Caribbean Nesties
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: Are you following the Wikileaks story?
I'm not sure I care to know about something that will never change. I think government have to operate with some degree of secrecy when it comes to national security. So, in that way, I think we are better off not knowing about it because no one should know about it and journalists should not report it if it jeopardizes national security.
Yeah, the problem is not having specifics makes this hard to talk about.
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Off the top of my head, things that could jeopardize national security:
The Pentagon Papers
Proof the Bush administration knowingly manipulated intelligence to make it seem like there were WMDs in Iraq
Proof of torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo
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Things we can't do anything about:
Secret wars in Laos and Cambodia
Iran-Contra
Attempts to overthrow or assassinate legitimately elected leaders in South America
This?
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The current kerfuffle might not be on the same scale, but I hesitate to set limits beforehand on what can be shared. Seemingly minor stories like Watergate come to mind. In the absence of a good test for whether or not the potential harm outweighs the benefit to the public knowing, it seems like the safest thing to do is allow the release. There are no professional standards for journalists (and it would be creppy for the gov't to set licensing requirements) so we also have to accept that less responsible persons will also be making decisions about what to share and when.
But again, that debate doesn't seem to get at the subject to me.
To me, the state of journalism today is like watching Good Night and Good Luck and having Edward R Murrow make his case not that the House Un-American Committees was antithetical to our rights and freedoms, but instead giving a play-by-play of who is ahead on the committee, which party is keeping better discipline and speculating how it will affect the coming election. As if that were the important story.
I recently read a blog calling modern political journalism the church of the savvy, and the accusations are drearily fitting.
"The meek shall inherit the earth" isn't about children. It's about deer. We're all going to get messed the fuckup by a bunch of cloned super-deer.- samfish2bcrab
Sometimes I wonder if scientists have never seen a sci-fi movie before. "Oh yes, let's create a super species of deer. NOTHING COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG." I wonder if State Farm offers a Zombie Deer Attack policy. -CaliopeSpidrman
I'm not 100% convinced that journalism is in such a dire state. I kind of wonder if it's more one of those looking back at the good ol' days things. Everything on your list has been covered by major news orgs. And both sides biitch and moan about the news media's complicity with the other guys, so maybe that's a good sign.
However, even if you believe that the news media does a shiitty job, I still cannot see how Assange dumping all this info, without thought or consideration, will change it. Is the thought that the NYT will be so scared that someone will get information (that the NYT didn't even have) and publish online will push the NYT to publish everything they do get or even more of what they do get? Even if we want that outcome, it just seems really unlikely to me. I suspect (and hope) the result of this will be the government gets its head out of its ass and institutes better standards and checks on who can access sensitive info. And, if adult professionals maybe decide to stop putting middle school slambook insults in emails, so much the better.