What’s New at urielw.com

February, 2006:

• Deceit Culture #8: Reducing Human Interference: One more inter-human barrier helps keep corporate communications channels clear.

• Deceit Culture #7: Diagnosing the Culture: Uriel, moved by great books and an often-great newspaper, issues a wake-up call.

• Cambridge deletes discussion of its false claims, citing libel concern: On Dec 13, 2005, an unusual action occurred on Cambridge University's electronic forum. A discussion containing over 47 messages from various participants was deleted. (Continued....)

• The Times Extends Warm Wishes to Urielw.com: Uriel is gratified to receive the Times's congratulations on his turn to personal advice-dispensing. The Times also undertakes to reflect and improve itself.

• Alito Angst: Uriel, warming to his new role, dispenses confidential personal advice to a reader facing trying circumstances.

• Deceit Culture 6: Uriel dispenses romantic advice to "Offended."

• Deceit Culture 5: Mileage runs, discerning stupidity, and the dignity of man.

• A Tool for Thought Declines: A look at the world's dominant word processor, as of 6 years into the 21'st century.

• Deceit Culture 4

• Deceit Culture 3

• Deceit Culture 2

• More Unfit News from the New York Times:
  • Phony medical testimony, or phony news article?: Do asbestos and silica suits against corporations often benefit from crooked medical testimony? Or is the Times painting a false picture for reasons of its own? And is this all-out attack on a specific doctor who's been charged with no crime warranted?

  • Expect Bolivian coca toothpaste, Times tells readers: Bolivia's front-running presidential candidate plans to legalize coca. But don't worry about cocaine, he says. The plan is to make "industrial" use of coca for toothpaste, for export to China and Europe. The Times reports impassively.

  • Prosecuting lies: Confused account: Confusing story on Austrian prosecution of Holocaust denier presents irrelevant statements from defense lawyer, plus commentary by Austrian pundits that's either impenetrable or trivial.

  • Chinese officials face-savers or killers?: Story fails to address a central issue: Are Chinese officials who tried to cover up a chemical spill face-savers or killers?

• Deceit Culture: Imagining a logical world.

• Times Breaches Heights of Illogic: Correspondence with office of New York Times ombudsman #2, Byron Calame.

• Uriel at Cambridge series continues. See Index.

• Correction -- urielw.com's first. See note at top of American Culture -- A Warning for China.

• Dogmatic Scientists Fight Rational Christians: On mainstream science's surprisingly faith-based opposition to the Intelligent Design theory.

• Hamlet Does Fundraising: Letter to Artistic Director Albert Schultz and others at Toronto's Soulpepper Theatre Company.

• Opinions at N.Y. Times Defy News Report: Columnists and others heap scorn on Bush's statement that New Orleans's levee breach was unexpected, while experts quoted in a news story back Bush. Presented with the contradictions, the Times Ombudsman refuses response.

• Uriel at Cambridge: Series of letters describing Uriel's stay at Cambridge University. Index shows up-to-date letter list.

• More Art, Less Worldly Lamentation: urielw.com switches tracks for a while; offers a reading recommendation if you'd like to do likewise. Mainstream press absurdities rage on.

• Updated Man-Corporate Interface: A True Parable of Our Times. Now featuring Bell Sympatico's "Executive Office of Customer Relations."

• Deception Shapes Public Opinion: To uphold democracy, the deceivers must be exposed.

• A Diseased Democracy: The systemic problems underlying the Guidant Corp. scandal. (Further followup on Heart Trouble.)

• Yet more on Irreconcilable Differences: In a single issue, the New York Times delivers a one-two punch to thoughts of communication amongst humans.

• Followup on Heart Trouble: Medical devices implanted in 50,000 patients have now been recalled, as Guidant Corp. copes with the aftermath of having had its secrets exposed by the New York Times.

• Heart Trouble: A medical devices company kept mum about a defect in a device that is surgically implanted within the chests of 24,000 people (as of June, 2005) -- until the flaw caused a death and the New York Times reported the story. The day the piece appeared in the Times, a doctor with ties to the company solicited urielw.com's support in attacking the "biased" and "shoddily reported" article. "In the interest of creating headlines and another NYT scoop," the doctor charged, the Times "has likely caused harm to innocent people."

• Pundits Reach Similar Ideas Without Communication: Guest New York Times columnist Matt Miller today joins my opinion bloc. (Continuation of Irreconcilable Differences.)

• Restaurateur's Heroism Tale Smells Fishy: Frédéric Geisweiller, proprietor of downtown Toronto's Le Select Bistro restaurant, advertises his alternate history of a legal defeat, in which he's no deadbeat but a defender of very important principles like francophone rights.

• Man-Corporate Interface: A True Parable of Our Times: A major communications company strives to cope with a communications challenge.

• Waffling on critics' objections to Bush nominee: More Unfit News from the New York Times. Illogical article highlights Bush-friendly points and leaves Democrats' objections unexplained. (Re "Senate Panel Is Set to Vote on Bolton Nomination Today," by Douglas Jehl, May 12, 2005.)

• The World's Last Remaining Ideology -- II: Reforms too reasonable to be considered.

• The World's Last Remaining Ideology: It shares with the opposing ideologies it vanquished a rigidity of faith and a blindness to reason.

• Supplemented List of Exams at urielw.com with one of my earliest exams -- Fall, 2000: China Agricultural University.

• Perp Sued After 10 Million Trespasses: The perpetrator was a publicly traded corporation, so law enforcement had to move gingerly.

• Communication Occurs in U.S. Senate: Followup to Irreconcilable Differences. Our disconnectedness turns out not to be absolute.

• Bolt from the Blue Smites Book Critic: Another public lecture, another cosmic happening!

• Meeting Ian McEwan: The links between the great writer and myself continue to proliferate.

• Part 4 of Issue Ratatouille: Robot smackdown follows remarks on Canada; Uriel mum about President Bush's dedication to sanctity of life; and the strange connections between Uriel and novelist Ian McEwan.

• Part 3 of Issue Ratatouille: More spoutings from Homo Rightwingus; screwups all around; special notes on Canada; and a refuge from the craziness.

• Toronto Star Doesn't Shine: A Toronto Star story about a murderer's sentencing doesn't make sense. I emailed the reporter ... and her response didn't make sense. I emailed the paper's ombudsperson ... and he/she ignored me.

  Correspondence and published article shown here.

• Cultural Incommensurability: Prof. Longxi Zhang of Hong Kong rebuts fallacies of unknowns; unknown author Nickolay Gurevich quotes self; and a former unknown's chronicle of China's diplomacy school is likened to Martin Luther's revolutionary Ninety-Five Theses (posted in Wittenberg).

• Two Trailer Park Moms: Thoughts on a winner at the 2005 Academy Awards.

• Part 2 of Issue Ratatouille: On Bush lies and Homo rightwingus.

• Emperor's Nudity Remarked: Establishment news media organ briefly tolerates glasnost with respect to Microsoft Windows®.

• Issue Ratatouille: A mixed salad of issues: Harvard University's president explanation for the low numbers of females in the sciences ("there are issues of intrinsic aptitude"); Olivia Judson's green spoon worms; the challenges to the theory of evolution and the ironically dogmatic responses of professional scientists; the New York Times's phony attacks on the blogosphere; and an idea from Times ombudsman Daniel Okrent that is actually ... wonderful.

• Updated exams at Uriel at LZU (questions and answers are shown) by adding hyperlinks to make source materials directly available.

• Journalism versus Capitalism: The bilious blogosphere ignores media expert Michael Wolff's insights on why the press isn't fulfilling its democratic role.

• "Never again": That oft-heard reflection on the Nazi Holocaust is as wishfully unrealistic as the misplaced certainty that preceded it -- that such barbarity could never flourish in the heart of civilized Europe.

• Evil not a PR concern, as long as no pix: Court upholds Bush admin actions that promote patronage. Is patronage not understood to be counter to public interest? No coherent rationalization appears. (Re "Trenton Loses Court Skirmish on Road Funds," by Josh Benson, New York Times, January 22, 2005.)

• The World's Beacon of Democracy -- Today: Harmony, goodwill, security. We would like our children to be headed towards that kind of world. And bland safety and comfort are not enough. Their future should also bring joy, excitement, human fulfillment. But our kids probably won't even get so much as safety and security....

• Chinese Journalist Sued in U.S. [removed]: A new New York Times failure; news report ignores central question: Does the suit have a legitimate basis? (Re "Chinese TV Director Sued by Falun Gong Claims Free Speech Protection in the U.S.," by Adam Liptak, January 2, 2005.)

See What WAS New at urielw.com for earlier additions to urielw.com.