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Thumbs Are the New Fingers for GameBoy Youth
An anonymous reader writes "Reuters is running an interesting story on how the use of gadgets such as mobile phones and GameBoys has caused a physical mutation in young people's hands. The use of the thumb is a deviation from the use of the index finger..."
Some frickin' mutations! I was wondering when we'd get around to that kick ass future I always saw in movies as a kid...
Shift happens. Fire it up.
Okay, as much as they fucked up with the whole "mutation" thing, you can't say that their refusal to use the word "terrorist" is not noble, at least within the context of journalism.
Reuter's editorial policy is that they will never use the term "terrorist" or "freedom fighter" or whatever, unless they are quoting. The goal is to be objective, and since Reuters is an international news service, they cannot afford to be US-centric or centered on the terminology of any nation.
Remember, one person's terrorist is another person's freedom-fighter. The word terrorist is very loaded. Reclaim The Streets! parties have been labelled terrorists simply for dancing in the streets. The French resistance against the Nazis was also called terrorism. It would be unethical, in the context of objective journalism, to use any government's definition of terrorism, so Reuters simply refuses to use the term, unless they are quoting.
Now, honestly, is that so bad?
(I do agree that journalism can never be truly objective, which is why I support media projects like the Independant Media Center, which wear their bias on their sleeves, but that's a debate for another day)
An Afghani who opposed long term Russian occupation of Afghanistan - that might be a freedom fighter, though if he targetted civilians with bombs, his _methods_ are those of a terrorist.
In the cast of a bunch of foreign nations who sneak into a country with the intention of killing large numbers of civilians, the story is quite cut and dried. Their methods are those of terrorists, of the most violent sort. And they are not freedom fighters because they are not resisting an armed occupation of a nation-state.
We should condemn Reuter's unequivocally for refusing, for reasons of political correctness and timidness, to accurately label those who commit acts of violence with civilian targets as the _intentional_ victims. There is no excuse for it. Violence justifies violence in some cases, and resisting armed occupation is one thing. Resisting an oppressive government generally falls under "civil disobedience" and sometimes is justified, and sometimes is not.
But as soon as you pick civilian targets (i.e. people who don't carry guns and don't make it their business to kill others) and make your goal to kill as many innocents as possible, you have become a terrorist, plain and simple. And if you are a terrorist that targets civilians of some foreign entity, you damn well better expect that countries government is going to take organized military action against you, your organization, and probably whatever country you are from, and likely kill you and your family and lots of other innocent people who get caught in the military cross-fire.
But as soon as you pick civilian targets (i.e. people who don't carry guns and don't make it their business to kill others) and make your goal to kill as many innocents as possible, you have become a terrorist, plain and simple
In other words, when Reuters reports on the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, or the fire-bombing of Tokyo, or the firebombing of Dresden (when high explosives were first used to smash the water system, to make it impossible to put out the fire started by later incindiary bombs), or similar events they should refer to these as "terrorist attacks" by the United States and (for those events in which they participated) Britain?
Because these events do fit your definition. The goal was to kill as many civilians as possible.
(Note that I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with these events being labelled as terrorist attacks, I'm just curious as to whether or not the poster truly wants to apply this definition in a consistent manner).
Yeah, and the same thing could be said about Israel. Both men and women in that nation have forced military duty. There are many ways to extrapolate that every citizen of any nation is in some way military.
By the textbook definition of "terrorist", we could correctly call Israel a terrorist, facist, racist state of apartheid which is guilty of ethnic clensing and genocide. Reuter's attempt is to not label one side as the good guys and the other as the bad guys, which is something that, say, CNN does every day.
Have you ever considered how biased our (USA) media is? In the whole Israel vs Pal conflict, Israelis are never called terrorists, even though the UN has recognized that Israel targets Palestinian civilians with violence. So the entire USA gets a light brainwashing everytime they watch the news. Palestinians are terrorists, and the Israelis are just using military action in self defense.
Do you see the bias? What about on September 11th, when the entire USA is shown some footage of 5 or 6 Palestinian teens dancing in the streets upon the news of the WTC attacks? This is a textbook case of taking something way out of context! Yeah, all of those tanks, heliocopters, missiles, bullets, etc, which have been used by Israel to kill everyone of those Palestinians were all made in the USA and given to Israel. In fact, the USA has supported Israel since the begining, with large amounts of money and weapons. Oh, and checking history shows that Israel has been illegaly occupying Palestinian land, using military force by the way, for several decades. So our lovely unbiased news "just reports" how these kids are dancing in the streets, but neglects to give the viewer any context. Knowing how the american educational system works, the average viewer doesn't know a thing about the history behind that conflict, and therefore, showing the USA a short clip of Pal teens dancing in the streets will serve the purpose of labelling the Pals as the "bad guys" - lumped together with the WTC terrorists.
My point is that, first of all, al Quaeda and the Palestinians are two separate issues. Furthurmore, all sides are guilty of murder or aiding murder! The important thing to realize is that what a nation supports and does is NOT what a person in that nation supports and does. The smartest thing would be to form a UN meeting amongst the common citizens of these nations, the ones that don't have "military action" as one of their solutions... have those people come up with a solution. Otherwise, each side will continue to choose and support leaders that have "military action" as their solution for international problems, and we will all continue to kill each other ad infinitum.
Also, some more food for thought on the whole Palestinian vs Israel conflict. If the USA is pissed off at Iran because Iran gives weapons to Palestine, then why is it ok that the USA gives weapons to Israel? Seems like a double standard. Or how bout the fact that Iran building nuclear weapons, is bad (even though they are doing it to protect their nation against Iraq, their not-best-friend of a neighboring nation), while the USA's stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction isn't bad. Yet again, another "bad guys" & "good guys" philosophy used by our nations leaders.
I think everyone in the USA needs to really get introspective, and see if they are brainwashed (oh no you think, the our media is pure truth, not an instrament of social engineering). See if they have chosen a side a priori. Because choosing sides, choosing military solutions - these things will only furthur the violence, furthur the hatred.
Thats how wars have been fought for over 100 years. Thats why in WWI and before European nations were no allowed to use certain types of weapons on soldiers (such as "exploding bullets").
I live in America, born here... stayed here. I love this place, but I see the problems it has. Just watching the news, local or national (e.g. CNN)... again and again, the Palestinian killers are referred to as "terrorists", while the Israeli killers are referred to as "military". A subtle bias? I think not.
Furthermore, in the USA, to criticize Israel is antisemitic - an exercise of neo-nazism. Taboo? It is extremely taboo to criticize Israel, and its backing philosophy: Zionism. Even when an Israeli Zionist Jew, Noam Chomsky criticizes Israel, he is a "neo-nazi"!
So yes, while many things in the USA work correctly (e.g. I can say "George W Bush is an idiot".) - when it comes to Israel, Zionism, Jews - well those are for some irrational reason, above critique no matter how true, just, and needed.