The US media

When the USA and its allies invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, I watched CNN for a few hours. CNN spent much of its time showing how US forces were being humanitarian above all, dropping ration kits to fleeing refugees. Lots of airtime was devoted to showing how these kits were being dropped at low altitudes in such a way that they would land safely without needing parachutes. 37,000 kits were being dropped, an impressive-sounding number. (I’m glad I remembered the number correctly: a Google search for "afghanistan ration 37,000" found this U.S. Defense Department press release confirming details of the ration program.)

Well, the number 37,000 was meant to be impressive. It was mentioned that one kit would feed one refugee for one day. CNN was also saying that there were at least a million refugees. Am I the only person who can do arithmetic? One million refugees (minimum), trekking for multiple days, would need millions of meals. Of course they had brought some food themselves, but compared to a requirement of millions, 37,000 is almost nothing; it’s in the neighbourhood of one percent. Yet CNN, toady of the Bush administration that it is, was trumpeting it as an important indicator of how much the USA cared about the people whose country it was invading.

The uniformity of the US media has become much more complete since the days of the Cold War. During the 1990s, the US government permitted an unconscionable concentration of print and broadcast media that terminated the independence of the media. Today the US media is owned by 5 giant companies in which pro-Zionist Jews have disproportionate influence. More importantly, the values of the conglomerates reside in the broadcast licenses, which are granted by the government, and the corporations are run by corporate executives—not by journalists—whose eyes are on advertising revenues and the avoidance of controversy that might produce boycotts or upset advertisers and subscribers. Americans who rely on the totally corrupt corporate media have no idea what is happening anywhere on earth, much less at home.

—Paul Craig Roberts, columnist and formerly U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury

This may not be my Web 2.0 blog, but Web 2.0 is what gives me hope. In future Americans will get less of their news from giant corporations and more from smaller entities that have fewer sacred cows. They may end up going backward, in a good way. The American Revolution was partly inspired by a pamphlet called Common Sense. It was written and published by just one person, Thomas Paine, yet was very widely read, with hundreds of thousands of copies printed, a massive number for that time and place.

Since the age of 14 I have looked to the USA as my inspiration for freedom for all the people of the world. Lately, not so much — but Americans, I have not given up on you. The centre of the Web 2.0 revolution is in the USA.

"Best Global Airport" - to whom?

On Tuesday, the Globe and Mail newspaper included an advertising supplement, oh, excuse me, “a special information supplement”, promoting Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. A collection of self-laudatory “articles” is supported by ads from companies that had little choice but to say yes when approached by the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA), since the GTAA is their only possible customer in the airport business in Toronto, and not a good idea to alienate.

The supplement is clearly not intended to drive revenues or reduce costs, so self-congratulation appears to be the only goal.

Apparently the Institute of Transport Management named Pearson the Best Global Airport in 2006. Unfortunately this award came from an industry organization concerned with management, not from, say, an organization representing passengers.

I am occasionally one of those passengers, and I can tell you that the newest and greatest terminal, Terminal 1, is in some crucial ways much worse than its predecessors. It may be “reconfigurable” and have other qualities that delight the airport management, but I curse the GTAA every time I go through it.

The trouble starts right after I park my car in the parking building attached to the terminal. I have no idea where the terminal is, so my only clue as where to park in order to be reasonably close to the terminal is to go to the popular areas (the veterans having figured out over time where to go). Oh, and on some levels, like the one that you drive right into when you arrive, there are barricades in place to prevent you from getting close. How friendly. Other levels are better, but of course I had to learn that through experience without any help from the GTAA.

Once parked, there is the interesting question of how to walk to the terminal, since I may have no idea in which direction it is. Signs exist only once I’m close enough that I don’t need them any more. How about a big green flashing light suspended from the ceiling, visible from a fair distance?

Once I’ve arrived where there are corridors and elevators and stairs, I have no idea what to do. What I’ve since learned is that I have to go to a different level in order to access a bridge to the terminal building. Again, it would be nice if there were signs!

OK, so I’m at the elevator. But do I press the Up button or the Down button? No idea! I have to guess and press (say) Down. After I’m in the elevator I see that the floor marked Terminal is actually Up. Only if I’m lucky and there are no other passengers going down, and the elevator isn’t on its way down to pick up someone else, can I change the elevator’s direction at this point.

In case you think that I just have trouble finding my way around (which I generally don’t), let me illustrate that it’s not just me. On my last visit to the parking lot I had to flounder around with two fellow travellers, one of whom was married to a pilot and was a frequent visitor. I felt bad the one time I led our group in the wrong direction, but not so bad when the pilot’s wife later did the same thing.

Upon arrival in the terminal building (what a relief!) I take the escalator to Departures. But which one? — there’s one going off to the left and one to the right. I know now that it’s always the one to the right, at least for domestic departures (the international area having opened only three days ago), but it would have been nice if the signs said so. The first time I made the wrong choice and had to walk a lot further quite unnecessarily.

I suppose it wasn’t that much further; it just seemed that way. This is because one has to walk an awful lot more in this new and “improved” terminal. I’m surprised that the advertising supplement doesn’t include an article extolling the health benefits of light exercise.

So who cares about the passengers? Not the GTAA. It’s too busy pleasing itself and its fellow airport operators. Aren’t monopolies wonderful?