A Cautious Man

And The Poets Down Here Don't Write Nothin' At AllThey Just Stand Back And Let It All Be ...

2011-02-11T14:45:00.003-05:00

All the old paintings on the tomb
They do the sand dance don'cha know
If they move too quick (oh-way-oh)
They're falling down like a domino ...

Walk. Like. An. Egyptian.

Has a whole new meaning today, don't it?

Come Veterans' Day

2010-11-11T15:31:00.004-05:00

Haven't posted anything for a while.

That being said - all that bad stuff that happened in the election last week is not my fault! ;-)

But, more to the point - Veterans' Day.

Thanks, folks!

Come Veterans’ Day I sat on the stand in my dress blues
I held your mother’s hand, and they passed with the red, white and blue
One minute you’re right there, and somethin’ slips..........…

- B. Springsteen, "Brothers Under the Bridge"

"How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live?"

2010-08-30T17:35:00.003-04:00

Fifth anniversary of the devastation in New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina.

"Gonna be a judgement, that's a fact
A righteous train rolling down this track."

Something to remember, if you're thinking of voting for the Republicans in November.

Friday Night Springsteen

2010-08-20T19:36:00.002-04:00

Yes, I know that we don't do "Friday Night Springsteen", but leaving that aside.

This evening I saw a video with Chuck Berry and the E Street Band.

How cool is that?

In Manhattan

2010-08-17T14:43:00.004-04:00

I am really, really tired of the right-wing haters, who have attached themselves like lampreys to the issue of the Islamic cultural center proposed for lower Manhattan.

Those people are parasites. They serve no useful purpose. The suck blood for their own use, and don't care what harm they cause.

That intro out of the way, Mr. Olbermann:

We sacrificed 4,415 of our military personnel in Iraq to save Muslims, and there are thousands of us still there tonight to protect Muslims, but we don't want Muslims to open a combination culinary school and prayer space
in Manhattan.

From the beginning of this nation we have fought prejudice and religious intolerance and our greatest enemy stupidity exploited by rapacious politicians. It is only 50 years now, this month since Americans publicly and urgently warned their countryman not to support a presidential candidate because he was Roman Catholic. He would bow to the will not of the American people, but of the Pope. He would be a papist. He would be the agent of a foreign state. His name was John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Despite the nobility of our founding and the indefatigable efforts of all of our generations, there have always been those who would happily sacrifice our freedoms, our principals to ward off the latest unprecedented threat, the latest unbeatable "outsiders". But once again at 45 Park Place, we are being told to sell our birth right. To feed the maw of xenophobia and vengeance and mob rule.

The terrorists who destroyed the buildings from which you could only see 45 Park Place as a dot on the ground, wanted to force us to change our country, to become more like the ones (they) knew. What better way could we honor the dead at the World Trade Center than to do the terrorists heavy lifting for them.

Do you think 45 Park Place is where it ends? The moment this monstrous betrayal of our America gained the slightest traction, the next goal was unveiled. "No more building permits for any Mosques in this country" brayed the man from the euphemistically named American Families Association. Of course, he said maybe the permits could be granted if the congregation was "willing to publicly denounce the Koran."

They came first for the building permits....

The whole thing --

[Edited] I highlighted the text from Mr. Olbermann, about President Kennedy, because it really is applicable. And it's another reason to Nuck Fewt.

Cross of His Calling

2010-08-15T16:25:00.005-04:00

Steve at No More Mister Nice Blog has a great post responding to the extremes to which the right-wing hate machine (in this case, as channeled by William Kristol) is going in order to attack the Muslim community center in lower Manhattan (and, since the President decided to say they have a right to build it, that's just made it personal for the haters). Steve at "No More Mister" points out the absurdity of Mr. Kristol's attack on the President, for noting how the September 11 attack was a traumatic experience:

Here's Bill Kristol's gloss on one line in the president's speech Friday night:

... For Obama, 9/11 was a "deeply traumatic event for our country." Traumatic events invite characteristic reactions and over-reactions--fearfulness, anger, even hysteria. That's how Obama understands the source of objections to the Ground Zero mosque. It's all emotional. The arguments don't have to be taken seriously. The criticisms of the mosque are the emotional reactions of a traumatized people.

But Americans aren't traumatized. 9/11 was an attack on America, to which Americans have responded firmly, maturely, and appropriately....

So wait -- it's inappropriate to say that Americans were "traumatized" by 9/11? It means you're a contemptuous America-hating appeaser?

Gosh, I guess Kristol just never got around to making this point in August 2004, when, at a campaign rally, President Bush said this about Rudy Giuliani:

I'm proud to be traveling with this good man. He's a great leader, a great friend, and a wonderful American. He showed the world great courage during traumatic times, and I'm proud to be standing by him.

And I guess Kristol also neglected to make this point a few months earlier, when President Bush said of 9/11,

It affected our national psyche and it affected the economy. Remember, we had to shut down Wall Street, and airplanes didn't fly. It was a traumatic time for the American economy.

Read the rest. Anyway, I posted a comment, and decided to repeat it here (in a slightly revised form), since I've been neglecting any posting on this page. Here goes:

But, it wasn't traumatic for Bill Kristol. It was just a "golden opportunity" for his grand plan to kill as many Arabs as he wanted. Kuck Fristol.

It was traumatic for me, and not just because of the terrible loss of life, or the fact that I live in a community where some people didn't come home that day, or ever. One of the reasons it was traumatic for me is that, when I awoke on 9/12, I heard on the news that a New York Fire Department chaplain had been killed; I realized immediately that it must have been Father Mychal Judge, who had been a priest in my parish when I was a kid. I called my Mom right away, because I knew she'd be hearing it, also. Father Mychal always kept in touch with the families he met - he baptized one of my nieces. He had sent two pictures to my parents, not long before the attacks, which were on the 'fridge at their home that day. They were pictures of him in his two uniforms - one, his Franciscan habit, and the other his FDNY uniform, as a chaplain.

I have written about this before on this site, and rather than repeat myself, I would appreciate it if anyone reading here would check out those earlier "random thoughts", where the pictures I described above are posted. There is also a link there to the final picture of Father Mychal - his body being carried away from the scene of destruction.

His brother Franciscan, Brian Jordan, stood behind Mayor Bloomberg, when the Mayor gave his recent forceful refutation of the haters.

Also, I live in a commuter town in NJ, where we lost neighbors, fellow parishioners, and active members of our community in the attack. I know that some people who experienced loss on that day are disturbed by the proposed community center. But, that's different from the "opportunity to hate" folks, who are screaming about "Muslim Extremists!!!", as if that was one word, not two.

We know that the haters aren't speaking for the people who actually experienced the pain of that day.

I really believe that the extent of hatred towards the proposed community center, increases the further one gets from Manhattan.

Oh, yes, and Nuck Fewt, also

Irony

2010-08-04T21:34:00.004-04:00

I think that Newt Gingrich posing with his third (Is it third? I've lost track.) wife to support his proposition that marriage is between one man and one woman is - - - self-explanatory.

Sunday Night Not-Springsteen

2010-04-25T19:37:00.004-04:00

From reading this news story:

President Obama paid tribute to 29 fallen West Virginia coal miners today by citing the one plea made by families after a deadly explosion this month: "Don't let this happen again."

"How can we fail them?" Obama asked during a memorial service in Beckley, W.Va. "How can a nation that relies on its miners not do everything in its power to protect them?"

As Steve Earle sings in "The Mountain", "There's ghosts in the tunnels ..."

Human Touch

2010-03-27T11:31:00.005-04:00

Yes, I know, we've been "off the air" for a little while. But, I commented on a post at the "Lawyers, Guns and Money" blog, and figured I'd repeat it here.

In that post, entitled "I'm With Edward Olmos", one of that site's contributors endorses a proposal for everyone to write down "Human" as their race, on the 2010 Census. There followed a bunch of comments criticizing this suggestion. I added my two cents:

I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks this is a terrible idea. If too many people do this, there would be no way to track any patterns of segregation (or, optimistically, integration) in cities, suburbs or small towns. The Census isn’t a form of political expression, it’s necessary in order to get a handle on what the country is really like in 2010. I’m just surprised that a “liberal” or “progressive” would endorse something that would mess up any way to see if our country is living up to our ideal of full equality.

What I didn't write in the comment was another thought, that this suggestion would probably sound just great to David Brooks, because it would help perpetuate his ideal of little enclaves, where everybody is exactly the same as their neighbors.

Sunday Night Springsteen

2010-01-31T21:25:00.002-05:00

Once again, we've neglected this blog. The "random thoughts" never seem to make it onto the page.

Still planning to do better. In the meantime, something with Mr. Springsteen and Mr. Elvis Costello, from the latter's "Spectacle" show - lots of "radio" songs -

The Big Payback

2009-12-31T11:27:00.007-05:00

We've been neglecting the site, but this is a good thought on which to close out the year. When we last saw Mr. Springsteen with Mr. and Mrs. Obama, he was trying to help them on their way to becoming the President and First Lady

And as noted in this space last year, he had very specific reasons why he wanted to help:

"I've spent most of my creative life measuring the distance between that American promise and American reality. For many Americans, who are today losing their jobs, their homes, seeing their retirement funds disappear, who have no healthcare, or who have been abandoned in our inner cities. The distance between that promise and that reality has never been greater or more painful.

"I believe Senator Obama has taken the measure of that distance in his own life and in his work. I believe he understands, in his heart, the cost of that distance, in blood and suffering, in the lives of everyday Americans. I believe as president, he would work to restore that promise to so many of our fellow citizens who have justifiably lost faith in its meaning. After the disastrous administration of the past 8 years, we need someone to lead us in an American reclamation project. In my job, I travel the world, and occasionally play big stadiums, just like Senator Obama. I've continued to find, wherever I go, America remains a repository of people's hopes, possibilities, and desires, and that despite the terrible erosion to our standing around the world, accomplished by our recent administration, we remain, for many, a house of dreams. One thousand George Bushes and one thousand Dick Cheneys will never be able to tear that house down.

"They will, however, be leaving office, dropping the national tragedies of Katrina, Iraq, and our financial crisis in our laps. Our sacred house of dreams has been abused, looted, and left in a terrible state of disrepair. It needs care; it needs saving, it needs defending against those who would sell it down the river for power or a quick buck. It needs strong arms, hearts, and minds. It needs someone with Senator Obama's understanding, temperateness, deliberativeness, maturity, compassion, toughness, and faith, to help us rebuild our house once again. But most importantly, it needs us. You and me. To build that house with the generosity that is at the heart of the American spirit. A house that is truer and big enough to contain the hopes and dreams of all of our fellow citizens. That is where our future lies. We will rise or fall as a people by our ability to accomplish this task. Now I don't know about you, but I want that dream back, I want my America back, I want my country back.

"So now is the time to stand with Barack Obama and Joe Biden, roll up our sleeves, and come on up for the rising."

While there are complaints about how things have been going in this "rebuilt house", I still think it's been a good year. And as for the "big payback", I think that's illustrated by this picture from a recent reception for the "Kennedy Center Honorees".

Robert DeNiro, Mr. Springsteen, and President Obama. Is that cool, or what?

Two of the performances from the ceremony, broadcast the other night. First, Melissa Etheridge blows the roof off the place with "Born to Run" -

Then, Eddie Vedder with "City of Ruins" -

- performed in a manner reminiscent of the first time we all heard that song, as an exhortation after 9/11.

Sunday Night Springsteen

2009-11-01T21:22:00.002-05:00

The "Let's have some fun with that" edition.

Earlier this week, there were a couple of concerts at Madison Square Garden to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I thought that I'd missed out by not going to the night that Mr. Springsteen and the E Street Band closed out the night. But maybe, I really missed out on the next night, when U2 hosted Mr. Springsteen during their set.

This is "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", when after Bono gives an impassioned plea about Rock and Roll, and something about sex, Mr. Springsteen jumps to the microphone and shouts, "Let's have some fun with that" to the cheers of the crowd. It's a fun thing to watch.

And a bonus - "Because The Night", with Patti Smith - a video which shows me that Bono is a bigger Springsteen fan, than any of the rest of us have a right to claim to be.

Spirits In The Night

2009-10-31T16:20:00.002-04:00

Haven't posted much lately, but just wanted to share this article from a site on my reading list to the right. It's an article on Street Prophets called "Halloween Before Halloween", and it's a nice overview.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I hear the doorbell ...

Trying To Learn How To Walk Like HeroesWe Thought We Had To Be

2009-10-14T15:51:00.007-04:00

The Republican Party, it its ongoing effort to be "cool" and "happenin' ", has a new website. One of their pages has a list of "Republican Heroes". Of course, they have Reagan, and Eisenhower, and (naturally) Abraham Lincoln. Reagan and Senator Ed Brooke of Massachusetts are the only two from after 1964, which is a significant year for the Republican Party, as the following will attest.

They also include Jackie Robinson, and they describe him as follows:

In 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first African-American to play major league baseball in the United States, as a first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Not only was he a great athlete, Jackie Robinson was also a great Republican. He campaigned for Richard Nixon's presidential campaign in 1960 and then supported Nelson Rockefeller (R-NY) for the Republican nomination in 1964. Robinson worked as a special assistant in Governor Rockefeller’s administration.

Unfortunately for the GOP, the folks who put Mr. Robinson on the list didn't read his 1972 autobiography, in which he describes the "welcome" that Nelson Rockefeller received at the 1964 convention, and his own impressions of what the party had become.

I was not as sold on the Republican party as I was on the governor. Every chance I got, while I was campaigning, I said plainly what I thought of the right-wing Republicans and the harm they were doing. I felt the GOP was a minority party in term of numbers of registered voters and could not win unless they updated their social philosophy and sponsored candidates and principles to attract the young, the black, and the independent voter. I said this often from public, and frequently Republican, platforms. By and large Republicans had ignored blacks and sometimes handpicked a few servile leaders in the black community to be their token "n*****s". How would I sound trying to go all out to sell Republicans to black people? They're not buying. They know better.
...

I wasn’t altogether caught of guard by the victory of the reactionary forces in the Republican party, but I was appalled by the tactics they used to stifle their liberal opposition. I was a special delegate to the convention through an arrangement made by the Rockefeller office. That convention was one of the most unforgettable and frightening experiences of my life. The hatred I saw was unique to me because it was hatred directed against a white man. It embodied a revulsion for all he stood for, including his enlightened attitude toward black people.

A new breed of Republicans had taken over the GOP. As I watched this steamroller operation in San Francisco, I had a better understanding of how it must have felt to be a Jew in Hitler’s Germany.

The same high-handed methods had been there.

The same belief in the superiority of one religious or racial group over another was here. Liberals who fought so hard and so vainly were afraid not only of what would happen to the GOP but of what would happen to America. The Goldwaterites were afraid – afraid not to hew strictly to the line they had been spoon-fed, afraid to listen to logic and reason if it was not in their script.

I will never forget the fantastic scene of Governor Rockefeller’s ordeal as he endured what must have been three minutes of hysterical abuse and booing which interrupted his fighting statement which the convention managers had managed to delay until the wee hours of the morning. Since the telecast was coming from the West Coast, that meant that many people in other sections of the country, because of the time differential, would be in their beds. I don’t think he has ever stood taller than that night when he refused to be silenced until he had had his say.

It was a terrible hour for the relatively few black delegates who were present. Distinguished in their communities, identified with the cause of Republicanism, an extremely unpopular cause among blacks, they had been served notice that the party they had fought for considered them just another bunch of “n*****s”. They had no real standing in the convention, no clout. They were unimportant and ignored. One bigot from one of the Deep South states actually threw acid on a black delegate’s suit jacket and burned it. Another one, from the Alabama delegation where I was standing at the time of the Rockefeller speech, turned on me menacingly while I was shouting “C’mon Rocky” as the governor stood his ground. He started up in his seat as if to come after me. His wife grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

Now, we could just chalk this up to ignorance on the part of the GOP, but I don't think we should be that kind. In an era where the GOP is actively encouraging expressions of hatred for the first African-American to be elected President of the United States, their attempt to claim Jackie Robinson as a "great Republican", and a supporter of their efforts is (literally) p*ssing on the man's grave.

I would add that they should be ashamed of themselves, but it's clear that they have no shame.

[Edited to add] And Jon Stewart's also picked up on this!

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NOTHING Funny 'Bout Peace, Love And Understanding

2009-10-13T11:58:00.005-04:00

Via the Catholic Sensibility blog, the official statement by Cardinal George on behalf of the U.S. Catholic Bishops on the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama. Caution: anybody who was dismayed by, or even signed a petition against, Mr. Obama's address at Notre Dame University in May, should probably not read further.

In the name of the Catholic Bishops of the United States, I would like to offer congratulations to President Barack Obama on his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.

As he has graciously said, much of the work of realizing a more peaceful and just world for all persons and nations remains to be done; but the prize was given because as President of the United States he has already changed the international conversation.

In our own country, the remarkable and historic achievement of his election has changed the relationships between men and women of all races. The rich diversity of United States society is now more surely anchored in a national unity that is better able to foster the peace we all are challenged to pursue. Our prayer is that almighty God will bless the president and his family.

Does this mean that Cardinal George joins the ranks of "Catholics in Name Only", leaving us with only Newt Gingrich and William Donohue as representing the One True Church in the United States?

A Fight Against The Blood And Hatred In The Air

2009-10-13T11:02:00.005-04:00

Perusing DailyKos this morning, I was directed to an extremely misguided column by Richard Cohen regarding the recent award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama. In a nutshell, we Americans ought to be insulted by the attitude of those Europeans.

The European view that Obama is some sort of accidental president, that he does not truly represent the essence of America, is a bit disturbing as well as insulting. I think a bit of it is a greater fixation on Obama's race than you will find here and, concurrently, a misguided belief that Obama's race makes him less of an American in America than a white person would be. Europeans have always had a good time with American racism, finding it very comforting in its confirmation of our essential boorishness. In this sense, the Nobel was meant to encourage us in our new, admirable path -- keep it up, Yanks. Thanks, Olaf.

What. A. Load. Of. Cr@p. I added a comment to the Kos "pundit wrap-up" which contained that gem, basically noting the following:

Mr. Cohen has it exactly backwards. It's not the Europeans who think "that he does not truly represent the essence of America". That's a stock argument of tea-baggers and town-hall shouters, and has been continually pushed by right-wing radio ranters and "respected" columnists, even before the election. Anyone remember Kathleen Parker's infamous "blood equity" column?

Full-bloodedness is an old coin that’s gaining currency in the new American realm. Meaning: Politics may no longer be so much about race and gender as about heritage, core values, and made-in-America. Just as we once and still have a cultural divide in this country, we now have a patriot divide.

Who “gets” America? And who doesn’t?

The answer has nothing to do with a flag lapel pin, which Obama donned for a campaign swing through West Virginia, or even military service, though that helps. It’s also not about flagpoles in front yards or magnetic ribbons stuck on tailgates.

It’s about blood equity, heritage and commitment to hard-won American values. And roots.

It was the anti-Obama side (aided and abetted by the Richard Cohens of the elite commentariat) which claimed that Obama "does not truly represent the essence of America". The American people resoundingly rejected that notion.

Having commented to this effect, I now realize that the latest Cohen column is so internally, self-evidentially full of backwards reasoning, that there was no need to point out its obvious flaws. After all, he also includes in it his new, after-the-fact "reasoning" concerning the President's earlier journey to boost Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympic Games.

In my estimation, the distance Obama put between himself and what came before him encouraged the International Olympic Committee not to see him as the president of the United States and thus, as with some supplicating mayor, to dismiss his entreaty. At that moment, he was the president of Chicago, commander in chief of Cook County and not the entire United States. A lesson learned, I hope.

So, to conclude, Mr. Cohen is insulted that the Europeans view Obama as somehow not fully American, even if it is Obama's fault for putting that idea into their heads.

Blonde on Blonde

2009-10-12T13:12:00.003-04:00

A news item, and a comment to follow -

LINWOOD, N.J., Oct. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- The Miss America Organization (MAO)
announced today that Rush Limbaugh has been named as one of the national
judges for the 2010 Miss America Pageant, which will be held at Planet
Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas on Saturday, January 30 and broadcast
live on TLC.

Limbaugh will be one of a panel of seven distinguished judges that will help
decide which of the 53 contestants will capture the Miss America 2010 title
and serve as the Goodwill Ambassador for the Children's Miracle Network, as
well as introduce the first Go Green platform for MAO.

My comment? If each state pageant follows the best strategy to have their contestant win, the contest will consist of 53 Carrie Prejean clones.

Killer Graces And Secret Places

2009-10-11T19:36:00.003-04:00

I think this goes into the "Don't wish for something, or you may get it" file.

Good news for Dan Brown:
A front page review of his new book, The Lost Symbol, in the New York Times Book Review.

The Less Good News for Dan Brown:
They handed the book to Maureen Dowd to review.

It's not just the snarkiest book review I've seen in a long time, but it's also incredibly on the money!

The new Dan Brown puzzler is the scariest one yet.

It’s not so much the barbarous machinations of the villain, another one-dimensional, self-mortifying hulk, that sends chills down your spine. Or the plot, which is an Oedipal MacGuffin.

No, the terrifying thing about “The Lost Symbol” is that Brown — who did not flinch when the Vatican both condemned the “The Da Vinci Code” and curtailed the filming of “Angels & Demons” in Rome — clearly got spooked by that other powerful, secretive ancient sect, the Masons.

His book is a desperate attempt to ingratiate himself with the Masons, rather than to interpret the bizarre Masonic rites and symbols that illuminate — as in Illuminati! — how the ultimate elite private boys’ club has conspired to shape the nation’s capital and Western civilization ever since George Washington laid the cornerstone for the Capitol building in a Masonic ritual wearing full Masonic regalia, including a darling little fringed satin apron. If the Masons are more intimidating than the Vatican, if Brown has now become part of their semiotic smoke screen, then all I can say is, God help us all.

And as the essay plays with Mr. Brown's fondness for italics, it concludes -

In the end, as with “The Da Vinci Code,” there’s no payoff. Brown should stop worrying about unfinished pyramids and worry about unfinished novels. At least Spielberg and Lucas gave us an Ark and swirling, dissolving humans. We don’t get any ancient wisdom that “will profoundly change the world as you know it” — just a lot of New Agey piffle about how we are the gods we’ve been waiting for. (And a father-son struggle for global domination, as though we didn’t get enough of that with the Bushes.)

What the hell, Dan?!

Saturday Afternoon Springsteen -"Last Time" Edition

2009-10-10T14:03:00.003-04:00

The Cautious Wife and I attended the last Springsteen concert (and the last concert ever) at Giants Stadium last night. The place is going to be torn down at the end of football season, and the action moved to the new stadium that's being completed right next to the place. It was a lo-o-o-o-ng show, but the crowd was so energized - and the performers were so energized - that the time flew by.

The band accepted a request towards the end of the show, and so provided a one-time-only performance of the Rolling Stones' "Last Time".

Too cool.

Surprise, Surprise

2009-10-09T14:05:00.003-04:00

Shorter John Bolton on President Obama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize -

"Yo, I'm a let you finish, but Teddy Roosevelt had some of the best Presidential peace-making of all time!"

Okay, so it may not make the list of "Top Ten Kanye West Interruption Parodies" ...

("Shorter" concept learned from these guys.)

Sunday Night Springsteen

2009-10-04T20:51:00.005-04:00

... is some "Saturday Night Springsteen" from last night.

As mentioned in an earlier post, my brother and his spouse joined me and the Cautious Wife at the Springsteen concert on Saturday, at Giants Stadium. Their tearing that place down at the end of football season, and the E Street Band is celebrating the last concerts there.

One moment early in the show was somewhat unbelievable, if we hadn't seen it with our own eyes. During "Hungry Heart", Mr. Springsteen runs on a platform around the large "pit", which contains the fans who are closest to the stage. As he is standing on the far side, opposite where the stage is, he suddenly asks the fans there, "Can you get me back to the stage?" And then he "crowd surfs" (still leading the song and cueing the band) about 30 yards back to the stage.

I guess that's something that's only done by a performer when he knows that he's among some of his most enthusiastic fans, in a stadium full of them.

It's fun to watch, and the "crowd surf" starts at about 2:40 in the video below.

Yes, There Is A "Religious Left"

2009-10-04T20:50:00.005-04:00

On DailyKos, where oftentimes people who post in support of progressive efforts from a religious perspective get jeered, Michael Moore elaborated on the thesis of his new movie, "Capitalism", from his own religious perspective, in a piece entitled "For Those of You on Your Way to Church This Morning..." -

In my new film I speak for the first time in one of my movies about my own spiritual beliefs. I have always believed that one's religious leanings are deeply personal and should be kept private. After all, we've heard enough yammerin' in the past three decades about how one should "behave," and I have to say I'm pretty burned out on pieties and platitudes considering we are a violent nation who invades other countries and punishes our own for having the audacity to fall on hard times.
...

Amidst all the Wall Street bad guys and corrupt members of Congress exposed in "Capitalism: A Love Story," I pose a simple question in the movie: "Is capitalism a sin?" I go on to ask, "Would Jesus be a capitalist?" Would he belong to a hedge fund? Would he sell short? Would he approve of a system that has allowed the richest 1% to have more financial wealth than the 95% under them combined?

I have come to believe that there is no getting around the fact that capitalism is opposite everything that Jesus (and Moses and Mohammed and Buddha) taught. All the great religions are clear about one thing: It is evil to take the majority of the pie and leave what's left for everyone to fight over. Jesus said that the rich man would have a very hard time getting into heaven. He told us that we had to be our brother's and sister's keepers and that the riches that did exist were to be divided fairly. He said that if you failed to house the homeless and feed the hungry, you'd have a hard time finding the pin code to the pearly gates.

I don't think I'm going out on a limb in saying that this is essentially the same point of view of Pope Benedict XVI, who as we observed here last July wrote in his latest encyclical, Caritas In Veritate -

Profit is useful if it serves as a means towards an end that provides a sense both of how to produce it and how to make good use of it. Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.

I would suggest that you read the whole thing.

I Am ... Such a Geek ...

2009-09-29T20:46:00.002-04:00

... because due to how I mispent my youth, I am greatly amused by this Star Trek/Monty Python mash-up.

Sunday Night Springsteen

2009-09-27T20:54:00.004-04:00

Long story short - my brother and his spouse, who now live in Massachusetts, wanted to come down and join us at one of the last Springsteen concerts at Giants Stadium, on 10/3. I was able to get tickets, but not four together - just two and two in different, distant sections. Fortunately, somebody I've been to concerts with before learned of my plight, and offered us four of her tickets for that night, all together in a better section.

So, yesterday I went on our local internet message board, describing the two sets of tickets and offering them at face value. Shortly thereafter, someone who lives a short distance from my house asked for all four, and said that my offer was an inspiration to turn next weekend into a Springsteen weekend with her husband and two of his friends. I delivered the tickets early this afternoon, and in addition to the face value they gave me a nice bottle of wine.

Anyway, the whole point for our purpose this evening is that if there's something you want, you've got to raise your hand.

WØRD Up!

2009-09-26T14:58:00.003-04:00

In case you missed Stephen Colbert "going there" on the whole right-wing whining about accusations of some racism in their ranks -

It's not merely a comedy routine, but also a meticulously compiled brief which shows the arc of anti-Obama commentary which has a strong anti-African American component. Such as his example of Glenn Beck declaiming, "The health care bill is reparations. It's the beginning of reparations," or Rush Limbaugh telling his audience, "Obama's entire economic program is reparations. ...If I were Sharpton, I'd say 'he gonna take from the rich, he's gonna take -- he's gonna give it to you."

While it's good to laugh, it's also good to be concerned about the audio poison which clowns like Beck and Limbaugh continue to pour out.

Singin’ Our Birthday Songs

2009-09-23T14:57:00.004-04:00

Today is your birthday we traveled so far we two
So let's blow out the candles on your cake and we'll raise a glass or two

- "Surprise, Surprise", B. Springsteen.

Mr. Springsteen turns 60 today. This has been noted, among other places, on the cover of AARP Magazine.

As the saying goes, "Someday we'll look back on this and it will all seem funny."

There is a fantastic "The Boss is 60" thread on Daily Kos, so I refer you there for the videos and the comments, instead of taking up more of your time here.

[Edited to add] Oh, yes, one more thing. May you stay forever young.

Sunday Night Springsteen

2009-09-06T20:00:00.000-04:00

In honor of parents asking for their kids to "skip some school" (see post below):
No Surrender.

"We learned more from a three-minute record, than we ever learned in school."

Skip Some School ...

2009-09-06T17:40:00.008-04:00

I think it's ridiculous that people are letting the right-wing media whip them into a frenzy over a Presidential speech to school kids, urging them to work hard, study and succeed. The usual suspects are bleating nonsense that they're just concerned about "parental choice" in what their kids hear in school, or that it's "partisan".

The Nationwide Tea Party Coalition announces “Hall Pass on That,” the alternative to President Barack Obama’s September 8th address to school children across the nation. The group asks that schools who choose to participate in the president’s September 8th program offer an alternative to students and families who do not wish to view, or have their children view, a partisan address or participate in activities that did not follow proper educational protocol or obtain parental consent.

I'm sure these same people have been just as devoted to respecting the Establishment Clause and keeping kids from being proselytized in school. Not.

I think that it's simply a case of some parents not wanting their kids to see that the President of the United States is an African-American with an accomplished background, obvious poise and intelligence, and who tells everybody that there's no limit to what they can achieve. Not the "thizzle thug" with a bone through his nose as these parents have been telling their kids all this time.

Sunday Night Springsteen

2009-08-30T21:46:00.002-04:00

Yes, it's b-a-a-a-a-ck.

Glastonbury, from a recent show. "Because the Night".

And the typo in the YouTube caption annoys me, but what can you do?

"Hey, Somebody Out There, Listen To My Last Prayer"

2009-08-29T16:04:00.013-04:00

It's a rainy Saturday here in the Great State of New Jersey, so I sat inside and watched Senator Ted Kennedy's funeral this morning. All I can say is, "Wow".

First of all, since Boston's Cardinal and a host of Catholic clergy assembled in that magnificent church to preside over the funeral of an unapologetically liberal politician, can we please call an end to the intramural Catholic culture wars about who can and who can't be given a public honor? Honestly, I would provide a link to some of the bitter, hateful people who were demanding that Senator Kennedy be denied a Catholic Mass of the Resurrection, or at least that the Cardinal not be on the altar, but I don't want to be responsible for sending you to their sites. Google 'em if you must.

Second, we all know that the right-wing will be accusing the Democrats of acting "unseemly", and of "taking advantage" of Senator Kennedy's death to push forward health care reform. To which I say, "Tough". If it wasn't "unseemly" for Knute Rockne to tell his players to "win one for the Gipper", then it's not "unseemly" to invoke Senator Kennedy in support of a cause he for which he fought throughout his career.

So, the real "Wow" for me was the Prayer of the Faithful, which came after the readings from scripture. By the way, the scripture selections were inspired, especially the choice of the Gospel from Matthew, chapter 25, in which Jesus tells a parable of the End of Time, when He will tell the righteous -

'Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.' Then the righteous will answer him and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?' And the king will say to them in reply, 'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.'

That message, that what's really important is what we do for the least of our brothers and sisters, is a message that Senator Kennedy chose to have delivered to everyone at and watching his funeral.

Anyway, back the the Prayer of the Faithful. That's the part of the Mass with intercessions prayed for by the congregation, which are written specifically for that Mass. As described in the official Guidelines for the Mass -

It is fitting that such a prayer be included, as a rule, in Masses celebrated with a congregation, so that petitions will be offered for the holy Church, for civil authorities, for those weighed down by various needs, for all men and women, and for the salvation of the whole world.

As a rule, the series of intentions is to be

a. For the needs of the Church;

b. For public authorities and the salvation of the whole world;

c. For those burdened by any kind of difficulty;

d. For the local community.

Nevertheless, in a particular celebration, such as Confirmation, Marriage, or a Funeral, the series of intentions may reflect more closely the particular occasion.

That last part is the important part. For his own funeral, Senator Kennedy had a series of intercessions read that were taken from his speeches and writings, about the issues which were important to him, all in the spirit of the passage from Matthew's Gospel quoted above. They were delivered by young members of the next Kennedy generations - and after every intercession, in response to the invitation "We pray to the Lord", the congregation responds, "Lord, hear our prayer" (thanks, hat tip, etc. to "stef" at Daily Kos, who transcribed the prayers and linked to a video) -

Kiki (Teddy Jr's wife):
Teddy served for 47 years, and he summoned us all to service. And so these intercessions, for the work of his life, is our prayer, for our country, and our world.

Kiley Kennedy (Teddy Jr's daughter):
For my grandfather's commitment and persistence, not to outworn values but to old values that will never wear out. That the poor may be out of political fashion, but they are never without human need. That circumstances may change, but the work of compassion must continue, we pray to the Lord.

Grace Allen (Kara's daughter)
For my grandpa's summons, that we may not in our nation measure human beings by what they cannot do, but instead value them for what they can do, we pray to the Lord.

Max Allen (Kara's son):
For what my grandpa called the cause of his life, as he said so often, in every part of this land, that every American will have decent quality health care, as a fundamental right, and not a privilege, we pray to the Lord.

Jack Kennedy Schlossberg (Caroline's son):
For a new season of hope that my Uncle Teddy envisioned, where we rise to our best ideals, and close the book on the old politics of race and gender, group against group and straight against gay, we pray to the Lord.

Robin Lawford (Patricia's daughter):
For my Uncle Teddy's call to keep the promise, that all men and women who live here, even strangers and newcomers, can rise no matter what their color, no matter what their place of birth. For workers out of work, students without tuition for college, and families without the chance to own a home. For all Americans seeking a better life and a better land, for all those left out or left behind, we pray to the Lord.

Kym Smith (Jean's daughter):
For my Uncle's stand again violence, hate and war, and his belief that peace can be kept through the triumph of justice, and that truest justice can come only through the works of peace, we pray to the Lord.

Anthony Shriver (Eunice's son):
As my Uncle Teddy once told thousands and millions, "may it be said of us, in dark passages and bright days, in the words of Tennyson, that my brothers quoted and loved, that have a special meaning for us now. 'I am part of all that I have met. Though much is taken, much abides. That which we are, we are. One equal temper of heroic hearts, strong will, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield,'" we pray to the Lord.

Rory Kennedy (Bobby's daughter):
For the joy of my Uncle Teddy's laughter, the light of his presence, his rare and noble contributions to the human spirit. For his faith that in Heaven his father and mother, his brothers and sisters, and all who went before him, will welcome him home. And for all the times to come, when the rest of us will think of him, cuddling affectionately on the boat, surrounded by family, as we sail on the Nantucket Sound, we pray to the Lord.

Teddy III (Teddy Jr's son):
For my grandfather's brave promise last summer, that the work begins anew, the hope rises again, and the dream lives on, we pray to the Lord.

As I said, I thought this was one of the high points of the funeral Mass. In that magnificent church, before an assembly of the powerful (Democrats and Republicans alike), and the Cardinal, priests and all the other mourners, that was Senator Kennedy setting out one more time what was important to him. Not only were those his words, but I have no doubt that he was part of selecting them to be read by those members of the next generation of his family.

And hearing everyone have to say, "Lord Hear Our Prayer", after quality health care was described as "a fundamental right, and not a privilege", was priceless.

So, even past the end of his life, Senator Kennedy provided a last prayer for those progressive, humane causes he fought for, including peace, justice, equality, and the right to basic care. It'll be a help in countering the ugliness from the right which will no doubt continue to be seen and heard.

Show A Little Faith

2009-08-27T15:33:00.002-04:00

There were some interesting reminiscences on the PBS NewsHour last night about Senator Kennedy, in particular on the role his faith played in his life (despite his well-known personal failings) -

TOM OLIPHANT: His own family. Well, you know, one of the aspects of Senator Kennedy that I think has been least discussed in his lifetime and about which people knew the least was just alluded to by the father, and that was his faith.

I mean, he did not always have the best of relations with Catholic officialdom because of his personal life and also some of the issues that he championed, but he was a devout believer. I wish I had a dollar for every mass I've been to with him on the road when there was, like, nobody else except a driver.

And I remember one occasion. It was getting toward the 20th anniversary of President Kennedy's murder. And he was making a national tour. And rather than talking about President Kennedy, he was talking about poverty.

And he broke off one morning -- I'm pretty sure it was in St. Paul, Minnesota, a Catholic town -- and went to a mass in the middle of the week. And afterwards, I -- you know, we all know about his father saying you have the obligation. We all know the secular call to service.

But I asked him, "Where does this rabid concern about poverty come from?" And he looked at me like I was from Mars. And he said, "Have you never read the New Testament?"

And that was behind so much of his politics, but he was the kind of politician who would not bring it up. There was nothing evangelical about his political behavior.

Just something to keep in mind when any random politician starts trying to tell you that he's a "person of faith" - always check the output.

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

2009-08-26T10:16:00.002-04:00

Even without words, the late Senator Ted Kennedy could say what needed to be said.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Moment of Zen - The Kennedy Shrug

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Making Plans

2009-08-25T18:48:00.002-04:00

I'm reading the latest on the "Death Book" lies being promulgated, specifically GOP Chair Michael Steele's embrace of that meme. As anyone can see, this whole episode is about a workbook intended to help veterans make a decision about an advance medical directive. It's difficult to address this topic, as anyone with older parents can attest. For younger people, it's well nigh impossible, if not actually ignored (leading to situations such as Terri Schiavo's, but more on that in a moment).

Politics is one thing, but right now the National GOP is misrepresenting an important discussion that every family should have, as some sort of suicide promotion. As a result, I've come to the conclusion that the National GOP is morally bankrupt, since I have no doubt that their arguments will prevent people from making those important plans and having those important discussions.

A few years ago, my Mom and Dad (who are still very much among us today) sat down with my brother and me to tell us, in plain and direct language, what their preference was if they were being kept alive by extraordinary means. My mother had gone through these issues with her mother years earlier, with a very clear decision that my grandmother preferred a "do not resuscitate" order on her chart. Instead of a conversation, of course, a legal document would be even better, in case the medical provider had any concerns about what my brother or I would tell them, should it ever be necessary to do so.

These types of discussions are important for all families. And, legal documentation is even more important, especially if there is a chance that family members might disagree on the course of action to take. Heck, if you listen to the Rush Limbaugh show, you can hear him do an ad for "LegalZoom.com" in which he notes a living will as one of the products his listeners could obtain from this advertiser.

The whole Terri Schiavo case was due to the fact that family members disagreed regarding the use of extraordinary measure to prolong Ms. Schiavo's life. Florida law actually covers this issue, on making these decisions in the absence of a legal document –

1) If an incapacitated or developmentally disabled patient has not executed an advance directive, or designated a surrogate to execute an advance directive, or the designated or alternate surrogate is no longer available to make health care decisions, health care decisions may be made for the patient by any of the following individuals, in the following order of priority, if no individual in a prior class is reasonably available, willing, or competent to act:

(a) The judicially appointed guardian of the patient or the guardian advocate of the person having a developmental disability as defined in s. 393.063, who has been authorized to consent to medical treatment, if such guardian has previously been appointed; however, this paragraph shall not be construed to require such appointment before a treatment decision can be made under this subsection;

(b) The patient's spouse;

(c) An adult child of the patient, or if the patient has more than one adult child, a majority of the adult children who are reasonably available for consultation;

(d) A parent of the patient;

(e) The adult sibling of the patient or, if the patient has more than one sibling, a majority of the adult siblings who are reasonably available for consultation;

(f) An adult relative of the patient who has exhibited special care and concern for the patient and who has maintained regular contact with the patient and who is familiar with the patient's activities, health, and religious or moral beliefs; or

(g) A close friend of the patient.

Of course, we recall that GOP meddling resulted in passage of a Federal law to override Florida law and the Florida judicial process, leading to the grotesque circus which followed.

By discouraging and disparaging any sort of counseling about an advance directive on medical care, the GOP is sowing the seeds for more Terri Schiavo tragedies. I use the word "tragedy" to refer, not to her unfortunate illness and death, but to the tearing apart of the family and the subjection of them all to the glare of partisan publicity. Nobody else should have to go through a situation like that, as described by the guardian ad litem (GAL) who had been appointed by then-Governor Jeb Bush, and whose report issued over a year earlier had been ignored by the Republican governor and his congressional allies. As noted by the GAL -

Sometimes good law is not enough, good medicine is not enough, and all too often, good intentions do not suffice. Sometimes, the answer is in the process, not the presumed outcome. We must be left with hope that the right thing will be done well.

We are, each of us, standing in Theresa Marie Schiavo’s shoes. Each of us is profoundly affected by the decisions that have and will be made in this case. Advocates of privacy rights and death with dignity, and advocates of right to life and rights of the disabled provide the compelling definitional parameters of this matter.

In the end, the GAL concluded (as the courts did later after Congress and President Bush got involved) that Mr. Schiavo could make the choice implementing what he understood Ms. Schiavo's wishes to have been. In so doing, the GAL wrote words about the tragedy of the dispute, which describe a situation nobody should have to face -

The Schindlers and the Schiavos are normal, decent people who have found themselves within the construct of an exceptional circumstance which none of them, indeed, few reasonable and normal people could have imagined. As a consequence of this circumstance, extensive urban mythology has created toxic clouds, causing the parties and others to behave in ways that may not, in the order of things, serve the best interests of [Ms. Schiavo].

The GAL concludes that the trier of fact and the evidence that served as the basis for the decisions regarding Theresa Schiavo were firmly grounded within Florida statutory and case law, which clearly and unequivocally provide for the removal of artificial nutrition in cases of persistent vegetative states, where there is no advance directive, through substituted/proxy judgment of the guardian and/or the court as guardian, and with the use of evidence regarding the medical condition and the intent of the parties that was deemed, by the trier of fact to be clear and convincing.

Now, from the top down, the GOP is attacking the concept of an advance medical directive, which cannot help but discourage the contemplation of these decisions by the men and women who do need to think about this issue, for the sake of themselves and their families. In order to score a few political points via distortion, the GOP is encouraging the potential creation of more family tragedies like that of the Schiavo and Schindler families.

And that is simply unconscionable.

I See London, I See France ...

2009-08-25T18:44:00.003-04:00

Haven't been posting, because the Cautious Wife and moi took a trip to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. We went to London (where we've been before), and took a trip to Paris (where we've never been) in the middle of the vacation. We started out in London for a few days, then "chunnelled" into Paris on the morning of our anniversary, and spent the afternoon taking in the sights around the Tuileries, the Louvre, Notre Dame and the Latin Quarter, followed by dinner in the evening and a walk at night over to and under the Eiffel Tower. Spent a few more days in Paris, checking out the museums including the Louvre (why do people crowd for a glimpse of the Mona Lisa but then ignore all these other DaVinci paintings in the next gallery?), and visiting Versailles. Then back to London, for some theater (or "theatre"), music and general touristing.

Oh, and all the French people we met were friendly.

And, all the British people were steamed that the right-wing in the U.S. was dissing their health care system, but that's politics, and that's for another post some time.

A Good Man Is Hard To Find

2009-08-03T13:36:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, the Department of Defense announced that they had identified the remains of Lieutenant Commander Michael "Scott" Speicher, a pilot whose plane was shot down on the first night of the first Iraq War in 1991. His body was recently found in a remote area, where he had been buried when he died in the crash of his plane that night.

The overall news coverage has neglected the fact that Lt. Cmdr. Speicher and his family were misused and exploited by the Bush Administration in 2002 and 2003, as part of their campaign for an invasion of Iraq in March of 2003. As we salute the bravery of Lt. Cmdr. Speicher, and extend condolences and thanks to his family for his sacrifice, we should also not forget that exploitation of his family by the Bushies. Specifically, shortly before the run-up to the war they claimed that he was probably still a prisoner in Iraq - probably a shocking development for his widow, who had since remarried.

The news story is at once sad, but also conveys the comfort (small though it may be) for his family that their questions had been answered:

Navy pilot Michael "Scott" Speicher was shot down over the Iraq desert on the first night of the Gulf War in 1991 and it was there he apparently was buried by Bedouins, the sand hiding him from the world's mightiest military all these years.

In a sorrowful resolution to the nearly two-decade-old question about his fate, the Pentagon disclosed Sunday it had received new information last month from an Iraqi citizen that led Marines to recover bones and skeletal fragments — enough for a positive identification.

His family issued a statement Sunday saying, "The news that Captain Speicher has died on Iraqi soil after ejecting from his aircraft has been difficult for the family, but his actions in combat, and the search for him, will forever remain in their hearts and minds."

The article also notes the twists and turns that his family's hopes had taken over the years, in particular in 2002:

Shot down over west-central Iraq on a combat mission in his FA-18 Hornet on Jan. 17, 1991, Speicher was declared killed by the Pentagon hours later. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney went on television and announced the U.S. had suffered its first casualty of the war.

But 10 years later, the Navy changed his status to missing in action, citing an absence of evidence that Speicher had died. In October 2002, the Navy switched his status to "missing/captured," although it has never said what evidence it had that he ever was in captivity. More reviews followed, without definitive answers.

[Emphasis added.] The Navy may have changed his status in October 2002, but that was after President George W. Bush had already described him as "unaccounted for". In a September 2, 2002 speech to the United Nations General Assembly, urging action against Saddam Hussein, Mr. Bush included the following in his list of "charges":

In 1991, the U.N. Security Council, through Resolutions 686 and 687, demanded that Iraq return all prisoners from Kuwait and other lands. Iraq's regime agreed. It broke its promise. Last year the Secretary General's high-level coordinator for this issue reported that Kuwait, Saudi, Indian, Syrian, Lebanese, Iranian, Egyptian, Bahraini, and Omani nationals remain unaccounted for -- more than 600 people. One American pilot is among them.

As Atrios noted at the time, back on October 11, 2002 -

Well, it's all right on schedule. Missing (once dead) U.S. pilot now considered missing and captured.

An AP story at the time demonstrates the close connection between this change in status, and the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The U.S. Navy has changed the status of Gulf War pilot Scott Speicher from missing in action to missing-captured, Sen. Pat Roberts said Friday.

A defense official confirmed that Navy Secretary Gordon England had approved the change in status, which had been in the works for months.

Speicher, a Navy F-18 pilot who was shot down over Iraq on the opening night of the Gulf War in January 1991, initially was listed as killed in action, with no body recovered. But in January 2001, the Navy changed his status to missing in action, given an absence of evidence that he died in the crash.

Iraq says Speicher was killed in the crash.

Roberts, R-Kan., and other members of Congress have been pressing the Pentagon this year to change Speicher's status. Some in the Navy had worried that declaring Speicher captured would be seen as a political move as part of President Bush's drive to win support for possible military action against Saddam Hussein.

The change in status "sends a symbolic message to the Iraqis, to other adversaries and most important to the men and women of the armed forces that we will accept nothing less than full disclosure of circumstances surrounding the missing and captured," Roberts said.

Though not mentioning Speicher by name, Bush has referred in several recent speeches to a U.S. pilot still missing in Iraq.

Another contemporaneous news account shows the link between Iraq war planning and the change in Lt. Commander Speicher's status -

The status of missing Gulf War pilot Michael "Scott" Speicher was changed Friday from "missing in action" to "missing-captured," according to a Navy memorandum.

Navy Secretary Gordon England signed the order Friday in what has been a long anticipated move.

Earlier this year, Pentagon officials said that Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz wanted Speicher's status to be changed from MIA to missing-captured because the implication, according to one military officer, is that the change "will become another reason to bomb Iraq."

In his memorandum Friday, England said, "It is my firm belief that the government of Iraq knows what happened to Captain Speicher."

Speicher was shot down over Iraq in January 1991 during the early hours of the Gulf War and was listed as "missing in action" the following day.

Since that time there have been numerous reports about the fate of the pilot, but there has been no solid evidence to indicate what happened to him. His status was eventually changed to "killed in action." He was promoted to captain earlier this year.

In early 2003, another report was circulated to the effect that he might still be alive -

The United States in recent months has received another intelligence report suggesting U.S. Navy Capt. Scott Speicher is alive in Iraq, but intelligence sources emphasize they have not corroborated the information and have nothing to indicate it is accurate.

The report closely parallels that received in the past but has never been verified, sources said Friday. Intelligence generally has indicated Speicher is alive and has been moved among various locations in the 12 years he has been held in Iraq.

And on March 11, days before the order was given to invade Iraq, the Wall Street Journal "reported" the following:

POW Still in Iraq?
"U.S. intelligence agencies have obtained new information indicating Iraq is holding captive a U.S. Navy pilot shot down during the Persian Gulf war," the Washington Times' Bill Gertz reports. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher was classified as killed in action when the Iraqis shot down his F-18 Hornet, but last year the Pentagon reclassified him as missing. Gertz says the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency have received information from British intelligence that "only two Iraqis were permitted to see the captive American pilot: the chief of Iraq's intelligence service, and Uday Hussein, son of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein."

As the war got underway, Senator Bill Nelson Florida stated the following on the floor of the United States Senate (Scroll down to page s4081 on this website containing excerpts from the Congressional Record) -

I have seen the early evidence, which has been made public, that a defector, who was corroborated--indeed, he passed a lie detector test, as well as being corroborated on other evidence--actually drove Speicher from near the crash site to a place near a hospital, and picked him out of a lineup of photographs.

I have seen more recent information from a variety of sources that leads me to believe that Scott Speicher is alive. That opinion, by the way, is shared by my colleague, Senator PAT ROBERTS of Kansas, now the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, who has been, along with former Senator Bob Smith, unrelenting--all of us--in the pursuit of a clarification on the status of Scott Speicher.

It is my opinion he is alive. So we have gone to our commanders, and they have assured us, we have gone to the civilian agencies, and they have assured us: Scott Speicher is at the top of their list of priorities as we are now going into Iraq, to go and find him.

And, oh, what a day that would be, if he is alive, and if America can correct the mistake that our DOD made and bring that American pilot home.

By the way, Lt. Cmdr. Speicher's widow had remarried by the time the Bush Administration had started changing his status and spreading rumors that they had intelligence proving that he was alive. As far as I am concerned, they needlessly victimized her and the rest of his family and friends, in order to stoke the fires in the run-up to the March 2003 invasion.

Who's Your Daddy?

2009-08-03T13:35:00.000-04:00

Michelle Obama has spoken with pride and admiration of how her father raised her and her brother. Michelle Malkin has now written an unsavory attack on the First Lady's late father, Fraser Robinson. As documented by Media Matters for America, Ms. Malkin's new collection of rantings includes, as one of her attacks, this claim:

Mrs. Obama was literally born into the Chicago political corruptocracy. Her father, Fraser Robinson, was a volunteer precinct caption for the Democrat Party [sic]. ... Former alderman Leon Despres bluntly told Mundy that it was "overwhelmingly likely" that Robinson's job at the city water department was a reward for his loyalty.

A review of the source for the above "conclusion" actually shows the truth to be, well, the opposite, actually. This particular line of attack by Ms. Malkin attracted my interest because, once upon a time, she also was proud to highlight the accomplishments of her father, an immigrant and a physician. However, probably for the same pander-to-the-right reasons, Ms. Malkin has downplayed her immigrant father in describing herself.

Ms. Malkin claims to base her conclusions about the late Mr. Robinson, and his impact on his daughter's career, on information in a biography of the First Lady by Washington Post writer Liz Mundy:

Washington Post writer Liza Mundy called him "an essential member of the powerful political machine run by [Richard J.] Daley, who, in addition to being mayor, was the chairman of the Cook County Democratic Central Committee, meaning he controlled both the government and the political party, and could use one to do the other's bidding." Former alderman Leon Despres bluntly told Mundy that it was "overwhelmingly likely" that Robinson's job at the city water department was a reward for his loyalty. "The water department, where Fraser Robinson worked, was a renowned repository of patronage jobs."

Why such little scrutiny of Michelle the Merciless (or "That Other Michelle," as she's known in my house) and her crony-aided rise to power? Like her husband, Mrs. Obama is quick to play the victim card when her ill-considered statements and her dealings come under scrutiny. I don't call her President Obama's bitter half for nothing.

However, as the Media Matters analysis demonstrates, her father's need to participate in the system was an contributory factor in her skepticism about politics:

Her dad and her community may well explain her own grounded and hard-working nature, as well as her commitment to her children, but Chicago in the 1960s was almost certainly the source of her oft-expressed skepticism about politics. It was not only a racist and highly segregated city, but one with a complex and ambiguous political system, a system that Fraser Robinson participated in, either because he enjoyed politics or because it was one of the few paths open to an ambitious black man. [Michelle: A Biography, Page 23]

In fact, Ms. Malkin's accusation that Mr. Robinson's participation in the "corruptocracy" is a stain which then transferred to Michelle Obama, is really just a "blame the victim" approach which fails to understand the situation of the rank-and-file workers.

People who underperformed in their political work were susceptible to being "vised," or summarily fired. That was politics in Chicago. "Some of [Michelle's] subconscious -- some of her disdain as to politics could have to do with how [her father] was treated, and what he had to go through," says Al Kindle, a political consultant who grew up on the South Side.

And that, Kindle says, is why the black community was ambivalent about patronage and about Daley: the Machine lifted you up -- got you services and perks -- at the same time that it kept you down. "It was clear that you didn't get access to certain services unless you were a friend to the power structure. That spigot could be cut off. As a young African American with a family, you had to think about that with a jaundiced eye. Just as it helped you, it restricted your choice." So it could be that Robinson's son and daughter developed a dislike for politics even as they developed a deep, deep love for him. "We as a family were extremely cynical about politics and politicians" is how Craig [Robinson, Michelle Obama's brother] puts it. That started to change when they met Barack, whose political career was pushed in part by a coalition of people who had grown up in opposition to Daley and whose goal was breaking the Machine. [Michelle: A Biography, Pages 30-31]

Finally, as pointed out by Media Matters,

Citing Mundy's book in attacking Fraser Robinson, Malkin ignored Mundy's reporting that Robinson worked every day for decades despite being "crippled by multiple sclerosis." ... Mundy added that Michelle and Craig "describe what an inspiration it was to both of them, seeing Fraser Robinson get up to go to work every day, something that became increasingly difficult after his disease set in. Despite the fact that he needed a cane -- and, later, crutches and eventually a motorized cart -- he never stopped working." [Michelle: A Biography, Page 30]

Now, what makes this a "tale of two fathers" is the fact that, while Michelle Obama speaks proudly of her father, who she describes as literally having "died on his way to work", Ms. Malkin is less likely to mention her own father, or for that matter her mother's background.

A while back, when looking at Ms. Malkin's unique role in our national discourses on race, religion and immigration, I noticed something that I found odd. The "About" page on her website used to describe her as a child of immigrants.

Malkin, the daughter of Filipino immigrants, was born in Philadelphia, Pa. in 1970 and raised in southern New Jersey.

An archived version (via the "Wayback Machine" at archive.org) is at this link. And this is how she describes herself today -

I’m a Philly-born, South Jersey-raised alumna of Holy Spirit HS and Oberlin College.

As a matter of fact, she didn't even mention her physician father from the Phillipines when she decided to comment on a kerfuffle involving a character on the program "Desparate Housewives" who says to her doctor, "Can I just check those diplomas because I just want to make sure that they are not from some med school in the Philippines."

So, to recap. Michelle Obama speaks proudly of her father, which is distorted by Ms. Malkin into a description of a corrupt participant in the Chicago machine. As for Michelle Malkin, any mention of her immigrant father (with pride or not) appears to be "inconvenient" for her nowadays.

Thursday? Night Springsteen (????)

2009-07-30T22:05:00.002-04:00

Yeah, I know, the "Sunday Night Springsteen" hasn't been added to, lately.

But I saw this, this evening, and it had not been viewed much at the time.

Mr. Springsteen in Bilbao, with Chuck Berry's "You Never Can Tell". There is accordion, in case you were worried about that.

"If An Officer Stops You ...

2009-07-24T11:36:00.009-04:00

... Promise you'll always be polite,
that you'll never ever run away
Promise Mama you'll keep your hands in sight."

- B. Springsteen, American Skin

The latest kerfuffle in the news involves comments made by President Obama when asked about the arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates at his own home. Professor Gates needed help to push open his door, when he arrived home last week after a long flight; someone who saw two black men pushing open a door suspected a burglary, and called the police. As even the President said when asked about the incident: "But so far, so good. They're reporting -- the police are doing what they should. There's a call, they go investigate what happens." The President didn't make a negative comment about the response to the call, he made a negative comment about the decision to handcuff and arrest Professor Gates even after it was clear that he was who he said he was, and he was in his own home.

Was Professor Gates shouting angrily at the police? Yeah, he probably was. He was tired from a long flight, he had trouble getting back into his own house, and so was probably more than a little cranky already when a police officer came to the door and asked him to prove that this was his house.

Should he have been arrested? People are going to argue about that - I think not. Even in account from the official police report, the officer was out of the house, off the porch, and down the steps in front of the house, while Professor Gates was on his porch shouting. As reproduced at The Smoking Gun" website, this is what the officer wrote (click below to enlarge) -

The officer does not report that he felt threatened by Professor Gates, and as noted the officer was already out of the house, and with other officers. At the point where the officer is outside, in front of the house, and Professor Gates is on his own porch shouting - was that the time to take out the handcuffs, walk back up on to the porch, and cuff the Professor's hands behind his back. In my opinion, it was not.

[Edited 7/29/09 to add] Well, this is interesting. The Fox News legal expert, Judge Andrew Napolitano, concludes that Professor Gates shouldn't have been arrested for being disorderly if he was on his own porch - and adds that he thinks the officer shouldn't have even asked to come inside the house, based on the information he had at the time. (via ThinkProgress)

Leap of Faith

2009-07-10T12:30:00.010-04:00

Well, President Obama once again pals around with another leftist leader. Well, maybe not "pal around", and maybe "leftist" isn't exactly the right word. But, if you're looking for somebody with a fairly left-wing view of world economics, who has a big megaphone and is not afraid to use it, then consider the guy who released this material earlier this week:

The processes of globalization, suitably understood and directed, open up the unprecedented possibility of large-scale redistribution of wealth on a world-wide scale ...

And:

That would be the Capo di tutti capi of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI (a/k/a "B-16"). President Obama and the Pope had a meeting today, but you won't hear the same howling from the right about a Benedict-Obama handshake as you would regarding, say, a Hugo Chavez-Obama get-together. Actually, the right-wing is probably upset with the Pope for this meeting, but that's another story.

The Pope may not be a party animal, but on economic issues he's not exactly in step with the Republican Party line. In his encyclical Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth), released earlier this week, he addressed international economics, the environment, immigrant workers, and other related issues. He's definitely a "big picture" guy, and his picture involves a lot more international cooperation and less cut-throat capitalism -

Economic activity cannot solve all social problems through the simple application of commercial logic. This needs to be directed towards the pursuit of the common good, for which the political community in particular must also take responsibility. Therefore, it must be borne in mind that grave imbalances are produced when economic action, conceived merely as an engine for wealth creation, is detached from political action, conceived as a means for pursuing justice through redistribution.

As described by commentator David Gibson -

But what is clear, whether one reads every word or just excerpts, is that the pope is a liberal, at least in American political terms. He says this is not a document proposing "technical solutions," and stresses the greed and sin at the heart of the current economic crisis. Yet he rigorously and consistently applies the Golden Rule to economics and finance, calling for greater regulation of the markets and -- get this -- "a true world political authority" that can put "real teeth" into international governance.

Not even the purportedly "socialist" Barack Obama, who will meet with Benedict on Friday for the first time at the Vatican, would imagine going that far.

As several commentators have noted, the hostile attitude of right-wing American Catholics (which the press and especially Fox News love to highlight) just doesn't carry over to the Home Office in Rome. As noted by E.J. Dionne -

But the Vatican clearly views Obama through a broader prism. Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the papal nuncio in Washington, has privately warned American bishops that harsh attacks on Obama threaten to make the church look partisan.

The Vatican press has been largely sympathetic to Obama, and in a recent article, Cardinal Georges Cottier, who was the theologian of the papal household under Pope John Paul II, praised Obama’s "humble realism" on abortion and went so far as to compare the president’s approach to that of St. Thomas Aquinas. (Pray this won’t go to Obama’s head.)
...

[T]he pope and many of his advisers also see Obama as a potential ally on such questions as development in the Third World, their shared approach to a quest for peace in the Middle East, and the opening of a dialogue with Islam.

American conservatives will continue to hammer away with complaints about "European-style socialism" as they oppose President Obama's proposals. Taking a step back, I would suggest, just might show that reference to an older philosophy may be more applicable. As President Obama noted in a meeting with some of the American Catholic press last week, there is much "common ground" to be explored.

[Edited to add] A slide-show of President Obama's peek at the Pope.

[Edited 7/13 to add] A pertinent cartoon, making this same point, found on today's "The Week in Editorial Cartoons" on Daily Kos -

Born In The USA (Not)

2009-07-06T11:31:00.003-04:00

Via Lawyers, Gun$ and Money, Hugh Laurie of "House" fame doing a "Song for America" -

You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

2009-07-06T10:56:00.004-04:00

Governor Sarah Palin has been unleashed. Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride. She combines the unhinged, say-whatever political approach of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann with a dash of the "Know Nothing", nativist and dangerous hate-mongering of Hal Turner.

She's Bachmann-Turner Overdrive!!!!

The Catholic Traffic

2009-07-02T17:00:00.005-04:00

Interesting story via dotCommonweal -

The current president has cited the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin before, most recently in his speech at Notre Dame: ”He was a kind and good and wise man,” Barack Obama said then of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. “A saintly man.”

And the “Common Ground” approach of Chicago’s Bernardin and Chicago’s Obama have great resonances. At a meeting this morning with eight [mainly] Catholic journalists ahead of his meeting next week with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican, Obama invoked Bernardin again–and, as the WaPost’s Jackie Salmon writes, he “promised a ‘robust’ federal policy protecting health-care workers who have moral objections to performing some procedures.” (I think that’s the sound of another anti-Obama talking point falling.)

The whole thing is a terrific antidote to the "manufactured outrage" of some Catholic right-wingers (ably assisted by Fox News). There are links to other Catholic publications which were represented there, including the more right-leaning National Catholic Register -

In his remarks, the president said that he had a wonderful conversation with Pope Benedict XVI right after his election. He said that he sees his visit with the Holy See in some ways like any other government in that there will be areas of agreement and disagreement. He also said that he sees the Holy See as more than a government because of the Church’s influence on this country and the world. He said that it would be a great honor to meet the Pope and was looking forward to talking about the Middle East, climate change and immigration.

“The most noteworthy thing during the meeting was his dispelling of what you might call the expectation of the worst regarding conscience clauses,” said Father Kearns [editor in chief and publisher of the National Catholic Register, who was one of the attendees]. “He said that the confusion regarding the issue was due to the timing of everything rather than what he was going to do. His administration saw the previous administration’s 11th-hour change as problematic, and so they undid that. He said that in Illinois he was a supporter of a robust conscience clause, something he reiterated in his Notre Dame speech. He added that the government has received hundreds of thousands of public comments, and he promised that there would be a robust conscience-clause protection in place, and that it would not be weaker than President Bush’s 11th-hour change. Still, he added, it won’t please everybody.”

In addition, Father Kearns noted the president’s analysis of the divide in Catholicism.

“The president said he had fond memories of Cardinal Bernardin and that when he started his neighborhood project, they were funded by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development,” he said. “After the first question, from the National Catholic Reporter‘s Joe Feuerherd, the president jokingly asked, ‘Was there really [a controversy at Notre Dame]?’

And as reported by the National Catholic Reporter representative, the President noted with respect to Cardinal Bernadin's "seamless garment" approach which also encompassed poverty, the treatment of children, the death penalty, and war and foreign policy -

“And that part of the Catholic tradition is something that continues to inspire me. And I think that there have been times over the last decade or two where that more holistic tradition feels like it’s gotten buried under the abortion debate.”

The president continued, “Now, as a non-Catholic, it’s not up to me to try to resolve those tensions. As I said, all I can do is to affirm how that other tradition has made me, a non-Catholic, I think reflect on how I can be a better person and has had a powerful influence on my life. And that tells me that it might be a powerful way to move a broader set of values forward in American life generally.”

Read all the links, for a variety of points of view of this sit-down, if you're interested in this sort of thing. I find it fascinating, especially the way the President seems able to, once again, disarm potential critics by engaging them in an intelligent discussion.

Tunnel of Love

2009-07-02T12:01:00.006-04:00

I can feel the soft silk of your blouse
And them soft thrills in our little fun house
Then the lights go out and it's just the three of us
You me and all that stuff we're so scared of
Gotta ride down baby into this tunnel of love

- Bruce Springsteen, Tunnel of Love.

I tried to resist giving in to temptation, but I couldn't resist the "sparking". So, a brief post about Governor Sanford of South Carolina. Talking Points Memo sums up his dilemma pretty well -

After days of assuring the public he was firmly in control after admitting a scandalous affair, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford detailed other encounters with his Argentine "soul mate," dalliances with women before her, and his struggle to salvage his 20-year marriage.

Sanford, who last week used a televised news conference to throw himself on the mercy of the public, state leaders and his wife, chronicled his affair and tortured emotions in interviews with The Associated Press Monday and Tuesday. This time, he said, he wanted to "lay it all out."

But as more details of his private life spill out, what Sanford has done in the name of love is too much even for some of his friends in state government.

...

"I don't want to blow up my time in politics," he told the AP. "I don't want to blow up future earning power, I don't want to blow up the kids' lives. I don't want to blow up 20 years that we've invested. But if I'm completely honest, there are still feelings in the way. If we keep pushing it this way, we get those to die off, but they're still there and they're still real."

He has trouble, he said, shutting down the love he feels for Maria Belen Chapur, the Argentine woman he first met in 2001.

Sanford also said he's "crossed the lines" with a handful of other women during 20 years of marriage, but not as far as he did with Chapur and not since the two met.

"Without wandering into that field we'll just say that I let my guard down in all senses of the word without ever crossing the line that I crossed with this situation," he said, referring to his affair with Chapur.

He insists he can fall back in love with his wife, Jenny, even as he witnesses his "own political funeral."

There is just So. Much. Wrong. There. Leaving aside the whole hypocrisy thing, where he's "defending the sanctity of marriage" while making plans for weekend trysts, it's the post-discovery piling-on. As Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo put it yesterday -

In part two of his leave-no-rock-unturned interview with the Associated Press, Mark Sanford says that at least he will "be able to die knowing I had met my soul mate,"... . And if that's not enough, he says that for all the grief his affair has caused, that if the affair means he can never run for president (think the ship's sort of sailed on that one), that it will have been worth it.

I know there are a lot of people who are genuinely questioning Sanford's sanity at this point -- when you put together the furtive trips and the endless new revelations. But am I the only one who thinks that he appears to be deeply in love with this woman and should just go be with her?
...

Of course, when you're a middle-aged man facing the collapse of your life's work and abandoning hope of being with the woman you call your 'soul mate' rational decision making or a clearly considered plan may be too much to expect. But it does seem like there are two guys here. One saying he wants to serve out his responsibility to his state and reconcile with his wife and another using the press to broadcast a free form love poem to the girlfriend in Argentina.

I wouldn't go too far down the "tortured soul" road. Look, I know that marriages break up, but I also know that we can make choices in life. We can choose to do things that help keep our marriages strong, or we can do things that weaken or detract from them. Governor Sanford decided that a woman whom he saw infrequently, but who he corresponded with via email, was more "real" to him than the woman he had courted, married, been helped in his career by, and parented children with. Instead of spending time thinking about how exciting things would be with "Maria from Buenos Aires", he could have tried to think of ways to enhance the life he was living with his wife. For crying out loud, he was a successful, rich and popular politician, so his life wasn't that miserable to begin with.

He may fallen victim to the age-old failing, the confusion of love and lust. Emailing his far-away innamorata may have been more "thrilling" than his everyday life (but see the part above about being rich, successful and popular in that "everyday life"). In Book 2, Chapter 2 of his Confessions, St. Augustine wrote of his former life with words that could have come from a Governor Sanford presser -

But what was it that delighted me save to love and to be loved? Still I did not keep the moderate way of the love of mind to mind--the bright path of friendship. Instead, the mists of passion steamed up out of the puddly concupiscence of the flesh, and the hot imagination of puberty, and they so obscured and overcast my heart that I was unable to distinguish pure affection from unholy desire. Both boiled confusedly within me, and dragged my unstable youth down over the cliffs of unchaste desires and plunged me into a gulf of infamy. Thy anger had come upon me, and I knew it not. I had been deafened by the clanking of the chains of my mortality, the punishment for my soul’s pride, and I wandered farther from thee, and thou didst permit me to do so. I was tossed to and fro, and wasted, and poured out, and I boiled over in my fornications--and yet thou didst hold thy peace, O my tardy Joy! Thou didst still hold thy peace, and I wandered still farther from thee into more and yet more barren fields of sorrow, in proud dejection and restless lassitude.

In case it's not evident yet, while I feel sorry for the Sanford family as a whole, I'm on the side where there's little sympathy created by the pathetic spectacle that he's been presenting.

It ought to be easy ought to be simple enough
Man meets woman and they fall in love
But the house is haunted and the ride gets rough
And you've got to learn to live with what you can't rise above
If you want to ride on down
In through this tunnel of love

Think It Over Judge One More Time?

2009-06-29T12:01:00.003-04:00

The United States Supreme Court decided Ricci v. DeStefano this morning. That's the New Haven Firefighter case (otherwise known as Judge Sotomayor's "reverse discrimination" case). The majority found that the City did not provide a sufficient basis for rejecting the results of a promotion exam which the City perceived to be racially skewed. The opinion can be found at this link (Note, it's a PDF).

So, did the majority of the Supreme Court conclude that Judge Sotomayor was an "unwise Latina" who violated constitutional principles in order to discriminate against white firefighters? Not exactly. Instead, the majority concluded that the law in this area embodies conflicting principles, and that is was the job of the Supreme Court to provide guidance as to how to reconcile those principles. Far from faulting the lower court decisions, the Supreme Court's decision recognized that it was taking the opportunity to clarify the law, and to show what a jurisdiction needed to do in order to conclude that test results in a simlar situation were or were not evidence of an improper racial disparity.

Some quotes supporting this. From page 20 of the decision -

We consider, therefore, whether the purpose to avoid disparate-impact liability excuses what otherwise would be prohibited disparate-treatment discrimination. Courts often confront cases in which statutes and principles point in different directions. Our task is to provide guidance to employers and courts for situations when these two prohibitions could be in conflict absent a rule to reconcile them. In providing this guidance our decision must be consistent with the important purpose of Title VII—that the work-place be an environment free of discrimination, where race is not a barrier to opportunity.

Also from page 20-21, the majority says that an argument that an employer could never consider the results, in deciding that there was an impermissible disparate racial impact, goes too far -

Petitioners take a strict approach, arguing that under Title VII, it cannot be permissible for an employer to take race-based adverse employment actions in order to avoid disparate-impact liability—even if the employer knows its practice violates the disparate-impact provision. See Brief for Petitioners 43. Petitioners would have us hold that, under Title VII, avoiding unintentional discrimination cannot justify intentional discrimination. That assertion, however, ignores the fact that, by codifying the disparate-impact provision in 1991, Congress has expressly prohibited both types of discrimination. We must interpret the statute to give effect to both provisions where possible.

Finally, in the conclusion on page 34 -

Our holding today clarifies how Title VII applies to resolve competing expectations under the disparate-treatment and disparate-impact provisions. If, after it certifies the test results, the City faces a disparate-impact suit, then in light of our holding today it should be clear that the City would avoid disparate-impact liability based on the strong basis in evidence that, had it not certified the results, it would have been subject to disparate-treatment liability.

There's a chance (okay, a likelihood) that some commentators would call the decision a "rebuke" or "rejection" of decision that Judge Sotomayor joined in the appellate court. Actually reading the decision shows that is not the case.

Cat Shrugs His ShouldersSits Back and Sighs ...

2009-06-25T13:59:00.003-04:00

We had to say goodbye to one of the Cautious Cats today. Not only was he in pain, but his lack of eating had made him half the cat he had been (although that still was considerable, for a cat). He was finally too weak to do the cat things he always liked to do. His last extended (and slow) walk around the house was a few days ago, and he wandered all over as if looking for some way, any way, to get outside - probably just to go off by himself.

So, he's not in pain anymore. He is survived by a Cautious Man, a Cautious Wife, two Cautious Kids and his older, Cautious Cat brother.

I now will need another way to keep the papers on my desk from being blown off by a sudden breeze.

He's "The One"?

2009-06-20T13:31:00.002-04:00

John Hodgman at the Radio & Television Correspondents' Dinner, considering the question of whether Barack Obama can be considered "our first nerd President."

One of the many parts of this that amused me was at this point in the video, when Mr. Hodgman declares of the President, "There are some who claim, sir, that you are the Kwisatz Haderach", at which point there are some scattered laughs (I laughed when I watched it) - Hodgman turns toward the laughter and brightly says, "Hello, nerds!"

As It Changes To GreenWith Your Faith In Your Machine ...

2009-06-19T19:53:00.003-04:00

The situation in Iran causes one to pause, and to hope for the best for the people there.

It causes someone such as Andrew Sullivan to paint his place "green" and urge everyone else to do the same in "solidarity".

I like the response from John Cole -

God love Sullivan, because I know his heart is in the right place. ... If someone can give me one legitimate piece of evidence that wearing green boxers is going to help bring democracy to Iran, so help me I’ll wear plaid from head to toe and shoot for world peace.

I know he means well, but this is what I was talking about this morning when I said that the coverage of the events in Iran by American bloggers was giving me a warblogger circa 2003 vibe. I can’t be the only one who is reminded of Abbie Hoffman’s plans to levitate the Pentagon through the power of meditation.

My thoughts are with the folks in Iran risking it all fighting for democracy, but this can not be said enough- this is not about us, it is about them. I love the coverage of events, but please stop with this narcissistic nonsense.

Just so you know, here at "A Cautious Man" we've been "green" from "Day One" (after "a long process of formatting and coloring"). We welcome Mr. Sullivan to the Blogs Who Are Green.

Sunday Night Springsteen

2009-06-14T22:55:00.002-04:00

Haven't done this in a while.

This is a show from the Meadowlands, which I believe I was at.

Looking forward to the last night at Giants Stadium this October (last concert before they take it down), which we will be at (of course).

Jersey Girl -

"Well If I Could I Surely WouldStand On The Rock Where Moses Stood ..."

2009-06-14T16:21:00.003-04:00

If God had texted the 10 Commandments (from McSweeneys.net) -

1. no1 b4 me. srsly.

2. dnt wrshp pix/idols

3. no omg's

4. no wrk on w/end (sat 4 now; sun l8r)

5. pos ok - ur m&d r cool

6. dnt kill ppl

7. :-X only w/ m8

8. dnt steal

9. dnt lie re: bf

10. dnt ogle ur bf's m8. or ox. or dnkey. myob.

M, pls rite on tabs & giv 2 ppl.

ttyl, JHWH.

ps. wwjd?

Calls You By Your True Name

2009-06-14T12:39:00.003-04:00

Haven't posted a random thought in a few weeks. I've been doing more reading and thinking, but not much communicating. I felt moved to post a comment to this entry at the blog Catholic Sensibility, on anonymity in blogging. The proprietor at that site makes a good point -

It is a mystery to me why a few well-known Catholic bloggers have opted for pseudonymity given their penchant for attack. Oh, I can understand a spouse or family insisting on anonymity. My wife would definitely prefer I not use my real name and link to my real locations. The phenomenon strikes me as similar to the superhero alter ego. In a way, a man or woman becomes a different person wearing the mask, the costume, the pseudonym. If you’re fighting the minions of evil, fine. If the modus operandi is to disenfranchise one’s ideological adversaries, bad show indeed. It would be better for anonymous or pseudonymous folks to just refrain from attack unless they’re willing to sign their name on the line. Once I told an e-mail correspondent if they were unwilling to show their posts to their spouse and parish pastor, why would they expect me to take them seriously as a believer with a cause?

My comment that I added there was this: All I really know about the bloggers I read, is what is on their pages. Whether they are identified with a real name or not, or provide personal information or not, their worth comes not from who they are (or how important they may think they are) but from what they write. I don't have time to just read mindless attacks, no matter how they're signed. There can be as many false accusations in a signed piece of writing as an unsigned one - sometimes more, if issued by some of the more self-righteous commentators.

That having been said, if I ever become so consumed with my own self-importance, and think that my opinions must be worth more than those of others, just because I'm me, I should probably utilize a different means of communicating them.

Be True To Your School ...

2009-05-27T15:45:00.004-04:00

This little tidbit was in the middle of today's New York Times profile of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's nominee to the United States Supreme Court -

When Ms. Sotomayor arrived at Princeton in the fall of 1972, she was one of the only Latinos there: there were no professors, no administrators, and only a double-digit number of students. Princeton women were sharply outnumbered as well; the first ones had been admitted only a few years earlier, and some alumni had protested their increasing ranks. (Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who graduated just a few months before Ms. Sotomayor arrived, belonged to one of the groups that protested.)

Good times coming on the Supremes!

I Like To Be In America

2009-05-27T15:12:00.007-04:00

Immigrant goes to America,
Many hellos in America;
Nobody knows in America
Puerto Rico's in America!

- "America", from West Side Story, Music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

Some right-wing clown named Mark Krikorian warns that once we have to pronounce people's names correctly, anarchy will follow.

Most e-mailers were with me on the post on the pronunciation of Judge Sotomayor's name (and a couple griped about the whole Latina/Latino thing — English dropped gender in nouns, what, 1,000 years ago?). But a couple said we should just pronounce it the way the bearer of the name prefers, including one who pronounces her name "freed" even though it's spelled "fried," like fried rice. (I think Cathy Seipp of blessed memory did the reverse — "sipe" instead of "seep.") Deferring to people's own pronunciation of their names should obviously be our first inclination, but there ought to be limits. Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English ...

He then proceeds to explain how he is such a wimp that he happily lets people mispronounce his own name -

For instance, in Armenian, the emphasis is on the second syllable in my surname, just as in English, but it has three syllables, not four (the "ian" is one syllable) — but that's not how you'd say it in English (the "ian" means the same thing as in English — think Washingtonian or Jeffersonian). Likewise in Russian, you put the emphasis in my name on the final syllable and turn the "o" into a schwa, and they're free to do so because that's the way it works in their language.

It's all for a higher purpose, however - nothing less than preservation of American culture -

This may seem like carping, but it's not. Part of our success in assimilation has been to leave whole areas of culture up to the individual, so that newcomers have whatever cuisine or religion or so on they want, limiting the demand for conformity to a smaller field than most other places would. But one of the areas where conformity is appropriate is how your new countrymen say your name, since that's not something the rest of us can just ignore, unlike what church you go to or what you eat for lunch. And there are basically two options — the newcomer adapts to us, or we adapt to him. And multiculturalism means there's a lot more of the latter going on than there should be.

We're not talking about throwing widows on their husbands' burning funeral pyres, we're talking about how people say their own name!!!! It's almost as if there is a deep-seated conservative need to use schoolyard taunts as a way to assert themselves, whether it's deliberately mispronouncing someone's name (especially if that name is Hispanic) or referring to the "Democrat Party".

Something tells me that when Mr. Krikorian and his fellow-travelers think about Judge Sotomayor, this is what they see in their minds -

Facing Up To Their Responsibilities

2009-05-08T18:03:00.003-04:00

From today's news -

The director of the White House Military Office has resigned, an administration official said Friday, two weeks after he authorized an Air Force One backup to fly over the Statue of Liberty that terrified thousands of people in New York City. The director, Louis Caldera, who served as the secretary of the Army in the Clinton administration, had apologized for approving the flyover. He submitted his resignation on Friday, after the president ordered an internal White House review.

For those of you who are keeping track -

Number of government officials taking responsibility for mistakes which allowed a flyover that reminded people of the 9/11 attacks: 1.

Number of government officials taking responsibility for mistakes which allowed the 9/11 attacks: 0.

Concluding that this is a different kind of Presidency doesn't even begin to explain this.

"News From The Home Office"

2009-05-07T08:55:00.006-04:00

Related to the post right below, I wonder if the clerics criticizing Notre Dame are now going to have to start arguing that the Vatican's newspaper isn't "Catholic" enough? Via E.J. Dionne, who writes -

We now know that the reaction of right-wing Catholics to Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama falls into the category of "more Catholic than the pope."

To the dismay of many conservatives, the Vatican's own newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, has offered what one antiabortion Catholic blog called "a surprisingly positive assessment of the new president's approach to life issues" -- so positive, in fact, that a spokesman for the National Right to Life Committee was moved to criticize Pope Benedict XVI's daily.

The Vatican newspaper offered its analysis as Catholic liberals and conservatives are battling fiercely over Notre Dame's decision to invite the president as this year's commencement speaker and to grant him an honorary degree. The article will strengthen the liberal claim that the Catholic right's over-the-top response is rooted at least as much in Republican and conservative politics as in concern over the abortion question.

The April 29 essay by Giuseppe Fiorentino, L'Osservatore's frequent foreign affairs contributor, painted Obama as a moderate on many fronts. "Some have accused him of practicing excessive statism," Fiorentino wrote, "if not even of making the country drift toward socialism." But "a calmer analysis," he said, suggests that Obama "has moved with caution." (I rely here on a translation of the article posted yesterday on the Vatican's official Web site.)

That translation is here at the Vatican's website. It's a lot more "fair and balanced" than your average Fox News coverage of the Presidency. For example, while the essay notes differences with the President's approach to abortion rights, it also approvingly notes other legislative initiatives: "Moreover, a definite cause for surprise was the presentation of a law designed by the Democratic party: the Pregnant Women Support Act, aimed at limiting the number of abortions in the U.S. through initiatives to assist pregnant women. While not a negation of the doctrine that Obama has conveyed up to this point regarding abortion, this legislative project could represent a rebalancing in favour of motherhood."

Mr. Dionne's column concludes on a cautionary note -

And so when Obama rises to speak at Notre Dame on May 17, the stakes will be highest for moderate and liberal Catholics who insist the president is seeking common ground on the moment's most contentious ethical issues. It is likely to be his most consequential intervention in the debate over religion's role in American politics. In accepting the invitation, Obama has assumed a large responsibility that he should not try to escape.

Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility ...

2009-04-30T10:58:00.005-04:00

... is the name of the Catholic Church in Lake Wobegon, Garrison Keillor's "hometown" of which he has spun many a tale. That phrase came to mind when thinking about the current kerfuffle involving the University of Notre Dame (i.e. "Our Lady"), President Obama, an honorary degree and a commencement address (fueled mostly by right-wing groups for political, not religious reasons). These are some random thoughts that I've read, which make sensible points. From an editorial in Commonweal Magazine:

Some of the objections to the invitation have been more reasonable. Some say that a Catholic university might legitimately invite President Obama to give a talk or to engage in a colloquy, but giving him an honorary degree is tantamount to an imprimatur. Yet university officials have made no secret of Notre Dame’s disagreement with the president about abortion and stem-cell research, and certainly the president and the public cannot be in doubt about the church’s opposition to his policies in those areas. Honorary degrees signify an institution’s admiration for the accomplishments of the recipient. They do not signify blanket moral approbation.

From a commentary with a lot of good points by the eminently sensible columnist (and Catholic) E.J. Dionne, who references the Commonweal editorial:

Declaring that “the church is not simply the prolife movement” is both true and essential. I understand that there are committed pro-lifers who really do believe that abortion is the most important issue, and who therefore cannot abide the invitation to the president. But the Catholic Church has a rich history of concern with issues related to social justice, peace and equality. It should not be defined solely by the politics of abortion.

Moreover, I cannot help but suspect that some of the opposition to Obama’s appearance at Notre Dame among Catholics comes from political conservatives and Republicans who are at least as motivated by their political views as by their views of church teaching. By the same token, many Catholics who support the invitation are no doubt also motivated by their political sympathies. It’s unfortunate that what might take the form of a straightforward political debate among Catholics is being couched as an attack on Notre Dame.

This also bothered Doug Kmiec, a staunch pro-lifer and a former official in both the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations who -- to the consternation of many of his friends -- endorsed Obama last year. “Some of the reaction to Obama is still post-election sour grapes,” Kmiec wrote in a thoughtful essay this week in Politico. “Obama netted 54 percent of the Catholic vote nationwide, including a sizable share in Notre Dame’s home state of Indiana.”

And finally (via the blog Catholic Sensibility, from my reading list over to the right), is this response by President Obama at his press conference last evening, to a question from Ed Henry of CNN (who apparently is still smarting over receiving this response when he asked the President why he waited to comment on the AIG bonuses: "Because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak"):

:Q: Thank you, Mr. President. In a couple of weeks, you're going to be giving the commencement at Notre Dame. And, as you know, this has caused a lot of controversy among Catholics who are opposed to your position on abortion.

As a candidate, you vowed that one of the very things you wanted to do was sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which, as you know, would eliminate federal, state and local restrictions on abortion. And at one point in the campaign when asked about abortion and life, you said that it was above — quote, above my pay grade.

Now that you've been president for 100 days, obviously, your pay grade is a little higher than when you were a senator.

Do you still hope that Congress quickly sends you the Freedom of Choice Act so you can sign it?

OBAMA: You know, the — my view on — on abortion, I think, has been very consistent. I think abortion is a moral issue and an ethical issue.

I think that those who are pro-choice make a mistake when they — if they suggest — and I don't want to create straw men here, but I think there are some who suggest that this is simply an issue about women's freedom and that there's no other considerations. I think, look, this is an issue that people have to wrestle with and families and individual women have to wrestle with.

The reason I'm pro-choice is because I don't think women take that — that position casually. I think that they struggle with these decisions each and every day. And I think they are in a better position to make these decisions ultimately than members of Congress or a president of the United States, in consultation with their families, with their doctors, with their clergy.

So — so that has been my consistent position. The other thing that I said consistently during the campaign is I would like to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies that result in women feeling compelled to get an abortion, or at least considering getting an abortion, particularly if we can reduce the number of teen pregnancies, which has started to spike up again.

And so I've got a task force within the Domestic Policy Council in the West Wing of the White House that is working with groups both in the pro-choice camp and in the pro-life camp, to see if we can arrive at some consensus on that.

Now, the Freedom of Choice Act is not highest legislative priority. I believe that women should have the right to choose. But I think that the most important thing we can do to tamp down some of the anger surrounding this issue is to focus on those areas that we can agree on. And that's — that's where I'm going to focus.

Three things about the question. First, the premise of "a lot of controversy among Catholics" is based on the artificially inflated prominence of this issue, as noted above. Second, Mr. Henry is clueless if he really didn't know that Mr. Obama's "above my pay grade" remark was referencing the difference between being a theologian commenting on when life begins, and being a politician (not between a Senator and a President). And, third, Mr. Henry's question assumes that there was an actual Freedom of Choice Act currently out there, which would "eliminate federal, state and local restrictions on abortion" - but there isn't.

As for the response, that's the "let's find common ground" approach which people on each of the edges on this issue may not favor, but which seems to be the best way to deal with an issue on which so many Americans have so many different points of view.

F the CC

2009-04-28T14:54:00.002-04:00

News today out of the U.S. Supreme Court -

The Supreme Court ruled narrowly Tuesday in favor of a government policy that threatens broadcasters with fines over the use of even a single curse word on live television, yet stopped short of deciding whether the policy violates the Constitution.

In six separate opinions totalling 69 pages, the justices signaled serious concerns about the constitutionality of the Federal Communications Commission's "fleeting expletives" policy, but called on a federal appeals court to weigh whether it violates First Amendment guarantees of free speech.

By a 5-4 vote, however, the court did throw out a ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. That court had found in favor of a Fox Television-led challenge to the FCC policy and had returned the case to the agency for a "reasoned analysis" of its tougher line on indecency.

The commission appealed to the Supreme Court instead.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, said the FCC policy, adopted in 2004, is "neither arbitrary nor capricious."

Acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps called the decision "a big win for America's families." Copps said the "decision should reassure parents that their children can still be protected from indecent material on the nation's airwaves. "

Fox expressed disappointment with the decision, but said it is "optimistic that we will ultimately prevail when the First Amendment issues are fully aired before the courts."

I find it amusing that Fox is leading the charge for the right to use potty language over the airwaves.

And now, because no such rules apply on the "intertubes", we present Mr. Steve Earle and his NSFW rendition -

Also, he's on tour again, and we'll be checking out his show when he comes to NJ.

Teaching Torture

2009-04-27T13:34:00.007-04:00

Over at dotCommonweal, one of the writers "promoted" a comment to an earlier post about the Obama-Notre Dame kerfuffle (which we may get around to here, eventually). The commenter had asked, "What about torture?"

The reason I write this is that over the few weeks, but particularly this week, we as a people and country are witnessing a particularly salient “teaching moment” occur before us in the political sphere.

With the release of the torture memos and future release of the torture pictures in May…we have spread before us what must be considered at least a serious sin and participation in evil that if not addressed will continue and lead to - if not spiritual and moral, then our own existential disaster.
...

It’s just great that we as a Catholic Church are making our voice heard about the controversy over ND and Obama. Where are we in making the same kind of life issue arguments over a practice that is/has been developing NOW and has dire consequences for us all.

I am as “pro-life” as anybody… But lots of people like me and other Catholics I know would like to know why such energetic condemnations over the issue of abortion (in and of itself as a practice) but less energy and almost no pronouncement on other human dignity concerns…as if people who torture or accept torture as public policy would not also in a crunch turn to abortion if it suited their purpose/end.

It's not as if the U.S. Catholic Bishops have been silent on the issue of torture, it's just that they haven't been "noisy enough" to get people to pay attention. One Bishop can get full-court press coverage if he criticizes President Obama or gay marriage, but when the whole cohort of American Catholic Bishops issues a document on the immorality of torture, it's like a tree falling in a forest.

Last year, the Bishops issued a study guide, entitled "Torture is a Moral Issue" (link is a PDF of the 39 page document). As stated in the Introduction to that study guide:

Catholics enter into the public discussion of the great issues their society faces because they hope to contribute—in the light of faith—to resolving these issues. There is, in addition, the confidence that people of faith can contribute in highly positive ways to building up and transforming the world around them.

With that in mind, two basic convictions give shape to this discussion guide:

-- First, that torture is a moral issue, one that deserves to be understood and addressed by Christians.

-- Second, that an atmosphere of fear and desperation within society opens the door to the torture and abuse of prisoners, but that there is much Christians can do to help create a new atmosphere within society – an atmosphere in which respect for human dignity rules the day.

It seems to me that this point of view strikes at the heart of all of the rationalizations or word games which are coming from the pro-torture - excuse me, "pro-enhanced interrogation techniques" - side.

As an appendix, the guide reprints a letter sent in December of 2007 by the Chair of the International Policy Committee of the Bishop's Conference, to Congress when anti-torture legislation was under consideration. As stated in that letter:

We share the concern of lawmakers and citizens for the safety of U.S. soldiers and civilians serving abroad in these times of great uncertainty and danger. In the face of this perilous climate, our nation must not embrace a morality based on an attitude that “desperate times call for desperate measures” or “the end justifies the means.” The inherent justice of our cause and the perceived necessities involved in confronting terrorism must not lead to a weakening or disregard of U.S. or international law.

Among other documents referenced in the Study Guide is the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, issued by the Potifical Council for Justice and Peace at the Vatican, which states in Section 404 in no uncertain terms:

In carrying out investigations, the regulation against the use of torture, even in the case of serious crimes, must be strictly observed: “Christ's disciple refuses every recourse to such methods, which nothing could justify and in which the dignity of man is as much debased in his torturer as in the torturer's victim”. International juridical instruments concerning human rights correctly indicate a prohibition against torture as a principle which cannot be contravened under any circumstances.

Now, this is not an argument in favor of having religious views imposed on a secular society. However, when people in this country are wrestling with questions of right and wrong involving actions directly undertaken by our government in our name, I believe that some of the above advice should be more widely considered.

[Edited on 4/28/09] I should have looked for more recent material, about anti-torture efforts. For example, the name of the chair of the Bishop's Committee on International Justice and Peace is at the top of a long list of signatories of a letter issued by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, addressed to President Obama prior to the inauguration, asking for a ban on torture:

While we represent a wide diversity of America’s faith traditions, we all believe in the inherent worth and dignity of all human life. Respect for the dignity of every person must serve as the foundation for security, justice and peace. Torture is incompatible with the tenets of our faiths and is contrary to international and U.S. law.

We have enclosed a Declaration of Principles for a Presidential Executive Order banning torture which has been endorsed by religious leaders, and foreign affairs specialists and former military officers. We respectfully ask you to review this Declaration of Principles and issue an executive order on Inauguration Day or as early as possible. We believe such a step will help the United States to regain the moral high ground and restore our credibility within the international community at this critical time.

Don't Say It Ain't So, Joe ...

2009-04-23T12:11:00.004-04:00

Here's a quick tip. If you are trying to argue with Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu, the Energy Secretary, that it must have been warmer up in Alaska ages ago (because how else could the oil have got there), double check to make sure there might not be another explanation, such as the fact that the continents have moved over the last 200 Million years. If you don't want to read about it, you could just watch a "moving continents" animation over here. Otherwise, you may look ignorant.

Here's another quick tip. If you do forget to double-check and go ahead anyway, don't send out a press release entitled "How’d the oil get to Alaska, hitchhike?", because you're just "pwning" yourself.

And don't "tweet" about it either, because congratulating yourself for being uninformed looks even worse when you think you're being "cool" doing it.

And for the love of everything that is holy, don't post a video yourself on YouTube to show everyone what you did, because then you're more easily mocked about the whole "self-pwning" thing.

Representative Joe Barton. Using a multimedia strategy to let people know how clueless he is.

Going Off The Rails On A Crazy Train

2009-04-21T15:42:00.014-04:00

It seems that conservatives have jumped onto Twitter in a big way. Maybe because the left took a commanding lead on the blogging front ("left-wing-blogs" is practically a single word on the Fox Views Network); which is only right since the right gets to control hate radio.

But the whole thing is just odd. For example, Newt Gingrich is "tweeting" up a storm, as part of his multimedia assault to get his name and face as many places as possible. Of course, to do that he has to be ready to say something crazy anytime, anywhere, to get noticed. This post by Atrios leads one to the full Newt Gingrich Twitter Page, which is an astounding compendium of disjointed thoughts, brief bursts of self-promotion and fawning praise on anyone who promotes him, and just plain craziness. Atrios had linked to a "tweet" which reads: "@JohnNess slurp is much more than a teabag. Slurp is proof of the phony accounting and long term debt of the geithner system."

Apparently, using the term "slurp" takes the juvenile humor of "teabag" to a whole new level, but we won't go there.

Anyway, it appears that "slurp" is a "satirical" example which is being cooked up as explained in prior tweets:

Slurp--student loan undergraduate repayment plan--modeled on tarp-is being developed by michael krull at american solutions

Anthony DePietro fordham econ major is helping with slurp This program will apply tarp principles to cutting student repayment 80% or more

For his part, Mr. @JohnNess responded to the slurp/teabag comparison with: "Sir, I have to question your satiric instincts here."

Now, it's a little hard to piece these conversations together, which is part of the reason the Newt Gingrich twitter feed is like a crazy ride through his mind. So, I'm not at all sure what he is responding to in this tweet: "@christinajade see you there".

I couldn't easily find any "@Newt" tweet on Ms. ChristinaJade's twitter page. I did find her link to her own blog (entitled "Random Thoughts", which is part of our subtitle here). It seems she was a tea party participant last week, but doesn't seem like a doctrinaire conservative. And, maybe Newt's message to her had something to do with the head-bangin' music sprinkled through her blog, the way we sprinkle Springsteen videos around here.

So, maybe Newt is planning a meet-up later to rock out to a classic like Bullet Boys "Smooth Up In Ya" -

- or, maybe not ...

[Edited at 6:30 p.m. to add]

This is funny. As of now, it appears that "the Google" has two definitive websites that it produces on a search for the term "student loan undergraduate repayment plan". One is authored by a dilettante commentator desperate for any attention he can get. And the other is from Newt Gingrich. ;-)

That's Me In The Spot Light ...

2009-04-15T15:32:00.002-04:00

One of may favorite reads from my list on the right, Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog, granted me the high honor and distinct privilege of being added to his blogroll.

Thanks for the incentive to try to post here more!

Even the Cautious Cats are excited ...

Havin' A Party

2009-04-15T13:53:00.001-04:00

Professor Balkin at Balkinization discusses today's "anti-tax" tea parties. I put "anti-tax" in quotes because, well, I'm not quite sure what the tea parties are really against. I know what some organizers claim they are about, but it's clear that a lot of the encouragement and organization has been done by people who want to redirect some outrage over stimulus costs and bailouts for their own ends. I do agree generally with his points, although I think the movement is less "organic", and more encouraged by special interests, than he does. But this point especially is important:

Fifth, although the participants in the tea parties may state that they are not interested in what professional politicians have to say, and are not affiliated with the Republican Party in any way, one cannot take these assertions too seriously. The movement for balanced budgets and term limits during the 1990s was also anti-Washington and anti-professional politician. It was quickly absorbed into the Gingrich revolution, which was supported by and produced any number of professional politicians. Part of the point of the tea party protests is remaking the Republican Party, and as the coverage on Fox News indicates, there are plenty of ambitious people in conservative politics that are only too happy to help the protesters along. The likely trajectory of the tea parties will be as part of a reform and/or purification of the Republican Party along right wing populist lines. No doubt some Republican operatives and politicians will try to ride the anger of this movement to electoral success, while others will wait to see if the movement generates sufficient power and if it does, go along.

He also notes the comments of the "Instant Pundit", Professor Reynolds, in a column in today's Wall Street Journal, who claims that this is entirely a "from the ground up" movement. Now, since Professor Reynolds has been relentless marketing the "tea party" concept on his site, it is a little disingenuous for him to claim, in the WSJ:

The tea-party protest movement is organizing itself, on its own behalf. Some existing organizations, like Newt Gingrich's American Solutions and FreedomWorks, have gotten involved. But they're involved as followers and facilitators, not leaders. The leaders are appearing on their own, and reaching out to others through blogs, Facebook, chat boards and alternative media.

What I think has happened is that the usual list of right-wing media operatives have been encouraging the creation of this "spontaneous" movement. Fox News has a dedicated "Tea Party coverage" page on their "Fox Nation" website. There's a GOP.com Tea Party website, from which you can send a teabag postcard to Democratic officials. The "Tax Day Tea Party" site and the "Tea Party Day" website (from the American Family Association) are rife with right-wing rhetoric left over from the Presidential campaign.

In general, with regard to the Fox claim that they're just "covering" the protests - if, for example, Fox News has morning hosts with "teabag protest" t-shirts, talking about what a big event it's going to be today - they're promoting it.

I think there are a lot of people who have been angered by the amount of money going towards bailouts, and who are concerned about government spending in connection with the stimulus bill. The "tea party" movement seems to be a tool to pull them into the orbit of the right wing's other issues, including anti-immigration, conservative social issues, anti-environmentalism, and general anti-Obama-ism.

One more thing - there will be two stories today. One is what actually happened at these "tea parties", and how many people actually showed up. The other is the "spin" we'll be getting from Fox.

Good Friday

2009-04-10T11:25:00.002-04:00

From "God's Eye View" (described as "Four biblical moments as evidenced by satellite imagery") by a self-described "creative collective" based in Sydney, Australia and New York City called "The Glue Society".

Found via Pontifications.

Equal Marriage - "Stuck In The Mud Somewhere In The Swamps of Jersey"

2009-04-09T09:56:00.005-04:00

A diary at Blue Jersey commented on what the recent legislation in Vermont may mean for equal marriage here in the Great State of New Jersey, where a similar bill is in the hopper, but stalled:

The Vermont debate was very public, following years of activism and a commission that "concluded that civil unions did not provide complete equality."

Sound familiar?

The vote was not expected to happen this year, however, because legislators thought "budget shortfalls caused by the crippled economy made this a poor time to tackle such a contentious, emotionally draining issue."

Again, sound familiar?

Not until after Town Meeting Day in March halfway through the legislative session did leaders declare that same-sex marriage would be a priority this year.

In just one month's time, they held hearings, passed the bill in the Senate, then the House, shipped it off to the governor and worked up to the final day to muster the votes needed to override his veto.

The wild card for New Jersey, of course, is this year's gubernatorial and Assembly elections, which have a habit of distorting issues. Are there enough Assembly members willing to stand up and be counted on same-sex marriage when doing so might imperil their electoral chances?

Unlike Vermont, just a bare majority is needed to get it done because Gov. Jon Corzine has said he'd sign marriage-equality legislation.

Reed Gusciora, a Democrat from Princeton, has a bill in the Assembly and there are some high-profile Senate supporters like Loretta Weinberg, a Bergen County Democrat. Plus, there are some Republicans in the Senate who are likely to vote in favor of marriage equality -- you know who you are.

Lawmakers are cautious characters by nature, generally viewing issues in vote counts and financial support. Supporters of same-sex marriage -- gay, lesbian, bi or straight -- need to make it clear that their votes count and that they expect their legislators to do what is write and to stand up and be counted.

I commented on that diary, just to point to some thoughts I had diaried there last December (and also posted here at Cautious HQ), when New Jersey's Civil Union Commission had reported back that civil unions were not an adequate substitute for marriage. I had argued at the time that the fact that the issue might be an issue in November should be a reason to act sooner, rather than later. One reason, I think is that (as I wrote in December): "Waiting for a 'lame duck' session after the 2009 gubernatorial and legislative election will not keep the issue from being discussed in that election. So, you don't gain anything there." I had also suggested that "if it has to be part of the 2009 election, let it be as passed and implemented legislation, and not as some not-yet-there, it-may-happen hypothetical. Thanks to the failure of Proposition 8 in California, people inclined to support equal marriage now know that it is possible that legal rights could be reversed." That might raise the importance of the issue to people inclined to support equal marriage.

Finally, I had suggested: "The design and drafting of this legislation should take place away from, and not as part of, a partisan political fight, either during or just after a contentious election. In a calmer atmosphere, the fact that the world has not come to an end in Massachusetts and Connecticut can be pointed out." To that, I would add Iowa and especially Vermont.

The last thing I suggested in my comment at Blue Jersey is that equal marriage supporters should step up, not to berate legislators, but to say that if they go ahead now with the legislation, they can count on strong support to preserve that change in the November election. So, the Legislature should stop spinning its wheels ...

Random Cat Blogging

2009-04-02T12:21:00.004-04:00

Because random thoughts are posted sporadically, but random shots of the Cautious Cats are rarer still -

Running With A Dime In His Hand

2009-04-02T11:02:00.006-04:00

If you thought the far right-wing couldn't go any further in "dumbing down the discourse", you "misunderestimated" the potential for someone like Glenn Beck on Fox News. He's apparently decided that we're not on the road to socialism after all. Instead, we're on the road to Fascism, and we've been headed there since Teddy Roosevelt (that's right, Teddy, not Franklin Delano).

It makes one's jaw drop to consider that a major cable news network spotlights the rants of somebody who doesn't give any consideration to history or facts. He just noticed the use of the Roman fasces on the old dime? Does that mean that he's never noticed the two big ones that flank the rostrum in the U.S. House of Representatives Chamber? They've been there for any State of the Union or other Presidential address that you've ever watched, after all.

As explained on the website of the Clerk of the House of Representatives -

The bronze fasces, representing a classical Roman symbol of civic authority, are located on both sides of the U.S. flag. The original Roman fasces consisted of an axe within a bundle of rods, bound together by a red strap. The fasces were carried before the consul and were used to restore order and carry out punishment of the courts. The U.S. adopted the fasces as a symbol of the authority of Congress in part due to their symbolic relationship with Republican Rome, which the founding fathers consciously referenced in the formation of the United States. The form of the fasces also symbolically refers to the philosophy of American democracy. Like the thin rods bound together in the fasces, the small individual states achieve their strength and stability through their union under the federal government.

This is what Mr. Beck referred to as a "Roman symbol of Fascism". In fact, there is a long history of using the fasces as a symbol of American Democracy. This list is from Wikipedia, but it seems well-sourced (and the link has more pictures!) -

In the Oval Office, above the door leading to the exterior walkway, and above the corresponding door on the opposite wall, which leads to the President's private office. (Note: the fasces depicted have no axes, possibly because in the Roman Republic, the blade was always removed from the bundle whenever the fasces were carried inside the city, in order to symbolize the rights of citizens against arbitrary state power.

The National Guard uses the fasces on the seal of the National Guard Bureau, and it appears in the insignia of Regular Army officers assigned to National Guard liaison and in the insignia and unit symbols of National Guard units themselves. For instance, the regimental crest of the U.S. 71st Infantry Regiment of the New York National Guard consisted of a gold fasces set on a blue background.

The reverse of the United States "Mercury" dime (minted from 1916 to 1945) bears the design of a fasces and an olive branch.

The Mace of the United States House of Representatives, designed to resemble fasces, consists of thirteen ebony rods bound together in the same fashion as the fasces, topped by a silver eagle on a globe.

The official seal of the United States Senate has as one component a pair of crossed fasces.

Fasces ring the base of the Statue of Freedom atop the United States Capitol building.

A frieze on the facade of the United States Supreme Court building depicts the figure of a Roman centurion holding a fasces, to represent "order".

At the Lincoln Memorial, Lincoln's seat of state bears the fasces—without axes—on the fronts of its arms. (Fasces also appear on the pylons flanking the main staircase leading into the memorial.)

The official seal of the United States Tax Court bears the fasces at its center.

Four fasces flank the two bronze plaques on either side of the bust of Lincoln memorializing his Gettysburg Address at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

The fasces appears on the state seal of Colorado, USA, beneath the "All-seeing eye" (or Eye of Providence) and above the mountains and mines.

On the seal of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, a figure carries a fasces; the seal appears on the borough flag. Fasces can also be seen in the stone columns at Grand Army Plaza.

Many local police departments use the fasces as part of their badges and other symbols. For instance, the top border of the Los Angeles Police Department badge features a fasces. (1940)

A fasces appears on the statue of George Washington, made by Jean-Antoine Houdon which is now in the Virginia State Capital

The seal of the United States Courts Administrative Office.)

I saved my favorite one for last: "Used as part of the Knights of Columbus emblem (designed in 1883)." Oh, if only William Donohue of the Catholic "League" would come to the defense of this Catholic fraternal order, against charges by Mr. Beck that they use a "Fascist" symbol.

Wizard Imps

2009-03-26T13:35:00.002-04:00

Apropos of an earlier post here, a pertinent quote:

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

(Source, via LG&M.)

The Ladeez Man

2009-03-26T12:18:00.004-04:00

Just reading around the web, it seems the Bill O'Reilly has decided that he can best "defend" rape victims by sending a producer to shadow and "ambush interview" an online journalist on her vacation. This, of course, is an occasion to revisit Mr. O'Reilly's "racier" oeuvre, including selections from his audio book version of "Those Who Trespass". Found courtesy of Lawyers, Guns & Money, who also point to this little mash-up -

What A Waste It Is ...

2009-03-18T08:50:00.004-04:00

... to lose one's mind, as Dan Quayle would say.

Victoria Jackson demonstrates the deleterious effects of a steady diet of Fox News -

(Via South Florida Daily Blog, who watches this stuff so you don't have to!)

Tweet, Tweet, Tweet

2009-03-17T13:07:00.003-04:00

Remember a long, long time ago, when Barack Obama and John McCain ran against each other in the Presidential election? At the time, there was a silly Obama ad about how Senator McCain "Can't send an email." It was silly, because it really had nothing to do with whether Senator McCain could be President. However, the McCain partisans weren't content to just call it silly, they had to ratchet it up. They started carrying on that Senator Obama was mocking Senator McCain's wartime injuries, including injuries to his fingers which made him unable to type.

Yes, those were good times. Since then, Senator McCain has apparently not only caught up on the latest technology, but also taken a side-trip to Lourdes, because now he's on "Twitter" and can "tweet" like a champion!

Hey there! SenJohnMcCain is using Twitter.
Twitter is a free service that lets you keep in touch with people through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? Join today to start receiving SenJohnMcCain's updates.

It might be interesting to keep track of Senator McCain's "tweets". For example, earlier today he did a twitter interview (would that be a "twinterview"?) with George Stephanopoulos. He started out -

@GStephanopoulos Happy St. Patrick's day - slow, sometimes pc somtimes bb

(The apparently new ability to tap out "GStephanopoulos" on a Blackberry is the reason for the "Lourdes" comment, above). Since it's on Twitter, all the Q's and A's are short. One in particular caught my eye, concerning former Vice President Cheney's comments from this past weekend. George asked -

@SenJohMcCain Cheney said on CNN that Obama putting US at risk of new terror attack Agree?

Senator McCain responded -

@GStephanopoulos too early to draw that conclusion.

I just thought that was an interesting little tidbit to find there.

Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!

2009-03-17T13:05:00.001-04:00

Or, "St. Patrick's Day blessing on you all!"

And now, a traditional Irish song -

(Okay, so maybe it wasn't so traditional ...)

American Pi

2009-03-14T14:20:00.003-04:00

It's March 14, which means it's Pi Day!

This year's Congressional Resolution declaring "Pi Day" passed by a vote of 391-10 (more later on that 10):

H. RES. 224
Supporting the designation of Pi Day, and for other purposes.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
March 9, 2009

Mr. GORDON of Tennessee (for himself, Mr. HALL of Texas, Mr. LIPINSKI, and Mr. BAIRD) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Science and Technology

RESOLUTION
Supporting the designation of Pi Day, and for other purposes.

Whereas the Greek letter (Pi) is the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter;

Whereas the ratio Pi is an irrational number, which will continue infinitely without repeating, and has been calculated to over one trillion digits;

Whereas Pi is a recurring constant that has been studied throughout history and is central in mathematics as well as science and engineering;

Whereas mathematics and science are a critical part of our children's education, and children who perform better in math and science have higher graduation and college attendance rates;

Whereas aptitude in mathematics, science, and engineering is essential for a knowledge-based society;

Whereas, according to the 2007 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) survey done by the National Center for Education Statistics, American children in the 4th and 8th grade were outperformed by students in other countries including Taiwan, Singapore, Russia, England, South Korea, Latvia, and Japan;

Whereas since 1995 the United States has shown only minimal improvement in math and science test scores;

Whereas by the 8th grade, American males outperform females on the science portion of the TIMSS survey, especially in Biology, Physics, and Earth Science, and the lowest American scores in math and science are found in minority and impoverished school districts;

Whereas America needs to reinforce mathematics and science education for all students in order to better prepare our children for the future and in order to compete in a 21st Century economy;

Whereas the National Science Foundation has been driving innovation in math and science education at all levels from elementary through graduate education since its creation 59 years ago;

Whereas mathematics and science can be a fun and interesting part of a child's education, and learning about Pi can be an engaging way to teach children about geometry and attract them to study science and mathematics; and

Whereas Pi can be approximated as 3.14, and thus March 14, 2009, is an appropriate day for 'National Pi Day': Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

(1) supports the designation of a 'Pi Day' and its celebration around the world;

(2) recognizes the continuing importance of National Science Foundation's math and science education programs; and

(3) encourages schools and educators to observe the day with appropriate activities that teach students about Pi and engage them about the study of mathematics.

Now, about the "10 against". According to the roll call, they were Republicans Jeff Flake, from Arizona; Dean Heller, Montana; Timothy Johnson, Illinois; Jeff Miller, Florida; Randy Neugebauer, Texas; former Presidendial candidate Ron Paul, Texas; Ted Poe, also Texas; Bill Shuster, Pennsylvania; Mike Pence, Indiana, and Jason Chaffetz, Utah. The only explanation I found (via the New Scientist news blog) was from Representative Chaffetz, who "twitters" at "Jasoninthehouse". He sort of mocked the fact that time was being spent on it, but at the vote stated (or, I guess "tweeted"), "I cannot support Pi Day as just one day. It should go on forever. I voted 'Nay.' It passed 391-10". No word or tweets on any of the others.

By the way, Representative Chaffetz did take a moment a short while ago to "tweet" a "Happy Pi Day!" to everyone. Back atcha!

American Idiot

2009-03-14T13:49:00.002-04:00

Comment follows, after you read this item -

Rep. Bill Posey, R-Florida, introduced legislation this week requiring candidates to produce a birth certificate to be eligible to run in future presidential elections, triggering a sharp reaction from Democrats who accused him of "questioning President Obama's citizenship."

Posey submitted a bill with no fanfare Thursday that instructs the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to be amended to add the birth certificate requirement. The Constitution requires that a president or a vice president be "a natural born citizen."
...

Posey spokesman George Cecala emphasized several times to CNN that the congressman was "not trying to fan the flames" of the Obama citizenship dust-up nor was he "trying to jab someone in the eye." Instead, Posey was "just trying to clarify the law," Cecala said.

Cecala added that Posey, who was elected in 2008, decided to introduce the bill because of concerns raised by constituents and other people from across the country. So far, the bill has no cosponsors and Posey did not inform the Republican leadership he was introducing it, according to Cecala.

And now, a comment -

Going Immobile

2009-03-12T12:34:00.005-04:00

The latest right-wing rallying cry is "Going Galt". As one of our favorite right-wingers has explained it (via the NY Times Opinionator entry, "'Going Galt': Everyone's Doing It!" -

While they take to the streets politically, untold numbers of America’s wealth producers are going on strike financially. Dr. Helen Smith, a Knoxville forensic pathologist and political blogger, dubbed the phenomenon “Going Galt” last fall. It’s a reference to the famed Ayn Rand novel, “Atlas Shrugged,” in which protagonist John Galt leads the entrepreneur class to cease productive activities in order to starve the government of revenue.

Of course, the original character of John Galt didn't want to simply "starve the governent" for no good reason. In fact, as he set out in a long, tedious three-hour speech which is apparently the "hightlight" of the novel, govenment was simply taking from the "haves" and giving to underserving "have nots." (A "mini-version", that gives you a sense of the somewhat repetitive argument, is at this page.)

In other words, "If I can't keep it all, then I'm not going to try to earn any of it." Luckily, Stephen Colbert took on this phenomenon last night, summarizing the "Going Galt" movement as: "When millions are losing jobs, losing homes, and losing hope, there is nothing more important that putting yourself first."

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

The Word - Rand Illusion

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Political Humor

Rap Battle
NASA Name Contest

Actually, there's something else that's bothering Mr. Galt (and Ms. Rand), which pervades the speech, as in this for example -

“The justification of sacrifice, that your morality propounds, is more corrupt than the corruption it purports to justify. The motive of your sacrifice, it tells you, should be love-the love you ought to feel for every man. A morality that professes the belief that the values of the spirit are more precious than matter, a morality that teaches you to scorn a whore who gives her body indiscriminately to all men - this same morality demands that you surrender your soul to promiscuous love for all comers."

That's correct, all these right-wingers are now taking their lead from a belief system which rejects the one with teachings like this -

If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.

And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.

If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.

The Coming Conservative "Holy War"

2009-03-06T12:20:00.005-05:00

Okay, so maybe the title is a little too harsh or strong. However, there does seem to be a pronounced anti-Islam "undercurrent", if you will, in conservative political circles. It's more than just opposing terrorists, and seems more along the lines of promoting fear of anything which, or anybody who, is Muslim. I could be wrong, but there are just so many signs of this out there.

For example, Rick Santorum (the former Senator) seems to have made this issue the one he will use to keep in the public eye. His speech at the recent CPAC conference was noted by many for his out-of-context use of Attorney General Holder's remarks on race (see, for example, "At CPAC Fox News' Santorum says AG Holder 'confirm[ed]' to bin Laden that 'effeminate and pampered Americans will cower away' "). But, prior to getting to that point in his speech, he launches on a tirade giving dire warnings about "creeping Sharia" and "Islamicization".

The text (from the website of his "thinktank") -

I've heard several metaphors up here that we have two wings of the party, the economic conservatives and the social conservatives. I would just say that the three-legged stool makes more sense to me. Because there are people in America who are 9/11 conservatives - who are people that see the threats that are out there and before us and a threat that is not going to go away anytime soon. Who vote for us because we are the adults. We do look squarely in the eyes of the enemy and see it for what it is and are willing to step forward and commit, as George Bush did, troops to fight this great threat to American civilization. I would say to economic conservatives that creeping Sharia - I know David Horowitz had Geert Wilders here last night to talk - and that creeping Sharia throughout Europe and here in this country and in Canada, the "Islamicization" of Europe that is already underway, and it will visit this shore none too soon is a concern for us and something we need to identify and we need to talk about and we need to fight with every ounce of our being.

There are all sorts of other threats but let me just focus on one more and that is Iran. Iran last week announced they now have enough material to make a nuclear weapon. These are people who believe, this is a leader, a president, who every speech he gives leaves an empty chair. Who's the empty chair for? The Twelfth Imam. Well, who's the Twelfth Imam? Well, he's the man who is going to come back at the end of times to lead them in victory over the world. And he leaves a chair for him. Why? Because he's coming soon. And these people want a nuclear weapon. And we don't even talk about it as a party. We don't even talk about it as a country.

The whole "empty chair for the Twelfth Imam" thing appears to have come from some Dick Cheney interview a few years ago, near as I can tell.

Mr. Santorum refers to a talk given at CPAC by Geert Wilders. Who is that? He has found a way to gain fame (or notoriety) by peddling a short, anti-Islam film called "Fitna". Basically, he takes less than a half dozen verses of the Koran, juxtaposes them with pictures depicting terrorism and hatred, and reaches the conclusion that the Koran should be banned and Muslims kept out of Europe. Some of his own words, from an interview last year -

SPIEGEL: You invoke the right to freedom of opinion but you demand a prohibition of the Koran. Does that not contravene the principle of religious tolerance?

Wilders: For me, Islam is a vision of a society that defines all forms of interpersonal behavior -- from inheritance to criminal law. This ideology endangers our values. I hate it, I don't hate Muslims.

SPIEGEL: Is the comparison between the Koran and Hitler's "Mein Kampf" not totally inappropriate? In making it, you're providing the imams with a perfect image of the enemy.

Wilders: I want to provoke a discussion. Certain Koranic verses have moved their followers to commit the most abhorrent acts. Where is the imam who stands up in the Netherlands and says, for us, homosexuals are entitled to equal rights and everyone has the right to abandon their faith.

SPIEGEL: Your tirades are a challenge to all moderate Muslims and those pushing for Islamic reform.

Wilders: Moderate Islam? That's a contradiction. It's going to be a long time before we see a new Koran, an equivalent to the New Testament. Attacks don't happen in the name of Buddhism or Christianity; nor do homosexuals get beaten up, as happens daily in Amsterdam.

SPIEGEL: But immigrant youth crime has nothing to do with religion.

Wilders: It's true, they don't carry the Koran under their arms. But it's at home. And their fathers go to the mosque. They don't tell their children that beating women or believers of other religions is not allowed. That's why we have to push harder for a kind of Leitkultur, a guiding culture. Not a monoculture but a culture that draws on our Christian, Jewish, humanistic traditions and that poses a challenge to the Islamic problem. This is patriotism, not nationalism, this is pride in our own culture.

His technique is familiar to anyone who has heard or read a Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris take some Bible verses out of context, and then declaim that Christianity is flawed. Yet, folks like Mr. Santorum happily endorse this guy, and either fail to recognize this or (just as likely) support his narrow-minded attacks.

By the way, the CPAC conference was not the only place where Mr. Geert's and his views were entertained recently:

US lawmaker hosts anti-Islamic Dutch lawmaker
By Associated Press | Monday, February 23, 2009

Republican Sen. Jon Kyl is hosting a film screening at the Capitol building on Thursday for a far-right Dutch lawmaker who claims that Islam inspires terrorism.

Kyl is sponsoring the event for Geert Wilders, who was denied entry to London earlier this month because British authorities said he posed a threat to public order.

Wilders’ 15-minute film juxtaposes verses from the Quran with images of violence by Muslims. Wilders has called the Quran a "fascist book" and said it should be banned.

I think this is a strategy of hate, being stirred up by some political conservatives, as they look for issues to grab onto. Santorum himself said that, in addition to economic conservatives, and social issue conservatives, they need the support of people they can scare into hating, to join them.

A Million-Dollar Break

2009-03-05T20:18:00.004-05:00

You've probably heard about the latest "Mega Millions" lottery winners, a group of co-workers in New Jersey. Ten people splitting $216 million. Nice.

But, not as nice as this part of the story, which is in the article linked to above.

The six men and four women who won said they've worked in Chubb's IT division from seven to 30 years and had been buying tickets together for years.

One regular buyer, Oscar Oviedo, had asked Space to count him in and promised $5 for his share. Space rushed over to him early Wednesday morning and demanded the money.

"I thought: 'How rude!'" Oviedo said with a laugh, recalling how he handed over $5, unsure why Space was being so insistent. "Then he said, 'OK, thanks — you're a millionaire.'"

You often see these lottery stories end up as bad news. That was a little good news about good people.

Because I'm Easily Amused ...

2009-03-04T17:31:00.005-05:00

First off, I probably should have entitled a post "Because I'm Easily Distracted", since with all the crazy stuff going on in the world, I haven't bothered to toss off a random thought about any of it lately.

So what has stirred me from this lethargy? Well, I have been keeping up with the news, the same as any of you here on "the internets". The Talking Points Memo site had a story today that made my jaw drop, and then laugh out loud.

First, the jaw drop. Senator David Vitter, who was caught up in that whole "DC Madam" thing (which ended, if you recall, with the poor woman killing herself), has decided that he has to be "Mr. Family Values" to get ready for his reelection campaign next year. His vehicle is to attack spending on family planning programs. Seriously. The guy was paying for vo-dee-oh-doh-doh by the hour, and he wants to make it harder for other people to have safe vo-dee-oh-doh-doh? Please ...

But then the part that made me laugh out loud, as explained by TPM:

It has to be noted, of course, that Vitter is facing potential primary challenges from a leading Christian-right activist, a former Congressman, and a porn star. (That's three different people, by the way, not one person matching all three descriptions.)

Glad they cleared that up!

Part Man, Part Monkey?

2009-02-11T14:26:00.002-05:00

Every once in a while around here, we ruminate about evolution vs. intelligent design (or "ID"). As I've said here before, about ID proponents: "Instead of considering that the God they believe in could have created a universe where natural processes come together to result in intelligent life (an amazing thing if you think about it), they insist that there's some 'trick' that had to have taken place. They insist that somewhere we can see the 'seams', where creation came together, where something not 'natural' can be seen and therefore 'prove' the existence of God. And, they argue that opposition to them is somehow opposition to people of faith." In that same old post back in 2005, I had quoted the Director of the Vatican Observatory, who wrote:

There appears to exist a nagging fear in the Church that a universe, which science has established as evolving for 13.7 x 1 billion years since the Big Bang and in which life, beginning in its most primitive forms at about 12 x 1 billion years from the Big Bang, evolved through a process of random genetic mutations and natural selection, escapes God’s dominion. That fear is groundless. Science is completely neutral with respect to philosophical or theological implications that may be drawn from its conclusions. Those conclusions are always subject to improvement. That is why science is such an interesting adventure and scientists curiously interesting creatures. But for someone to deny the best of today’s science on religious grounds is to live in that groundless fear just mentioned.
...

This stress on our scientific knowledge is not to place a limitation upon God. Far from it. It reveals a God who made a universe that has within it a certain dynamism and thus participates in the very creativity of God. Such a view of creation can be found in early Christian writings, especially in those of St Augustine in his comments on Genesis. If they respect the results of modern science and, indeed, the best of modern biblical research, religious believers must move away from the notion of a dictator God or a designer God, a Newtonian God who made the universe as a watch that ticks along regularly.

So, it wasn't much of a surprise to read this in today's news:

The Vatican said this week that Darwin's theory of evolution fits in with Christianity despite its conflicts with the biblical Genesis.

The declaration appeared to settle speculation that Pope Benedict XVI might officially endorse the rival theory of intelligent design, which has gained a staunch following among some fundamentalist Christians, The Times of London said Wednesday.

Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said Tuesday that evolution's role in the world after the creation could be traced back to St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas.

"In fact, what we mean by evolution is the world as created by God," said Ravasi.

The Vatican will hold a conference next month to mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's book "Origin of the Species." The Times said intelligent design would not be on the agenda.

Actually, the Vatican's conference on Darwin will include a discussion of ID, but not in a way which will please ID's proponents:

Organizers of the March 3-7 conference did not explain at a news conference Tuesday why they had decided to include discussion of the view that life is too complex to have developed through evolution alone, and that a higher power has had a hand in changes among species over time.

"The committee agreed to consider ID as a phenomenon of an ideological and cultural nature, thus worthy of a historic examination, but certainly not to be discussed on scientific, philosophical or theological grounds," said Saverio Forestiero, a conference organizer and professor of zoology at the University of Rome.

One can only hope that this has an impact over on this side of the pond, in particular on right-wing politicians who either push for the teaching of ID, or for "teaching the controversy" as a way to slip ID into American public school classrooms. As Chris Mooney, author the book "The Republican War on Science" noted back in 2005:

ID proponents have also teamed up with conservative Republican legislators to further advance their agenda. ID’s most signiﬁcant supporter has been Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. In 2001, Santorum teamed up with ID supporters to slip “teach the controversy” language into the No Child Left Behind Act. Singling out evolution in particular, Santorum’s amendment to the Senate version of the bill stated that “good science education should prepare students to distinguish the data or testable theories of science from philosophical or religious claims that are made in the name of science.” This may sound innocuous enough, but when you learn that the language comes in part from ID movement progenitor Phillip Johnson, who believes that “Darwinism is based on an a priori commitment to materialism, not on a philosophically neutral assessment of the evidence,” you see where Santorum is headed.

Or, maybe they won't stop. But, at least, there's a little more ammunition now to use against them.

"Almost Crashed But The Lord Had Mercy ..."

2009-02-02T20:03:00.002-05:00

Of course, the Super Bowl performance in the post below includes -

"The Crash"

I realized that it's a perfect metaphor for why we're fans. It's the biggest audience of his career, and he's packed the limited time given with all of the things people are expecting - preaching to the crowd and to the television audience, jumping on the piano, posing with the Big Man, joking with Steve Van Zandt, changing the words to songs to adapt to where they're playing - it's perfect.

And then the knee slide, which is another one of those things he's always done. Except, this time, maybe he didn't have enough practice on this stage. So, he seems to have misjudged the distance this time. So, he crashes into the camera man ,,,

But, again, that's why we're fans. When this happens, in front of the previously mentioned "biggest audience of his career", he grins apologetically into the camera (and to everyone in said "biggest audience ..."), gets his microphone handed back to him, then turns and dives back into the song.

Now, a random philosophical thought. In today's economy, lots of us are "crashing" these days, for various reasons (yours truly included). I get some encouragement from thinking that no matter how hard we crash, or how many people see us crash, we can grin and jump back into it. And that's our take-away for today.

Sunday Night Springsteen

2009-02-01T22:15:00.004-05:00

Super Bowl (duh ...)

Step back from the guacamole, and put the chicken fingers DOWN ...

Part 1

Part 2

As the man said, "I'm goin' to Disney Land!!!"

[Note - Had to replace the video links, because the first ones were taken down due to an NFL copyright claim. The ones up now aren't as good quality, though.]

Sunday Morning Springsteen

2009-02-01T12:13:00.003-05:00

It's Springsteen season, again - the guy is everywhere. He was all over the inauguration celebrations two weeks ago. He was all over the sports pages the other day, with a press conference in connection with the Super Bowl. As New Jersey sportswriter Steve Politi put it in my local paper the other day -

Our team finally arrived at this Super Bowl XLIII, and not a moment too soon. The storylines here are stale and the matchup is dull, with no compelling reason to watch.

Our team can save the day. This is a veteran unit from New Jersey, and judging by its press conference Thursday, the players are ready. Now if we just could do something about how long they'll be on the field ...

One thought: Can the NFL hold the football game at halftime of a two-part Bruce Springsteen concert?

Please?

It looks like a fun time was had by all. You can watch below -

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

And this morning, he's smiling out from the front page of the Sunday New York Times Arts and Leisure section. [If it asks you to log in to read, you can use the name "Cautiousman" and the password "cautious"] It's an interesting interview, not least for the fact that he discusses the reaction to the special, "Wal-Mart only" song compilation that went on sale recently -

He made another promotional deal he now bluntly calls a mistake. On Jan. 13 a $10 collection of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s “Greatest Hits” — 11 songs from a 1995 hits anthology, as well as “Radio Nowhere” from “Magic” — went on sale exclusively at Wal-Mart. Since Wal-Mart has been accused of anti-union practices by Human Rights Watch, among others, and has paid large fines for violating labor laws, the announcement prompted online criticisms like the one from asroma on the fan site backstreets.com: “Bruce is doing biz with Wal-Mart? Kind of goes against everything he stands for.”

In an interview with Billboard, Mr. Springsteen’s manager, Jon Landau, defended the release, saying Mr. Springsteen’s albums were already in Wal-Mart, which accounts for 15 percent of his sales. He also said: “We’re not doing any advertising for Wal-Mart. We haven’t endorsed Wal-Mart or anybody else. We’re letting Sony do its job.”

But Mr. Springsteen said the decision was made too hastily. “We were in the middle of doing a lot of things, it kind of came down and, really, we didn’t vet it the way we usually do,” he said. “We just dropped the ball on it.” Instead of offering the exclusive collection to Wal-Mart, “given its labor history, it was something that if we’d thought about it a little longer, we’d have done something different.” He added, “It was a mistake. Our batting average is usually very good, but we missed that one. Fans will call you on that stuff, as it should be.”

But I'm concerned about another item from that interview, which is near the start.

At 9 o’clock on a recent morning Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band were already half an hour into a rehearsal at the rock club Terminal 5 in Manhattan. As N.F.L. executives and a television production team watched, they were tightening their miniset of four songs — dropping verses, streamlining segues — to fit their 12-minute slot as the halftime entertainment Sunday at Super Bowl XLIII, expected to reach tens of millions of viewers.

"Dropping verses"? "Streamlining seques"? Is this halftime going to be (*gasp*) a medley? Sort of like when the songs rush by you in a commercial for a Time-Life greatest hits compilation? I'm with Mr. Politi on this one -

Can the NFL hold the football game at halftime of a two-part Bruce Springsteen concert?

Sunday Night Springsteen

2009-01-25T20:57:00.003-05:00

Obvious - "Working on a Dream" -

I don't know about the whistling ...

Our copy is arriving on Tuesday, with luck. I've listened to the album on the NPR First Listen. Lots of different musical styles on the album - but I still can't figure out "Outlaw Pete".

And, what the heck, the first time we all heard "Working on a Dream", at the Obama rally in Ohio. Kind of nice to know that this time, it all worked out okay.

It's Hard To Be A Saint ...

2009-01-23T10:40:00.008-05:00

Oh my sweet child how did you sleep last night
She said, "I dreamed I saw Saint Francis"
He came in the body of a lion and had tears in his eyes
"It don't have to be this way"

- Little Steven, Saint Francis

Now this is disappointing news:

Mother Teresa recited the simple prayer of St. Francis every day. Margaret Thatcher cited it upon becoming prime minister of Britain, and Alcoholics Anonymous included it in its “12 steps” book.

But something else is notable about the prayer that begins: “Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith.”

St. Francis of Assisi, who was born in the 12th century, probably had nothing to do with it.

An article published this week in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, said the prayer in its current form dates only from 1912, when it appeared in a French Catholic periodical.

It doesn't make it any less a Catholic staple (its use has even been an occasion for conservative opinionators to demonstrate their confusion, about the fact that "liberal" and "religious" are not mutually-exclusive labels, as we've discussed here before). Still, "tradition" seems less "traditional" when it's not as old as first thought.

Now, Where Did I Leave My Tiniest Violin?

2009-01-23T10:07:00.002-05:00

Because these whiners inspire a tiny song -

On the plane, no longer Air Force One but now Special Air Mission 28000, they talked about the speech. George W. Bush, the former president, was heading home to Texas with his inner circle, having just left the Capitol, where his successor first thanked him for his service and then proceeded to discredit it.

The Bush team had worked assiduously to make the transition smooth for the incoming President Obama and stayed out of the way as he used the postelection period to take leadership of the economy even before being sworn in. And now, as far as some of them were concerned, the new president had used his inaugural lectern to give the back of the hand to a predecessor who had been nothing but gracious to him.

“There were a few sharp elbows that really rankled and I felt were not as magnanimous as the occasion called for,” Karen Hughes, a longtime Bush confidante, said in an interview. “He really missed an opportunity to be as big as the occasion was and, frankly, as gracious as President Bush was as he left office.”

Dan Bartlett, another top adviser, used similar language. “It was a missed opportunity to bring some of the president’s loyal supporters into the fold,” he said. Marc A. Thiessen, the chief White House speechwriter until this week, added: “It was an ungracious inaugural. It was pretty clear he was taking shots.”

And what were the "shots" that bothered these poor people?

Mr. Obama never directly mentioned Mr. Bush’s name after the ritual thank you at the beginning of his speech, but the context of some of his remarks was lost on no one. He criticized “our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.” He promised to “restore science to its rightful place.” He rejected “as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.” He assured the rest of the world “that we are ready to lead once more.”

These people (and I include the reporter and a lot of commentators) just don't get it.

We're not going to torture our way to security.

We're not going to bomb our way to security.

We're not going to "regime change" our way to security.

We'll be more secure when more people in this world gain or re-gain their respect for, their support for, and their desire to emulate, these United States of America. The new President clearly knows this, and his Inauguration was the best time to let the rest of the world know this.

"We Are Traveling In The FootstepsOf Those Who've Gone Before ..."

2009-01-21T12:15:00.007-05:00

This picture was passed along to me. It says a great deal about yesterday's event.

I have no idea who created this. If anyone visiting knows, I'll be happy to give credit where credit is due.

[Edited to add} Via Attaturk, found him!

More On That Whole "Change" Thing ...

2009-01-21T10:01:00.003-05:00

From the portion of the Inauguration Address quoted in an earlier post -

"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers ... our found fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake."

Today's news has a photo, which (I hope) serves as a metaphor for this change -

Better Days

2009-01-21T09:24:00.003-05:00

Now that we're almost 24 hours (at this writing) into the new Obama Administration, it will be interesting to see if there's any change in tone from the elite pundits. For example, I caught a glimpse of something a little more substative amongst the snark in Maureen Dowd's column today -

I grew up here, and it was the first time I’ve ever seen the city wholly, happily integrated, with a mood redolent of New York in the weeks after 9/11. The Obamas have made an unprecedented pledge to get involved in the real city that lies beyond the political Oz, and have already started doing so in many ways, including starting the night out at the D.C. Neighborhood Inaugural Ball.

Downtown was a euphoric pedestrian mall of commerce and communal kindness. The patience that America is extending to Mr. Obama, according to a Times poll, was reflected across the capital, as the cram of people sparked warmth rather than antsiness.

Maybe we could get more of that, and less of musings on how Bill Clinton is scheming to assert more influence through Hillary. Just a thought ...

So, How Are The Reviews?

2009-01-20T18:29:00.005-05:00

I don't know what others may think about President Obama's Inaugural Address, but these passages seem the most important, to me:

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works - whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day - because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control - and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart - not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

There are a lot of concepts, practical concepts, moral concepts in those passages, which we'll get a chance to see put into action now. And I'm hopeful that they really will be put into action, because they come from the same viewpoint that we first heard Senator Obama articulate back at the 2004 Democratic Convention:

Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America - there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

So, on with the show!

Sunday Night Springsteen

2009-01-18T21:00:00.006-05:00

With MLK Day tomorrow, and the inauguration of Barack Obama as President the next day, we're going with "When The Saints Go Marching In".

Why? Check the lyrics. If you wait until the end of the song, this is what you hear -

But I'm waiting for that morning,
When the new world is revealed.

While this may not be what the writer may have intended, we're going to see what this new world will reveal, and that's a hopeful thing.

Not to mention the first lines of the song -

We are trav'ling in the footsteps
Of those who've gone before
We certainly are traveling in the footsteps of those who have been to the mountain top.

[Edited to add]

Bruce with Pete Seeger today, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial singing "This Land Is Your Land". Can it get any cooler?

[Edit on 1/21/09] The original YouTube link for Bruce & Pete & Co. was from the HBO broadcast, but HBO has somehow asserted copyright over images of a free, public concert. Thanks to Todd at Catholic Sensibility, who had a link to a non-HBO (anyone want to suggest what the "B" should stand for?) tape.

A Haiku Before Listening To President Bush's Farewell Address Tonight

2009-01-15T19:58:00.001-05:00

On Nine-Eleven
America stood as one
Bush threw that away

A Change Is Gonna Come

2009-01-15T19:41:00.003-05:00

I was amused when I read this account from conservative commentator Larry Kudlow, regarding a dinner the other night at George Will's house, where he and other conservative commentators broke bread with soon-to-be-President Obama:

Interesting thing. This is just generally speaking, he is so well-informed, and he loves to deal with both sides of an issue, and I'm not going to divulge what was said there and I'm not going to go into any of the specifics, but he enjoys the back and forth, and he is not, you know, tough, mean, insulting, snarling, none of that stuff, and we weren't either.

This was a good conservative group and we just had a great back and forth, and he wants to keep the dialogue going with conservatives. I would say I am honored to be at that dinner. I was honored to meet him. He is a very impressive man, and I wish him all the luck in the world because we've got some issues to deal with.

I found it amusing because I recall soon-to-be-ex-President Bush being described in less flattering terms, by someone who could hardly be described as a liberal. As we observed here a few years ago, Tucker Carlson experienced the crude side of Mr. Bush, when they discussed the Karla Faye Tucker case -

In the week before [Karla Faye Tucker's] execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. "Did you meet with any of them?" I ask.

Bush whips around and stares at me. "No, I didn't meet with any of them," he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. "I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like 'What would you say to Governor Bush?' "

"What was her answer?" I wonder.

"Please," Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "don't kill me."

What a guy. Better days surely are coming.

Sunday Night Springsteen

2009-01-11T23:00:00.001-05:00

Our man won a Golden Globe tonight for his song for "The Wrestler".

A date with Oscar again this year, perhaps?

Is There Anybody Alive Out There?

2009-01-10T15:14:00.003-05:00

I know, we haven't lived up to our New Year's resolution. We'll try to be more alive here, and if you're out there, leave a comment or send an email.

New Year's Eve Springsteen

2008-12-31T18:26:00.004-05:00

Gonna wait till the midnight hour?

Resolved

2008-12-31T10:27:00.001-05:00

Type up more random thoughts here in the coming year.

Taking My Own Advice

2008-12-31T10:09:00.006-05:00

I read and commented on a post by Steven Hart at The Opinion Mill which was about, among other things, how difficult it is to have a dialogue in this country about Israel's response right now to the Hamas rocket fire. It's not a situation which simply started within the last few days, and I think that a response which ignores that fact is neither useful nor wise. And by something that is "useful" and "wise" I mean, "Which will secure a peaceful future for Israel and her people." It's difficult to be heard among the shouting, to say that an argument for peace is an argument for Israel, but that's just the way it is. Some peace-loving folks in my little corner of New Jersey work with Americans for Peace Now to keep trying, though.

Mr. Hart is running a Palestinian flag on his post, as his gesture of protest. In my comment, I suggested that he run with the flags of Palestine and Israel side-by-side, because the only possible way that the cycle of violence will end is by having a majority of the Palestinians and Israelis accept the fact that the two nations have to exist side-by-side. Neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis can bomb their way to peace. Unfortunately, when some extremists with rockets can provoke the kind of response which we are seeing, the day of peaceful coexistence seems further away.

So, to take my own advice, this is my response:

[Flag image found courtesy of the Louisville Committee for Israeli/Palestinian States(Two States Committee).]

Christmas Eve Springsteen

2008-12-24T17:42:00.003-05:00

From this past weekend, Mr. Springsteen made a surprise stop at an annual charity concert in Red Bank, New Jersey, the Hope Concert. As reported by Backstreets.com, he came out to back up Jon Bon Jovi on guitar, and then closed the show with a number of songs, including "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town", joined by Southside Johnny, with "La Bamba" jumping in on vocals.

The whole thing sounds like some sort of Christmas Dream for someone like me, who has been listening to Bruce, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, and their musician friends since he was a "yoot".

What Christmas Is All About

2008-12-24T10:08:00.004-05:00

I managed to manage the run-up to Christmas (the going out to get stuff part), so that it won't interfere with Christmas itself. In the last week, I could have posted about things that bothered me, such as people who get their knickers in a twist because not every store clerk is going to say "Merry Christmas" to everyone, or the fact that for some inexplicable reason Mr. Springsteen allowed the sale of a "Wal-Mart Exclusive" CD with "greatest hits" of the E Street Band (which I consider to be a sign of the End of Days, if you must know).

However, I decided that I wasn't going to let all that commercialism ruin my Christmas, in the words of our favorite philosopher, Charlie Brown.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all.

Sunday Night (Not)Springsteen

2008-12-14T21:04:00.004-05:00

I couldn't think of anything from Mr. Springsteen's oeuvre that was appropriate for this ...

... so we are going with the Beatles, and "Revolution"

So you say you want a revolution, shoe-be-do-be ...

Blame It On The Truth

2008-12-11T21:40:00.007-05:00

So imagine our surprise, to read the following in the New York Times -

A report released Thursday by leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee said top Bush administration officials, including Donald H. Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary, bore major responsibility for the abuses committed by American troops in interrogations at Abu Ghraib in Iraq; Guantánamo Bay, Cuba; and other military detention centers.

The report was issued jointly by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the Democratic chairman of the panel, and Senator John McCain of Arizona, the top Republican. It represents the most thorough review by Congress to date of the origins of the abuse of prisoners in American military custody, and it explicitly rejects the Bush administration’s contention that tough interrogation methods have helped keep the country and its troops safe.

The report also rejected previous claims by Mr. Rumsfeld and others that Defense Department policies played no role in the harsh treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 and in other episodes of abuse.

The abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the report says, “was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own” but grew out of interrogation policies approved by Mr. Rumsfeld and other top officials, who “conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees.”

Please note that Senator John McCain has joined as an issuer of the Senator report - thank goodness he is there, letting his conscience be his guide.

Now, if I may, we're not terribly surpised about the report's conclusions, because this was obvious in the case of the unlawful detention and humiliation in 2003 of Captain James Yee, the Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo. This is what seemed to be up, four years ago, with respect to Captain Yee's case and allegations (at the time) of torture at Guantanamo and in Iraq:

General Miller's visit to Iraq in August of 2003 resulted in some changes there:

So Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the Coalition commander in Iraq, and his top intel officer, Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, asked for a fixer. They got one in Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the commandant at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the U.S. military had held more than 600 detainees for more than two years without charges. A Texan with a jutting jaw and thinning hair, Miller was nothing if not self-assured, much like his ultimate superior, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. According to a subsequent inquiry by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, Miller's task was "to review current Iraqi Theater ability to rapidly exploit internees for actionable intelligence." Translated into English, that meant to beef up interrogation techniques so as to break prisoners more quickly. Or as Karpinski puts it, Miller's plan was to "Gitmo-ize" the place, to teach the soldiers manning Abu Ghraib his best psychological and physical techniques for squeezing information out of detainees. That included using Karpinski's MPs to "enhance the intelligence effort." At a meeting of top military-intelligence and MP commanders last September, Miller bluntly told Karpinski: "You're going to see. We have control, and [the prisoners] know it."

(Emphasis added) We now know more about the techniques which were authorized at Guantanamo, under the "Torture, what torture?" approach:

United States Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld personally approved four special interrogation techniques used on two al-Qaeda operatives held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who then talked about the terrorist network and its plans, the commander of US forces in Latin America said today.

Army General James Hill, who heads the US Southern Command, declined to describe the techniques. He said other detainees might "figure out a way to resist those techniques" if they were disclosed.

But Hill specifically denied that police dogs have been used to intimidate detainees during interrogations at Guantanamo, contrary to a sworn statement by an Army intelligence officer under investigation in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq.

In the statement, as reported May 26 by The Washington Post, Col. Thomas Pappas, commander at Abu Ghraib when abuses of detainees occurred, said the use of dogs was urged by Major General Geoffrey Miller in a 2003 visit to Iraq.

We are also learning now that other new "techniques" were approved, for use at Guantanamo - which General Miller could also have brought over to Iraq on his 2003 visit:

According to people who have seen the interrogation matrix, according to the official statements of the Pentagon spokesman, the 24 or so techniques that Secretary Rumsfeld approved fall far short of anything that they would consider to be torture. Now of course we have to take their word for it because they haven't revealed what those techniques are. But according to the Pentagon spokesman, 17 of those techniques are ones that already are used in the army. They're part of the army's field manual on interrogation that's been in place for years. Seven of them are not... four of them require Rumsfeld's personal authorization before they can be used.

There are more details of the Rumsfeld approval issue, in a PBS NewsHour interview at this link (along with some enlightening transcripts of Attorney General Ashcroft's grilling in the Senate yesterday).

So, where are we? It seems that General Miller was authorized, directly by the Secretary of Defense, to use additional "techniques" on the Guantanamo prisoners. He is then dispatched to Iraq in August of 2003; we have seen what they did at Abu Ghraib, after General Miller's "visitation". That would warrant a further investigation at Guantanamo. As for Chaplain Yee, when he was arrested in September of 2003 it was reported that "the 'highest levels' of government made the decision to arrest Capt. Yee, who had counseled suspected al-Qaeda terrorists at Guantanamo for a lengthy period." He was detained for carrying out "classified material", but his case was dismissed when the government could not state what that classified material was.

Maybe Chaplain Yee was carrying sensitive information out of Guantanamo - in his head, based on what he saw, and was told by the detainees. Maybe Chaplain Yee has been silenced (for now) as a result of the Army's prosecution (including allegations of adultery and having pornography). Maybe other people know what was going on, and have seen what they did to Chaplain Yee. Maybe someone with some authority should look into this.

And now, it seems, someone with authority will be looking into this. Good.

(Further background on Captain Yee's case can be found here, from the posts on this blog. Scroll past the top one, which is the one you're now reading.)

"A Change Is Gonna Come"

2008-12-11T14:47:00.004-05:00

In the wake of the release of the New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission report, which concluded that (surprise!) a "civil union" is just not "as good as" a marriage, here in the Great State of New Jersey we have a governor who wants to move ahead, based on the recommendations -

Gov. Jon Corzine said today New Jersey's civil unions law "hasn't done enough to narrow the gap" and same-sex marriage should be established in New Jersey "sooner rather than later."

He urged the Legislature to "seriously review" a report released today by the New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission that said civil unions have failed to grant full rights to same-sex couples and urged the state to quickly enact same-sex marriage.

- but legislative leaders who, while both supportive and expecting equal marriage to arrive eventually, have not shown an interest in moving as fast –

But while Corzine pledged to sign a gay marriage bill if it reaches his desk, it's unclear whether the Legislature will take up the issue, with Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex) saying equality must come in "incremental steps."

"I believe that society's view of this issue is coming around in favor of same-sex marriage and this report, underscoring the many inequalities that still exist, will further advance that belief," Codey said.

Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts (D-Camden) said the report "should spark a renewed sense of purpose and urgency to overcoming one of society's last remaining barriers to full equality for all residents. As I have said many times before, same-sex marriage in New Jersey is only a matter of 'when,' not 'if.'"

The key fact which might lead some of these guys to hold off for now, is in this sentence from the article –

Corzine faces re-election in 2009, as do all 80 members of the Assembly.

I think that it would be an error to wait, for next year's "lame duck" session or otherwise. Following are five suggested reasons for addressing the issue "sooner rather than later".

First, those who disagree know that it's coming. Waiting for a "lame duck" session after the 2009 gubernatorial and legislative election will not keep the issue from being discussed in that election. So, you don't gain anything there.

Second, as a corollary to the first, I don't buy the "they'll support us after the election" theory, if anyone is arguing that. If there are any legislators who need to "keep quiet" about their eventual support, until they get through the election, why should we assume that they'd get a free pass from opponents? If the issue is going to be raised during the 2009 election anyway, why put the fence-sitters in a position where they decide to state their opposition to any "lame duck" passage, if not any change in the law at all? And if they decide to state their support anyway, the delay hasn't really helped (and possibly has hurt, for reason Number Three).

Third, if it has to be part of the 2009 election, let it be as passed and implemented legislation, and not as some not-yet-there, it-may-happen hypothetical. Thanks to the failure of the opposition to Proposition 8 in California, people inclined to support equal marriage now know that it is possible that legal rights could be reversed. I'm not so naive as to think that this alone could make a difference, between supporters coming out to defend passed legislation vs. supporters of possible legislation, but it couldn't hurt. Besides, if the New Jersey election is seen as a forum to defend legislatively-approved marriage equality, one would hope that some of the after-the-fact enthusiasm that California inspired could be used to support legislation that could be a national model.

Fourth, a purely partisan reason is that Democrats shouldn't let presumptive Republican frontrunner Chris Christie get a free ride on the issue. As the recently-former U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, he's going to run on a "good government" (can't argue against that), lower-taxes and pro-business platform. Classic Republican, in other words. If there's an undercurrent of opposition to the considering of marriage equality legislation as part of a "lame duck" session, he can waive it off with some platitudes like, "I want to look at the civil unions issue a little more", or "I agree with those who say that we're not at that stage, yet." He would get the votes of the opponents of marriage equality, anyway, and be less likely to lose the votes of those who favor it, but who are focused on other issues in the election. If the Democrats push the issue to after the election, in other words, he gets the best of both worlds.

Now, before we get to Reason Number Five, follow along with me for a moment, and assume what may happen if the issue is addressed by the Legislature at the start of the New Year. Will it be a political issue going into the 2009 election? Certainly, but that's unavoidable. Would some legislators balk at committing before the election? Sure, but as noted above there's no guarantee of their support post-election; better to "smoke 'em out" now, before the primaries in June. And speaking of the primaries, just imagine if marriage equality was passed and scheduled for implementation by the time the June primaries roll around? Presumptive Republican front-runner Chris Christie may not be able to hide from the issue, but he may have to address it head-on. I have no idea where he comes down on this issue, but consider the choices. If he says he opposes the legislation, and would support repeal, that gets him on record and potentially reduces his support (from centrists inclined towards him because of his "good government" and fiscal arguments). If, on the other hand, he says that he also supports marriage equality, then he either wins in the primary (and the legislation is saved), or he loses in the primary (in which case the top of the Republican ticket is an extreme, less popular right-winger). So, on balance, there are a lot of good reasons for "sooner rather than later".

There's a fifth and final reason, in my humble opinion. The design and drafting of this legislation should take place away from, and not as part of, a partisan political fight, either during or just after a contentious election. In a calmer atmosphere, the fact that the world has not come to an end in Massachusetts and Connecticut can be pointed out. Just as important, the legislation can make it clear that this is a legal change to civil marriage – not a mandate to any religious or other group regarding the performing of any marriage ceremony that is not consistent with their tenets. Although some proponents may not like hearing it put this way, the fact is that there may not be a majority which is completely for marriage equality; so it might be best to use the fact that there's also not a majority that is completely against it, either. So, don't make it something to choose sides on, during election season.