A more delicate dance is to spin things one way, then
another, in the exact same day’s edition of a single newspaper, sometimes
within the very same article.
Examples below, simply from the first two newspapers I looked at this
morning, and both of them considered journalistic paragons. The first is on the subject of combat roles for women (in French, poetically, "Les femmes au feu"); the second, on France's sudden intervention in Azawad.
(1) Gender-norming
(For our earlier essay on this topic, click here: )
One of the things I hate about the hypocrisy associated with
Political Correctness (or with any other empirically shaky but vigorously inburrowing ideology) is
that it leads to such lousy journalism, an attempt to assimilate which may
damage your synaptic connections.
Here is some happytalk from the opening paragraph of a
featured article in this morning’s New York Times.
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
How many pull-ups does it take to
make a female Marine?
The answer, starting next January:
a minimum of three, the same number required of male Marines.
If anyone thought the military’s
decision to allow women into combat units would lead to exceptions for women
when it came to fitness and physical strength, this is one service’s “gender
neutral” answer.
The smug and smarmy tone is typical of the genre; and yet this paragraph does apparently contain an actual numerical
hard fact, one which brought me up short.
So: Instead of expanding gender-norming, the services
-- beginning with the Marines, no less -- will actually be rolling it back?!
This is indeed big news.
Only … if you read on past the gurgling prose, you come
eventually to this, several column-inches later:
But even for the pull-ups, the
Marines are still making some exceptions. To get a perfect grade, women will
have to do only 8, compared with the 20 required for men.
Huh?
In other words, the New York Times is throwing fairy-dust in
our faces -- Who knows how this
all will eventually play out.
(2) O Azawad,
our Azawad
We earlier scoffed at some happytalk from a well-bearded
academic, concerning the rainbow paradise that was growing up in MNLA-controlled
-- no wait, MNLA cum Ansar
Din-controlled -- no wait, AQIM-controlled, with a roiling sprinkling of other
groups -- northern Mali:
Then, when it became obvious to all what a mess things were
up there, the talk was all of a heroic multi-national African army striding in
and setting things right.
Preparations are under way … real soon now … any time now … Finally the French had to go in alone
and do the job themselves, with what one journalist called the “shambolic” Malian
army trailing in the rear, to perform looting duties and ethnic cleansing.
And now, during a (purely temporary, I assure you) pause in
the fighting (which mostly actually didn’t happen; the jihadis prudently withdrew, to fight another day),
Francois Hollande is having his own “Mission Accomplished” moment, jetting in
to Bamako along with three of his mistresses (er, ministers) for a photo op.
In my inbox this morning were the following three headlines
from Le Figaro. Each
one read separately, could cause the head to nod. Read together, they cause cognitive dissonance (don’t worry,
there’s a pill for that):
François Hollande va prêcher la
concorde à Bamako
Après trois semaines d'une guerre
éclair, l'avenir du Mali dépend du dialogue entre Noirs et Touaregs. Le chef de
l'État français est arrivé sur place
François Hollande est désormais «l'ami
intime du Mali»
Les habitants de Bamako sont
enthousiastes à l'idée d'accueillir celui qu'ils appellent leur « libérateur ».
Paris s'inquiète des exactions
maliennes
If you are looking forward to the kumbaya fruits of that “dialogue”,
or are puzzled by the reference of that word “exactions” (note: It’s an etymologico-semantic “faux ami”;
the meaning is much harsher in French than in English), check this out, again
from this morning’s news:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/02/world/africa/timbuktu-endured-terror-under-harsh-shariah-law.html?ref=global-home
Even here, the headline-writer is busy spinning, to deflect
attention from the real story. Yes, things really sucked up north in
Gao, Kidal, and Timbuctu, under the rule of the takfiri carpetbaggers, an episode that was abundantly covered in the press, over many months, as the world waxed indignant over the destruction of clay tombs. But the new story will find the press rather more light-shy at the lack of clear delineation between good guys and bad guys: the looting and killings on
the horizon (as yet no bigger than a man’s mailed fist), that the article
squeamishly alludes to, are not those of al-Qaeda and friends, who are mostly off somewhere in the cave-pocked Ifoghas mountains northwest of Kidal, licking their wounds and regrouping, but are conducted by
southern, black Malians, targeting the light-skinned:
Zahby Ould Ibrahim’s general store was
looted to the studs this week. The horde that descended upon it took not just
the shop’s stock of pots, pans and bedding but the electric sockets, the light
bulbs and the doorframe, too.
A few shops away, Mahamane Dguitteye’s
grocery store, its shelves lined with packets of spaghetti, bottles of olive
oil and bars of soap, was completely untouched.
The main difference between the men?
Mr. Ibrahim is an Arab. Mr. Dguitteye is a black African of the Songhai ethnic
group.
[Update 13 March 2013] Les exactions de l'armee malienne continuent:
http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2013/03/12/des-soldats-maliens-a-nouveau-accuses-d-exactions_1846584_3212.html
Ethnic cleansing in the north, directed against Tuaregs, Moors, and Fulani (peuls), courtesy of the blacks from Bamako. (And these, mind you, are supposedly the good guys. -- You really need a scorecard to keep track...)
http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2013/03/12/des-soldats-maliens-a-nouveau-accuses-d-exactions_1846584_3212.html
Ethnic cleansing in the north, directed against Tuaregs, Moors, and Fulani (peuls), courtesy of the blacks from Bamako. (And these, mind you, are supposedly the good guys. -- You really need a scorecard to keep track...)
~
Footnote -- Department of Vox Populi.
Whenever I am depressed at journalistic standards (and we’re
talking about the best here, not freaking Fox News), it is reassuring to go
over the Readers Comments, and see that they have not been fooled. The New York Times,
cravenly, often does not permit commentary, but Le Figaro always does. Here are some samples:
http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2013/02/01/01003-20130201ARTFIG00609-francois-hollande-va-precher-la-concorde-a-bamako.php?m_i=UhTUmd41VEEJVkpcZQv4yZK8nd15d5wVDSoHIDL_1mjqHvKUo
Quelle mascarade!!!! pendant la
guerre contre Kahdafi n'oublions pas que les maliens nous huaient, mais
aujoud'hui "grâce à l'armée malienne" on nou cesse de nous le repéter
le Mali est libre!!! on attend de voir la suite!!!
---
Hollande qui va se glorifier au
mali en nous faisant croire que cette guerre est presque terminé , c est
pitoyable ! Hollande fait feu de tout bois , pour remonter dans les sondages!
Si on a un peu de jugeote , on sait parfaitement que les terroristes ne
lâcheront rien , contrairement à ce que dit hollande cette guerre est loin d
être terminer!
--
Le Club Med en goguette... Hollande
ne représente que lui-même...
---
Moi président est allée chercher de
la popularité au Mali. Il ferait mieux de chasser les islamistes de France. Le
Mali est majoritairement musulman. Que font les autres pays musulmans pour leur
venir en aide ?
---
Il prêche la concorde à Bamako et
sème la discorde en France! triste sire que ce président d'une partie des
français.
--
Le Nord Mali sera-t'il le prochain
Fort Saganne pour François II le Normal ...?
*
Si cela vous parle,
savourez la série
noire
en argot authentique
d’Amérique :
*
[Update, afternoon] Good Lord, it gets worse.
Glurge alert! The French President goes groveling before the
fratricidal chaos of Africa. If he needs a good whipping, why can't
he go get it at Madame Sévère’s Bondage Basement, instead of dragging all France into his
fantasies?
François Hollande a déclaré
aujourd'hui à Bamako que l'intervention de la France au Mali représentait une
dette à payer. "Nous payons aujourd'hui notre dette à votre égard",
a-t-il lancé place de l'Indépendance. "Je n'oublie pas que lorsque la
France a été attaquée, lorsqu'elle cherchait des soutiens, qui est venu, c’est
l’Afrique, c'est le Mali, merci le Mali", a expliqué le président de la
République.
Puis, il a ajouté : "La France
est avec vous, la France est fière de vous, et moi je veux vous dire que je
viens de vivre la journée la plus importante de ma vie politique."
Once again, the readers are less than impressed:
Il ne représente q'un français sur
trois au grand maximum...!
Alors avant de raconter des salades, il devrait demander d'abord l'avis des deux autres.
Alors avant de raconter des salades, il devrait demander d'abord l'avis des deux autres.
--
On croit rêver en lisant cet
article....Le jour le plus important pour le Président de la République
Française !!!!!
---
La dette de la France vis à vis du
Mali? il est vraiment prêt à raconter n'importe quoi. A quand les demandes
d'indemnisation?
--
La repentance, il n'y a que ça de
vrai pour un socialiste, Honni soit qui Mali pense.
---
Ben alors,si à présent on se met à
payer les dettes ,les américains risquent de nous envoyer la facture.Quant aux
pauvres africains,personne ne leur avait demandé de venir se battre pour la
France, ils ont été enrôlés de force.
And actually, for the matter of that, it is not so much the
payment of a ‘debt’ that Malians are demanding, but … ransom:
Note: The
Republican knuckleheads who have been accusing President Obama of “apologizing for
America” should check out the action in France to see what
serial apologizing really looks
like. More here:
An account of the visit, complete with Hollande's speech, may be heard here:
http://www.medi1.com/player/player.php?i=5406733
For the connoisseur, one of Hollande's rhetorical flourishes was oddly reminiscent of Qaddafi's much-mocked speech, when his situation was hopeless, but he vowed to fight "hamlet by hamelt, lane by lane". Hollande's version: "ville par ville, village par village".
[Update, evening]
I was curious to see how this story would be handled in Le Monde,
which is generally more squeamish about reporting embarrassing facts than is Le
Figaro. No word
was breathed of Hollande’s abjectly truckling “debt-repayment” rhetoric, but
they did touch upon the question of who has been doing the actual fighting. This is of relevance, not so much
for a matter of fairness (it is sometimes politic to give the credit to those
who earned it not: cf. Argo),
as because the world has been repeatedly told, over the past several months,
that the African cavalry would be dashing in any hour now to save the day. And once again, there is a “Which
paragraph do you read?” aspect to the reportage.
The article leads with a nod to the French and Malian forces
-- or rather, Franco-Malian, presented as a unity, and sharing equally in the
glory:
Les grandes villes du nord situées
dans la bouche du Niger sont tombées aux mains des forces franco-maliennes.
Later, addressing the French troops who have just risked
their lives for the sake of some Africans, President Hollande slips up, and nearly
gives them credit; but quickly (politically-) corrects himself:
Le président évoque l'entrée dans la
ville : "Vous (les Français) êtes entrés, ou plus exactement les Maliens
sont entrés, dans la ville de Tombouctou.”
(Whew! That was a
close one.)
But if you read on, you eventually come to the following
tidbit:
La prise de Kidal s'est faite par
opération aéroportée et sans soldat malien.
…. Oh.
Never mind.
[Update 18 March 2013] Although the Malian army has
been worse than useless, the Chadians have truly stepped up to the plate:
http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2013/03/17/01003-20130317ARTFIG00122-l-appui-crucial-des-tchadiens-au-nord-du-mali.php?m_i=aPdaIuacU0VoiEfOnDOV2mGdsWviqRhrt5EIxcrP4pqnvNNG0
Mabruk, messieurs !
 |
| Une colonne des FATIM (Forces Armées Tchadienne en Intervention au Mali |
Mali : les troupes de la Cédéao « totalement incapables », juge le
Pentagone
Un haut responsable du Pentagone
estime que les troupes engagées au Mali par les Etats africains ne sont pas « à
la hauteur ». Et salue en revanche l'intervention française.
[Update 10 Dec 2013] )* sigh *( And yet again:
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