Sunday Morning Contest: The News that Wasn’t

 

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Hey Ricochet, remember how much fun we used to have with our weekend contests? For those of you too young to remember those, here were some of my favorites.

Now that I’m back, it’s time for another one! This will be in a new format, so read the rules carefully. It’s inspired by my now-constant lament that were an alien to descend to our planet and read an American newspaper, he would conclude that the only events taking place outside our borders (if we can still call them that) were either happening in Gaza or involved crashing airplanes. Now, I’m not denying that Gaza and plane crashes are newsworthy stories, of course they are. But some 90 percent of what’s written about them isn’t even, strictly speaking, news—it’s just an infernal rumble of repetitive invective, shedding vastly more heat than light, indeed, sucking the light of intelligence and wisdom out of the world, as if the Internet itself had paradoxically been transformed into a communicative black hole (you get my drift), and in the process draining scarce news-gathering resources from other news stories that are every bit as significant, if not more.

So, the rules. There are five categories:

  1. National News
  2. Foreign News
  3. Local news (as in, your city, county or state)
  4. Science and Medicine
  5. Business

You may submit an entry in each category, but only once. (Don’t forget to specify the category.) The winning entries will bring to our attention a hugely important story that’s receiving no media attention at all. Your task is to summarize it in the length of a comment. While I’m as sick as you must be of the Buzzfeed-style “Five things you need to know about Fungoids” reporting format, and I doubly-hate the cliched “Why Fungoids Matter to You” headline,  for the purposes of contest, these are probably good ways to think about your entries—although you don’t have to write them in that style. Winning entries will, however, tell us who, what, where, when and why; and while you can certainly link to other articles, they can’t do the work for you.

The contest is open until midnight EST tonight.

Now—this is important! Don’t “like” anyone else’s entries, because we’re going to use the “like” button to judge the contest. After midnight EST tonight–but not before!–choose the entry that you think best satisfies the criteria above. You can like one in each category, but not more, and you can’t vote for your own entries. Voting will continue until midnight EST tomorrow night.

UPDATE: VOTING IS NOW OPEN!

LIKE AWAY!

The winner will be invited to write a longer report on the subject for the main feed, and will, of course receive a coveted Ricochet Glory Badge. A bonus Ricochet Glory Badge will be awarded to my personal favorite.

This is a lighthearted contest, but the story to which I’d like to call your attention, as an example, is anything but funny. I’ve used the first comment to tell you about it.

Ladies and Gentlemen, place your bets–the Ricochet Sunday Contest has begun!

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  1. user_645 Member
    user_645
    @Claire

    Foreign News

    South Sudan: Five Things You Need to Know

      1. South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 after five decades of war between the mainly Christian and animist South and the predominantly Muslim, Arabic-speaking north. The United States was the prime advocate of an independent South Sudan, and invested a huge amount of diplomatic capital—and money—in lobbying for its creation.
        1. Fighting erupted in the South Sudan capital, Juba, in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir sacked Vice-President Riek Machar and accused him of plotting a coup. Machar denied charges but headed a rebellion. Although the catalyst was political, the war has descended into ethnic violence and split the country between Kiir’s Dinka community and Machar’s Nuers.
          1. The fighting has been characterized by appalling levels of brutality against civilians, including deliberate killings inside churches and hospitals, and the use of child soldiers. Since December, 10,000 people have been killed and more than a 1.5 million displaced, 300,000 to neighboring countries. More than 100,000 are living on UN peacekeeping bases, which have come under attack, including a fatal attack in Jonglei.
            1. Four million are now on the verge of perishing in a man-made famine, with 50,000 children at immediate risk. Simultaneously, the country has been afflicted by a massive outbreak of cholera.
              1. Neighboring states are at risk of being sucked into the war.

              Why don’t we hear more about this? The Independent (for a change) has it about right: “… it’s another awful African story, [and] with news organisations challenged by tightening budgets, many rely on a single Africa-based correspondent.”

              Why does the lack of news coverage matter? Among other reasons, because, as same article points out, “Aid workers identify a direct correlation between media coverage of humanitarian disasters and public donations to appeals. It also influences politicians. The United Nations says $1.8bn (£1.05bn) is needed in South Sudan but only $758m) has been raised.”

              The US, of course, is by far the largest aid donor. It’s a perfectly legitimate argument that aid, in cases like this, can do more harm than good. I’d argue, though, that it would behoove us as a nation to debate the question and think about it—not in general terms, but in South-Sudan-specific ones–particularly since we’re the largest donor. And as John Temin of the US Institute for Peace notes, “In many ways the US has an added responsibility here and an added ownership of what is happening in this new country because the US is so closely connected with its creation.”

              We’re already involved, we will no doubt continue to be involved, the conflict has implications for a region in which we’re involved. We should be having some kind of national conversation about the wisdom of this involvement: but how can we, if no one even knows it’s happening?

              • #1
            1. user_645 Member
              user_645
              @Claire

              (“Numbered lists” seem to be a challenge for our comment-formatter, don’t they. Oh well. 1+1+1+1+1 = 5, so technically that’s right.)

              • #2
            2. Ryan M Inactive
              Ryan M
              @RyanM

              [Keeping in mind, Claire, that many of us still operate under “Coolidge-level” comments standards]

              Washington State Continues Giving Things Away for Free:  Business Unexpectedly Slows

              The Washington Legislature, in 2 recent actions, has essentially declared that legal services grow on trees.  Operating under the presumption that inequality of outcome must not extend to criminal defense cases, the Supreme Court adopted rules to limit the caseloads of public defenders, hoping that by allocating attorneys’ time for them, it would increase the quality of work.  The rule effectively multiplies the number of necessary attorneys to handle large criminal caseloads, and leaves it to local municipalities to find funding.  Of course, experiments in the ultra-rich cities of Seattle and Bellevue proved that funding will not be a problem. 

              Olympia also declared that all “legally free” children – who were previously entitled to a public defender if over the age of 12 – were required to have representation.  A new “Office of Childrens’ representation” was created to handle the many representation contracts statewide.  No accompanying reduction of other state entitlements was contemplated under the new law.

              In other news, Boeing is still considering a move from Washington State, presumably owing to corporate greed.

              • #3
            3. Manfred Arcane Inactive
              Manfred Arcane
              @ManfredArcane

              Science and Medicine:
              “ZURICH— Novartis AG NOVN.VX -0.56% said Monday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration designated a new leukemia treatment it is developing as a “breakthrough” therapy…

              Basel-based Novartis’s CTL019 treatment, … is designed to treat relapsed or refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a rapidly worsening form of cancer that causes abnormal white blood cells.

              CTL019 is part of a new wave of experimental treatments Novartis is developing, called CAR therapies. They are a new type of immunotherapy, an approach which uses the body’s own immune system to fight disease, and which has become the hottest new area of cancer treatment…

              Patients treated with CTL019 have their own T cells—a type of white blood cell that fights infection—extracted, reprogrammed to target the disease, and re-injected. Each treatment would be unique to just one specific individual and the genetic makeup of their cells…

              Early-stage clinical trials of CTL019 showed promising results. Nineteen out of 22 children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia treated experienced complete remission of the disease, although five later relapsed. In adults, the remission rate was 7 out of 32, with 15 responding to treatment.

              • #4
            4. user_645 Member
              user_645
              @Claire

              Manfred Arcane: Early-stage clinical trials of CTL019 showed promising results. Nineteen out of 22 children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia treated experienced complete remission of the disease,

               Wow, how does this compare with existing chemotherapies and other treatments? 

              • #5
            5. Manfred Arcane Inactive
              Manfred Arcane
              @ManfredArcane

              Foreign News:
              “…. U.S. atmospheric and environmental scientists modeled what would happen after a “limited, regional nuclear war.”…

              The team imagines 100 nuclear warheads, each about the size of the atomic bomb the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima, detonate … imagining an India-Pakistan nuclear war….

              Five megatons of black carbon enter the atmosphere immediately…. it absorbs heat from the sun before it can reach the Earth….

              After one year, the average surface temperature of the Earth falls by 1.1 kelvin, or about two degrees Fahrenheit. After five years, the Earth is…three degrees colder than it used to be…

              … Year five after the war, Earth will have 9 percent less rain than usual.

              In years 2-6 after the war, the frost-free growing season for crops is shortened by 10 to 40 days, …

              … In the five years, the ozone is 20 to 25 percent thinner, on average…may lead to more sunburns and skin cancers in people, as well as reduced plant growth and destabilized DNA in crops such as corn.

              In a separate study… International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War estimated 2 billion people would starve in the wake of a 100-A-bomb war.

              • #6
            6. Manfred Arcane Inactive
              Manfred Arcane
              @ManfredArcane

              National News:
              “Washington (AFP) – Back in 2012, the Sun erupted with a powerful solar storm that just missed the Earth but was big enough to “knock modern civilization back to the 18th century,” NASA said.

              The extreme space weather that tore through Earth’s orbit on July 23, 2012, was the most powerful in 150 years…

              “If the eruption had occurred only one week earlier, Earth would have been in the line of fire,” said Daniel Baker, professor of atmospheric and space physics at the University of Colorado.

              Instead the storm cloud hit the STEREO-A spacecraft, a solar observatory that is “almost ideally equipped to measure the parameters of such an event,” NASA said.

              Scientists … concluded that it would have been comparable to the largest known space storm in 1859, known as the Carrington event…

              The National Academy of Sciences has said the economic impact of a storm … could cost the modern economy more than two trillion dollars and cause damage that might take years to repair.

              Experts say solar storms can cause widespread power blackouts, disabling everything from radio to GPS communications to water supplies — most of which rely on electric pumps…”

              • #7
            7. Yeah...ok. Inactive
              Yeah...ok.
              @Yeahok

              Local (Ricochet) News

              Officials today classified the news of our own DocJay and BrentB67 joining the shadow government, Wolverine. Of course, Wolverine is the under reported organization headed by Sarah Palin and David Patreaus. Security is so tight that Newt Gingrich has not been informed of his own membership. Newt will be responsible for the new government but he will be under the direction of Herman Cain.

              We congratulate these members but we miss their contributions here.

              btw  Welcome back Claire. Now, why again were you absent?

              • #8
            8. user_645 Member
              user_645
              @Claire

              .

              btw Welcome back Claire. Now, why again were you absent?

              Out of a mistaken sense that I’d get more productive work done and earn more money if I weaned myself away. 

              • #9
            9. user_645 Member
              user_645
              @Claire

              Manfred Arcane:

              National News: “Washington (AFP) – Back in 2012, the Sun erupted with a powerful solar storm that just missed the Earth but was big enough to “knock modern civilization back to the 18th century,” NASA said.

              I saw that! (Which maybe disqualifies it.) But yeah, amazing story. And I think roughly at that time I was freaking out about the state of the world and a friend showed me a photo of a solar flare and said, “Claire, you can’t control everything.” 

              • #10
            10. PsychLynne Inactive
              PsychLynne
              @PsychLynne

              Science and Medicine – 
              Cancer has been an anxiety producing diagnosis since the word was first used.  However, great strides have been made in treatment and many forms are now viewed as chronic disease versus a death sentence.  The latest data estimates that their are approximately 14 million cancer survivors in the U.S.

              However, this successs has led to a new question.  Is it possible that we are curing the body of cancer, yet in doing so, accelerating the aging process?  Diseases commonly assumed to be part of the aging process were initially noticed in survivors of children and young adults who had been successfully treated, yet were being diagnosed with diseases of “old age,” such as congestive heart failure and bone loss were being seen in early and middle adulthood.
              For adult survivors, the phenomen of “chemo-brain” suggests that cancer treatments may impact cognitive aging even when treatments do not cross the blood/brain barrier.

              Researchers are exploring if cancer treatment represents a one-time, step-down in physical functioning or accelerates the aging process.  While the late effects of cancer treatment should not preclude pursuing treatment, these effects should be actively addressed in cancer patients and survivors.

              • #11
            11. user_44643 Inactive
              user_44643
              @MikeLaRoche

              Yeah…ok.:

              Local (Ricochet) News

              Officials today classified the news of our own DocJay and BrentB67 joining the shadow government, Wolverine. Of course, Wolverine is the under reported organization headed by Sarah Palin and David Patreaus. Security is so tight that Newt Gingrich has not been informed of his own membership. Newt will be responsible for the new government but he will be under the direction of Herman Cain.

              The shadow government has appointed me Secretary of College Football and Cheerleader-Huntresses.

              • #12
            12. user_44643 Inactive
              user_44643
              @MikeLaRoche

              And EThompson is the shadow Treasury Secretary.

              • #13
            13. flownover Inactive
              flownover
              @flownover

              1. A country with one of the lowest life expectancies in the world turns out to be a Native American reservation right here in the United States . 
              2. All  Malaysian Airline flights successfully completed their scheduled flights yesterday, today and are expected to tomorrow. No passengers were lost unexplainedly or shot down by weapons supplied by recognized nations to unrecognized militia .
              3. The most pleasant summer weather in recent history continues to be enjoyed in Northwest Missouri, with only 1 day exceeding 100 degrees since Memorial Day . 
              4. The largest governmental health agency,  VA network of hospitals , is experiencing  personnel changes with recent exposures of poor service to the servicemembers of the countrys military . Anxious to portray itself as the logical supplier of healthcare to the American people, the government succeeds in media compliance with the need to hide their performance in healthcare administration .
              5.  The loss of large segments of the workforce has made it impossible  to  measure  number of unemployed/underemployed  in the US . The government succeeds in media compliance to use the partial truths based on stilted metrics from their own Bureau of Labor Statistics. These numbers are mostly created by members of AFGE Local 12.

              • #14
            14. EThompson Member
              EThompson
              @

              Mike LaRoche:

              Yeah…ok.:

              Local (Ricochet) News

              Officials today classified the news of our own DocJay and BrentB67 joining the shadow government, Wolverine. Of course, Wolverine is the under reported organization headed by Sarah Palin and David Patreaus. Security is so tight that Newt Gingrich has not been informed of his own membership. Newt will be responsible for the new government but he will be under the direction of Herman Cain.

              The shadow government has appointed me Secretary of College Football and Cheerleader-Huntresses.

              All joking aside… MLR is a PHD and I am a business owner so we do not take  these things lightly. :))

              • #15
            15. Manfred Arcane Inactive
              Manfred Arcane
              @ManfredArcane

              Business News:
              “SpaceX President Says Company Will Dominate The Solar System In 2100”

              Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-will-dominate-the-solar-system-in-2100-2014-7#ixzz38htRl1fL

              • #16
            16. Manfred Arcane Inactive
              Manfred Arcane
              @ManfredArcane

              Local/State news (I live in Virginia):

              DRILL-BABY-DRILL!
              “Governors from Mid-Atlantic and Gulf Coast states, including Virginia’s Terry McAuliffe (D), urged Interior Secretary Sally Jewell on Monday to finalize rules that will eventually allow dramatically expanded offshore oil and gas drilling, bringing new industry — and millions in new tax revenue — to some states that have been shut out of the U.S. energy boom.

              Jewell and senior Interior Department officials met with McAuliffe, North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R), Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley (R) and Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R) on Monday. The Interior Department is expected to release a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement within days that would allow oil and gas companies to begin surveying the outer continental shelf for natural resources.

              Once the PEIS is issued, seismic surveys for oil and gas deposits could begin within a matter of months….

              McCrory heads the Outer Continental Shelf Governors Coalition, a group of mostly Republican governors pushing to expand offshore oil drilling. McAuliffe told The Washington Post he would join the coalition — the first Democrat to do so — as he sped out of the meeting  Monday.”

              • #17
            17. MJBubba Member
              MJBubba
              @

              I see this bit of foreign news made its way into the news aggregators:  the wife of a vice prime minister of Cameroon was kidnapped by Boko Haram.   Vice Prime Minister Ali managed to get away, and several government soldiers were killed in the attack.

              (Remember all the attention to the 200 kidnapped schoolgirls in Nigeria?   Still missing, and that story has gotten pretty cold and quiet.)

              • #18
            18. MJBubba Member
              MJBubba
              @

              In local news from Memphis, our County government is preparing to expand pre-kindergarten.   This is a victory for Democrat demagogues, and our local newspaper, who have been pressing for this for years.   Studies have not shown that these programs make any difference in childrens’ progress in school, but we are undertaking it anyhow, primarily to assist single mothers.   Vouchers for private babysitting would be just as effective, I think, and would cost a lot less.

              • #19
            19. Nick Stuart Inactive
              Nick Stuart
              @NickStuart

              Science and Medicine

              Although I’d heard about it previously, Mona & Jay’s podcast this week prompted me to download Big Fat Surprise from Ricochet sponsor Audible.com. Listened to it this weekend.

              Essentially everything we’ve been told about saturated fat and diet by the USDA and major organizations we look to for health advice for 60 years is wrong. And not only wrong but deleterious. The century-long search for a solid fat to replace butter, lard, and beef tallow has produced a series of replacements that are ever worse for our health. Same thing for the carb-heavy, fat and protein-minimalist diet that we have heard for decades is the path to heart health.

              It turns out that enormous changes to the way we eat have been based on faultly science; special pleading by self-interested corporate interests; and a perverted skeptic-silencing media, peer-review and academic climate.

              And speaking of climate, doesn’t this sound a bit familiar? The “science is settled, debate is over, silence the skeptics, give me a grant” mentality that is crowding us into an even more gigantic lifestyle-altering changes in energy production and consumption?

              Anyway, give it a read.

              • #20
            20. MJBubba Member
              MJBubba
              @

              I have another local story from Memphis, to enter in the Science and Medicine category.  St. Jude’s Childrens Research Hospital announced a new CEO (James R. Downing, M.D.), and also announced an expansion of their Global Initiative, in which they take lessons learned and successful strategies and teach hospitals in the global south how to care for really sick kids with difficult cancers.

              • #21
            21. Nick Stuart Inactive
              Nick Stuart
              @NickStuart

              Foreign News

              The pogrom against Christians in Iraq by ISIS has received scant attention. Almost as scant attention has been paid to the virulent Antisemitism on display in the capitals of Europe.

              The Religion of Peace at work.

              • #22
            22. PsychLynne Inactive
              PsychLynne
              @PsychLynne

              MJBubba:

              In local news from Memphis, our County government is preparing to expand pre-kindergarten. This is a victory for Democrat demagogues, and our local newspaper, who have been pressing for this for years. Studies have not shown that these programs make any difference in childrens’ progress in school, but we are undertaking it anyhow, primarily to assist single mothers. Vouchers for private babysitting would be just as effective, I think, and would cost a lot less.

               I went to grad school in Memphis and conducted research in the schools, the “Educational Facilitator” role there alsways confuse me.  Who were these people?  Were they trained as teachers?  Then I found out that they had degrees in education, but couldn’t pass the certification exam.  I second your baby-sitting vouchers idea.  

              • #23
            23. user_176994 Inactive
              user_176994
              @AimeeJones

              A U.N. plot to put us all on communes?

              From the local news department, central planners in Newton County, Ga. (about 30 miles east of Atlanta) have decided that, based on unprecedented growth in the early 2000s – that has slowed dramatically since 2008 or so when the economy bottomed out – the county’s population will top 400,000 by the year 2050 (Census figures put the county shy of 100,000 currently). Consequently, all the local governments – county, school, water, five municipalities – signed on to hire a consultant to “plan” how this growth should occur, given availability of water and sewer, population growth trends, etc.
              They hired a consultant who created a 200-page document – ostensibly to “simplify” the zoning ordinances – that was patterned after Montgomery County, Md., a wildly more affluent community than our community will ever be.
              Among the hot-button issues are mandated minimum 20-acre lot sizes on one side of the county while cramming in development on the other side where it is already overly congested.
              They have also proposed that land owners could sell development rights to a developer who may want to build something with even higher density on that side of the county. 

              Residents from all corners of the county hate it. Hate. It. And they are beginning to hate their local officials – which in a place as small as this, means these officials and leaders are people they have probably known their whole lives. 

              This is a study in elites vs. commoners. The elected officials – who have given authority and therefore, tacit approval to the “leadership collaborative” (barf – I hate even typing those words) – find themselves trying to convince the “uneducated masses” that this grossly unrealistic and frightening land-grab is really not that bad and, if they just knew what was good for them and listened to the smart people, they would agree. At the same time, they can’t lose their electoral viability.

              On the other hands, many of the residents and property  owners have a pretty good bead on what this “plan” is all about and make many salient points. Until, that is, one of these large property owners devolves into making claims that this is all a “plot by the U.N. to make us all live on communes.”
              http://www.newtoncitizen.com/news/2014/jul/19/2050-plan-draws-emotional-discussion-in-mansfield/

              • #24
            24. user_82762 Inactive
              user_82762
              @JamesGawron

              Claire,

              This week James Gawron offered to buy airline tickets for John Kerry and Ban Ki-moon to fly from Cairo to Baghdad.  His hope was that instead of hectoring the Israeli government and micro-managing the conflict with Hamas they might do some good in the world and stop the acute persecution of Christians by ISIS in Iraq.

              In light of recent news brought to Mr. Gawron’s attention by one Claire Berlinski, Mr. Gawron now extends his generous offer to buy John Kerry and Ban Ki-moon airline tickets from Cairo to Juba in South Sudan.  Here also instead of annoying people and grasping after unwarranted photo-ops, John Kerry and Ban Ki-moon might actually do some good.

              One wonders, one really wonders.

              Regards,

              Jim

              • #25
            25. Lensman Inactive
              Lensman
              @Lensman

              Under National News.
              The tide is turning on the 2nd Amendment Right to Bear Arms. On Saturday the decision was released on Palmer v. District of Columbia by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that struck down the total ban on the carrying of firearms outside of the home. Two years ago in Moore v. Madigan a similar ban by the State of Illinois was struck down by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.

              On July 1, 2014 the Safe Carry Protection Act in Georgia took effect. This reduction of the number of “Victim Disarmament Zones” in Georgia (not the official term) was met with hysterical news coverage around the world. In the past four weeks there have not been gun fights on every street corner.

              Recently, in Griffin, GA, a gunowner (licensed to carry) shot down the murderer of his brother (a police officer) outside of a Waffle House restaurant before he could flee the scene of the crime.

              Chiefs of police in Milwaukee, WI and Detroit, MI have come out in favor of an armed citizenry. They know that when seconds count the police are minutes away.

              • #26
            26. Southern Pessimist Member
              Southern Pessimist
              @SouthernPessimist

              This news flash is posted after the deadline. Pigs still can’t fly but they do swim.

              • #27
            27. Lensman Inactive
              Lensman
              @Lensman

              Are the results going to appear here or in a separate post?

              • #28
            28. user_645 Member
              user_645
              @Claire

              Lensman:

              Are the results going to appear here or in a separate post?

               Separate post, I think. One on which I’m working right now. 

              • #29
            29. user_645 Member
              user_645
              @Claire

              Ricochet! I apologize a thousand times for taking so long to judge the contest. My computer, having noticed that my Applecare protection plan expired last week, has pretty much ground to a halt. If you’re reading this, it’s because I managed to send a message in a bottle to the editors. I’m about to run out to take computer number one to the computer-doctor, after which I hope to come home either with a fixed computer or a replacement—upon which I shall promptly pronounce the verdict. Stay tuned! Thank you for your patience! Wish me luck!

              • #30
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