Machine Guns Aimed at Children
(in San Francisco)
By John C. Dvorak
While the state of the media is pretty bad it’s hard to imagine how bad until the King Abdullah of Jordan rolls by in his limo in downtown San Francisco surrounded by the local Police and various black SUVs including one with some character pointing a machine gun out the window at Christmas shoppers, my children included. You just might think this was a little odd — and disconcerting.
This was the exact situation last Thursday. I’ve been meaning to write about it but I’ve been waiting for some reporting on this visit. The only thing I initially managed to find was a short one paragraph mention in a San Jose Mercury gossip column which merely cited the fact that the King would be speaking at the Commonwealth Club on Saturday night. It was a sold out event. I thought this was peculiar since he just spoke last April here.
So what happened? My family and I happened to be walking across the street from Union square after visiting the St. Francis Hotel to look at the new Michael Mina restaurant. One look down Post Street and suddenly a slew of police lights went up as if all hell broke loose. We walked across the street to see what was going on and saw various limos, armored SUVs and bodyguards everywhere and machine guns! One fellow’s head was out his window with a machine gun pointed at the public. Holiday shoppers. Seasons greetings folks.
It took no effort to find out who this was as I simply solicited the various valet guys on the street. It was the King of Jordan after his dinner at Mortons on Post. I’m thinking Mortons? He comes to San Francisco to eat at a chain restaurant? He must really like Mortons.
We were on our way to pick up my car to head across the Bay Bridge.
Ten minutes later, upon entering the bridge, right in front of me was a diplomat’s car with consul plates — a black Jaguar with the oval country symbol “A” meaning Austria. The guy almost hit a barrier and was swerving excessively. I know that Yassar Arafat did a lot of business with Jordan and according to reports had lots of money squirreled away in Austria. The coincidence did not go by me unnoticed. Exactly why he was headed towards Oakland or Berkeley was somewhat mysterious. At first I figured that they were headed to Reno to party. Maybe it was to meet the King and perhaps the King’s jet was at the Oakland Airport or even Hayward, where the smart money lands. There is probably a story here somewhere but since it’s not about an actress or TV show there is no newsman to report on it. I sure don’t get paid to follow up on this. I wait and wait for coverage and on Sunday there is an article about the Abdullah speech that runs in the Chronicle — a rehash of it. Nothing more. It’s online here.
Does anyone interview him? No. Is he on TV? Not that I could tell. There are canned PR-directed celebrity and entertainment news stories to do instead.
I do decide to search some of the local papers to see what kind of news we get instead of foreign affairs news in an age of globalization and offshoring. If Britney Spears is around that gets covered, that’s for sure.
And I did find this interesting article that seems oh so much more important
Here’s the opening to the article:
Los Angeles — She smokes. She strips. She does a full split in bra and panties. She performs a lap dance, then spits in the guy’s face. She cries and spies and aims well-chosen obscenities like so many rocket-propelled grenades into the heart of each of her unhappy lovers.
It’s a Natalie Portman we haven’t seen before.
Uh, and who gives a crap?
The following weeks are filled with coverage about her and her newest movies. Filled!
I have worked in newsrooms and I blame nobody but the editors for this sorry state of affairs. I know what they do. They claim that in these situations that they are giving the public what it wants. Who cares about some king. Who cares that machine guns are being brandished in city streets during holiday shopping in the main shopping district. People want to know about Natalie Portman and her spitting.
The fact is that people look to the media for guidance as to what is important. If they write about how important it is that the king is in town then people will think that it is important. If the media thinks that Natalie Portman spitting is important then people will think that this is important. This is not a culture of coffee house debate and thoughtfulness. It’s mostly a matter-of-fact workaday folks who go along with what they are told. After all the news people are experts and they are to be trusted as to what is important. The public is trusting. The newspapers and the media lead, not follow. It’s a fact.
For getting us off track into today’s sorry state of reporting I blame the most famous editor in our modern era. Jim Bellows.
An imaginative and passionate crusader, as the youngest editor of the New York Herald Tribune, he ushered in the era of New Journalism with his amazing stable of writers, from Tom Wolfe and Gail Sheehy to Jimmy Breslin and Dick Schaap. He was one of the first journalists to spot the growing public appetite for entertainment and celebrity news, reflected in: the gossip column by Joyce Haber which he launched in the Los Angeles Times; the infamous “Ear” gossip column in The Washington Star, begun when he was the editor there; his first venture in television as the managing editor of the then-fledgling Entertainment Tonight; and his stint as the West Coast Bureau Chief of TV Guide.
Jim has done it all – from newspapers and magazines to television and the Internet – with grace, style and guts. Doing it his way and never playing it safe, whether marrying for the third time, fathering his fourth daughter at the age of 50, or joining an Internet startup at 72,
He’s the most famous because he endeared himself to a lot of writers of his era. And he says he’s the most famous. Maybe he is. The long term results of his work are a scab on the American psyche. He and others credit him for the discovery that people are more inclined to vapid celebrity news than anything else if given a choice between well-packaged celebrity news and poorly packaged important news. He’s one of the go-to guys who put together ET — Entertainment Tonight in 1981. Because of this show and its syndication success TV news in general flaunts entertainment industry news above all else. Last night I was watching the questionable 60 Minutes II and it began with a good story about dirty bombs followed by a terrific story about marketing to pre-teens then a story about a Kevin Bacon movie. Huh? A Kevin Bacon movie? That’s journalism? Bellows is the key influencer regarding this crap. He’s extolled as a genius in the journalism community. Everyone loves the guy.
In fact, by creating a culture of entertainment mavens the media has created a monster. A dumbfuck public. Good work Bellows. Cheers! Thanks to you the public has machine guns pointed at their kids by some exempt/immune foreign nationals and people read about spitting actresses instead.
What I don�t understand is exactly why they (the media) have done this. I can easily understand why Disney does it at ABC, but why do the newspapers? Is it just so they can get those huge full page ads for crummy movies? Pathetic.
The media is no longer serving the public. Nobody gives a flying leap about Natalie Portman spitting and analyzing it in detail while ignoring machine guns in the streets in a shopping district. Really, the star struck editors need to understand this. Hey, you�re on a daily local newspaper. Tell people what�s going on in their city — not what is going on in a movie. Or are you just as vapid as these stories?
You — the readers — will have to personally ask them why the coverage is dumbed down like this. When they say it�s what the public wants, tell them, �Bullshit!�
It does seem a little odd that this foreign leader can cruise through our country with such an escort.
I have never seen a U.S. president in the person, but I would wager that he and his entourage (secret service) does not travel in such a manner. Sure they are armed, but aiming a weapon into a crowd is totally different.
So if this is so, why do they (foreign VIPs) get this liberty?
You seem to be suggesting that there is some inherint responsibility to being a journalist. I’m not sure this is the case.
Newspapers are in the business of selling ads. That is reality. Whatever they have to print, to increase circulation, to sell more ads, is what they will do. It is simply a fact that discussing a movie that millions of people want to see has more appeal than discussing an event that only effected a few hundred.
Is this right? Not really. But then again, I don’t read newspapers, so I don’t care. When I travel to the States I actually find all your news sources appauling. Everything (save the Internet) your masses have access to is sensationalistic tripe, often on just this side of propaganda.
I would love it if journalists believed in their duty to impartially, thoroughly, inform the public, and that their editors let them do that, unobstructed. However, now that the MTV generation (yup, that’s me) rules the world, and we’ve become accustomed to comfortably digestable 15 second sound bites, I don’t know that we’re going to want to move to a thoughtful, thinking, debating society. That just doesn’t appear to be the way the tide is turning.
It’s an interesting story that you tell. I have been cut up in traffic by some minor royal and would nbe pretty fed up to have guns pointed in my direction.
I have to take issue with you regarding your repetition of the allegation that Arafat had money stashed away. It’s a very convenient pro Israel story and an irrelvance that only serves to mask Israel’s theft of Arab-settled lands and a century of ethnic cleansing.
John
The business climate surrounding news has changed. TV news didn’t make a dime during the whole Cronkite/Brinkley era. Loss-making news divisions were accepted as a loss leader and a civic duty. Now all the media bosses insist news divisions make money. Hence the shift to stories that people will actually watch.
John, there may be a diehard bunch of educated, interested people who will watch news in order to be informed, but most people float in and out of the audience based on their interest in the story.
The glorification of celebrity began and is continued by forces far more numerous and powerful (emotionally, not politically) than news coverage, including our inborn desire for celebrity. To be celebrated just for being us. I really think news organizations are following the culture, not leading it.
Meanwhile, “john”:
Come on. It’s common knowledge in Palestine, let alone the rest of the world, that Arafat, the PA, and Fatah were and are corrupt. Given his reputation with his own followers, he’d be a moron not to have something stashed away. You act like a corruption charge is a horrible slander against his great name.
Talking about Arafat and the Palestinians the way they are, as well as Israelis and the way they are (just as brutal and prejudiced), is not a convenience or mask of the “real issues”. It’s frank assessment of reality, which is the only thing that will allow peace to move forward.
This leads me to read between the lines of “N”‘s post above. He wants journalists to “impartially, thoroughly, inform the public”. While I believe British journalism does this better than most in the US, when people say something like this, they usually mean “tell the reader my side’s take on the story”. There’s a lot of pressure to provide more “sophisticated, in-depth” coverage, which invariably means analysis embedded in a story but passing as reporting of facts. The most common example is when the reporter throws in some background information in a sentence or paragragh like “The President has been pressured to blah, blah” or “There’s a growing chorus questioning blah”, which 60% of the time is a fair and necessary summary of the situation, and the rest of the time is debatable and strikes of bias.
I guess I’m saying that in many cases “thorough” and “impartial” can be contradictory goals in reporting, unless the reporter is very disciplined.
But most people don’t care, they just want to hear analysis that jibes with their world-view, so they don’t have to do the analysis themselves, or think about the other side of the issue. OR, not so pathetic, they want to hear opinions (and “reporting/analysis”) from those who share their premises about how the world works. No one wants to hear the rantings of a diehard Communist on why our economy does not work perfectly. Same goes in many cases for most news. No reporting is perfectly impartial, so you might as well get yours from someone whose glasses are tinted the same color as your own.
And editors give them what they want, because Fox News proves that that works for ratings. See first paragraph above.
Let’s not forget though that newspapers are now mostly part of “media convergence” and because of “synergy” they are a nothing more than a rather troublesome local front for big media’s PR people. Look at the masthead! Where I live the biggest phone company owns the biggest newspaper! So I would say that even when there isn’t a direct profit motive there’s an indirect one and that indirect motive is a recent phenomenon.
John, I only agree about 110%.
Just a side note about the car badge, though. If it had an “A” — and also an Austrian flag or the word “Austria” on it, this was something produced for sale to anglophones. The Austrian insurance badge [which is what they are — confirming your car is insured in the EU] has an “O” on it for Osterreich.
“A” insurance badges are for Australia, I believe.
Otherwise, I can’t comment on your experience without losing my temper even more than usual. I class the thugs who work for thugs somewhere down around car-jackers. I’ve been a bodyguard in a few scary political situations — and know in detail what that requires. It doesn’t include waving around your heat or threatening innocent bystanders. That was a gangster appropriate to the thief he was guarding.
The site below which defines ALL international country codes as I cited says AUS is Australia and A is Austria. I researched the “A” before i did the post knowing that the Austrians country begins with “O.” But I did the look up before commenting. That said I now recall that I have seen the code in Austria too. I realized I have never seen an ‘O.” Have you EVER EVER EVER seen a car with an “O”???
http://users.pandora.be/worldstandards/carcodes.htm
the site is in Belgium incidentally…
TC Moore said “You act like a corruption charge is a horrible slander against his (Arafat’s) great name.” Arafat’s reputation is now academic, though I do suspect history won’t be as kind to his political skills as it will be to say Gerry Adams.
The trouble is that those who repeatedly make this allegation bloat the amount and really couldn’t care less about a just peace or whether Arafat or the PA is corrupt. Its only real purpose is to undermine (at least in American minds) the legitimacy of the Palestinians’ claim to recover at least the lands stolen since 1967. The PA is corrupt, so Israel has another excuse to keep troops and settlers in the Occupied Territories, another reason for routing the wall outside Israel’s borders, another reason to delay coming to the peace table.
I’ve seen it Europe, John, and I, too, looked around on the Web for up-to-date information and found squat. I remember going nuts my 1st trip [mostly on foot] through Europe and trying to figure out what country was “CH”. Until I finally arrived in Switzerland.
We have a fair chunk of wandering Kiwis and Ozzies in my neck of the woods who have NZ or A on their chiddies [a delightful, modern Navajo word]. It may be that the “A” is produced to keep Australians mellow — like the same products offered, Stateside.
I’ll keep looking.
Otherwise, keep lambasting the cop-outs who claim to be journalists.
I have never seen a U.S. president in the person, but I would wager that he and his entourage (secret service) does not travel in such a manner. Sure they are armed, but aiming a weapon into a crowd is totally different.
I remember when Hinkley shot Reagan – and all of a sudden Uzi’s “appeared” in the hands of several Secret Service agents. Lots of discussion about the “briefcases” some agents carried. 🙂
Anyway, I think we can all agree that San Francisco is not Beirut. Of course, neither is the current-day Beirut. 🙂
So there is no excuse for some idiot pointing a weapon into a crowd, or for the American escort to tolerate – and thereby condone – such behavior.
The US security details carry just as much armament and point it at the crowd just as often, they are just more subtle about it. The availability of “machine gun” briefcases has been widely known for decades. The guns dont even have to be removed from the cases to be fired. There are models which have a trigger in the handle and others that just have a hole in one side of the suitcase to put your arm into. To aim his gun at you, all a secret service agent has to do is tilt his briefcase to the side a bit.
Why are you so worked up about a few government agents with machine guns? This is the desired end-game of gun control. “When guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns.” Are you angry that the “gun free paradise” you live in is actually awash in guns, only they are in the hands of people you dont trust?
wow, machine guns pointed at kids, you shouldnt of gone over there if you thought all hell broke loose. and it probably wasnt a machine gun, it was probably a copy of one, a semi-automatic gun. it looks mean, but really isnt. learn about machine guns and what you are talking about before you express your feelings.
thanks
Wow, you are right. What was I thinking? Being in the good secure US of A I should have immediately jumped for cover and pulled the kids out of the way. Maybe I should just move to Lebanon where it’s safer. Oh, and by the way, jerk-off, I know guns and it looked exactly like a MAC-11 AKA machine gun (minimally). And what else would they be carrying given the immunity? BB guns?? Besides. Who cares? They are pointing guns at the public. Do YOU like guns pointed at you? What kind of jerk (you?) defends this behavior?
and it probably wasnt a machine gun, it was probably a copy of one, a semi-automatic gun. it looks mean, but really isnt.
Ah yes, being “only” semi-auto makes everything okay!
I can’t wait until we start discussing the finer points of “Assault” rifles vs. “Battle” rifles.
Or, people who use the word “clip”, when the correct term is “magazine” (and I have used 5-round strips/clips to load 20-round magazines for an M-14). 🙂
Does it really matter whether the gun was a fully-automatic, semi-automatic or single shot? The primary issue is that these bozos were carelessly pointing weapons at people. That’s a sever error in judgment taught in gun safety 101. I’d be as livid as John if some bozo pointed a gun in a crowd and at my family.
BTW, don’t tell me anyone here actually believes that the “assault weapon” (whatever that is) ban was a good idea? The “assault weapons” ban is one of the most idiotic pieces of legislation ever crafted. It basically says that weapons that “look” bad are banned regardless of the fact that all guns operate basically on the same mechanism. It would be like banning a make of car because it “looks fast” ignoring what’s under the hood.
And that is why I do not go to SF – ever – – which is 20 minutes north of me.