March 14, 2004

March Madness

By Richard Baehr
CBS, the broadcaster of the NCAA basketball championship tournament, has referred to the games by the moniker 'March Madness' for so many years, the term has entered the popular vernacular.    On a more serious geopolitical front, the news of the past few days has reminded us once again of why we live in an era where there is not only March madness but also monthly madness.  MSNBC just announced the double suicide bombing attacks on a chemical facility in Ashdod,  Israel, killing 9 Israelis, and 2 'militants'.   The 'militant' terminology was never used to describe the perpetrators of the slaughter on the Madrid trains Thursday, which killed over 200. I doubt that had the toll been higher in Israel, the characterization of the killers would have changed. This is not media madness, but calculated political differentiation. Palestinian terrorists are called militants because much of the media is indifferent, and won't judge the relative merits between the...(Read Full Article)