Opinion In Brief

Greek soup

Tropical Storm Alpha died a silent death on Tuesday after crossing paths with the remnants of Hurricane Wilma to disappear into meteorological oblivion. But the storm’s historical significance remains – not since the hurricane naming system began have forecasters run out of the 21 official names and had to resort to using the Greek alphabet to name storms.

With rising global temperatures making more storms a possibility, we should act now to make sure next year’s stroms aren’t handed over to some foreign alphabet. Let’s use more of our own letters first. Wilma, the last named storm of the season, was only “W” – what about Xavier, Yancey and Zephyr?

If we still run out of letters, we could try using the names of Sesame Street characters, or something else ironic to help lighten the mood. Terrifying names like last year’s Hurricane Ivan inspired too many comparisons to a certain Russian historical figure, and we don’t need to give hurricanes a reason to sound more frightening than they already are.

We could even make up entirely new names – or use names from fictional novels. Our university’s own annual literary magazine and our sister publication, for example, recently changed its name from Millennium (which is apparently so last century) to Poictesme (pronounced pwa-TEM), a fictional land in the works of James Branch Cabell, the Richmond-born author for whom our library is named.

Just think of it – Hurricane Poictesme. The creative possibilities are endless.

Pressing issues

In July, the partially government-funded non-profit Freedom House rated the United States as the 27th most free press in the world, down from 15th last year. Now in October, another organization, Reporters without Borders, is less forgiving – according to them we’re now 44th, down more than 20 places from last year.

The main reason for the lower rankings was the indictment this year of New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who was jailed for refusing to reveal her source in the investigation about who leaked the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame to the press. Plame’s husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, was the author of a 2003 New York Times opinion piece that refuted the Bush administration’s claim that Saddam Hussein was seeking quantities of uranium in Africa, a reason given for the Iraq war.

Freedom House, however, also cites the increased production of government-produced news segments – so-called “video press releases” – that often run unedited on local stations, as well as grants given to political commentators by departments within the Bush administration to promote their policies.

Intimidating critics, paying commentators for opinions and government-produced news. It isn’t quite Soviet propaganda, nor is it quite bribery, but it certainy seems to have a delicious, creamy center – food for thought.