Panglish – A Global Language of the Future?

The English language of today, whether in America, Britain or Australia, will become a global language of the future, known as Panglish, at least according to linguist experts, reported in UK’s Daily Mail article, who have studied how common English dialects are finding their ways into most non-English-speaking countries, eventually evolving into a simplified English language commonly spoken by different peoples all over the world, perhaps within 50 to 100 years.

Imagine understanding and deciphering English dialects from different peoples, especially those who are already abandoning their native dialects for a language anyone who can understand, read, write and speak it. The beauty of the English language is that it’s the most hybridizing, ever-evolving language in the world, as it has been that way since its beginning from the Anglo-Saxons, a variety of Germanic tribes which took over Britain in around the 5th century A.D.

Latin, or vulgar Latin, was, primarily, the common spoken language of the Roman-dominated Europe, which Latin dialects spoken by Germans, Goths, Danes, Celtics, and Spaniards gave rise to the Romance languages: French, Spanish and Italian. Believe it or not, the English language is actually based on the amalgamation of regional dialects spoken in Latin, vulgar Latin, Germanic, Gothic, Celtic, Greek and Spaniard, a process that took about 8 centuries of lingual evolution until the Norman Conquest of England in 1066.

You know, nowadays, the French are so touchy about protecting its vaunted romance language from the corruption and spread of the English language and wanted the world to police it (an impossible, ridiculous task if there ever such a thing). The greatest irony of that it was the French, and most especially the French-speaking Normans, who actually helped improvised, refined and shaped the Anglo-Saxon (Old English) language for 3-4 centuries after the Conquest. The best example of that is Geoffrey Chaucer’s famous work, The Canterbury Tales. However, it was King Edward III of England who, concerned about the unfair advantage of his English-speaking subjects with the French-speaking noble, wealthy class, decided to make English the official language in the government, the court system and business affairs in mid-14th century. After that, the English language evolved gradually, incorporating spoken words and dialects from around the world through the centuries.

However, it was William Shakespeare and his famous plays that popularized the English language, much to the effects, so profound that it had influenced the shaping of the King James Bible in an English version that can be surprisingly understood by any people (if properly taught) anywhere in the world – of which much was due to the British Navy sailors, bringing along their English version Bibles to pass the times and to spread the gospels of Jesus the Christ to the world across the seven seas.

I will be curious to see how the English language of today will evolve into Panglish and I will be amused by the fact that the peoples of the world would be commonly speaking a global language derived from the ferocious Anglo-Saxon barbarians of the 5th century AD.

Frontline: Bush’s War on PBS

Just watched the PBS/Frontline 2-hour special tonight on “Bush’s War” and I wanted to say it is the very best, damnedest documentary presentation about the history of the Bush adminstration’s plans to attack Iraq after the 9/11/2001. It told the whole story of a very controversial, highly charged run-up beginning with the day of the 9/11 attacks and concluded at the start of the Iraqi war on March 19th, 2003.

Strictly speaking, the Bush administration was dominated by smart, crafty alpha males with long history of political, military and personal relationships and long, acrimonious memory of bad mistakes of the Cold War, supported or opposed by a number of hardened CIA veterans, politically-connected policy analysts, lawyers, military staffers, Iraqi exiles, journalists, critics and witnesses to the history. With Condi Rice, then the head of the National Security Council, being the only woman in the center of the gravitational tug-of-war between the Powell-Tenet faction and the Cheney-Rumsfeld faction, all the while she was, in the words of her ex-staff member, coordinating and balancing “a room full of elephants”.

This wasn’t Bush’s war at all, it was Cheney’s war from the get-go. The Frontline show premised that it was Richard Cheney, the most powerful Vice President in the world, the bull elephant who blamed the CIA for the colossal failure of not knowing about Iraq’s actual (but deactivated) nuclear weapon program in the late 1980s and that which eventually led to his total and complete control of President Bush’s drive to attack Iraq from the influential clutches of the CIA and the State Department.

No wild conspiracy theory could even come close to having the level of such bold, arrogant and blunt interactions (read: head-butting, figuratively speaking) between powerful men with long history of ideological disagreements and differences to the geopolitical reality of the world. Their words, their disagreements, their approaches to situations, their blaming or finger-pointing, their beliefs, their doubts, no matter how brutal or relentless they were, drove the engine to gain or lose the President’s approval to enact executive orders while the country’s at war and toward the chaos that became Bush’s war.

There were few surprises in this Frontline broadcasting tonight, including a very rare footage, never seen before, of the very airline, wheels down, flying low before hitting the Pentagon on 9/11. That’s a first.

I don’t think we shall ever know the real intentions and ulterior motivations of what these powerful members of the Bush administration wanted out of a post-9/11 world (please don’t get me started on the PNAC). People would say it is all about oil, power, egotistical control of the world and so forth. But to me, it would seem these people were subconsciously driven by forces beyond their controls and just decisively acted on them.

Only time will tell and history will judge.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention that the second part of Frontline’s “Bush’s War” is on tonight (3.25.2008), beginning at 9 pm (Eastern time). Coincidentally, by 10 pm, the last episode of “Jericho” on CBS is on tonight, as CBS canceled the whole series for good. Nuts!

Who is John Titor?

Between November 2000 and March 2001, a man who claimed to travel through time from the year 2036, went about his business of obtaining certain informations that he needed to take with him back to 2036, but decided to check into Internet bulletin boards to offer his comments about time-traveling being a real scientific possibility to the forum members of the Time Travel Institute. However, that wasn’t the only thing he’d provided, he came up with several vague but shocking predictions about what will or would happen to the United States and the world beginning in 2004:

• Several Waco-type events in the US during a Presidential election season would lead to a civil war and the establishment of martial law by 2008.
• After the 2004 Summer Olympics, there would be no more Olympics.
• During the civil war, the United States would be split into five separate states, lasting until 2015.
• In 2015 – one day would be Nday: Russia launches nuclear strikes upon the US, China and Europe, the US counter attacks but some US, Chinese and European cities are destroyed.
• Life for humanity will continue after Nday but it would be like in the early 20th century conditions for several years in a much depopulated world.

His name was John Titor and his predictions, however vague, were met with skepticism or derision as these were being posted. John proposed that his predictions could have come from a different time line than the one he was, supposedly, in this present time line during his “time-traveling mission”. Few of his predictions did not materialized: no Waco-type events in the US in 2004 and no civil war; the 2006 Winter Olympics occurred and the 2008 Olympics in China is still on schedule. However, he did predicted that the mad cow’s disease would become a serious global threat beginning in 2002. Moreover, he didn’t come into 2000 and 2001 to warn everyone that, he had a personal mission to obtain a very important computer function in 1975 in Rochester, New York: the IBM 5100. The Rochester Magazine had a story published back in 2004 about it.

After March 2001, John Titor went back to the year 2036 (as he said he was going back anyway). That’s when the real stuff of Internet legend began to take life of its own: his time-traveling comments, his predictions of the future and the IBM 5100 as the reason for his mission, were all discussed and discussed, relentlessly, in various Internet forum boards over the years. I first read about the story of John Titor after the 2005 Katrina-New Orleans aftermath in a very popular, controversial forum board (so controversial that the Dept. of Defense failed to shut it down in their cyber-attack operation or so that forum administrator claimed). Interestingly, he failed to mention anything about the 9/11 attacks as it was the most pivotal event of the 21st century, bringing about the world as we are living and experiencing now.

I was bemused by the whole John Titor epic ever since. There’s a highly dedicated website all about John Titor. Even a short, fictional movie about him and his story was produced. All in all, take what John Titor’s words are about with a grain of salt or … maybe what he had predicted already could be materializing right now in a different fashion in this present time line than what he made back in 2001 prior to his return to the future. Who knows?

Before he left, he was roundly criticized for his prediction about the demise of the United States and this was what he had to say to those who criticized him:

“How can you possibly criticize me for any conflict that comes to you? I watch every day what you’re doing as a society. While you sit by and watch your Constitution being torn away from you, you willfully eat poisoned food, buy manufactured products no one needs and turn an uncaring eye away from millions of people suffering and dying all around you.

“Perhaps I should let you all in on a little secret. No one likes you in the future. This time period is looked at as being full of lazy, self-centered, civically ignorant sheep. Perhaps you should be less concerned about me and more concerned about that.”

Robriefs 3.16.2008: Really Cool Stuff!

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to all the Irish-lovers out there.

Don’t drink and drive during the Holy Week.

Robrief no. 1: World’s oldest animation?
A documentary about a 5200 years old earthenware bowl from Iran shown there are five interrelated images depicted on the bowl, which one would hold it up at the eye-level and see a wild goat jumping up and down before a tree, eating its leaves. Wow. At the time it was discovered in the 1970s, the Iranian archaeologists did not realized these images on the bowl were connected in a way and put it away, at least until years later, a leading Iranian archaeologist, working at the site where the bowl was discovered, realized these images were actually connected in a series. Read it all here and see the brief animation.

Robrief no. 2: World’s largest solar roof to be constructed in Dubai
Metaefficient, the optimal green guide blog, reported that the Masdar HQ building will have the largest solar roof in the world constructed first before it will construct the Masdar building itself, providing more energy needs for itself and around than necessary in the heart of Dubai. Pictures are seen here and an animation can be seen at this architecture firm’s webpage (upper right corner at “Launch Project Animation”). Dubai is really outdoing every major metropolitan city in the world with such rapid construction and growth than ever before.

Robrief no. 3: The really great Depression is coming? Not so cool stuff, sad to say.
There’s a run of fears and speculations in Wall Street and the financial districts around the world about a really great Depression, potentially coming sooner than we think. It would make the Great Depression of the 1930s pale in comparison? We shall see. Report from UK’s TimeOnline revealed that the emergency meeting of the US Federal Reserve, the US Treasury and the Securities and Exchange Commission was held for the first time in 75 years, an indication that is very worrisome to the world’s financial markets.

Robrief no. 4: Newest, hilarious blog: Stuff White People Like.
Hilarious, clever and extremely very popular WP blog.

Rob’s Five Principles of Free Speech

I have been thinking about this one for a long time, probably as far as back as 2001. World events, politics and crisis situations have affected my way of thinking for a very long time but I have never let them become a serious issue for me. How naive, stupid and blinded I was! The attacks on the fateful day of 9/11/2001 have really opened my eyes. Since then, I have observed the rising, forceful resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism worldwide, responding and reacting to the West’s strategic movements to retain its leverage and order with their oil-producing and trading partners in the developing countries, and keeping various powerful, shady militant networks, such as al Qaeda, Hezbollah, etc. and rival, anti-US rogue states in check. At the same time, I’m disturbed by the efforts of the Western governments, especially the United States, trying to restrict, or at least rein in, democratic powers, civil liberties and curtail freedom gradually through a series of thinly-veiled legislative restrictions and means in the name of security and peace.

In a nutshell, freedom is in danger of being extinguished by both sides, using the force of a powerful faith or government over the liberty of the masses.

Take note of the recent summit of the Organization of Islamic States, highlighting their not-so-secret desire to eliminate freedom from the world by using the excuse of “Islamophobia” and their infantile-minded ignorance of what cartoons or free commentaries are all about. These people, these Islamists, these damn totalitarians in the West, have no grasp on what humor or satire is all about: the ability to poke fun or to criticize/dissent/comment at people or group who are being too serious or too rigid about something. The OIC’s position on freedom of expression is really disturbing me and so does the International Humanist and Ethical Union.

Then I realized I have something going last year, in my own thinking, of how certain peoples in very high places from both sides are viewing freedom as the biggest threat to their attempts to re-order the world to their likings. They perceived their powers from the world’s largest faiths and in the number of supporting political, financial and non-government institutions or groups aligning with them, assuming that they have the right to restrict or eliminate freedom as they see fit. Here’s one problem:

They are not “gods”, they’re all human beings, too. Absolute powers have corrupted them and their way of thinking.

Hence, this is my Five Principles to protect and reinforce Free Speech, for which I believe that the very essences of free speech, freedom of expression and the liberty for all are being threatened, with intimidation, subjugation and oppression, by the force of a powerful faith or government, whether in consensus of a bloc or a leadership, seeking to overpower and restrict the universal right to criticize, to dissent or disagree, or to satirize, beside to opine or to comment.

1 – No human being, man, woman or children, on Earth is immune from free speech or is above criticism, dissent or satire. Not one.

2 – No government*, of all kinds, is immune from free speech or is above criticism, dissent or satire.

3 – No religion, of all faiths*, is immune from free speech or is above criticism, dissent or satire.

4 – No corporation, institution, media or group*, of all kinds and sizes, is immune from free speech or is above criticism, dissent or satire.

5 – No law, religious decree, dogma or standard is immune from free speech nor such a law or decree shall be made to legislate, outlaw or control free speech, criticism, dissent or satire.

Governments, businesses, religions, laws and so on are all the byproducts of humanity, not God. Mankind is fallible and susceptible to the worst aspects of human nature, which some seek to dominate and control the free movements, thoughts, words, expressions and sentiments of human beings who stand and live equally on Earth before the Divine Providence. Respect is earned, not forced or imposed upon peoples.

To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson: for I have sworn upon the altar of the Divine Providence, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the minds, the hearts and the spirits of the free people!

Freedom and free speech forever!

UPDATE 3.16.2008: Wow, talk about sheer coincidence, the King of Saudi Arabia was thinking the same thing as mine! I admit that I’m little shocked by this proclamation by the Saudi king (note the date was reported after my blog on the Five Principles). Did the King of Saudi Arabia read mine, hmm? However, he was only stressing freedom’s limited parameters in the kingdom of the Saud, which there’s no real free and independent press, no freedom of worship and practice of other religions in public communities, and no freedom for minorities and the citizens so as long as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice thugs are enforcing sharia laws around the kingdom.

The great thing about the United States of America is that we have no such thing as these sharia-enforcing thugs or force people to practice and promote only one religion.

* – That included all current or future governments, all political parties, one-party system or one-person leadership hierarchical system (read: monarchy, political and/or religious – whether absolute or benign).

* – That included all organized faiths, large to small, representing certain philosophies, ideologies associated with the divine and the spiritual matters and anything to do with promoting or proselytizing issues of these faiths.

* – That included all corporations, large to small, media networks, news publishing companies, educational institutions, non-government organizations, non-profit groups, social groups, political groups, anything that is organized by interested peoples for interested or specific agendas.

Georgia Guidestones Redux

On this day, a flashback to my old blog from two years ago: my blog on the Georgia Guidestones. In fact, I’d first learned about it almost 5 years ago! A Wikipedia article briefly described how the Georgia Guidestones came to be, first erected north of Elberton, Georgia nearly 28 years ago (March 22, 1980) by a local granite finishing company, following instructions made by a mysterious man named R.C. Christian, sponsored by a small mysterious group of people who paid for it. Carved in eight different languages, there are ten statements on each side of an upright stone with each language (sorry, no ASL).

The first message can be a bit of shock for you but the rest of the messages are sensibly intriguing. However, I don’t have a problem with message no. 7, which is pretty much true with them nowadays. On the other hand, critics called it a Masonic site promoting one world government to be ruled by the Anti-Christ. Still, the whole thing is fascinating to me and I may visit the site of the Georgia Guidestones one day in the future, just to see it all in full glory.

You can see pictures of the Georgia Guidestones taken by others here. One puzzling mystery is the absence of the date of when a time capsule is supposed to be opened six feet under a tablet, seen here in this photo. Make you goes hmm….

The actual premise of the Georgia Guidestones had to do with Thomas Paine’s famous treatise, “The Age of Reason”.

Kokonut Pundit Closes Down

Mike McConnell’s blog, Kokonut Pundit is closing down, perhaps for good.

It has been 3 years, 4 months, 18 days to this last day since I started blogging back on October 22, 2004. I knew that someday that my blogging will end one day. I made my mark and a good mark at that. You have gotten to know me in so many ways while others continue to get it wrong. I have posted 1302 blogs in 1236 days ranging from politics, deaf-related issues, sports, technology, multitudes of interviews, geology and the environment about idiots who actually think the world gonna boil over causing sea-level to rise 20 feet in our lifetime thinking carbon dioxide is the culprit (never mind that 99.96% of all greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are made up other gases other than carbon dioxide). But the idiocy and the madhouse will continue (both deaf and hearing) while I continue to keep my critical thinking skill, common sense and sanity fully intact.

Mike has his own reasons to leave his best dang blog on the Internet behind. At least he’s keeping his door slightly bit open to coming back to blogging in the future. Further down you scroll on, you’ll read up his well-written journey piece about himself, his life, his growing up as an orally-trained deaf person and how he has become the person he is today.

So long, Mike and thanks for everything. Cheers to you.

Robriefs 3.10.2008: No more blogs?

Robrief no. 1: Most Americans don’t read blogs, political or otherwise
Those 56% of Americans don’t read your blogs. Only 22% do but most of them are senior citizens. That’s just too bad but that ain’t stopping me from blogging! As because there are hungry readers out there, I have a lot of red meats, vegetables or desserts to feed at them!

Robrief no. 2: Five Most Annoying Deaf People
Best and funniest blog I’ve ever read in a long time. Good one, thedeafcrab.com. The last one… the Interpreter who must keep you up in front of everyone in a class. So true with me: I had an interpreter who insisted on me staying awake during those long, incredibly boring lectures from a high school teacher. She kicked me in the shoes a few times when I was doozing off. Argh!

Robrief no. 3: Hate crime linked to immigration, Time reports
Southern Poverty Law Center designated Federation for American Immigration Reform a hate group. FAIR returns fire by calling the law center’s designation a smear tactic to avoid genuine immigration debate in the country. Frankly, I really questioned the SPLC’s decision to make FAIR a hate group, since the organization is comprised of Americans who wanted honest, legitimate immigration reform to end illegal immigration and reinforce existing immigration laws. Its board of directors, its national board of advisors and members are comprised of ex-politicians, doctors, lawyers, retired military or law enforcement officers, judges, homemakers, ex-federal employees, academic scholars, and so on.

It is pretty obvious that SPLC’s slam on FAIR is influenced by donations from the National Council of La Raza (la raza is Hispanic for “the Race”), a group covertly promoting a return to ancient Aztec heritage and a re-conquest of the American southwestern states than to do with promoting civil rights and opportunities of the Mexican people in the United States. Don’t take the NCLR’s positions at face value. The issue of illegal immigration have absolutely nothing to do with the Mexican or Spanish-speaking peoples at all but, unfortunately, the tactics of NCLR and other Hispanic-advocacy groups have twisted and distorted the debate of immigration reform as an issue against the Latinos and Spanish-speaking peoples. They need to recognize that we have laws and means to allow people to migrate, integrate and settle into the United States the legal way.

Give it up, NCLR, we know your tactics and you’re ain’t getting the American southwestern states back. You lost the war back in 1848!

Speaking of the Aztec heritage, Shep Lenchek of Mexico Connect.com has a nicely written piece on the Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico, published back in 2001. While the account of the Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire was well-known over the centuries, there have very little of full accounts of the Conquest as described by the Aztec survivors, until the last few decades, newly interpreted works propped up. Lenchek summed it pointedly of what the Conquest was all about:

All historians recognize that in addition to seeking gold and new territory for Spain, the Conquistadors were strongly committed to spreading Christianity. The Codices reveal that the Aztecs were equally committed to spreading the realm of their own Gods, particularly the blood thirsty Huitzilopochtli. Thus, fanatic Christians met an equally fanatic Aztec priesthood. Ultimately, it was the clash of the two religions that led to the destruction of the Aztec Empire.

Read it all. Good history stuff.

Robrief no. 4: Gas near $108 today
If this cost of gas price is keeping up and up, the costs of living modestly or thrifty in America will become more difficult for 98% of Americans (the other 2% are the wealthy who can afford the costs). It is not only most of them are paying the costs of fueling their vehicles to drive, it is the costs of gas being passed onto the retailers receiving and processing the goods onto the shelves, such as the grocery stores, general or bulk goods stores and other businesses, forcing the retailers to mark up the prices higher to off-set their own costs (paying FT/PT employees, operating expenses, bills, etc.). Some retailers have been reporting less-than-satisfactory same-store sales expectations. Consumers are buying less goods than ever before.

Owner-operators (the independent big rig drivers who hail goods around the country for big bucks) are being squeezed by higher diesel prices and getting out of the independent business to save costs. Municipal or county police departments are being forced to cut back their patrolling duties to save costs and reduce energy costs. City and county governments are being asked to reduce expenses, lay off some employees or face limited closure or cutbacks in public services.

Back in 2005, I’d warned that the year 2005 is the last year of cheap oil and the next few years we would see gradual rises of oil prices. Maybe it could be for a short time but who knows?

Blizzard of 2008

It is truly the Blizzard of 2008, the first major blizzard of the 21st century for all over Ohio (and those states hit by the winter-storm as well). For the first time since 1910, Columbus, Ohio have almost 20.4 inches of snow for the last 36 hours, breaking an old record set at 15.3 inches (at least, according to my brother who heard the information on the radio). Level 3 emergency was declared in several Ohio counties, which mean brave idiots shouldn’t be allowed to drive on the roads but not in Franklin County (Level 1). Snow-plowing trucks have been working almost round the clock to clear the roads.

I spent over an hour digging out my car in the parking lot while snow was blowing and drifting about me, with the temperature dropping. No matter. I’m used to it, having lived with subzero temperature and snowy conditions in Minneapolis for four years. I shan’t move my car out of the spot today or tomorrow, because, if I did – like going on an errand run, someone else would take that spot that I’d worked so hard to dig out for! No, my car is staying put until Monday.

It is truly beautiful to see all that snow accumulated about for the past 12 hours, very serene to see it in all its whiteness and quietness. I have not seen this type of blizzard for a long time, not since I left the usual snow-covered Minneapolis back in 2000. I still remember the famous Blizzard of 1980 back in northern Virginia, which dumped a record 24 inches of snow at the time. Bulldozers were used to plow these 2 feet of snow all over the places. Those were the days.

Robriefs 3.6.2008: Anne Sullivan Was My Ancestor

Robrief no. 1: Anne Sullivan was my ancestor.
This morning, I caught a news report on the Web about a rare photo of Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller. That was really cool and amazing to see something finally turned up after many years being kept hidden from the public by a private family. Several years ago, while I was at Gallaudet, doing a little research on my family history, I’ve learned for the first time that one of my ancestors from my father’s maternal side of the families who came from Ireland around early or mid-19th century was named Anne Sullivan, but with no birth date or death date recorded.

I was surprised by it and prompted me to speculate whether this is the same Anne Sullivan who taught Helen Keller or not? Yet, I noted no trace of her connection to another ancestor she eventually married to, only which I’d learned further on, a man turned out to be Peterson who migrated from Norway. Then, several years later, as more old immigration records became available to the public, provided by Ancestry.com, one immigration record revealed different birth and death dates of Anne Sullivan.

Alas, my ancestor, Anne Sullivan was not the same Anne Sullivan who famously taught Helen Keller. That’s okay by me. Genealogical records were pretty sporadic in the early 1990s and the Internet was not yet widespread, and I did not really pursue my family history research eagerly or seriously at the time. Though, it was pretty amusing, and by pure coincidence, to know there were two Anne Sullivans within the same time-frame of the 19th century America and whose families hailed from Ireland, with the same first name and surname, very common in Ireland (ancient Irish as Súilleabhán, meaning “one-eye”).

Robrief no. 2: Sneak-peek Photos of the Watchmen Film!
Holy God! Those photos of the Watchmen! Mark your calendar for March 6th, 2009 when the film adaption of Watchmen come out. Based on the greatest work of graphic literature ever published, Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. I was 16 years old and a freshman at high school when the 12-issue limited series first came out and I was so entranced with the story and the illustration that I re-read few more times. Because it is THAT good!

Dr. Manhattan, Ozymandias and Rorschach are my favorite characters of the graphic novel. In my views, they are the three most important key characters of the whole saga: Rorschach being a man of low-regard for life but think he’s on God’s mission of vengeance and justice for mankind; Ozymandias, the man who’s being a wealthy, iconic “god” trying to save the world and Dr. Manhattan, the man who have become a god with the powers to destroy the world or remake it. I won’t goes into lengthy details, as the graphic novel itself is deep, dense and thoroughly well-written, with beautifully-drawn illustrations to guide you through the complex, interconnected strings of mystery, murder, love, secrecy and madness, as the world is clocking toward a nuclear Armageddon. Go out and buy the graphic novel, Watchmen before the movie come out next year! It will be money and time well-spent on reading it.

Robrief no. 3: Western Journalists selling out and whitewashing for Islam?
Charles Johnson of LGF blogged that the Society of Professional Journalists’ recommended guidelines that have been, basically, “shilling” for the Islamists since the time after the 9/11/2001 attacks.

Frankly, I’ve been nonetheless disappointed with the majority of Western, mainstreamed journalists and news media on this side of the continent for what I’ve been reading and recognizing so far is called “propagandizing” or “excusing”. One of the most egregious examples of the journalists’ guidelines is this:

When writing about terrorism, remember to include white supremacist, radical anti-abortionists and other groups with a history of such activity.

Have white supremacists ever flew airlines into buildings or blow themselves up by killing others in the name of God? Have radical anti-abortion activists killed abortion doctors on a daily basis? How many militant Buddhists are involved in a “terrorist network”? I’m sure these groups have racked up quite a mass of victims ever since… when? Hello? I’m shaking my head in this sheer disappointment with what SPJ have done to sell themselves out in the name of misguided diversity and political correctism. Common sense and impartial journalism have gone out of the window.

I really like this post by lawhawk who pointed out that SPJ’s guidelines actually violated its own code of ethics! Surprise!