Media culpa

Susan Martinuk recycles previous (dubious) articles

2012-02-10T16:55:00.000-08:00

Already dismantled here and here, Susan Martinuk deftly self-plagiarizes/recycles/repurposes chunks of not one, but two previous Calgary Herald articles to paste together another discredited piece about abortion and breast cancer.

Martinuk, 2008:

In 1996, a paper in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health provided the first real evidence of a connection between abortion and breast cancer. Pooled data from 28 different studies demonstrated that women who had abortions had increased their risk of developing breast cancer by 30 per cent.

Subsequent studies supposedly disproved this association, but a 2005 Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons paper showed these studies had methodologies that were sufficiently flawed "to invalidate their findings." And, in 2007, the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons reported that induced abortion was the risk factor that best predicted the incidence of breast cancer in European women.

Martinuk, 2012:

In 1996, a paper in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health provided the first evidence of a connection between abortion and breast cancer. Pooled data from 28 studies demonstrated that women who had abortions had increased their risk of developing breast cancer by 30 per cent.

Subsequent studies supposedly disproved this association, but a 2005 Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons paper showed these studies had methodologies that were sufficiently flawed “to invalidate their findings.” And, in 2007, the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons reported that induced abortion was the risk factor that best predicted the incidence of breast cancer in European women.

Martinuk, 2012:

For the past 15 years, there’s been a growing controversy over the link between induced abortion and an increased risk of breast cancer.

…a key researcher at the National Cancer Institute reversed her position and stated that abortion is a significant factor in raising the risk of breast cancer. Dr. Louise Brinton co-authored a 2009 study stating that induced abortion increased the risk of triple-negative breast cancer by 40 per cent in women under 45. The paper, published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, stated the above and then lent its support to previous studies by saying that this increase was “consistent with the effects observed in previous studies on younger women.”

Martinuk, 2010:

(Published as “Silence on abortion's link to breast cancer suspect”, Calgary Herald, January 29, 2010)

For the past 15 years, there’s been a growing controversy over the link between induced abortion and increased risk of breast cancer...

...a key researcher at the National Cancer Institute has now reversed her position and stated that abortion is a significant factor in raising the risk of breast cancer…

…Dr. Louise Brinton…co-authored a 2009 study stating that induced abortion increased the risk of triple-negative breast cancer by 40 per cent in women under 45. The paper, published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, stated the above and then further observed that this increase was “consistent with the effects observed in previous studies on younger women.”

Update: Hey look! The first additional article we check out by Susan Martinuk contains more self-plagiarism.

November, 2011:
In 2008, Canadian Muslim leaders admitted that hundreds of Muslim men in Ontario were claiming welfare and social benefits for their multiple wives.

The system is supposed to prevent applicants from claiming welfare for more than one spouse, but the fraud worked because the government didn't check for independent applications from multiple spouses in the same household. If the paperwork is handled properly, taxpayers can be on the hook for a huge monthly payment of social benefits.

February, 2008:

Canadian Muslim leaders admitted that hundreds of Muslim men in Ontario are now claiming welfare and social benefits for their multiple wives.

… The system is supposed to prevent applicants from claiming welfare for more than one spouse, but the fraud works because they don't check for independent applications from multiple spouses in the same household.... If the paperwork is handled properly, that can put taxpayers on the hook for a huge monthly payment of social benefits.

November, 2011:

Polygamy violates Canadian values such as the principles of equality and the rights of women. The act demeans and discriminates against women, and reduces them to slave-like status. Most repugnant is that it often involves the sexual abuse, exploitation and rape of minors.
February, 2008:
Polygamy violates Canadian values such as the principles of equality and the rights of women. The act demeans and discriminates against women, and reduces them to slave-like status. Most repugnant is that it often involves the sexual abuse, exploitation and rape of minors.

And again:

Martinuk, December 2007:

A recent issue of Nature, one of the best scientific journals, published a paper that calls for an end to the Kyoto Accord and warns against creating any similar agreements that are geared toward targets and timetables for cutting CO2 emissions. The authors say Kyoto is a “symbolically important expression” of concern, but it’s “the wrong tool for the job.” A major flaw is the simplistic assumption that global emissions quotas are the best way to confront climate change.
A second concern is the validity of the UN reports that are the foundation for discussions and policy-making at international meetings such as Bali.

Martinuk, December, 2011:

A 2007 issue of Nature, one of the best scientific journals, published a paper that calls for an end to the Kyoto accord and warns against creating any similar agreements that are geared toward targets and timetables for cutting CO2 emissions. The authors say Kyoto is a “symbolically important expression” of concern, but it’s “the wrong tool for the job.” A major flaw is the simplistic assumption that global emissions quotas are the best way to confront climate change.

Another flaw that has been widely addressed in the western media is the validity of the United Nations reports that are the foundation for all climate change discussions.

Margaret Wente: Fabulous Fake Protesters, Fishermen, Polls, Pew Reports (and other possible P words?)

2011-12-30T06:34:00.000-08:00

The Globe and Mail added an Editor's Note to address Margaret Wente’s latest error (about the Pew Global Christianity report) that we identified here - the fourth correction in seven months (sadly, others equally worthy, have been ignored).

Hmmm...anything worth looking at in the rest of the column?

For example, Wente mentions Philip Jenkins’ 2002 book “The Next Christendom” only late in the article and in passing, even though much of her column relies on his ideas (and the corrected claims are now attributed to him). Some parts also sound a lot like previous reviews of Jenkins’ book.

Library Journal: by the year 2050, only about one-fifth of the world's three billion Christians will be non-Hispanic Caucasian.

Wente: By 2050, only a fifth of the world’s three billion Christians will be non-Hispanic Caucasians.

Library Journal: with the rise of Islam and Christianity in the heavily populated areas of the Southern Hemisphere, we could see a wave of religious struggles, a new age of Christian crusades and Muslim jihads.

Wente: The rise of Islam and Christianity in the heavily populated South could create a new era of religious strife, of jihads and crusades.

Ms. Wente also provides exactly the same Jenkins quote that had appeared in another online review, then follows up with a paragraph that begins: “Or, you could argue that Christianity is simply returning to its roots” - sort of like the “or” indicates that what follows is her own contribution or counter-theory, when in fact, the paragraph includes both Jenkins words (Jenkins: “As Christianity moves South and East, it is returning to its roots” – emphasis added), and a number of his other ideas in a form similar to the same book review which contained the quote.

Wente: It was born as the religion of the outcast and the dispossessed. Today, it’s embraced by young rural migrants flooding to the giant, impersonal cities. Like Islam, Christianity is a reaction to urbanization, cultural upheaval and displacement. It provides meaning, community, refuge, support networks and an anchor. It also offers blessings and redemption. Christianity, in its original form, preaches that supernatural intervention can help you in the here and now…

About.com: They are, quite simply, fulfilling profound social needs. Countries in the south are experiencing great economic and demographic difficulties – traditional ways of life are fading away while young people are moving in increasing numbers to the cities…Increasing numbers of people, disconnected from tradition and family, are searching for meaning and community in impersonal cities….Christian groups form a sort of “radical community”…where supernatural power is shown to act in their lives, here and now…

Wente doesn’t attribute these ideas to Jenkins or the various reviews. But as we’ve seen, there are other instances of what people might consider plagiarism or improper attribution. And it’s difficult to understand why the Globe would correct a 19 word attribution issue from the New York Times, but leave other, longer examples standing.

And there’s this little attribution problem (noted in comments) from December 22: “According to a poll by Ipsos Reid, two-thirds of Canadians approve of its efforts to boost the military and fight crime. Sixty per cent of the public feel the government is enhancing Canada’s reputation in the world. And a whopping 80 per cent agree with its decision to ban the niqab at citizenship ceremonies – a move derided by much of the progressive left,” Wente informs us.

The last of those results are not from Ipsos Reid, who didn’t poll on the subject of the niqab at citizenship ceremonies. Could be an older Angus Reid poll on the niqab in Québec, or a Forum Research survey done for Sun News. We don’t know, because the Globe and Mail won’t say.

I wonder if Ms. Wente will offer up one of those year-end reflections on columns past? As a member of the Q Media Panel on CBC, she was asked to select the most over-rated story of the year. She chose the Occupy protests, and had the brazenness to claim that they were a “media projection”.

Well, in her hands they were. Wente set out to paint the Occupiers as lazy, entitled students. The laziness and entitlement seem to be hers, though – since, rather than go out and interview anyone herself, she just picked up characters from other stories - one of whom, it turned out, was not an Occupy protester at all.

While Wente’s “John” was not fabulism (among other things, inventing a character from scratch would have required more work), one could argue that the effect was the same – and that “John” as a “face” of the Occupiers, went past the notion of a ‘media projection’ into fiction – a character cut and pasted from one narrative into a different one (in which he had no part), similar to the scientist who mysteriously became a fisherman in Margaret’s story.

The Globe corrected the most recent Pew error, probably because Pew contacted them, and they carry some weight. But it should have been corrected because it was wrong. Otherwise, they seem more interested in protecting their long-time columnist and former editor from further embarrassment. Sadly, in so doing, they seem less concerned with their responsibilities to readers, or with upholding the standards that (hopefully) the rest of their writers still respect. Let’s hope for better things in the New Year.

Margaret Wente, Math and Christianity: More factual/attribution errors?

2011-12-24T09:08:00.000-08:00

Wente writes that Christianity is the “fastest-growing religion in the world today”. “By 2050, Christians will outnumber Muslims 3 to 1.”

She claims that this comes from a “new report on global Christianity from the Pew Research Center.”

A pdf of the report is here, and if anyone can find anything suggesting that “By 2050, Christians will outnumber Muslims 3 to 1”, please advise. My search turns up no 2050 projections at all, and Muslims are not mentioned except in a footnote on Russia.

Wente goes on to describe a 2002 book by Philip Jenkins, offering similar points and the identical selected quote found in this book review:

There, another Jenkins quote appears: “Soon the phrase “a White Christian” may sound like a curious oxymoron…By 2050, there should be about three Christians for every two Muslims worldwide”.

The “should be” looks like it’s followed by a proviso – confirmed when Jenkins notes that while the percentage of Christians worldwide has remained the same for the past 100 years, Muslim numbers have surged from 12 or 13 percent in 1900 to just under 25 percent today.

Unlike the Pew Report, Jenkins does offer 2050 projections, writing: “Christians in 1900 outnumbered Muslims by 2.8 to 1. Today the figure is 1.5 to 1, and by 2050 it should be 1.3 to 1.” (Philip Jenkins, “The Next Christendom”, page 203)

http://books.google.ca/books?id=EIAKmFFfG3sC&pg=PA203&lpg=PA203&dq=2050+christians+muslims&source=bl&ots=v3X0LC0NVA&sig=etL3uuUSCCAMc-8iaXJG-ne2Lgo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-cv1TrWbHqLZ0QG-1-mVAg&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=2050%20christians%20muslims&f=false

Last month, Wente picked up an unsuspecting "John" and erroneously turned him into the “face” of the Occupy movement. She’s also been known to turn scientists into fishermen. These mishaps usually occur through a failure to attribute, which is a fairly common occurence. Here she attributes statistics to a report, but the claims don’t seem to be there. Did she make up a billion extra Christians, or subtract a few million Muslims? Did she accidentally turn Jenkin’s 2050 ratio of “1.3 to 1” into “3 to 1”? And why did she claim that these figures come from the Pew Center?

Margaret Wente’s methods: Are there different attribution standards for different journalists?

2011-12-10T12:52:00.000-08:00

More borrowed/recycled material? Just highlighting addenda to a post earlier this week which identified similar questions. In todays’s column, Margaret Wente recycles again. Here she is on January 7, 2011 with the same message and the same quote:

Wente, Dec. 10, 2011: This steady rise in material well-being helps explains why the Occupy movement didn’t catch on as many people expected it to. On the whole, average people think their lives are pretty good. “They don’t feel the moral outrage that radiates from the more passionate egalitarian quarters of society,” writes Prof. Cowen.

Wente, Jan. 7, 2011: There’s a reason people aren’t rioting in the streets over rising inequality. As Tyler Cowen writes in a widely noted essay (The Inequality that Matters) in The American Interest quarterly, ‘when average people read about or see income inequality, they don’t feel the moral outrage that radiates from the more passionate egalitarian quarters of society”.

And just to demonstrate how prevalent these attribution questions are, a quick scan of the same January 7 column turns up what seem to be more borrowed quotes and wayward quotation marks:

A passage about The Economist appears in an earlier review of the same book Wente criticizes (The Spirit Level). Not only does she reproduce the quote as if she found it herself, the words in bold caps - which appear within quotation marks in Snowdon’s version - are presented as Wente’s own prose in the Globe.

Christopher Snowdon: The Economist published its Quality of Life index in 2005, the relative income theory was explicitly rejected: ‘There is no evidence… that an increase in someone’s income causes envy and reduces the welfare and satisfaction of others. In our estimates, the level of income inequality had no impact on levels of life satisfaction.’

Wente, Jan. 7, 2011: And The Economist, among many others, argues there is no evidence that an increase in someone’s income causes envy and reduces the welfare and satisfaction of others. “In our estimates, the level of income inequality had no impact on levels of life satisfaction,” it noted in its quality-of-life index.

It’s interesting to compare the growing list of attribution questions in Ms. Wente’s writing (three of which have resulted in corrections/Editor’s Notes in the last several months) with other journalists who have apologized or been been fired for plagiarism. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable could explain how they are they different?

Addendum: And there's more. Same column.

Wente, Dec. 10, 2011: “The inequality of personal well-being is sharply down,” wrote economics professor Tyler Cowen in a terrific essay, The Inequality That Matters….Bill Gates may have a much bigger house than you do, but he eats the same kind of food and wears the same kind of clothes. And thanks to him, even poor people have access to computers.

Michael Barone: Tyler Cowen writes in The American Interest, "The inequality of personal well-being is sharply down over the past hundred years and perhaps over the past 20 years, as well." Bill Gates may have a bigger house than you do. But you have about the same access to good food, medical care and even to the Internet as he does.

Margaret Wente: More migrating quotes and improper attribution?

2011-12-08T08:55:00.000-08:00

Checking facts and quotes is sort of like the morning crossword. Sometimes it turns up alarming things, like when Margaret Wente apparently picked up a “John” on some website and took him to the Occupy protests.

Maybe Ms. Wente sprinkles quotes in her columns to make it look like she does research. But often these people are “her friends”, like “Virginia”, or “Ben”. Columns frequently begin and end with personal anecdote, making it seem as though the ideas and insights spring from her own experience. But there are problems.

Today's attribution issue: Ontario’s new anti-bullying initiative for schools, which Wente opposes. “Plenty of teachers are skeptical, too”, she writes, offering examples of what readers assume are some of those skeptical Ontario educators to backstop her claim. Wente provides three un-sourced quotes. One is something she says an unnamed teacher “told her”.

And: “’Administrators have had their spines surgically removed,’ one teacher says”.

This quote turns up on a 2001 blog post that has nothing to do with bullying or public schools, let alone the new Ontario law at the center of Wente’s article. Linda Seebach’s comment concerns academic freedom in American universities. Don’t know whether that’s where Ms. Wente found it, but given “John”’s surprising second life as an Occupy protester, one has to wonder.

Seebach, a geriatric blogger and contributor to the far right FrontPage Magazine (amongst other publications), also writes about the “nanny state”, “leftist universities”, and (like Wente) the appalling state of math instruction. A decade ago, she penned a diatribe on “political correctness” on American campuses that included this line:

“If you’re not routinely involved in higher education, you may not realize that many senior administrators have had their spines surgically removed as they crawled up the academic ladder.”

Seebach identifies herself as a “retired editorial writer and op-ed columnist” from Minnesota, “where in an earlier century she had been a math professor at St. Olaf College”. Given that they seem to share so many things, perhaps Ms. Wente considers her a kindred spirit, but Seebach’s comment appeared as that of an editorialist on another topic, and cannot legitimately be viewed as the solicited reaction of a “teacher” to Ontario’s new legislation.

We’ll skip over the problems with facts and arguments, and go to the third quote.

Wente: “As one school safety consultant says, ‘Parents and educators have the most important tools that legislation cannot deliver – education and supervision.’”

This looks like it comes from another American blog, although the post also appeared here, as a Letter to the Editor about cyber-bullying legislation in the U.S.

Kenneth Trump of Cleveland: “Parents and educators have the most important tools that legislation cannot deliver: Education and supervision”.

So, while it would have been both relevant and important to obtain reaction from Ontario educators about the new anti-bullying proposals, Wente contents herself with old, borrowed material, providing not one identified quote from the “plenty” of teachers she claims oppose it.

And as with “John”, it’s reasonable to ask how appropriate or professional it is to take un-attributed quotes from one context and repurpose them for a different issue.

More quote/attribution problems:

Plagiarism?

As has happened before, Ms. Wente fails to capture the entirety of a passage in quotation marks. Does the second sentence (in bold caps) constitute plagiarism?

Joel Kotkin, Foreign Policy: Cities often offer a raw deal for the working class, which ends up squeezed by a lethal combination of chronically high housing costs and chronically low opportunity in economies dominated by finance and other elite industries. Once the cost of living is factored in, more than half the children in inner London live in poverty…

Wente: As Mr. Kotkin has written, “Cities often offer a raw deal for the working class, which ends up squeezed by a lethal combination of chronically high housing costs and chronically low opportunity in economies dominated by finance and other elite industries.” Once the cost of living is factored in, more than half the children in inner London live in poverty.

Inaccurate quote?

Wente: “The environmental movement is deeply stained with a sort of Malthusian current,” Mr. Owen says. “It's anti-urban, anti-industrial, agrarian, primitivist.”

David Owen, quoting Daniel Lazare: Recently I asked (Daniel) Lazare whether he detected that same antagonism in the American environmental movement. “Unquestionably”, he said. “Green ideology is a rural agrarian ideology… The environmental movement is deeply stained with a sort of Malthusian current. It's anti-urban, anti-industrial, agrarian, primitivist.”

Recycled? Borrowed?

Maybe Ms. Wente doesn’t like the work involved in gathering quotes or soliciting comment. Recently she recycled a bit from an article she had written just weeks earlier:

Wente, July 30, 2011: As Fortune’s Nina Easton writes, 20 per cent of all American men are “collecting unemployment, in prison, on disability, operating in the underground economy, or getting by on the paycheques of wives or girlfriends or parents.”

Wente, August 16, 2011: These men, as Fortune’s Nina Easton observes, are either “collecting unemployment, in prison, on disability, operating in the underground economy, or getting by on the paycheques of wives or girlfriends or parents.”

The August column also includes a quote from Karl Marx. One might be forgiven for wondering whether Margaret has a bedside copy of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon. Or is it possible the quote came from an editorial in the Australian on the same topic?

Wente, August 16, 2011: Karl Marx described such people as “vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escaped galley slaves, swindlers, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, brothel-keepers, organ-grinders, ragpickers, knife-grinders, tinkers, beggars.” (He was referring to 19th-century France.)

Brendan O'Neill, The Australian, August 6: …this welfare-state mob has more in common with what Marx described as the lumpenproletariat. Indeed, it is worth remembering Marx's colourful description in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon…“vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escaped galley slaves, swindlers, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, brothel-keepers, organ-grinders, ragpickers, knife-grinders, tinkers, beggars…”

Addendum: Today’s column is pretty much a rehash of one from earlier in the year – again re-using an identical quote.

Addendum 2:

And just to demonstrate how common this is, from the same January 7 column, more migrating quotation marks. The passage about The Economist, which Wente presents as if she dug it up herself, in fact appears in an earlier review of the same book she discusses (The Spirit Level). Not only does she reproduce the quote, the highlighted words - which appear within quotation marks in Snowdon’s version - are presented as Wente’s own prose in the Globe.

Christopher Snowdon: The Economist published its Quality of Life index in 2005, the relative income theory was explicitly rejected: ‘There is no evidence… that an increase in someone’s income causes envy and reduces the welfare and satisfaction of others. In our estimates, the level of income inequality had no impact on levels of life satisfaction.’

Wente, Jan. 7, 2011: And The Economist, among many others, argues there is no evidence that an increase in someone’s income causes envy and reduces the welfare and satisfaction of others. “In our estimates, the level of income inequality had no impact on levels of life satisfaction,” it noted in its quality-of-life index.

Margaret Wente: attribution, quotation marks?

2011-12-01T05:30:00.000-08:00

Related content turned up the Pinker/Gladwell debate, and an older Wente article - ostensibly about Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers”. Again she shows herself to be a ‘fan’ of Steven Pinker (and another author). Don’t know if this was noted at the time, but since Ms. Wente thinks students get away with plagiarism too easily, one might ask whether turning in something like this would be acceptable.

Aside from a short section in quotes, some of Pinker’s (at times identical) wording is not included in quotation marks (see sections in bold caps).

Wente: Mr. Pinker… wrote: “The common thread in Gladwell's writing is a kind of populism, which seeks to undermine the ideals of talent, intelligence and analytical prowess in favour of luck, opportunity, experience and intuition” – explaining his appeal to both the Horatio Alger right (Mr. Gladwell is extremely popular on the Dilbert circuit) and the egalitarian left.

Pinker, NYT: The common thread in Gladwell’s writing is a kind of populism, which seeks to undermine the ideals of talent, intelligence and analytical prowess in favor of luck, opportunity, experience and intuition… this has the advantage of appealing both to the Horatio Alger right and to the egalitarian left.

Earlier in the same NYT piece, Pinker uses the same expression Wente places in parentheses : a popular speaker on the Dilbert circuit.

Perhaps more problematical, Wente doesn’t summarize Gladwell’s wide ranging and eclectic book herself – it seems Pinker’s criticism of certain parts will do:

Wente: Mr. Gladwell claims that cognitive skills don't predict success, that intelligence scores do not relate closely to job performance and that above a minimum IQ of 120, higher intelligence doesn't bring greater intellectual achievements.

Pinker, NYT: It is simply not true that… cognitive skills don’t predict a teacher’s effectiveness, that intelligence scores are poorly related to job performance or… that above a minimum I.Q. of 120, higher intelligence does not bring greater intellectual achievements.

Later, Wente drops in a paragraph which seemed odd, as she doesn’t strike one as an expert in Chinese agriculture. The paraphrased criticism is similar to one in a review by Peter Cocianis, an academic “completing a history of world rice production and the international rice trade since the seventeenth century”. But first, it’s worth noting how Wente sets up this little bit of Gladwell’s book (she reduces the several Asian examples Gladwell lists to just “China”):

Wente: “Mr. Gladwell's most tortured explanation for differing achievement is his effort to figure out why Chinese kids (as a group) are so much better at math than Western kids. The answer, he says, is found in centuries of rice-based agriculture”.

Gladwell on NPR: “’why is it that kids from Japan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong [and] China vastly outperform their American or Western counterparts in math,’ …Gladwell… says he found the answer in the agricultural tradition of rice farming”.

Wente: “This explanation makes sense only until you realize that rice isn't cultivated in the north of China, that other Asians are also good at math and that Chinese kids born and raised in North America retain much of their advantage”.

Peter Cocianis, Open Letters Monthly, April 2009: “…paddy rice has for millennia been the leading food crop on Java, in Thailand, in Burma, and in the Philippines… Do the inhabitants of rice-growing southern China outperform the inhabitants of northern China in math? As anyone with even a cursory sense of Chinese history knows, northern China for millennia has been a wheat/millet/small grain-producing region rather than a rice region”.

It’s reasonable to wonder if she borrowed that, and if so, whether she could have given the Chinese rice expert, and his publication, credit. As for Pinker, perhaps he wouldn't object - after all, she's a fan and helps him sell books. And maybe he doesn't need whatever he makes from a piece in the NYT.

*****

Context: Other attribution issues (aside from the most recent "John" debacle – which netted an Editor’s Note/clarification), are re-posted below, beginning with two the paper chose to address.

May 2011: In an article with a number of other borrowed, un-attributed quotes, Wente turns Dr. Mike Carron, a scientist at Mississippi State University, into a "fisherman".

Wente: “Red snapper are unbelievable right now,” one fisherman said. “You could put a rock on the end a string and they’d bite it.”

AP: "Red snapper are unbelievable right now," said Mike Carron, head of the Northern Gulf Institute in Mississippi. "Now you could put a rock on the end of string and they'll bite it."

Globe Correction: “A quotation about the abundance of red snapper in the gulf of Mexico, in a column of April 26, should have been attributed to Michael Carron, chief scientist of the Northern Gulf Institute”.

June 2011, Margaret and the New York Times:

Wente: …But it hasn't worked out that way, Mr. West writes. Instead, what we've built is a vast cultural dependency. Americans and Canadians are fighting and dying while the Afghans by and large stand by and do nothing to help them.

Dexter Filkins: …This isn’t happening. What we have created instead, West shows, is a vast culture of dependency: Americans are fighting and dying, while the Afghans by and large stand by and do nothing to help them.

Globe Correction, June 3: The words “Americans…are fighting and dying, while the Afghans by and large stand by and do nothing to help them” in the Focus section of March 12 should have been attributed to Dexter Filkins in the New York Times.

Unaddressed attribution: Wente and Helen Rumbelow, The Times, May 2011 (overlapping sections in bold caps):

Wente: ONE OF THE WORLD'S MOST AUTHORITATIVE SOURCES OF BREASTFEEDING RESEARCH IS MICHAEL KRAMER, PROFESSOR OF PEDIATRICS AT MCGILL UNIVERSITY. "The public health breastfeeding promotion information is way out of date," HE SAYS. THE TROUBLE IS THAT THE BREASTFEEDING LOBBY IS AT WAR WITH THE FORMULA MILK INDUSTRY, AND NEITHER SIDE IS BEING VERY SCIENTIFIC. "When it becomes a crusade, people are not very rational."

Rumbelow: ...ONE OF THE WORLD'S MOST AUTHORITATIVE SOURCES OF BREASTFEEDING RESEARCH: MICHAEL KRAMER, PROFESSOR OF PAEDIATRICS AT MCGILL UNIVERSITY, MONTREAL.

..."The public health breastfeeding promotion information is way out of date," KRAMER SAYS. THE TROUBLE IS, HE SAID, THAT THE BREASTFEEDING LOBBY IS AT WAR WITH THE FORMULA MILK INDUSTRY, AND "NEITHER SIDE IS BEING VERY SCIENTIFIC ... when it becomes a crusade, people are not very rational."

Wente and the Cato Institute website:

Wente wrote about Hernando de Soto in "The bad-paper trail: Where are the toxic assets?", Globe, May 2, 2009. Almost identical wording had appeared in de Soto's Cato Institute profile:

Wente: "delivering formal property rights to poor people can bring them out of the sway of demagogues and into the modern global economy…"

Cato Institute: “Delivering formal property rights to the poor can bring them out of the sway of demagogues and into the extended order of the modern global economy”.

Wente: “For his challenge to the status quo, the Shining Path, the Peruvian Marxist terrorist group, targeted him for assassination. His offices were bombed and his car was machine-gunned. Today, the Shining Path is moribund, and Mr. de Soto continues his passionate mission”.

Cato Institute: “For his efforts, the Peruvian Marxist terror group Shining Path targeted him for assassination. The institute's offices were bombed. His car was machine-gunned. Today the Shining Path is moribund, but de Soto remains very much alive and a passionate advocate…”

And this.

Margaret Wente: Even if they come from the same place, the cute guy’s numbers are better than the Feminists’

2011-11-29T10:15:00.000-08:00

Question: Why are statistics from the same organization (the U.S. Bureau of Justice) “the best there are” when Steven Pinker uses them, but “ridiculous” when used by the American Association of University Women?

A few things to add to this.

Of course, the question requires knowing that the figures are from the same body – something Wente doesn’t disclose when she again condemns the AAUW for “cooked up” stats.

Ethical? Professional? (“It is dishonest to base an editorial on half –truth”, says the code of conduct of the Ontario Press Council. “The Press Council supports free expression of opinion that purports to be based on statistics but believes that readers have the right to know where the statistics come from.”)

Maybe Margaret just likes guys better. In an interview on TVO’s “The Agenda”, Wente says she’s a ‘huge fan’ of Steven Pinker (who she also calls Stephen Harper). “First of all, he looks cute” (agreed - definitely cuter than Harper).

One other attribution question, highlighted by the TVO segment: In the Globe, Wente doesn’t clearly attribute an observation about a magazine ad found in Peter Singer’s NYT review of Pinker’s book. Instead, she presents it in a way that leaves readers wondering whether it’s her own observation about changing mores (like examples about a local team logo which follow).

Singer, NYT: “The final trend Pinker discusses is the ‘rights revolution’…. domestic violence was tolerated to such a degree that a 1950s ad could show a husband with his wife over his knees, spanking her for failing to buy the right brand of coffee”.

Wente: “It’s easy to forget how dramatically attitudes toward rape and wife abuse have changed. As recently as the 1950s, light-hearted magazine ads depicted husbands spanking their wives for buying the wrong kind of coffee. Police treated rape as a joke, too, and the victim and her reputation were routinely put on trial. The great rights revolutions that gathered steam in the second half of the 20th century put an end to all that”.

In the TVO clip, her seeming ownership is more pronounced. Paikin begins by asking Wente if any of the trends Pinker describes “have occurred to her” “before knowing about the book”.

They ramble on about Wente’s views. At about the 6 minute mark, with no reference to either men, Wente offers the same advertisement as one of her own examples of changing mores, saying, “within my lifetime…here’s how far attitudes have changed…within my lifetime, you could run a humorous magazine ad…(she goes on to describe the ad, and continue with “within my lifetime” examples).

Conclusion? I’m no expert, but it seems odd not to mention the source. But it also seems in keeping with the history of recent attribution errors.

Wente, the ‘Occupy’ protests, and a “John”

2011-11-05T07:52:00.000-07:00

What kind of research did Margaret Wente do for this article? And is “John” really a “face” of the Occupy Movement?

Wente provides three “faces” of the protests, with a quote for each. First we meet Laurel O’Gorman from Laurentian U, at Occupy Toronto. Then Wente reproduces a quote from a Boston.com article to introduce us to Sarvenaz Asasy. But “John” is the most puzzling “face” of the Occupy protests.

Wente writes: “Then there’s John, who’s pursuing a degree in environmental law. He wants to work at a non-profit. After he graduated from university, he struggled to find work. ‘I had to go a full year between college and law school without a job. I lived at home with my parents to make ends meet.’ He thinks a law degree will help, but these days, I’m not so sure”.

She’s “not so sure” – sounds like she’s ruminating over the conversation she’s just had with the guy.

But there’s no evidence “John” has anything to do with the Occupy movement.

Who is “John”? John is one of those cardboard characters political parties put forward to flog policies. His existence appears to originate on an online Obama 2012 election page about student loans, from whence he was perhaps picked up by a blogger who is in turn picked up by blogger Kenneth Anderson, who Wente quotes and paraphrases in her article. Anderson at least identifies “John”, providing a link to the guy who links to the Obama site), but since Margaret doesn’t bother, you can meet “John” and his quote right here.

In none of these online incarnations is “John” connected to the Occupy Protests, so it’s hard to see why he should be one of three representative faces she provides. It seems that as a responsible journalist, if you’re going to crib a representative “face” for your argument, you should acknowledge that someone else invented him first in a different story. It’s apparently too much to ask that Wente leave the confines of her high priced condo to talk to a few actual ‘Occupy’ protesters.

Wente provides a lengthy quote from Anderson, and additional ideas from his article. She’d apparently also like us to believe that she has (independently) read Christopher Lasch (who died before many of the Occupiers were born) and that she’s offering an original insight about Lasch’s views in relation to the Occupy movement. But this observation also appears in Anderson’s article. And the words Wente attributes to Lasch - “They are what the social critic Christopher Lasch called the ‘new class’ of ‘therapeutic cops in the new bureaucracy’” also seem to be misidentified. They actually appear in a September 22, 1995 article by the same Kenneth Anderson in the Times Literary Supplement. The words “therapeutic cops in the new bureaucracy” are used by Anderson to describe his own interpretation of the late Lasch’s work.

Update: The following Editor's Note now appears at the bottom of the online version of Wente's column:

Editor's note: Clarifications: John, who’s pursuing a degree in environmental law, is not part of the Occupy movement.

The following sentence is a paraphrase, not a direct quote: They are what the social critic Christopher Lasch called the “new class” of “therapeutic cops in the new bureaucracy.”

Helpful, but does this fully address the attribution aspect?

Lawrence Solomon – more fact-challenged than Pamela Geller?

2011-10-15T08:56:00.000-07:00

Pamela Geller runs “Atlas Shrugs” - a website which claimed simultaneously, that Obama is the illegitimate son of Malcom X and a non-citizen born in Kenya. It’s also rabidly anti-Muslim.

On Friday, in The Globe and Mail, climate change ‘skeptic’ Lawrence Solomon published claims about Egypt that make Atlas Shrugs seem like responsible journalism. Here’s what he wrote:

“…March; that’s when a national referendum passed constitutional amendments that effectively stripped Christians of political rights while strengthening sharia laws involving amputations, stonings and crucifixions”.

Egypt’s new constitutional amendments do not deal with, mention, or “strengthen” “amputations, stonings and crucifixions”. The following BBC summary of the provisions is similar to other reports:

“Under the proposed amendments to the constitution, the future president would only be allowed to serve two four-year terms, instead of unlimited six-year periods. He or she would also be obliged to appoint a deputy....Other amendments would make it easier for individuals to qualify to run as a presidential candidate and re-instate judicial supervision for elections. It would also be more difficult for any leader to maintain the state of emergency.”

A more complete list appears on wikipedia. None of the articles make reference to, or could possibly be construed as “strengthening”, “amputations, stoning and crucifixion’.

Article 75: A candidate would be ineligible if he or she had dual nationality

Article 76: Easing the requirements for being a presidential candidate.

Article 77: Limiting the terms a president can serve to two consecutive terms.

Article 88: The juridical system is responsible for monitoring the election process.

Article 93: would give the highest appeal court the power to rule on challenges to disputed parliamentary races, whereas before only the parliament could decide.

Article 139: The president must appoint a vice-president within 60 days of the start of the term

Article 148: would impose new restrictions on the president declaring a state of emergency, including requiring the approval of a parliamentary majority, and says it cannot exceed six months unless it is extended through a referendum.

(Article 179): would be canceled. The article allows the president to use military courts for "terror" cases even for civilians.

(Article 189): Require the newly elected parliament to write a new constitution within 60 days.

***

Solomon appears to have gathered quotes, figures and other material from an online article by the “Assyrian International News Agency”, a Christian Syriac group. Extremist sites like JihadWatch and Atlas Shrugs had carried, or linked to, the same material. But Solomon appears to exaggerate, embroider or mis-interpret one sentence in the AINA piece, in which mention of the amendments is simply followed by a reference to what the writer believes is the “intention” of “Salafist” elements in Egypt. The piece does not say that such provisions are contained in the constitutional amendments:

“The EUHRO report noted that Coptic emigration escalated since March 19, 2011, after the constitutional amendments in Egypt and the escalation in Salafist attacks on Copts and their intention to implement Hudud laws (Sharia based punishments, which include capital punishment by sword/crucifixion, stoning, amputation and flogging).”

In this post, Atlas Shrugs presents a more balanced. factual version than the Globe:

“Nearly 93,000 Coptic Christians have left Egypt since 19 March, a report by an Egypt-based Coptic NGO has said…

…Gabriel attributed the Coptic emigration to hardline Salafi groups seeking to apply Islamic law, deny Copts senior government posts, and reduce incoming tourism. He also blamed attacks on Coptic churches and the government's failure to bring attackers to justice.”

Concerns expressed about extremist elements, who some view as wanting to eventually implement some form of sharia, are a far cry from “amputations, stonings and crucifixions” being enshrined or “strengthened” within Egypt’s recent constitutional amendments.

It’s a sad day when Atlas Shrugs looks like better journalism than the Globe and Mail.

And unless Solomon can provide the relevant text of a constitutional amendment that does what he claims it does, the Globe should offer an apology and retraction.

Margaret Wente: self-control and quotation marks

2011-10-08T08:48:00.000-07:00

Margaret Wente’s column on willpower shows she could stand to exercise a bit more self-control with quotation marks.

Quotes and other material from the introduction to Baumeister/Tierney’s book, “Willpower” figure prominently in her piece, but Wente seems to blur the line between the authors’ observations and her own, and again uses what seem to be migrating quotation marks. The overlapping sections Wente leaves out of quotes (part identical wording, part paraphrase) are highlighted in bold caps.

Wente: Most social scientists look for the causes of social failure outside the individual: deprivation, oppression, discrimination and so on. “Searching for external factors is often more comfortable for everyone,” the authors write, “particularly for the many academics who worry that they risk the politically incorrect sin of ‘blaming the victim’ by suggesting that people’s problems might arise from causes inside themselves.” Social problems can also seem easier to fix than character defects – despite the overwhelming evidence that they aren’t.

Baumeister/Tierney Introduction, available here : Most social scientists look for causes of misbehavior outside the individual: poverty, relative deprivation, oppression, or other failures of the environment or the economic and political systems. Searching for external factors is often more comfortable for everyone, particularly for the many academics who worry that they risk the politically incorrect sin of “blaming the victim” by suggesting that people’s problems might arise from causes inside themselves. Social problems can also seem easier than character defects to fix, at least to the social scientists proposing new policies and programs to deal with them.

Wente: “Self-regulation failure is the major social pathology of our time,” concluded a team of researchers quoted in the book. This failure contributes not only to obesity, but to high divorce rates, domestic violence, crime, addiction and a host of other social problems.

Baumeister/Tierney: “Self-regulation failure is the major social pathology of our time,” they concluded, pointing to the accumulating evidence of its contribution to high divorce rates, domestic violence, crime, and a host of other problems.

Wente also describes the “marshmallow experiment” cited in the introduction. “Remember the marshmallow test?” she asks, without mentioning the authors’ use of it. Observations about the Victorian era also appear the introduction, but Wente makes no mention of the authors’ comparison

Wente borrows headline, omits facts, in criticism of McGuinty electric car plan

2011-08-25T19:30:00.000-07:00

Margaret Wente slams Dalton McGuinty’s electric car initiative with this California example: “Costco… has pulled the plug on its electric car-charging stations…because nobody uses them”. Given the similarity to an article titled “Costco pulls the plug on electric vehicle charging stations”, it’s odd that Wente withholds the relevant facts – that Costco’s 1990s era chargers are useless and outdated, and that companies like McDonald's are installing modern chargers to service booming sales of current electric cars. (As Green Car Reports writes: “Be on the lookout for silly, misleading articles that claim electric-car demand is ebbing, that plug-ins are a failure in the marketplace… it's simply not true.”)

According to the Daily Mail, “Costco chargers around Los Angeles stopped working years ago”. Built for the famously scrapped GM EVs, “Costco outlets are outdated by current standards” and would need major upgrades to power the Leaf, Volt, or Prius. But Wente doesn’t tell us this.

More relevant than one obsolete Costco example are the new McDonald’s and Macy’s stations - compatible with new electrics. And Time Magazine writes that Walgreens, IKEA, and convenience store chains will do the same. Mr. McGuinty is following the lead of companies with good business records. But again, Wente won’t tell us this.

We expect regular eco-trashing and McGuinty-bashing from Ms. Wente, but there is an election going on in Ontario, and it behooves the Globe and Mail to provide readers with facts relevant to his policies. In addition, Wente’s suggestion that Costco’s decision indicates lack of demand for current Nissan, Toyota and GM electric products is misleading and should be clarified.

Margaret Wente and the “elites”

2011-06-11T08:26:00.000-07:00

Here's Margaret Wente writing a puff piece about billionaire Peter Munk:

Wente: “’I arrived in this place not speaking the language, not knowing a dog,’ he says. He was 18 – an alien, a foreigner, a Jew in a funny-looking suit. In Europe, people were living in the ruins, like rats”.   

Hmnn, that’s a quite a contrast from this bio in the Globe by Andy Hoffman, in April 2008:  

“He was born Nov. 8, 1927 in Budapest, Hungary to a Jewish family rich with real-estate holdings...”   

(The article informs us that Munk’s family spent much of that fortune to escape to Switzerland where life wasn’t so bad).

But  “young Peter failed to gain admission to a top university and in 1948 it was decided that he would be sent to Toronto for his education, and live with his aunt and uncle...Peter and his friends met to consider his fate in a Zurich café. He didn't want to leave Switzerland. ‘In Zurich it was gorgeous. There were bars and we could drive down to the casino and see the dancing girls. It was a cultured, civilized place,’ he recalls.”  

So Munk may ‘not have known a dog’ in Toronto, but he did know his relatives. And while Wente wants us to think the poor man was scurrying around the ruins with rats, he was apparently living the high life in Zurich’s bars and casinos.

Attribution Correction?

2011-06-03T18:39:00.000-07:00

After bringing this to the attention of Globe editors, the following notice appeared in today’s print version, (June 3, Page A2). Now, why not the rest?

The words “Americans…are fighting and dying, while the Afghans by and large stand by and do nothing to help them” in the Focus section of March 12 should have been attributed to Dexter Filkins in the New York Times.

Margaret Wente and the New York Times again: “Plagiarism or poetic licence”?

2011-05-31T13:41:00.000-07:00

The question has been asked before. Following this and this, another recent article by the Globe and Mail scribe. The passage is short, but quite similar to a NYT book review.

Here again is a side-by-side comparison of one bit (from a previous post), with the overlap of prose in caps. Like Wente's identification error in another un-attributed quote (recently corrected), unclear attribution can produce other problems:

Wente: One of the world's most authoritative sources of breastfeeding research is Michael Kramer, professor of pediatrics at McGill University. "The public health breastfeeding promotion information is way out of date," he says. The trouble is that the breastfeeding lobby is at war with the formula milk industry, and neither side is being very scientific. "When it becomes a crusade, people are not very rational."

Rumbelow: ...one of the world's most authoritative sources of breastfeeding research: Michael Kramer, professor of paediatrics at McGill University, Montreal.

..."The public health breastfeeding promotion information is way out of date," Kramer says. The trouble is, he said, that the breastfeeding lobby is at war with the formula milk industry, and "neither side is being very scientific ... when it becomes a crusade, people are not very rational."

Even if one justifies the use of another journalist’s quotes, the prose overlap substantially exceeds them.

And aside from the overall similarity, that sentence, “The trouble is that the breastfeeding lobby is at war with the formula milk industry, and neither side is being very scientific”, raises other questions; given the migrating quotation marks in Wente’s version, the last six words change from being a recorded quote by Kramer in Rumbleow’s article, to (also) appearing as Wente’s prose in the Globe. Is that acceptable?

Margaret Wente, plagiarism and misquotation?

2011-05-24T06:53:00.000-07:00

As already discussed here, in “The Tyranny of mother’s milk”, not only does Margaret Wente sprinkle her text with un-attributed quotes, the apparent borrowing extends to surrounding material; one paragraph contains significant overlap with the words of another journalist who she does not credit. Of Wente’s sixty-four word paragraph, only a third is actual quotation –comment from McGill’s Dr. Michael Kramer in a 2009 Times article. Turns out this is problematical in more ways than one. But first, to recap that bit:

Wente: One of the world’s most authoritative sources of breastfeeding research is Michael Kramer, professor of pediatrics at McGill University. “The public health breastfeeding promotion information is way out of date,” he says. The trouble is that the breastfeeding lobby is at war with the formula milk industry, and neither side is being very scientific. “When it becomes a crusade, people are not very rational.”

Rumbelow: …one of the world’s most authoritative sources of breastfeeding research: Michael Kramer, professor of paediatrics at McGill University, Montreal.

…“The public health breastfeeding promotion information is way out of date,” Kramer says. The trouble is, he said, that the breastfeeding lobby is at war with the formula milk industry, and “neither side is being very scientific ... when it becomes a crusade, people are not very rational.”

Look at those passages closely; in Wente’s version the quotation marks slide over, shortening the quote and thereby presenting as her own prose what in Rumbelow’s article were words in quotation marks by Dr. Kramer. Should the words “neither side is being very scientific”, which move out of quotes and into Wente’s prose, have been attributed to Dr. Kramer, as they appear in The Times? Or to Ms. Rumbelow? And should the preceding prose which links the two quotes, and which is virtually identical to the 2009 article, also have been attributed to Ms. Rumbelow?

But there are other problems with Wente’s use of this material:

Rumbelow’s is a 2009 first person opinion (not a report) about the British National Health Service’s breastfeeding pamphlet, which (her article says) she received “last year”. It appears that Dr. Kramer of McGill was asked to comment on a British NHS pamphlet from 2008 (Rumbelow writes: “with my NHS leaflet in hand, I put its list of health benefits to Kramer”). But Wente, in omitting this context and inserting the material in an article about breastfeeding here, leads readers to believe the Montreal doctor views Canada’s 2011 “public health breastfeeding promotion information” as “out of date”. Like the shifting quote, is this accurate?

Worse, a quick search turns up the following article in the British Independent, in which Dr. Kramer repudiates the “misquotation” by Rumbelow. Why does Wente, on the same side of the Atlantic as Kramer, use old quotes in an opinion piece about the British NHS which he had since disavowed?

Here’s an article about the Kramer misquotation in The Independent:

"’Journalists certainly have the right to express their own opinions, but not to misquote experts they choose to interview in order to support those opinions. That sort of sensationalist journalist would not surprise me from the tabloids, but I had expected better from The Atlantic and The Times,’ Kramer said last night.

The Times quoted Kramer, who is based at McGill University, Montreal, as saying there was ‘very little evidence’ breastfeeding reduces the risk of a range of diseases from leukaemia to heart disease. Yet, what he actually said was: ‘The existing evidence suggests that breastfeeding may protect against the risk of leukaemia, lymphoma, inflammatory bowel disease, type 1 diabetes, heart disease and blood pressure.’ All he did concede was that we need ‘more and better studies to pursue these links’, a common cry from academics lacking in funding”.

***

Dr. Kramer’s published views include the following, which appeared in the Globe and Mail:

"’Our study provides the strongest evidence to date that prolonged and exclusive breastfeeding makes kids smarter,’ said lead investigator Michael Kramer, a professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at McGill.”

So aside from Wente’s lack of attribution, there are related factual problems resulting from her methods. It’s alarming to think of how such practices might be used to provide inaccurate information.

Wente’s overlaps with Rumbelow go beyond the borrowed quotes of Dr. Kramer. But even if it were limited to this, many experts view even the use of other people’s quotes as plagiarism. (Widely reported remarks by a world leader don’t require attribution, but when a reporter or columnist seeks out and gathers more obscure material for an article, the situation seems to be different).

An article on Poynter Online about a professor whose opinion column was cancelled for one instance of un-attributed quotes is titled “Merrill’s offense was plagiarism”. Jacqueline Banaszynski, its author, holds the Knight Chair in Journalism at the University of Missouri, and the article is co-signed by Professors Daryl Moen and George Kennedy, Professor Emeritus, journalism at Missouri, and Professor Charles Davis, Executive Director of the National Freedom of Information Center.

Discussing whether the cancellation of Merrill’s column was warranted, the experts ask whether acknowledgement and apology would have sufficed, but they are unequivocal about the offense: “the use of material gathered by another writer, without crediting that writer, is plagiarism”.

One would think that this goes double when the overlapping material extends well beyond the quotes, as it does in Wente’s article. And further, in reproducing both the same quotes and surrounding prose as Ms. Rumbleow, Wente leaves readers with an impression of Dr. Kramer’s views which contrasts with his comments in the article published in Independent and elsewhere. Might this have been avoided had Ms. Wente attributed his remarks to the older article by Rumbelow? Did she inquire about his later comments in The Independent? And, most importantly, for someone who is critical of plagiarism in others, does Ms. Wente provide adequate attribution for the overlap in prose surrounding the quotes (as well as the quotes themselves) in the 2009 Times article?

Clarification: This post has been modified to reflect the fact that Ms. Wente contacted Dr. Kramer.

Margaret Wente, plagiarism?

2011-05-21T12:24:00.000-07:00

We’ve looked at Margaret Wente’s similar problems here and here.

Her column in today’s Globe not only borrows quotes, but in one case, appears to reproduce a whole paragraph - including another journalist’s introduction and connecting sentence.

A 2009 article by Helen Rumbelow in the Sunday Times quotes Michael Kramer of McGill. Rather than taking the trouble to contact him herself for some fresh observations (they are on the same side of the Atlantic, after all), Wente reproduces the two Kramer quotes along with Rumbelow’s introduction and linking observation, “the trouble is, he said, that the breastfeeding lobby is at war with the formula milk industry”.

Wente: One of the world’s most authoritative sources of breastfeeding research is Michael Kramer, professor of pediatrics at McGill University. “The public health breastfeeding promotion information is way out of date,” he says. The trouble is that the breastfeeding lobby is at war with the formula milk industry, and neither side is being very scientific. “When it becomes a crusade, people are not very rational.”

Rumbelow: …one of the world’s most authoritative sources of breastfeeding research: Michael Kramer, professor of paediatrics at McGill University, Montreal. “The public health breastfeeding promotion information is way out of date,” Kramer says. The trouble is, he said, that the breastfeeding lobby is at war with the formula milk industry, and “neither side is being very scientific ... when it becomes a crusade, people are not very rational.”

Another quote, and some language regarding Joan Wolf also appears to come from Rumbelow:

Wente: “The evidence to date suggests it probably doesn’t make much difference if you breastfeed,” says Joan Wolf, the author of a daring book called Is Breast Best? Ms. Wolf, an American academic, has examined the medical literature in detail.

Rumbelow: Joan Wolf is an American academic who… examines the medical studies in painstaking detail. “The evidence to date suggests it probably doesn’t make much difference if you breastfeed.”

And while Wente identifies the following quotes as something Wolf “told one group of moms”, the following exchange appears to come from an online Q & A with Wolf on the blog “Fearless Formula Feeders”.

Wente: “Breastfeeding is part of what I call total motherhood, the belief that mothers are both capable of and responsible for preventing any imaginable risk to their babies and children” she told one group of moms. “We are making mothers crazy by telling them that they have the power, if they are willing to put forth the effort and make sacrifices, to prevent all sorts of bad things from happening to their kids.”

Fearless Formula Feeder: Finally breastfeeding is part of what I call total motherhood, the belief that mothers are both capable of and responsible for preventing any imaginable risk to their babies and children…But we are making mothers crazy today by telling them that they have the power, if they are willing to put forth the effort and make sacrifices, to prevent all sorts of bad things from happening to their kids.

Do they not pay Wente enough to gather her own material? Does she have to borrow not only from established journalists, but bloggers? Perhaps a little Wentism is in order. Can I say Margaret Wente is a lazy sloth? After all, she described Elizabeth May as a “hyperactive chipmunk”, ‘media spotlight hog’, and “biggest loser”. She didn’t offer much to back up that bit of name-calling. I searched the article in vain for a little bit of work - three, two, or even one reason why May is like a hyperactive chipmunk. The high priced, laconic contrarian could have at least done something with nuts. So (for free) we’ll close with three facts about sloths:

1) The coarse hair of the sloth grows in a direction opposite to that of other mammals.

2) While nominally a mammal, a sloth's fluctuating body temperature makes it seem cold-blooded, like a snake or reptile.

3) The sloth is so lazy it remains hanging from its perch long after it’s dead and has stopped writing anything interesting or original.

Globe and Mail corrects Wente’s borrowed quote

2011-05-17T18:27:00.000-07:00

A correction appeared in the print edition of the Globe on May 13 for one error in a more widely flawed article by Margaret Wente on the Gulf Oil spill. We looked at it earlier.

“A quotation about the abundance of red snapper in the gulf of Mexico, in a column of April 26, should have been attributed to Michael Carron, chief scientist of the Northern Gulf Institute”.

No link available.

George Monbiot’s unedited letter to the Globe and Mail

2011-05-14T04:49:00.000-07:00

( a re-posting following the great Blogger crash)

The other day we looked at a column in which Margaret Wente described George Monbiot as Elizabeth May’s “biggest critic”. Monbiot had sent along a copy of his response to the Globe and Mail, an edited version of which was published. Globe editors removed Monbiot's references to Wente’s "outrageous misrepresentations and distortions”, and to his articles being “radically misconstrued”. They also removed a sentence in which he described himself as “a great admirer” of Ms. May. Below is his full letter, with the excised bits in bold.

Dear Sir,

Margaret Wente's column, in which she claims to summarize and support two articles of mine, contains a number of outrageous misrepresentations and distortions. She suggests I said that environmentalists "don't understand the science and they don't understand the economics." I've said nothing of the kind.

She also claims that I am Elizabeth May's "biggest critic." If so, May has little to worry about. I am a great admirer of hers, and I'm delighted that she is now a member of parliament. I am sure that, like Caroline Lucas, the sole Green MP in the UK, she will do an excellent job of holding the government to account, and will enrich the political life of the nation. Her "biggest critic" has never said a word against her.

Elizabeth and I could, if we tried, doubtless find issues on which we disagree, but that, I believe, is something to celebrate. Environmentalism is perhaps the most politically diverse movement in history, accommodating a wide range of views and perspectives, while drawing people together through a shared concern for the planet, its people, its places and its living creatures. The fact that we are able to hold a wide range of views without excoriating each other suggests that the green movement is a haven of free and independent thought, all too rare in the current political climate of micro-management and control freakery.

My articles sought to lay out the difficulties and dilemmas we environmentalists face, and to contribute to an open, public discussion of the kind that few other movements are prepared to contemplate. It is hard to understand how they could have been so radically misconstrued.

Yours Sincerely,

George Monbiot

Globe and Mail version:

Margaret Wente suggests I said that environmentalists “don’t understand the science and they don’t understand the economics” (Hard Questions For Ms. May – May 10). I’ve said nothing of the kind.

She also claims that I am Elizabeth May’s “biggest critic.” If so, Ms. May has little to worry about. I am delighted that she is now a member of Parliament. I am sure that she will do an excellent job of holding the government to account, and will enrich the political life of the nation. Her “biggest critic” has never said a word against her.

Elizabeth and I could, if we tried, doubtless find issues on which we disagree, but that, I believe, is something to celebrate. Environmentalism is perhaps the most politically diverse movement in history, accommodating a wide range of views and perspectives. The fact that we are able to hold a wide range of views without excoriating each other suggests that the green movement is a haven of free and independent thought, all too rare in the current political climate of micro-management and control freakery.

George Monbiot

****

Monbiot writes to Globe about Wente's "outrageous misrepresentations” . Globe responds by misrepresenting his letter, and removing criticism.

More on Wente, laziness and plagiarism, plus May and Monbiot

2011-05-10T12:05:00.000-07:00

George Monbiot is a serious thinker. Too bad the Globe and Mail only has Margaret Wente. It’s remarkable how many words one can take from another writer, and still manage to distort them.

We’ve already looked at Wente and plagiarism here - where, along with various near identical passages, she casually re-assigns or invents identities – for example, turning Dr. Mike Carron, a scientist at Mississippi State University, into "a fisherman" in one of many un-attributed bits of other articles.

Wente: “Red snapper are unbelievable right now,” one fisherman said. “You could put a rock on the end a string and they’d bite it.”

AP: "Red snapper are unbelievable right now," said Mike Carron, head of the Northern Gulf Institute in Mississippi. "Now you could put a rock on the end of string and they'll bite it."

Today’s piece on Elizabeth May again shows real effort at recycling, with Wente still being somewhat sparing with quotation marks:

Wente: “But as Mr. Monbiot writes, ‘The problem we face is not that we have too little fossil fuel but too much.’ As oil declines, economies will switch to oil sands, shale gas, coal and ultra-deep reserves”.

Monbiot: “The problem we face is not that we have too little fossil fuel, but too much. As oil declines, economies will switch to tar sands, shale gas and coal; as accessible coal declines, they'll switch to ultra-deep reserves.”

Why does Wente limit her quote to the first bit? To turn ‘tar sands’ into ‘oil sands’?

Or here.

Wente: “As Mr. Monbiot writes gloomily, ‘All of us in the environment movement – whether we propose accommodation, radical downsizing or collapse – are lost. None of us yet has a convincing account of how humanity can get out of this mess.’ He hopes that by laying out the problem, he can encourage environmentalists to ‘abandon magical thinking’ and recognize the contradictions they confront”.

Monbiot: “All of us in the environment movement, in other words – whether we propose accommodation, radical downsizing or collapse – are lost. None of us yet has a convincing account of how humanity can get out of this mess…I hope that by laying out the problem I can encourage us to address it more logically, to abandon magical thinking and to recognise the contradictions we confront.”

Again, why so stingy with those little things? They don’t take much space.

Wente offers little other than carefully skewed and selected Monbiot and cheap shots at May. The observations that seem to be her own are a bit wacky: “But greens neglect to mention that hundreds of millions of Chinese people have begun consuming stupendous quantities of brick, copper and manufactured goods in their rise from poverty – nearly all of it produced with fossil fuels”.

“Consuming stupendous quantities of brick… produced with fossil fuels”? Of all the things to complain about in China - brick?

In 2001 China announced a ban on traditional bricks made with fossil fuels, in favour of “using brick made of ash from power plants in cleaner kilns” - recycling the byproduct from coal plants, rather than using fossil fuels to produce clay bricks. China is apparently now a leader in “state of the art technology for brick manufacturing”, producing “energy efficient… flyash bricks as an alternative… to the commonly used burnt clay bricks, which use fossil fuel for their production”.

Now, "non-baked bricks account for 55-60 per cent of building materials used in China."

But the most spectacular dishonesty is Wente’s assertion that George Monbiot is Elizabeth May’s “biggest critic”. For this, her central argument, she produces not a single word from the man. One can’t find anything Monbiot has said that is “critical” of Elizabeth May. Nor does he refer to her as a “hyperactive chipmunk” with “a matchless ability to hog the spotlight”.

The two are most well known for debating together on the same side, in the Munk Debates on Climate Change. If Wente can substantiate her claim that Monbiot is May’s “biggest critic”, she should offer up some evidence. And please, Ms. Wente, try doing it the professional way, with quotes.

Margaret Wente: photo funnies, laziness, and plagiarism

2011-05-07T21:43:00.000-07:00

I try to avoid Margaret Wente. "Mom, she's writing about the urban elites again", my son will yawn at breakfast. But the photo accompanying "Fear and loathing among the eastern elites" May 7, 2011) was curious. It showed how Wente's stock character, the 'snobby eastern urban elite', had "demonized" Stephen Harper. The unidentified photo illustrated the "vitriolic animosity" - "the hatchet job the Liberals have done" on Harper, and how poor Steven Harper is "routinely depicted as a cross between Darth Vader and Lord Voldemort".

I thought the picture of Harper with horns looked like something from a kid's Facebook page. So I checked. Unidentified and missing entirely from the online version (where there's a cartoon about Pakistan), the photo seems to be of this guy hiding behind John Baird - a grainy shot of an eco-activist at a 2007 demo in Stanley Park. Not "eastern", likely not "elite', and, if I had to guess, maybe anarchist or Green, rather than Liberal. Perhaps Wente doesn't choose her images, but this illustrates a deeper sloppiness.

Were the article to have used a Toronto G20 protestor instead of one from B.C., the problem remains; if you're going to complain about vitriolic demonizing, you can't compare the actions of some unsanctioned individual at a demo with the official advertising campaign of, say, the ruling party of Canada. They are not the same thing. To pretend they are is a bit like saying a squad of fully armed RCMP is equivalent to a lone guy with a stapler.

Andrew Coyne highlights the most interesting bit from Paul Wells' election post mortem- a gloating Conservative's analysis of their multi million dollar Ignatieff attack campaign:

'''They say that we try to portray Ignatieff in our ads and so on as a weak and flailing professor,' the war room staffer said. 'No, that’s how we portrayed Dion. Dion was weak, you know, Dion was ‘not a leader.’ …Michael Ignatieff, in our narrative, is a political opportunist who is calculating, who will do and say anything to get elected….He’s a schemer…He’s a malicious human being…that’s kind of the sentiment we’re getting at...With Ignatieff, it’s ‘He’s a bad man.'"

I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure any defamation decision would be heavily influenced by whether the offending material was a handmade poster or a national advertising campaign in heavy rotation during the Academy Awards and the Superbowl. People would rightly see the damage from one as being qualitatively and quantitatively different from the other. That's 'natural justice' or (if you're an old-fashioned Mike Harris Conservative) "common sense". But Ms. Wente would have us believe they are the same thing.

Wells also describes how Patrick Muttart (later fired from Harper's 2011 campaign for allegedly shopping a fake photo of Ignatieff to Sun Media), "had the party register a website in Montenegro so its URL could be www.ignatieff.me, reinforcing the notion that the Liberal was 'just in it for me.' They stuffed it full of embarrassing old quotes. Ads ran for weeks on television and radio."

I thought some dumb kid had set up that site, but now we learn it was the PMO.

Is it elitist to say the picture in Wente's article is cheap? Wente, a private school gal with no kids, from a wealthy family, who hobnobs with the Bay Street set and writes for the most elite paper in the country, regularly tells us how anti-elitist she is. My definition of 'elitist' would be someone who is privileged, arrogant and lazy, and Wente is arguably all three.

Wente: Laziness or plagiarism?

Possible plagiarism has already been discussed. But there are lots of other examples, like this:

Wente writes about Hernando de Soto in "The bad-paper trail: Where are the toxic assets?", Globe, May 2, 2009. Almost identical wording had appeared in de Soto's Cato Institute profile:

Wente: "delivering formal property rights to poor people can bring them out of the sway of demagogues and into the modern global economy…"

Cato Institute: “Delivering formal property rights to the poor can bring them out of the sway of demagogues and into the extended order of the modern global economy”.

Wente: “For his challenge to the status quo, the Shining Path, the Peruvian Marxist terrorist group, targeted him for assassination. His offices were bombed and his car was machine-gunned. Today, the Shining Path is moribund, and Mr. de Soto continues his passionate mission”.

Cato Institute: “For his efforts, the Peruvian Marxist terror group Shining Path targeted him for assassination. The institute's offices were bombed. His car was machine-gunned. Today the Shining Path is moribund, but de Soto remains very much alive and a passionate advocate…”

****

I'd ignored Wente since finding a bunch of similar stuff in her articles a few years back, but a quick look at recent work shows she's still up to her old tricks.

Here are some bits from Wente's recent piece on the Gulf Oil spill:

Wente: “Red snapper are unbelievable right now,” one fisherman said. “You could put a rock on the end a string and they’d bite it.”

AP: "Red snapper are unbelievable right now," said Mike Carron, head of the Northern Gulf Institute in Mississippi. "Now you could put a rock on the end of string and they'll bite it."

Lifting that quote from a 2010 AP report, Wente also turns Dr. Mike Carron, a scientist at Mississippi State University, into "a fisherman". Sloppiness, or anti-elitist reflex?

Wente: “People are having a hard time accepting it. Me, too,” says Ed Overton, a chemist at Louisiana State University. “There are things that are wrong. There is still oil out there. But it is not nearly as bad as I expected it would be a year later.”

Press Register: "People are having a hard time accepting it. Me too,” said Ed Overton, a chemist at Louisiana State University…. "There is still oil out there. But it is not nearly as bad as I expected it would be a year later.”

http://blog.al.com/live/2011/04/scientists_optimistic_but_caut.html

Wente: most scientists believe the Gulf is in surprisingly good shape. When three dozen of them were asked to rate the current health of the Gulf’s ecosystem on a 1-to-100 scale, they gave it an average grade of 68 – not bad, considering that, before the spill, they gave it a 71.

Fox: More than three dozen scientists grade the Gulf's big picture health a 68 on average, using a 1-to-100 scale. What's remarkable is that that's just a few points below the 71 the same researchers gave last summer when asked what grade they would give the ecosystem before the spill.

Even the Fox article, like the others, goes on to acknowledge that the Gulf is not in good shape, but Wente studiously avoids the thrust of each article she cribs from. Here's just one more early example:

In “Not every girl can be a winner” (also May 2, 2009), Wente denounced the Girl Guides for introducing “body image” badges to combat anorexia.

Wente offers quotes, without attribution. Two of them had appeared in a 2004 article by Frank Stephenson in Research in Review.

Stephenson: "Or so says Martin Seligman, an outspoken critic of the self-esteem movement. Seligman considers self-esteem exercises a menace to society... 'What I think has gone wrong,' Seligman says, 'is that we now think we should inject self-esteem directly into our young people, as opposed to producing warranted self-esteem, which I believe comes from doing well with the people you love, doing well in sports, [and] doing well in school.'"

Wente: “Among the biggest critics of the self-esteem movement is cognitive psychologist Martin Seligman. ‘We now think we should inject self-esteem directly into our young people, as opposed to producing warranted self-esteem, which I believe comes from doing well with the people you love, doing well in sports, doing well in school,’ he said. In his view, self-esteem exercises are a menace to society”.

Wente doesn't credit Stephenson' at all, even though the words she uses to describe Seligman’s views - “self esteem exercises are a menace to society”, are his.

Stephenson also summarizes the work of his colleague Roy Baumeister, who Wente also quotes.

Frank Stephenson: "As a graduate student Baumeister had accepted claims for the benefits of self-esteem uncritically... Baumeister set out to answer the...question, ultimately publishing several even-handed appraisals of self-esteem...'People who have elevated or inflated views of themselves tend to alienate others,' the report states."

Wente: "'People who have elevated or inflated views of themselves tend to alienate others,' wrote social psychologist Roy Baumeister, who used to believe in the importance of instilling self-esteem, until he reviewed all the research".

The Baumeister quote is buried in a long report co-authored by Jennifer Campbell, Joachim Krueger, and Kathleen Vohs, but it appears as a header in Stephenson's piece. Wente uses the highlighted quote, attributing it to Baumeister, without crediting the report's other authors, and again without citing Stephenson.

Wente claims that the Guides’ decision to introduce badges related to healthy body image is a bad idea, omitting the most relevant findings in Stephenson’s article, which contradicts her claim.

Frank Stephenson: "But low self-esteem does play a substantial role in eating disorders, a big problem, particularly for young women. Today's teen and college-aged women face a national epidemic of anorexia and bulimia, two closely associated emotional disorders that can be fatal if not treated. A great deal of evidence indicates that feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing-low self-esteem-are in fact risk factors in disordered eating, Baumeister's report noted. Work by Kathleen Vohs, one of the report's authors, for example, found that bulimia is strongly associated with low self-esteem".

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090502.COWENT02ART2013//TPStory/National

http://www.rinr.fsu.edu/summer2004/summer2004.pdf

http://www.blnz.com/news/2008/04/23/Rise_Fall_Self-Esteem_0552.html

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090501.wcowent02/BNStory/specialComment/home

I'm no expert on plagiarism or inadequate attribution, but Wente's practices seem not dissimilar to David Warren's, which the Ontario Press Council found lacking. And amongst academics and teachers whom Wente regularly faults for being soft on plagiarism, some examples from her own work would likely merit a fail. That she gets away with it perhaps indicates the different rules that apply to 'eastern urban elites'.

Grassroots and Astroturf

2011-05-04T17:01:00.000-07:00

So the 2011 Canadian election marks a ‘historic’ political shift. But perhaps we flatter ourselves in thinking our actions alone are responsible for it. Maybe the change is a larger movement of the landscape - not just political ground.

First, a few definitions:

Mediate: -To settle or reconcile differences

-To have a relation to two differing persons or things

Media: means of communication reaching large numbers of people, television, newspapers, radio

Representation: -An image or likeness of something

-The state or condition of serving as an official delegate, agent, or spokesperson

-The right or privilege of being represented by delegates in a legislative body

- A body of legislators that serve on behalf of a constituency

The election signs have been picked up and the lawn is in bad shape. People say Liberals need to “rebuild” by getting back to their “grassroots”. But what if this election shows that political parties - as organizational entities – are as much a casualty of this election as the Bloc or Liberals? Even amongst Conservatives, the notion of “grassroots” has become, under Harper’s command and control, a kind of quaint creation myth. Remember that old ‘recall your MP’ stuff? Forget the people who sent them there - even Conservative Cabinet Ministers are muzzled. So is grassroots politics dead? Has the changeability of politically coloured “brands” replaced grassroots organization?

It certainly seems like the 2011 election results underscore how devalued the notion has become. Conservatives ran an Astroturf campaign, with Harper droning the same message from teleprompters, even in grassy backyards full of kids, while the Orange wave caught them off guard. But was the Orange wave a grassroots kind of politics?

That Québecers could elect MPs like Charmaine Borg and Ruth Ellen Brousseau shows that, even in the most politically engaged part of Canada - where organizations like labour unions are still very strong - image trumps grassroots organization, and the ‘leader’s’ image trumps everything, including qualifications for prospective MPs. (Rather than traditional areas like labour, a significant number of Québec NDP candidates were recruited from the hallways of McGill, their networking skills amounting to not much more than a Facebook page).

It is historic that in Québec, passionate, long-held nationalist aspirations seem to vanish overnight – replaced, in some cases, by new MPs who don’t live in their ridings, never bothered to show up to campaign in them or meet their constituents, and apparently, barely speak French. Conservatives, many of whom themselves didn’t bother to show up at anachronistic things like candidates’ meetings, are fine with that.

Granted, lots of the newly minted NDP MPs are women, which is good. And perhaps the energetic young people will do a good job; many Bloc MPs, first elected without much experience, worked well on behalf of Québecers and all Canadians in Parliament. Despite the apparent joy at their demise, their departure is also a loss. Their hard work came with a higher than average integrity quotient; they had no expectation of the perks ladled out to past Liberals or current Conservatives in the form of Senate seats, regulatory board appointments, or extravagant spending in their ridings.

I’m not critical of the NDP – it is a party with authentic prairie grass roots that will defend social democratic values. They ran a great campaign, and Jack Layton was reasonably judged the most trustworthy and likeable leader. But simply put, leaders shouldn’t matter that much. And it’s not a good thing when they do.

And that’s the problem – one exacerbated by a lazy media who find it easier to focus on personalities rather than policies, and who reinforced Harper’s media strategy of zeroing in on the leader with attack ads – something begun with their “Not a Leader” attacks on Dion, and continued with Ignatieff - to predictable effect. Major outlets mouthed the script, asking Ignatieff “why he came back”, focusing almost exclusively on the leaders’ personae and on “Biggest Loser” story arcs. Air time that could have been given over to issues was wasted on the fatuous Nanos “Leadership Index” polls, where we were told what we were thinking about the leaders’ ‘image’ – who was trending up and who ‘spiraling’ down. We watched ourselves watching ourselves, rather than finding out about policies or local candidates. Which leader better ‘reflects’ us? Are we “boring”, or ‘catching the wave’?

After picking the debate’s winners and losers - regardless of actual results, someone must be chosen on reality TV - we were told how the ‘story’ would develop, and we made it so. But on Political Idol, shouldn’t the finalists at least get to do a few more numbers before we vote them off?

To “mediate” means, among other things, to go between. Imagine, just for a moment, an election without polls, attack ads and televised leaders’ debates – where concerns arising from the “grassroots” would be voiced by voters at meetings, and where the party’s policies were articulated and communicated by candidates themselves in their own words, in their own ridings – where MP hopefuls, not pundits, pollsters, or leaders, “mediated” the views of their party to the public and vice versa. Of course it’s impossible to picture politics without the 24-hour media ether in which it now lives, but it’s worth remembering that that was the context in which our political system arose, and in which it was designed to work.

But as constitutional expert Peter Russell has warned, we’re moving toward a Presidential model without any of the opposing balances of American legislative bodies. Mr. Harper has taken unprecedented steps in de-legitimizing the institution of Parliament. This was an election in which there was no sense from the mainstream media that we were actually electing Members of Parliament, rather than leaders, to “represent” us. Representation has effectively morphed from an earlier political meaning to an aesthetic one, as represented by advertising and other media appearances, and with power shifting from earlier bodies along with it.

And advertising was important in the Orange wave. On a trip to Montréal at the beginning of the campaign, I was gob-smacked by the strong presence of NDP advertising this time around. The images of Jack Layton alternated with those of Duceppe on every light standard along Boul. René Levesque and other major thoroughfares, signaling a two-way race. Perhaps more importantly, the NDP TV ads in Québec were brilliant. They ‘reflected’ Québecers’ sophisticated aesthetic back to them. They were stylish and funny, with a perfectly pitched message. Perhaps the NDP won Québec in large part through the sheer brilliance of its advertising, and, as they themselves acknowledge, by “matching the Conservatives ‘dollar-for-dollar’ to the tune of $23 million” in their advertising budget. But as noted, they had little in the way of on-the-ground organization or qualified, experienced candidates. The aesthetic definition of representation clearly trumped the political one.

Sure, the parties themselves should accept some blame for not articulating issues. And some journalists, like Andrew Coyne, addressed issues like ethics and the importance of Parliament. Some reporters, like Terry Milewski on the Harper bus, tried to ask tough questions, only to be shouted down - the crowd booing him just like they might boo Simon Cowell. But mostly, journalists analyzed the leaders not in terms of whether a claim was true or false, good policy or bad, but purely in terms of marketing, and whether the leader put in a good ‘performance’. That is, when they weren’t talking about their own performances; Rosemary Barton’s twittish tweets about her nap time, laundry and lunches being just one example of self-indulgence.

What we can take away from this election is that grassroots political organizing, MPs, and Parliament itself, are of less value now than when we entered an election following a historic Contempt of Parliament ruling. It’s not just the Conservatives who view Parliament with contempt – it’s all of us.

And sadly, the lessons people may take away are these; personal attack ads, and the erosion of our democratic institutions are rewarded. And real political work – at least on the part of candidates and their volunteers knocking on doors - doesn’t pay. After this election, why would anyone bother, when you can coast to victory vacationing in Las Vegas?

Ironically, it was the Liberals who were the most old-fashioned - almost small ‘c’ conservative. Most of them were on the ground working hard, and the free-access, unscripted, townhalls of Ignatieff’s campaign, like Layton’s own, relied on his actually meeting the people he wanted to ‘represent’ (in the old, ‘political’ sense). But he couldn’t overcome the ‘representation’ created by the new (to us, at least) style of attack ads that big ‘c’ Conservatives ran.

Personally, this election, I saw a lot of grass. When going door to door, you have to walk a lot farther trying to avoid someone’s lawn. I’ve voted for several parties, and never belonged to one. But this year, I decided to volunteer for the guy most likely to defeat the Conservative incumbent in my riding, the infamous and, some would say, infantile, Pierre Poilievre. If I lived in Paul Dewar’s riding, I would have done the same for him. But this candidate was a Liberal, and a good one – a smart, self-effacing young lawyer who made headlines early in the campaign when rifle targets were spray painted over the photos of his face on his election signs. He was quiet, serious, ethical, dignified, and worked incredibly hard knocking on doors across a large riding for months prior to the election. The Green Party candidate worked hard on the ground too. The NDPer was virtually invisible in my riding.

I didn’t do as much as others. Some people had doors slammed in their faces. I was dreading that. It was clear, from going door to door, that those attack ads had done their work. But my best moment was after a chat with a guy in the military, who shook my hand and thanked me.

Given the loss, it’s tempting to quote my re-elected Conservative MP’s earlier comments in a Parliamentary Committee - “Fuck these guys” - or echo the ‘bent elbow’, ‘up yours’ salute he delivered in the House. But because the candidate and volunteers behaved with such integrity and dignity, one should respect it, and behave appropriately.

Indeed, despite pessimism, my sincere congratulations go out to candidates like Ryan Keon, to those like him who worked hard, and to the people who laboured on the ground for good candidates (of any stripe). For someone who’s never done it, this was eye opening and inspiring. And it is on behalf of those people – who put in weeks and months of their time - that one feels most saddened by various aspects of the election result.

But despite the increasing lack of reward and its questionable efficacy, good people continue to do that kind of grassroots work. As is often the case with volunteering, you get more out of it than you give. Meeting these people was a counterbalance to the cynicism of the current political Astroturf. And people on the progressive end of the spectrum would do well to stop bickering, and figure out how to harness the energy and dedication of people like that to the next political wave - whatever colour it turns out to be.

Ottawa Citizen’s Election profile misidentifies Liberal Candidate Ryan Keon

2011-04-18T06:44:00.000-07:00

Ryan Keon, the Liberal candidate for the riding of Nepean/Carleton, is having a hard time getting recognized. He’s already had the photo on his election signs defaced with target symbols and other offensive comments.

The Ottawa Citizen’s recent profile of Keon doesn’t help – they’ve got the wrong guy in the picture.

Here is Ryan Keon:

The man in the Citizen’s photo is Robert Henderson, and comes from this article about the defaced signs.

Correction, please?

Update: No correction offered, but they just changed the photo. Here are links for cached versions.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lj3dvv14D80J:www.ottawacitizen.com/Homes/Liberals%2BRyan%2BKeon/4570905/story.html+ottawa+citizen+Liberals:+Ryan+Keon+is+a+lawyer+and+son+of+renowned+heart+surgeon+and+retired+Progressive+Conservative+Senator+Wilbur+Keon.+The+central+theme+of+his+campaign+is,+he+says,+families.+Ryan,+42,+and+his+wife+Cindy+have+two+children.+Read+http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Liberals%2BRyan%2BKeon/4570905/story.html%23ixzz1JszE4ITn&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca&client=safari&source=www.google.ca

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:CaDfiJrLvIAJ:www.leaderpost.com/news/Liberals%2BRyan%2BKeon/4570905/story.html+Liberals:+Ryan+Keon+is+a+lawyer+and+son+of+renowned+heart+surgeon+and+retired+Progressive+Conservative+Senator+Wilbur+Keon.+The+central+theme+of+his+campaign+is,+he+says,+families.+Ryan,+42,+and+his+wife+Cindy+have+two+children.+Read+http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Liberals%2BRyan%2BKeon/4570905/story.html%23ixzz1Jt09Ehq9&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca&client=safari&source=www.google.ca

Don’t know if the erroneous photo ran in the print edition, or if they’ll correct it there.

“Roadkill” at the NRC?

2011-04-13T18:29:00.000-07:00

What’s going on at the National Research Council? Earlier this month, Postmedia reports indicated it would forge ahead with genetically modified wheat, and focus funding on three other research areas chosen by new president, John McDougall. Both reports were quickly pulled from their websites. Now, a further report, pulled on some sites, but still available on others, denies it will focus on GMO. To recap an earlier story not yet taken down:

There's radical change at the National Research Council, Canada's biggest science institute, as the new president orders all staff to direct research toward boosting economic development and technology, with less time for pure science.

Starting this spring, 20 per cent of research money… will be removed from existing budgets and directed where the president and vice-presidents choose. Eventually, 80 per cent of research funds will be redirected this way.

One of the yanked, cached reports describes the four ‘Poster child’ NRC initiatives:

• Doubling the productivity of wheat farming, by developing strains of wheat that are highly tolerant to environmental and climate stress;

• Using algae to soak up carbon dioxide from large-scale emitters such as power plants or the Alberta oilsands. In theory, the algae could then be converted to fuel on an industrial scale, and still reduce overall carbon dioxide emissions;

* Bio-composite materials, to enable Canadian manufacturers to make and sell high-value composite materials from plant resins and fibres.

* Printable electronics, a method of spraying electronic circuits onto plastic or paper to create "smart" labels or hard-to-forge bank notes.

This prompted a bit of “curiosity research” into Mr. McDougall, who may have been surprised himself to be picked for the NRC presidency. Unlike his predecessors, McDougall has no PhD, nor even a Master’ Degree, and no history of scientific research or publication.

A 2005 profile indicates he wasn’t really interested in science, but saw engineering as a way into business. With an undergraduate degree in civil engineering, McDougall worked for Esso for 10 years, and then “left the oil and gas field in the 1970s to join the family business, McDougall and Secord, which specializes in real estate, development, and investment”, remaining “titular head of McDougall and Secord to this day (his wife Irene operates the company with 15 family members as shareholders), he opened his own consulting company, Dalcor Innoventures Ltd., within a few years”.

A listing for “Dalcor Innoventures” on manta.com reads: “Dalcor Innoventures Ltd is a private company categorized under Management Services and located in Edmonton, AB, Canada. Current estimates show this company has an annual revenue of 118,488 and employs a staff of approximately 1”. JR McDougall, “President and board member”.

The U of A profile continues: “…McDougall was approached to take a position… in Management for Engineers at U of A. He continued to operate his business (though management was largely in the hands of others) while serving as Chair from 1991 to 1997… Then along came the opportunity at Alberta Research Council…‘I may have seemed an odd choice as president of a research council,’ he reflects. ‘I wasn’t a researcher, had never been, and I didn’t have a PhD’”.

If it was “odd” in Alberta, it may be even more unusual to be plucked to head the National Research Council.

And with the few research areas he wants to fund, McDougall seems to be molding the NRC in his image - steering its focus towards projects and companies with which he had an intimate connection in Alberta.

Aside from modified (genetically or otherwise) wheat, research into “algae as a way to soak up carbon dioxide from Alberta oilsands” is a major focus of both the NRC and McDougall’s earlier Dalcor Innoventures (now Innoventures Canada - during his tenure in Management at U of A, and later at the Alberta Research Council, McDougall’s Dalcor Innoventures Ltd. morphed into the larger Innoventures Canada – along with substantial government and other funding).

McDougall is also listed in profiles as “chairman of C-FER Technologies Inc.”, a company which apparently merged with the Alberta Research Council, which he led.

In documents from the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada, just before his appointment at the NRC, McDougall is listed as principal representative of Innoventures. The company’s address is given as 8915 Saskatchewan Dr. NW, Edmonton. This appears to be an upscale residential neighbourhood, and also the address for McDougall and Secord, the family business, apparently run by McDougall’s wife, Irene. On another website, the Administrative Contact for Dalcor Innoventures is also listed as Irene Makar, and 8915 Saskatchewan Drive is given as her contact address for Dalcor. (Both an Irene Makar and John McDougall turn up in White Pages listings at the same address – 103-11650 79 Ave., another residence a short distance from Saskatchewan Drive and currently for sale). The same 79 Ave address is also listed here and on other sites, as the address of McDougall and Secord. And the same phone number appears for both McDougall and Secord, and Dalcor Innoventures.

McDougall’s Innoventures Canada was apparently lobbying the government for Carbon Algae Recycling, one of its major projects, and coincidentally a project just announced as one of the major research thrusts at the NRC.

Is there anything untoward about the new president of the National Research Council directing funds to projects with which he was so closely associated, for which he lobbied up until just before his appointment, and which concern companies that share an address with his family’s real estate business?

Both the radical shift in direction and the pulled news reports about the NRC’s new direction seem unusual. And given the unprecedented discretion that the new NRC president will exercise, it’s worth asking to what extent the $749 million budget might favour or reflect the kinds of projects he brings with him.

While he may not have a PhD in astrophysics, Mr. McDougall apparently knows a “black hole” when he sees one, and isn’t afraid of a little “roadkill” in achieving his objectives. Here are some excerpts of his views on science and society just prior to taking on the leadership of the NRC - which may illuminate its future direction:

“What prevents us from thinking about greenhouse gases as an untapped resource that is already being produced?”

“Will algae become a tool for capturing carbon and a feedstock for new products such as bio-fuels, food and other products?”

“New drought tolerant crops… will be needed”.

“…gradually our suppliers become capable in their own right and end up eating their parents as we have seen in steel making, chip manufacturing, IT and now biotechnology. Where does this leave us? More particularly, where does it leave the Government?...They need to control spending – in particular the black holes of health, education and social services”.

“To wind up, it really is an exciting time – but there will be some road kill”.

Link here.

MacLean’s plagiarism?

2011-04-07T19:49:00.000-07:00

MacLean’s ‘World’ articles are often a rehash of stuff from elsewhere, but is this one plagiarism? Jane Switzer's 188 word MacLean’s version adds nothing to Helen Pidd’s earlier Guardian article. Compare side-by-side passages (not necessarily in order).

MacLean's: Overrun with stray cats, the German city of Bremen wants to take drastic action

Guardian: City of Bremen to take drastic action to tackle out-of-control feline population

MacLean’s: …the city’s cat shelter used to look after around 120 cats at any one time, but now has 378 on its books and fears that number will soon reach 500. In addition, an estimated 1,000 cats roam the streets, threatening the local songbird population.

Guardian: … threatening local songbirds. The local cat shelter used to look after around 120 cats at any one time. Now it has 378 on its books and fears that number will soon reach 500. In addition, at least 1,000 stray cats roam the streets, chasing birds…

MacLean’s: … a number of small German towns which already advocate the compulsory neutering of stray felines, including Paderborn in North Rhine-Westphalia, which was home to 40,000 stray cats before it introduced forced castration three years ago.

Guardian: A number of small German towns already advocate the compulsory neutering of stray cats, including Paderborn in North Rhine-Westphalia, which was home to 40,000 stray cats before it introduced forced castration three years ago.

MacLean’s: Wolfgang Apel, chairman of the Bremen Animal Protection Society, said the government should take responsibility for the growing problem: “There are so many [cats] that the situation has got out of control,” he told the Süddeutsche Zeitung. “They are becoming a burden to the public.”

Guardian: "There are so many that the situation has got out of control," said Wolfgang Apel, chairman of the Bremen Animal Protection Society... "They are becoming a burden to the public," he told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

MacLean’s: Anyone with an outdoor cat would be forced to pay to have it neutered.

Guardian: …anyone who allowed their cat to run free would be forced to pay to have it neutered.

Guardian: … if the law is passed in Bremen, it will lead to nationwide legislation.

MacLean’s: If the law is passed in Bremen, it could lead to nationwide legislation.

***

A discrepancy – while the passage is otherwise almost identical, in the Guardian the line about the "government taking responsibility" reads, “MP Undine Kurth said the government should take responsibility for the growing problem”.Where in MacLean’s it reads, “Wolfgang Apel... said the government should take responsibility for the growing problem”.

David Warren - more attribution questions?

2011-01-19T11:08:00.000-08:00

“A Pogrom in Baghdad”, December 8, 2010

At around the same time that the Ontario Press Council ruled that David Warren had, among other things, “failed to meet generally accepted journalistic standards relating to attribution by either:

(a) using the words or assertions of another author or spokesperson without revealing that the words were not his own; and

(b) misusing the words or assertions of an unidentified author or spokesperson by failing to quote them fully and/or accurately”.

Warren wrote about an attack on the Syriac Catholic Church in Baghdad. It had occurred over a month earlier (October 31), and, contrary to his complaint of scant coverage, there were dozens of reports in major news outlets (Wikipedia’s entry on the tragedy lists almost 50 news sources).

Warren waited over a month to write about it. On December 7, the day before his article appeared, a commentary by Sandro Magister was published on Catholic websites. It included and introduced the translation of an article by Marco Pedersini from Il Foglio. Magister describes Pedersini’s story as “a reconstruction” or “dramatic account”, and indeed, though apparently based on fact, it is presented in a somewhat stylized, present-tense, docudrama style. The titles refer to works of fiction.

Rather than a commentary or report based on an aggregate of different fact sets reported a month earlier (which included a variety of details from witnesses), Warren’s Dec. 8 article contains similar editorial points, story details, and quotes, as the Magister/Pedersini publication, along with some overlapping wording. While Magister republishes and credits the Il Foglio story, Mr. Warren cites neither, although, in later reference to one detail, he mentions “Italian media” in passing.

Warren begins with similar editorializing about negligent media coverage indicating disregard for Christians that appears in Magister’s introduction, and in his conclusion echoes Magister’s observation about the “exodus” of Iraqi Christians to Kurdistan. Warren’s account of the attack parallels Pedersini’s narrative (without reference to any of the different fact sets in other reports), though in Warren’s version it is condensed. Warren's account is similar in style, outline, details, and uses the same quotes found in Pedersini’s narrative “reconstruction” – quotes that do not appear to be included in other reports. As well as paraphrasing, at times Warren’s words or phrasing are almost identical to the other authors.

Below are side-by-side comparisons of excerpted sections (ellipsis added).

Warren: … days, weeks, and sometimes years may be required, to reconstruct what actually happened…Many details are only now emerging…

Magister: … What happened…became known days later, little by little, thanks to the testimonies… (Here Magister cites the previous publication of Pedersini’s article, something Warren does not do) …the following is a reconstruction published one month later, on November 30, in the Italian newspaper "Il Foglio."

Warren: …the wounded who were flown out of Iraq to Rome, and other European cities...

Magister: … the wounded who were taken for treatment to Rome and other European cities.

Warren: … persistent and increasing attacks on Christians, as well as on other religious minorities, all over the Muslim world, this one was especially notable, and deserved far more sustained press coverage…

Magister: …the scarce interest that Western governments and public opinion are showing toward these anti-Christian attacks. If one then looks within the Muslim world, the indifference with which such acts are allowed free rein....

Warren: … automatic rifle fire, which began towards the end of the homily. Congregants were at first relieved that the attack did not seem to be directed at the church.

Pedersini: …about to finish the homily, when outside of the church a burst of automatic weapon fire breaks the silence. The priest tries to calm the faithful, the shots have to be aimed somewhere else…

Warren: It had begun with a diversionary strike against the Baghdad stock exchange:

Pedersini: …attack on the stock exchange… this was only a diversion.

Warren: A jeep parked outside the church then exploded…

Pedersini: …Jeep Cherokee parked in front of the church. The Jeep erupts…

Warren: …a brigade of jihadis, in Iraqi army uniforms, burst through the main entrance commando-style. First one priest -- a Father Wasim, among those trying to hold the door -- shouted, "Leave them alone, take me!" He was immediately shot. A Father Thair then shouted from the altar, likewise, "Leave them alone, take me!" and was likewise annihilated.

Pedersini: Fr. Wasim tries to hold the church's wooden door closed, but it is thrown backward by the brigade of armed men, who burst in… wearing the uniform of the Iraqi army... "Leave them alone, take me!" shouts Fr. Wasim, and is immediately hit with a bullet…  "Leave them alone, take me!" Fr. Thair also shouts from the altar. He too is dispatched in an instant…

Warren: … a Father Raphael succeeded in herding about 70 of the faithful into the sacristy, and blocking its door. In due course the jihadis found it had a small high window, and tossed grenades through that; others amused themselves by firing bullets through the door.

Pedersini: Fr. Rafael succeeds in pushing about seventy of the faithful into the sacristy… before the terrorists throw themselves against the door. It holds, but the attackers find… a little window at the top… tossing a few hand grenades inside is a game for the young butchers... Others are hit by the bullets that come through the door.

Warren: …the jihadis used the central crucifix for target practice, while shouting in mockery, "Come on, tell Him to save you!"

Magister: …used the crucifix for target practice, and terrorized the children…

Pedersini: …The crucifix becomes a shooting target. The terrorists riddle it with gunfire…shouting mockingly: "Come on, tell him to save you!"

Warren: At their leisure… terrorizing the women and children in various other ways. They shot the arms off a couple of girls who tried to use cellphones; they shot babies who were crying.

Pedersini: The terrorists shoot anyone who pulls out a cell phone, as demonstrated by the wounds of two girls hit in the hand and arm when their phones started to ring… children who cry are killed instantly.

Warren: …in classical Arabic, with Egyptian and Syrian accents, they declared: "We are going to heaven, and you are going to hell. Allah is great!"

Pedersini: …the attackers did not speak Iraqi dialects, but the classical Arabic...Egyptians, and also a Syrian.

…shouting, "You will all go to hell, but we to paradise. Allah is most great." 

Warren: At their leisure, for over the five hours they twice stopped for formal Islamic prayers.

Pedersini: …the terrorists seem strangely relaxed… they first permit themselves the maghrib, the afternoon prayer, and then the ishà, the evening prayer…

Warren: Iraqi military authorities had the church surrounded for most of this time; American-made helicopters buzzed overhead.

Pedersini: …the Iraqi army and the muffled droning of the American helicopters watching the situation from the air…

Warren: … place bombs around the cathedral, for the purpose of blowing it up at the end, but owing to faulty wiring these did not go off. Survivors, in the accounts I've seen in Italian media, say the jihadis eventually ran out of bullets, and then began calling for the bombs to be detonated.

Pedersini: …explosives, which were supposed to explode around the perimeter of the church, collapsing it… Why this did not happen is a secret… halfway through the attack, one of the terrorists called... "We're out of bullets, what should we do?" A quick order, with a sinister result: "Okay, now we'll start using the bombs."

Warren: They had several colleagues stationed on the roof, orchestrating their affair; unmolested by the troops surrounding the church…

Pedersini: …eight persons and at least one other who commanded the operations from the terrace around the roof of the church.

Warren: Two of the jihadis with suicide belts managed to blow themselves up.

Pedersini: they were determined to blow themselves up. Two of them succeeded…

Warren: …area hospitals where friends and relatives were already making their hysterical inquiries…

Pedersini: …relatives started to run frantically from one hospital to another…

Warren: …The church was now "secured," so that passersby could not get a view of the devastation…

Pedersini: Rubble… was cleaned up hastily the next day while the army blocked the entrance to the church so that no one could see the devastation.

Warren: The exodus of Christians from Iraq is, by now, more or less common knowledge. Within Iraq itself, there is a movement from such cities as Baghdad and Mosul… to safer territory in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Magister: Meanwhile, in Baghdad and in other places in Iraq the killing of Christians as such continues… the exodus of Christians from Baghdad and Mosul to the safer Kurdistan, in the extreme north of the country, continues.

Links:

http://ccgaction.org/node/923

http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1345870?eng=y

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/pogrom+Baghdad/3943188/story.html

******

In terms of Warren’s article as “reportage”, omissions are also notable: repeatedly characterizing the rescue as weak, Warren, a vocal advocate of the 2003 American invasion, omits mention of the American role noted in reports. For example, several quote “Lt. Col. Terry L. Conder, a spokesman for U.S. special forces”, on the scene of the rescue, who also described the attack as a “robbery gone wrong” (Associated Press). Other American military representatives are also cited, and “witnesses described American troops leading the assault” (UK Telegraph), or noted, “The hostages were caught in the crossfire between Iraqi and US security forces and the hostage takers”.

Warren omits material like this from other reports: “Syrian Catholic Archbishop Georges Basile Casmoussa of Mosul… told the Italian Catholic paper Avvenire that ‘most of the deaths were caused during the blitz by the Iraqi security forces led by the Americans... The head of the US bishops’ conference, Cardinal Francis George, said: ‘We share the Iraqi bishops’ concern that the US failed to help Iraqis’”.

And he omits relevant context found in many other reports: “Christians in Iraq, who numbered several hundred thousand before the 2003 invasion, became targets for attacks and kidnapping as violence worsened. As many as two-thirds may have left” (The Economist, Nov. 1, 2020).

Yet another David Warren error

2011-01-19T10:11:00.000-08:00

Notwithstanding the usual bits of misleading information in David Warren’s article, “Tunisia holds its breath”, January 19, 2011, there is (yet another) clear factual error.

Warren writes: “The new "president for life" -- whether for minutes or decades -- is one of Ben Ali's flunkies, just as Ben Ali was one of Bourguiba's. Mohamed Ghannouchi is working on consolidating his power…”

The President of Tunisia who succeeded ousted President, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali is not Mohamed Ghannouchi. It is Fouad Mebazza. He was sworn in on January 15.

Jihadis, Jihadis everywhere

2011-01-16T10:10:00.000-08:00

Even a Canada Research Chair

Mark Steyn, New Criterion, self-plagiarism again?

2011-01-05T10:25:00.000-08:00

Steyn’s recent article in the New Criterion is actually pretty old, and seems to again cut and paste chunks of previous columns from a variety of sources, including Maclean’s and the National Review. (Some links are via third sources and/or behind a pay wall).

New Criterion 2011:

“Just as we do not today differentiate between the Roman Republic and the imperial period of the Julio-Claudians when we think of the Roman Empire, so in the future no-one will bother to make a distinction between the British Empire–led and the American Republic–led periods of English-speaking dominance between the late-eighteenth and the twenty-first centuries. It will be recognized that in the majestic sweep of history they had so much in common—and enough that separated them from everyone else—that they ought to be regarded as a single historical entity, which only scholars and pedants will try to describe separately”.

If you step back for a moment, this seems obvious. There is a distinction between the “English-speaking peoples” and the rest of “the West,” and at key moments in human history that distinction has proved critical. Continental Europe has given us plenty of nice paintings and agreeable symphonies, French wine and Italian actresses and whatnot, but, for all our fetishization of multiculturalism, you can’t help noticing that when it comes to the notion of a political West—one with a sustained commitment to liberty and democracy—the historical record looks a lot more unicultural and, indeed (given that most of these liberal democracies other than America share the same head of state), uniregal. The entire political class of Portugal, Spain, and Greece spent their childhoods living under dictatorships. So did Jacques Chirac and Angela Merkel. We forget how rare on this earth is peaceful constitutional evolution, and rarer still outside the Anglosphere.

Steyn, 2007:

http://lighthorse.blogspot.com/2007/03/steyn.html

“Just as we do not today differentiate between the Roman Republic and the imperial period of the Julio-Claudians when we think of the Roman Empire, so in the future no-one will bother to make a distinction between the British Empire-led and the American Republic-led periods of English-speaking dominance between the late-eighteenth and the twenty-first centuries. It will be recognised that in the majestic sweep of history they had so much in common - and enough that separated them from everyone else - that they ought to be regarded as a single historical entity, which only scholars and pedants will try to describe separately”.

If you step back, this seems obvious… There is a distinction between the "English-speaking peoples" and the rest of "the west", and at key moments in human history that distinction has proved critical. Europe has given us plenty of nice paintings and agreeable symphonies, French wine and Italian actresses and whatnot, but, for all our fetishization of multiculturalism, you can't help noticing that when it comes to the notion of a political west - a sustained commitment to individual liberty - the historical record looks a lot more unicultural and indeed (given that three of the four nations on that cover share the same head of state) uniregal…The entire political class of Portugal, Spain and Greece spent their childhoods living under dictatorships. So did Jacques Chirac and Angela Merkel. We forget how rare in this world is sustained peaceful constitutional evolution.

New Criterion 2011:

Within a decade, the United States will be spending more of the federal budget on its interest payments than on its military. According to the cbo’s 2010 long-term budget outlook, by 2020 the U.S. government will be paying between 15 and 20 percent of its revenues in debt interest—whereas defense spending will be down to between 14 and 16 percent.

America will be spending more on debt interest than China, Britain, France, Russia, Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia, India, Italy, South Korea, Brazil, Canada, Australia, Spain, Turkey, and Israel spend on their militaries combined. The superpower will have advanced from a nation of aircraft carriers to a nation of debt carriers.

Steyn, October 2010:

http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/qed/2010/10/campaign-countdown

Within a decade, the United States will be spending more of the federal budget on its interest payments than on its military. You read that right: more on debt service than on the armed services. According to the CBO’s long-term budget outlook, by 2020 the government will be paying between 15 and 20 per cent of its revenues in debt interest. Whereas defense spending will be down to between 14 and 16 per cent. …

… America will be spending more on debt interest than China, Britain, France, Russia, Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia, India, Italy, South Korea, Brazil, Canada, Australia, Spain, Turkey and Israel spend on their militaries combined. The superpower will have evolved from a nation of aircraft carriers to a nation of debt carriers...

New Criterion, 2011:

What does that mean? In 2009, the United States spent about $665 billion on its military, the Chinese about $99 billion. If Beijing continues to buy American debt at the rate it has in recent years, then within a half-decade or so U.S. interest payments on that debt will be covering the entire cost of the Chinese military. This year, the Pentagon issued an alarming report to Congress on Beijing’s massive military build-up, including new missiles, upgraded bombers, and an aircraft-carrier R&D program intended to challenge American dominance in the Pacific. What the report didn’t mention is who’s paying for it. Answer: Mr. and Mrs. America.

Within the next five years, the People’s Liberation Army, which is the largest employer on the planet, bigger even than the U.S. Department of Community-Organizer Grant Applications, will be entirely funded by U.S. taxpayers. When they take Taiwan, suburban families in Connecticut and small businesses in Idaho will have paid for it.

Steyn, October 2010:

http://chrisadamson.wordpress.com/2010/10/26/republicans-post-election-and-decline/

What does that mean? In 2009, the US spent about $665 billion on its military, the Chinese about $99 billion. If Beijing continues to buy American debt at the rate it has in recent times, then within a few years US interest payments on that debt will be covering the entire cost of the Chinese military. This summer, the Pentagon issued an alarming report to Congress on Beijing’s massive military build-up, including new missiles, upgraded bombers, and an aircraft-carrier R&D program intended to challenge US dominance in the Pacific. What the report didn’t mention is who’s paying for it. Answer: Mr and Mrs America.

By 2015, the People’s Liberation Army, which is the largest employer on the planet, bigger even than the US Department of Community-Organizer Grant Applications, will be entirely funded by US taxpayers. When the Commies take Taiwan, suburban families in Connecticut and small businesses in Idaho will have paid for it.

New Criterion 2011:

…most of us aren’t quite sure when it took place. Andrew Roberts likes to pinpoint it to the middle of 1943: One month, the British had more men under arms than the Americans; the next month, the Americans had more men under arms than the British.

The baton of global leadership had been passed. And, if it didn’t seem that way at the time, that’s because it was as near a seamless transition as could be devised—although it was hardly “devised” at all, at least not by London. Yet we live with the benefits of that transition to this day. To take a minor but not inconsequential example, one of the critical links in the post-9/11 Afghan campaign was the British Indian Ocean Territory. As its name would suggest, it’s a British dependency, but it has a U.S. military base—just one of many pinpricks on the map where the Royal Navy’s Pax Britannica evolved into Washington’s Pax Americana with nary a thought: From U.S. naval bases in Bermuda to the Anzus alliance down under to Norad in Cheyenne Mountain, London’s military ties with its empire were assumed, effortlessly, by the United States…

Steyn, National Review, January 2010:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/229381/tattered-liberty/mark-steyn

If you’re not quite sure when that took place, the British historian Andrew Roberts likes to pinpoint it to the middle of 1943: One month, the British had more men under arms than the Americans. The next month, the Americans had more men under arms than the British.

The baton of global leadership had been passed. And, if it didn’t seem that way at the time, that’s because it was as near a seamless transition as could be devised — although it was hardly “devised” at all. Yet we live with the benefits of that transition to this day: To take a minor but not inconsequential example, one of the critical links in the Afghan campaign was the British Indian Ocean Territory. As its name would suggest, that’s a British dependency, but it has a U.S. military base — just one of many pinpricks on the map where the Royal Navy’s Pax Britannica evolved into Washington’s Pax Americana with nary a thought: From U.S. naval bases in Bermuda to the ANZUS alliance Down Under to NORAD close to home, London’s military ties with its empire were assumed by the United States.

New Criterion 2011:

…Obama moved in, he ordered Churchill’s bust be removed and returned to the British. Its present whereabouts are unclear. But, given what Sir Winston had to say about Islam in his book on the Sudanese campaign, the bust was almost certainly arrested at Heathrow and deported as a threat to public order.

Steyn, National Review Feb. 2009:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/229381/tattered-liberty/mark-steyn

President Obama has removed Winston Churchill’s bust from the Oval Office and returned it to the British. Given what Sir Winston had to say about Islam in his book on the Sudanese campaign, the bust will almost certainly be arrested at Heathrow and deported as a threat to public order.

New Criterion 2011:

from The Daily Telegraph:

“A leading college at Cambridge University has renamed its controversial colonial-themed Empire Ball after accusations that it was “distasteful.” The £136-a-head Emmanuel College ball was advertised as a celebration of “the Victorian commonwealth and all of its decadences.

Students were urged to “party like it’s 1899” and organisers promised a trip through the Indian Raj, Australia, the West Indies, and 19th century Hong Kong. But anti-fascist groups said the theme was “distasteful and insensitive” because of the British Empire’s historical association with slavery, repression and exploitation. The Empire Ball Committee, led by presidents Richard Hilton and Jenny Unwin, has announced the word “empire” will be removed from all promotional material”.

The way things are going in Britain, it would make more sense to remove the word “balls.” It’s interesting to learn that “anti-fascism” now means attacking the British Empire, which stood alone against fascism in that critical year between the fall of France and Germany’s invasion of Russia.

Steyn, NRO, 2009:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/177307/sun-sets/mark-steyn

“A leading college at Cambridge University has renamed its controversial colonial-themed Empire Ball after accusations that it was “distasteful”. The £136-a-head Emmanuel College ball was advertised as a celebration of “the Victorian commonwealth and all of its decadences”.

Students were urged to “Party like it’s 1899″ and organisers promised a trip through the Indian Raj, Australia, the West Indies and 19th century Hong Kong.

But anti-fascist groups said the theme as “distasteful and insensitive” because of the British Empire’s historical association with slavery, repression and exploitation.

The ball Committee, led by presidents Richard Hilton and Jenny Unwin, has announced the word ‘Empire’ will be removed from all promotional material.”

The way things are going in Britain it would make more sense to drop the word “Balls”.

PS Interesting that “anti-fascism” now means attacking the British Empire, which stood alone against fascism in that critical year between the fall of France and Germany’s invasion of Russia.

New Criterion 2011:

… point out the most obvious fatuity in those “anti-fascist groups” litany of evil—“the British Empire’s association with slavery.” The British Empire’s principal association with slavery is that it abolished it. Before William Wilberforce, the British Parliament, and the brave men of the Royal Navy took up the issue, slavery was an institution regarded by all cultures around the planet as as permanent a feature of life as the earth and sky. Britain expunged it from most of the globe.

It is pathetic but unsurprising how ignorant all these brave “anti-fascists” are. But there is a lesson here not just for Britain but for the rest of us, too: When a society loses its memory, it descends inevitably into dementia. As I always try to tell my American neighbors, national decline is at least partly psychological—and therefore what matters is accepting the psychology of decline.

National Review Feb. 12, 2009:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/177322/loss-societal-memory/mark-steyn

…I point out the most obvious fatuity in those “anti-fascist groups”‘ litany of evil - “the British Empire’s association with slavery”.

The British Empire’s principal association with slavery is that it abolished it. Thanks to William Wilberforce and the brave men of the Royal Navy, an institution that hitherto had been regarded by all cultures around the planet as as permanent a feature of life as the earth and sky was expunged from most of the globe.

New Criterion 2011:

As I always try to tell my American neighbors, national decline is at least partly psychological—and therefore what matters is accepting the psychology of decline.

National Review, 2009:

But, more important, national decline is psychological — and therefore what matters is accepting the psychology of decline.

New Criterion 2011:

Hayek’s greatest insight in The Road to Serfdom, which he wrote with an immigrant’s eye on the Britain of 1944:

There is one aspect of the change in moral values brought about by the advance of collectivism which at the present time provides special food for thought. It is that the virtues which are held less and less in esteem and which consequently become rarer are precisely those on which the British people justly prided themselves and in which they were generally agreed to excel.

The virtues possessed by Anglo-Saxons in a higher degree than most other people, excepting only a few of the smaller nations, like the Swiss and the Dutch, were independence and self-reliance, individual initiative and local responsibility, the successful reliance on voluntary activity, noninterference with one’s neighbor and tolerance of the different and queer, respect for custom and tradition, and a healthy suspicion of power and authority.

Within little more than half a century, almost every item on the list had been abandoned, from “independence and self-reliance” (some 40 percent of Britons receive state handouts) to “a healthy suspicion of power and  authority”—the reflex response now to almost any passing inconvenience is to demand the government “do something.” American exceptionalism would have to be awfully exceptional to suffer a similar expansion of government without a similar descent, in enough of the citizenry, into chronic dependency.

National Review March 2010:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/229381/tattered-liberty/mark-steyn?page=2

Hayek’s greatest insight in The Road to Serfdom is psychological: “There is one aspect of the change in moral values brought about by the advance of collectivism which at the present time provides special food for thought,” he wrote with an immigrant’s eye on the Britain of 1944. “It is that the virtues which are held less and less in esteem and which consequently become rarer are precisely those on which the British people justly prided themselves and in which they were generally agreed to excel. The virtues possessed by Anglo-Saxons in a higher degree than most other people, excepting only a few of the smaller nations, like the Swiss and the Dutch, were independence and self-reliance, individual initiative and local responsibility, the successful reliance on voluntary activity, noninterference with one’s neighbor and tolerance of the different and queer, respect for custom and tradition, and a healthy suspicion of power and authority.”

Two-thirds of a century on, almost every item on the list has been abandoned, from “independence and self-reliance” (40 percent of people receive state handouts) to “a healthy suspicion of power and authority” — the reflex response now to almost any passing inconvenience is to demand the government “do something,”.... American exceptionalism would have to be awfully exceptional to suffer a similar expansion of government and not witness, in enough of the populace, the same descent into dependency …

New Criterion 2011:

When William Beveridge laid out his blueprint for the modern British welfare state in 1942, his goal was the “abolition of want,” to be accomplished by “cooperation between the State and the individual.” In attempting to insulate the citizenry from the vicissitudes of fate, Sir William succeeded beyond his wildest dreams: Want has been all but abolished. Today, fewer and fewer Britons want to work, want to marry, want to raise children, want to lead a life of any purpose or dignity.

National Review 2009:

http://www.centrulemin.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=485:their-welfare-state-has-produced-millions-of-work-shy-brits&catid=49:society&Itemid=105

When William Beveridge laid out his blueprint for the modern British welfare state in 1942, his goal was the “abolition of want,” to be accomplished by “cooperation between the State and the individual.” In attempting to insulate the citizenry from the vicissitudes of fate, Sir William has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams: Want has been all but abolished. Today, fewer and fewer Britons and Europeans want to work, want to marry, want to raise children, want to lead a life of any purpose or dignity.

New Criterion 2011:

…look at what lbj’s Great Society did to the black family and imagine it applied to the general population.

National Review, March 2010:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/229381/tattered-liberty/mark-steyn?page=2

Look at what the Great Society did to the black family and imagine it applied to the general population

New Criterion, 2011:

The statistics speak for themselves. The number of indictable offences per thousand people was 2.4 in 1900, climbed gradually to 9.7 in 1954, and then rocketed to 109.4 by 1992. And that official increase understates the reality: Many crimes have been decriminalized (shoplifting, for example), and most crime goes unreported, and most reported crime goes uninvestigated, and most investigated crime goes unsolved, and almost all solved crime merits derisory punishment. Yet the law-breaking is merely a symptom of a larger rupture. At a gathering like this one, John O’Sullivan, recalling his own hometown, said that when his grandmother ran a pub in the Liverpool docklands in the years around the First World War, there was only one occasion when someone swore in her presence. And he subsequently apologized.

“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” But viewed from 2010 England the day before yesterday is an alternative universe

Maclean’s, 2007:

http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20071128_27878_27878&source=srch&page=2

…the statistics speak for themselves. The number of indictable offences per thousand people was 2.4 in

1900, climbed gradually to 9.7 in 1954, and then rocketed to 109.4 in 1992. Most crime goes unreported,

and most reported crime goes unsolved. Yet the law-breaking is merely a symptom of a larger rupture.

"It is my biased opinion," declared Alan Jay Lerner, writer of Gigi, Camelot and My Fair Lady, "that

British society is the most civilized on the planet earth." Heigh-ho, he's just a sentimental Yankee

anglophile. But, recalling his own hometown, John O'Sullivan, one of the founding editors at the

National Post, said that when his grandmother ran a pub in the Liverpool docklands in the years around the First World War, there was only one occasion when someone swore in her presence. And he subsequently apologized.

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there," wrote L. P. Hartley in his famous

opening sentence to The Go-Between. But to read how the English themselves wrote of England the day before yesterday is to visit not a foreign country but an alternative universe.

New Criterion:

Last year, the “Secretary of State for Children” (both an Orwellian and Huxleyite office) announced that 20,000 “problem families” would be put under twenty-four-hour cctv supervision in their homes. As the Daily Express reported, “They will be monitored to ensure that children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals.” Orwell’s government “telescreen” in every home is close to being a reality, although even he would have dismissed as too obviously absurd a nanny state that literally polices your bedtime.

Maclean’s September 2009:

http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/09/03/your-family-is-being-watched-24-7/2/

This month the “Secretary of State for Children” (another Orwellian touch) announced that 20,000 “problem families” would be put under 24-hour CCTV supervision in their homes. As the Daily Express reported, “They will be monitored to ensure that children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals. Orwell’s government “telescreen” in every home is close to being a reality, although even he might have dismissed as too obviously absurd a nanny state that literally polices your bedtime.

New Criterion:

For its worshippers, Big Government becomes a kind of religion: the state as church. After the London Tube bombings, Gordon Brown began mulling over the creation of what he called a “British equivalent of the U.S. Fourth of July,” a new national holiday to bolster British identity. The Labour Party think-tank, the Fabian Society, proposed that the new “British Day” should be July 5th, the day the National Health Service was created. Because the essence of contemporary British identity is waiting two years for a hip operation…. They can call it Dependence Day.

National Review, September 2009:

http://americasintegrity.blogspot.com/

In a nanny state, big government becomes a kind of religion: the church as state… In Britain, after the Tube bombings, Gordon Brown began mulling over the creation of what he called a "British equivalent of the U.S. Fourth of July," a new national holiday to bolster British identity. The Labour party think-tank, the Fabian Society, proposed that the new "British Day" be July 5, the day the National Health Service was created. Because the essence of contemporary British identity is waiting two years for a hip operation. They can call it Dependence Day.

David Warren – more errors... and men in tights

2011-01-03T19:51:00.000-08:00

A week ago, Warren “took on” the Reformation, and concluded history would prove that progress (which, in the intervening centuries, might include things like universal suffrage, the abolition of slavery, women’s rights, industrialization, medical and scientific advance) was not just “buncombe”, but “hecatombs” (by which we assume he meant “a large-scale slaughter”, rather than “100 oxen”). This week, he follows it up with more men in tights. Mostly green (although Warren’s “dyed in woad” would make Robin Hood’s costume blue.

Comparing the “gangster” in the ‘hood’ to Obama, Warren cites as an example of “criminal impulse” Obama's supposed “mis-quotation” of a Bible passage:

“Example, U.S. President Barack Obama is reported to be attending church again, and shows a ‘fresh start,’ by persistently misquoting from the Book of Genesis, chapter four. ‘I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper,’ he suggests it says. Check out the original. It is a scene in which no sisters appear, and the brothers in question are Cain and Abel”.

Perhaps Warren didn’t bother to “check out the original” presidential speeches. If he had, he would have noticed that Obama didn’t claim a Biblical reference. The references to Genesis 4:9 were made by commentators who Warren (once again) fails to cite. Perhaps it’s Warren in green tights doing some “redistributing” - of comments from Rush Limbaugh and other bloggers.

So it seems Warren “mis-quotes”. The President neither claimed, nor suggested, that Genesis 4 “says” "I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper." Examples of Obama’s actual speeches show no mention of Genesis. Instead, he refers to Lincoln.

One example, from Delaware, October 15, 2010 (7 others appear below):

Obama: “But in the words of Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican President, we also believe government should do for the people what they cannot do better for themselves. (Applause.) We believe in a country that rewards hard work and responsibility; a country where we look after one another; a country where we say I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper.”

But if Obama, who makes no mention of Genesis, is “persistently mis-quoting” the passage by adding the word “sister”, then many Christian leaders who specifically cite Genesis 4:9 with the word “sister” added are much more guilty of the “mis-quotation”. A few examples:

Rev. Richard Benson: “For the Catholic there can only be one response to Cain's question in the book of Genesis: ‘Am I my brother's (and sister's) keeper?’ Yes, absolutely, we are our sisters' and brothers' keeper”.

Fr. Luke Veronis: “’Am I my brother's keeper?’ Cain asked God… To which the Gospel wholeheartedly answers… ‘YES, we are our brother and our sister's keeper!’"

Bishop Eamonn Walsh: “for the Christian it is being free to be my brother’s and sister’s keeper”.

Deacon Keith Fournier: “we are our brother’s (and sister’s) keeper”.

Archbishop John Sentamu: “You are your brother's keeper. You are your sister's keeper”.

And Pope John-Paul II: “‘Am I my brother's keeper?’…When so many of our brothers and sisters are suffering, we cannot remain indifferent…the duty of governments and the international community remains essential... the building of peace through the establishment of solid structures... The United Nations Organization, for example…”

If Warren has a problem with these Christian teachings, he should take it up with the church he claims to represent, rather than mis-represent what the President said. In the 14th century world Warren seems to prefer, someone who contradicted church leaders would be burned as a heretic.

Sadly, Warren writes for the Ottawa Citizen, where his “sins” include repeated factual errors, the “failure to meet generally accepted journalistic standards”, and as the Ontario Press Council also recently concluded, “misusing the words or assertions of an unidentified author or spokesperson by failing to quote them fully and/or accurately”.

Relevant portion of Obama’s speeches

Las Vegas, October 23, 2010:

“We believe in a country that rewards hard work and responsibility. We believe in an America that invests in its future and its people, in the education of our children, in the skills of our workers. We believe in an America where we look after one another, where I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper. That’s the America we believe in. “

September 20, 2010, Philadelphia:

“But they also believed in a country that rewards hard work and rewards responsibility, and a country where we look after one another, where we say I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper. They believed in that America”.

Madison, Wisconsin, September 28, 2010:

“I believe government should be lean and efficient. And that's why I've proposed a three-year spending freeze. That's why I set up a bipartisan fiscal commission to deal with our deficit, but in the words of the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, I also believe that government should do for the people what they can't do better for themselves. (Applause.) I believe in a country that rewards hard work and responsibility; a country where we look after one another; a country where I say I'm my brother's keeper, I'm my sister's keeper”.

Washington, October 1, 2010:

“But the first Republican President, my favorite Republican, Abraham Lincoln -- (applause) -- here’s what he said about, government -- here’s what he said about government. He said, I believe that government should do for the people what they cannot do better for themselves. (Applause.) I believe in a country that rewards hard work and responsibility; a country where we look after one another; a country that says, I am my brother’s keeper. I am my sister’s keeper.”

Columbus, Ohio, October 17, 2010:

“But in the words of the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln—who, by the way, I’m not sure could win a nomination in the Republican Party right now—(laughter)—we also believe that government should be there to help people do what they cannot do better for themselves. That means we believe in a country that rewards hard work and responsibility, but also a country where we give each other a hand up, where we look after one another, where we say I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper. That’s the America I know.”

Portland, Oregon, October 20, 2010:

“But in the words of the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln -- who, by the way, would have trouble getting a nomination in the Republican Party right now -- (applause) -- Honest Abe said that government should do for people what they cannot do better for themselves. (Applause.) So we believe in a country that rewards hard work and responsibility. We believe in a country that prizes innovation and entrepreneurship. But we also believe in a country where we look after one another; where we say, I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper. That's the America I know”.

Minneapolis, October 23, 2010:

“But in the words of the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln -- who, by the way, could not win the nomination of the Republican Party these days -- (laughter) -- we also believe that a government should do for the people what they cannot do better for themselves. (Applause.) We believe in an America that rewards hard work and responsibility and individual initiative, but also an America that invests in its people and its future. An America that invests in the education of our children, in the skills of our workers. We believe in an America in which we look after one another; where I say I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper. (Applause.) That’s our vision. That's the America that I believe in and that Mark believes in, and that you believe in”.

September, 2010 Albuquerque speech cited by Rush Limbaugh:

“…the kind of life that I would want to lead -- being my brothers’ and sisters’ keeper, treating others as they would treat me.”

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=209593

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/09/28/remarks-president-a-backyard-discussion-albuquerque-new-mexico