OpEdNews - Diary: Jumping in Take 2 - I need to type about something other than depleted uranium.

April 19, 2007 at 13:51:21 Permalink
Jumping in Take 2 - I need to type about something other than depleted uranium.

Diary Entry by Peter Dearman (about the author)

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Earlier I typed what was supposed to be this, my first, blog entry on my account at OpEdNews. I retained the working title since I really was jumping into a big debate by criticizing the staff at Virginia Tech of irresponsibly playing CSI while on the job. Anyway, here is my second attempt at a first blog entry on OpEd.

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I recently started blogging at GNN on the subject of depleted uranium. I believe GNN is the perfect home for what I believe is the world's only blog specifically devoted to the depleted uranium issue. Frankly, I wish that weren't true. I wish there was a better person on the task than myself, as I honestly feel I merely dabble in the subject of DU among all the other reading I do in my life as a working class media junkie. That said, I also started the world's first DU Website with a public forum (BBS) as part of it. Depleted uranium, or more properly, uranium weaponry, is a complicated issue. The major media are scared to give it proper coverage, and the only real debate seems to be happening on esoteric mailing lists and hard-to-follow comment streams here and there on blogs. Otherwise it's a black and white issue. Black: DU is the dirtiest dirty bomb since Agent Orange. White: DU is safe enough to eat. My Website is among a very small number that will introduce arguments from both these points of view. I figure this is the job the media should be doing but isn't. (Actually CNN did an amazing report on DU a few weeks ago.)

But enough about depleted uranium. If you're interested in that visit the links I just provided. That's not why I'm here. I'm here to add my voice to the growing scene here at OpEdNews because I have some things to say about more than depleted uranium.

I used to put a modicum of effort into a blog that I set up on my homepage. It's called Radio Free Taiwan, and I think I will keep it there and keep it focused on Taiwan issues (which it wasn't quite). I really should write about Taiwan more often. I live on this pleasant and politically fascinating island and am hopelessly obsessed with the local political scene here. So, I think I need three blogs, and this is my new blog to represent me, or more properly, what I might think of things political, sociological, anthropological, scientific and most especially, newsworthy.

Today, I meant to begin here (but submitted as an OpEd article instead) by saying I am disappointed in the media's rush to provide detailed "emotional coverage" of the Virginia Tech tragedy with an added analysis of all the subjectivly hollow things that can be said about whether or not the system or society had failed Cho. It reminds me of the post 9/11 coverage that obscured the fact that events had not been dealt with in any manner resembling a proper investigation.

I want to know why the bodies of Cho's first two victims weren't enough to cause a campus-wide alert. This email thing is ridiculous, but that the media heads aren't holding it up as ridiculous is even more ridiculous. The BBC made a nice timeline of the morning.

I used up all my good lines in the article, so I'll leave it at that for today. I hope the article doesn't get lost, and if it is rejected, I'll post it again as a blog entry.

Peter Dearman is a teacher living in Taiwan. He is concerned about depleted uranium, repression in Burma, stolen elections, organ harvesting, aspartame, sugar, species depletion, animal abuse, ocean pollution, helium depletion and the generally high (more...)

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