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I am the youngest of three boys raised by a working single mom in the 1960s and1970s. We lived toward the poor end of the spectrum, so much of my childhood was spent devoid of television (back in those days, TV was considered a luxury, not a necessity). Due to these circumstances, I was well into my teen years before I encountered the idea that women could be anything other than strong, intelligent and capable. It still baffles me when I encounter people who start from an assumption that women are not strong, intelligent and capable. Especially because so many of them actually consider themselves to be feminists.
Needless to say, I am often misunderstood by people when the discussion turns to sexism and women’s issues (yes – I am allowed to discuss these things even though I have a penis). Usually it’s because I don’t assume women need protection. And because I assume they are relatively intelligent adult human beings, so when they do stupid things my initial response is other than “Oh, you poor thing!”. In fact, I have a universal response to stupidity that is colorblind and genderless. Those of you who know me have encountered it frequently.
So I generally try to avoid these discussions, especially on the Internet. When I look at a situation and say “Why in hell did she do something so dumb?” I immediately get attacked by a half-dozen or so ‘feminists’ who demand to know why I’m “blaming the victim” and/or being such a sexist. Which leaves me wondering why these ‘feminists’ think their role is to gallantly provide protection for someone they claim to consider a strong, intelligent, capable equal.
A large part of the problem is the simple fact that the Internet is a piss-poor vehicle for human interaction and communication. This is no fault of the Internet but is rather due to the fact that most humans are not very good at communicating. And extremely few of us are skilled at communicating using only the written word. This is why people who are good at it get paid for doing so.
So when we do try to discuss important issues on the Internet we usually screw it up. As far as I can tell, the overwhelming majority of the ‘discussions’ on the Internet about sexism consist solely of people pointing out instances of sexism and screaming “Look everyone! A bad thing!”. Just in case we didn’t already know that sexism is bad.
I, on the other hand, want to know why the strongest, most intelligent, most capable, most badass woman on the face of the planet still occasionally needs someone else to tell her she’s pretty. And I think maybe this is the kind of thing we should be talking about. The parts of the issue that are complicated and that maybe make us a little uncomfortable.
Which brings us to Go Set a Watchman.
As should be obvious, the following will contain spoilers (although probably not anything you haven’t already heard). If you haven’t read Go Set A Watchman and intend to, you might want to stop reading at this point (I’m a Map Dork, so as a buffer I’ll throw in a map [found here]).
Still here? Good. I’ll get right to the point: Atticus Finch is a racist. I know this is not easy to accept, but it is, in fact, even evident in To Kill a Mockingbird (although not obvious. That is reserved for Go Set a Watchman). Before you get too upset, though, let me explain a couple things. First off, Atticus Finch is a racist, but only by today’s standards. By the standards of his own time (To Kill a Mockingbird takes place in the mid-1930s, when Atticus was in his early 50s. Go Set a Watchman takes place in the mid-1950s) he was something else entirely. Second, Atticus was what I think of as a ‘benevolent racist’. Unlike most of his contemporaries he didn’t consider black people to be subhuman (yes – I said black people. Political correctness is the process of white people sitting around deciding what the new labels should be. I don’t subscribe), nor did he in any way consider them to be undesirable or even unlikable. He just didn’t consider them to be equal. In To Kill a Mockingbird Jean Louise (a.k.a. Scout) states:
“Atticus says cheatin’ a colored man is ten times worse than cheatin’ a white man”
Later, Atticus himself says:
“There’s nothing more sickening to me than a low-grade white man who’ll take advantage of a Negro’s ignorance.”
Atticus’ racism is there, if you have eyes to see it. Go Set a Watchman just makes it more blatant and obvious. But it’s not any different. Atticus is not any different. His form of racism is a condescending one. He views black people very much as though they are children. Children who need our (read: white people’s) help.
Jean Louise, however, is not racist. She is described (by herself, in the interest of full disclosure) as ‘colorblind’. Despite growing up in Alabama in the 1930s and 1940s. How did this happen? Because she was raised by Atticus Finch. To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman are, in fact, two parts of one story. Jean Louise Finch’s story. The story of her relationship with her father. And how Scout, like every child, eventually comes to terms with her father’s humanity. How she finally realizes that Atticus Finch has as much right to be flawed as the rest of us.
Jean Louise eventually accepts the fact that her father is human and he therefore has faults. And she realizes that he is not defined by his faults. For his part, Atticus learns that he has succeeded in the task that all good parents set for themselves: he has raised a child who is better than he is (which, by the way, may not have happened if Atticus hadn’t actively defied the dictates of his family and community to allow his daughter to grow up to be exactly the person she desired to be). At the end of the day, though, Atticus lived in a time and place that was both extremely racist and extremely sexist, and he was years ahead of his time on both these issues. But not immune to them. And – truth be told – I’m okay with that.
I am finding, however, that many of the people I know are not. I am a little surprised and dismayed by how many of my friends are actively avoiding reading Go Set a Watchman (some of them have even concocted elaborate reasons for it). I wish I could say the reason for this is simply because they don’t want to face the fact that Atticus is a racist. The truth is that they don’t want to face what Atticus Finch’s racism represents.
We here in the Northeast live in a fuzzy pink bubble wherein we think we have largely beaten racism (we are wrong, and we are also not alone in this). Because of this, we believe that there are precisely two types of racists in this world: bad people and stupid people. We honestly believe that at least one of those two conditions must be in place before racism can even exist, let alone thrive. So the idea of an inherently decent and intelligent person (like Atticus Finch) who is also a racist is complicated and it makes us uncomfortable and we don’t want to look at it so we instead decide that it can’t exist.
Which only serves to prove that we are failing to understand the nature of racism.
See, racism is not rational. This is why it does not respond to reason. Nobody sits down, analyzes all the available evidence, then concludes that the only logical course of action is to be a racist. Racism arrives through a different vector, and for this reason we cannot combat it effectively with logic and reason. Also for this reason, otherwise decent and intelligent people can sometimes turn out to be racists. This invariably occurs during childhood. If you spend the bulk of your formative years surrounded by a certain way of thinking, there’s a decent chance you will come to believe that said certain way of thinking is normal and/or proper. Sexism often procreates by this method as well. As does religion.
Relax. Before you throw a hissy and accuse me of badmouthing religion, take a moment to look up the word ‘rational’. And know that most of the religions of the world will back me up on this. One does not reason one’s way to God. Religion is not logical nor does it desire to be. Belief is arrived at through other means.
This is why belief systems (good or bad) need to be kept in check via legislation. We cannot carefully explain the facts and then expect racists to become colorblind. We cannot throw logic at sexists and then expect them to suddenly support paycheck equality. We cannot reason with the religious right and then expect them to see the light in regard to marriage equality. It simply will not happen and thinking otherwise is just plain dumb. We need Affirmative Action. We need the Nineteenth Amendment. We need separation of church and state (make no mistake, folks – the Founding Drunkards were not concerned about freedom of religion. They were concerned about freedom from religion). Rationality cannot be applied to belief systems, so the only recourse a rational society has is to protect the general populace from them.
Those of you who know me know that I have my share of issues with this whole “Occupy (Insert name of Street or City Here)” movement. For the most part, my issues stem from a general lack of tolerance for hypocrisy. I don’t take Teabaggers seriously because they whine about taxes while at the same time complaining about potholes that aren’t getting filled. For much the same reasons I don’t have much use for people who wear designer jeans and drink Starbucks coffee while they Tweet on their iPhones about the evils of corporate America.
For the most part, though, my problems with OWS are not so much with the message as with the messengers. While the issues surrounding economic inequality in this country are real and important, I don’t feel the reluctance of the white middle class to repay their student loans ranks terribly high among them.
As time has gone by, though, I find myself less and less enamored of the message behind the protests. In fact, the entire movement has completely failed to impress me. This concerned me at first, mainly because I felt I should be impressed. Economic equality is just the sort of socialist idea I can really get behind, so on the surface it really appeared to be my kind of movement. But once I looked hard at the movement – looked below the surface – I realized it’s not actually my kind of movement at all.
Why? Because it’s got no soul. It’s got no heart. It is a movement that is incapable of seeing beyond itself. Or maybe it’s just unwilling to. It has been called an inherently selfish movement by many (myself included), although it may be more fair to call it ‘self centered’ or ‘self-absorbed’.
I’ve heard the arguments – that we should endeavor to look beyond the iPhones and the designer jeans to the message beneath. That the ‘message’ of OWS is in their words, not their behaviors (any 4-year-old can tell you differently). Here’s a news flash: the message is getting out to the world, and it is loud and clear. But it isn’t necessarily the message OWS thinks it’s broadcasting. If you bring a gun to an anti-war protest, your message is not one of peace, no matter what you say.
I have repeatedly seen attempts to compare OWS to the civil rights movement, as well as to the anti-war counterculture movements of the 1960s. All of these attempts have failed, and in their failure they underscore the fundamental shortcomings of OWS. Its lack of a soul. Its absence of heart.
First off, lets dismiss any comparisons to the civil rights movement. I’m sorry, but placing OWS into the same category with Freedom Rides is almost insulting. Let’s face facts here, people – those actively participating in the major events of the American civil rights movement were risking a great deal more than a dose of pepper spray. And while a faceful of pepper spray is not exactly a pleasant experience, in comparison to the civil rights movement participating in OWS is practically risk free. They also were fighting for rights on a far different level than those claimed by OWS. They weren’t looking for a bigger slice of the pie – they just wanted to be allowed into the restaurant. Those occupying Wall Street may argue differently, but in the eyes of the law, the 99% have the same rights as the 1% (in theory, at least). This was not the case for African Americans well into the twentieth century. Today, no African American can legally be stopped from drinking out of a public water fountain. The importance of this statement cannot be understood by anyone who would compare OWS to the civil rights movement.
When the proponents of OWS compare it to the anti-war counterculture movements of the 1960s, they are on slightly less shaky ground. But only slightly. The movements of the 1960s – like OWS – were primarily white middle-class movements. And this is pretty much where the comparisons end. When we start looking for more similarities is when the self-absorption of OWS stands out.
In both cases, we’re talking about the (primarily white) middle class. We’re talking about people who have every door open to them. Who have every opportunity available to them. Who have every right and privilege handed to them. From this starting point, vastly different messages arose.
OWS looks to the gap between itself and the 1% and says to the world: “This inequality is inexcusable. We should not have to settle for what we have when these few have so much. As a society, we should take steps to reduce what they have so that the rest of us can have more.”
In contrast, those protesting in the 1960s looked to the gap between themselves and those who had less and said to the world: “This inequality is inexcusable. We should not allow members of our society to have so little when we have so much. As a society, we should take steps to increase what they have, even if it means decreasing what we have.”
The movements of the 1960s were selfless (this is not to say that there were no egos involved). They were about ending war. They were about treating each other fairly. They were about striving toward equality by giving – not by taking.
Those on the ground in the 1960s also saw inherent flaws in American consumer culture. They too saw rampant consumption and pervasive greed, and they feared the results of them. Their response to it, though, was almost opposite to OWSers – they opted out. When they saw a culture of avarice that they felt had eroded their society and threatened their world, their response was to turn their backs on it – not to demand more of it. Thus the term ‘counterculture’.
If OWS had occurred in the 1960s, iPhones wouldn’t have been used to Tweet about it. They would have been used as firewood.
The counterculture movements of the 1960s possessed something that OWS sadly lacks. They had heart, soul and yes – even magic. Because of this, they gave birth to greatness. Heroes don’t give birth to movements – movements give birth to heroes. The 1960s produced the likes of Abbie Hoffman and the rest of the Chicago Seven. (The civil rights movement produced even bigger giants.)
This is the soul that OWS lacks. And without it I feel it is doomed to failure. Where is its Hoffman, its Dylan, its Joplin, its Baez?
Speaking of which, where in hell is the music? How is it that this movement has inspired so little? Oh – I know that the people on the ground have been attempting to write songs. I’ve listened to some of them. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.
And I was going to continue my decades-old practice of ignoring Third Eye Blind, but I will go so far as to give them 10 bonus points for offering their song as a free download. And then I’ll take 5 of those points away because one of the places they posted it is their Facebook page. However, you’re fooling yourself if you see their “anthem” as anything other than a thinly-veiled attempt to resuscitate their dead careers.
The 1960s, though, produced music of a different sort. The kind of music that never goes out of style. The kind of music that understands that peace is the answer to war, love is the answer to hatred, and generosity is the answer to greed. The kind of music that shines light into dark places and makes flowers grow there.
The kind of music that can somehow magically transform half a million sweaty, mud-caked, tripping hippies into Stardust.
When I attended Oxford about a decade ago, I took an amazingly interesting class called ‘British Perspectives of the American Revolution”. The woman who taught said class was fond of pointing out that the United States of America is really an experiment, and a young experiment at that. Whether we can call it a successful experiment will have to wait until it reaches maturity.
I think of that statement often when the internet comes up in conversation. If the United States is a young experiment, the internet is in its infancy. For some reason, people today don’t seem to realize this. Even people who were well into adulthood before the internet went mainstream somehow manage to forget that there was life before modems. While this circumstance always makes me laugh, it becomes especially funny whenever a new Internet Apocalypse looms on the horizon.
Like this latest crap about Google/Verizon and net neutrality. I’m sure you’ve heard about it – the interwebs are all abuzz and atwitter about it (I’m sure they’re all afacebook about it as well, but I have no way to verify it). In a nutshell, it’s a proposal of a framework for net neutrality. It says that the net should be free and neutral, but with notable exceptions. You can read the proposal here. First off, don’t let the title of the piece scare you. Although the word ‘legislative’ is in the title, here in America we don’t yet let major corporations draft legislation (at least not openly).
Anyway, the release of this document has Chicken Little running around and screaming his fool head off. In all his guises. Just throw a digital stone and you’ll hit someone who’s whining about it. One moron even believes that this document will destroy the internet inside of five years. Why will this occur? Ostensibly, the very possibility of tiered internet service will cause the internet to implode. Or something like that.
Let’s put that one to rest right now. The internet isn’t going away any time soon. It won’t go away simply because it is a commodity that people are willing to pay for.
Allow me to repeat that, this time with fat letters: it is a commodity. The problem we’re running into here is the mistaken belief that a neutral net is some sort of constitutionally guaranteed human right. We’re not talking about freedom of expression here (except in a most tangential fashion). We’re talking about a service – a service that cannot be delivered to us for free. Truth is, net neutrality is an attempt to dictate to providers the particulars of what it is they provide.
A neutral net would be one in which no provider is allowed to base charges according to site visited or service used. Period. It’s not about good versus evil, it’s not about corporations versus the little guy, it’s not about us versus them. What it is about is who pays for what. Should I get better access than you because I pay more? Should Google’s service get priority bandwidth because they pay more?
Predictably, our initial response to these questions is to leap to our feet and shout ‘No!’ (and believe me, kids – I’m the first one on my feet).
But should we? Seriously – what other service or commodity do we buy that follows a model anything like net neutrality? Chances are, most of you get more channels on your TV than I do. Why? Because you pay for it. I probably get faster down- and upload speeds than many of you. Why? Because I pay for it. Many people today get data plans (read: internet) on their cell phones. Why? Because they pay for it.
Doesn’t this happen because the service provider dedicates more resources to the customers who receive more and/or better service?
And then there are the fears about the corporate end of the spectrum. As one pundit put it: What would stop Verizon from getting into bed with Hulu and then providing free and open access to Hulu while throttling access to Netflix?
The short answer is: Nothing would stop them. The long answer adds: Net neutrality wouldn’t stop them either. Does anyone really believe that net neutrality would stop Verizon from emulating Facebook by forcing customers to sign into their accounts and click through 47 screens before they could ‘enable’ Netflix streaming?
And I may be missing something here, but Verizon getting into bed with Hulu and throttling Netflix sounds like a standard business practice to me. I’m not saying I agree with it, just that it doesn’t strike me as being unusual. The university I attended was littered with Coke machines. Really. Coca-Cola was everywhere on that campus. Like death and taxes, it was around every corner and behind every door. But Pepsi was nowhere to be found. It simply was not possible to procure a Pepsi anywhere on the grounds of the university. Why was it this way? Simply because Coke ponied up more money than Pepsi did when push came to shove. Oddly, nobody ever insisted they had a right to purchase Pepsi.
Why – exactly – do so many of us think that the internet should be exempt from the free market?
Gather ‘round children, and let me tell you a story. It’s about a mythical time before there was television. In the midst of that dark age, a Neanderthal hero invented the device we now know as TV. In those early times, the cavemen ‘made’ television by broadcasting programs from large antennae built for the purpose. Other cavemen watched these programs on magical boxes that pulled the TV out of thin air. Because TV came magically out of thin air, it initially seemed to be free of cost. The cavemen who made the programs and ran the stations paid for it all through advertising.
Eventually, TV became valuable enough for everyone to desire it. This led to the invention of cable as a means to get programs to the people who lived too far away from the antennae to be able to get TV out of the air. Because putting cable up on poles and running wire to people’s houses costs money, the people at the ends of the wires were charged for the service.
It wasn’t long before the cable providers hit upon the idea of offering cable to people who didn’t need it, but might want it. To get more channels, or to get their existing channels at a better quality. Unsurprisingly, there was much yelling of “I will not pay for something I can get for free!”, but as you know it didn’t last long. In short order cable went from ‘luxury’ to ‘necessity’.
Does any of that sound familiar? Can you see a pattern beginning to emerge? Let me give you a hint: It’s about money. The internet has never been free. It just appeared to be so because someone else was largely footing the bill (or at least it seemed that way. Truth is, you’ve been paying for it all along, and the coin you’ve been paying with is personal data). The internet – like so much of our world – is market-driven. Don’t kid yourself into thinking otherwise.
And I hate to say it, folks, but it looks as though the market is moving away from net neutrality. The simple fact that it’s being talked about so much is a clear indication that its demise is imminent. To be honest, I’m not so sure this would be a bad thing. In the short term, a lack of net neutrality would pretty much suck. In the long term, though, it could very well be the best thing for us, the average consumers.
You see, while money drives the market, the market drives competition (as well as innovation). If our Verizon/Hulu scenario actually came to pass, it wouldn’t be long before another ISP appeared in town, one who wasn’t in bed with Hulu and was willing to offer Netflix (providing, of course, that there was a demand for such a thing). Eventually, we get to reap the benefits of price and/or service wars (much like cell service providers today). In fact, this could help solve one of America’s largest internet-related problems – the lack of adequate broadband providers (you’d be surprised how many Americans only have one available choice for broadband).
I don’t think we really need to fear losing net neutrality, even if it is legislated away. If enough of us truly want to have a neutral net, sooner or later someone will come along and offer to sell it to us.
A couple events of interest to the geospatial community occurred recently. The first was the release of the Department of Labor’s Geospatial Technology Competency Model, the second (following close on the heels of the first) was GISCI’s reaction to it. Both are interesting and worthy of deconstruction. Let’s begin with the latter.
The GISCI release states: “Portfolio-based certification made sense in 2004, when no authoritative specification of geospatial competencies yet existed. The Department of Labor’s recently issued Geospatial Technology Competency Model helps fill that gap, and sets the stage for serious consideration of competency-based GISP certification.”
I’m not buying it. If portfolio-based certification actually did make sense in 2004 due to a lack of an “authoritative specification of geospatial competencies”, shouldn’t the provision of such an “authoritative specification” have been the absolute first responsibility of GISCI? Shouldn’t an organization that aspires to be the source of GIS certification have played a more active role in the specification of geospatial competencies than simply waiting until someone else did so, and then chiming in with “What he said”?
Actually, GISCI didn’t even go that far. In true bureaucratic fashion, they have instead formed a committee to discuss whether to advise GISCI to stand behind the Department of Labor and say “What he said.” Now that’s leadership.
In fact, GISCI would be well served to ignore the Department of Labor’s model (for reasons we’ll get to in a bit), but I’m certain they’ll end up embracing it, because the Department of Labor and GISCI both start with the same fundamental mistake. Both GISCI and the Department of Labor are laboring under the misconception that geospatial technology (hereafter referred to as GIS. Because I feel like it) is a discipline narrow enough to certify in toto. As stated previously, this is a ridiculous assumption. The field is just too damn broad and the skill sets too varied.
And if we ever needed a perfect example of this, the Department of Labor thoughtfully provided it with their Competency Model. I have to say I had trouble believing it wasn’t a joke (I’m still not thoroughly convinced). The model is shown as a sort of pyramid, upon which “Each tier consists of one or more blocks representing the skills, knowledge, and abilities essential for successful performance in the industry or occupation represented by the model”, and we are informed that “At the base of the model, competencies apply to a large number of occupations and industries. As a user moves up the model, the competencies become industry- and occupation-specific.” Tier 4 is where we’re supposed to get to competencies specific to GIS.
Okay. Are we ready to climb the tiers?
I’m pretty much going to get kicked off the pyramid at the outset, since the first item on the first tier is Interpersonal Skills. Don’t get me wrong – I’m a likeable enough guy, but there’s a good reason I didn’t go into the service industry. People just annoy me too much. The rest of the first tier I’ll be okay on.
The second tier I can dance through easily, but I have to linger long enough to argue. This tier is supposed to represent generalized academic competencies that should apply to the majority of fields. Both ‘geography’ and ‘science and engineering’ have been placed on this tier, and I don’t believe either of them actually belong. The average worker in many industries (maybe most of them) doesn’t need to know squat about these.
I’m running into trouble again on the third tier. Teamwork is a tough one, but I’m actually a rather good team player if I get to be captain, so I might be able to sneak by. I’m hitting the wall at ‘business fundamentals’, though. And frankly, this one should be removed from the pyramid altogether. This is why we have business schools. So that we can hire people who know how to do business to handle that end of it while we make maps.
The fourth and fifth tiers (the last detailed – the remainder left ‘intentionally blank’) make some sense, but cover far too much ground. Possessing just a fraction of these competencies would suffice to function rather well in a large variety of GIS capacities, and in many a narrowly focused skill set is actually desirable. And some of these competencies are nice to have in your tool kit but aren’t actually necessary (such as coding. You don’t have to know how to build a car in order to drive one. It does help when it breaks down, though).
I’ve said this before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again: while I think the geospatial technology industry would benefit from some sort of certification process, the people who seem to be going about it are getting it wrong. Instead of searching for one large ‘blanket’ certification to spread across the entire profession, the smart move would be to build a model similar to the one used for IT. GIS would be much better served by a large number of small, narrowly-focused certifications rather than one uselessly large one.
Instead of trying to develop an over-arching definition of our profession, why don’t we just make a list of the things we actually do? Then we can figure out who can do which ones. Or does that make too much sense?
So the next-gen iPhone scandal continues apace. For those of you scratching your heads, the Readers’ Digest version:
An engineer from Apple reportedly ‘lost’ a prototype of the next version of the iPhone. An unidentified man ‘found’ said iPhone (I say ‘lost’ and ‘found’ because we have only the unidentified man’s word for the veracity of this scenario). Despite the fact that the mystery man found a plethora of information about the engineer within the iPhone itself, rather than returning the device (or turning it over to the authorities) he chose instead to sell the phone for $5,000 to Gizmodo.
Gizmodo, for those of you who are unfamiliar with it, is what is commonly referred to as a Gadget Blog. Also referred to as Technology Porn, it is one of many such blogs that make their living by gushing over the latest and greatest high-tech gadgets in the marketplace.
Jason Chen is the blogger at Gizmodo who subsequently posted an item about the iPhone. Gizmodo even went so far as to post pictures of the iPhone in a dismantled state. And they stepped way over the line by posting the name of the engineer who ‘lost’ the phone (the lie they told to justify this bit of sensationalist crap is that they were ‘protecting’ the engineer because Apple wouldn’t dare fire him after Gizmodo posted his name. As if Apple wouldn’t just go ahead and fire an engineer who misplaced such a device anyway).
This all raised a pretty big stink out in the interwebs, and much discussion of the issue occurred. And then it pretty much faded away. That is, until Friday, when law enforcement officials showed up at Chen’s house with a warrant and took away a truckload of electronics in the form of computers, hard-drives, cameras and whatnot. Naturally, many assume that Apple is behind the warrant. Personally, until this development I suspected Apple of being complicit in the whole story in an attempt to garner publicity for their new device (I’m sure they could use some after the lack of excitement over the iPad).
Anyway, you can imagine the gnashing of teeth surrounding the whole affair. The warrant evidently stated that the gadgetry seized from Chen’s residence may have been “used as a means of committing a felony” or could “show a felony has been committed.” It seems pretty clear that Chen and Gizmodo knew damn well that they were breaking the law (I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they didn’t know it was a felony).
Gizmodo, through their COO, is claiming that the warrant was invalid because Chen should be covered by state and federal ‘shield’ laws because Chen is a journalist. Journalists’ notes, pictures, data and such are not supposed to be seizable by warrant. Rather, courts are supposed to subpoena the journalist for such items.
I’m sorry, but I really have to draw the line at this ‘journalist’ crap. Calling Gizmodo (or the bulk of the rest of the gadget blogs) ‘journalism’ is pure douchebaggery and an insult to all true journalists in this world. Have you read any of these blogs? Their ‘stories’ consist of no more than a few paragraphs (often only one) that take one of two forms: the first is a direct copy-and-paste from a real article the ‘author’ then links to. The second is just a hastily-scrawled, poorly written and invariably misspelled blurb (I would like to dispel the fiction that misspelled words in articles posted on the internet can be excused simply by calling them ‘typos’. Originally, typographical errors described spelling errors that occurred during the type-setting part of the publishing process. This was a phenomenon specific to printed media, and the distinction was made to point out that the error was beyond the author’s control. In the case of articles published on the internet, misspellings are solely the responsibility of the author, and are indicative of a lazy and/or sloppy over-reliance on spell-checkers).
Edward R. Murrow was a journalist. Bill Moyers is a journalist. Journalists go to dangerous places and take personal risks to report stories that are of actual import to human beings. Journalism is most certainly not about the latest celebrity break-up. Nor is it about the latest shiny bauble up for sale. There is a world of difference between news and gossip. The business of journalists is news. Blogs, on the other hand, are most often in the business of gossip.
If, for some bizarre reason, there are state and federal laws protecting gossips (or douchebags), then Chen should enjoy their protection. If no such laws exist, Chen and the company he works for should get spanked. Hard. What they do is not journalism, and they should not be allowed to wrap themselves in journalism’s protective blanket just by claiming they deserve it. That blanket should be reserved for people who have actually earned it.