Bark Bark Woof Woof

I tried to boil Carl Hiaasen's column in The Miami Herald down to a few cogent paragraphs, but I can't do it justice. Read the whole thing here.

Iraq becomes Operation Sitting Duck

A few days ago, two American soldiers in Iraq were shot, dragged from a truck and viciously beaten with concrete blocks. Their bodies were left on a dusty street in Mosul, a city once considered one of the safest for U.S. forces.

The murder and mutilation was carried out not by hardened operatives of al Qaeda, but by a gang of Iraqi teenagers, the very generation for whom we've been battling to ''liberate'' the country.

For any civilians to act so barbarously shows a depth of hatred that is chilling. As the months drag on, and the flag-draped coffins of fallen Americans keep arriving at Dover Air Force Base, the mission in Iraq makes less sense than ever.

What are we doing there? Who are we fighting? How do we get out? The only question that now seems hollow is why we ever invaded in the first place.

The search for the phantom weapons of mass destruction has been reduced to a nightly punchline in Jay Leno's monologue. No nukes, no anthrax and no nerve gas have been found; nothing to justify President Bush's pre-war declaration that Saddam Hussein posed an immediate threat to global security.

So far, the most dangerous weapons uncovered are decidely low-tech -- pistols, rifles, homemade bombs, land mines and RPGs fired from donkey-drawn wagons. Unfortunately, they're doing a bang-up job of maiming and killing Americans.

The atmosphere in Iraq remains so perilous that on Thanksgiving Day, Bush had to sneak into Baghdad on a darkened Air Force One.

Whether the war was launched on false pretenses or merely faulty intelligence will be argued endlessly. The grim fact is that we're there now, and we're stuck.

In Afghanistan the mission was so clear. We were responding to a brazen attack against Americans on American soil. We knew who did it, and where they were hiding. The international community was virtually united behind us.

Iraq is another story. Saddam Hussein was a despicable tyrant, but not even the White House claims that he played a direct role in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Picked off by snipers

The hijackers themselves weren't Iraqis, nor were those who planned the crime. The man who approved it, Osama bin Laden, was known to detest Saddam.

Yet here we are mired in Iraq, our troops getting picked off by snipers, sappers and roadside rocket jockeys. Call it Operation Sitting Duck.

The hawks in the administration gripe that the media is focusing only on the bad news out of Baghdad, but where's the good news?

Last week, U.S. Col. William Darley told reporters that attacks by Iraqi insurgents against U.S. forces had declined from a high of 40 per day in mid-November to about 30 per day now.

It hardly makes you want to pop the champagne, knowing that our troops are coming under fire more than once an hour.

This holiday weekend concludes the bloodiest month for U.S. forces since the so-called end of major combat. More than 60 U.S. soldiers have been killed by hostile fire in November.

As of Thanksgiving Day, a total of 183 had died since the president triumphantly jet-landed on that aircraft carrier May 1.

Technically, though, the White House was correct. Major combat in the conventional sense ended in Iraq. These days our soldiers are dying by ambush and assassination.

GI murders in Mosul

Despite somewhat muted media coverage -- Michael Jackson's arrest received more attention than the GI murders in Mosul -- polls show that the war is increasingly a political liability for the White House. Efforts are accelerating to put a new Iraqi government in place.

Bringing the troops home, however, will be a long time in coming. As long as Saddam Hussein remains at large, Bush will keep a sizeable fighting force on the ground.

His insistence that occupying Iraq is central to the war on terrorism grows more preposterous by the day. Saddam has disappeared, but the much larger evil of al Qaeda has been lethally busy in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan.

Meanwhile, bin Laden himself is still alive and making dire threats. He's certainly not in Iraq, and nothing that happens in Iraq will bring us closer to catching him.

The grisly scene in Mosul last week recalled that infamous horror in Mogadishu a decade ago, when a Black Hawk helicopter was shot down and the mangled remains of U.S. servicemen were dragged through the streets by a celebratory mob.

An unseen enemy

It was a demoralizing episode for this country, but at least the soldiers in Somalia went down fighting. In Iraq the enemy is often unseen, indistinguishable from friendly civilians, and the shots and grenades come out of nowhere.

Troops who were trained to wage war are now courageously trying to wage peace. In such a role they must be visible and ubiquitous in a land where they aren't universally welcome.

The results have been deadly though not unanticipated. The question for Bush is how long before the American people decide that the best exit plan is to elect a president with an exit plan.

Carl Hiaasen was born and raised in South Florida. He joined The Herald in 1976 and worked as a general assignment reporter, magazine writer and award-winning investigative reporter before starting his column in 1985. He is also the author of many novels, including Basket Case, Sick Puppy, Tourist Season and Strip Tease, which was made into a feature film starring Demi Moore and Burt Reynolds. Hiaasen's column appears regularly on the Other Views page. Visit Carl's Web site at www.carlhiaasen.com.

My car club will, on occasion, get together a small group and go for an early-morning drive. This takes place at 7:00 a.m., when there is very little traffic and it's still cool enough that driving with the top down is delightful. This morning we gathered again and went from South Miami out to Key Biscayne. Thanks to the passage of a cold front on Friday night, the weather was clear and cool enough that a light jacket was welcome. It could even be described by some as "crisp," which isn't something you think of in describing weather in South Florida.

There were six cars: a 1967 Austin Healey 3000 MkIII, a 1960 Austin Healey 3000, a 1973 TR6, a 1970 Lotus (with right-hand-drive), a 1960 Chevrolet Impala, and ever the odd man out, my 1995 Mustang GT. You do not have to own an antique car (more than 25 years old) to belong to the club; you just can't exhibit a newer car. That doesn't bother me; I enjoy looking at the cars of other members, and they are happy to have me along in either my Mustang or my nearly-antique 1988 Pontiac 6000LE Safari station wagon. We cruised up US 1 to the Rickenbacker Causeway and out over the bridges to Key Biscayne, greeting the sun as it broke through the low-level clouds over the Atlantic, passing the line of cyclists that are always on the road, and getting a wave from them. A flock of pelicans swooped low over the water by the bridge to Virginia Key.

Our usual stop is a Cuban cafe where some of us (me) had breakfast and Cuban coffee. We enjoyed the sunrise over the palms and condos, and then headed back home via a more scenic route - past Vizcaya, the old Deering estate, and through Coconut Grove, through the tunnel of trees along Main Highway and Old Cutler Road, and back home in time for another cup of coffee and the Sunday New York Times.

In no particular order:

1. The turkey is still in leftover mode and I'm already sick of Christmas commercials. The most obnoxious one is the Lexus ad where a variety of rich people find keys to their new cars attached to ribbons, loaded in model trains, etc. I'm assuming this ad is sponsored by the RNC as a suggestion on how to spend the tax cut.

2. On the other hand, the Hallmark commercial where the mom is reading a bedtime story to her strapping teenage son, who says, "I love you, Mom - read it again," is touching. Probably because it's not trying to sell me something I can't afford and wouldn't buy if I could.

3. There is nothing worth watching on Saturday afternoon television.

4. You are your own worst proofreader. I've spent two hours plowing through a manuscript and I'm still finding typos.

5. At the grocery store, the other line moves faster.

6. A watched blog never gets comments.

7. Two things I've never understood: The lyrics to songs by Yes, and why Adam Sandler is considered to have talent.

8. Shakespeare got it right: the comic relief characters in a drama make the show worth watching. For example, the Fool in King Lear, Donna on The West Wing, and Harper on Andromeda.

9. Never eat at a restaurant that advertises on TV.

Okay, back to the novel.

One of the biggest debates in theatre scholarship is whether or not Broadway is dying, and if so, if it's worth saving. In the past forty years, Broadway has gone from its glory as the icon of American theatre to near-death, only to be rescued by British imports, revivals of old standards, and the Walt Disney empire, which has drawn up plans to put Mary Poppins, The Little Mermaid, and Tarzan on the Great White Way, following in the footsteps (paw prints?) of Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. Traditionalists are concerned that Disney will somehow cheapen Broadway. (Given the fact that it costs a minimum of $10 million to mount a musical production on Broadway, "cheap" is not a word that comes readily to mind.)

Broadway has been never really been on the cutting edge of American theatre - it's more a tourist draw than anything - so turning Broadway into Disneyland will, if anything, be good for it, at least in terms of selling tickets and exposing people to live theatre. The best theatre in America today is regional - cities such as Minneapolis, Dallas, Denver, even Los Angeles have fine theatre companies doing amazing productions of new plays, and some of the greatest dramas in American theatre history; The Glass Menagerie, Inherit the Wind, and Long Day's Journey Into Night (not to mention all the works of Sam Shepard and Lanford Wilson) didn't get their start on Broadway.

So, let Mary Poppins and her dancing penguins come to Broadway, and let them charge $100 a pop to see it. When the tourists go back home to Ohio, they might actually want to see live theatre again, and that's where it all starts. That's how they hooked me - I saw my first Broadway show, High Spirits, when I was in New York in 1964 to see the World's Fair, and, well, the rest is theatre history...

From the Petoskey News-Review:

Eleven-year-old Bernadette Johnston was watching the History Channel with her family when a World War II documentary came on. While the topic won't be in her curriculum until the seventh-grade, Bernadette's parents took the opportunity to teach their sixth-grade daughter about the events she was watching on TV.

"I was learning about Adolf Hitler, and I was interested to see what he was all about," Bernadette said. "I know he was a monster and everything, but I was learning about why people think he's a monster." Later that month, Bernadette and her mom were brainstorming Halloween costumes. "I know that Halloween is an evil holiday," Bernadette said. "Hitler was evil. He was the most evil. So I decided to go as him."

Bernadette Johnston as Der Fuhrer

Needless to say, this caused some concern at school.

With a costume in mind, Bernadette went to see her school counselor at Harbor Springs Middle School.

"She got a kick out of it," said Bernadette, of telling the counselor about her costume idea.

The counselor mentioned the costume to the school principal, Steve Urbanski, who became concerned.

"I think he was a little surprised, I guess," Bernadette said. "I was called into the office a couple of times."

Ultimately, Urbanski asked Bernadette to leave the costume at home on Halloween.

"We were looking at her rights, and even asked legal counsel," Urbanski said. "At the same time, we were looking at the rights of other people at school."

He was uneasy, he said, about how she might be received dressed as Hitler.

"We were concerned for how other kids would treat her," he said.

The costume didn't go against the school's dress code, but did sit between what's considered acceptable and offensive.

"We decided it would be potentially disruptive to our learning environment," Urbanski said. "And it could be offensive to students of different faiths - especially since it has not been part of the kids' curriculum.

"We took all of those factors, thought about the rights of all those students, and the rights of Bernadette, and weighed in on a difficult situation."

With so much controversy over the costume, Urbanski said he learned a lesson or two on celebrating Halloween at school.

"It was the first year the middle school participated in a dress-up activity," he said. "That's going to be a tough call next year."

Yeah, especially if someone shows up as John Ashcroft.

The best way for the Democrats to win the White House in 2004 is to let the Religious Reich take over the agenda and revive the culture war that doomed the first President Bush in 1992. The best spokesperson for that is the guy who started the last one: Pat Buchanan. And here he is in full cry on the Op-Ed page of the Miami Herald:

...President Bush should make the preservation of marriage the social issue of 2004. Every candidate should be forced to declare himself for or against the idea that marriage is restricted to men and women.

Gay activists will denounce this as the politics of divisiveness and hate. But America has begun to catch on to the tactic of smearing as bigots anyone who resists this new social revolution. The nation has begun to see through the strategy of imposing that revolution not through the democratic process but the dictatorial process of getting collaborator-judges to issue court degrees.

[edit]

In a half century, we have watched judges and justices strike down laws against pornography, denying communities the power to prevent the pollution of cultures. We have seen the killing of unborn children declared a constitutional right. We have seen children bused across cities to meet some jurist's idea of a proper racial balance.

Judges have ordered students not to say a prayer at graduation. They have told teachers what they may and may not teach. They have declared homosexual sodomy a constitutional right.

Time to go to the root of America's social crisis: the power usurped by judges and imposed against the will of the people and their chosen representatives. Legislatures and executives should begin recapturing their lost powers, or we should find new legislators and executives to restore constitutional balance. Let the counterrevolution begin where that first revolution began, with a new Boston Tea Party.

Go, Pat, Go! And pay absolutely no attention to the wussies who are so worried about offending people; this is America's soul we're fighting for! So when Joan Vennochi warns against starting another culture war, just ignore her:

To Republicans, a war over gay marriage rights foisted upon the nation by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court may sound like a welcome and winnable distraction.

[edit]

In 1992, the GOP's right wing took over the convention in Houston to declare a mean and supposedly holy war against Americans whose beliefs are different from its own. In a speech to delegates, Buchanan stated it plainly: ''There is a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we will one day be as was the Cold War itself.'' Buchanan's theme was reinforced by other conservative political and religious leaders who scared the country on prime-time TV.

That November Bill Clinton won the White House. Bush's defeat was due partly to his failure to address the nation's stagnant economy. But the ousting of an incumbent was also the country's reaction to the ugly, narrow intolerance displayed in Houston, not by Bush but by others in his party.

Why would George W. Bush want that same shrill, divisive discourse to permeate his campaign for reelection? He was elected as a compassionate conservative. His vice president, Dick Cheney, has an openly gay daughter who brings her partner to White House dinners. Today the country is even more tolerant toward gays than it was a decade ago, and the tolerance is more outspokenly bipartisan. That political reality of growing tolerance toward gays and lesbians can be seen in Bush's initial response to the Massachusetts court ruling. He did not specifically endorse a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage.

[edit]

Is it better for Bush if the election turns on the sanctity of traditional marriage or the long-range merits of ''Iraqification?'' Republicans should be careful what they wish for.

I'm reminded of the admonition I heard when Pat Buchanan ran for president in 2000; "Don't be too hard on him. After all, he did lose a relative in the Holocaust: his uncle fell out of a guard tower at Auschwitz."

TomPaine.com(mon sense) was one of the first on-line political journals I read on-line way back in 1999, and have always enjoyed it, even though it does lack a certain sense of humor - and I never really feel comfortable with anything that seems to take itself too seriously. That said, TomPaine.com often has interesting articles that go beyond the punditry, and this week they offer a couple that are worth sharing:

The Dean You Don't Know by Steven Rosenfeld on the influence on Howard Dean of the fiscal policies of the late Republican Gov. Richard Snelling of Vermont, for whom Dean served as Lieutenant Governor;

Sleeping with the Enemy by David Corn, who wonders "[w]hy do the Democrats insist on helping the Bush camp win its fights?" Good question.

May I be so bold as to suggest that you bookmark TomPaine.com and check it out on a regular basis.

An insider's view of the FTAA demonstrations.

From Cleveland Scene, via Miami New Times. Has it really been eight years since Calvin and Hobbes left us?

Where are my manners? I owe a debt of gratitude to Faithful Mentor NTodd for his off-screen advice and editing of the picture of Sam that now graces this blog above the "Links" sidebar. And the man is no slouch when it comes to taking his own photos, too.

It took me several false starts to get it placed correctly, but what do you expect from a guy whose last foray into writing computer code was in 1968 using FORTRAN on a DEC PDP-8/S?

From the South Florida (Ft. Lauderdale) Sun-Sentinel:

Activists say police stopped, detained and threatened hundreds of protesters; placed dozens of people and a few of their gathering spots under surveillance; and arrested many more demonstrators who were simply exercising their right to free speech. They say police used the need to deal with a small group of disruptive protesters to stifle dissent by thousands of others who came to Miami to speak out against the Free Trade Area of the Americas meeting.

[edit]

Amnesty International, union leaders and other activists are asking for an independent investigation into the mounting allegations of police abuse.

They include Brenna Bell, an Oregon-based attorney with the National Lawyers Guild, who claims she was arrested while trying to obey police orders to disperse from a peaceful demonstration.

"If this is homeland security," she said, "I'm not feeling very secure."

Sounds pretty anti-American to me. Send 'em to Gitmo just to make sure.

The Minister of Sanctimony finds out that Republicans like to spend money:

The time when the Republican Party stood for something worth standing for is over. The ''G'' in GOP might as well stand for government. Smaller, less intrusive government with less spending and lower taxes is the stuff of history books and fond memories for a party that once had a purpose. But Republicans, having tasted power, are now drunk with it. Like the Democrats before them who became inebriated with the wine of success, Republicans now seem interested only in preserving their elective offices.

To quote the immortal Robin Williams: "Fuckin' DUH!"

An op-ed from the NY Times:

The debate over gays in the military was never really about balancing civil rights with national security. Britain, Israel, Canada and Australia are among 24 militaries that lifted bans on gay soldiers without undermining unit cohesion or combat readiness. These experiences show that the choice is not between gay rights and military readiness. It is between prejudice that compromises national security and equality that enhances it. And that's no choice at all.

As a Conscientious Objector, I'm torn between my pacificism and and my sense of equality: I wish we didn't have to have a military at all, but if we must, it must be open to everyone.

From NY Times:

Bush Makes Surprise Thanksgiving Visit to Iraq
WASHINGTON, Nov. 27 - In a stunning mission conducted under enormous secrecy, President Bush flew into Baghdad today aboard Air Force One to have dinner with United States officials and a group of astonished American troops.

His trip - the first ever to Iraq by an American president - had been kept a matter of absolute secrecy by the White House, which had said that he would be spending the Thanksgiving weekend at his ranch outside Crawford, Tex.

Even his wife, Laura, and his parents, the former President George Bush and his wife, Barbara, were not told in advance, officials said later.

The trip was an extraordinary gesture, with scant precedent, and was seen as an effort by Mr. Bush to show the importance he attaches to the embattled United States-led effort to pacify and democratize Iraq.

The presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, appearing on CNN, called it ``a perfectly executed plan'' that would be ``one of the major moments in his biography.'' It would have provided ``an incredible thrill'' for the American.

Mr. Bush sneaked out of Crawford on Wednesday in an unmarked car, then flew to Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, where a few advisers and a small number of reporters sworn to secrecy joined him. They then flew on to Baghdad International Airport, arriving around dusk.

He spent 2 hours 32 minutes in the country, dining with the chief United States administrator there, L. Paul Bremer III, and sharing Thanksgiving wishes with about 600 troops at an airport hangar. Mr. Bush actually helped serve dinner to the troops, who had been told they would be dining with Mr. Bremer and with Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of coalition forces in Iraq.

He also met with four members of the Iraqi Governing Council.

The trip must have raised enormous concerns for the president's security team. A DHL cargo plane using the same airport Saturday was struck in the wing by a shoulder-fired missile, forcing it to make an emergency landing. Such missiles, reliant on visual contact with their targets, are considered ineffective after dark, however.

``It's not real risky,'' retired Maj. Gen. Don Shepperd said on CNN. ``At night, the risk is minimal.''

The trip, nonetheless, was clearly not without peril, taking the president into a country where coalition forces have been the targets of dozens of attacks a day. More than 60 American troops were killed in hostilities there this month, many of them in helicopter crashes.

Officials said afterward that if word of the trip had emerged - even while Air Force One was in the air approaching Baghdad - it would have been canceled.

News of the trip came out around noon, Washington time, or 8 p.m. in Baghdad, as Americans prepared to gather around Thanksgiving tables, assuming that their president was doing the same in Texas.

White House officials had given no hint that anything else was happening.

``The president will be spending Thanksgiving at his ranch here in Crawford, Texas,'' a White House spokesman, Claire Buchan, said Wednesday. ``He'll be joined by family and friends, including his mother and father, former President Bush and Mrs. Bush.''

She even announced the menu, starting with ``free-range turkey'' and ending with ``Prairie Chapel pecan pie made with pecans from the president's ranch.'' The only hint that a different reality might later emerge came when Ms. Buchan added, ``If there are updates, additionally, to what he does on Thanksgiving, we'll try and keep you posted.''

Sounds to me like it was more about the codpiece than the troops.

Welcome A Rational Animal and faithful reader/commentor Lilith to the Links section.

From the Boston Globe:

HONOLULU -- Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, expressing gratitude for the conclusion of a sorrowful personal saga, observed the return yesterday of remains believed to be those of his younger brother, who vanished 29 years ago in Southeast Asia.

Dean's brother Charles perished after being captured by Pathet Lao forces while traveling in Laos in 1974.

In a brief statement to reporters at Hickam Air Force Base, a somber Dean called his brother "a person of deep principle who lived his life the way he believed it ought to be lived." He profusely thanked members of the Pentagon's investigative teams that found and recovered the remains.

"He was an extraordinary person who we're going to miss every day, but we are deeply comforted that this operation has allowed us to repatriate what we believe are his remains and ultimately take them back home," said the former Vermont governor, who took a break from his vigorous campaign schedule to fly to Hawaii for the ceremony.

Note to the Republicans: principle means "an ethical code or standard."

From the BBC:

Shevardnadze Says US Betrayed Him
The ousted Georgian president, Eduard Shevardnadze, has said he feels let down by the United States, who he says helped to remove him from power.

Mr Shevardnadze said he could not understand why he had been abandoned after giving Washington full support in foreign policy, including on Iraq.

He said that he resigned when he saw a crackdown would only lead to bloodshed.

He left after opposition protests against flawed elections led to a takeover of parliament last weekend.

Is it any wonder why nobody likes us?

From the NY Times:

Gather round, my lovelies. 'Tis that very special season. The turkey is roasting. The family is here. And a flamboyant, guttural-voiced openly gay male cross-dresser is having it out with a unit of a corporate retail conglomerate capitalized at more than $8 billion.

It must be Thanksgiving time in New York.

Making this year's celebration memorable, the actor Harvey Fierstein and the producers of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade engaged one another yesterday in a fierce and somewhat indirect debate over whether or not the parade is a sacred institution that should be regarded as above politics.

The festivities began when Mr. Fierstein wrote an Op-Ed article in The New York Times using the fact of his scheduled appearance in the parade as a rhetorical device to introduce a meditation on the politics of same-sex marriage. The Santa Claus in today's parade would be half of a same-sex couple, he declared, with him as the other half, "dressed in holiday finery portraying the one and only Mrs. Claus."

By the end of the day, it was clear that tradition would hold: Santa Claus would be on the final sleigh float, accompanied by Mrs. Claus, a woman. Mr. Fierstein would be on a separate float. But the confusion set Macy's, owned by Federated Department Stores, on a madcap public relations campaign to distance its parade from his opinions without addressing the topics he raised.

In the morning, Macy's officials quickly issued their first statement: "The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is the icon of the Thanksgiving Holiday. It has delighted and entertained families throughout the world for 76 years. The parade has never and will never be a platform for political and social issues and opinions."

The statement emphasized that Mr. Fierstein would be dressed not as Mrs. Claus but as "his beloved character Mrs. Edna Turnblad of the Broadway hit musical `Hairspray.' "

But then the actor's costume designer said that Mrs. Edna Turnblad, as portrayed by Mr. Fierstein, would be dressed as Mrs. Claus. That notion put Santa in the delicate position of sending mixed signals. Perhaps because Mr. Claus is a character famed far and wide for diplomacy and, above all, minimal disclosure, the debate quickly took on a life of its own.

"We couldn't get off this subject," Curtis Sliwa, a co-host of a WABC radio call-in program, said in a telephone interview. During five hours on the air, he said, callers deconstructed many of the issues raised by Mr. Fierstein and his article, and questioned whether it was appropriate to use the parade as a political pulpit.

Macy's kept a narrow focus on separating the politics from the parade.

Company officials did not return repeated calls to discuss the dispute, but they did provide a telephone number for more information. At that number, a woman's recorded voice read the statement aloud in its entirety, highlighting certain words with a lilting emphasis: "Families," "never" and "beloved."

This did little to clear up the matter of whether Mr. Fierstein would serve through the Mrs. Turnblad character as a gay Mrs. Claus. So his costume designer, William Ivey Long, tried to elucidate things by describing the outfit that Mr. Fierstein planned to wear in the parade. He said it was a Balenciaga swing coat worn over a floor-length pencil skirt with a stamped red velvet jacket with fake fur collar and cuffs topped with a white fake fur French beret.

"Those are just words," Mr. Long said. "The effect is, of course, insane."

He added that the notion of the identity of Mrs. Claus would be further complicated because, just as in "Hairspray," those viewing Mr. Fierstein's costume would be expected to suspend their disbelief and see only Mrs. Turnblad dressed as Mrs. Claus, not Mr. Fierstein dressed as Mrs. Turnblad dressed as Mrs. Claus.

"The semantics are confusing," Mr. Long said.

Addressing that confusion, Macy's issued a revised statement later in the day. This version noted that Mr. Fierstein would not appear on the main Santa Claus float but rather on a separate float "in Edna's interpretation of Mrs. Claus."

It continued, "As for Mrs. Claus herself, she will be appearing with Santa on Santa's sleigh, as part of the Grand Finale of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade."

The names of the other floats in the parade make clear that the celebration is thoroughly devoid of political and social advocacy. These include Amica Insurance's American Classic Malt Shop Float, Hershey Foods' Kids Candy Creation Lab, Amerada Hess's Bridge to the Future, and the float that will carry Mr. Fierstein dressed as Mrs. Turnblad dressed as Mrs. Claus, Macy's Percy & the P-Birds.

Mr. Fierstein said in a telephone interview after the matinee performance of "Hairspray" yesterday that the point of his Op-Ed article was being missed or obscured.

"I'm not saying Santa is gay," Mr. Fierstein said. "I'm not saying I'm the real Mrs. Claus. I'm saying, `Look what gay Americans do.' "

He added that the disagreement with Macy's was not substantive, as it did not directly address the issue of gay marriage, which was the point of his article.

"As far as Macy's and I go," Mr. Fierstein said, "Macy's is a store; it's not a political organization."

And what's Thanksgiving without at least one relative in drag hogging all the stuffing?

Things to be thankful for:

Good friends and a place to spend Thanksgiving Day (and they have a big-screen TV for the Lions game, even though the Lions suck this year) and have the traditional dinner. And Bravo's having a The West Wing marathon.

Good health, healthy family and friends.

A good job doing something meaningful for the community.

Good friends out there in the blogosphere who are happy to support and inspire.

Good weather - something I'll never take for granted.

The very real possibility that in less than 13 months our long national nightmare of Bush II will be over.

I'll be around all weekend - stop by and say Hi!

This was Sam. He came into my life weighing about a pound in April 1989, and he was with me for 13 wonderful years. He died in July 2002, but he'll always be with me; his ashes are in a nice little blue Santa Fe urn on the piano, next to this picture and his collar. When I figure out how to do it, he'll be a permanent part of the template.

Photo by Sarah Hazlegrove, August 1995.

Thanks to BlogSpot, BBWW is now ad-free, and I will be able to add pictures. Now all I gotta do is get a camera...and a cat...and I can compete with NTodd and his menagerie.

Welcome Cowboy Kahlil of ReachM High Cowboy Network Noose to the BBWW Family of Fine Blogs.

From CNN, apparently with a straight face, PC's must now be PC:

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Los Angeles officials have asked that manufacturers, suppliers and contractors stop using the terms "master" and "slave" on computer equipment, saying such terms are unacceptable and offensive.

The request -- which has some suppliers furious and others busy re-labeling components -- came after an unidentified worker spotted a videotape machine carrying devices labeled "master" and "slave" and filed a discrimination complaint with the county's Office of Affirmative Action Compliance.

In the computer industry, "master" and "slave" are used to refer to primary and secondary hard disk drives. The terms are also used in other industries.

"Based on the cultural diversity and sensitivity of Los Angeles County, this is not an acceptable identification label," Joe Sandoval, division manager of purchasing and contract services, said in a memo sent to County vendors.

"We would request that each manufacturer, supplier and contractor review, identify and remove/change any identification or labeling of equipment components that could be interpreted as discriminatory or offensive in nature," Sandoval said in the memo, which was distributed last week and made available to Reuters.

Okay, fans, let's get some suggestions!

Here are a couple of interesting looks at the Dean campaign. First, here's an inside look from a volunteer in the Burlington, VT headquarters reported by Stef, the wife of Faithful Blog Mentor NTodd:

Chaos reigns, but not in an unruly way. The entire place has the energy of a startup company in the 1990s: utterly crazed, but eager and determinedly focused. There are people working literally around the clock, every day of the week. You may be locked in the hallway, but Dean HQ is always open!

And here is a report from Michael McCord on a Dean campaign rally in Rochester, NH, as reported in Democratic Underground:

A year ago the notion of a "Dean Juggernaut" would have been fantasy. Even six months ago, the concept was a punch line in the making but today with the New Hampshire primary fast approaching, it's a sobering - no make that horrifying - fact for the rivals of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. "Every day I wake up sick," a staffer from a rival campaign responded when asked about Dean. "They (the Dean campaign) act like it's Mardi Gras every day and we're just dressing for a funeral." The candidate who couldn't afford a pollster at the start of his campaign is now at the top of primary opinion polls.

All this frontrunner, opinion chatter is essentially meaningless today. On the first-in-the-solar-system primary planet, watching so-called frontrunners fall on their face is quadrennial pastime. On a cool autumn evening late last week, I attended a Howard Dean revival session at the Rochester Opera House. Dean, he of the East Hampton (N.Y.) Deans, a former banker, ski bum, practicing MD, and center-of-the-road governor is by far the most unlikely rise to prominence by a Democrat since Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Rochester, the largest city in New Hampshire's seacoast region, has a blue-collar personality and has watched its manufacturing base slowly evaporate over the past decade (the largest employer in Rochester is the City of Rochester itself). Here is a jobless recovery case study where the official unemployment rate is lower than the national average but underemployment is the rage.

It's a good place to consider Dean's curious populist magnetism and his appearance was a rollicking affair. The place was mostly filled with more than 375 Dean fans and potential supporters who waited patiently as Dean ran almost an hour late from a previous campaign stop. The patience of his audience was one thing - the fact that they were there at all on a Friday night in November (the night life in southeastern New Hampshire is actually quite lively) speaks volumes about his current star quality.

At this and other rallies I've witnessed, Dean's support cuts across class and cultural lines and includes the young and old, independents who voted for John McCain, liberals who supported Al Gore and Bill Bradley, environmentalists, stray Republicans, blue collar workers and professionals of all stripes. And the collective mood is like a trip to a political Disneyland where it's a small world after all and all things are possible.

In both of these stories, the overriding image is one of high-powered optimism and enthusiasm for a candidate who touches a lot of different people in a lot of different ways. And that may be Dean's biggest strength - he can't be pigeonholed by anyone, and regardless of what Karl Rove may think, he will be a very hard target to hit.

From The Democratic Underground, Eight Simple Rules For Not Getting Your Ass Kicked:

I've been a lesbian for almost 15 years now, and I've had a lot of experience defending myself and what I love against the religious right. For my Thanksgiving special, I would like to give the Democratic Party and its presidential hopefuls the benefit of that experience, and offer them some advice about how to make this issue an asset instead of a liability. Because if the party approaches this problem the right way, it could actually turn out to be the beginning of a very important party makeover. And God knows we need it.

This happens every year in northern Michigan, but it's one ritual I was happy to give up.

Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo has the scoop on Senator Orrin Hatch's interoffice thievery.

The New York Times figures it out. So much for the dreaded "homosexual agenda" the Religious Reich is always going on about. Hell, we can't even decide on a color scheme.

I share bad puns with my office mate:

Zebediah was in the fertilized egg business. He had several hundred
young layers, called pullets, and eight or ten roosters, whose job was
to fertilize the eggs. Zeb kept records, and any rooster that didn't
perform well went into the soup pot and was replaced. That took an awful
lot of Zeb's time; so, Zeb got a set of tiny bells and attached them to
his roosters. Each bell had a different tone so that Zeb could tell,
from a distance, which rooster was performing. Now he could sit on the
porch and fill out an efficiency report simply by listening to the
bells.

Zeb's favorite rooster was old Brewster, a very fine specimen he was,
too. But on this particular morning, Zeb noticed that Brewster's bell
had not rung at all!! Zeb went to investigate.

The other roosters were chasing pullets, bells a- ringing! The pullets,
hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover. BUT, to Zeb's
amazement, Brewster had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring. He'd
sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one.

Zeb was so proud of Brewster that he entered him in the county fair.
Brewster was an overnight sensation. The judges not only awarded him the
No Bell Piece Prize but also the Pulletsurprise.

Happy Turkey Day.

Robert Scheer in Salon:

What nerve of President Bush to question the patriotism of his Democratic opponents, two of whom are highly decorated Purple Heart and Bronze and Silver Star veterans and all of whom have labored long to make this a better country.

But the television ad that the Republican Party is running on Bush's behalf in Iowa this week does just that, making the outrageous insinuation that critics of the president's policies are in fact supporters of terrorists.

"Some are now attacking the president for attacking the terrorists," the ad states. "Some call for us to retreat, putting our national security in the hands of others." The ad urges viewers to tell Congress "to support the president's policy of preemptive self-defense."

This is dirty politics at its absolute lowest, equating criticism with cowardice.

The irony is that the ad features the president delivering the 2003 State of the Union speech, which has turned out to be an enormous embarrassment of admitted distortions, including one claim, based on a forged document, that Iraq was a nuclear threat. It was in that speech that the president touted the imminent threat of Iraq's so-far-undiscovered weapons of mass destruction while implying that Saddam Hussein collaborated with al-Qaida on the 9/11 attacks -- a charge that the president himself recently conceded was without foundation.

In fact, the Iraq War has proved to be a terrible test case for "preemptive self-defense" because the intelligence it was founded on is so much loose sand. If you say somebody is a threat and then it turns out they aren't, your "preemptive attack" is no longer "self-defense."

Worse, though, as Gen. Wesley Clark points out, is that the Iraq War and occupation have been a distraction from the war against al-Qaida. "I'm not critical of President Bush because he's attacking terrorists," Clark said. "I'm critical of President Bush because he is not attacking terrorists."

If the president were serious about heeding the lessons of 9/11, the White House would not be refusing to send executive records to the independent commission that is trying to determine how those attacks were allowed to occur and what might prevent them in the future. Former Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.), a member of that commission, has called the president's stonewalling "Nixonian," suggesting that Bush might not really want the truth to come out.

As Cleland, a triple-amputee Vietnam veteran, put it in an interview with Salon: "It's been painfully obvious the administration not only fought the creation of the commission but that their objective was the war in Iraq, and one of the notions that was built on was there was a direct connection between al-Qaida and 9/11 and Saddam Hussein. There was not. So therefore they didn't want the 9/11 commission to get going ... They want to kick this can down past the elections."

A more ominous possibility is that the White House and intelligence records being kept from the 9/11 commission may indict the administration for indifference to the problem posed by Osama bin Laden's gang before the 9/11 attacks.

We do know that the incoming Bush team did not take very seriously the dire warnings passed on by President Clinton's outgoing national security advisor, Sandy Berger, and by FBI agents in the field. The Bush administration seemed more preoccupied with the war on drugs than terrorism, even congratulating the Taliban for its successful drug eradication program just weeks before 9/11. Furthermore, the U.S. failed to seriously confront al-Qaida's sponsors in Saudi Arabia, before and after the terrorist attacks. Instead, we invaded Iraq.

The president has a lot to answer for in his failed war on terrorism.

Bin Laden is still at large, and al-Qaida, according to the White House, is responsible for the series of devastating terrorist attacks in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. Bush has managed to turn formerly secular Iraq into a hotbed of religious fanaticism, while diverting attention from Afghanistan, allowing the Taliban and al-Qaida to creep back in.

Although Cleland voted for the Iraq War authorization last year, that did not stop his Republican opponent, Saxby Chambliss -- who avoided service in Vietnam -- from defeating war hero Cleland in 2002 by using attack ads that questioned his patriotism.

In those ads Cleland's face was presented alongside pictures of bin Laden and Hussein as if they were one and the same. As has been famously said, the appeal to patriotism is often "the last refuge of a scoundrel."

What would be truly unpatriotic -- and an abrogation of their responsibility to the American people -- is for the Democratic candidates to fail to take on Bush's record in subverting the fight against terrorism.

Amen, brother.

Molly Ivins on the Medicare and energy bills:

Wow! Not one, but two huge, horrible, last-minute life-changing bills, and the second is even worse than the first! Record-shattering bad legislation immediately eclipsed by record-shattering bad legislation. These Republicans have talent: It is not easy to do this much damage to people's lives with a straight face and that unctuous air of piety.

From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

ORLANDO -- President Bush, who won Florida by 537 votes in 2000 after a contentious recount, would carry the state by 20 percentage points if next year's election were held today, a statewide poll says.

But there is also some bad news for the president -- his job performance was rated favorably by 54 percent of respondents, down from 58 percent in July.

The poll of 625 registered Florida voters by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research for the Orlando Sentinel and WESH-TV also showed that 52 percent of respondents approved of Bush's handling of the economy, and 54 percent give him favorable ratings for his handling of Iraq.

Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut parlayed name recognition from his 2000 vice-presidential campaign and frequent visits to South Florida into front-runner status among Florida Democrats polled.

The poll, released Monday, was conducted Nov. 17 to 21, after U.S. Sen. Bob Graham of Florida had ended his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. It has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

In a Bush-Lieberman contest, the president was favored by 56 percent of those polled compared to 36 percent for the Democrat. Bush pulled support from 59 percent of the voters in a matchup with former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who got 36 percent. Against Wesley Clark, the president got 56 percent of the vote to 33 percent for the retired general, who only entered the Democratic contest in September.

About 23 percent of Florida Democratic voters were undecided when it came to choosing their party's presidential candidate, according to the poll.

Lieberman drew 21 percent -- one of the few places in the nation he is leading. Dean, the current front-runner nationally, got 17 percent. Clark had 14 percent, U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri polled 11 percent and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts 6 percent.

The Democratic candidate could be all but formally chosen by the time Florida voters go to the primary polls March 9.

Florida has not been high on the campaign trail, except for President Bush, who stops by every so often to see how Fredo - oops, I mean Jeb - is handling his turf. So far the only active Democratic candidates to campaign in Florida are Lieberman and Clark. Dean is slated to appear in Miami on Saturday, December 13. So it's not like anyone's paying attention, what with the Marlins winning the World Series and the melodrama over the Dolphins' quarterbacks.

Some will stop at nothing:

NEW YORK -- New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will have to look long and hard for the Giants' cheerleaders.

Bloomberg told American GIs in Kosovo he wanted the bring the New York Giants' cheerleaders with him for a visit with the troops. The GIs hooted and hollered to the suggestion.

The problem is that the Giants don't have any cheerleaders -- at least not the skimpily clad, pom-pom waving variety that is so popular on the NFL sidelines.

For the record, the Jets don't have any cheerleaders, either.

And both teams play in New Jersey.

From the Santa Fe New Mexican

In an article dealing mainly with the state's first Democratic presidential caucus, scheduled for Feb. 3, Roll Call -- a newspaper that primarily covers Congress -- noted that even though the New Mexico governor has said he wouldn't accept a nomination to be the Democrats' vice-presidential candidate, "some remain skeptical that Richardson would turn down the post if it was offered."

The Roll Call article says: "For the moment, Richardson is clearly enjoying the limelight cast on his state and is seeking to take full advantage for both himself and the Land of Enchantment."

Richardson spokesman Gilbert Gallegos on Monday said such national attention is flattering to Richardson. But Gallegos reiterated the governor's past statements that he intends to seek re-election as governor in 2006.

At first blush, it seems like a bad idea: representatives of two of the smallest states - in terms of population, that is - on the top of the national ticket. Together, the populations of New Mexico and Vermont add up to about one half of the Miami-Dade County. But Richardson brings some real pluses: his Hispanic ancestry and strong foreign policy experience, thanks to his years as Clinton's UN ambassador. It could also liven up the White House dining room: chile rellenos followed by Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

Nov. 22, 2003 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush, reflecting on President Kennedy's assassination, says the country still has "a feeling of loss that defies the passing of years."

"America still misses our 35th president," Bush said.

It was 40 years ago, on Nov. 22, 1963, that Kennedy was killed in Dallas. He was 46.

"John F. Kennedy has been gone nearly as long as he lived, yet the memory of him still brings pride to our nation and a feeling of loss that defies the passing of years," Bush said in a statement Friday.

"We remember a man who welcomed great responsibilities and had a gift for awakening the idealism and sense of duty in others," Bush said. "We remember a leader who called our nation to high purpose, and saw America through grave dangers with calm, discernment and personal courage."

At Arlington National Cemetery, members of the Kennedy family visited the grave site Saturday. His daughter, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, his brother, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and others knelt before the eternal flame that is a memorial to the late president and laid flowers on the stones.

Italics mine.

Nov. 24, 2003 | LONDON (AP) -- Christmas can be stressful, especially if you're a turkey. But relaxed birds are better, so the National Farmer's Union has come up with a soothing plan. Officials said Monday the organization has sent 114 farmers a compact disk of sounds including birds twittering in the early morning, wind chimes, whale sounds and the gobble of "happy turkeys," to play to their birds.

"It is well known that a stressed bird is more prone to disease," said a spokesman.

"Most of its energy goes into being frightened rather than growing and putting on weight. Many farmers who already play radios in sheds where they keep turkeys also believe the birds taste nicer. The CD is designed to find out what type of music calms birds the most."

The National Farmers' Union came up with the plan after consulting animal behavior experts at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, where the world's first cloned animal, Dolly the sheep, was produced.

From the Roasting His Chestnuts file:

Nov. 24, 2003 | COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A teenager who locked himself out of the house tried to shimmy down the chimney. It didn't work.

Battalion Chief Craig Mosley said firefighters got a call Sunday evening reporting a child stuck in a chimney. When they arrived, they found the youth stuck a few feet from the bottom.

Fire department spokeswoman Kelly McGuire identified the boy as 15-year-old Henry Golatt.

He was small enough to get most of the way down the chimney, which was about a foot wide. But the flue that opens into the house was only 8 inches across.

Mosley says firefighters considered cutting holes in the chimney or dismantling it, but decided on a less destructive approach. They lowered a rope from an aerial ladder and pulled Henry up very slowly.

He lost his pants on the trip up but only his dignity was hurt.

And then there's this from the Famous Last Words of a Redneck, "Hey, guys, watch this!" category:

Nov. 24, 2003 | JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (AP) -- A bullet fired in the air during a Ku Klux Klan initiation ceremony came down and struck a participant in the head, critically injuring him, authorities said.

Gregory Allen Freeman, 45, was charged with aggravated assault and reckless endangerment in the Saturday night incident that wounded Jeffery S. Murr, 24.

About 10 people, including two children, had gathered for the ceremony. The man who was being initiated was blindfolded, tied with a noose to a tree and shot with paintball guns as Freeman fired a pistol in the air to provide the sound of real gunfire, Sheriff Fred Phillips said.

A bullet struck Murr on the top of the head and exited at the bottom of his skull, authorities said.

Freeman fled the ceremony but was arrested near his home, authorities said. He was released on $7,500 bail.

The Miami Herald on the Bush Administration's policy of forbidding media coverage of the return of bodies from Iraq:

If the purpose of the policy, as some critics have said, is to avoid ''embarrassing'' the president by concealing the ugly side of the war, that is just one more reason to ditch the policy. The good-news/bad-news filter through which the administration sees the war shouldn't deny Americans the right to witness what happens at Dover. In an era of wide-scale reserve call-ups, moreover, these dead men and women coming home are all our sons and daughters, or at least our friends and neighbors. We all have the right to see, and to grieve.

"But if I close my eyes, no one can see me."

Gianni Riotta, writing in Corriere della Sera (Milan) on the Massachusetts ruling.

The revolution was triggered by the landmark ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in the recent Lawrence versus the state of Texas case, which struck down all the Unites States' remaining sodomy laws. These were antiquated statutes, to which no one attached any legal weight, but by a small majority, America's supreme legal body declared them unconstitutional, ruling that no discrimination is possible on the basis of sexual preference. In a rare moment of public dissent from his eight colleagues, Justice Antonin Scalia, champion of conservative jurisprudence, immediately warned that the Court was opening the door to legal gay marriages. Scalia is right. Social progress takes place in the United States through the evolution of the law, guaranteed by the Supreme Court and backed up by politics. The Brown versus Board of Education ruling banned racial segregation in schools. Roe versus Wade made abortion legal. The New York Times versus Sullivan decision guaranteed and extended the right to freedom of information. Now two rulings in Washington and Massachusetts make same-sex marriages possible.

I'm willing to bet that Scalia would like to roll back Brown, Roe, and Sullivan...and Darwin, if he could.

Paul Krugman on the souring of the discourse.

All this fuss about civility, then, is an attempt to bully critics into unilaterally disarming — into being demure and respectful of the president, even while his campaign chairman declares that the 2004 election will be a choice "between victory in Iraq and insecurity in America."

Tsk, tsk, Paul. Be nice!

From CNN:

MOSUL, Iraq (CNN) -- The Iraqi Governing Council ordered the Arab language television network al Arabiya to shut down its operation in Baghdad on Monday, sending the Iraq Interior Ministry to the network's headquarters to "seize their uplink and transmission equipment until further notice."

"This is in response to their broadcasting the full Saddam Hussein audiotape" released November 16, according to a spokesman for Jalal Talabani, the council's president.

Or, in the words of the US Marine Corps, "We're here to implement democracy, not practice it."

Also from The American Prospect article on Katherine Harris, this little gem:

Just in case things weren't complicated enough for the Bush brothers, former Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.) -- whom the White House dissed in the 2002 GOP primary by promoting his opponent, current Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) -- is thinking of throwing his hat into the ring. (Smith moved to Florida after he lost his New Hampshire Senate seat.)

Gee, thanks, New Hampshire...

From The American Prospect, (and as BBWW noted last week), Rep. Katherine Harris is warming up to run for the open Senate seat here in Florida in 2004. Trouble is, the people most worried about her running aren't the Democrats.

The former Florida secretary of state and current Republican congresswoman helped hand the White House to George W. Bush during the Florida recount of 2000. Now she is seriously weighing a bid for the seat being vacated next year by retiring Sen. Bob Graham (D). Harris, who has less than a year of legislative experience in Washington under her belt, told The Miami Herald recently that she's "getting a lot of anecdotal evidence" that her candidacy would help Bush's re-election efforts. She also said her campaign would allow her to "gut all the inane arguments that [Democrats] make about the recount, which are really ludicrous."
...

But it's the prospect of a Harris candidacy that should be causing both Bushes to lose sleep. While she would bring a proven fund-raising record and high name recognition to the ticket, she is also one of the party's most polarizing figures. And she'll remind Floridians that many of their votes for president in the 2000 election simply didn't count. In a state that Bush won by just 537 votes that year, he can't afford any problems. (You can also bet that the Democratic nominees for the presidency and the Senate will mention her name at every campaign stop in the state.)
...

There's another twist here as well. Conventional wisdom has long held that it was the Democrats who needed to avoid refighting the 2000 battle in 2004. No one likes a sore loser, and many strategists worried that if the Dems appeared to be whining about the ambiguous results of 2000, voters might believe that the party hadn't moved on during the last four years, even though the country has.

But the flap over a potential Harris candidacy reveals that Republicans may be just as scared of the shadow of 2000 as Democrats. September 11 may have helped the administration shake the specter of illegitimacy that haunted its first nine months in office, but a Harris candidacy -- and the glut of national media attention that it would focus on Florida -- could revive in voters' minds the question of whether Bush really won the 2000 election fair and square. As he tries to defend his actions in Iraq and his handling of the economy, that's one additional headache that Bush won't want to deal with.

So neither Democrats nor Republicans have an interest in refighting 2000. That's a good thing for the country, the voters and pretty much everyone -- except Katherine Harris. It will always be in Harris' interest to rehash 2000, because she will always be a creature of those strange weeks that followed the presidential election -- and because the GOP owes her big-time for her role in the recount, and she knows it.

There can be little doubt that Harris sees 2000 as her ticket to bigger and better things in the world of politics; the fact that she wrote a book about her role in the debacle (and hilariously titled it Center of the Storm: Practicing Principled Leadership in Times of Crisis) suggests that soon after the recount ended, she devised a plan to milk her newfound notoriety for all it was worth.

Gee, and I thought she'd run for the Senate to serve the people of Florida. More fool me.

Ellen Goodman on the search for the happy warrior.

William Safire thinks the shredded Feith memo is the missing link.

From the NY Times (and on an ironic note, I had to delete a pop-up ad to see the article):

The House overwhelmingly passed legislation early on Saturday intended to reduce the glut of junk e-mail messages, and the Senate is expected to quickly follow suit this week.

The antispam measure was passed by the House on a 392-to-5 vote. The bill would make mass e-mailers liable for civil fines of up to $250 per electronic message if they tried to hide their identities. It also allows the Federal Trade Commission to begin to fashion a plan to create a "do not e-mail" registry similar to the list intended to let consumers block telephone solicitations.

Just in time, too. I have been getting inundated with messages, apparently from the French hotel industry, about a great deal on some place called the "Paris Hilton."

Corrente beat me to the punch-line on Maureen Dowd's column. MoDo boils it down to this:

James Goodby and Kenneth Weisbrode wrote in The Financial Times last week that the Bush crew has snuffed the optimism of F.D.R., Ronald Reagan and Bush père: "Fear has been used as a basis for curtailing freedom of expression and for questioning legal rights long taken for granted. It has crept into political discourse and been used to discredit patriotic public servants. Ronald Reagan's favorite image, borrowed from an earlier visionary, of America as `a shining city on a hill' has been unnecessarily dimmed by another image: a nation motivated by fear and ready to lash out at any country it defines as the source of a gathering threat."

Instead of a shining city, we have a dark bunker.

But the only thing we really have to fear is fearmongering itself.

And, by the way, that's the basic tool dictators use to seize power: "I'm the only one who can save our country from the onslaught of the (fill in scapegoat of choice here)."

V.B. Price of the Albuquerque Tribune on Roosevelt's Four Freedoms, and how we need to remember them now - at the season of Thanksgiving - and at all other times.

From the Boston Globe comes a story about lost lives and futures in a place where "a boy born...has a life expectancy lower than that of babies in 34 of the world's developing nations, among them some of the most impoverished -- Tajikistan, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Mongolia, and Vietnam." They're not talking about Iraq. They're talking about McDowell County, West Virginia.

"It's amazing that these places exist in the United States," said Christopher J. L. Murray, lead author of a 1998 mortality study of US counties by Harvard School of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control. "These are people who have the same set of diseases and risk factors that much of the rest of the world -- some two to three billion poor people -- worry about."
...

There are other American outposts of needless death, death at too young an age. The Sioux tribes of South Dakota, whose alcohol-related accidents have plunged male life expectancy to 61 years. Or the African Americans of the Mississippi Delta region, who are plagued by high rates of homicide, AIDS, and drug abuse. Or those living in the urban neighborhoods of Washington, D.C., Baltimore, St. Louis, and the Bronx, who die young even as their neighbors, in some of the country's wealthiest neighborhoods, live the longest.

There is a common thread linking the residents of these very different places: They have almost no economic base, or political pull.

In effect, they are a kind of ongoing social experiment in how long people can live in a state of chronic poverty, and dispiritedness, before their bodies give way and their health falls apart.

"If you don't treat anybody or offer lifestyle interventions, life expectancy -- without high infant mortality -- probably is in the low 60s in the United States. That's what you are seeing in those places," said Thomas Graziano, a native West Virginian who specializes in cardiovascular diseases at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston. "So it's not that they are dying young. They are dying without interventions."
...

"What burns me up is that we're in Iraq building sewer and water systems, and health systems," said Danny Brown, an assistant to funeral director Widener. "Are these people in Washington ever going to look at this county here?"

For what it's worth, West Virginia voted for Bush in 2000.

From the Sun-Sentinel's "News of The Fringe" column.

Ann McFeatters is chief of The Blade’s Washington bureau. Here's her take on the perfidy done to Joe Wilson. Here's the key point:

This whole icky thing could be an episode on 24 or Law and Order. We like to think most of our government officials are competent and well-intentioned. We know some are incompetent and lazy. When we find out that some are venal and vicious, it's an enormously disheartening breach of trust.

Right on.

The people of Massachusetts seem ready to accept the idea of codifying the ruling of the state Supreme Judicial Court on gay marriage, according to a new poll.

Another poll, by Merrimack College, found that 75 percent of Massachusetts adults support either allowing gay marriage or civil unions. That poll of 491 adults was conducted in the days before and after the decision, but the numbers didn't shift after the ruling. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 5 percentage points.

I guess the Chrisitan Coalition can forget about fund-raising there.

Mr. Soros's Millions

Short version: campaign finance reform applies only to the Democrats.

And the kicker:

For Democrats thrilled with the Soros millions, imagine conservative financier Richard Mellon Scaife opening his bank account on behalf of Mr. Bush.

Gee, there's a newsflash.

Resistance to the Patriot Act is growing in the American heartland.

You wouldn't think so.

F.B.I. Scrutinizes Antiwar Rallies

The initiative has won the support of some local police, who view it as a critical way to maintain order at large-scale demonstrations. Indeed, some law enforcement officials said they believed the F.B.I.'s approach had helped to ensure that nationwide antiwar demonstrations in recent months, drawing hundreds of thousands of protesters, remained largely free of violence and disruption.

But some civil rights advocates and legal scholars said the monitoring program could signal a return to the abuses of the 1960's and 1970's, when J. Edgar Hoover was the F.B.I. director and agents routinely spied on political protesters like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"The F.B.I. is dangerously targeting Americans who are engaged in nothing more than lawful protest and dissent," said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "The line between terrorism and legitimate civil disobedience is blurred, and I have a serious concern about whether we're going back to the days of Hoover."

Damn, and I got rid of my leather-fringe jacket a couple of years ago, too.

Friday, November 22, 1963. I was in the sixth grade. I had to skip Phys Ed because I was just getting over bronchitis, so I was in a study hall when a classmate came up from the locker room in the school basement to say, "Kennedy's dead." We had a boy in our class named Kennedy, and I wondered what had happened - an errant fatal blow with a dodgeball? A few minutes later, though, it was made clear to us at a hastily-summoned assembly, and we were soon put on the busses and sent home. Girls were crying.

There was a newspaper strike at The Blade, so the only papers we could get were either from Detroit or Cleveland. (The union at The Blade, realizing they were missing the story of the century, agreed to immediately resume publication and settle their differences in other ways.) Television, though, was the medium of choice, and I remember the black-and-white images of the arrival of Air Force One at Andrews, the casket being lowered, President Johnson speaking on the tarmac, and the events of the weekend - Oswald, Ruby, the long slow funeral parade, "Eternal Father, Strong to Save" - merging into one long black-and-white flicker, finally closing on Monday night with the eternal flame guttering in the cold breeze.

I suspect that John F. Kennedy would be bitterly disappointed that the only thing remembered about his life was how he left it and how it colored everything he did leading up to it. The Bay of Pigs, the steel crisis, the Cuban missle crisis, the Test Ban Treaty, even the space program are dramatized by his death. They became the stuff of legend, not governing, and history should not be preserved as fable.

I never thought I'd be old enough to look back forty years to that time. And according to NPR, sixty percent of Americans alive today were not yet born on that day. Today the question is not do you remember JFK, but what did his brief time leave behind. Speculation is rife as to what he did or did not accomplish - would we have gone in deeper in Viet Nam? Would he have pushed civil rights? Would the Cold War have lasted? We'll never know, and frankly, pursuing such questions is a waste of time. Had JFK never been assassinated, chances are he would have been re-elected in 1964, crushing Barry Goldwater, but leading an administration that was more style than substance, battling with his own party as much as with the Republicans, much like Clinton did in the 1990's. According to medical records, he would have been lucky to live into his sixties, dying from natural causes in the 1980's, and he would have been remembered fondly for his charm and wit - and his beautiful wife - more than what he accomplished in eight years of an average presidency.

But it was those six seconds in Dealy Plaza that defined him. Each generation has one of those moments. For my parents it was Pearl Harbor in 1941 or the flash from Warm Springs in April 1945. Today it is Challenger in 1986, and of course 9/11. And in all cases, it is what the moment means to us. It is the play, not the players. We see things as they were, contrast to how they are, and measure the differences, and by that, we measure ourselves.

According to the NY Times, Howard Dean's medical deferment in 1970 may come back to haunt him.

The Religious Reich is gonna take away his secret decoder ring for this one. David Brooks comes out (sorry, poor choice of words) in favor of gay marriage.

The conservative course is not to banish gay people from making such commitments. It is to expect that they make such commitments. We shouldn't just allow gay marriage. We should insist on gay marriage. We should regard it as scandalous that two people could claim to love each other and not want to sanctify their love with marriage and fidelity.

He's making the same argument that the late Barry Goldwater made: true conservatives want to see people, regardless of orientation, in stable relationships.

Brooks can expect some nasty phone calls.

About a Dozen Detained in Turkey Blasts

Meteor Seen as Causing Extinctions on Earth

White House Said to Prevail on Overtime Work Rules

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton Administration, has an article in the December American Prospect on how the gay marriage issue could be something the Democrats could use against the Republicans:

The religious wars aren't pretty. Religious wars never are. But Democrats should mount a firm and clear counter-assault. In the months leading up to Election Day, when Republicans are screaming about God and accusing the Democrats of siding with sexual deviants and baby killers, Democrats should remind Americans that however important religion is to our spiritual lives, there is no room for liberty in a theocracy.

Excellent point.

Read the interview with former Senator Max Cleland in Salon.com today. If you don't subscribe, get the Day Pass - and seriously consider subscribing. It is the only on-line site I subscribe to, and it's worth every cent.

Cleland, perhaps known for being a triple amputee Vietnam vet, lost his Senate seat last November in a race that has gone down in history as typifying the GOP's take-no-prisoners approach to politics. The disabled veteran was smeared as soft on terror because he didn't back Bush's version of homeland security legislation.

Now, outspoken and blunt, he's furious about the White House's handling of the war with Iraq, which he calls a disastrous "war of choice." And he mocks the administration's claims that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were allies. "They had a plan to go to war [with Iraq], and when 9/11 happened that's what they did; they went to war."

Cleland is now on the 9/11 Commission, headed by former New Jersey Governor Tom Keane. In the interview, he details the "Nixonian" roadblocks being put up by the Bush White House as the commission tries to get at the truth.

Go read it. Good stuff. The man should be our next VP - or at least SecDef.

The RNC is rolling out an ad saying that while President Bush is attacking terrorists, "some are attacking him for attacking the terrorists." CNN ran the ad during Inside Politics, and it has all the makings of a Lifetime movie:

With somber strings playing in the background, the commercial flashes the words "Strong and Principled Leadership" before cutting to Mr. Bush standing before members of Congress. Intended to call out the Democrats for their opposition to Mr. Bush's military strategy of pre-emptively striking those who pose threats to the nation, the screen flashes "Some call for us to retreat, putting our national security in the hands of others," then urges viewers to tell Congress "to support the president's policy of pre-emptive self defense."

They've done it again. Made a powerful argument against something no one has accused him of, and assuming that the American public is too stupid to know the truth.

This article popped up in the Herald this morning, and my Bullshit Detector went off immediately. I figure it's gotta be a GOP press release masquerading as a legit news story and the political editor slipped it in just to fill space. But no, it's by Steven Thomma, who is one of Knight-Ridder's political writers. The article also reads like it is stale - about three months old. Oh, well, anything to kill a few inches between the ads, I guess.

Well, it's over.

The FTAA, as noted last night, recessed early last evening, and the demonstrations planned for this morning vanished. According to the Miami Herald,

Several protest groups planned additional demonstrations today, but the main event -- a march scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. from the Miami Arena -- evaporated.

Five thousand people had been expected; only three showed up, and they were outnumbered by reporters and photographers.

''This is ridiculous,'' said Rob Ward, 21, who joined two friends in the six-hour drive from Gainesville -- only to find the demonstration canceled on account of no demonstrators.

Well, at least the weather was nice.

Well, nothing like a little tear-gas to focus the mind...

The ministers at the Free Trade Area of the Americas decided to wrap things up a day early, accepting a watered-down version of the original draft of the agreement.

Police say they arrested 74 demonstrators today during protests that began peacefully but turned violent when "anarachists" tried to stop the AFL-CIO from arriving at their scheduled demonstration. Tear gas and rubber bullets were deployed. Six officers were reported injured in what the local TV station, with its eye towards tourism, described as a "scuffle." But it was enough to get national coverage, and apparently the ministers figured, "Hey, you know what, I'm cool with this, let's hit some South Beach bars and split in the morning."

Apparently the flood of e-mail to the ombudsman and his own mailbox caught Howard Kurtz a little off-guard (see previous post, Howard Kurtz, Insensitive Hack). After sending my e-mail yesterday and getting no reply, I fwd'd a copy to Michael Getler, the WAPO ombudsman, who immediately responded with a one-line note that said, "I think Kurtz will be responding, and explaining, in his next column." And so he did, as a footnote to his Media Notes column today:

Note: I may have left the wrong impression yesterday about the sad story of the discovery of the remains of Howard Dean's brother. I'm genuinely perplexed as to how Charlie Dean was found now, after 30 years. But my heart goes out to Dean and his family and friends over this painful news.

Nice try, Howard, but that's a non-apology apology. As for being "perplexed," what difference does it make when Charley's remains were found? Would it have fit more into your conspiracy theory if they had been found the weekend before the New Hampshire primary, or the Democratic Convention, or next October, two weeks before the election? Do you think anyone outside your fevered little hothouse world of punditry or the tinfoil-hatted loons on late-night AM radio is even thinking of that?

Speaking as only one long-distant friend of the Dean family, I accept your apology in the spirit in which is was given: too little, too late, too craven.

Temperature's back to normal, and I have a list of school sites to visit today because the downtown offices of M-DCPS are still closed - today is supposed to be the day of the biggest demonstrations, according to the Miami Herald. So, of course, guess where the school sites are that I'm supposed to visit? You guessed it...downtown.

In FTAA news, the police arrested a group of seven anarchists who had holed up in an abandoned mansion in the Morningside area of Miami, north of downtown.

In another, more ominous event, Miami police arrested what they called seven suspected ''anarchist types'' in a long-abandoned, waterfront home known as the Prescott mansion in the historic Bayside neighborhood, a few miles north of downtown Miami.

Inside a guesthouse on the property, officers said they found gas masks, crowbars, makeshift slingshots, chains with heavy locks, walkie-talkies, two cans of fire accelerant and tire irons.

''Things to cause problems,'' said Lt. Bill Schwartz, a department spokesman.

Painted on a wall in the house at 7101 NE 10th Ave.: a square drawn at the average height of a person with the word ''head'' written inside it. A larger box labeled ''center mass'' was drawn beneath that.

''They obviously used this for target practice,'' Schwartz said. ``These people were ready.''

Police said the following people were charged with burglary, though they were not certain that the suspects provided their real names: Harrison Richard Bartlett, 19; Sarah Beth Rochen, 19; Robert Matthew Gilbert, 21, of St. Petersburg; James Lennox, 24; James Michael Davidson, 23; Nicholas Gauger, 24; Joshua Davidson, 19, of Glenview, Ill. The other hometowns were not immediately known.

Meanwhile, at the actual meeting, negotiators reached a compromise agreement that would, in essence, allow members to opt out of parts of the FTAA that they didn't like. This wasn't greeted with enthusiasm by FTAA proponents.

''This is not the way we want to go,'' said Frank Vargo, international vice president for the National Association of Manufacturers. U.S. manufacturers generally support the FTAA because it holds the promise of opening foreign markets to American products.

Vargo said his organization -- politically influential in Congress, which ultimately must pass any FTAA treaty -- wouldn't back an agreement that fell short of business goals. ''If it is not a high-quality agreement, we are not going to support it,'' he said.

A weak draft appeared to cost the support of one influential senator.

''I'm skeptical about any FTAA agreement that establishes only a minimum base line of commitments for all participants,'' Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement. ``Hemispheric integration will work only if all countries play by the same rules.''

It should be noted, though, that Senator Grassley is from the party whose idea of compromise is "be reasonable and do it my way."

More updates later today as I get back out into the real world.

Howard Kurtz of the WAPO suggests that the timing of the discovery of the remains of Charley Dean in Laos (see previous posts, Closure and Charles Maitland Dean) has something to do with Howard Dean running for president. Howie can get away with a lot of crap, but this I took umbrage to and sent him the following e-mail:

Dear Mr. Kurtz:

It was my privilege to know Charley Dean, the late brother of Gov. Howard Dean. He was the Senior Prefect at St. George’s School in Newport, Rhode Island when I was a freshman at the school, 1967-1968. He was a good and honest young man, worthy of the high honor the school bestowed on him by making the Senior Prefect. I also know that the Dean family was very close – his parents attended many of the school events when I was there. I can only imagine the anguish that his family has endured over the last 30 years since Charley disappeared, and I am sure that they are finding a sense of closure now that they believe his remains have been found.

For your information, the Dean family has been trying to find out what happened to Charley since he disappeared in 1974. They have been working with agencies around the world long before Howard Dean became the governor of Vermont, and the fact that his remains have only recently been found can only be considered to be that sometimes, fortune happens that way. For you to suggest otherwise is breathtakingly cynical and displays a callous lack of sensitivity to the feelings of not only the Dean family but to the thousands of other families in America and elsewhere whose loved ones are still unaccounted for.

I know it is not within the purview of a Washington pundit to apologize, but this time, you might consider it. You were way over the line. Save your cheap shots for someone whose loss you might be capable of understanding.

Sincerely,

If he replies, I will post it here. (Thanks to NTodd for the lead.)

Still running a temp. Watching daytime TV and trying to catch up any news on FTAA. Still have no idea where I'm supposed to report to work tomorrow since M-DCPS hasn't posted whether or not the buildings will be re-opened tomorrow.

Read this column by Roberta De Boer of The Blade. She nails it. (Full disclosure: Roberta and I went to high school together.)

"Mistakes Were Made" by everybody including me - but not our Dear Leader.

Courtesy of Corrente - The Blog of 4 comes this bit of good news about a group of clergy forming to respond, at long last, to the Religious Reich. Read, hope, and perhaps rejoice.

Any bets on the Religious Reich not trying to draw a connection between the raid on Michael Jackson's ranch and the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling?

I didn't think so.

M E M O R A N D U M

TO: Democratic Candidates

FROM: The Massachusettes Supreme Court

SUBJECT: Gay Marriage

Let the tap-dancing begin.

After twenty-nine years, the Dean family needs it.

From the Miami Herald. Let's just hope they talk, not shout.

Cruella DeVille defends her bid for the Senate: "I LOVE those puppies..."

No, that's not my favorite radio station, that's what the thermometer said this morning when I took my temp. So, the best-laid plans to go out and visit school sites are off, and I will curl up, drink plenty of fluids, scarf aspirin and Cold-Eze, and hope that if I have any fever-induced hallucinations, they are not of Rush Limbaugh in a Speedo.

I'll keep up to date with FTAA activities, but listening to NPR this morning about the protests over Bush's visit to England, it sounds like the Brits are having all the fun.

Yes, Mom - I've got plenty of chicken soup.

Okay, the Bush White House is supposed to be the most tight-lipped, secretive, and closely-ordered administration in recent memory. Who met with Cheney about the energy policy? No telling. Who ratted out Valerie Plame, the CIA operative? Their lips are sealed. (I guess having a president who is a member of Skull and Bones, the Yale club that sounds like something out of a Steven King novel, has its advantages.) But have some info on Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden's gang allegedly having contacts before 9/11? It shows up in The Weekly Standard and on Fox. Does it matter that a lot of the information is either old news or from dubious sources? Nah. Hell, we went to war on flimsier evidence than that.

I am sure that every White House has efficiently leaked news that was supposed to be secret unless it was to their benefit - that's what the press corps is for. But this one has all the timing of the Rose Law Firm billing records magically appearing on the coffee table, and if the Republicans had any integrity - okay, long shot there - they would at least not trumpet it as "Case Closed."

Update: Stradiotto points to an article in the WAPO that debunks the aforementioned memo.

From the Albuquerque Tribune.

Tucker Carlson, the bow-tied dandy on CNN's Crossfire, is a member of the Class of 1987 of St. George's School, Newport, Rhode Island. As you may recall, it's also the alma mater of Howard Dean, Class of 1966, and yours truly, Class of 1971, except I only lasted one year there.

I'd forgotten about that until I happened to catch him on Crossfire this afternoon and I had a Day-Quil-induced flashback to the smirky smug little bullies that popluated prep schools (probably still do, but I have no interest in researching that); the kind of kid you knew would spend his summers in Bar Harbor, his winters in Palm Beach, and a discreet month or so in rehab after he started using the chauffer's cat for target practice. It has nothing to do with growing up rich. Most of the guys I knew at the school were good-hearted and grew up to be contributors to their community. But there's always those few - the Draco Malfoys - who you know are going to be the smart-ass bullies who dish it out and can't take it, and he's one of them.

I wish James Carville would give him a wedgie.

You can now e-mail me via the link in the Link column (gee, that's clever...). Comments, suggestions, or passionate declarations of love and affection are welcome.

One of the best things about the internet is that practically every paper is on-line in some form or another. Looking at my list of Favorites is a trip around the country and even the world.

Of course there are the biggies: The New York Times, the Miami Herald, the Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale), the Boston Globe, the Detroit Free Press, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Chicago Tribune, the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Globe and Mail (Toronto), the Toronto Star, the Guardian (Manchester, UK), Granma (Havana); and then there are the papers from the cities where I've lived, like The Blade (Toledo), the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the Denver Rocky Mountain News, and the Albuquerque Tribune (the Albuquerque Journal requires a paid subscription - feh!). You get national news and a good look at the local attitudes about national stories.

But there is also something valuable in reading small-town papers, too. Their headlines aren't about national and international stories - they are, as one paper puts it, the source of "local news you can't get anywhere else." So I include them in my reading list, and I read them regularly. In all cases I've either lived or worked in these places, and it's a nice way to keep in touch with them and remind myself that all the news isn't in the New York Times.

In no particular order:

The Estes Park Trail-Gazette, Estes Park, Colorado. Located on the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park, 75 miles northwest of Denver.
The Leelanu Enterprise, Leland, Michigan. Located in the "little finger" of the mitt of Michigan's lower peninsula. Matt Roush, the critic at TV Guide, got his start here.
The Keynoter, Key West, Florida, and the Upper Keys Reporter, Key Largo, Florida. Linked as a service of the Florida Keys Chamber of Commerce...
The Longmont Daily Times-Call, Longmont, Colorado. I lived there in my last years of grad school at CU; it's a nice town with a midwestern feel and a spectacular view of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains.
The Perrysburg Messenger-Journal, Perrysburg, Ohio. My home town.
The Petoskey News-Review, Petoskey, Michigan. I lived there for five years. A resort community on Lake Michigan; beautiful summers and brutal winters (220" of snow every year, and now you know why I moved to Florida).
The New Mexican, Santa Fe, New Mexico. An interesting mix of news from a paper that reads like a cross between a mainline paper in a capital city and an alternative paper like the Weekly Alibi.
The Traverse City Record-Eagle, Traverse City, Michigan. The "big" paper in northwestern lower Michigan. Traverse City is the home of the annual National Cherry Festival every July, and is a well-known summer and winter vacation spot in the midwest for boating, skiing, and other fun stuff.

One interesting thing to read in each of these papers is the Opinion and Editorial features they have. While most of the editorials are about local issues, it's a very good way to get an idea of what the population is really thinking. You might be surprised.

->Corrente has some very good questions.

->The Invisible Library does a number on the amazing security precautions being taken for Bush's state visit to England. And this is to visit a "close friend." I suppose if he went to France he'd have to take the 82nd Airborne.

->MercuryX23 welcomes BBWW to his blogroll (and note the favor is returned) and then tells of seeing The Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers in the new DVD and on a HiDef TV. I'm very envious.

->Pandagon gets a co-blogger, Ezra Klein. Sounds like a good match-up for Jesse.

->Tapped, always a good read (but no place for comments), points to an article by Michael Tomasky on the "conventional wisdom" saying that Dean is unelectable - but the CW has been wrong about Dean from the git-go.

All quiet so far. A few protesters were arrested yesterday for "blocking a sidewalk," but that's been it so far. The local papers - the Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale) and the Miami Herald - have been giving high coverage to the protests because, so far, that's all the news there is; the actual conference doesn't get underway until Thursday. I suspect that once the conference itself gets started, the demonstrations will still be the news.

L. Paul Bremer reaffirms that US forces will remain in Iraq to guarantee the country's security long after the "occupation" ends.

My guess is that he's got some form of post-World War II occupation scenario going, where even after the new governments were in place in Europe, American troops stayed on to stabilize the countries and keep an eye on Russia. That was a reasonable plan then.

Iraq is different. We invaded. We overthrew the government. We pretty much trashed the infrastructure. Now we're going to install a new government, write their constitution for them, and then, just to make sure everything stays in place, we're going to keep a military security force there. For how long? Who knows.

Call me crazy, but that sounds an awful lot like "occupation" to me.

Oh, and here's my nominee for Best Unintentional Irony of the Day:

Meantime, while some in Washington were saying that the new American approach might be rushing matters riskily, a Democratic presidential candidate said that power should be handed to the Iraqis now.

"There's no reason to wait until June to give the Iraqis back their country," Wesley Clark, the former NATO commander, said on the NBC News program "Meet the Press." "We should be transferring that authority tomorrow."

Asked about that, Mr. Bremer said, "It would be a mistake to turn over power to a government that's not elected."

Anyone want to hit that one out of the park?

Frank Rich on the CBS cave-in over The Reagans, the upcoming production of Angels in America on HBO, and the craven hypocrisy of the Religious Reich. If you don't subscribe to HBO, consider doing so in the next three weeks.

Rush Limbaugh returns to the air tomorrow.

Every Friday night I go out for dinner with some friends - nothing fancy, just a nice way to end the work-week, and we usually go to places nearby in South Miami. Last Friday we went to a nice "family-style" Italian place with great pasta dishes, garlic bread and a salad with a creamy Italian dressing that is better than home-made. It's called Di Napoli; if you're ever in Miami, stop by and check it out.

There were five of us, and we got a table in the back. Within a few minutes a family of five was seated at the next table: Mom, Dad, two boys under seven, and Grandpa. I'm guessing Grandpa was Mom's dad; they had similar accents, and there was a family resemblance. I don't usually eavesdrop, but for some reason Grandpa went off on a rant about "librul Hollywood" and how he would never watch a Tim Robbins or Susan Sarandon film, and how he hated Martin Sheen and Barbra Streisand for their "whacko" politics. Mom and Dad nodded in agreement and added their two cents' worth about how terrible it was that people like that could think that anyone would care about how Hollywood stars thought about politics. Everyone at our table heard this, but I guess I was the only one who let it get under his skin to the point where my friend sitting next to me, hearing me muttering insults and speculations about Grandpa's family history, told me to just let it go. Grandpa subsided, and I enjoyed my Veal Piccata.

My friend was right - there's no point in making a scene or even admitting that Grandpa's rant was overheard by a group of people who, to a man, disagreed with him. It also occurs to me that Grandpa, in his soft cocoon of right-thinking, doesn't have to worry about making up his mind. He's got his mindset, and he's happy with it - no hard choices to make, no grey areas to contemplate. Everything is simple: A Republican is Always Right, a Democrat is Always Wrong. You don't have to choose your entertainment based on artistry; just look at the cast list. I suppose that life is complicated enough that thinking, learning, and examination of issues would just make it harder. So why bother? Hang out with like-minded people and you're never wrong; it's all so cozy and comfortable.

I'm sorry, but I can't do that. I suppose it's because I've been involved with the theatre for so long that I can separate an actor from the roles he or she plays and not hold their talent hostage to their politics. Charlton Heston made some fine films, and I enjoyed the "Roadrunner" cartoon antics of all the Terminators; if anything for the amazing special effects and Schwarzenegger's deadpan and self-mocking delivery. I read and respect many conservative writers - at least those with a sense of humor. And I appreciate a good intellectual argument. I expect to be challenged on my views, and if I can't defend them honestly and without rancor, I'm no better than Grandpa.

I hope Grandpa enjoys his weekend with this daughter and the kids; I'm sure they'll have a good time, and he'll go back home to Georgia (he had an Atlanta-area country club logo stitched neatly on the pocket of his golf shirt) in the comfort of knowing he's living the right (and Right) life. The one consolation to me was knowing that when he votes next year, there will be at least five votes going the other way.

Here's a collection of articles on the upcoming Free Trade Association of the Americas summit to be held here in Miami this week.

Officials set for heated discussions at trade meeting. A summary of the agenda of the meeting... or is it agendas?

Miami girds as summit events begin. Somehow, the allusion to D-Day does not inspire confidence.

It's up to U.S. whether FTAA moves forward. A commentary by Peter Hakim.

Signs of the time:
The 'Tell Us the Truth' tour, hitting South Florida Wednesday to oppose FTAA, is part of a larger wave of protest in pop music.

Corrente - Leah, Lambert, Tresy & the Farmer joins the BBWW blogroll. Noted for their sharp and humorous comments on Atrios/Escahton, I'm honored to share cyberspace with the The Blog of 4.

Faithful Blog Mentor NTodd was wondering about analogies on how we - as a country - could extricate ourselves from Iraq with as little additional damage to the people (theirs and ours) and the infrastructure (ditto). He asked for analogies, with the caveat that analogies are, by their nature, flawed. Never one to shirk from a challenge, I replied:

Some friends of mine decided to remodel their kitchen. It wasn't going to be a huge task - all they wanted was new cabinets, appliances, countertops, and a new floor. They started the week after the 4th of July - of this year - and the designer swore that they would be done within a month. All of the appliances were pre-ordered, all the measurements were taken, all of the drawings were checked. And so it began.

Well, there's no point in going into all the details, so I'll just say that the final piece - a cabinet door - was installed yesterday. It took three times as long as anticipated. To my friends' credit, they did not fire the designer or the subcontractors, but they sure as hell held them accountable for everything and did not let them make any changes or cutbacks. They also held them to the quote on the order, and they didn't pay up until everything was done to their satisfaction.

My shorter analogy is one that comes from being on the other side of the customer/contractor fence. When I was in the window business and people would come in for a quote on their window package for their new or remodeled house, I always asked them A) who their contractor was and B) which one of them was going to be the full-time supervisor. If they couldn't answer either question, well, I may not know much about geography, but I knew what creek they were up.

We - and we are all responsible because we didn't raise our voices loud enough - made this mess and now we have to resolve it. I have no idea how we're going to get out, but I do know that if we don't do something about it, that granite wall on the Mall in Washington will have taught us nothing.

I too welcome your analogies. We need to figure this out.

One for the road is tres bien. Or so they tell you. I actually think it's a plot to get back at us for the shit we gave them over Iraq. Either that or have us wreck our cars so they can start importing Citroens and Peugeots again. (IMHO, French cars are ugly enough that you could wreck one and not know the difference.)

See if you can tell me who said this. It was over 40 years ago, but it's just as true now as it was then:

Now what kind of an attitude is that, these things happen? They only happen because this whole country is just full of people, who when these things happen, they just say these things happen, and that's why they happen! We gotta have control of what happens to us.

No prizes if you get it right except my undying admiration and a BBWW bellyrub. One clue: it is from a film.

This guy was arrested here in South Florida, and there's every indication that he's not alone. Would John Ashcroft consider him to be a terrorist?

It was the year the shit hit the fan. An unpopular war, started under hyped-up pretenses, was not going well, with soldiers dying on the streets of the cities in a far-away land. The president, who had at first rallied the nation together after a national tragedy, had squandered any good will he had with the people and allies with his obsession to win his battles at any cost. His lofty domestic agenda that he hoped would restore the country's prosperity all but disappeared in partisan wrangling - even the president's own party began to show cracks.

Meanwhile, the tone of conversation in the country had turned bitter, reflected in the culture - popular music had gone from harmonious to raucous, some musicians advocating the use of illegal drugs in their hard-bitten lyrics. Civil rights had made many gains, but there were still powerful pockets of resentment against "those people," and a recent Supreme Court ruling invalidating laws against certain types of behavior had caused a lot of anger and calls for certain justices to be impeached. And to top it all off, a presidential election was looming. Candidates who were seen as insurgents against the big-party machine began to capture the imagination of the disillusioned voters, and their momentum grew because they were actually going around and meeting people in small numbers that grew expotentially and overtook the "establishment" politicians.

The president tried desperately to control the situation. The president became isolated, unwilling to hear bad news, blaming the media for all the problems, and spoke in terms of "us versus them" about his own citizens. His battle plans for the war changed almost daily: first, we would liberate the country and make it safe. Then, we would just make sure it was safe to leave so the people left behind could establish peace. Then, in response to an offensive by guerrillas, we launched an aggressive counter-offensive, determined to break the back of the opposition and win the hearts and minds of the people. Then he considered just finding a way to get out so that it didn't look too much like he cut and run. None of it worked, and long afterwards, the painful lesson of fighting a war in a land we didn't understand against a dreadful but powerful force we couldn't control consumed the national psyche for years. It would be a very long time before true prosperity came back to the country, both financially and psychologically, and, in some cases, it would be lost forever.

That was now.

David Brooks offers more advice to the Democrats: stop being mean!

John Kerry will not take public funding for his campaign and may take out a personal loan to cover the costs of his campaign. Or not.

Kerry's campaign initially put out a statement saying he would take out a personal loan, then issued another, deleting that line. Kerry said he had made no decision, but urged his supporters to step up their contributions.

A friend forwarded an e-mail appeal from the Kerry campaign along the lines of "I have not yet begun to fight" and asking for more contributions from his faithful supporters.

``As you all know, this has been a difficult week in our campaign, but I've been in tougher spots than this before and I've fought back and won,'' said Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War veteran. ``That fight begins today with a decision I'm making to give up federal matching funds in this campaign.''

My gut instinct is that the bearings are starting to seize up on the Kerry campaign wagon, and unless there's a real comeback, it'll be Dean's to lose. (I've been wrong before, though - I cast my very first vote for Muskie in the Ohio primary in 1972 via absentee ballot a week before he dropped out.)

Via Jesse at Pandagon, this article from the WAPO depicting "highlights" from the 39-hour circus just concluded. By the way, the tactic failed; the Republicans failed to get enough votes to end the Democratic filibuster.

To quote Lord Byron, "And if I laugh at any mortal thing, 'tis that I may not weep."

This is too good to pass up.

From the NY Times:

It may come as no surprise that people who can hardly stand each other during regular business hours would treat each other all the more harshly in an all-night working session. But tempers were especially raw during the Senate's debate on judicial nominations, which ran wearily on into a third day Friday morning toward an end scheduled for 39 hours after it began.

The extraordinary session, called by Republicans to complain about Democrats' tactics in blocking some of President Bush's judicial nominees, was more than anything a vivid demonstration of the decline in relations between the two parties.

At one point on Thursday, Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, said he was witnessing lots of sanctimony and hypocrisy, and mentioned a pair of Republicans, Senators Robert F. Bennett of Utah and Jon Kyl of Arizona.

Senator Don Nickles, Republican of Oklahoma, then took the floor to say that if Mr. Harkin did that again, he would have him cited for violating Senate rules that prohibit unclothed insult.

"It's not right," Mr. Nickles said, "to be coming down and mentioning senators by name and using words like `sanctimonious hypocrisy.' "

Cry me a river, Donnyboy, you pompous, arrogant, homophobic and sanctimoniously hypocritical piece of hammered dog shit.

Additions to the Unclothed Insult List are welcome.

Eileen Foley of The Blade wonders how much longer conservatives can put up with the Bush Administration. I'm waiting to see Kate O'Bierne's head explode. I'd pay to see that.

Rodney Dangerfield said when he was a kid he was so unpopular that his mom had to tie a pork chop around his neck in order to get the dog to play with him. Maybe the Bush Administration is finding out how that feels. Japan has announced that it has decided not to send troops to Iraq "at this time." Never really wild about the whole deal in the first place, after a suicide bomber took out over 20 Italians earlier this week, they're having second thoughts, as is South Korea, Jordan and Turkey. And who can blame them? We've treated our allies like shit with our unilateralism and arrogance, as if we are the only country on the planet fighting terrorism. Meanwhile, those countries - all of whom were dealing with terrorism both internally and externally while Bush was still losing money in the oil business - are saying, basically, "Hey, you got yourself into this - let's see you come up with a way to get yourself out. Meanwhile, we'll...uh...we'll get back to you."

Rep. Tom DeLay has set up a charity for the express purpose of skirting the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. According to an article in today's NY Times, DeLay created a "charity," Celebrations for Children, Inc. in September with his daughter, Dani DeLay Derro and long-time adviser Craig Richardson and Republican fund-raiser Rob Jennings as the managers. They're shaking down donors for up to $500,000 and planning a variety of events in New York timed to coincide with the Republican National Convention, and promising that at least 75% of the donation will go to abused and neglected children.

What an efficient idea. DeLay can get around the campaign finance laws, rake in a ton of cash, and exploit children at the same time.

Has it over occurred to him to actually pass legislation that would help abused and neglected children without holding a celebrity golf tournament and advancing your own political future? Nah...

When King Henry VIII of England decided to divorce Catherine of Aragorn to marry Anne Boleyn, he sought an annulment from the Pope. It was denied, so he broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and began the Church of England, today known in the United States as the Episcopal Church. In doing so, King Henry ran up against opposition from his good friend and chancellor Sir Thomas More, who refused to acknowledge the separation, believing that God's law took precedence over the laws of man - and kings. King Henry took a dim view of this and charged More with treason. During his trial, More refused to speak out in support of the king. He was convicted and executed. The Roman Catholic Church delcared More a martyr and made him a saint.

This week, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was called before the State Court of the Judiciary for refusing to obey the orders of both state and federal courts to remove a two-ton granite monument to the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the Alabama State Supreme Court building that he had placed there. The courts had ruled that such a monument in a public building was a violation of state and federal law. Moore contended that it was his right and indeed his lawful duty to put the monument on public display. Today the board disagreed, and Chief Justice Moore was removed from office.

On the surface, the cases appear to be similar: both men were put on trial for defying the law of the land and defended themselves by claiming that they are responsible to a higher law - that of God - and that the state was wrong to convict them for their religious beliefs. I daresay that there are many people who consider Chief Justice Moore to be a martyr.

There are important differences, however, between Moore and More. Sir Thomas More did not speak out publicly against King Henry - in fact, he went to great lengths to appeal to the king behind closed doors not to put him on the spot where he would have to publicly proclaim his support - or lack thereof - of the king. At his trial, dramatized in the play A Man for All Seasons, by Robert Bolt,* the prosecutor's chief evidence against him is that he remained silent, which was construed as dissension. More went to his death without fanfare; "I die His Majesty's good servant, but God's first." Chief Justice Moore, taking advantage of America's proud tradition of free speech, went in the opposite direction. As a judge in Alabama, he prominently hung the Ten Commandments on the wall of his courtroom and defied requests and later orders to remove them. When he was elected as Chief Justice, largely on his campaign to bring God back to the public square, he commissioned the granite monument and had it placed in the rotunda, begging for a fight, which he was all to happy to wage in court and in the media. When the Federal court issued the removal order last August, the standoff between the enforcers of the order and Moore's followers became the stuff of Breaking News on CNN. Justice Moore, upon his removal today, gave a press conference, speaking long about how he has suffered for his God and how America has suffered as well. His self-depiciton as a martyr was on all the news programs tonight, and he will presumably retire for the time being with a comfortable pension and earn a lot of money speaking out for his beliefs to like-minded audiences across the country.

But Moore is no More. He is not a martyr. Martyrdom is never sought out; it is only a last resort to those who hold so strongly to their inner beliefs that they would rather suffer in silence and sacrifice everything they have - including their life - rather than yield. Martyrs do not promote themselves. They shrink from the spotlight. They turn themselves over to God, not Larry King. They do not become the issue. Chief Justice Moore's battle was not about the monument or his beliefs - it was about one man who sought the limelight because he wanted to promote his religion, not his faith. Turning the Ten Commandments into a soapbox to shout his hosannahs into the headlines was a violation of one of the commandments themselves - worshipping idols - and one of the basic teachings of Christ; prayer and worship is best done in silence.


*A Man for All Seasons, based on Bolt's play, was made into a film in 1966 starring Paul Scofield as More, and Robert Shaw as King Henry. It won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor (Scofield), Best Director (Fred Zinnemann), and Best Screenplay (Bolt).

Internet Resources:

Free Trade Area of the Americas Office of NAFTA and Inter American Affairs - facts, information and background on the FTAA.
Council of the Americas FTAA Web Page - offers information about the FTAA, including specific information on the negotiating process and objectives, progress updates, and activities.
FTAA Miami Official Website - information on the Miami conference including venues, plans, and prepartions.
Official Website of the Free Trade Area of the Americas - FTAA information, policy, and copies of draft agreements.

Opposition Websites:

Global Exchange FTAA Website - information, background, and information for opponents of the FTAA.
Stop the FTAA Website - information, contacts, and organization plans to oppose the Miami FTAA.

From the NY Times, Justice Roy Moore has been removed from the bench of the Alabama state Supreme Court.

Welcome Rubber Hose and Mercury X23 to the BBWW Link list. Both are crafty and fun writers and faithful commenters here. That alone earns a BBWW bellyrub.

NTodd at Dohiyi Mir has a great riff on the GOP talkathon in the Senate where they are basically "shocked and outraged" that the Democrats would have the nerve to hold up four of Bush's judicial nominees. When confronted with the fact that the Republicans held up ten times as many of Clinton's nominees, their response is either "But this is different!" (subtext: We can do it, you can't) or "We did NOT!" (subtext: I am off my Aricept, that new treatment for short-term memory loss). And on CNN, Bush calls for the Democrats to stop the "ugly politics." Talkin' to the hand, Dubya..

Meanwhile, the Democrats are using this occasion to beat up on the Republicans. Senator Tom Harkin said he was going to be home Wednesday night watching The Bachelor. Hey, if you have to sit around and watch people make a public spectacle of themselves, you might as well do it with chips and salsa on the side.

Click here to go to the website for the South Florida Region Antique Auto Club of America. Click on the "Photo Album" link and scroll down to Memory Lane 2003 to see pictures of the exhibit.

And here's an article on the show from today's Miami Herald "Wheels and Waves" section.

Why worry about imminent threat when we can argue about the censorhsip of The Reagans biopic?

From The Onion. In an Onion twist of fate, I just sent my mom an e-mail about Bark Bark Woof Woof.

Okay, your turn. How did you come out of the blog closet to your family? Did they take it well? Any threats of disownment? C'mon, share your secrets...with the readership I'm getting, no one will ever know!

The Toledo Blade has run an amazing series on Tiger Force, an elite fighting unit in Vietnam that is accused of atrocities and war crimes in 1967 and was basically swept under the rug. (A friend from home pointed it out to me over the weekend and I just finished reading it.) To quote the immortal Bard, "I am amazed and know not what to say."

It means taking joy in the suffering of others. I stream Interlochen Public Radio from the Interlochen Center for the Performing Arts in northern lower Michigan because I used to live up there and they play a great selection of classical music all day. My dad's company used to underwrite them when he had a business in Traverse City. Well, the weather report from there is predicting blizzard conditions for tomorrow. I know they can handle it - hell, unless the snow covers the roof rack on the station wagon, it's just a heavy frost. But it's 81 F here in Miami and I'm going to enjoy driving home this afternoon with the top down.

Safire's still got a johnson for Hillary '04. But then, he still has spectral chats with Nixon.

On the way in to the office, someone came up behind me so close that I couldn't see his headlights, then swerved around me, and cut in front of me before taking off. He was driving some little import with thin tires, decals on the side and rear window, and one of those exhaust resonators that make the car sound like it's farting at a high rate of speed when you floor the accelerator.

This wouldn't have bothered me except I was going slightly over the speed limit in the middle lane of a three-lane expressway and there were no other cars around me. Speed Demon could have been in either of the other lanes and blown past me at 80 without having to tailgate me and - I can only assume - provoke me into doing something stupid like drag racing with him. After all, I'm in a Mustang GT with a 5.0 liter engine and there weren't a lot of other cars on that stretch of the road. But I did not rise to the bait; I know where the cops hang out on that road, and I also don't feel like my manhood is being challenged when a teenager tries to show me his. It's petty, stupid, and can lead to disaster - this spring, after the release of 2 Fast 2 Furious, an insipid action flick about street racing filmed in Miami, there were a number of accidents involving teenage boys imitating the film, and one boy was killed when he cut his dad's Corvette in half on a phone pole. The bottom line is that I refuse to allow someone else to set the agenda for me, whether it's on the road or in life.

In a larger mode, that's what's happening in the current political debate. We all know that in the last ten years the Right has set the standard for goading, bullying, exaggerating, hating, and just plain lying about their political opponents, while we on the other side have, in the words of Aaron Sorkin, cowered in the corner and whimpered, "Please don't hurt me." Now, thanks in large part to the over-the-top arrogance of some of the Right (Tom DeLay comes to mind) and many Democrats getting to the point where we've Had Enough, we are fighting back. It is no surprise that someone like Howard Dean with his flinty disposition and refusal to suffer fools gladly has captured the imagination of a lot of the Democrats who have Had Enough. A cottage industry in the left-wing punditry is the "I-Hate-Bush" article, and I have no need to point out that the blogosphere has generated a blizzard of commentary dedicated to demonizing, from the sublime to the ridiculous, every aspect of the Bush presidency as well as the man, his family, and his pets. We are giving back as good as we got during the Clinton Administration, and by God, there is a certain satisfaction in doing it.

Unfortunately, as good as it feels and as much as they deserve it, it's a short-term thing and could backfire. Handing the Right such things as Jonathan Chait's article in the The New Republic about how much he hates Bush lets them point at us and say we're the ones spewing "hate speech." It lets them once again be in charge of the agenda. That can't happen. We have to be the ones who should be, in biz-speak, pro-active. Complaining without providing a solution is just bitching.

I learned a few lessons as a camp counselor and school teacher. One of them is that you never win an argument with a bully, especially if your excuse is, "It all started when he hit me back."

Update: Nick Kristof has a point of view on this in his column in today's NY Times. He makes it sound like all the "incivility" is the Democrats' fault, which is either naive or patronizing; take your pick.

Art Carney has died at the age of 85. For me, he was the best reason to watch The Honeymooners, and he was brilliant in Harry and Tonto.

Also, a little-known fact: his portrayal of Ed Norton was the role model for Barney Rubble on The Flintstones.

Two more officials of John Kerry's campaign have quit in response to the firing of campaign manager Jim Jordan yesterday, according to the NY Times:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's press secretary and deputy finance director quit Tuesday, adding to the bitter turmoil on Kerry's team after the dismissal of his campaign manager.

Robert Gibbs, chief spokesman for the Massachusetts lawmaker, and deputy finance director Carl Chidlow quit in reaction to the firing of Jim Jordan, abruptly let go by Kerry Sunday night. Both expressed dissatisfaction with the campaign, according to officials.

Gibbs will be replaced by Stephanie Cutter, a former spokeswoman for Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and currently the spokeswoman for the Democratic National Convention, the officials said.

Jordan was replaced Monday by Mary Beth Cahill, who was Kennedy's chief of staff. The switch, less than three months before voters in Iowa participate in the first-in-the-nation caucuses, was designed to jump-start Kerry's campaign by signaling to fund-raisers and activists that he was addressing problems that have caused his campaign to slump.

Many Democratic strategists, however, say the problems were caused by the candidate himself, that he has campaigned as if the nomination was his entitlement while allowing former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean to catapult ahead.

Dean sealed two key union endorsements last week, forcing Kerry to examine his presidential prospects.

The staff shake-up consolidates power around Kennedy's former staff after months of internal division. Kerry's team has consisted of roughly three factions -- his Washington team, paid consultants and friends and family from Boston.

``We're sorry to see them go. They served the senator well,'' campaign spokeswoman Christine Anderson said of Gibbs and Chidlow.

The departures threaten to further erode the morale of a campaign that had been viewed just months ago as a front-running team. Kerry, who has been trailing former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean in key state polls, had been pressured by donors and supporters to shake up his campaign.

Several campaign officials said the firing of Jordan was viewed as unfair by many Kerry aides, and there remained a possibility that others would follow Gibbs and Chidlow out the door.

We have a little over two months until the New Hampshire primary, and with Dean on a roll and Kerry's wheels coming off, it looks like we're heading for the inevitability factor, at least in New Hampshire.

On another note, I heard on CNN's Crossfire that George Soros just donated a huge chunk of change to MoveOn.org. I forgot the exact figure (and can't find a weblink to the story, so when I find out, I'll get back to you), but it was enough to get Robert Novak (The Prince of Darkness) to foam at his dentures. That alone was worth tuning in for.

Update: Via Tapped, here's the WAPO link to the abovementioned Soros donation to Democratic causes. Thanks, George!

I've been reading Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo for as long as it's been on the web, and most of the time I agree with him; he's studious, well-researched, and he's a good writer. He has three posts today that are intriguing.

The first one is a rumor that a highly-placed Taiwanese official paid $1 million to meet with Neil Bush. The second is a post about Howard Dean's vulnerabilities as a candidate and an e-mail response from John Judis about the post.

Read, discuss, and I'll get back to you after my stint at the car show today.

From the way today's Miami Herald describes it, the FTAA protests are going to be peaceful, well-organized, and colorful. (This queer eye would hope for tasteful without being gaudy, but, hey, you go with what you've got.) The well-organized among the protesters (there's an oxymoron in there somewhere) are hoping that their message - fair trade, not free trade - gets heard and that the threats of violence and property damage by a few don't overpower the majority who want to have a peaceful encounter with the FTAA delegates.

As hopeful as that sounds, I don't hold out much hope. Even leaving out the anarchists, getting a group of demonstrators to work together and in any kind of order is like trying to teach cats how to march (there's an assignment for you, NTodd). Even when it's just a bunch of friends trying to caravan from one place to another, anarchy ensues: "Okay, the Greenpeace people won't ride with the PETA people because the Greenpeacers are going in Joe's Buick Wildcat and PETA says that's an exploitive car name. And the ACT-UP gays won't talk to the Lesbians for the Metric System - size issues, I guess. And no one wants to stop at Starbucks because they exploit the coffeeworkers in South America, but Lucy says she can't get motivated to do her Free The Arabic Women mime act without a frappacino." You get the idea.

Going into this, it looks the the policy is hope for the best, plan for the worst.

David Brooks says there's no reason to suspect any sweetheart deals in the Halliburton-in-Iraq contracts because the federal procurement system is so wrapped up in bureaucratic procedure and protocol that no hanky-panky could happen.

Wait a minute...I thought the Republicans' biggest goal - their raison d'etre, as it were - was to eliminiate such cumbersome bureaucracy and make it easier for privitization. Now he's saying that the byzantine system run by nameless bureaucrats who live to make life complicated is a good thing; Halliburton and its subsidiaries got their contracts through the long and therefore legitimate bidding process, and that the Democrats who are questioning the deals are just cynical poopy-heads looking for a soundbite.

Sounds to me like Brooks is a sucker for a $400 toilet seat.

Let's pause a moment and say thanks to the people who served and acknowledge that regardless of the politics, they sacrificed something of themselves for the greater good of our country and our allies.

I honor my father, two uncles, a cousin, and a lot of friends and colleagues.

And in that light, read Paul Krugman's take on how the Bush Administration is honoring veterans.

After two years of deadlocked negotiations, accusations of bad faith on both sides, and a union chief busted for embezzling union funds, the Miami-Dade County School Board has reached a tentative agreement for a three-year contract with the United Teachers of Dade (UTD). It includes pay raises of nearly $42 million and increases in health benefits for family coverage. That may sound like a lot, but Miami-Dade is the fourth-largest school district in the country with an annual budget of $4.3 billion, over 367,000 students and 47,000 employees.

It's been a long battle, and not without some strange things to make the road a bumpy one, including a federal investigation of UTD president Pat Tornillo for living high on the hog on the dues of the teachers. The FBI raided the UTD headquarters last April, seizing hundreds of records, and it was revealed that Tornillo (which in Spanish means "screw" - God, I love irony) was living the life of Ken Lay. Hundreds of teachers resigned from the union, and last summer it looked like the union was about to collapse. But then, timing is everything. Several of the school board members are up for re-election next fall, the school system is the largest employer in the county, and those employees vote. Running for re-election with no contract would be as welcome a campaign issue as a wet dog at a wedding. In addition, Merret Stierheim, the superintendent of schools, announced last week that he would leave his post at the end of his contract in June 2004, leaving the School Board hanging with no contract, no superintendent, and angry teachers demonstrating outside every school board meeting (this is their only recourse - Florida law prohibits strikes by teachers). They realized that they'd better get on the stick, and today they did. Since the four other bargaining units, including AFSCME, will use the UTD contract as a template, whatever raises and benefits the teachers get, everyone gets...including li'l ole me!

This is the first job I've had under a union contract. (Well, yes, I do belong to The Dramatists Guild, but that's not like a real union...I mean, the worst thing we can do to protest unfair producers is get writer's block.) I grew up near a union city, though, and I know that labor unions are an important part of protecting workers and their rights. And in spite of the bad rap that unions get, and in spite of Mr. Tornillo's $27,000 trip to India and his gold-plated biffy, I'm proud that in the end things worked out so that teachers - who should get paid ten times what they earn as it is - can concentrate on teaching. After all, it's all for the kids, and you can't do better than that.

From a friend. I'm sure this has been bopping around the 'net, but I've never seen it.

Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn:

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to
present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. Quicksand works slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend. If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? Is it an odd, or an end?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

P.S. - Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick"?

I welcome any additional English idiosyncrases.

Check out Faithful Mentor NTodd's post on Andrew Cline's National Review Online column on Howard Dean's attractiveness as a Democratic candidate.

I myself do not trust the motives of anything nice said about a Democrat by NRO.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., writes this thoughtful commentary in today's Miami Herald on Dean's troubles with the Confederate flag:

I have no problem with what Howard Dean was trying to say. It's what he actually said that troubles me.

Specifically, the Democratic presidential candidate told an Iowa reporter that he wants to be ``the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks.''

It was an inarticulate way of saying an important thing: that Dean wants to reach out to poor whites in the South.

But because he somehow managed to say something else entirely, the former Vermont governor triggered predictable criticisms of his racial sensitivity or lack thereof. Then he compounded the error. The axiom goes that the first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging. Dean, who has apparently never heard that one, instead engaged in a prickly defense of his remark at a Democratic debate last week in Boston. He fended off sharp criticism from his rivals and doggedly refused to apologize.

While conceding the obvious -- that the Confederate flag is ''a loathsome symbol'' of racism -- he also cited the need for the Democratic party to offer a ``big tent.''

''I make no apologies,'' said Dean, ``for reaching out to poor white people.''

It should be obvious why the candidate's reasoning insults blacks. He suggests that the Democratic Party's most loyal constituents should be ready to share the aforementioned big tent with people who hate them.

But you know who else ought to be insulted? Poor white people. After all, they are, in Dean's inference, synonymous with racism and its symbols. Yes, there has historically been a vivid streak of bigotry in that stratum of society. But anyone who thinks bigotry is the exclusive province of poor white folk has obviously never heard of John Rocker. Or, for that matter, Louis Farrakhan.

The real tragedy of Dean's comments, though, is not the affront it gives, but the opportunity it misses. It's commendable -- even visionary -- that he seeks to champion the concerns of poor white people. As the media have made poverty evermore a synonym for black and brown, we have lost sight of the fact that the majority of America's underclass is white. Those folks have been marginalized and ignored for years, unless you count being enlisted as foot soldiers in the culture wars over gay rights and affirmative action. Meantime, their own needs have gone largely unaddressed.

Once you comprehend that, you're in a position to comprehend the conclusion Martin Luther King Jr. ultimately reached. Namely, that poor people of whatever heritage have more in common than in contention. They never seem to see that, largely because race, the great American dividing line, has been used to keep them from seeing it. To keep them separate when by rights they should be shoulder to shoulder. So you wonder: What would happen if poor folk ever came together across racial lines, ever coalesced their votes into a political force and pushed their issues -- healthcare, the minimum wage, affordable housing -- into the national agenda?

The answer is a word: revolution.

Indeed, there are those who think it's no accident King was struck down shortly after he pointed his movement in that direction.

Now here's Dean, who seemed -- seemed -- to point in that same direction, except that he tripped over his tongue along the way. He muddled his message by invoking one of the most incendiary symbols of Southern racism, then stubbornly and stupidly refused to concede his error. It wasn't until the day after the debate that Dean finally expressed remorse for any ''pain'' his remarks had caused.

Which was, by that time, too little too late.

I suspect that Dean, even at this late date, still doesn't get it. I don't think he quite understands what he did wrong.

Much less what he very nearly did right.

After reading many transcripts of what Dean actually said in the various versions and venues he's been using for the last nine months, plus how he apologized for it, I think he does get it, from both angles, and he's had what we call in education a "teachable moment" in the process. The true test, however, will be if or when he makes another gaffe, he's made the most of that moment.

From this morning's NY Times, Sen. Kerry has fired his campaign manager, Jim Jordan. The campaign was apparently caught off-guard by Gov. Howard Dean's surge in the polls and the failure of Kerry's campaign to stir up voter interest. (For an interesting take on the Democratic Party's overall sluggish performance, check out today's lead story in Salon.com. Get the Day Pass if you don't subscribe.)

On a similar note, the Florida Panthers, the NHL team (I know...hockey in Florida?), have fired Coach Mike Keenan after they got off to a lousy start of 5-8-2. Or, in the words of the team owner, "failed to come up with a Stanley Cup-contending team."

Well, we all have lofty goals, and shit happens. But I think it's too easy to blame the manager when the team sucks, and also too easy to fire the campaign manager when the candidate is dull, pedantic, and just uninspiring. John Kerry may be a better candidate than Howard Dean in some respects, but if it's not getting through to the base and the people who vote, it's not just the fault of the campaign manager. Herb Brooks, the late coach of the miraculous Team USA of the 1980 Olympics had some losing seasons, too, when he had poor players. You can only do so much with some material. Or, as we say in theatre, even a great director can't make a bad play into Shakespeare (and even Shakespeare had his bad plays).

As reported in The Blade on Friday, November 7, 2003:

Two Toledo councilmen and a small group of citizens holding a banner were kicked out of Government Center yesterday while holding a news conference raising questions about the USA Patriot Act.

An Ohio Highway Patrol trooper held Councilman Pete Gerken’s elbow as he escorted him to the front exit of the building.

Also ordered to leave was Councilman Frank Szollosi and the group called Citizens for Individual Rights and Freedoms, whose members unfurled a banner criticizing the USA Patriot Act as "unpatriotic."

Mr. Gerken and Mr. Szollosi are co-sponsors of a council resolution condemning the Patriot Act. The law, enacted after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, broadens federal investigative powers. Critics have said it gives investigators too much power to snoop on law-abiding citizens.

Griff Allan, the second shift security supervisor, later told Mr. Gerken the reason he was removed was because a banner had been unfurled.

Building Manager Michael L. Sullivan also cited the banner as well as the topic as inappropriate for inside a public place.

"If they had been inside council chambers or outside the building, nothing would have happened," Mr. Sullivan said. "This is a public area. To avoid offending anyone, we say you can’t do it in a public area."

Short Version: It's okay to protest...just don't do it where anybody can see it.

Update: Now the ejected officials are threatening a lawsuit. Proof once again that nothing settles a disagreement like a subpeona.

Via Atrios, it looks like Howard Dean has raised most of his funds in small numbers - under $200 from the majority of his contributions. The only one ahead of him in the "small" donations category is Dennis Kucinich. Oh, and check out John Edwards' percentage of over $1,000 vs. under $200. And he has the nerve to call Dean "elitist?"

Now look at how much Bush has raised, and the percentages. $82+ million? To run against himself? The mind doth boggle.

It's the "Free Trade Area of the Americas," not Alliance, as I previously called it.

Jim DeFede writes for the Miami Herald, and he captures the flavor of the "uniqueness" of living in South Florida. Here's his take on the just-announced first presidential debate slated to take place on September 30, 2004 at the University of Miami.

I spent the afternoon at the South Florida International Auto Show that's at the Miami Beach Convention Center (historical footnote - it's where Nixon received the Republican nomination in 1968 and where my commencement ceremony from the University of Miami was held in 1974). I spent most of the time today as a volunteer keeping watch over the Memory Lane exhibit, which is a collection of 23 classic cars from the South Florida Region Antique Auto Club of America, of which I am a member. The cars range from a 1927 Packard to a 1972 AMC Gremlin, each one a Best-In-Show quality. The fun part was watching the reactions of the crowd - older people would stop and say, "I had one of those," or a teenager would look at the 1967 Camaro Indy Pace car or the 1970 Dodge Challenger T/A or the 1965 Mustang GT coupe and say, somewhat wistfully, "Those musta been fun cars to drive," to which I would nod and say, "Yeah, they are."

I took some time to look at the new models on display, and while the new cars are dazzling with their electronic wizardry and sleek forms, these cars seem to be lacking a certain panache, a flair for style. That's it, I think. Cars today are engineered, not styled. Yes, they run longer - it's no great deal if a car turns over 100,000 miles; heck, my 1988 Pontiac 6000 wagon has 237,000 miles on it. But the style is gone.

When I was a kid, I used to wait excitedly for the day when the new cars would be unveiled in September - it was a huge deal at the dealerships. Days before the Big Day the car carriers would roll into town with the new cars under wraps, and the storage lots would be fenced off so that no one could catch a glimpse at the new models. In the 50's and 60's, model change-over was a very big deal - kids knew a 1964 Ford from a 1964 Chevy a block away. Nowadays you couldn't tell one apart from the other if you were standing next to them, and they all look like they were copied from the Japanese cars. That's another thing - growing up so close to Detroit, it was considered a sin to own a "foreign" car. Now, Japanese cars are built in Ohio and Pontiac GTO's come from Australia. (Even my wagon was built in Canada.) Model change-over happens with no fanfare, and the only way you can tell a 2003 from a 2004 is to look at the registration.

I know cars today are safer, more reliable, and certainly cleaner and more efficient than the cars in Memory Lane. But if Cadillac can build an SUV, a pick-up, and a station wagon (they don't call it a station wagon, but trust me, it is), then maybe they can put some style back in them while they're at it. There is some hope. The "retro" look has been catching on; the PT Cruiser, the Ford Thunderbird, the Chevrolet SRS, and the next-generation Mustang all pay tribute to their forebearers. Let's hope that's a trend that flourishes.

Now if they can just get gas back down to 35 cents a gallon...

Laura Ingraham, second lead in the Blonde Nazi Bimbo parade and alleged author of Shut Up and Sing, a screed against Hollywood participating in politics, was on Reliable Sources this morning with Howie Kurtz discussing, among other things, the cancellation of The Reagans by CBS. Her "debate partner" was Michael Wolf. Howie would ask Michael a question, and without fail, Laura would interrupt and change the subject back to her. When Howie would ask her a question, she'd get the full time to answer, and Michael would let her spew without interrupting her.

There is nothing so rude as someone who interrupts like that, and I hate it. (I damn near threw the NY Times Crossword puzzle at the TV, but restrained myself - I haven't finished it yet.) But it is typical of right-wing hacks - if you can't make a good argument, interrupt the person who is.

He's got the talking points down pat: Bush is a phony, Dean is out of the mainstream, I'm the only candidate in touch with the "real Americans." It's his first visit to MTP in over a year and he sounded prepped and ready, but I also detected a tinge of forced optimism, especially when Russert grilled him on his single-digit poll numbers.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say he's positioning himself for the VP slot on the Dean ticket.

Courtesy of today's Miami Herald, here is a pretty basic summary of the up-coming Free Trade summit here in Miami November 17-21. The article pretty well nutshells the story. More to come as we get closer.

Update: from the South Florida (Ft. Lauderdale) Sun-Sentinel, an article on FTAA and its impact on Brazil.

One of the most infuriating things in life is seeing someone else do something you thought of doing, but you're a beat late. Many examples abound - the guy who got to the patent office the day after Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone, the second guy to build an airplane, and the folks at GM who got the Camaro into production in 1967 - two years after Ford brought out the Mustang. (Don't get me started on Camaro vs. Mustang...all I can say is, do you see any 2004 Camaros on the street?)

We're seeing that now with Howard Dean turning down federal funds for the primaries. That grinding sound you hear is the gnashing teeth of the other Democrats, especially John Kerry who stood on his principles and said he would not use his wife's vast fortune, inherited from her late husband, Senator John Heinz, to fund his campaign. But now that Dr. Dean is going to depend solely on private contributions, Kerry and all the others are all chonked off - not because he's not playing by the rules but because they didn't think of it first.

So now Kerry has to play ketchup.

Richard L. Berke points out in today's NYT Week in Review section that the Confederate flag flap should be a lesson to Dr. Dean - no one takes you seriously until they take you seriously.

It must be more than a little frustrating for Dean to suddenly be in trouble for something he's been saying for a very long time, and getting flack from other candidates who are trying to boost their numbers by piling on Dean. Truthfully, they're probably kicking themselves for not coming up with something that could get them as much attention as Dean got.

In the fall of 1967, at the age of 15, I went off to St. George's School in Newport, Rhode Island for what turned out to be a very short and terrible attempt at a boarding school education. Coming from a small suburb of a small city in Ohio, I was not prepared for the rarified and stuffy air of the New England prep school. It didn't help that in the previous year I had shot up six inches, my face had broken out like a pizza, I had acquired thick nerd glasses, and I weighed all of 115 pounds. It was a combination for disaster, and it didn't take long for homesickness to set in. Within a month I was miserable, my grades were in the toilet and the other students soon found I was an easy target for the typical boarding school tricks and torture.

The school's student council was made up of prefects elected from each class, and the Senior Prefect, who served as student council president and role model for the students. The Senior Prefect for 1967-1968 was Charley Dean. He was the younger brother of Howard Brush Dean III, Class of 1966. I met Charley when he held a meeting with the freshman class at the beginning of the year and instilled in us a very strong sense of his pride of the school, and his tone was serious. As a senior, he was a god on Olympus, and as the Senior Prefect, he was right up there with Zeus. But he did tell us that if we had any problems or questions we could come to him. None of us, including myself, believed that we were worthy of his attention.

But I was wrong. I don't remember what caused me to end up hunched over a desk in the corner of a classroom - a failed quiz, perhaps - but I do remember that it was a cold, grey, rainy, and miserable afternoon in November, the kind of day only New Englanders can tolerate, and I was thoroughly miserable. I heard voices in the hall. I did not look up, but I know it was a group of seniors passing by, and I hoped they would not see me. One of them was Charley. He must have glanced into the classroom because the next moment he was standing next to my desk, asking what was wrong. I don't know exactly what I told him, but he knew I was homesick and friendless. He patted my shoulder, told me he had felt that way too when he was new, and that he was sure things would work out. "C'mon," he said, "I'll walk you back to the dorm." He did, and on the way he asked where I was from, what sports I liked, and other small talk. He left me on the steps of the dorm, told me not to worry, it'll get better, and feel free to come to him any time. He shook my hand, gave me a grin, and said, "See you around."

That moment of kindness stayed with me for a lot longer than my career lasted at St. George's. I left after that one year, but I never forgot Charley Dean's small gift, and when I heard he was lost in Southeast Asia, I bent my head in prayer and remembrance.

In 2001 I returned to St. George's for what would have been my 30th reunion with my former classmates. I went out of a sense of needing to put that one year of my life in perspective, and in doing so, I found that a lot of the things that shaped my life had been forged in that tumultuous year: learning how to rely on myself, my awareness that spirituality is not limited to a twice-weekly chapel service and thus leading me to the Quakers, the discovery of my love of writing - first as a refuge, then as a source of perspective, and finding that there can be solace in a very small but kind gesture of friendship. And at that reunion, for his 35th, was Governor Dean. I went up to him, shook his hand, introduced myself, and said very simply, "Charley meant a lot to me."

To talk about Charley Dean's merits as Senior Prefect is to belabor the obvious. His election bespeaks his popularity, his handling of the post to bring about more student privileges bespeaks his acuity, his rapport with both faculty and lower forms [classes] evidences his diplomacy, and his many extracurricular activities witness his multiplicity.... He circulates, assimilates, manipulates. He is as ready to chew the fat as to chew someone out, yet his authority is so inherent that he uses it with more forethought than furor. Charley is no solon; he tells as many bad jokes as the rest of us. In fact, he is as human and easy going as a Senior Prefect is allowed to be while still keeping the school out of dire peril. - The Lance, 1968, (St. George's School yearbook)

Sounds like presidential material to me. And I know where he got it.

According to David Brooks, internet dating is okay.

Y'know, I've been worried that maybe it would be yet another thing for the right wing to demonize - yet another way to dehumanize and cheapen human contact or some such - but apparently since Rush Limbaugh met his current wife on a bulletin board and Andrew Sullivan probably hosts a Bears chatroom, it's cool.

But have they run it by Ashcroft to see if there might be some terrorists hiding out in the Yahoo Personals, masquerading as a 16 year old girl who likes John Mayer, Beyonce, and has a crush on Benjamin McKenzie from The O.C.?

The Free Trade Alliance of the Americas is scheduled to take place in Miami from November 17-21. Like the WTO meeting in Seattle in 1999, a large variety of groups from labor unions to "anarchists" are planning to protest the meetings and, according to press reports, do anything to disrupt the proceedings. I work in an office in downtown Miami that is about twenty blocks north of the meeting site, but just in case, the Miami-Dade County School Board has decided to close its downtown operations and board up the two School Board Administration buildings. (Apparently millions of nuts and bolts have been purchased by some groups to use as projectiles.) The school board employees have been offered the choice of taking the four days off as vacation or personal time, or being re-assigned to offices or school sites outside of the downtown area.

I have no strong views in the area of "Free Trade" - I frankly don't know enough about it to form an opinion. I'd welcome some input on it from both sides, and as we get closer to the meeting, I'll see what I can link from informed sites. I'll also try to give you a day-to-day report on what happens. I have elected to be re-assigned to another office rather than take the time off (not that I'm so nobly dedicated... well, I am, but I also need to save my vacation time). So, let's hear some discussion about FTAA, and stay tuned.

Okay, now that I've got this thing figured out (or will as I go), let's get some basics out of the way:

1. George W. Bush may not be an idiot, but he plays one on TV.

2. Howard Dean may not be the slam-dunk winner of the Democratic nomination, and he may have a rough time against Bush in the general election, but by God, he sure gets me fired up - I haven't felt this pepped up about a Democratic candidate since Bobby Kennedy. (I have a personal connection with Gov. Dean that I will share in a later post. I promise.)

3. Karl Rove is the most dangerous man in America, even before John Ashcroft and Antonin Scalia. Why? Because the only person he's responsible to is the man who owes his political life to him, and therefore is powerless to control him.

4. People who call AM radio talk shows and get on the air should automatically lose their right to vote. (So should people who watch "pro wrestling," but let's not go there.)

5. I've always wondered why right-wingers who scream about "big guvamint" getting involved in every little aspect of their lives have such an obsession with other people's morals, sexual orientation, and reproductive systems.

6. People with Jesus fish and other religious paraphenalia on their car bumpers are the most arrogant drivers on the road. It's like God told them it was okay to cut other people off without using a turn signal.

7. The best way to get rid of a telemarketer is to ask them what they are wearing.

8. I have had residency in Ohio, Michigan (twice), Rhode Island, Florida (twice), Indiana, Colorado, California, and New Mexico (twice). They all have very different weather patterns, but the common saying is, "If you don't like the weather here, wait ten minutes." No wonder The Weather Channel is so popular.

9. The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits. (This blog may yet prove that theory...)

10. Trolls are hereby warned that I will do the same for them that NTodd does - so thanks in advance for the support for the Dean candidacy.

Any questions?

Welcome to Bark Bark Woof Woof, a blog dedicated to my take on life, the universe and everything with my unique sense of dry amusement. The title comes from a guy I once worked for who said "bark bark woof woof" instead of "et cetera, et cetera," and in memory of my dog, Sam, who was my best friend for 13 years.

I'm moderate-to-liberal gay man with a long background in theatre studies (BFA, University of Miami; MFA, University of Minnesota; PhD, University of Colorado), specifically in playwriting and dramatic literature. I also write novels and short stories. I live in Miami, Florida and work for the public school system. Other interests include antique cars (station wagons and Mustangs) and weightlifting. (Gee, this is beginning to sound like a personal ad, but hey, I'm single, early 50's, of Welsh ancestry, in good shape, have a decent income, don't drink or smoke. Drop me a line.)

This blog is a founding member of The Liberal Coalition, and I encourage you to visit to the other members. I welcome your comments, and look forward to those contributions to enrich this blog - I sure can't carry it alone.

Bobby Cramer, aka "Mustang Bobby," is the main character in my current novel-in-progress. Like me, he's an optimistic but wary guy just trying to get through life without bumping into the furniture, and he drives a Mustang. So do I.