How Do You Like Me Now?

Okay. Obama's leaving for a big economic summit (the G-20) in London. The G-20 is a group of twenty western nations that meet periodically. Often the meetings are greeted with demonstrations (which sometimes get violent).

The problem this time is coming from inside. French President Nicolas Sarkozy (he's the head of state married to singer/model Carla Bruni) has his knickers all in a twist (as the Brits say). Seems that if he isn't assured that the conference will go his way, he's going to walk out.

“The crisis is too serious to have a summit for nothing,” Sarkozy told reporters today in Chatellerault, western France. The French president urged the G-20 to begin a reform of “global capitalism” and said the forces resisting his push for international regulation are “very strong.” Sarkozy wants to give more economic oversight power to the International Monetary Fund, and more financial oversight to an institution that would derive from the Financial Stability Forum, a group that brings together senior representatives of national financial authorities, regulators, central banks and international financial institutions.

Now I can guess what you're thinking. "So what else is new? Go take a hike, Jacques! Would you like an order of Freedom Fries with that?" (Am I right?)

But wait a minute. When Sarkozy was elected into office, he was known as "Sarkozy the American". He was very palsy with the Bush Administration, and he greatly admired the American business ethic. The French work work is, by law, 35 hours per week, and a great part of France takes the month of August off for vacation. (The American work week is forty hours, but most salaried employees nowadays work much more than that.)

Now, all of a sudden, he's into government regulation. Ah, mon dieu!

Suggestion Box

As you know, I'm encouraging people to utilize the "suggestion boxes" set up by Student Council. Here's one you might consider for THS: drug sniffing dogs.

They're doing just that at Millburn (NJ) High School. Well, they must have big problems there, you're probably thinking. On the contrary, they were recently named the best high school in New Jersey (by New Jersey Monthly), and 97th best in the country (by U. S. News and World Report). They have some problems, sure.

A sampling of the police blotter from this month showed two 15-year-olds charged with drinking at a party on March 14, and on March 7, three Millburn students, ages 13 to 15, were charged with possessing alcohol. On Jan. 9 a local minister, the Rev. Darryl L. George, 58, of Short Hills, was arrested at the school along with two of his sons, accused of attacking a Millburn High student in a school parking lot. Some witnesses said the victim, an 18-year-old senior who received minor injuries, was hit with a baseball bat. That encounter resulted in assault charges against the minister and his older son, and the suspension of his 15-year-old son, a student at the school.

The New York Cicil Liberties Union opposes the initiative, saying that "police dog searches 'incompatible with nurturing environments that are supposed to be conducive to adolescent education,' and argued that school districts must create a careful balance between school safety and student rights." But the school's principal proclaims that “I willingly risk student trust if it saves a single life."

It may sound extreme. I'd rather not see police dogs in school, and generally I side with the ACLU. But we don't want to have what happened in Glastonbury happen here. And it could happen, any day.

R. I. P. Christian Science Monitor (sort Of)

The Christian Science Monitor was established in 1908 by Mary Baker Eddy, who was the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist (Christian Science) religion. Although CSM includes an article about religion in every edition (it used to publish Monday though Friday), its mission was to present the news of the world, and not to proselytize or evangelize for Christian Science.

Like many other newspapers, this one has succeumbed to financial pressures. You will no longer be able find the CSM at your newstand. But it will still be on-line, and their may be a weekly edition in their future.

As the final daily issue of the 100-year-old Christian Science Monitor was put to bed Thursday, the newspaper was planning its rebirth as a spruced-up weekly.

Meanwhile, the Monitor's free Web site will get more frequent updates from dozens of its reporters, who will be expected to quickly post material to the site and take video and gather audio.

Editor John Yemma hopes these changes will help the seven-time Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper boost its $12.5 million in annual revenue, even with the recession. The transition caps two years of preparations for the newspaper, whose average circulation is fewer than 50,000 _ down from a peak of 223,000 in 1970.

They were a respected news-gathering organization.


(If any of you went to the Wikipedia entry on the church, you'll notice that the website warned you of the presence of "weasel-words" in this article.)

Weasel words are words or phrases that seemingly support statements without attributing opinions to verifiable sources. They give the force of authority to a statement without letting the reader decide whether the source of the opinion is reliable. If a statement can't stand on its own without weasel words, it lacks neutral point of view; either a source for the statement should be found, or the statement should be removed. If a statement can stand without weasel words, they may be undermining its neutrality and the statement may be better off standing without them.

Now it goes without saying that an astute internet tuber should always "consider the source", and that goes for Wikipedia, too (which I like and respect in many ways).

The Table is Getting Bare

Any thoughts, class?

Earth Hour -- Slide Show

Yesterday night, 8:30 - 9:30, was "Earth Hour". Did you remember? Did you turn off your power? Some of it? Granted, it was more a symbolic gesture than anything, sometimes symbolic gestures count (and soemtimes they only just make us feel good).

Here's a slide show of how Earth Hour was celebrated around the world.

Of course, not everybody likes the idea of preserving the environment.

Get 'em While They're Young

You can help, too! Which of your classmates is a potential terrorist?

Two hundred schoolchildren in Britain, some as young as 13, have been identified as potential terrorists by a police scheme that aims to spot youngsters who are "vulnerable" to Islamic radicalisation. The programme, run by the Association of Chief Police Officers, asks teachers, parents and other community figures to be vigilant for signs that may indicate an attraction to extreme views or susceptibility to being "groomed" by radicalisers. Sir Norman, whose force covers the area in which all four 7 July 2005 bombers grew up, said: "What will often manifest itself is what might be regarded as racism and the adoption of bad attitudes towards 'the West'.

As you can probably guess by the funky spelling, this article is from England: but why not here?

How to Defeat Islamo-Fascism (Part II)

Facebook!

Facebook recently launched an Arabic version of its popular social networking site in a bid to expand its presence among the 250 million Arabic-speaking people of the world. Facebook enlisted the help of 850 Arabic speakers in the site’s design, asking them to discuss and vote on the best translations. . . In the Middle East, where political expression is largely dominated by the state, the expansion of Facebook to Arabic-only speakers is a potentially big deal. Last year, Facebook’s largely censorship-free environment helped Egyptian activists organize anti-regime protests. This has caused some Arab regimes to crack down on the social networking site. Egyptian authorities arrested and roughed up the creator of a Facebook group that promoted last year’s protest, while Syria has previously blocked all access to the site.

Or this?

Cassandra Award Winner

I'm sure you remember Cassandra, one of the daughters of King Priam of Troy. She was given the gift of prophecy by Apollo, but when he wanted something in return for his gift (if you know what I mean), she refused. So Apollo added one little stipulation: she would have the gift of prophecy, but no one would take seriously what she was saying. (I know the feeling.)

So does Byron Dorgan, senator from North Dakota, who in 1999 warned us:

"I think we will look back in 10 years' time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930's is true in 2010. I wasn't around during the 1930's or the debate over Glass-Steagall. But I was here in the early 1980's when it was decided to allow the expansion of savings and loans. We have now decided in the name of modernization to forget the lessons of the past, of safety and of soundness."

(Oh, the picture? That's not Cassandra the prophetess, it's Cassandra Wilson, a jazz singer. Go here to hear her version of Bob Marley's "Redemption Song". Maybe you'll like it better than Joe Strummer's.)

Not So Fast There, Longfellow!

Actually, this one's not so funny. A man in Queens, New York, was taking out his garbage when he heard something whiz by him.

When he looked up, he said he saw a metal-tipped hunting arrow protruding from a wall near his front door.

The earlier arrow shooting was just a range arrow, apparently shot by accident. You'd be hard-pressed to kill anybody with that. With a hunting arrow, though? That's a sick individual.

Audio from the Supremes

Not those Supremes.















Those Supremes.



They are not coming to TV anytime soon, but you can hear audio recordings of the Oral Arguemtns made by lawyers, and the questions asked by the judges. Fascinating stuff.

It Wasn't Longfellow's Arrow. . .

he's dead. Which is generally an airtight alibi.

They caught the guy in the Bronx who shot a woman getting out of her car with an arrow. It was an accident.

He's moving into the house where his grandfather grew up. (Oddly enough, his grandfather was one of set of quadruplets. ) He finds an old bow and arrow in the garage -- I've got one in mine -- and he takes it out in the backyard and shoots at the fence. The arrow goes through the fence, and winds up in Denise Delgado Brown's abdomen.

It wasn't his fault, but he should have 'fessed up. New York's finest always get their man.

Leave Jackpot Jimmy Alone!!!!

"Jackpot Jimmy" is the moniker given by the New York Post to AIG executive James Haas, who, per the terms of his signed contract, got a big bonus. The problem is that AIG has been bailed out by the government -- by the taxpayer -- so big bonuses for this failing company strikes most of us as wrong.

Many executives received bonuses; Haas and two others have had their names made public. In protest, the Connecticut Working Families Party organized a bus tour, one that would take of tour of these executives' Fairfield County homes.

Organizers called it “Lifestyles of the Rich and Infamous” — a bus tour of the Fairfield homes of two A.I.G. executives. It was organized by the Connecticut Working Families Party, a coalition of labor and community groups. For the participants, the tour was street theater or sorts, bringing the public outrage over the bonuses to the doorsteps of A.I.G. employees.

Luckily, things didn't get ugly.

In the end, the outrage was left on the bus. Outside the executives’ homes, there was only civility on display, and awkward but polite exchanges with stone-faced security guards. Ms. Huguley left her letter in the black mailbox at Mr. Poling’s home, and Mr. Dziubek read his letter and slipped it into the mailbox outside the residence of James Haas, another A.I.G. executive who lives in Fairfield.

“It was never the intent to have any sort of mob action,” said Jon Green, the director of the Connecticut Working Families Party. Mr. Green and others aboard the bus said they did not feel that they had crossed a line or infringed on anyone’s privacy or property. Mr. Green said the two executives were chosen — they had wanted to visit a third but ran out of time — because their names had been reported. “We felt that given the climate, we didn’t need to be outing other individuals,” he added.

Still, something about this makes me nervous. While I think that with the way things are in this world, for people to make millions of dollars is both sinful and obscene. But I worry about crazy people, about angry crazy people.

They're out there.

"Tea Party" in Orlando

Nearby Disneyworld may be the "happiest place on Earth" but 4,000 residents of nearby Orlando are not so happy. In fact, they're "mad as hell".

"We're really scared about what's happening in our country," said Debby Whisenand, 71, of Largo in Pinellas County. She waved a sign that read "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money" on one side, and "You can't blame Bush anymore" on the other.

Socialism! Why, you'd have to be an idiot to endorse socialism!

Now, in point of fact, Florida doesn't do so badly when it comes to redistribution of wealth. For every dollar they send to Washington, they get $1.08 back. That's right in the middle, 26th place among the fifty states. Here in Connecticut -- 69 cents. 48th place. (Thank you, big spending Democrats.)

Help Save the Earth!

Next Saturday, March 28th, you may want to celebrate "Earth Hour".

During Earth Hour, citizens of the world are asked to turn off their power for one hour, starting at 8:30 p.m. local time, in a symbolic stance against global warming. The World Wildlife Fund started the event two years ago in Sydney, with 2.2 million people and thousands of businesses going dark. The next year, more than 400 cities on all seven continents participated. Some high-wattage landmarks even got involved, including the Sydney Opera House and, in New York, the Coke billboard in Times Square and the Empire State Building.

Yeah, sure, big deal. Who's going to do that? (you may be saying).

For 2009, so far nearly 1,200 cities — including Chicago, Guatemala City, Vancouver, B.C., Mumbai and Bangkok — in 80 countries have signed on.

And all you have to do is turn off all the power from 8:30 to 9:30. But here's the rub -- at night!

If you try to do it, you're going to have to unplug a lot of appliances: the energy vampires.

Cutting Edge

You've seen this poster before. (Take my word for it -- you have.) I don't know where I came across it, but I loved the sentiment, and I ordered a copy. It was originally designed in England during the Blitz of World War II, when German bombs are falling on London. No need to panic lads. Keep on with your business.

Now it turns out that, in these unsettled times, the poster has become a big seller.

There is no fuss, no frills, no clever design or wordplay, just the crown of George VI on a red background and a five-word message: Keep Calm And Carry On.

It is a veritable stiff upper-lip of a poster and has been heralded the 'greatest motivational poster ever'. It hangs on walls everywhere from Buckingham Palace to the National Trust HQ, No10 to the officers' mess in Basra.

Its message pops up on mugs, mouse mats, tea towels, T-shirts (David Beckham reportedly has one), rugs and even the cover of a recent magazine for hedge fund managers.

Personally, I've been trying not to panic for almost two years now. Welcome, World!

Pete Seeger's Turning 90. . .

and, as John told us, Bruce Springsteen is throwing him a big bash at Madison Square Garden.

Maybe you don't think you know Pete Seeger, but I bet you've heard some of his work. (Sorry, but the following links are mostly YouTube, so we won't be able to get them from school.)

You must have heard "If I Had a Hammer", probably the Peter, Paul, and Mary version.

Or you must have heard "Turn, Turn, Turn", adapted by Pete from the book of "Ecclesiastes" in the Old Testament. Here's a short video on how he came to write it. And here's a version with Pete and a contemporary folkie, Dar Williams. You should check out Dar. She'll be there.

He did not write "We Shall Overcome", but he was involved in its adoption as a civil rights anthem.

He was also an indefatigable fighter for worker's rights. "Which Side Are You On?" is about coal miners trying to unionize in Kentucky in the 1930's. Here's an updated version of the song by Billy Bragg, another singer whom, if you don't already know, you should. Billy will be at MSG on May 3rd.

And finally, Pete wrote the anti-war/pro-peace anthem "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

Poetry, set to music, can be powerful and dangerous (see Marley, Bob).

South by Southwest

Here's the home page. And here you can find music samples. (You might want to put your headphones on in case of POMS.)

Extra point if you can tell me why I chose this illustration for this post.

Back to Nature!

This article from the stodgy New York Times, sometimes called "The Old Grey Lady".

In recent years, it has become fashionable for a growing number of Swiss and some foreigners to wander in the Alps clad in little more than hiking shoes and sun screen. Last summer, the number of nude hikers increased to such an extent that the hills often seemed alive with the sound of everything but the swish of trousers.

Mr. Hepenstrick, 54, is an architect who loves to hike in the altogether. In winter, he said, he has hiked for hours in temperatures well below freezing, though he does concede the need for a hat and gloves.

(A mitten might come in handy, too.)

He has hiked in the nude for about 30 years, he said, and has crisscrossed the hills and mountains around Appenzell, as well as in France, Germany, Italy and even the Appalachians.
Why does he take off his clothes? “There’s not much to discuss,” he said. “It’s freedom. First, freedom in your head; then, freedom of the body.”

And who says the Times doesn't have a sense of humor?

What offended her [Edith Sklorz, 48] equally though, was the government’s choice of responding to the hikers with a law. Recently, the neighboring town of Gossau passed a measure banning spitting in public, she said, threatening offenders with a $50 fine; and now a law to ban nude hikers. “For every tiny thing, there’s a law,” she said.

(Mr. Sklorz could not be reached for comment.)

Walmart is not the Beast!

We thought it might be because we heard that Walmart employees were getting a bonus of $666. And then we started speculating about the founder of Walmart -- Samuel (6 letters) Walton (6 letters). Would his middle name have six letters, perhaps. Is the smiley face actually the mark of the Beast?

Well, I did some checking, and the results are at once reassuring and a bit unsettling. Sam Walton's middle name? Moore.

That's right. Sam Moore Walton. Do-do-do-do!

Newspapers Are Dying (Part I)

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer will publish its final issue tomorrow (or today, or March 17, 2009, depending on when you read this.

The Hearst Corporation, a multimedia conglomerate which owns it, has decided this, and will lay off 145 of the P-I's 165 employees.

The Post-Intelligencer will not die, exactly. It will only exist in cyberspace, where it will merge with something called Crosscut.com, which I take it is one of a news breed of news-hybrids, in which "the journalism of regular citizens appears alongside that of professionals." But you'll no longer be able to buy a copy at your newsstand, or unfold it at your local coffee shop. To me, that's a cryin' shame.

Here's part of Crosscut's description of what they're all about.

Based in Seattle, Crosscut is a guide to local and Northwest news, a place to report and discuss local news, and a platform for new tools to convey local news. The journalism of regular citizens appears alongside that of professionals. News coverage with detachment, traditionally practiced by mainstream media outlets, coexists with advocacy journalism and opinion.

• Crosscut finds and highlights the best local journalism and the best local commentary, whether it's the work of the biggest metropolitan daily newspaper or a part-time blogger. There is a multitude of worthy sources of information on the Internet, but few people have time to navigate them all.
• Crosscut publishes its own journalism and commentary. These are stories and angles others have missed or ignored. Our news coverage aims to complement that of other providers, to extend exploration of events and issues, to possibly encourage resolution.
• Crosscut embraces new tools and tries new things as technology evolves, mindful of the relative strengths of textual, photo, audio, and video journalism.
• Crosscut publishes news, commentary, news about commentary, commentary about news—just about anything that is non-fiction. Our broad definition of news is anything people want or ought to know. Commentary is opinionated or rhetorical expression.
• Crosscut also welcomes content that suggests new ideas or ways of looking at problems. We welcome contributions of words, photographs, audio, video, illustrations, charts, PowerPoint presentations, and anything else that is true to life. You don’t have to be a professional, but whatever you provide should be a rendering of reality supported by facts.
• Crosscut is a local Web site. We publish material that is endemic or has a significant connection to the Pacific Northwest states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, or Montana, or the province of British Columbia.

We have local media outlets of this sort starting up in Connecticut, and it certainly wouldn't surprise me to see the Hartford Courant (which is a mere shell of the once proud paper it used to be) go this same route in the near future.

Is this what Bob Marley had in mind. . .

when he sang "Until the colour of a mans skin/ Is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes/ everywhere is war"? Somehow I think not.

And yet the New York Times assures me that "Let’s get this out of the way: Resident Evil 5 is not a racist game."

Why would I think that it was? I don't know, maybe because the object of the game is to blow away as many black men as possible?

Well, not actually, according to game reviewer Seth Scheisel. You see, it's not black men, but African zombies who are the targets in this game. Earlier versions of the game were set in the United States and Spain, and now it's set in Africa, so naturally the zombies will be dark-skinned. Besides.

When you are in control of the action the racial or ethnic appearance of your enemies simply stops mattering. The basic mechanics of moving, shooting, using cover, solving puzzles, employing weapons properly and understanding the overall environment are universal, no matter whether the enemies are aliens or Nazis or zombies or gangsters or any of the other categories we use to denote “acceptable to kill.”

Oh! That makes me feel so much better!

Scheisel does admit that "All that said, Resident Evil 5 could not possibly have been made in the United States." (It was made in Japan.)

Still, I can't shake the feeling that there are some people out there who will especially enjoy playing this game.

How was your Weekend?

Okay, it's a nice Sunday afternoon in early March. You're driving an elderly friend back to her nursing home in the Bronx. You go around to open the passenger door of your red Kia Sorrento when suddenly:

a) your purse is grabbed by a mugger

b) you realize that the old lady in your car is not your granny

c) you are tackled by a lion escaped by the nearby Zoo

d) you are shot in the abdomen with an arrow

The police say that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is a person of interest in the case.

I've Got Some Good News and Some Bad News. . .

for Muntader al-Zaidi. The bad news is, you're going to prison for three years -- for throwing a shoe. (If that sounds a little harsh, remember -- it was thrown at the American President Bush.)

And what's the good news? Well, Muntader is now a huge hit with the Iraqi ladies!

Mr. Zaidi, whom Iraqi girls call informally by his first name, captured nearly everyone’s imagination here when he threw his shoes at President George W. Bush during a Dec. 14 news conference with the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. While Iraqi men have been divided over Mr. Zaidi’s gesture, it was hard to find a woman who wholeheartedly disapproved of him.

Zainab Mahdi, a 19-year-old student sporting a red baseball cap, swung on a swing set in a riverside park on Friday as she spoke admiringly of Mr. Zaidi. “Every Iraqi wanted to beat Bush,” she said. “Muntader made our wishes comes true.”

Atiyaf Mahmoud, 19, a student in her first year of medical school said, “I love Zaidi. I saw him in my dreams twice, the last one was after the trial, he was released and I went to congratulate him and shake his hand. "
"I was so excited in that sweet dream,” she said. “I wish to have that dream again.”

Give Peace a Chance?

There's an old saying: "A fool throws a stone into the sea and a hundred wise men cannot make it dry." To me that means it's so much easier to mess things up than it is to set things right. Witness recent events in Northern Ireland.

Well, John Burns writes in the Sunday New York Times that maybe the terrorists of the REAL IRA who want to derail the peace process may not be succeeding. Even old enemies want peace.

But as formerly sworn enemies filed into a provincial church on Friday to mourn as one, the funeral of the slain policeman provided the latest and most powerful demonstration of the ways in which the province’s people and its leaders have united against a return to the violence that racked Northern Ireland for 30 years.

Rallies that drew thousands to silent vigils this week in Belfast and other major towns across the north, and dozens of interviews across the province, suggested that the old antagonists — Roman Catholics and Protestants, nationalists seeking a united Ireland and Unionists committed to keeping Ulster a part of Britain — remain determined to settle their future in peace.

Sometimes it takes more guts to not react to violence with violence.

Be strong, Northern Ireland. Resist violence. Choose peace.

Stewart v. Cramer (Etc.)

This has become a huge story, and I think we'll get to it in class. But if you want to see it again, or if you were absent on Monday, here we go.

Here's the video from The Daily Show, last Thursday. (Within this link you can find the unedited video -- but be warned: there are language issues.)

If you go to the bottom of the page, you'll see a bunch a responses to the encounter. Most of them seem to be favorable to Stewart. (I haven't read them all, by any means, but judging from the summaries provided.) This should be no surprise. They are from contributors to the Huffington Post, which by and large comes at things from the liberal (left) perspective. (Ask Bill O'reilly what he thinks of Huffpo. Hint: does the expression "far-left loons" mean anything to you?

To me what was most interesting was not the attack on Jim Cramer. Lots of people admired Cramer for having the nerve to walk into the buzzsaw, and I do, too (even if he mostly just curled up in a little ball. Under the circumstances, a laudable response). No, it wasn't so much an attack on Cramer as on his network, CNBC. In essence, Stewart chastised them for playing cheerleader for the Bear Stearns, and AIG, and Bank of America, when they should have been watching them.

It's a question of motive. Crame wants to be an entertainer, who offers advice on financial matters. Stewart wants him -- or his network in general -- to protect the interests of the little guy, the common investor, who dabbles in stocks, or has a 401k, or a mutual fund. It's a fundamental difference of mission.

This is not the first time that Stewart has gone to bat for the little guy. In 2004 he went after Tucker Carlson and a show on CNN called Crossfire. (Or try here for the same clip on YouTube.)

Interestingly enough, Carlson didn't think much of Stewart's Thursday night spot. He thinks Stewart is a "partisan hack". Hmmm. . . where have I heard that before?

Who's More Stupider?

The chimp?

But then there’s Santino, a 30-year-old male chimpanzee at the Furuvik Zoo on the Baltic coast of Sweden. As Mathias Osvath of Lund University reports in Current Biology, Santino, the zoo’s dominant chimp, has been calmly planning rock-throwing attacks against zoo visitors for the past 11 years. The behavior started becoming a real problem in 1997, when the chimp threw stones at the visitors across a moat several times as part of dominance displays, when he became agitated. Zoo officials found five caches in the chimps’ activity area, of three to eight stones each. Subsequent monitoring showed that in the early morning, before the zoo opened, Santino would collect stones and stockpile them. Later in the day he would hurl them at visitors.

Or these morons from West Haven?

Five Milford teens went on a vandalism spree this weekend causing tens of thousands of dollars in damage by throwing softball-sized rocks at parked motor vehicles along the West Haven-Milford border, smashing windshields, ripping off mirrors and causing ample amounts of body damage to some vehicles. The five teens, all males, were arrested -- with other rocks still stockpiled in their car -- by West Haven police early Sunday morning and charged with dozens of counts of criminal mischief. West Haven police said at least 65 vehicles were damaged.

IQ-wise I'd say it's a wash. But at least the chimp had a good reason.

The War Comes to Broadway

(Well, the East Village -- 1st Ave at 10th Street.)

If war-story fatigue prevents some theatergoers from checking out “The Lonely Soldier Monologues (Women at War in Iraq),” that will be unfortunate, because this energetically acted example of journalism as theater explores some issues that deserve more attention. Plays and films have parsed the war in Iraq from all sorts of angles — the justifications for American involvement, the treatment of wounded soldiers, the tactical mistakes — but comparatively little has been heard about the increased role of women in the military operations.

Art can be real. Plays can be important. This one is.

But the bulk of the dialogue is revelatory and disturbing. Sexual harassment and assault by fellow soldiers is a constant theme. Lack of respect is another, and isolation yet another, women still being a small minority of the military population. But commendably, the play doesn’t merely ask for equal treatment; it also nods to the particular emotional pressures felt by women in the combat zone, many involving the Iraqi children who would approach soldiers or their convoys. “You’re supposed to run over them,” one soldier laments. “I was a day-care teacher.”

I can imagine what some of you are thinking: 'oh, an antiwar piece written by some far-left peacenik.' May be. The author is a journalism professor at Columbia University: proof enough, Bill O'Reilly would say. But the text was taken from interviews with "an assortment of femnale veterans". If we're going to ask our sons and daughters to go off to war, we (and they) need to know what they're getting into.

I Thought Milk was Good for You!

Not in Brazil, apparently.



(I had no idea that Superman was gay!)

Is it Ever Apppropriate. . .

to write about teenage suicide? Is it too dangerous to even bring up, or is it too dangerous not to bring up? There's a popular book now, Thirteen Reasons Why, that looks at this issue.

(As soon as Border's sends me a 30% off coupon, I'm going to pick up a copy.)

Trouble Brewing in the Emerald Isle?

Storm clouds may be on the horizon in Northern Ireland.

Two British soldiers were shot dead in the attack in front of the main gates of the Massereene Barracks in Antrim, hours before they were due to leave for Afghanistan.

They were ambushed by gunmen firing automatic rifles as they went to take delivery of pizzas they had ordered ahead of a flight to Helmand province.

Two other soldiers were left badly wounded and two Domino's delivery men were also injured.

Will this mean the end of the peace process? Hopefully not.

Noel McAdam, writing on March 9th, immediately after the killings, was optimistic. He felt that the killings and the dark history they represent would make people only work harder for peace.
n all probability the dastardly attack which cost two young soldiers their lives, and seriously injured others, will help to galvanise the Stormont power-sharing administration.

As a grim reminder of the dark days we all thought had been consigned to the past — and a full 14 years after the last ‘successful’ republican terrorist operation against Army personnel — the Massereene massacre attempt both crystallises the extent of Northern Ireland’s transformation and exemplifies how far the province still has to travel. . .

In the shock and pain of the hours following the killings, parties could perhaps be forgiven for slipping into automatic rhetoric mode. Yet the response so far shows that, unlike the last dispensation, the main parties have yet to achieve the recognition of each other’s needs

Adams is writing in the Belfast Telegraph, in Northern Ireland (which, although on Irish soil, is part of the United Kingdom. That's one of the things they're fighting about).

Farther to the south, in the Irish Republic, the sentiment is the same.

No return to North's dark days

THE MURDER of two British soldiers by dissident republicans on Saturday represents as much a danger to the quality of life on this island as the threatened collapse of the global economy. Make no mistake about it, any resumption of violence in Northern Ireland will cause inestimable damage to the peace process, prevent foreign investment and contribute to rising unemployment and falling living standards. Having come so far, there should be no return to the dark days of the past (The Irish Times).

But now it looks like things are getting worse. Another killing, of a constable.

"We are staring into the abyss," warned Social Democratic and Labour Party MP Dolores Kelly, but Prime Minister Gordon Brown vowed last night there would be no return to the "old days" of the province's Troubles.

Constable Stephen Carroll, 48, was shot in the head at 9.45pm on Monday (8.45am AEDT yesterday) while sitting in his patrol car in a republican area of Craigavon, 30km southwest of Belfast.

The Continuity IRA last night claimed responsibity for the attack. Another splinter group, the Real IRA admitted blame for the fatal shooting at 9.30pm on Saturday of two soldiers who were collecting pizzas outside an army base northwest of Belfast.

These were the first killings of British security forces in Northern Ireland since 1997 -- the year before loyalist and republicans tried to leave behind decades of bloodshed by striking a peace deal that called for paramilitary disarmament and power-sharing.

"There is little point appealing to the people who planned and did this, but all of us have to realise we are on the brink of something absolutely awful," said Ms Kelly. "All of us have to get together to pull ourselves back from the brink. A tiny handful of people with nothing to say and nothing to offer cannot be allowed to destroy so much."

It's going to take people who are strong enough to look violence and evil in the face, and then have the courage to not strike back.

I must say, I don't like the look of this. It reminds me too much of an event that occurred the last time we ran this course (2006): the bombing of the The Askariya Shrine in Iraq )go the the February 23 entry). "There are fears that this will flame into a civil war," this blogger writes. "[Iraq] is looking more and more like a quagmire."

Who was that prescient blogger? Guess.

Our Secret Weapon. . .

in the war against Islamo-fascism.

Newt Gingrich Disses Rush Limbaugh

and Rush responds in kind.

So who's this newt guy? I thought a newt was like a salamander.


Well, that, too. But this Newt is Newton McPherson Gingrich, former Speaker of the House of Representatives in the Clinton Era, and a long shot candidate for President in '12 (Republican).

So Newt goes on Meet the Press, and calls out Rush.

"You're irrational if you don't want the president to succeed. Because if he doesn't succeed the country doesn't succeed... I don't think anyone should want the president of the United States to fail. "

Now Rush is not about to take any kind of crud from anybody, be they Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative.

"I'm surprised by nothing when I'm dealing with people in the media who think they're in politics.... They are fly-by-night operators, and most of them stand for nothing until they see a poll about what the American people want, and then they go out and try to say one way or another what the American people want while trying to falsely hold onto an ideology at the same time -- and you can't count on them. You can't depend on them. They will sell you out."

All right, girls, that's enough -- back to your corners!


















(Uh-oh! I think that's snark!)

Is President Obama a Natural-born Citizen?

The quick answer: yes.

How would I know? Well, there's this news from today's (Sunday, 3/9/09) papers:

A federal judge on Thursday threw out a lawsuit questioning President Barack Obama's citizenship, lambasting the case as a waste of the court's time and suggesting the plaintiff's attorney may have to compensate the president's lawyer. . . "This case, if it were allowed to proceed, would deserve mention in one of those books that seek to prove that the law is foolish or that America has too many lawyers with not enough to do," U.S. District Judge James Robertson* said in his written opinion.

But I would direct your attention to this answer from Snopes.com. Snopes is a great resource for whenever you hear something and you say "Now, wait a minute. Are you sure about that?"

Okay, so if you've read those two sources, you're probably wondering what all the brouhaha is about. Well, now look at this, from The American Thinker. And what is the American Thinker. Let's see. Hmmm. Looks pretty conservative to me.

And here's one more that seems to be pretty legitimate. If you ask me, this is one myth that's been busted.

Consider the Source: Homelessness

Maybe you saw this story, or this photograph. It's Michelle Obama, serving lunch at a homeless shelter. But wait a minute - what's that? A cellphone? A homeless man with a cellphone?

Now, here's an article about the photo, and what people had to say about it. Now, where is this article from? Some place called Change.org. Who are they? Go and find out. That list of causes over on the right ought to tell you something.

Now you'll need to click on the article to get this. First of all, they give you a link from the LosAngeles Times -- the main stream media. And then they go to Michelle Malkin -- a very conservative blogger, in the Ann Coulter mode, and a frequent visitor to Bill O'Reilly's show. Both are a little snarky.

They say a photo is worth a thousand words: whose thousand, I wonder?

No soap, radio.

(Ha-ha!)

I love radio.

Radio sucks.

Both statements are true.

Radio is a wonderful medium, but it used to be a lot better. There used to be drama, and live music, and all sorts of wonderful stuff on the radio.

There still is on the BBC.

There's some good radio in the United States: on college radio stations, and on NPR. I just gave $25 to WWUH this morning (while I was in my car driving to school, where I usually listen.) WWUH is staffed by volunteer, amateur DJs. My favorite shows are Wednesday and Thursday mornings. River City Slim starts out Thursday morning with old time gospel music -- like the Blind Boys of Alabama, or Sam Cooke and the Soul-Stirrers. I don't go to church much, but I love this music.

(You also might want to check out "Culture Dogs" on Sunday night -- hip and irreverent.

Now, onto NPR. You know who they are by now (I hope). They like to tout what they call "driveway moments". This is when you're lsitening to All Things Considered on the way home, and you pull up in your driveway, but you don't get out of the car because you've got to hear "the rest of the story". Here's one I heard the other night. It's about a modest, ordinary man who became a hero -- not for killing people, but for saving someone/

And then this piece, from a series called "This I Believe". It's story about forgiveness, and I find it profoundly moving. (Two words that can be very hard to say are "I'm sorry", and two words that are sometimes even harder are "That's okay.) It's the story of a woman who was raped, and a man who spent eleven years in prison after she positively identified him as her rapist -- until DNA evidence proved he was not the rapist.

"This I Believe" was originally a radio series back in the 1950's, the brainchild of radio saint Edward R. Murrow -- but we'll save that for another day.

A Near Miss

Flash! I just got the following email:

I'm watching the news and I guess an asteroid almost hit us! (source-Brian Williams? not sure.) Lauren Hunt

Can this be so? It can. It was just a baby, really (20 x 50 meters), but big enough to do damage. And it came within a whisker of hitting us (well, a space whisker -- 41,000 miles: about a sixth of the way to the moon).

Could it happen again? You betcha.

Here's One for the Gamers

Here's a whole new concept in gaming. You don't kill anybody. You don't run anybody over or have sex with anybody. In fact,

Flower is barely a game in some ways. "There's no score, there's no time limit, there's no death," Santiago [Kellee Santiago, the president and co-founder of thatgamecompany, the game's publisher] says in the behind-the-scenes video.

Oh, and here's another review of Flower. Well, it's a poem, a song really. Anyway, it sounds really cool -- very peaceful, very zen.

Well, I gotta go. My herbal tea is getting cold. Peace and Love, kids.

Enter the Echo Chamber

Last week I showed you a clip from CNBC reporter Rick Santelli, in which he called for a taxpayer revolt -- a "tea party" of sorts. What's happened since?

Try googling "Santelli tea party" and see what you get. You get a lot, is what you get. Most of it supporting Santelli -- a lot of it very angry.

(By the way, don't get too excited about the one that says Santelli was arrested by the EPA. That one's a joke, I think. Consider the source!)

Good News from the World of Sports

For a change.

Golf is different from other sports. Other sports have umpires and referees. You try to gain any advantage that you can, and if the officials catch you, you get penalized. If they don't, well, you've gained a little advantage, and maybe helped your team. What you're doing may be technically illegal, but within the framework of the contest itself, it's ethical. (Unfortunately, that attitude sometimes extends off the field -- steroids, blood doping, etc.)

But golf is different. The ethics of golf say that you call a penalty on yourself, even if no one else would know, and even if it makes you less likely to win.

Last week we heard a story on NPR about Tiger Woods rejoining the tour. (He lost in his second match.) The story was reported by sportswriter John Feinstein, who has written many books, including one about the Q School (where golfers try to qualify for the lucrative PGA tour).


Okay, so there's this golfer, J. P. Hayes. He was on the tour for a few years, din't win too much money. He did so poorly that he lost the right to play on tour, and he has to go to the Q school to try to get back on.

After he played his round, where he did well enough to advance on to the next round, hwe realized that the golf ball he had used was not yet approved by the PGA. If he tells anyone, he'll be disqualifed, and he'll have to wait at least another year to qualify. What does he do. Well, it's a no-brainer for him.

Hayes said it never occurred to him to keep his mouth shut, even though he was the only person to know he had used an illegal ball. "I guess I had hoped that the penalty wasn't going to be what it was, that for some reason there was something in the rules, a special circumstance kind of thing, and I was just hoping and praying that that was going to be the case,'' he said. "But it never occurred to me not to bring this to light and get the right ruling. I don't think anyone would have known, but I would have known.''

And so he was disqualified, and the story ends there. Except it doesn't. After a while, the Media got ahold of the story, first Mike and Mike, a radio show on ESPN. (Full dusclosure: I once had a haircut with Mike Golic.) And then good things started happening for J. P. Hayes. He's been getting invitations to play in tournaments, by sponsors who were imprssed by his ethics and integrity. (Here's one full version of the story.)

So we hear a l ot about the A-Rods and Floyd Landises, but there are honest athletes out there, too.

The End of an Era

I'm guessing that many of you don't know who Paul Harvey is. Or I guess I should say was.

He was a radio legend, a true original. Here's the obit from the Washington Post. And from this link you can find some examples of his work. Besides reading the daily news, he also broadcast a piece called "The Rest of the Story". Here's a good example of that.

Finally, a few tributes from longtime listeners:

My parents listened to him every day. His demeanor was that of a beloved family friend stopping by to have a chat. He was sincere and unpretentious and presented things in a way so that people of all ages and levels of education could understand without dumbing anything down. He was able to disagree with others and still be a gentleman. We have lost a true class act.

I'm surprised his death is only noted as a footnote in the news rather than as a headline. Talk about misplaced priorities. Little tribute is paid in the press to a giant of a person like Paul Harvey, but trivia that happens on American Idol gets shoved in our face.

My father used to call Paul Harvey a prostitute in the news industry. That is because one moment Paul Harvey would be telling a news story, and the next moment he would be advertising a sponsor's product in his own voice. It therefore became confusing at times to discern what was news and what was sponsor advertising. Personally, I enjoyed Paul Harvey's style because he made news entertaining. He was a story teller. But my father's negative opinion of him did make an impression on me, as a child, because my father (like Harvey) was also a prominent journalist.

Every time I heard Paul Harveys voice it reminded me of being on my grandparents farm. Every weekday he would come on the radio around lunchtime. Awesome because it gave me a few extra minutes out of the heat! But, it was also a time where you didn't dare talk. There were four things you never talked during: Paul Harvey, The Farm Report, the evening news, and the mealtime blessings (and church, of course, but that was never a problem. Someone usually had to keep elbowing Grandpa to keep him awake). I read one of Paul Harveys "Rest of the Story" books. Those stories are always interesting and hold your attention. Paul Harvey always seemed to take me back to a different time. There was something comforting about his voice on the radio. Just my 2 cents.

A Must Read from Newsweek

This week's cover story "Learning to Live with Radical Islam".

Pakistan's Swat valley is quiet once again. Often compared to Switzerland for its stunning landscape of mountains and meadows, Swat became a war zone over the past two years as Taliban fighters waged fierce battles against Army troops. No longer, but only because the Pakistani government has agreed to some of the militants' key demands, chiefly that Islamic courts be established in the region. Fears abound that this means women's schools will be destroyed, movies will be banned and public beheadings will become a regular occurrence.

The militants are bad people and this is bad news. But the more difficult question is, what should we—the outside world—do about it?

And, the article tells us, we have to stop treating all Muslims as if they practiced radical Islam.

Be sure to read some of the comments. I'm assuming they are taking down some of the most hateful ones, but even so. . .

For example. . .

Posted By: peacequiet @ 03/01/2009 4:51:28 PM

I have never hated any body or anything as much as I hate the Muslims.
They have done zero here in America to call out these pieces of crap.

They can all burn in hell with their virgins

Sigh!