Is it a bad sign that my father's disapproval of Al Jazeera only strengthens my ambition to work there someday? I have very little tolerance for hearsay; I still read the Blaze, and glance through the Drudge Report, even if I know Fred Clark's take is going to be twice as well-written and ten times as honest, because assuming I know what they're going to say is intellectually lazy, and eventually dishonest.

But the reaction to them here is, "Well, I imagine Goebbels' radio broadcasts were popular at the time, too." Which, yeah, no. Al Jazeera is one of the few - possibly the only - truly independent news source in the Middle East. "How do you know they're true? Who do you confirm it with?" ...any other international media outlet, two days later with all the context sawed off?

His remaining arguments were: 1) they're anti-Israel (how does he know? they're staffed by Muslims. Duh, don't be naive.) 2) What am I, some kind of Muslim sympathizer? To which it's honestly not worth marshaling an argument; any logic will fail against a worldview that puts millions of people into a "Generic Enemies" category without hesitation.

(I wrote that last on my sister's laptop yesterday evening. I dislike it; it falls trite and pointless and pseudo-philosophical. The thing about words is they're actually quite useless when they're most needed. It comes to this: I am sorry, deeply sorry, for the grief and pain caused by death. And what more is there to say on that?)