Posted on 05/17/2004 1:14:18 PM PDT by Maigrey
Mondays make for a hectic day. There is a need to run stories that are important to the consumer, the gearing up of news stories for the work week, and the cycle of news to bring to the consuming public. But not all stories fit within the news cycle, some which are not nationally important, and others are not worth printing.
Today is no different. This Monday makes for a media frenzy of information for news consumers. There are these stories:
The "ongoing prison scandal"And the entertainment news:
US Forces finding sarin gas in an IED in Baghdad
The financial correction of the Indian Stock Market
The USOC telling American athletes at the Summer Olympics to not wave the American Flag if they win.
Gwyneth Paltrow and husband Chris Martin name their daughter Apple
With this range of topics, there is so much news that is fit to print. Do these stories allow anything else that is remotely newsworthy to make it to the press pages/90 second news blocks? Not if it doesn't bring in readers or viewers. So, should we care? Or does this thin trickle of news from limited sources - such as one newspaper or one news channel or news show - show that one news forum isn't enough?
So, let's get with the program, and discuss these topics of the day.
"The Ongoing Prison Scandal"
Later this week, the television news channels will be busy broadcasting the first court martial of the guards at Abu Ghraib. The court martial will be a summary court martial - where the soldier in question is held over for a trial by a judge, who is an officer at the O-3 grade or higher (in this case, a captain or higher) and is a limited discipline forum. The soldier who goes before a summary court martial is limited in the scope of the discipline, since this is not a jury trial. The maximum a soldier can lose at a summary court martial is 30 days confinement, forfeiture of two-thirds their pay for one month, and demotion to the lowest rank (in this case, E-1).
This will be the first soldier to be subjected to discipline for the prison scandal, but he will not be the last.
US Forces finding sarin gas in an IED in Baghdad
Soldiers in Baghdad today found an improvised explosive device today, which contained sarin gas (a chemical weapon agent) and were not able to contain it before the bomb went off. Two soldiers were exposed, and are being treated at this time.
Now, the question in addition to this story is this: Isn't Sarin gas considered a chemical weapon agent, and therefore a WMD? (as the media love to dub it.) Where is the hysteria from the biased media when they, in their frantic and frenetic protesting for the last 18 months, said that there was "No WMD." Of course, this can be explained with some reasonable doubt, and this story will erode from the nightly headlines and news blocks shortly.
The financial correction of the Indian Stock Market
Earlier today, trading was halted on the Indian Stock Market (called Semsex) due to political fears stemming from the election of communist party leader Sonia Ghandi. According to the Star News Service, the market closed more than 11% down in one day trading, and the Indian currency - the Rupee - fell in value, wiping out as much as $40mUSD in investor shares value.
The Indian markets are in a transition with the new government, and changes stem from changing state run companies to privatizing them. Unfortunately, this trend is also affecting the US markets, which also are down today in a ripple effect from India. Will this affect US - Indian relations in the next few months for job creation and outsourcing in India? Stay tuned.
The USOC telling American athletes at the Summer Olympics to not wave the American Flag if they win.
There is an article in today's The (U.K.) Telegraph quoting a consultant to the United States Olympic Committee saying that US athletes at the 2004 Olympic games in Athens should tone down their celebrations while in Greece, to avoid any possible incitement from fans towards any anti-American sentiment.
According to USOC consultant (and quoting from the Sunday Telegraph) Mike Moran,
"What I am telling the athletes is, 'Don't run over and grab a flag and take it round the track with you.' It's not business as usual for American athletes. If a Kenyan or a Russian grabs their national flag and runs round the track or holds it high over their heads, it might not be viewed as confrontational. Where we are in the world right now, an American athlete doing that might be viewed in another manner."An official from the USOC had a different view:
It's up to every athlete how he or she wishes to celebrate their Olympic success and there are no plans to issue any instructions. We are confident that every athlete will celebrate in a responsible way.
Gwyneth Paltrow and husband Chris Martin name their daughter Apple
Well, we would comment on this drastic change in naming children, but when you have children in the world named Cristobal, Armani, London, and Lexus, who are we to make comments about a child named Apple?
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