start connecting on a human level, don’t discourage it.