HELIOLITH

Amidst the revolutionary innovation Google has spawned in the last few years, it seems tainted to me by the negative press and talk from playing nice with China’s censorship requests. I’m honestly not sure how I feel about their choice to play up to China’s national policy of flagrant disinformation, and how much ethical or karmic weight that choice carries. In contrast, it seems that here at home where media is allegedly free, their practice of linking far and wide is actually destabilizing the norm of homogenized domestic media.

I am really enjoying http://news.google.com lately. Every story I click through to takes me to some seemingly random, international media source, giving a new look at each issue. If I click on the “all 472 related »” link, I’m greeted with pages and pages of diverse twists on the same story, granted many are fed from the same wires.

I’ve reset my homepage. As much as I wish I could customize it more than they allow (I’d like an ultra-dense text-based layout), I am content for the time being just getting my news from a diversity of sources. Would an American Paper be as blunt about juxtaposing the following two quotes so closely?
CBC News: Bush was warned about threat of Katrina, video shows

“I don’t think any model could predict whether it’ll top the levees, but that’s obviously a grave concern,” said Max Mayfield, the Director of the U.S. National Hurricane Centre.

After the hurricane struck, Bush later went on television saying: “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.”

As cliché as it may be, I can’t help but feel like moving to Canada for a little more perspective, especially when so many of my own compatriots are so bewildered by the spin.