....LMB: "Cursor-esque"....

June 25, 2004

Cursor is a fine news website. They recently posted some want ads for part-time work, so I applied. Part of the application was to provide a sort of real-time "be Cursor editor for a day" sample. I did mine for today. It was quite an effort, and rather than simply let the Cursor folks hog all that effort, I'll go ahead and post it here.

I guess my one regret with this is that Cursor's style and form don't jive with all of my instincts. For example, below I post some links to articles about a sudden, bizarre crackdown on latino immigrants by the Border Patrol in southern California. After the news part, I would've liked to have posted a link to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, an organization that is reaching out to these immigrants who are suddenly facing possible penalties and deportation, or mention that LA Spanish language talk radio station KWKW (1300 AM) is allegedly giving updates on locations where the Border Patrol is or may raid. But I know Cursor well enough to know that that would not be appropriate to their format. So you get it here.

Anyhow, onto the Jake/Cursor sample. I hope it's good, some of it was done on very little sleep.

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25 June 2004

Two inside looks at the Iraqi resistance: Asia Times interviews a group of ex-Ba’athist generals who claim that the insurgency was planned long before the war began, and a Guardian reporter talks to resistance fighters on the frontlines in Kerbala, Falluja and Sadr City.

The United States is reportedly taking a softer stance in its disarmament negotiations with North Korea. The proposal would provide North Korea with security assurances and heavy fuel oil, but may have been jeopardized by North Korea’s threat to proceed with nuclear testing.

Colin Powell will visit Sudan next week to pressure the government to end the seemingly genocidal violence taking place in the western part of the country. Also: aid workers in the Sudanese capital accuse the government of blocking food supplies to the region to starve the people there.

Although the Supreme Court has ruled that Vice President Dick Cheney does not need to turn over secretive documents about his 2001 Energy Task Force, he still seems to be feeling some strain.

In other White House legal news, George W. Bush was interviewed as part of the Valerie Plame leak investigation, and Ted Olson resigns as Solicitor General.

A Los Angeles Times editorial discusses a recent, surprising crackdown on illegal immigrants, mostly latinos, by the Border Patrol. Several hundred have been arrested, and thousands are keeping to their homes in fear. Local organizations claim that these new tactics are nothing more than racial profiling.

A federal appeals court repealed the FCC’s 2003 media ownership rule changes, which allowed single companies to own significantly more media outlets in a single market.

Media Matters reports on the first broadcast of NRANews.com, a new conservative talk radio program produced by the National Rifle Association, which featured call-ins from Oliver North and G. Gordon Liddy; the NRA claims that this makes that they are a "media organization", not an "advocacy organization" and therefore are not subject to many campaign finance restrictions.

Latest article by muckraker Greg Palast finds that one million African-American votes went uncounted in the 2000 election. He blames this the "spoilage game," where some voters are given the chance to correct errors in the "spoiled" ballots, and others are not…

The Blogging of the President examines more than half a dozen single-factor methods of predicting the outcome of the 2004 election

Al Gore gave a speech yesterday accusing the Bush administration of "intentionally misleading" the American people about terrorism and Iraq. Republicans respond by announcing the "Coalition of the Wild-Eyed", releasing a montage of video footage suggesting that John Kerry and his fellow Democrats are crazed, irrational and angry.

After the release of his new book, the right-wing bashes Bill Clinton’s immorality all over again. But at the same time, liberal bloggers are now seizing on the revelations about Republican senator Jack Ryan, who tried to convince his wife to have sex with him in front of strangers at sex clubs, and are doing some bashing of their own.

President Bush gives an interview to Irish TV station RTE in which he argues that the war on Iraq has not inspired any acts of terrorism, that the world is "becoming a safer place", and that the torture at Abu Ghraib prison was the work of "a few soldiers."

Although still stressing abstinence and morality above all, Bush admits that condom use can help prevent the spread of AIDS.

Fahrenheit 9/11 breaks records in New York, wins over critics, and inspires a conservative counter-film festival in Dallas.