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Sexpat Journalists Are Ruining Asia Coverage

Once, a fellow journalist exited our shared taxi outside my apartment. I thought we were sharing a cab to our respective homes, but he had other expectations, and suddenly his tongue was in my face. On another evening, another journalist grabbed my wrist and dragged me out of a nightclub without a word. I was clearly too drunk to consent; it was a caveman approach to get me into bed while I was intoxicated. And on yet another occasion, in a Beijing restaurant, a Western public relations executive reached under my dress and grabbed my crotch.

The incidents aren’t limited by proximity. I have received multiple unsolicited “dick pics” from foreign correspondents — generally on the highly monitored messaging service WeChat

I have received multiple unsolicited “dick pics” from foreign correspondents — generally on the highly monitored messaging service WeChat

. Somewhere deep in the Chinese surveillance apparatus there is a startling collection of images of journalists’ genitalia.

The #MeToo campaign has reminded us of how common these stories are — but the behavior of foreign men working abroad has, in my experience, been far worse than anything I ever experienced at home. Fortunately for me, I’ve experienced this only as part of the wider journalist community, not in my own workplaces – but others haven’t been so lucky. The phenomenon is not a problem unique to the press, but it’s one that’s especially problematic for journalists.

A somber meeting this Tuesday of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China, which represents the interests of foreign journalists in a difficult local environment, provided another painful example of this. As the New York Times reported, former club president Jonathan Kaiman, who had resigned in January after being accused of sexual misconduct by Laura Tucker, a former friend of his, was now accused of sexually assaulting a female journalist, Felicia Sonmez. After the second accusation, the Los Angeles Times quickly suspended him from his role as Beijing bureau chief and has begun an investigation. But as the Hong Kong Free Press noted, the original accusation had prompted many male correspondents to launch misogynistic attacks on Tucker in online conversations.

Such actions, and entitlement, reflect a sense of privilege and a penchant for sexual aggression that threatens to distort the stories told about Asia, and that too often leaves the telling in the hands of the same men preying on their colleagues. I have seen correspondents I know to be serial offenders in private take the lead role in reporting on the sufferings of Asian women, or boast of their bravery in covering human rights. In too many stories, Asian men are treated as the sole meaningful actors, while Asian women are reduced to sex objects or victims. And this bad behavior — and the bad coverage that follows — is a pattern that repeats across Asia, from Tokyo to Phnom Penh.

To be sure, some of the most vocal male advocates for women I’ve known have been people reacting against this dynamic among their peers. But a few good men aside, the entitlement and actions of many of the men I have encountered in media-related industries from Hong Kong and Beijing was unlike anything I encountered at home in Vancouver, Canada, or as a student in New York. The corrosive culture of expatriates spans multiple countries, and bad sexual behavior — dubbed “sexpat behavior” in the expat world — is hardly confined to tourists. Often the worst damage is done by men ensconced in positions of influence in journalism, diplomacy, and international business.

Often the worst damage is done by men ensconced in positions of influence in journalism, diplomacy, and international business.

At the core of the problem is a lack of accountability. Behavior that could (or should) get you fired in New York often goes unremarked on in Beijing or Kuala Lumpur, where remote foreign offices have little contact with the home base and, in some cases, no mechanisms for employees to report abuse. Even when cases are reported, correspondents are sometimes simply quietly transferred to another part of Asia.

“I think a lot of expat men — especially in China and Southeast Asia — have a pretty messed up view of women,” a male photographer based in southern China says. He requested anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak with press. “I think some of them get away with being one way at home, but when they find themselves in these places where sex is so easily available — especially if you’re a white dude and some local women see status in that — some men abuse it.”

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/05/18/sexpat-journalists-are-ruining-asia-coverage/

>>1471755

>>1471774

Will you explain, please.

The Inspector General's Report Will Expose the MSM as Treasonous

One of the more notable differences between Watergate and the metastasizing scandals involving the FBI, our intelligence agencies, and the Obama administration – subjects of the soon-to-be-released inspector general's report – is that the media exposed Watergate. They aided and abetted the current transgressions.

By providing a willing and virtually unquestioned repository for every anonymous leaker (as long as he or she was on the "right" side) in Washington and beyond, the press has evolved from being part of the solution to being a major part of the problem. Gone are the days of the true "whistle-blower." Here are the days of the special interest provocateur, shaping public opinion by passing on half-truths and outright lies to their favorite reporter. One might then even call the media, in Orwell's words, "objectively pro-fascist," functioning much in the manner of Pravda and Izvestia during that famous author's time, covertly or overtly pushing the party line in the most slavish and orthodox manner while feigning "objectivity."

CNN, NBC, the Washington Post and The New York Times – misinforming the public as it hasn't since the days of their great Stalin-excuser Walter Duranty (still pictured on their Pulitzer wall of honor) – are particularly egregious in this regard. But there are many others.

And the current scandal is far, far worse than Watergate, which, bad as it was, was the coverup of a completely unnecessary buffoon-like break-in during an election that was already won in a landslide. What is being exposed now is an attempt by our highest law enforcement agency working in concert with our intelligence agencies and, evidently, the blessing of the former administration itself to block the candidate of the opposing party, even to defraud and spy on him, that is to, as others have said, "set him up." And then, if they were unsuccessful, make it impossible for him to govern. In addition, in all probability, the same players conspired to make certain Hillary Clinton was not indicted for a crime for which virtually any other American would have done jail time.

Forget Donald Trump. Forget whoever is running. It could be your Aunt Fanny or Willam Buckley's random person from the Boston telephone directory. Forget whatever party we are talking about. This is the stuff of high treason of a type not imaginable to almost all of us in our lifetimes as American citizens. I and others have compared this plot to Lavrentiy Beria and the NKVD. At first, I admit, I was exaggerating a bit for effect. Now, not so much.

What we have here are people who think they are "good" driven to evil by their own self-righteousness.

So what will the mainstream media who participated so heavily in this, who were in effect the enabler of this disgraceful anti-democratic enterprise, do when the inspector general's report is finally published?

https://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/the-inspector-generals-report-will-expose-the-msm-as-treasonous/

>>1471858

Continues: The Inspector General's Report Will Expose the MSM as Treasonous

We may have gotten a taste in the nervous reaction of CNN's Jake Tapper to an informative series of tweets from the WSJ's Kimberley Strassel on the matter. Roughly a year ago, Mr. Tapper famously accused Donald Trump of himself being a purveyor of "fake news" for alleging he was being wiretapped (what an understatement that turned out to be!). Instead of apologizing for being wildly wrong or even acknowledging his mistake, Tapper tweaked Ms. Strassel for accidentally tweeting "Hurricane Crossfire" rather than "Crossfire Hurricane" (the name the FBI cribbed from Mick Jagger as a trendy name for their repellent activities).

Tapper is considered one of the more intelligent and putatively responsible of the MSM crew. If he is unable to face this coming press Armageddon, few will be. They bet the house that Donald Trump was the worst man in the room, but it turned out, and will be made quite explicit I would imagine, that there were many men and women far worse than he. It's not even close.

An interesting sidelight is the degree to which Watergate itself inspired the present level of reportorial corruption by launching "leaks" (i. e. Deep Throat and company) as the royal road to journalistic success, Pulitzer prizes, and Hollywood fame. In a sense, that would put journalism today in its Robespierre period, going further and further out onto a limb for a story until the limb falls off.

Whether Barack Obama himself will be looped definitively into the IG's report, we don't know at this time. But we all know where the fish rots from and we also know that Obama, despite his denials, knew well that Hilary was using an illegal server. He wrote her there himself under an assumed name, showing he was only slightly more computer savvy than John Podesta.

These next few weeks are going to be among the most interesting in our lifetimes – especially for our friends in the press. We know from the NYT earlier this week they are preparing their excuses. Let's hope they don't have enough.

I don't know why Alex Jones reports this. I have not found any sources yet. Attention seeking?

Breaking: Mueller’s Russiagate Investigation Now Targeting Alex Jones & Infowars

https://www.infowars.com/breaking-muellers-russiagate-investigation-now-targeting-alex-jones-infowars/

>>1472058

Something is seriously wrong with him. He needs to be stopped.

USDA Unveils Prototypes For GMO Food Labels, And They're … Confusing

Foods that contains genetically modified ingredients will soon have a special label.

We recently got the first glimpse of what that label might look like, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture released its proposed guidelines.

This is the product of a decades-long fight between anti-GMO campaigners and Big Agriculture companies, which left neither side completely satisfied, as NPR has reported.

After Congress passed a bill in 2016 requiring labels on foods containing GMO ingredients, the USDA launched a long process to figure out the specifics. When it asked for feedback, it received 112,000 responses from consumers, farmers and manufacturers, among others.

The result?

There are a few options, and they look kind of like the labels you'd see on health food. They're brightly colored, with greens and blues and yellows. They feature the letters B-E. Below that, some of them have a curved line.

"I mean, they look like a little smiley face," says George Kimbrell, the legal director for the Center for Food Safety, which has pushed for labeling. "They're very pro-biotech, cartoonishly so, and to that extent are, you know, not just imparting information but instead are essentially propaganda for the industry."

Other options include a smiling sun, or a circle with growing plants.

The letters B-E stand for bioengineered — a term critics say is unfamiliar to the U.S. consumer, compared to more commonly used phrases like genetically engineered or GMO.

Grocery store shelves already have a lot of products with the label non-GMO, many of which include an image of a butterfly on a blade of grass.

"It's misleading and confusing to consumers to now switch that up and use a totally different term, bioengineered, that has not been the standard commonplace nomenclature for all of this time," says Kimbrell. He says he'd prefer these foods to be labeled with a circle saying "G" or "GMO."

The USDA said it was not able to speak about the labels until they are finalized.

And industry representatives such as Nathan Fields, the director of biotechnology and crop inputs at the National Corn Growers Association, say the new term provides a clean slate.

"There's some connotations around some of the terms that have been used that do cast the technology in a negative light," says Fields. More than 90 percent of the corn grown in the U.S. is genetically engineered, though Fields says he does not expect the labels to negatively impact the industry.

The National Corn Growers Association was supportive when Congress passed the mandatory disclosure standards, in part because states such as Vermont were creating their own rules about labeling genetically engineered foods. Fields says they were concerned about a state-by-state patchwork of laws, preferring a single national standard.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/05/19/612063389/usda-unveils-prototypes-for-gmo-food-labels-and-theyre-confusing

James Levine Accused Of Sexual Misconduct By 5 More Men

In a suit filed Friday by the Metropolitan Opera, five men have made newly public accusations against conductor and pianist James Levine, who was closely associated with the Met for four decades. In total, nine men have now come forward, either by name or anonymously, with accusations against Levine.

https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2018/05/19/612621436/james-levine-accused-of-sexual-misconduct-by-5-more-men

>>1472224

!!!

US Department of Monsanto (a.k.a USDA)

We think of Monsanto and other companies as developers and promoters of GMOs. But thanks to passage of the Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986, as well as President Reagan’s Executive Order #12591—“Facilitating Access to Science and Technology”—the USDA is also directly in the business of developing, patenting, and promoting biotechnology inventions. The difference is that the USDA slips the patents, developed from government research and paid for by US taxpayers, into the hands of private companies such as Monsanto and Syngenta.

You read that right. According to the USDA’s own Agricultural Research Service (ARS), about sixty new patents are issued for USDA inventions each year. These patents are then transferred through licenses to the private sector—mostly to biotech companies. ARS has released more than 400 new crop germplasm lines since 2000, and the USDA spends about $220 million taxpayer dollars on biotechnology research each year.

A cursory search through the recent inventions of the USDA reveals nearly two dozen inventions in the “plant genes” and “crop protection” categories. These patents range from the use of RNA interference to control gypsy moth populations, to genetically altered citrus plants that protect the plant from citrus greening and citrus canker. The USDA’s research into plant genes includes isolating genes in peach, plum, almond, and apricot trees that can be manipulated to affect tree shape with “desired branch angles.” Another patent uses double-stranded RNA constructs to inhibit the expression of certain proteins and kill aphids. There are many more such examples.

MORE: http://www.anh-usa.org/us-department-of-monsanto-a-k-a-usda/

>>1472318

Not me.

>>1471805

You need to get out more often.