Maptalk-Digest Thursday, December 19 2002 Volume 02 : Number 459
001 Partisan code at MTF press conference
From: Larry Stevens <>
002 The problem with the Associated Press by Dan Feder
From: "kim hanna" <>
003 government spooks messing with my LTE's?
From: "kim hanna" <>
004 Re: MAP: government spooks messing with my LTE's?
From: JeffMo <>
005 Letter of the Day, Dec 19
From: Bar n Grill <>
006 AOL News: 567 Felons Freed in Kentucky
From: "kim hanna" <>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subj: 001 Partisan code at MTF press conference
From: Larry Stevens <>
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 13:47:30 -0600
At monday's press conference for the Monitoring the Future study, Drug czar
WaLTErs pegged the 1990s reversal in the overall downward trend of teen
drug use to the (1st) Gulf War.
Is this code for the election of Bill Clinton in '92? You betcha. Are the
gov't researchers the least bit concerned about the obvious bias and
political abuse of their work? Didn't look like it to me.
Is the media buying it all hook-line-and-sinker?
Please.
------------------------------
Subj: 002 The problem with the Associated Press by Dan Feder
From: "kim hanna" <>
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 06:52:57 -0500
Interesting piece on how AP operates
could relate to drug policy reporting.
==========
The problem with the Associated Press
by Dan Federnarconews.com
from:
AP’s One-Sided Venezuela Coverage Dec. 18, 2002
Some of AP’s other reporters have been producing simply awful journalism
since long before Ikeda joined this round of the Venezuelan tug-of-war. AP
stories are picked up by thousands of newspapers large and small across the
country every day, and are often read by newscasters on the radio and
television. So the tone they set and messages they break to the public are
no small matter; they lie at the heart of the media-created reality through
which most United States citizens and many English-speaking people in other
countries experience the larger world.
Associated Press is technically a “non-profit” corporation owned by a
cooperative of for-profit United States newspapers and media companies, and
governed by the AP Managing Editors Association. No radio news show or daily
newspaper editor has the resources to send a reporter to every part of the
world she or he wants. So editors use the AP to cut costs; why pay
twenty-five different journalists to write on an issue when you can pool
your resources and just pay one? According to their website,
the AP is the backbone of the world's information system. In the United
States alone, AP serves 5,000 radio and television stations and 1,700
newspapers. Add to that the 8,500 newspaper, radio and television
subscribers in 121 countries overseas, and you'll have some idea of AP's
reach.
This role obviously gives the AP an unbelievable amount of power over the
discussion of global events, especially in the English-speaking world. Yet
AP correspondents write under much lower standards and with much less
supervision than their counterparts at specific media organizations. In
other words, they are largely unaccountable to their editors. At the same
time, at a corporate level, the AP is unaccountable to its millions of
readers. Unlike many newspapers, there is no AP ombudsman who “speaks for
the readers.” There is no letters page for the AP, and individual newspapers
rarely print letters responding to wire stories.
The very structure of the AP -- the impersonal bureaucracy through which
this huge volume of information is filtered -- encourages “desk reporting”
from foreign correspondents. This means gleaning stories from the local
commercial newspapers and taking phone calls from Embassy, political, and
corporate spin-doctors rather than going outside and talking to the real
people their stories concern. According to many familiar with the
organization, AP correspondents are typically wined and dined by the
English-speaking elites in the Third World outposts where they are assigned.
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------------------------------
Subj: 003 government spooks messing with my LTE's?
From: "kim hanna" <>
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 12:17:45 -0500
Ever since I got the letter below pub'd in the Boston Globe, I stopped
getting auto-replys to my LTE's from the Boston globe.
This morning I sent an LTE to the Boston Globe and still no auto reply.
So I called the Editor and she looked through the email letters and sure
enough nothing came through. I said I'd send it again and call her back.
Well I sent it again (no auto reply) and called her back 15 minutes later.
She checked again using my email address and subject line and NO it never
got through.
She said their email was working, as they had gotten email at
today.
Any thoughts?
Kim
=======
US MA: PUB LTE: Drug Czar Shouldn't Try To Control The Press
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n870/a04.html
Newshawk: kim hanna
Pubdate: Wed, 19 Apr 2000
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2000 Globe Newspaper Company.
Contact:
Address: P.O. Box 2378, Boston, MA 02107-2378
Feedback: http://extranet.globe.com/LettersEditor/default.asp
Website: http://www.boston.com/globe/
Author: Kim Hanna
Note: Uppercase as printed.
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------------------------------
Subj: 004 Re: MAP: government spooks messing with my LTE's?
From: JeffMo <>
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 13:24:15 -0500
kim hanna wrote:
> Ever since I got the letter below pub'd in the Boston Globe, I stopped
> getting auto-replys to my LTE's from the Boston globe.
>
> This morning I sent an LTE to the Boston Globe and still no auto reply.
>
> So I called the Editor and she looked through the email letters and sure
> enough nothing came through. I said I'd send it again and call her back.
>
> Well I sent it again (no auto reply) and called her back 15 minutes
> later. She checked again using my email address and subject line and NO
> it never got through.
>
> She said their email was working, as they had gotten email at
> today.
Your ISP ought to be able to look into why your email isn't getting
through. Also, you could try using the LTE submission form for the
Boston Globe, at this page:
<https://bostonglobe.com/newsroom/Editorial-Opinion/lettersform.asp>
Submitting through that form won't depend on your personal email service.
Jeff Moore
------------------------------
Subj: 005 Letter of the Day, Dec 19
From: Bar n Grill <>
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 10:41:55 -0800 (PST)
CN ON: PUB LTE: Pot Decriminalized In Several US
States
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02.n2292.a06.html
Newshawk: CMAP
Pubdate: Thu, 19 Dec 2002
Source: London Free Press (CN ON)
Copyright: 2002 The London Free Press a division of
Sun Media Corporation.
Contact:
Website: http://www.fyilondon.com/londonfreepress/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/243
Author: Bill McGrath
POT DECRIMINALIZED IN SEVERAL U.S. STATES
It's always amusing to me how the U.S. never seems to
worry about credibility.
Stories such as Loosen pot laws and face tighter
border, U.S. warns (Dec. 13), might carry more
weight if we didn't already know 10 to 11 states have
had similar legislation for almost 20 years. Alaska,
California, Colorado, Nebraska, New York, North
Carolina, Maine, Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon and New
Mexico. That's one-fifth of that country's states,
containing one-third of its population.
The Rand Corporation, which is sponsored by and client
to various U.S. government offices (http://www.rand.org/about/majorspons.html) conducted
a study in 1993 that compared drug use in states that
had decriminalized marijuana to those that had not.
They found where marijuana was more available -- the
states that had been decriminalized 15-20 years --
there has been an overwhelmingly favourable
experience.
Hard drug use, as measured by emergency room episodes,
decreased, as did alcohol use, with the result fatal
highway accidents dropped. And, contrary to fears
expressed by some, marijuana use rates are the same in
states that decriminalized pot possession as in states
where marijuana smokers are still arrested.
Nor has there been any change in attitudes toward
marijuana use among young people (high school seniors) in those states.
In short, the U.S. has its own evidence that they can
stop arresting marijuana smokers and perhaps realize a
tighter border with Canada will achieve about the same
results as their own decriminalized state borders.
Bill McGrath
London
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------------------------------
Subj: 006 AOL News: 567 Felons Freed in Kentucky
From: "kim hanna" <>
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 17:13:38 -0500
FRANKFORT, Ky. (Dec. 19) - Prosecutors fumed as hundreds of low level felons
were allowed to leave jails and prisons early as part of Gov. Paul Patton's
plan to avert a $6 million deficit in the corrections budget.
``I feel wonderful, man,'' Kevin Ray Gibson, 26, told the Lexington
Herald-Leader after his release four months early for burglary and
trafficking in pain pills. ``I'm going to get out and get me a job. I got
kids I need to take care of. I just need to get out and do right. It's a
good Christmas present.''
Patton's ``conditional commutation'' covered 567 prisoners, all described as
nonviolent offenders who, on average, were within 80 days of completing
their sentences.
``Now we're telling criminals that they don't need to pay attention to the
law simply because we can't manage a budget and we can't honor our
commitment to the people of this state,'' said Dave Massamore,
commonwealth's attorney in Hopkins County, where 26 felons were sprung from
jail.
``So, go home!'' he said. ``You're free! Merry Christmas! The punishment
only applies if we have money.''
Under the plan, 363 were scheduled for release Wednesday and the rest were
to be set free Friday. The majority were in jails. The Department of
Corrections said at least 90 might be immediately imprisoned again because
there are charges against them in other counties or states.
Patton's order was intended to cut the number of state prisoners in county
jails to 3,736.
Most of those being released were drug traffickers, drug users or thieves.
Patton excluded sex offenders, four-time drunken drivers and those deemed to
be violent or seriously mentally ill.
The mass release will cost jailers money. Counties depend on the money they
get from the state - $28.76 per inmate per day - for holding state
prisoners.
``The frustrating thing to me is trying to balance the budget by letting
inmates out on the street,'' said Daviess County jailer Harold Taylor. ``We
know they're going to be back, there's no question about that.''
But some former inmates vowed that they have turned their lives around.
``I'm going home right now and taking care of my family,'' Charles Knott
told the The News-Enterprise of Elizabethtown. He was released 72 days early
on a sentence he was serving for failing to pay thousands of dollars in
child support.
12/19/02 03:16 EST
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP
news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise
distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
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------------------------------
End of Maptalk-Digest V02 #459
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