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A watchdog at bay

It "seems perverse to focus too much on the casualties or hardship in Afghanistan." --CNN Chairman Walter Isaacson in a memo to his staff.

Language suggested for CNN news anchors by Rick Davis, head of standards and practices: "We must keep in mind, after seeing reports like this, that the Taliban regime in Afghanistan continues to harbor terrorists who have praised the September 11 attacks that killed close to 5,000 innocent people in the U.S."

"If anything is 'perverse,' it’s that one of the world's most powerful news outlets has instructed its journalists not to report Afghan civilian casualties without attempting to justify those deaths."--Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), producer of syndicated weekly radio show CounterSpin.

Source: Washington Post. FAIR.

Airline security doesn’t mince words

The ground crew at a Southwest Airlines departure gate asked passenger Satpal Singh Kohli to remove his turban before boarding a flight from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Los Angeles on October 22. Kohli, who is Sikh, explained that his religion forbids exposing the head in public. The security agents insisted, then searched his turban and hair in front of other passengers.

"In my whole life, I have never been humiliated like this," Kohli said.

A Southwest spokeswoman said Kohli was singled out by a Federal Aviation Administration computerized passenger-profiling system, assessing such factors as passengers' clothing and nationality, as well as payment methods for tickets.

Source: The Wall Street Journal.

Mostly American

Q: How many Americans say they have a "very unfavorable" or "mostly unfavorable" opinion of Arabs?

A:

Q: How many said they have a "very favorable" or "mostly favorable" opinion of Arabs?

A:

Source: The Gallup Organization.

Anthrax from the past

In February 1998, Larry Wayne Harris, forty-six, and William Leavitt Jr., forty-seven, bragged that they had enough anthrax to “wipe out the city" of Las Vegas.

According to an FBI affidavit, Harris also told people he had a plan to release bubonic plague toxins on New York City subways, and that "the Iraqis would be blamed for that event." Harris, a Lancaster, Ohio resident, told authorities he was a member of the Idaho-based Aryan Nations. Three years earlier, Harris illegally obtained a mail-order shipment of the bacteria that causes bubonic plague. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud and was placed on eighteen months probation. Leavitt, a Nevada resident, owned microbiology labs in Logandale, Nevada and in Frankfurt.

"Harris had stated that the New York subway attack would ruin the economy and take the military by surprise," according to the affidavit.

Harris and Leavitt were arrested and charged with conspiracy to possess and possession of a biological agent, but charges were dropped when the substance was found to be a harmless anthrax-based veterinary vaccine.

Source: Associated Press. Los Angeles Times.

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