October 20, 2003

In the Boston Globe, Jeff Jacoby examines the differences in reaction to the recent bombing deaths of Americans in the Gaza Strip versus the reaction to the deaths of 48 other American citizens by Palestinian terrorists in the past ten years. Jacoby writes that instead of condemnations of the ''the vicious act of terrorism'' President George W. Bush calls other deaths an obstacle to the Palestinians achieving a state thereby ignoring the victims of these attacks and the responsibility of the Palestinians to prevent them. 11:46:12 PM

Much of the reaction about the firing of Gregg Easterbrook from his job as an ESPN sports writer is that as an employee of ESPN he should have refrained from criticizing Disney chairman Michael Eisner since Disney owns ESPN. In this sense Easterbrook’s firing may have been due to the reaction to what can be seen as a personal attack against Eisner rather than anything related to Eisner’s religion. Stanford law professor Larry Lessig believes if this occurred it shows the potential dangers of media concentration. If one company owned too many media outlets it would make it much more dangerous for people to speak without fearing retribution. However others believe that it was a reaction to the historical anti-Semitic nature of some of the unfortunate terminology used in Easterbrook’s piece that got him fired. Since Easterbrook criticized Kill Bill and not New Line Cinema’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre we will not what actually caused him to be fired. Unless of course any CNNSI writer wants to accuse the executives of Time Warner of "promoting for profit the adulation of violence"? 11:38:25 PM