Today’s video of the day comes from The O’Reilly Factor, where Bill and I debated George Carlin’s comments about the California fires.

About 30 minutes ago, I got a phone call from Rev. Jesse Jackson’s daugter, Santita, asking me if I wanted to come on her radio show to discuss the Genarlow Wilson verdict. Since I had been in meetings all day and hadn’t checked the news wire, my heart froze. After a few quick keystrokes, I read the news: GENARLOW WAS FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For the past 32 months, I have been intimately involved in the struggle to free Genarlow. Without question, nothing has been more gratifying than working for his release. More importantly, I have had the extreme pleasure of working with Genarlow Wilson’s incredible attorney, B.J. Bernstein. Without B.J.’s tireless advocacy, none of this would have happened. I’m so proud to have met her and learned from her extraordinary example. Additionally, I want to give thanks to all of the bloggers, radio hosts, and social justice advocates who have written, spoken, called, and marched for justice.

As I have said before: When we fight, we win! In this case, thousands of us organized and struggled. As a result, Genarlow is getting his life back. Still, in the midst of our tears of joy, let us not divert our ideas from the challenges that remain in front of us! After all, there are more Genarlows –and Jenas– throughout the world that demand our attention.

Let us keep fighting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For the past 32 months, Genarlow Wilson has been sitting in a prison cell for consensual oral sex with a fellow teenager. About 20 minutes ago, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled 4-3 in favor of upholding a Monroe County ruling that ordered Genarlow Wilson free. The court’s opinion, in part, stated:

Although society has a significant interest in protecting children from premature sexual activity, we must acknowledge that Wilson’s crime does not rise to the level of culpability of adults who prey on children and that, for the law to punish Wilson as it would an adult, with the extraordinarily harsh punishment of ten years in prison without the possibility of probation or parole, appears to be grossly disproportionate to his crime.

Amen.

Donnie McClurkin and Perfecting Gays
By John Ridley

Among the great advice my father gave me as a child — besides never buy tires at full price — was that the only thing lower than a car dealer is a used car dealer, and car dealers are scum of the earth.

To paraphrase — the only thing worse than a bigot is a black bigot…

And to take it a step further would be to include a black bigot who drapes himself in the cloth and hates in the name of the Lord.

And, yet, there is Donnie McClurkin who’s planning an SRO three day stand with the brother who would be president, Barack Obama.

A lot of folks are calling McClurkin anti gay or a gay hater or a straight out homophobe ’cause he says that he’s in a “war” against homosexuality, and homosexuality is a choice and gays can be fixed.

A lot like, I’m sure, Ann Coulter would tell you Jews can be perfected — and while we’re on the subject of the absurd, the Patriots can be beaten because their passing offense really can be stopped.

For the rest of the story, click here.

Editing tactics known as “white-washing” may compromise Wikipedia’s future as a democratic source of reliable information.

Will Unethical Editing Destroy Wikipedia’s Credibility?
By Eric Haas 

Wikipedia is making a tremendous contribution to the democratization of information. But the release of WikiScanner has pointed out some flies in its operational ointment. It also reminded me of a joke about a man wanting to know what 2 + 2 equaled. Everyone told him four until he came upon an accountant who whispered, “What would you like it to be?” Nothing personal against accountants, it just seems that we have become so jaded by spin that we believe nothing is absolute. How then do we separate information that is truth from lies, damned lies, and statistics? Wikipedia has an opportunity to play an important role in answering this question in a way that reaches millions of people worldwide.

Wikipedia has been attempting to get to the truth by requiring the use of facts, not opinions, in its entries and relying on the integrity of open-source editors to adhere to its rules. As WikiScanner is demonstrating, this is not enough. More transparency safeguards should be put in place. But more importantly for the long run, Wikipedia will need to resolve some kinks in its understanding of the links between facts, neutrality, and truth.

Wikipedia seeks entries that are written from a “neutral point of view” (NPOV). Every editor has a point of view, so Wikipedia has some basic guidelines for editing that include a prohibition on creating or editing an entry about one’s self or organization and a requirement that editors present “facts” — which Wikipedia defines as “piece[s] of information about which there is no serious dispute.” WikiScanner is documenting that some editors have been blatantly violating these rules.

The predominant violation is that people and institutions from politicians to the CIA to Diebold to ExxonMobil to the Democratic Headquarters have been anonymously changing their own entries or the entries of their opponents, to make them more positive or negative, respectively. These acts are clearly inappropriate, but, as a problem, they appear to have some ready solutions. Adding additional levels of editor identification will make Wikipedia more transparent and will likely make these rule violations more obvious and less likely. WikiScanner works well for this, and Wikipedia should encourage its use. More aggressive administrator oversight will help, too. It appears that Wikipedia administrators have been stepping it up, actively investigating suspicious edits and locking downs some entries with severe problems. Additional steps, like coloring young passages, might also become necessary as the extent of the violations emerges.

But another editing practice, what WikiScanner creator, Virgil Griffith, called “white washing” is more problematic, because it violates the logic, but likely not the letter, of Wikipedia’s guidelines. In this way, it challenges Wikipedia’s reliance on factual accuracy both as neutrality and as a means to truth.

For the rest of the story, click here.