Long Time No Post
Moved
Those few of you who keep track might -- or might NOT -- know that my absence from the blog is due in part to my recent move from NJ to Cambridge, MA.
College Town on steroids. The conversations you overhear on the street or in stores can be laughably intellectual. The bestsellers that people browse on the discount shelves are the sort of tomes that were required reading in the advanced college classes.
But there is darn good free stuff here to occupy one's time. Great coffee. Nice, friendly people. Cambridge, some of it, is clean and appears fairly well run for a city. Lots of visible homelessness and poverty near the MIT campus, though. Harvard owns everything or so it seems. Certainly the older residents across the Charles near Harvard stadium hate the advance of the Harvard real estate moguls. In 20 years, goodbye homes, hello advanced gene spicling center for the performing arts.
Also, parking is impossible. Don't even think about it.
Free at Last
There is a fair amount of handwringing, fingerpointing and Judith Miller backlash now that a) she is out of jail and b) she has testified before the grand jury investigating the 'CIA leak case," as CNN has so adroitly summarized this character assassination plot.
Look, a journalist's ethics were on trial here. She stood up for what she believed her contract was with anonymous sources. The NYTimes backed her up. Now that she has cut her own deal, and Scooter Libby has admitted to being her source (for all intents and purposes) it was HER decision then to decide if there was a source here to be further protected by refusing the testify.
I for one am glad she is out. Not thrilled she has testified, but so be it. What I want is for this investigation to be over with and the leaker(s) to be identified and punished.
Let's not forget that a journalist who never published a story about this case was jailed for about 3-months. Who will answer to that violation of the First Amendment?
The other thing we are learning here is the close relationship between White House sources and top reporters. Given what sounds like pretty regular contact, why don't we know much, much more about what is going on and how this amateur WH operates?
Impeach?
It isn't a high crime or a misdemeanor to be incompetent, stupid, oblivious, out of touch and not in charge...but can't we find another way to get President Bush and his team of hacks, lackeys, cruel charlatans and anti-democratic thugs out of power?
Iraq is now more of a lost cause than ever: testimony this week reveals for all the bloodshed and investment in time and money, there are only 500 trained and ready Iraqi troops ready for duty. The NYC police force is much, much larger. Can't we all admit this Iraq adventure has been a failure built on a lie?
The dollar is a weakling being kicked with sand in the currency markets. Thank you very much Mr. Bush: no way can we afford that trip to Europe now.
Global warming is such a myth that the ice fields are shrinking to their lowest dimensions in years. Let's put Dick Cheney on an ice flow and see how long it takes to melt.
New Orleans, to stretch that metaphor, is only the tip of the iceberg. Not only does this administration not know how to run the machinery of government (or democracy) but they don't get that the poverty so explicit on the TV news from Nawlins is all around us -- as people collapse from lack of medical care, the crushing burden of debt, the inability to survive without two full time jobs, the ennui from the dull ache of hopelessness.
At least tax cuts for the rich are still in place.
Any fool--well, except one--can see we're driving this Cadillac straight into the ditch.
Those few of you who keep track might -- or might NOT -- know that my absence from the blog is due in part to my recent move from NJ to Cambridge, MA.
College Town on steroids. The conversations you overhear on the street or in stores can be laughably intellectual. The bestsellers that people browse on the discount shelves are the sort of tomes that were required reading in the advanced college classes.
But there is darn good free stuff here to occupy one's time. Great coffee. Nice, friendly people. Cambridge, some of it, is clean and appears fairly well run for a city. Lots of visible homelessness and poverty near the MIT campus, though. Harvard owns everything or so it seems. Certainly the older residents across the Charles near Harvard stadium hate the advance of the Harvard real estate moguls. In 20 years, goodbye homes, hello advanced gene spicling center for the performing arts.
Also, parking is impossible. Don't even think about it.
Free at Last
There is a fair amount of handwringing, fingerpointing and Judith Miller backlash now that a) she is out of jail and b) she has testified before the grand jury investigating the 'CIA leak case," as CNN has so adroitly summarized this character assassination plot.
Look, a journalist's ethics were on trial here. She stood up for what she believed her contract was with anonymous sources. The NYTimes backed her up. Now that she has cut her own deal, and Scooter Libby has admitted to being her source (for all intents and purposes) it was HER decision then to decide if there was a source here to be further protected by refusing the testify.
I for one am glad she is out. Not thrilled she has testified, but so be it. What I want is for this investigation to be over with and the leaker(s) to be identified and punished.
Let's not forget that a journalist who never published a story about this case was jailed for about 3-months. Who will answer to that violation of the First Amendment?
The other thing we are learning here is the close relationship between White House sources and top reporters. Given what sounds like pretty regular contact, why don't we know much, much more about what is going on and how this amateur WH operates?
Impeach?
It isn't a high crime or a misdemeanor to be incompetent, stupid, oblivious, out of touch and not in charge...but can't we find another way to get President Bush and his team of hacks, lackeys, cruel charlatans and anti-democratic thugs out of power?
Iraq is now more of a lost cause than ever: testimony this week reveals for all the bloodshed and investment in time and money, there are only 500 trained and ready Iraqi troops ready for duty. The NYC police force is much, much larger. Can't we all admit this Iraq adventure has been a failure built on a lie?
The dollar is a weakling being kicked with sand in the currency markets. Thank you very much Mr. Bush: no way can we afford that trip to Europe now.
Global warming is such a myth that the ice fields are shrinking to their lowest dimensions in years. Let's put Dick Cheney on an ice flow and see how long it takes to melt.
New Orleans, to stretch that metaphor, is only the tip of the iceberg. Not only does this administration not know how to run the machinery of government (or democracy) but they don't get that the poverty so explicit on the TV news from Nawlins is all around us -- as people collapse from lack of medical care, the crushing burden of debt, the inability to survive without two full time jobs, the ennui from the dull ache of hopelessness.
At least tax cuts for the rich are still in place.
Any fool--well, except one--can see we're driving this Cadillac straight into the ditch.
posted by John Barth at
12:03 PM
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