Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

That quote came to mind when I heard that the House Republicans had voted to abolish or amend the Affordable Care Act for the 33rd time.  Brainy Quote credits Albert Einstein with saying that.

If their goal was to appeal the Act, then Einstein's words would apply.  There was no chance of getting what they passed through the Senate.

But while they may tell us that is their goal, we all know that the intent was probably a combination of other things.  If I acted like a House Republican, I'd try, with a straight face, to pin that quote on the House Republicans.  But I don't and I won't.

First, just because Einstein said it, doesn't make it true.  And if it is true, we don't know what results they are expecting.  Clearly, they know their bill won't pass the Senate. 

Presumably they are expecting other results, results they've gotten in the past over this.  They want to force some Democrats to vote 'no' so they can use that vote to campaign against them.  And they want to force some Democrats to vote 'yes' so they can embarrass Obama and make claims for bi-partisan support.  They want television attention on their anti-health care sound bites. 

And I suspect that like abortion and gay issues for some preachers, this is a topic that bumps up contributions among the rabidly anti-ACA.

But they took up two days in the House for this gimmick.  These are folks who  complain loudly about the cost of government.  But they spent two days on what appears to be a PR campaign instead of solving the problems facing the US.  But then, their goal has been to do everything to obstruct solutions - because they don't want anything good to happen on Obama's watch.

A Rollcall article last November calculated that it costs the taxpayers  "roughly $592,000 per legislative day on Members’ salaries."  Just counting member salaries and nothing else, their PR campaign has cost US taxpayers almost $1.2 million.  If we we give them a break on their first two attempts on repeal ACA, that leaves 30 more times they spent time on this.  I don't know how many hours the other debates took, but it does raise questions about how serious they are about saving taxpayer money.

Of course, I'm taking a certain amount of license here too.  After all, I suspect that most of the Congress members were not on the floor of Congress most of those two days.  (Steve, you say, why do you keep poking holes in your argument?  Because this blog is about 'how we know what we know' and I'm simply using my own argument to demonstrate what every citizen should be doing with everything they hear from politicians, corporate spokespersons, marketing in all its forms, and your religious leaders, and teachers.  I'm not saying reject what they say, just keep raising questions until they prove it.)

Besides, when those Congress members weren't on the floor, they were probably on the phone calling donors to raise money for their reelections.  

[UPDATE Friday 13, Turns out that an hour after I posted this, Huffington Post had something up about a story on the cost of the Republican ACA repeal on CBS that is dated four hours earlier than mine.  CBS, using a Congressional Budget Office estimate of $24 million a week to run the House, said the cost of the repeal votes was just under $50 million.  That's a lot more than my estimate, which only included representatives' salaries, and it didn't factor in the issues I raised, such as most representatives probably were doing other things most of those days anyway.  I'm not making light of this as a waste of time and money, but I am trying to focus on the simplistic reporting of such things.]

Anchorage Shots - Grey Summer Days

Glass Sky

Most days this summer seem to be cloudy, so here are a few leftover photos.


This building has Nana Worley Parsons and Alyeska Pipeline signs near the roof.

Cottonwood Cotton

Cottonwood has been in full-fluff for a while now.

I think this was a black-capped chickadee.

Wild Rose

Arctic Slope Building

The Yamato Ya restaurant doesn't seem to have the same traffic it did when it was part of the Sagaya complex up the street on Old Seward. 

This was at a 4th of July barbecue. 

A Mercury Comet. 

"“He is not the pastor of the United States, he’s the President of the United States.” - Not All Baptists Are Against Gay Marriage

Here is Senior Pastor Frederick Haynes III preaching on OBAMA'S "PERSONAL" stance on gay marriage. Not quite what you might have expected. Here are some excerpts, but he says it himself a lot more powerfully in the video.

“Don’t forget he was sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States which was born out of the Declaration of Independence . . . we hold these truths to be self evident that all men, all people, are equal . . . notice it does not say that all straight men are equal . . . he swore on an oath to uphold, protect, and defend the Constitution, not the bible."

 “He is not the pastor of the United States, he’s the President of the United States.”

"We have a President who has dared to use his position to make the democratic promise available not just for a select few who are up and in, but to everybody regardless of their race, their creed, their color, or their sexual orientation."

"Whenever you want to ostracize another person it is because of a fear you have yourself, the fear that you have finds itself rooted in an ignorance of other people or in a projection of your issues."

"You are so outraged over what the president said. . . .Take a chill pill. . . You are not going to lose your 501c3* if you do not marry a same gender, loving couple."

"Why are you so upset? . . . Why were you so emotional that you had to clothe your anger with the bible and justify your bigotry with scripture . . .?"

"Because we got issues with sexuality, we can’t have a healthy discussion about homosexuality. We love to judge other people’s sins because it keeps it off of us as opposed to looking at us."

 I've just finished a novel about Spinoza and then I saw this sermon which was delivered a month ago.  I'm still digesting the Spinoza book, but I hope to get something up here.  It's definitely related to this and to almost everything we're dealing with in the US today.

 *501c3 refers to the section of the tax code that gives tax exemptions to non-profits, including churches.

Frass

Gary Snyder read a poem about splitting timber at UAA Sunday night and my ears perked up at the word frass.  At the end of the poem, Snyder mentioned frass as a word not too many people knew.  It means, he said, the sawdust left when a beetle bores into a tree.

Click to enlarge

Snyder is something of a poet legend in the US, at least for those of us old enough to remember him as a spokesman for the back-to-the-land/environmental/zen pioneers of the 60s and 70s.  Somewhere in the clutter I have a copy of his book with a nautilus shell on the cover.  I found a king bolete on the way home from the reading and I thought it would make a fitting background to the Snyder collage. 

A good evening.  Part of UAA's Northern Renaissance Arts and Sciences.  I'm not sure what all that is about, but this looks a lot like what they used to call - something like the Summer Reading Series.  They're creative writing program has an intensive session now and most of the faculty give free readings in the evening.

Tues[Thurs]day night (July 10[12], 2012) will have three poets I've heard before who will make a great evening:

Richard Chiappone, Linda McCarriston, Zack Rogow

[UPDATE July 10 11:30pm - My face is red.  After Jacob warned me in the comments to check my facts, I posted this group to be on tonight, but it was three others.  They were ok, but I know these three will be better.  The UAA website says Chiappone, McCarriston, and Rogow will be Thursday.  I can't find a permanently posted schedule and the UAA one changes, I can't go back to see how I messed this up.  I thought perhaps I'd taken the Monday program for Tuesday, but no, they are scheduled Thursday.  Well, at least you still have a chance to hear them read.]

(Really, these three are good.  I wouldn't push this if I didn't think they were good.  For the poetry challenged, these three should make an interesting night.  You can check out a video on a post of Rogow I did three years ago. And I repeat:  it's free, if you don't like it, you can walk out without losing any money.  I found an old Linda McCarriston post with video too.)

It's at the UAA Fine Arts Building, Room 150, beginning at 8 p.m. The series runs July 9-17.

[The Arts Building - take Providence east from Lake Otis to the traffic light at the east side of the original Providence hospital building (just past the UAA library on the left) and turn left.  Then right at the first street to the right.  Then wind around to the Arts building and there's a big parking lot.]



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Six Years Began With Spittle Bug Post

That first post went up July 9, 2006.  There was another spittle bug post after I learned how to put up photos. And the spittle bugs are back this year, but now I know they don't do my plants harm and I can just wash them off if it gets too much.

I've posted a lot since then.  Blogging has taught me a lot and introduced me to neat people. If some folks are to be believed, the blog has added a bit of value to the world.  As I think back on this last year, the biggest single focus was the Alaska Redistricting Board.  There's a tab above that gets you to an overview of my posts on the board.  But there was a lot more. 

What surprises me most is the wide range of topics I've posted about - which is brought home when I look at the search terms people use to get here.  Here's a March 2012 post on search terms people used to get here as an example. And for most of them, I actually have what they are looking for.

So far I haven't mentioned another highlight here.  I'm still examining my reluctance to share things like this.  In some cultures you don't brag about your children lest you attract evil eye.  I also have an aversion to competitive contests - the choosing of 'best' and how that is defined are complicated and imperfect processes.  That's the closest I can get to explaining why I haven't mentioned the two Alaska Press Club Awards I received in April. 

I got third best Current Events/News Blog.  The Anchorage Daily News' Iditarod Live: The Sled Blog written by Kyle Hopkins, Scott Levin, Mike Campbell, Beth Bragg, David Hulen, and Bob Hallinen was first and Scott Woodham's The Concerned - Current Issues of Alaska at the Alaska Dispatch was second.  The judge, Ellyn Angelotti, wrote:

The "What Do I Know?" blog provides in-depth information about current events complete with direct copies of memos and email. It also boasts active personal engagement in the comments section.

 I got second Best Commentary Blog.  First went to Craig Medred's Alaska Life at the Alaska Dispatch.  The judge in this category, Abraham Hyatt, wrote:

"Aufrecht's posts are a reminder of the journalistic freedom and fun that blogging allows. Jumping from topic to topic, he successfully treads that delicate line in blogging between ego fulfillment and serious insight."

You can read all the press awards yourself here.  The list goes on for 31 pages (only 22 for the one without comments.)

I'm sure that most Alaskan bloggers didn't even know there were categories for bloggers.  I only learned last year when I accidentally ran into the Press Club conference at UAA. 

I wasn't sure how a blog would be judged.  I had to pick about ten posts for each category.  But that hardly gives a sense of a blog.  Plus it was hard to separate news posts from commentary posts.  And it's hard to say the blog is one or the other.  Having Outsiders judge is good because it minimizes bias based on who you know - a big problem in a state where everyone knows everyone.  But it also means that they are looking at posts without any context of the state and the media coverage here.



Anniversaries stimulate reflection and I've decided it's time to review how I've got the blog set up.  At the beginning, when I knew nothing and things were less complicated, I was constantly making changes.  But I've grown into a routine and leaving the basic platform alone is easier.  But I know I want to add a tab on top that will focus on the why's and wherefore's of the blog to make it a little easier for people trying to navigate.  But I'd rather spend more time blogging than monitoring all the new gizmos available to spiff up the blog.

When I started, I purposely left my identity vague.  I wanted people to read my posts without being colored by what I looked like or by how I was labeled.  If they wanted to know about me, they could read the posts.  Over time a lot is revealed.  I'm still vaguely identified, but I don't hide who I am  when i talk to people or when it's relevant to the post - like this one - and I've been identified publicly on other blogs.

Finally my appreciation goes out to all of you who read this blog and especially to those of you who take time to comment or email.   And those who point people my way.  Google has made this more than a private notebook and the Immoral Minority and Progressive Alaska have sent quite a few readers this way too.  Thanks to you all.  

Taku Lake Beaver Gets Close

Biking home yesterday on along the Campbell Creek trail I checked for the beaver I saw in Taku Lake last time.  There it was, lazily eating, not far from shore.  I stopped and started to video.  And then it came closer.  I kept videoing, but I did start wondering whether beavers attack people.

A google search says yes, but rarely.  Here's a Swedish account  (in English) of people attacked while swimming.  The Atlanta Wild Animal Rescue Effort says

Fight or Flight Zone:  The fight or flight zone for beaver is dependent on whether they are in the water or on land.  On land they will run as soon as they perceive your presence.  In the water they are a little less afraid but they will submerge quickly.

Behaviors:

• Beaver represent no threat to humans.
• Beavers slap their tail on the water to warn trespassers.

But there are accounts of a rabid beaver attacking  three people in a Philadelphia park.

I didn't know any of that at the time.  I was thinking that the beaver was coming to me, so I wasn't threatening it.  But I'm guessing it was less than ten feet away. 

As you watch the video, at the end, pay attention to the tail.  You can see that I was surprised.  A tripod would have helped.  Or would I have knocked it over?





The Pacific Streamkeepers Federation has a lengthy but straightforward page on problems caused by beavers and if and how to intervene.

Drummers, Tai Chi, More At Japanese Summer Festival

It is summer.  It's light out.  The low 60˚F temperature and grey skies don't bother me, especially when I read about 100˚plus temperatures in the Lower 48.  I biked to Sand Lake Elementary yesterday.  The parking lot was jammed (but not the bike racks) at this event sponsored by the Consular Office of Japan, the Japanese Society of Alaska, Tomo No Kai, and the Japan Relief Fund of Alaska Foundation. 


Sand Lake is an appropriate spot because it's the elementary school with a Japanese language immersion program.

The Tai Chi demonstration was my reason for going.  My wife, who's been practicing tai chi for a long time now, invited me.  The discipline, art, I'm not sure the right descriptor of tai chi, fascinates me.  There is something so opposite to how we usually do things in the West.  There's an inward focus, a controlling of one's thoughts and breathing and movements that is both beautiful to watch and, I'm told, powerful for the person doing it. J has gotten very good at this and teaches a group at a local assisted living home.  I made a video of yesterday's performance. But it raised one of the conflicts I deal with on this blog and which I'll  post about in more detail in a future post.  Tai Chi should is reflective and I think of it being quiet.  I imagine the ideal tai chi in a natural setting with a flute or other gentle Chinese music in the background.  My video of yesterday reflects the brutal reality of tai chi in a noisy school gymnasium.  Should my videos and photos reflect reality or our stereotypes of reality?  So much of the world reflected to us over the media is edited to conform to our stereotypes, which merely reinforces those stereotypes.  In the discussion with Doug (see below) he mentioned that he uses photoshop to get rid of power lines from his scenic shots.   I even thought about deleting the crowd noise and replacing it with a flute.  But part of what I'm doing is documenting life today, and such modifications would merely play into people's stereotypes.  And imagine historians of the future pointing to pictures where the power lines have been edited out.   And there was no way I could disguise the gymnasium background.   Note:  I'm not opposed to playing with reality (just the idea of thinking about a video or photo as reality shows how 'created' our reality has become)  to find new meaning - as artists do.  Just when the purpose is to conform to people's stereotypes rather than challenge them.   For those who would like to see the slow-motion flow of the tai chi can see the short video here. 

J introduced me to Doug whose wife is also in the tai chi group and who posts a photo a day on flicker.  He has takes lots of pictures and just puts up one a day.  I looked.  Trust me.  He's got great shots. (Even if they don't have power lines. :) )  Yesterday he put one up of the drummers at the festival and other recent ones include a wolf and an angry goose.  I need to go out in the woods with this guy.  I also need a camera that has a good telephoto.

 


I was waiting for the drummers. (Don't tell my wife.)  I posted about this group last year on the  Fourth of July when they were at the Park Strip.  From the very first time I heard the Taiko drummers from Japan at West High maybe 25 years ago, I was hooked.  The energy and power of the drummers and precision of their playing, and, of course, the way the drum beats go through your body.  This is the complete opposite of the tai chi.  (Is it really?  I have to think about that.  On the most obvious level, yes, but maybe they have more in common than it appears at first glance.)  And the local Anchorage group Tomodachi Daiko gives lessons.  I'm tempted. 

Watch the video.  I've got part of two pieces.  The third one is complete. It starts at 50 seconds.  I find it totally riveting.  Though the video is a pale reflection of actually being there.  These are local Anchorage folks of all ages.  Mesmerizing. 

There were a lot of folks selling things including Bosco's with lots of manga.  I know one of the festival goals was to raise money to help people still recovering from the Tsunami in Japan.  I assume that part of the sales went for that cause.  But I'm not sure how it worked.  (My son spent a large part of his income at Bosco's when he was younger.)

Editor Feedback - ADN Press-Release Post Follow Up

Nut Shell:  Printing verbatim press releases with minimum citation is NOT Anchorage Daily News policy.

My July 4 post on a Department of Transportation press release that was printed in the Anchorage Daily News almost verbatim picked up a few comments including one that linked to a blog post about a columnist fired by the Kansas City Star.

"[A]fter editors discovered he had submitted more than a dozen columns that were nearly verbatim copies of press releases. Now, Penn is suing McClatchy Newspapers Inc., the Star's owner, for defamation. He's seeking $25,000 and punitive damages."

Since McClatchy also owns the Anchorage Daily News, this was becoming a bigger story.  Actually, I had started to write with questions about how the new airport development in the press release related to the proposed landswap between the airport and the Municipality that would give the airport part of the Coastal Trail.  Before posting I saw the press release published as a news item in the ADN, I refocused the post to the issue of handling press releases as news. 

But when I learned, through the comment, about the other McClatchy paper firing a columnist over this, it seemed I should contact the ADN and ask them about their policy on this and any comments they might have about the Kansas City Star columnist.  I emailed editor Pat Dougherty mentioning the post and the comment with the link to the Kansas City Star firing.

Even though I'd emailed him after 5pm, Dougherty responded in detail within a couple of hours.  He pointed out, legitimately, that it would have been nice if I had contacted him before posting.

He wrote that he agreed that

"the attribution in that story should have been higher and more precise. . .

 I also agree that all the composition should have been our own, except
for something used in direct quotes.

If we had done that, I don't think the generic bylining would have
been an issue. After all, in choosing to publish it, we are taking
responsibility for it. That's why we would include a byline. "

He also wrote:

"Prompted by your column, we discussed this issue among editors here
today and agreed that we would have a specific discussion about
appropriate and inappropriate practices with the reporter involved in
this case, followed by a general written reminder to the staff about
our standards and expectations."

He wrote that there are cost factors in using staff time to rewrite and fact check press releases so that they are really ADN created news articles.  One option they considered was an online space for press releases:

". . .we created a spot on our website called "Bulletin Board." The idea was to
post raw press releases that we thought were of interest to at least
some of our readers but that did not meet the threshold for use of
staff time. The fact is there are a lot of lesser tidbits of news we
get that don't justify journalistic handling. Here's an example: press
release says the road to Wonder Lake is open to private cars. It's
unfortunate that the general public may not get that information from
the newspaper if we can't have a reporter spend the time to say
essentially the same thing, to the same level of depth, in different
words. Now if we did make that effort in that example, you are smart
enough to understand what it really represents. The newspaper story
isn't saying the road to Wonder Lake is open -- we don't know that
because we haven't gone to Denali to check the road. What the
newspaper is saying is that someone who works for the park service
says the road is open. Whether the park service says that in a press
release, a phone call or an email is pretty much a distinction without
a difference.

Primarily because of tight staffing with summer vacations etc., the
Bulletin Board effort has languished. If I conclude that the benefit
to our readers is worth the effort, I may revive it. It's just one
more small way in which we newspaper people are having to solve
problems today that we could have solved more easily in the past with
more staff or money."

[I couldn't find anything about the Denali road being open to Wonder Lake, but the Park Service did post last week its "Final Vehicle Management Plan for Denali National Park & Preserve."  Comment period until July 30.]

I like the Bulletin Board idea.  It seems best to just identify items as press releases and print them verbatim.  The idea of rewriting them seems a waste of time, since it's the same unevaluated content the organization submitted, just in different words.  The key is to let the reader know the source and what you did with it.

As Dougherty went on to discuss the Kansas City Star situation,  he elaborated on the problems of working with press releases:

I am skeptical of the claims of the former KC Star person. You
describe him here as a reporter. I thought he was a columnist. [I used the wrong word, Dougherty was right.]  The difference between those two jobs matters hugely. The issue of rewriting press releases, or rewriting anything, should never come up with a columnist, whose job it is to write his own opinions or
observations. If he was a columnist and he was re-writing anything, he
ought to be fired. Period. If he was a reporter, the situation could
have been somewhat less black and white. Lots of low-level news
stories start from press releases. Reporters are constantly under
pressure to determine just how much time a given story is worth, and
to spend just that much time and no more. That can put a reporter
close to the line. Every newspaper editor is well aware of that
pressure and the proximity of that line -- but editors expect a
reporter to know better than to cross it.The pressures at the Star,
I'm sure, are not materially different from those at the ADN or, for
that matter, Channel 2, the Anchorage Press or the Alaska Dispatch.
There may have been some corner-cutting by KC reporters, but I don't
believe that was a condoned practice at the newspaper. I guess we'll
have to wait and see how that case turns out.

As a blogger without a journalism background, I'm continuing to learn.  I've generally not been good about calling people about stories beforehand.   I can see how someone  could call the original post  'gotcha' blogging, which isn't my intent.  Adding Dougherty's response - that this isn't how the ADN wants their reporters doing things - to the original would have made a better post.   Watching ADN reporters - particularly Lisa Demer during the Alaska corruption trials and in Juneau - I know that she's on the phone a lot calling and checking.  That's something I need to do more often.  While interviews are often used in academic research - my background - in the actual writing, one tends to cite written sources mostly.  That's an explanation, not an excuse. 

I also appreciate Dougherty's quick and thorough responses to my emails.  Dougherty also sent a Kansas City Star article on the firing of their columnist which adds more information than the original link that Anonymous left in the comment section.

Penn alleged that using press releases without attribution was a common practice at The Star and even was part of his training.

That sentence was in both links to the KC Star firing, but the next ones, which raised red flags for me, were new.

“The widespread practice in journalism is to treat such press releases as having been voluntarily released by their authors into the flow of news with the intention that the release will be reprinted or published, and preferably with no or minimal editing,” the suit alleged. “As such, attribution as to the authorship of such news releases is typically not expected by the author, nor offered by journalists who receive them.”

If this were true, the widespread practice would be to deceive the public into thinking press releases from various organizations are actually news stories written by the paper's reporters and columnists.  A friend reminded me of the controversy six years ago when television stations played, as news stories, corporate and government made video news releases (VNRs) without attribution.  The FCC ruled TV stations playing VNRs "must clearly disclose to members of their audiences the nature, source and sponsorship of the material."

Dougherty's discussion on how much time it takes reporters to rewrite press releases also brought to mind last weekend's This American Life episode on Journatic,  a company that creates local news stories for newspapers, using outsourced reporters as far away as the Philippines.  Readers have no idea that the stories aren't written by local reporters.  The piece discusses the economic reasons smaller papers are tempted to buy cheap, outsourced, local stories.  Journatic claimed papers got more local coverage that way.  But a Journatic reporter said he found he wasn't as careful about fact checking because of the low pay he gets per article and because he's so far away from the towns he's writing about.

I also asked Dougherty if the ADN had its editorial policy publicly available.  His response was:

We don't have a written ethics policy. We expect good ethics and good
judgment. What we have said in writing is that any issue that raises
ethical questions, in which the right course of action is not clear,
should be brought up with editors. In cases where precedent is not
instructive, the editors will sort out what course of action is
appropriate.

I would note that the Daily News has gone decades without an ethical
scandal. To some degree, that's probably a matter of good luck, but to
a far greater degree it's the result of good judgment by the staff,
from top to bottom.

Presumably, that's why the ADN hires people with degrees in journalism - they learned the skills and the standards in school.  They come with the code of ethics already embedded as  Henry Mintzberg writes about employees who come to organizations already trained:

"Standardization of skills (as well as knowledge), in which different work is coordinated by virtue of the related training the workers have received (as in medical specialists - say a surgeon and an anesthetist in an operating room –responding almost automatically to each other’s standardized procedures)"

Journalists should already know ethics codes such as The Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics with its four main headings:

• Seek Truth and Report It
• Minimize Harm
• Act Independently
• Be Accountable

Presumably a newspaper like the ADN can rely on a code like that.  But the New York Times has its own, very detailed Policy on Ethics in Journalism.   Some would argue that the NYT rules are so detailed that they restrict flexibility. 

I remember reading in my first graduate class, that some organizations want to give employees as much flexibility as possible by not having rules.  The effect, the author wrote (I think it was Amatai Etzioni in Modern Organizations), is that the organizations still have unwritten rules in the heads of the managers, and the employees are more constrained in these organizations.  They have to guess what's allowed. They don't know when they will get in trouble for violating the unwritten rules.  That's not the intent of managers who don't have rules, but it's often the effect.   

Blogging is different from mainstream journalism and bloggers are creating their own standards for how to do things.  Some blogs are meant to be more entertainment or personal reflection or even ranting than news.  Here at What Do I Know? I want readers to clearly know what is my original work and what comes from other places, with links to the sources.  I also want my newsy pieces to be fair to the subjects, accurate, and to offer various perspectives that would help the viewer understand what happened.  I also want to use the story to illustrate larger issues and principles, like a case study.  I want this not to be an isolated incident, but to show it as part of a larger pattern of how things work.

Contacting the subject of a story is something I should do more frequently.  That may slow some stories down, but as I think about it, when I've done it in the past, the stories have always been better for it.  I hope though, that even when I don't get in contact with the subject, my work offers reasonable possibilities of what they might have said on their own behalf when that's appropriate. I don't think I did that in this case.

What City Has More Than A Dozen Bagpipe Factories?

People are constantly saying they'd like to hear some positive news instead of the constant din of negative stories.  But it also seems most people really read the appalling and shocking stories more than the feel good stories.

Here's a bit of news that came via email from a friend.  It's a bit unexpected.  The city of Sialkot, Pakistan is one of the world's biggest exporters of bagpipes.  From CNN:

Sialkot is located in north-east Pakistan, some 125 kilometers from the capital Lahore. Legend has it that the city started making bagpipes during the British Raj, when a Scottish businessman came to town and set up a factory.
More than a century later Sialkot is one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of bagpipes, with more than a dozen bagpipe factories, both big and small. 

The video shows a different side of Pakistan than we normally see.




It seems they also make vintage footballs and basketballs, new soccer balls, musical instruments, and  and even replica US Civil War uniforms. 

William Lynch Acquitted of Beating Priest Who Abused Him

Last week I asked readers if they would convict an abuse victim who years later beat up the priest who had raped him and his brother (ages then 7 and 4).  The abuse wasn't disputed by the prosecutor (though the priest denied it), nor was the attack, years later, at a retirement home for priests (yes, he was still a priest).

It just seemed to me that the jury wasn't going to punish the man who had been abused for attacking the priest who still denied it happened.

And the jury just acquitted him.  From the Daily Mail.

A jury acquitted a man Thursday of assaulting a priest he says molested him more than three decades ago during a camping trip and left him with tormented memories that led to alcohol abuse, depression and suicide attempts.
The verdict came after defendant William Lynch took the witness stand during the two-week trial and acknowledged punching Jerold Lindner several times on May 10, 2010.
While previously pleading not guilty, Lynch said he hoped to use the case to publicly shame Lindner and bring further attention to the Catholic Church clergy abuse scandal. . .

Lynch refused to discuss a plea bargain with prosecutors, even when he was promised he could avoid prison and would serve no more than a year in exchange for a guilty plea.

Prosecutors said they were left with little choice but to take the case to trial and ask the jury to find Lynch guilty of felony assault and felony elder abuse. Lindner was 65 at the time of the beating.

You can read the whole article including photos at the Daily Mail.

Despite my strong belief in the rule of law, this decision makes sense to me.  Of course, that conclusion includes the details of the case in which the abuser had never been reported to the police, and was still a priest living in a retirement home for priests.  And still denied he'd done anything wrong. 

I hope this public affirmation helps Mr. Lynch get on with his life and leave this terrible part of it behind now. 

[I reworded the original title which I thought too clunky.]