Duty to Warn

AUSTIN -- To say that my knowledge of Chinese trade issues is inadequate is a wild understatement -- it's not a hot topic in Nacogdoches. But at least I approach the subject with appropriate humbleness, instead of the damn-fool certainty that seems to afflict the other 2 percent of our countrymen who care about this issue.

And I must say it seems to me this is an area that calls for a becoming tentativeness. I have yet to find any evidence that anyone knows what all the consequences of "permanent normalization" of trade with China will be.

In some ways, this is a political no-brainer -- American business positively salivates at the prospect of Chinese markets, and the Clinton administration is siding with business, arguing that it's a bonanza. Most Republicans, responding to the siren call of their campaign contributors, favor the deal. Labor, religious, environmental and consumer groups are pressuring Democrats to vote "no."

Maybe Elian Gonzalez will have achieved a miracle after all, alerting mainstream America to the fact that the Bill of Rights have disappeared, restrictions on the role of the military in domestic affairs have been thrown overboard, and all the appurtenances of a police state are in place. Twenty-five years after the war ended in Vietnam, we see what happened when that war came home. We lost abroad. And at home, we've lost, too.

For blacks and Hispanics, the reactions to that famous photograph of the Elian snatch by the INS team have been comic in a macabre sort of way. After all, they've been putting up with these no-knock forcible entries by heavily armed cops or INS agents for decades. On the religious right, fears about the onrush of tyranny hardened into certainty back at the time of Waco, in the dawn of the Clinton era.

Last fall, when Jean Kilbourne's new book Deadly Persuasion was arriving on shelves, Publishers Weekly praised it as "a wake-up call about the damaging effects of advertising in our media-saturated culture." But six months later, the mass media's fingers remain firmly on the snooze button.

It's hardly surprising that few national media outlets have reviewed the book or interviewed the author. Kilbourne's work is a publicist's nightmare. Imagine trying to get an articulate critic of ads onto TV networks that rely on commercials for their big profits.

"If you're like most people, you think that advertising has no influence on you," Kilbourne writes. "This is what advertisers want you to believe. But, if that were true, why would companies spend over $200 billion a year on advertising?"

Several of Galveston's municipal races this season are weird enough to make us all proud. God bless Texas politics.

In the mayoral race, the traditional developer-vs.-preservationist stand-off is given an added cultural je ne sais quoi by fresh developments.

A letter from a supporter on the website of challenger David Bowers, who is gay, referred to incumbent Roger "Bo" Quiroga, who is Hispanic, as the "Macho Nacho." Quiroga, no stranger to the art of insult himself, has referred to the The Galveston Daily News as "the worst disaster to hit Galveston since the 1900 storm."

The latest furor is over whether to continue Beach Party Weekend, a phenomenon that attracts young people, some of whom get all knee-walkin', commode-huggin' drunk and misbehave accordingly.

The Daily News ran a picture of one celebrator holding a puppy by the ear, which an ally of the mayor's says proves the paper has a bias against the mayor. Actually, the photo is sort of interesting on its own merit, in a way.

AUSTIN, Texas -- May I suggest that the governor of Texas get his rear back in this state long enough to call a special session to fix the mess in the prison system before the mother of all prison riots occurs?

How many times does he need to be warned? How much clearer could this possibly be? Texas prison guards are underpaid and overworked; the prisons are understaffed, and more guards walk off the job every week, leaving the prisons more dangerous for everyone in them, guards and convicts alike.

Tuesday's riot at Lamesa, with one prisoner dead and 31 injured, is the sixth time already this year that we have had violent episodes in the prisons. Twice this year guards have been taken hostage. In December, a guard was stabbed to death, and there was a riot at the Beeville unit.

The push by federal regulators to break up Microsoft is big news. Until recently, the software giant seemed untouchable -- and few people demanded effective antitrust efforts against monopoly power in the software industry. These days, a similar lack of vision is routine in looking at the media business.

Today, just six corporations have a forceful grip on America's mass media. We should consider how to break the hammerlock that huge firms currently maintain around the windpipe of the First Amendment. And we'd better hurry.

The trend lines of media ownership are steep and ominous in the United States. When The Media Monopoly first appeared on bookshelves in 1983, author Ben Bagdikian explains, "50 corporations dominated most of every mass medium." With each new edition, that number kept dropping -- to 29 media firms in 1987, 23 in 1990, 14 in 1992, and 10 in 1997.

There is a sound case to be made for dropping a tactical nuclear weapon on the Cuban section of Miami. The move would be applauded heartily by most Americans. Alas, Operation Good Riddance would require the sort of mature political courage sadly lacking in Washington, D.C., these days. Meanwhile, we can marvel at the shock with which many supposedly well-informed citizens are discovering that no well-dressed federal enforcement officer would dream of going out on assignment without an automatic weapon, full camo, hand grenades, a CS tear gas canister, handgun, knife, goggles and a backup SWAT team.

Last Saturday, Chris Matthews was excitedly telling his MSNBC audience that the famous AP photo of the Elian snatch perhaps proved "the black-helicopter crowd" might be right when they said America was turning into a police state. Welcome to America, Chris.

Your friendly media have distinguished themselves once again by providing a fountain of misinformation during two days of almost nonstop coverage of the raid on the Miami home of Lazaro Gonzalez and the transfer of Elian Gonzalez to the custody of his father.

The frenzy has now surpassed even the Dead Diana and JFK Jr. Missing cases, according to the Center for Media and Public Affairs.

The frequent misstatements of fact, both by TV newspeople and the people whom they interviewed, constitutes compelling evidence for the case that TV news must find a way to correct factual errors.

Many of these errors occurred during "analysis," "commentary" or "discussion," but they are still errors -- and misinformation poisons the well of public debate.

Perhaps the most astonishing was the consistent reporting of rumors -- clearly identified as such: "There is a rumor that ..." -- with no apparent effort to follow up as to the truth of the rumor.

"And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."

Easter, it seems to me, is a good time to consider the gospel, and Silicon Valley seems like a good place to start.

Think "Silicon Valley," and what do you get? Multi-zillionaires, mansions, fancy cars and the heartbreak of Suddenly Acquired Wealth Syndrome -- that's the tragic dilemma afflicting those who become billionaires before they're 30 and are left trying to figure out what to do with the rest of their lives.

Would it surprise you to learn that seven out of every 10 jobs being created in Silicon Valley pay less than $10,000 a year? How much have you heard about that 70 percent of the residents?

The news media supposedly hold up a mirror of our society, but it seems more and more like a funhouse mirror. Headlines and great stretches of air time are devoted to the gyrations of the stock market, yet 50 percent of us own no stocks.

"(Be) not greedy of filthy lucre."

"Thy money perish with thee."

During the recent protests in Washington against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the leading cable news network became fascinated with "independent media." Journalism free of huge economic interests -- what a concept!

"Modern-day demonstrators say you just can't trust folks like us, the so-called corporate media," a CNN anchor explained, introducing a report that aired repeatedly over a two-day period. Correspondent Brooks Jackson took it from there. "They call themselves the independent media," he said, and that means working without ties to the large corporations of the media world.

"Global corporate media? Gee, that would be us," Jackson deadpanned, "CNN, owned by Time Warner, soon to be merged with America Online. They don't like us very much. They want to tell their story their way."