Haiku 091409

burnt orange
stains the small lake
summer’s end

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Recently, we read the following:

NPR: “Why 'GQ' Doesn't Want Russians To Read Its Story” by David Folkenflik

"For war journalist Scott Anderson, the most confounding part of his recent assignment for GQ magazine to explore the root of terrorist acts in Russia a decade ago wasn't the suggestion of treachery and subterfuge he found…

"It was the reception his story ultimately received in the United States.

" 'It was quite mysterious to me,' Anderson says. 'All of a sudden, it became clear that they were going to run the article but they were going to try to bury it under a rock as much as they possibly could…'

"His investigative piece, published in the September American edition of GQ, challenges the official line on a series of bombings that killed hundreds of people in 1999 in Russia. It profiles a former KGB agent who spoke in great detail and on the record, at no small risk to himself. But instead of trumpeting his reporting, GQ's corporate owners went to extraordinary lengths to try to ensure no Russians will ever see it…

" 'Conde Nast management has decided that the September issue of U.S. GQ magazine containing Scott Anderson's article 'Vladimir Putin's Dark Rise to Power' should not be distributed in Russia,' Birenz wrote.

"He ordered that the article could not be posted to the magazine's Web site. No copies of the American edition of the magazine could be sent to Russia or shown in any country to Russian government officials, journalists or advertisers. Additionally, the piece could not be published in other Conde Nast magazines abroad, nor publicized in any way… "

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And we thought:

…Conde Nast has decided to sequester significant information for what ends? It's a sad day when Big Business and Big Politics bare their stained teeth and decree that their ends take precedence over Journalism’s obligations...

Haiku 032209-a

Sentosa Island
"lets a hundred flowers bloom"
striped hyenas

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Recently, we read the following:

Washington Times: "Singapore court rules [Wall Street] Journal editor in contempt"

" A Singapore judge ruled a senior Wall Street Journal editor was in contempt of court Thursday for two editorials and a letter to the editor published last year about the city-state's judiciary, the attorney general's office said. Prosecutors said the editorials and letter questioned the independence of the judiciary from the ruling People's Action Party and that they implied that the country's courts stifle dissent.... High Court Justice Tay Yong Kwang fined [Melanie] Kirkpatrick 10,000 Singapore dollars ($6,549)....

"Journalist rights groups claim the government uses lawsuits to quash dissent. Singapore's leaders have sued journalists and political opponents several times in recent years for alleged defamation, winning damages against Bloomberg, The Economist and the International Herald Tribune.

"The government's harassment of the Wall Street Journal indicates a chronic inability to tolerate criticism and is very harmful to the country's image," Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said.

"The New York-based group Human Rights Watch urged Singapore last year to stop using defamation lawsuits to stifle criticism and bankrupt opposition politicians, citing a High Court decision in October to order Chee Soon Juan and his Singapore Democratic Party to pay $416,000 to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his father, Lee Kuan Yew, in damages from a 2006 case...."

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And we thought:

.... We've marveled at how clean, orderly, safe, and prosperous Singapore is -- a true tourism haven with great hotels, fine restaurants, unique places of interest, and department stores of well-known, international consumer brands and labels.

"Singapore is such a 'fine' city,'' all Singapore tourists and visitors who've seen the ubiquitous "signs" will assure you -- with a knowing smile. And some will add, softly, that it is essentially a benign dictatorship -- but a dictatorship just the same.

How much might a people give up for a "clean, orderly, safe, and prosperous" place to live? Should one culture measure another using the former's own standards of behavior? Or are there universal standards one can in fact invoke?....