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Today's reading list

• News Analysis: Overhaul of U.S. intelligence still has far to go
• God, American History and a Fifth-Grade Class
• Mush Journalism Lets The Lie Spread
• Army Spun Tale Around Ill-Fated Mission
• The 6 Myths Of Creativity

• News Analysis: Overhaul of U.S. intelligence still has far to go

[ via International Herald Tribune ]

Assesses the deficiencies of the new intelligence bill:

[T]he national intelligence director will be constrained in the ability to wield that authority, operating at a further bureaucratic step removed from spies, analysts and others on whom intelligence successes and failures ultimately depend.

[N]owhere in any of the blueprints is a clear plan for how intelligence agencies might address what the Sept. 11 commission described as the "failure of imagination" that kept intelligence agencies from adequately foreseeing and thwarting those attacks.

• God, American History and a Fifth-Grade Class

[ via The New York Times ]

• Mush Journalism Lets The Lie Spread

[ via Seeing The Forest ]

The NYT article reports on a San Francisco 5th grade teacher who is teaching Christianity along side social studies lessons. The blog article takes the NYT to task, along with most news outlets, for not emphasizing the manipulation of this story by the Christian right. The school banned the teacher from distributing supplemental handouts that discussed the Christian aspects of the Declaration of Independence. This and similar reprimands were being reported by pundits on the right as "ban[ning] the Declaration of Independence." And, of course, the most over-used and meaningless accusation was then made: the school was being politically correct.

Finally, and possibly most important, Seeing The Forest points to this extensive eRiposte article on the story. I have only picked through it, but it looks extremely informative.

• Army Spun Tale Around Ill-Fated Mission

[ via Washington Post ]

Discusses the recently revealed, and previously distorted, story of Pat Tillman's death. The documents report a chain of botched communications, a misguided order to divide [Tillman's] platoon over the objection of its leader and undisciplined firing by fellow Rangers. The details of the article make Tillman's story sound very much like that of Jessica Lynch: a random event in the war that, though otherwise unglorious, is easily spun as propaganda.

• The 6 Myths Of Creativity

[ via Fast Company ]

Tells us what we all already knew (despite the overblown assertion this groundbreaking study is already overturning some long-held beliefs about innovation in the workplace): money doesn't help, pressure doesn't help, competition doesn't help. However their #1 point that everyone can be creative is notable and true. And they close with the zinger when people are doing work that they love and they're allowed to deeply engage in it -- and when the work itself is valued and recognized -- then creativity will flourish.