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Right wing blogs are no better than mass media elites because they fail to provide space for, or promote access to, user-generated content, claims a recently released Harvard study. The work of a trio of researchers, the study—the most detailed to date regarding political blogs—correlated data collected from the top 155 political blogs and concluded that left blogs tended to provide more avenues for non-core contributors to have their voices heard, as well as more egalitarian ways of promoting secondary content to readers.

Until now, most academics found that no significant differences existed across the digital DMZ in the battle of ideas, that the roles left and right blogs perform in our democracy are similar even if their viewpoints are not. The Harvard group, from the onset, set out to shake the ground under those assumptions.

The report published last month by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University contains the quantitative results of a careful and innovative analysis of the top 155 political blogs conducted over a two-week period in August 2008. While previous research in this area has focused on rudimentary link analysis (How many links to others sites are made from a blog? Do links cross partisan lines?) this most recent study gathered a more detailed set of data in order to provide a foundation for discussing what effect, if any, the political blogosphere is having on democracy in practice.

The Harvard group aimed to address attributes of blogs they deemed most important in a thriving democracy: “who is enabled to speak, who can be heard, and to what ends.” These questions are important as we begin to continue to evolve our understanding of Nicholas Negroponte’s vision that automated access to all information would coalesce in what he called the “Daily Me.” Increasingly, our reality is that blogs and other media compete for the right to define the Daily Us and the Daily Them in ways that can have enduring political effect.

With those grand issues present, the researchers evaluated each site not as an entity, but as an organic society in miniature. Characteristics such as the number of primary authors, the accessibility to secondary content, the pathways available for non-core users to contribute to a dialogue, and the style of primary content were cataloged and correlated with the blog’s ideological perspective. Using this new approach, the scholars isolated disparities between left and right blogs.

First, a larger percentage of right blogs were authored by a solo writer. The data also indicated that methods for users to participate beyond submitting comments to posts (for example, user diaries, bulletin boards, or forums) were absent from an almost equal percentage of right and left blogs, 87 percent of blogs on the right were found to use simple publishing platforms (think Blogger, or stripped-down WordPress) compared to only 57 percent of left blogs. The Harvard team appear to have extrapolated from this a conclusion that enhanced platforms were a technological means indicating equalized access to content from both core and non-core users. Their conclusion, if it can be called one, was made without benefit of any supportive data. Gathering that additional level of information might be the basis for further study but would rely on greater participation by blog administrators, a factor that would potentially poison any data gathered.

The new method constructed by the Harvard group produced a more detailed set of statistical data than prior efforts to quantify blogosphere activity and should therefore be regarded as a huge step forward in the study of how blogs are affecting American political communications. How the team used their data to support a cascading set of successively weaker conclusions, however, suggests that using only quantitative analysis may not be a useful in evaluating political communications in any meaningful sociological or political context.

For example, cited frequently in the report as a shining example of democratic participation is the left’s megablog DailyKos.com, which, despite its status as the high diving platform into the shallow end of the left-wing pool, has to be recognized for its monumental success in attracting users and promoting a form of political discourse. Nevertheless, applying the logic in the report’s conclusions, a site like DailyKos, because it gives almost equal status to both primary and secondary content and offers a variety of ways for user to generate content and for users to access same, has greater value as a participatory engine in the free marketplace of ideas than an information fountain like Glenn Reynolds’ Instapundit. In this way, the Harvard study comes to some shaky secondary conclusions because it cannot evaluate the quality of the content.

By stretching the argument contained in the study’s conclusions to the extreme, by off-loading a bus of mental patients at the Capitol and giving them the right to engage in floor debate we would have a richer and more valuable dialogue for our democratic society. Although some might cynically argue that the great lunatic surge on Congress has either a) already occurred or b) that the net effect would, in fact, be positive, to most the illogic of thinking that giving all voices equal weight produces a better democracy is self-evident.

The New York Times isn’t going to give Paul Krugman’s inches to a truck driver from Skokie, Illinois. Nor will the Washington Post invite a fry cook to sit in for Charles Krauthammer. That isn’t elitism, it’s common sense, and this principle of providing top-notch, well-written, informed and informative commentary and analysis should be an editorial value of all blogs. Most of the user diaries at right-side sites such as TownHall tend to fall into the same bucket as DailyKos’—heavy on talking points, sloganeering, and personal opinion; light on facts, analysis, and writing ability. The difference is that TownHall makes a clear distinction between content it is willing to stand beside and that which readers should ingest with a spirit of caveat lector, or reader beware.

By adopting corollaries that tend to promote a favorable interpretation of the data as it applies to left blogs, the study has to be viewed as an extremely useful but biased academic exercise. For example, although solo authorship is deemed by the researchers to be a squelching factor on the diversity of conversation, by ignoring the quality of communications it begins by assuming that all posts are equal, a fallacy of which all blog owners are acutely aware. It also ignores the significant disincentives right bloggers have to allow unadulterated and unmoderated posting by users. The sometimes subtle (and often not) implication that speech from the right instigates violent action has been aggressively challenged in public statements from most right-wing bloggers and yet most large sites moderate comments to eliminate speech that crosses the line protected by the First Amendment. The left has never truly been scrutinized regarding its own sins in this area, which could account for the appearance that a lush egalitarian meadow of dialectic freedom flourishes on the left hemisphere of the political blog world.

Why is this study important? Only for the reason that when legislators and bureaucrats want to take action they typically do so by grabbing an ivy-draped academic study that justifies the action they wish to take. In so much as this report could be used to rationalize a form of fairness doctrine regulations upon publishers of online political content in a near future when all such content could fall under the regulatory auspices of the Federal Communications Commission, keeping an eye on what’s happening within our institutions of higher learning is worthwhile.

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Find other articles on this topic:

• Huffington Post | New Study: Liberals More Open Than Conservatives Online
• The Progressive Pulse | The Progressive Pulse – Harvard study: Left blogs more “participatory”
• techPresident | New Study: Left More Likely to Make Blogging a Group Affair
• The Nation | The Sociology of Political Blogs: An Interview with Yochai Benkler
• Crooked Timber | A fresh look at the left and right political blogospheres

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Via our friends at Orbusmax.com, comes a story that is still light on details but high on intrigue.

Hong Kong correspondents of Agence France Presse reported Tuesday that a Chinese-Turkish expedition to Turkey’s Mount Ararat claims to have found the legendary ark that biblical stories claim carried a man, his family, and two of every animal to safety when God sent a flood to destroy mankind because it had become corrupted by sin and depravity.

The group of evangelical explorers claim the remains of what they believe is Noah’s ark are located above the 12,000-foot mark on the Turkish mountain, and they have released a number of photographs depicting the interior of a wooden structure. If the structure does exist at that high altitude and can be authenticated as the result of ancient construction it almost certainly rules out the possibility that it is the remains of a primitive human settlement. From the AFP article:

The team said it had recovered wooden specimens from a structure on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey that carbon dating proved was 4800 years old, around the same time the ark is said to have been afloat.

…

The structure had several compartments, some with wooden beams, which were believed to house animals, he said.

The team has cited a need to maintain secrecy about the site as their reason for not releasing additional footage from their trek, including exterior photos from the area that could be used to pinpoint the location of the find. The Chinese-Turkish group plans asked the government in Ankara – Mount Ararat sits within the border of modern-day Turkey – to request World Heritage Site status from the United Nations so that the area can be protected during a future dig.

Many expeditions over the centuries have been launched to locate the fabled landbound vessel. I can still remember, as a child, listening to the stoic narration of Leonard Nimoy on an episode of the sensationalistic 1970s In Search Of television show as he chronicled the search for Noah’s ark. Nimoy’s script was chockfull of omissions and half-truths and did not expose a number of hoaxes for what they were, but some of the tales from visitors to Mount Ararat have resisted debunking.

Therefore, although the team of evangelical archaeologists state with “99.9 percent” certainty that they have found the fabled ark of Noah, doubting their claims is wise until they can produce additional details and have their find scientifically examined and assessed. Because the exploration team included a documentary filmmaker, demands for visual evidence of the group’s claims should be easily fulfilled. If not, or if a profit motive begins to take shape, we can throw this one in the bin with Geraldo’s opening of Al Capone’s “vault” and Fox Television’s alien autopsy video.

Although many Americans may consider any discussion of an ark on Mount Ararat to be a Christian fantasy, the story of a massive flood is not exclusive to Judeo-Christianity. The telling of stories in which a massive deluge destroys humanity save for a small chosen group is, aside from myths about the creation of the planet and the universe, the most universal narrative in all of human history. A find of this magnitude would have relevance in nearly every culture and civilization on the planet and to all major religions.

While many may mock the quest for this artifact by equating it to searching for Santa Claus’ workshop at the North Pole, for centuries historians and scholars doubted that the places described by the Greek poet Homer in Iliad and Odyssey were real. When the legendary city of Troy was found (also in Turkey (where do these Turks get off hogging the fun)) and subsequent evidence that other places in Homer’s epics were actual places, Homer’s epics were no longer only read students of literature, but by historians looking for clues.

For now, the accusations of a small team of explorers who have chosen not to release even a single still photograph should be viewed with a great deal of skepticism.

Lastly, a note to Steven Spielberg, if he’s reading. If this spurs interest in making Indiana Jones and the Ark of Salvation, please, this time, no aliens.

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Related Articles:

Daily Mail | ‘Noah’s Ark’ remains discovered on a Turkish mountain, evangelical archaelogists claim

Big Hollywood | Evangelists claim ‘Noah’s Ark’ discovery on Turkish mountain

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[Article first appeared at Red County]

Less than one year after KUOW Radio’s Conversation program had me on the air to discuss the controversy over the siting of the DreamGirls strip club within line drive distance of Safeco Field’s home plate entrance, the nude dancing club has already failed to make a good faith effort to adhere to compromise agreements made between the club’s owners and the Mariners’ front office.

Although DreamGirls installed monument-sized video screen above its street side entrance where it displays a rotating selection of images of scantily-clad models, often in sports-themed costumes, the adult-oriented spot agreed to only display text on the sign on kids’ days. The first Mariners Kids’ Day was Sunday, April 18^th, but the sign continued to display the sexually-charged images for all ages to see as they walked from southern parking spots to the ball field.

KIRO Radio’s Brian Shapiro reported on some of the public reaction:

Middle School teacher Christine Amend said she was "disgusted" by what she saw on the massive video signs when she went to the ballpark on Sunday with her sister on a Mariners’ advertised kids’ day.

"There are parents there with the strollers and they’re going ‘oh my God I can’t believe this is up.’ It’s kind of gross and just low class to be right outside of Safeco Field."

A photograph of the sign on the kids’ day can be seen in the article on MyNorthwest.com, linked above. DreamGirls defended their failure to honor the agreement by laying the blame at the Mariners’ cleats on the grounds that they had not been properly notified.

Pete Buck, the attorney who represents DreamGirls, says its [sic] not the club’s responsibility, "the agreement, not surprisingly, puts the burden on the Mariners to let the (Dream Girls) club know that there’s going to be a kids’ day."

Buck says the Mariners never informed the club that last Sunday was a kids’ day.

Of course, this all ignores the idea that every day at Safeco Field – a monument to the important values of hard work, perseverance, and teamwork – should be kids’ day. It also ignores the fact that Little Leagues organize outings to games on non-kids’ days, as do boys and girls clubs, school groups, church groups, etc. There used to be a crime on the books called contributing to the delinquency of a minor that was broadly applied to protect children from prurient interests. C’est passé, I suppose.

The cabaret’s position also presupposes that publishing a schedule available on the Seattle Mariners website and in wallet-sized print does not constitute notification. There should be a reasonable expectation that as a party to the agreement DreamGirls must take some responsibility to perform. Lord knows they’re committed to all manner of performance inside the walls of the club.

Even though an “I told you so” paces in my mind’s on-deck circle, despite the appearance that DreamGirls has won out over family-friendly activities such as baseball the glitzy and strategically-placed fleshpot may be the last toehold of a shrinking live adult entertainment industry in Seattle.

Rumors spin like dancers on the proverbial pole that the infamous Colacurcios and their business partners will take a plea deal to shut down their four area strip clubs in exchange for reducing or avoiding jail time in the racketeering case against their organization. Downtown Seattle’s Lusty Lady gained widespread attention in recent weeks after the announcement that the well-known peep show – known best for a streetside marquee that featured admittedly witty sexed-up puns – has made plans to close by the summer.

Listening to last week’s requiem for the Lusty Lady on National Public Radio’s eclectic All Things Considered program, one might have assumed that the First Avenue club held a cherished spot in the cultural fabric of the Emerald City. Yet, the Lusty Lady was not done in by pressure from advocacy groups, nor was their life as a business made more difficult because of any bad relationship with City Hall. It was not saved by the community the NPR programmers may want us to believe esteem its place in Seattle; business fail because they don’t generate enough income to sustain themselves.

Therefore, is the Colacurcio’s deal to escape lock-up not so much a punishment as an easy way to shed a business that may not be the cash cow it once was? Vice enterprises are almost universally privately-held companies, so there are no publicly available stockholder’s reports to go to for evidence. Looking for the presence of a black hole that may be siphoning the greed imperative out of the porn industry relies on clues when facts are unavailable.

The larger question to consider is whether the retirement of nefarious smut merchants or witty punsters on First Avenue in Seattle represents a shift in local attitudes about the place of sex in society. Is the decline of the porn industry a reflection of the economy in general, or is it a sign of a larger shift in American values?

A slew of media reports have been produced during this economic recession on the financial woes of the porn industry. Almost universally the analysis concludes that a variety of factors are depressing porn profits. Articles by the Los Angeles Times, the Daily Beast, and a CNBC cable television special blamed the poor performance of porn on the accessibility of no-cost pirated content and the poor economy in general. Missing from the analysis was any investigation of whether society may have begun to push back against a 30-year campaign to mainstream pornography into the culture and hedonize our attitudes about sexuality.

It is worth pondering whether at a time when Americans are dealing with financial anxieties that connect with basic needs of food and shelter an impulse to protect family structures might also kick in. The evidence of pornography as a corrosive element in society is abundant and the disincentives for infidelity – even the sort of virtual infidelity that former president Jimmy Carter confessed to/excused as committing “adultery in [his] heart” – may have begun moving society to find the point of diminishing returns on the cost/benefit curve for porn use.

For now, those wishing to eschew looking at the sign – on kids’ day or any other – should avoid walking up First Avenue S. and use Occidental Avenue to the east when parking south of the ballpark. The vendors who use to benefit from the walk-by traffic on First will just have to take up the issue of their losses with DreamGirls and Mayor McGinn.

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[Article first appeared at Red County.]

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Such has been the behavior of the establishment press, by and large, in response to accusations made by Democratic lawmakers that protests by tea partiers on the Capitol steps two Sundays ago against Obamacare legislation included the hurling of racial slurs (the N-word) at members of Congress. Married with anecdotal “field reports” that tea parties feature signs with depictions of President Obama as a Hitler-esque or totalitarian figure and violent seditionist rhetoric, the briefing to the corps of journalists was a call to action.

Axes in hand, hungry reporters in a starving industry arrive on the scene to find no smoke, no fire, and a sprung fire alarm with Democratic Party fingerprints all over it. The screamed epithets can’t be heard on any of the recordings made during the time of the alleged incident. If any evidence has remained undisclosed, certainly Andrew Breitbart’s offer to give $100,000 to the United Negro Scholarship Fund in exchange for proof should have been sufficient incentive, and yet no documentary evidence has been brought forward.

Unlike real firefighters, truly brave men and women, when the supposed pursuers of truth in our press stumbled upon the false alarm instead of vindicating the betrayal by their agitators they chose to protect their reputations, or egos, or both. Why? Because none of us like to be duped, but when being duped carries professional consequences revealing the truth is to be avoided.

In the pure Chicago-style, left-wing attack politics begins with identifying fringe elements clinging to the edges of a group and exaggerating their influence over the group as a whole. For months since the tea parties began in February of 2009 in reaction to the $787 billion stimulus package, operatives of the Left have been methodically stitching scraps and bits of decaying humanity to the tea party’s image in an attempt to turn the movement into a Frankenstein’s monster that will frighten voters and disrupt the dampening effect tea parties have had on the Democrat’s agenda of European socialization and putting American individualism into terminal decline.

One pernicious example of media laziness has been the frequent attribution to tea partiers for creating the poster of President Obama with a square, Hitler-like moustache by major media outlets. The poster is the creation of Lyndon Larouche’s political action committee, a very radical group that espouses conspiratorial views. You need to study string theory to develop a conceptual way of describing where Larouchies fit on any political spectrum. They have always operated as grifters of a sort, stationing themselves at all places where large numbers of people pass by or congregate. They are a barnacle clinging to the side of the tea party ship, not a ticketed passenger on it, and an annoyance that must be tolerated in order to preserve the right of free speech for all people.

Having sewn the Larouchies, mythical racist signage, the fiction that tea parties are not diverse, and a host of other red herrings over the true complexion of the tea party, only daily jolts of electricity from the dynamo of the left-wing sympathetic faction in the media to keep the monstrous consolidation of smears and baseless accusations moving forward.

But even more damaging to the reporter’s esteem than being revealed as a fool is being proven to be a hypocrite. At the core of a journalist’s credibility is their ability to be consistent, to maintain a standard for judging all situations using a common ethical and moral baseline. Based on their actions during this historic period of American political unrest, modern news organizations are nailing their own coffin shut.

Take the case in point of mainstream media’s handling of widespread Bush Derangement Syndrome. The video below (NSFW) is a garden variety sampling of what could be found on most Saturday morning street corners during the Bush years. The tone and structure of what the extremists have to say in this video is not unlike the extreme speech being freely and incorrectly associated with the tea parties. It is also an example of what the media routinely characterized as free speech, not a clear and present danger as media elites have tended to characterize current vocal opposition to the policies of President Obama and Congressional Democrats.

Watch the video and judge for yourself if there is a deplorable hypocrisy in how the media treated Bush Derangement Syndrome and how it treats vehement disapproval of the current president’s agenda.

When nearly an entire industry doubles down in repeating the lie in order to protect its collective status it risks an all-out collapse of public faith in the institution. Based on polls showing reasonably broad support for tea party ideals, and historically low regard for the integrity of news providers, this potential cave-in of trust is a very real possibility.

Faith with the public can be restored by returning to solid standards of journalistic integrity, standards that really don’t deviate too much from the basic tenets of society in general. Tell the truth, seek the truth, challenge all facts, and always get an opposing viewpoint. In fact, those all happen to be values I have seen represented in the tea party itself, so if any journalists are looking for a close approximation to a Lazy Journalist’s twelve-step program, there’s always room at the next event.

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My email inbox is routinely flooded with Photoshop satire, some good and some bad. This one makes the A-list for being technically well done and right on the money with its sardonic point. Make sure to read the caption and feel free to pass along.

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Ordinarily I like my politics like my martinis, dry and not over-ginned. The business of setting policy is one that directly affects the lives of individuals, sometimes in life and death ways, and it deserves to be dealt with seriously. And then there comes along a sideshow that is so entertaining that being sucked into the distraction is unavoidable.

Such is the case with the sparring match between Mediaite.com’s Tommy Christopher and the founder of BigGovernment.com, Andrew Breitbart, that, like a barfight in a John Wayne movie, started in the metaphoric indoors of columns and eventually crashed through the swinging doors where the two kicked up dust in what serves as our modern town square, the public chatspace on Twitter.

The tangle began on the scene at the Conservative Political Action Committee 2010 annual conference in Washington, D.C., where some observers say that Christopher baited Breitbart into a verbal scuffle by accusing him of racism in connection with the investigative reporting conducted by Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe to expose possible fraudulent practices by ACORN employees. Christopher vehemently denies this claim although his Mediaite column on the subject seemed to lead readers subtly back in the direction of revisiting the issue of race.

The fight dragged over onto Twitter Monday and Tuesday with Christopher (@tommyxtopher) and Breitbart (@andrewbreitbart) exchanging sarcastic barbs, each combative wordsmith oscillating between attack and defense, bait and evade, and hit and run.

The dust-up between ultra-conservative Breitbart and, well, every political writer left of David Broder should come as no surprise to Breitbart himself. His bellicose, bull-in-the-china-shop approach is something he identified on his own when writing a brilliant column last year that ran in The Washington Times under the headline “I, Jerk.”

In the column, Breitbart tells the story of a night out with his wife ruined when, having jumped to the conclusion that their streetside supper in Santa Monica was being spoiled by a protest against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, he flipped the bird at a group of people who were, he would later find out, marching against the forced conscription of children in Uganda. Breitbart wrote:

In this day of polarized politics, it’s incumbent on good citizens to be vigorously truthful. Even in the heat of battle, partisans should own up to their mistakes. Rectifying errors builds credibility. Honest self-criticism ensures a healthy debate and a healthier democracy.

OK, fine. I messed up.

It will be up to the parties involved to consider Breitbart’s wise advice and choose whether to follow the model he described. Truth should always be a higher calling than partisanship and the defense of one’s own pride, but neither does the verbal and textual jujitsu between two partisans represent any kind of breakdown in modern politics.

What does this whole fracas teach us if not that people do not agree, sometimes those disagreements become heated, personal, and less than civil. The real question is, “So what?”

If politeness and a reserved nature were prerequisites for participating in democratic discourse America would quite simply not exist. History has mellowed the mythical belligerence of patriot and Founding Father Samuel Adams, but there can be no doubt that his fanning of the flames of dissent against British rule in Boston was instrumental in setting the kindling conflict aflame.

Breitbart, just like Christopher and so many other passionate American voices, will let loose their ire when the stakes are high enough. Having people among us who care enough to risk embarrassment is a blessing we should not judge to capriciously.

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After a delay of more than a year, the Large Hadron Collider that straddles the French-Swiss border near Geneva is up and running. The $10 billion device — a European enterprise built to conduct critical experiments in subatomic particle physics that may eventually unlock secrets of the universe and lead to technological innovations currently confined to the world of science fiction — suffered a catastrophic failure only nine days after it was first turned on in September of 2008.

Initial operation of the collider is reported to have gone smoothly. The Washington Post reported:

Progress on restarting the machine, on the border between Switzerland and France, went faster than expected Friday evening and the first beam started circulating in a clockwise direction around the machine about 10 p.m., said James Gillies, spokesman for the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

The scientists have started preparing to circulate another beam in the opposite direction within the coming hours, Gillies said.

“We’ve still got some way to go before physics can begin, but with this milestone we’re well on the way,” said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer.

It has been suggested by some (read articles from last year in Time and The New York Times) that in the use of the collider for its ultimate purpose, the quest to discover the mysterious Higgs boson, also known as the “God particle,” other forces might be unleashed that could create a miniature black hole that would destroy the Earth. Scientists quickly debunked the notion, and the continued operation of the Large Hadron Collider without planetary destruction seems to evidence of their correctness. Of course, as CERN’s director suggests, the physics have not yet begun.

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If you’re one of the 2.6 million plus followers of President Barack Obama’s Twitter feed, you may or may not be surprised to learn that the surprisingly small number of “tweets” send out via his verified account on the social networking site aren’t really the president’s own words and thoughts. The Hill reported Monday morning that during a town hall with students in Shanghai, China, Obama admitted that he had never used the widely used microblogging service.

“First of all, let me say that I have never used Twitter,” Obama told students in response to a question submitted online and conveyed by his ambassador, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (R).

Obama continued, implying that physical limitations prevented him even from being a participant in the new communication utilized through handheld portable devices.

“I noticed that young people — they’re very busy with all these electronics,” the president joked. “My thumbs are too clumsy to type in things on the phone.”

Of course, all of this ‘aw, shucks,’ affected oafishness about newfangled gadgets should have alerted the team of image experts who maintain the Obama Persona to something that in the business of entertainment is referred to as a continuity error. Cut to The New York Times, November 15, 2008: “Say Goodbye to BlackBerry? If Obama Has To, Yes He Can,” an article that portrays Obama as a CrackBerry addict about to be forced to go cold turkey. From the article:

Sorry, Mr. President. Please surrender your BlackBerry.

Those are seven words President-elect Barack Obama is dreading but expecting to hear, friends and advisers say, when he takes office in 65 days.

For years, like legions of other professionals, Mr. Obama has been all but addicted to his BlackBerry. The device has rarely been far from his side — on most days, it was fastened to his belt — to provide a singular conduit to the outside world as the bubble around him grew tighter and tighter throughout his campaign.

As for the claim of clumsy presidential digits…

Aww, Barack, don’t be so modest. It looks as though your thumbs are doing fine.

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There are many ways to take time on Veteran’s Day to honor the sacrifices made by American men and women of all colors, creeds, and ethnic backgrounds. In so many ways, the individuals who have given so much of themselves, in some cases making the ultimate sacrifice, represent what is unique about America’s contribution to the humanity. When men and women don the uniform to place themselves between the evildoers of the world and innocent people in foreign lands whose misfortune began only with being born between the wrong lines on a map, this symbolizes the ultimate gift America bestows upon any who wish to accept it.

For those in the Greater Seattle area looking for ways to get more in touch with the meaning of Veteran’s Day, there are several options.

Visit the newly unveiled Medal of Honor memorial on the beautiful Seattle campus of the University of Washington. The memorial honors the eight UW alumni who have received the highest military honor that can be bestowed upon an individual and was formally dedicated in a ceremony Wednesday morning that was attended by Rep. Dave Reichert and at which fellow UW alum and Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli spoke.

The memorial is installed in the roundabout where Memorial Way (the road entering the campus through the northern gate) lands in front of Parrington Hall. Lining Memorial Way are 58 sycamore trees planted to honor UW faculty and students who died in World War I, making a visit to this place a way to remember our local sacrifices.

Make a donation to the USO. Although the popular impression of the USO is of an entertainment organization, brining smiles to the troops, their work extends beyond that very worthwhile service.

Watch television. Local public broadcaster KCTS 9 is offering a full slate of prime-time programming to commemorate this important day. The line-up begins at 7:00 p.m. with a musical tribute to American veterans featuring Michael Feinstein and Irish tenor Ronan Tynan in front of the powerful United States Air Force Band, and accompanied by the Singing Sergeants chorus. At 8:00 p.m. is Secrets of the Dead, a program that tells the story of a US air crew in World War II who are forced to bailout over Japanese-occupied Borneo and how are taken in by an indigenous tribe who assist them in evading capture. Two more Veteran’s Day-themed programs will keep you busy until bedtime.

Remember those who may have been forgotten. Since 1927, the Evergreen-Washelli cemetery (11111 Aurora Ave. North, Seattle, WA) has had a goal of creating “The Arlington of the West” in its Veteran’s Memorial Cemetery. Although the caretakers do a fantastic job of placing flags on the thousands of graves of fallen soldiers and their spouses, there is always room for carnations placed in honor on the resting places of many unattended souls. The site also features a number of historical artifacts, including a pair of cannonade from the USS Constitution that became famous as “Old Ironsides” during the War of 1812.

First and foremost, take the time if you see a man or woman in uniform to thank them for their service. The work they do should never be taken for granted.

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The reactions of the National Organization for Women (NOW) to two stories emerging the two big morality stories emerging from the world of entertainment – talk show host David Letterman’s on-air revelation of his pathological womanizing and the arrest of fugitive and film director Roman Polanski in Switzerland in connection with an decades-old conviction for child rape – seem to have broken away from the group’s history of applying a double-standard hinging on the politics of those involved. Do NOW’s recent statements signal a larger shift to attract a broader membership among women of all political and social stripes by taking positions that are more in line with its basic core purpose?

The group issued a statement Tuesday about how the Letterman controversy “sheds new light on the objectification of women” and “inappropriate behavior by men in power.” The comment seems a little stronger because it stands on the soapbox set down by NOW’s decision not to remain on the sidelines in the furor surrounding the Polanski arrest. The comments of NOW President Terry O’Neill were devoid of nuance, as reported by the Washington Times:

“He’s a criminal. He is a convicted criminal pedophile,” said Terry O’Neill, president of NOW. “How dare Roman Polanski think he could get away with this. I believe he has banked on men — powerful decision-makers — who are more intent on protecting rapists than children. This is the world Polanski is exploiting. It’s outrageous.”

NOW has benefited greatly from its Hollywood connections – some of its angels in LaLa-land may have already taken the other wide in the carefully orchestrated chichi slap fight occurring amongst A-list celebrities. Nevertheless, taking a stand in defense of women and against blatant oppression and rape is thoroughly in line with the organization’s purpose, more so than some of its other positions. If NOW does so at the cost of red-lining names from its list of platinum donors it could either be a designed play or a happy accident.

Certainly NOW cannot expect to woo huge numbers of conservative Christians to an overall agenda that pro-abortion policies, but the large contingent of hockey moms for whom women’s self-esteem takes precedence over the rights of the unborn, the Sarah Palin independents, may be a more stable foundation on which to structure long-term strategies.

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