By Timothy Messer-Kruse (Chronicle of Higher Education) For the past 10 years I’ve immersed myself in the details of one of the most famous events in American labor history, the Haymarket riot and trial of 1886. Along the way I’ve written two books and a couple of articles about the episode. In some circles that affords me a presumption of expertise on the subject. Not, however, on Wikipedia.
A couple of years ago, on a slow day at the office, I decided to experiment with editing one particularly misleading assertion chiseled into the Wikipedia article. The description of the trial stated, “The prosecution, led by Julius Grinnell, did not offer evidence connecting any of the defendants with the bombing. … ”
Coincidentally, that is the claim that initially hooked me on the topic. In 2001 I was teaching a labor-history course, and our textbook contained nearly the same wording that appeared on Wikipedia. One of my students raised her hand: “If the trial went on for six weeks and no evidence was presented, what did they talk about all those days?” I’ve been working to answer her question ever since.
I have not resolved all the mysteries that surround the bombing, but I have dug deeply enough to be sure that the claim that the trial was bereft of evidence is flatly wrong. One hundred and eighteen witnesses were called to testify, many of them unindicted co-conspirators who detailed secret meetings where plans to attack police stations were mapped out, coded messages were placed in radical newspapers, and bombs were assembled in one of the defendants’ rooms.
In what was one of the first uses of forensic chemistry in an American courtroom, the city’s foremost chemists showed that the metallurgical profile of a bomb found in one of the anarchists’ homes was unlike any commercial metal but was similar in composition to a piece of shrapnel cut from the body of a slain police officer. So overwhelming was the evidence against one of the defendants that his lawyers even admitted that their client spent the afternoon before the Haymarket rally building bombs, arguing that he was acting in self-defense.
So I removed the line about there being “no evidence” and provided a full explanation in Wikipedia’s behind-the-scenes editing log. Within minutes my changes were reversed. The explanation: “You must provide reliable sources for your assertions to make changes along these lines to the article.”
That was curious, as I had cited the documents that proved my point, including verbatim testimony from the trial published online by the Library of Congress. I also noted one of my own peer-reviewed articles. One of the people who had assumed the role of keeper of this bit of history for Wikipedia quoted the Web site’s “undue weight” policy, which states that “articles should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views.” He then scolded me. “You should not delete information supported by the majority of sources to replace it with a minority view.”
The “undue weight” policy posed a problem. Scholars have been publishing the same ideas about the Haymarket case for more than a century. The last published bibliography of titles on the subject has 1,530 entries.
“Explain to me, then, how a ‘minority’ source with facts on its side would ever appear against a wrong ‘majority’ one?” I asked the Wiki-gatekeeper. He responded, “You’re more than welcome to discuss reliable sources here, that’s what the talk page is for. However, you might want to have a quick look at Wikipedia’s civility policy.”
I tried to edit the page again. Within 10 seconds I was informed that my citations to the primary documents were insufficient, as Wikipedia requires its contributors to rely on secondary sources, or, as my critic informed me, “published books.” Another editor cheerfully tutored me in what this means: “Wikipedia is not ‘truth,’ Wikipedia is ‘verifiability’ of reliable sources. Hence, if most secondary sources which are taken as reliable happen to repeat a flawed account or description of something, Wikipedia will echo that.”
via The ‘Undue Weight’ of Truth on Wikipedia – The Chronicle Review – The Chronicle of Higher Education.
By Gavon Laessig (BuzzFeed) Nancy Upton, the gorgeous prankster who satirized American Apparel’s condescending search for a plus-sized model with smutty and silly overindulgence photos, actually won the online contest! Then American Apparel acted all American Apparel and wouldn’t recognize her victory, even though she had far and away the most votes. Here are some more of the photos that lampooned the contest and won the hearts of online voters.
via Woman Who Made Fun Of American Apparel Contest Wins, American Apparel Act Like A Bunch Of Babies.
(RT) Under the National Operations Center NOC’s Media Monitoring Initiative that came out of DHS headquarters in November, Washington has the written permission to retain data on users of social media and online networking platforms.
Specifically, the DHS announced the NCO and its Office of Operations Coordination and Planning OPS can collect personal information from news anchors, journalists, reporters or anyone who may use “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.”
According to the Department of Homeland Security’s own definition of personal identifiable information, or PII, such data could consist of any intellect “that permits the identity of an individual to be directly or indirectly inferred, including any information which is linked or linkable to that individual.”
Previously established guidelines within the administration say that data could only be collected under authorization set forth by written code, but the new provisions in the NOC’s write-up means that any reporter, whether someone along the lines of Walter Cronkite or a budding blogger, can be victimized by the agency.
via Homeland Security monitors journalists — RT.
By James Hibberd (EW) Hardware store giant Lowe’s has yanked ads from the ‘All-American Muslim’ series after the Florida Family Association encouraged members to email the program’s advertisers.
“The show profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish,” the group said about the show, a docu-soap chronicling everyday Muslim families in Dearborn, Michigan that debuted last month. “Clearly this program is attempting to manipulate Americans into ignoring the threat of jihad and to influence them to believe that being concerned about the jihad threat would somehow victimize these nice people in this show.”
The organization posted a letter allegedly from a Lowe’s representative agreeing to pull its ads: “While we continue to advertise on various cable networks, including TLC, there are certain programs that do not meet Lowe’s advertising guidelines, including the show you brought to our attention. Lowe’s will no longer be advertising on that program.”
By Andy Bloxham (Telegraph UK) The BBC has dropped a climate change episode from its wildlife series Frozen Planet to help the show sell better abroad.
Frozen Planet, on BBC One, is the latest big budget series from the BBC’s Natural History Unit in Bristol, which was made in association with Discovery Channel and The Open University.
British viewers will see seven episodes, the last of which deals with global warming and the threat to the natural world posed by man.
However, viewers in other countries, including the United States, will only see six episodes.
The environmental programme has been relegated by the BBC to an “optional extra” alongside a behind-the-scenes documentary which foreign networks can ignore.
via BBC drops Frozen Planet’s climate change episode to sell show better abroad – Telegraph.
(Wikipedia) Rat Park was a study into drug addiction conducted in the late 1970s and published in 1980, by Canadian psychologist Bruce K. Alexander and his colleagues at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada.
Alexander’s hypothesis was that drugs do not cause addiction, and that the apparent addiction to opiate drugs commonly observed in laboratory rats exposed to it is attributable to their living conditions, and not to any addictive property of the drug itself.
He told the Canadian Senate in 2001 that prior experiments in which laboratory rats were kept isolated in cramped metal cages, tethered to a self-injection apparatus, show only that “severely distressed animals, like severely distressed people, will relieve their distress pharmacologically if they can.”
To test his hypothesis, Alexander built Rat Park, an 8.8 m2 95 sq ft housing colony, 200 times the square footage of a standard laboratory cage. There were 16–20 rats of both sexes in residence, an abundance of food, balls and wheels for play, and enough space for mating and raising litters.
The results of the experiment appeared to support his hypothesis. Rats who had been forced to consume morphine hydrochloride for 57 consecutive days were brought to Rat Park and given a choice between plain tap water and water laced with morphine. For the most part, they chose the plain water.
“Nothing that we tried,” Alexander wrote, “… produced anything that looked like addiction in rats that were housed in a reasonably normal environment.” Control groups of rats isolated in small cages consumed much more morphine in this and several subsequent experiments.
By Jules Siegel (Moronia) Anthony Weiner’s wife came home and told him to quit. He immediately complied. I can get behind that. If he persisted, she would have had to share the consequences. She would have it on him forever. This way, when she gets annoyed about his hanging around in his underwear surfing the Web instead of looking for a job, well, she did insist that their life together was more important than his career. He will never have to mention this. It will always be there. Every marriage must have grudge tokens like this to maintain the balance of power.
But what life together? Cynics like me ask where she was when he was alone in his office seeking companionship online. I remember when couples used to actually live together. I guess it’s more exciting meeting in hotel rooms when their paths cross. Also, you don’t have to deal with the sheets and towels.
There’s a huge generational divide on Weinergate. The general opinion I’m reading in forums mainly populated by youth such as Fark.com and Reddit.com is that Weiner was an idiot for not realizing that his private Twitter messages could easily become public, as well as for lying about this when it first broke. Only right wing trolls think there was anything wrong with what he did, other than betraying his wife in a very trivial way. It’s rumored that he lied to President Obama about it, too, even more stupid, because Obama was his best hope for lenient treatment.
The political consequences are serious. The Democratic Party party is bleeding older white men. One of the main reasons is that it has become identified too closely with feminists and women’s studies type, who have far too much power. Now it embarks on driving away young white men (and many women). Weiner was one of their most popular politicians, admired for his giant clanging brass balls.
Nancy Pelosi and Debbie Wasserman Schultz are perceived as castrating feminist bitches by many men. I don’t think they are bitches. This is the end result of feminism, the desexualization of the American male. They are going to display Weiner’s balls in the Capitol Rotund
a as an encouragement to the others. They will cast them in bell metal, like giant baby shoes, and add clappers. They will be called the Captivity Bells.
Despite this, Weinergate will continue to fascinate the punditocracy.The lamest scandal in American political history still has lots of clicks, not to speak of lulz. Please leave sex out of this. Profound moral issues at stake. It is definitely a major civics lesson. Consider Ginger Lee, one of Weiner’s six known sexting partners (if you leave out the fact that they were not sexting, that is).
I did an image search for her name. Eek! Not safe for work or family viewing. Don’t click that link if you are easily shocked or are at work or where your significant other can see your screen.
My computer is in the living room. No dear, I am not surfing the web for porn; just doing some political research.
Whew.
So here’s a lady who is famed for being utterly lewd in public for pay. Weiner exchanges a hundred or so text messages with her about — are you reading this or looking at the pictures? — politics.
In a few of them, he flirts a bit — unsuccessfully — and mentions his “package.” She puns about getting Weiner in the morning to her Twitter followers. Tee-hee. I am going to start a competing service called Titter, for people who like to snicker. Is Titter magazine still in business? Hmm.
No pictures are exchanged, no sexting.
Politics.
While I think the congressman is to be commended for talking with people in all walks of life outside the Beltway, others disagree. That was ok for another Jewish boy named Jesus. [Hey, Jules, can we get a swimming pool boy joke in here somewhere?]
When the story broke, she claims he told her to lie. Now this concerned citizen is stepping forward as her civic duty demand his resignation because he is a LIAR!
Oh, by the way, she’ll be performing at the Los Angeles Pussy Cat Club at three times her usual rate. Um, maybe it’s not called the Pussy Cat Club, but it is definitely a place for baring the flesh. A sharp-eyed reader has informed me that it is the Pink Lady in Atlanta. Well, OK then. I am afraid to do any more research myself. It’s wonderful to see people move up in life, though. Is this a great country or what?
By Jules Siegel (Moronia) In case you missed it, a Democratic congressman named Anthony Weiner sent a picture of his bulging briefs to a female college student who had invited him to add her to his private Twitter harem. Unfortunately he inserted the wrong code and sent it to all his zillion followers, none of whom saw it because he immediately deleted it, except for a rather unsavory guy who was stalking him. Enter right wing fake scandal monger Andrew Breitbart. Congressman Weiner freaks and issues awkwardly false denial. Pictures of other beautiful Weiner Twitter harem girls then appear. One of them proudly confesses to consensual virtual sex with him and publishes the transcript.
Abashed congressman withdraws denial and tearfully cops to being a stupid putz. The next thing you know, Sarah Palin’s totally unpolitical Paul Revere vacation tour (in a bus plastered with ads for her PAC) to warn the British that we aren’t giving up our guns is off the front pages and Weiner’s weiner is getting Nancy Pelosi all hot and bothered, even though the offending picture is not exactly Marky Mark 
Now, as weiner jokes tsunami the Internet, Weiner is in the bunker making apologetic phone calls to Democratic bigshots. Meanwhile, his wife is off being Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff while three months pregnant, arousing teabagger speculation that Hillary is really the baby’s father and that’s why Weiner was resorting to fooling around online instead of saving his precious sperm for post-morning sickness sex. He performed his duty, right? What more do people expect of him? He’s just Hillary’s beard, they chortle.
I think Anthony Weiner and his wife should go on the View and play this out in public like adult human beings. It will be better than Nixon’s Checkers speech. This totally lame scandal is about on the level of getting caught jerking off while looking in the mirror. Like who cares? No body fluids were exchanged. It’s thought crime. I’m sure his wife was annoyed, but she’s his wife. You can be sure she gets annoyed a lot. Don’t they all? I don’t see how voters were involved in this.
The GOP doesn’t see it that way, of course (except for Boehner, who has not ventured an opinion, possibly because the Enquirer is reporting that he’s boning a blonde lady to whom he is definitely not married, as it would be bigamy). Once again, however, Democratic girly men (and women) are showing their utter lack of backbone, just as they stampeded to betray Bill Clinton. This could revive Joe Lieberman’s career as a Quisling sell-out. As usual they let the GOP set the rules and the agenda. This is why we lost the House in 2010. The youth vote does not consider sexting a moral flaw, you know.
I feel Pelosi should carry out an internal investigation and announce that Weiner did nothing illegal or unethical as a congressman. She can admonish him for imprudent behavior. The issue is then closed. Criticisms should be answered with an offer to sacrifice Weiner in exchange for Vitter’s resignation. When they complain that a representative for a senator isn’t a fair exchange, she should answer that life is not fair. If it were, Weiner wouldn’t be under inquisition barrage. Weiner’s and Vitter’s indiscretions are minutiae at worst. No non-theological corporation in the world would fire anyone over this.
I submitted this to HuffPost but tend to doubt that they will let this through. They seem to be in the IMPEACH THE SCOUNDREL camp. One of the moderators will surely kill it for failure to play by feminist political correctness rules. Also, I said jerking off and boning, very immodest terms, far worse than Marky Mark grabbing his own penis. Feminists are understandably offended because Anthony Weiner sent suggestive pictures to ladies he was dating online and they didn’t complain because of being programmed to accept male domination. He must resign because of the ick factor, wrote one otherwise usually sensible female Facebook friend. Sexting with consensual partners is icky, she explained, not because it’s really icky, as in body fluids and all, but because it’s politically icky. I am not making that up.
This is the letter I sent him yesterday instead of doing my assigned work, thereby incurring the annoyance of my bride, the beauteous Anita Brown, who can’t understand why I would find writing about Weinergate more compelling than making money and throwing it away on useless luxuries such as food. Despite that, she brought home flowers for me. Send the little homemaker flowers, Congressman Weiner, preferably white roses. This might not be the right time for a crotch picture, though.
Dear Congressman Weiner:
I don’t live or vote in your district, but I am a New Yorker, even though I’ve lived in Mexico since 1981, in Cancun since 1983. I vote in the Chelsea district, for Jerrold Nadler.
I’m writing to express my 100% support and admiration for you and also to give you some advice. You’ve got to fight back on this one by shaming the shamers. You committed a marital indiscretion, at worst. Your sex life prior to your marriage is nobody’s business but your own. These women sought you out, sent you their pictures and even eagerly cooperated in your mutual loveplay. They enjoyed it and so did you. These were intimate moments that were just as valid as anything that takes place while dating, not to speak of underwear advertising.
You can understand why your partners chose to expose what you did together. It might be considered a betrayal, but you understand how desperate people are in these awful times. Perhaps they also wanted to share the pleasure you had together (if not the publication fees) and even to support you by showing the real you. Now that it’s all out in the open, you invite people to look at these texts and photographs. You even give them a link.
You forcefully assert that you’re not ashamed of anything in them, except for the discomfort that they cause your beloved wife, who is the only victim here. Marriages survive on the ability to absorb and learn from the hurts we inevitably cause each other.
You didn’t promise your constituents that you would submit to castration. You promised you would represent their interests to the best of your ability. You’re sorry that your private life has provided the prudes with a distraction from the real issues that face us today, such as 25 million Americans looking for work.
I truly hope that you will understand and appreciate my advice. Many thanks for your service to the goals and fundamental beliefs of socially progressive people everywhere. I’m proud that you are out there working for me. Talk from the heart. Be funny. Be strong. You can win this.
With my very best wishes for your success.
By Russ Belville (Examiner) Apparently the National Cancer Institute got a talking to from someone, because now that page has been scrubbed of any reference to the direct antitumoral effects of cannabis.
Lacie Lowry, News On 6
MAIMI, Oklahoma — A sting targeting underage drinking reveals a shocking surprise. Agents investigating a strip club in Ottawa County say they saw illegal sex acts, numerous liquor violations — and a 14-year-old boy working at the club.
“It was kind of shocking,” said Erik Smoot, an agent with the ABLE Commission.
“It’s not an environment that even a boy wants to work in. He’s working until two in the morning. He goes to school; he sees what nobody should see at 14.”
The boy is the son of the club owner, Tammie Pennel.
