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Showing posts from November, 2005

Rise of the Vulcans and Plan of Attack

I've now finished reading James Mann's excellent chronicle of the back history of the Bush war cabinet, Rise of the Vulcans (Martin Sieff's linked 2004 Salon review is worth a read) and Bob Woodward's account of the lead up to the war, Plan of Attack ...(the Guardian review I link to features the British cover, worth a peek.) Both these books, in blog terms, are in the "old news" heap...ready for remainder. If you want the hot scoop, firedoglake and the huffington post will have more to offer...and more about the, ahem, trials and tribulations of Bob Woodward, than a couple of books that you can easily check out of the library in well-thumbed copies. That being said, I learned some valuable things from both books: 1. Scooter Libby was omnipresent I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby pops up everywhere in the story of the Bush Administration and the war. His omnipresence, of course, stems from the centrality of his boss, the Vice President, but it's e

Congratulations!

faboo mama celebrates the arrival of Alton to the world. Congratulations! And welcome to the blogosphere, Alton!

the white angel

Somewhere on San Francisco's Embarcadaro...between a tourist diner and a corporate office park...is a small stone monument, half-hidden in the bushes, indicating the site where, in 1933, Dorothea Lange took this photograph. That fact means it is also the former site of the White Angel Bread Line ...and, as a part of that, it is the spot where one hungry old man, unshaven, in a filthy cap, turned his back on other hungry men for a moment and seemed to express in that gesture a universal human feeling: of vulnerability, of solitude, of the indignity of a poverty that herded men like cattle. Perhaps it's better that the monument is hidden in the bushes. Visitors to this city, if they can find it, will have already seen hundreds of hungry and disheveled men and women. And if they stay in hotels near the Tenderloin, as many do, they will have seen long lines for food, and the despondent faces of those who live on our streets. Of course, as a nation, after Katrina, only the willf

critical condition

If you want an example of something that's emblematic of what's broken in America, try health care. Sure, our Republican colleagues will mouth the exact same tired language about "the excellence of our hospitals" and those dreaded "trial lawyers."  Truth is, however, for twenty five years the United States, under Republican leadership and the hand of big business, has indulged in an experiment with allowing "market forces" to drive our health care system. That experiment has failed. We pay more for drugs, basic care, and insurance than ever before.  Due to an unchecked increase in the cost of catastrophic care and a change in bankruptcy laws, we are all more at risk of financial devastation when facing a serious illness.  Many of us are less healthy.  And all of us navigate a labyrinth of byzantine, hyper-duplicated and redundant bureaucratic formulas that consistenly favor profit over people.  Nothing exemplifies this better than the sight of mi

a game of whiffle ball that nobody remembers

Rachel walked over with her brother from Claremont Avenue. They met us in Sakura Park . The cherry blossoms were in bloom. It was May, the end of the school year. The night was clear and blue-black. The warmth of lights from apartments on Riverside Drive cut through the dark. More people arrived as finals let out. Karl and Tom showed up. And Noah. And Kip. I had a bottle of jug wine. Colette and Catherine joined me on the Barnard campus, and then we strolled over. Marc and Sarah and Sara and Katherine and Julie and Jenny and Katie followed soon after. David and Justin and Kiersta walked over after class. Mirja and Bevin and Ilya were late arrivers. We had enough people for whiffle ball, so we played. Like so many things, we didn't do it with a plan. It just happened. Wild strikeouts in the dark. Karl hurling himself towards first base. Laughter. Impromptu performance. Exaggerated pitching. Close plays at home plate. The thwak of plastic on...plastic. Some peopl

thanksgiving roots

I am home tonight in the house my parents have lived in for 35 years. Here in St. Paul the past is all around us. In the corner of my dad's office is a wooden rocking chair from my grandmother, Mary. In various corners of the house are fine examples of Red Wing Pottery , woolen blankets from Faribault Woolen Mills , a stolid chest of drawers that belonged to my Czech great-grandfather Edward...all artifacts of 19th century life in Minnesota. Just the other day, my dad and I drove through Stillwater, Minnesota , on the border with Wisconsin, which served as a staging area for so many "Minnesota pioneers" and he recalled how his grandfather, George, bragged of swimming under the logs on the St. Croix River there. Timothy Shields, George's father ran a hotel in Stillwater. Timothy arrived in Stillwater after leaving County Roscommon Ireland for America in 1836. (Grandpa George, it should be said, noted that swimming under logs meant you really had to hold your bre

safe travels

I'm in Minnesota with family for Thanksgiving, and am working on a Thanksgiving piece for later tonight or tommorrow. In the meantime, I wish you all safe travels and a most happy holiday wherever you may be!

wood s lot

wood s lot is consistently one of my favorite reads. The content, on art, poetry, photography and politics is second to none. Just always great stuff. It's slightly academic. Maybe just the right thing for a long holiday weekend.

rebuilding New Orleans

Blksista has a great essay up on dailykos on rebuilding New Orleans...the environmental issues and the social justice issues. It's a very worthy read.

cold water and the popular vote

I've been reading the 2004 Presidential election results on a state by state and county by county basis. In particular, I've been looking at 2000 v. 2004. There's no direct online comparison of 2000 and 2004 that I can find. The one I'm using is the 2006 World Almanac and Book of Facts which breaks down every single county in the U.S. and compares 2000 and 2004...it's sobering and worthwhile. 2004 was a high turnout year. 105 million voters voted in 2000; 121.5 million voters voted in 2004...or 60.7% of those eligible. Both Bush (62,040,606 votes) and Kerry (59,028,109 votes) improved on the Bush/Gore returns from 2000 when Bush won 50,459,211 votes and Gore 51,003,894. Simply put, George Bush dramatically improved his totals over 2000 in almost every single county in the U.S., including many urban and largely Democratic counties. In the state of Illinois, a state Bush lost by 546,000 votes, the President still improved his total by 327,000 votes state-wide and

two thousand men

I visited my 93-year-old grandmother today in the small town of 5000 she lives in. We talked about the President and the war. She said this: "This war. So many men. So many young men lost. Two thousand. Imagine how many that would be all lined up. Imagine." (Related: read Sen. Byrd's speech on this topic via Carnacki at dKos.)

a turning point

It's the weekend before Thanksgiving 2005. I write this understanding that a confluence of trends (George W. Bush's unpopularity, the persistent failure of the war in Iraq, a series of scandals that touch both the White House and top GOP leadership) have made the Republicans vulnerable in ways they haven't been for years. At the same time I realize that core weaknesses in the Democratic Party (our liberal/mainstream split, our geographic concentration in big cities and the coasts, and a cultural failure and weakness of our leadership ) mean that our ability to capitalize on those GOP weaknesses are not much better than they have been for the last 25-30 years. It's a familiar litany, with a familiar foundation. We don't control the House, and haven't since 1994. We don't control the Senate, and lost enough ground in 2004 that our best hopes for 2006 may simply be drawing even again. John Kerry lost the Presidential contest last year in a high turnout elect

the road ahead in the House

Well, it looks like the Republicans have picked their strategy for 2006: unquestioned loyalty to President Bush . Calling Jack Murtha a "Michael Moore" is what I would call a "Thanksgiving-sized" mistake. The timing of this Congressional resolution and the GOP name-calling it evinced is going to make for some pretty testy Turkey Day conversations.

outside my front door

I stepped outside tonight for a quick ten 'o clock run to the market. Tonight is garbage and recycling night, and that means that folks are scavenging the recycling barrels for cans and bottles. Across the street a woman of indeterminate age shone a flashlight deep into my neighbor's barrel. She moved quickly and didn't pay attention to me. As I crossed the street to my car I saw a figure searching through the barrel in front of my house. It was a young boy. Probably ten years old. He was wearing a coat over a plaid baggy shirt and slacks. He had on a knit cap. He had a flashlight too. He looked up at me. And I guess I must have looked at him long enough that he thought he had to say something. He said, "Hello." And his voice sounded like every other ten year old boy in the Bay Area. It was a boy's voice. He said it once..."Hello"...and looked at me. I didn't say anything back. I figured that it was his mom across the street. And as m

Representative John Murtha

Murtha's statement is huge. It's pithy. It resonates. We're not doing any good by staying in Iraq. Our military mission is over. The Bush Administration attacks Representative Murtha by calling him "a Michael Moore". Of course, whose picture of Iraq from the spring of 2004 has proven more true: Michael Moore's or George Bush's? On, June 25th, 2004 the day Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 was released in the U.S..... 754 U.S. service members had died in Iraq. Today that total stands at 2083. Something to think about.

a serious moment

I was really struck by this photo , which graced the cover of Tuesday's New York Times, showing Ariel Sharon, Condoleeza Rice and James Baker attending a memorial of the late Yitzhak Rabin in Israel. There's something in that picture...in Rice's face, jaw set, eyes hidden behind rockstar sunglasses...and how she is flanked on either side by two men who've played hard-ball power politics for decades: Ariel Sharon, peering beneath his furrowed brow and, always conscious he is being observed, gesturing and thinking...and James Baker, completely hidden behind a permanent dimplomatic mask, an impenetrable sphinx. Of course, that photo sends a powerful message to the world. Rice was in Israel to do serious business . The fact that she brought Baker with her meant that the full weight of the U.S. military-industrial complex... the old guard ...was with her. That trip to Israel was important; and I would guess that U.S. plans and actions regarding Syria were part of that

let's just say...

That you are on the inside. That you know how things really work. You're not a cynic, you're a realist. You know the score. You do what needs to get done. You know things that the little people will never understand. Your name might be Scooter Libby or Karl Rove. Your name might be Judith Miller or Bob Woodward. Or your name might be...say...James Baker or George Schultz. Regardless, you don't play by little people rules. You understand power...and money...and vested interests. You know the key players. The key players know you. You know who really pulls the strings . You know where the real power lies. All that being said, there's one thing that even you have to admit. History is often made by human beings. Imperfect. Tempermental. Weak. Wrong-headed. Vulnerable. Puny. Individuals. Like most "little people"...I can't pretend to know what's actually going on in Washington right now. It gets curiouser and curiouser by the day. Bob W

Bush

George Bush is either digging a hole, or climbing out of it. History will tell whether his choice to "fight back" (using terms of argument that he's been using all along, "Democrats are sending the wrong message to our troops.") instead of doing a shake up of his administration (which would be a wise move) will pay off. My bet is that he is digging himself deeper. And to hear him actually addressing charges of misleading and mishandled intelligence is stunning. Everybody knows that we were told there was WMD in Iraq. There wasn't.

fire dog lake

Firedoglake is en fuego . Every article on the front page is great. I recommend them all. Scooter Libby, habeas corpus, Dan Froomkin on the Veteran's Day Speech. Sheer Excellence.

meta from Oakland

Ah, the health of this blog! Things have been slow here...on both ends: both in terms of traffic and returning readers...and in terms of my ability to put a couple new posts up everyday. I have liked some of my recent pieces...but, even given that, they haven't seemed to have quite caught on. When I wrote for dKos, I had the luxury of writing when I could. (Which was nice, since I work some very crazy hours at times. And the instant feedback at dkos is truly "one of a kind.") Lately, I've had whole blocks of off-line work...eighty hours in seven days...and that's kept me from indulging the "news junkie blogger" role. Alas. When I read blogs, I start with my current clicks...and read blogs . It might take a couple hours. But I find I really learn a great deal. It is, however, very time consuming. Further, I've found that since writing here is more intimate. The lack of the huge amounts of feedback I was used to at dKos means that comments

I.F. Stone for today

I've been reading some I.F. Stone , which, if you're not familiar with that name, means that I've been reading some kick ass political writing from the 50's, 60's and 70's. Stone was a blogger before blogging, writing for the one man journal I.F. Stone's Weekly . In that respect, he's the precursor to Josh Marshall, Billmon, Digby and Atrios...and a successor to Benjamin Franklin. You'd think that reading topical pieces from decades ago would be stale and irrelevant. It's not. Writing about LBJ in a piece entitled A Man the Whole World Has Begun to Distrust , Izzy Stone could have been writing about Bush in 2003, not Johnson in June of '65: The good will built up by Kennedy for our country in every section of the world except East Asia has been dissipated by his successor . It is no exaggeration to say that Johnson is today distrusted everywhere: in Latin America, where he has destroyed the hopes aroused by the Alliance for Progress; in

Happy Birthday, Myshkin!

Reader and colleague at Cartel of Defiance , Myshkin, has a birthday today. Happy Birthday , Myshkin! I hope you had a most excellent day.

Scooter Libby

The President attacked the Democrats on Veteran's day, singling out John Kerry by name in front of a pre-screened audience of supporters. Dan Bartlett then went on NewsHour and practically blamed Senator Edward Kennedy for everything that's wrong in Iraq and this country. (Perhaps Bartlett has forgotten that Veteran's Day has a very real meaning to the Senator.) My question in all this distraction: How come nobody talks about Scooter Libby? Scooter Libby resigned under indictment. He's been charged with five federal felonies that he obstructed justice and lied during an investigation of an issue that touched our national security. America hasn't really got a chance to know Libby; and now they want to take him off the radar? Libby is more than a "liar" and a "leaker." When we talk about "stove-piping" and "manipulating" intelligence, Libby is right there by the side of the Vice President, accompanying him on Cheney's

saber rattling

A familiar chorus is in the air. From Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to John Bolton to these words from the President on October 25th, before the bombings in Jordan: Syria is destablising Lebanon, permitting terrorists to use its territory to reach Iraq, and giving safe harbour to Palestinian terrorist groups. The United Nations has passed strong resolutions against terror. Now the United Nations must act. Of course, if George Bush had said that in 2002 we'd likely be at war with Syria now, too. John Bolton's phrasing, here referring to the al-Hariri assassination, is significant as well: Bolton was consulting with fellow Security Council members on a wide range of possible responses, he said, but he would not say whether sanctions against Syria was among them. "This report is obviously very significant. It finds probable cause to believe that the assassination could not have been undertaken without the knowledge of senior figures in Syrian intelligence," Bo

working life

For whatever reason it was growing up...I always worked. In this, I know, I'm far from alone. But it's interesting how that part of life is so easily hidden from the surface. At Columbia, after one year of working at a popular desk in a library there, I couldn't go to a party without someone saying to me..."You look really familiar, where do I know you from?" Of course, people who work service jobs themselves tend not to ask that question. Like a lot of kids in the Upper Midwest...I'm from Minnesota...my first "jobs" were shovelling snow and mowing lawns. I worked with a partner. We'd split the take. In fifth grade, when I took over our best client after my buddy missed a couple big snows...I became persona non grata in that household. Everybody got invited to the Halloween party in my sixth grade class, except for me. It was a life lesson. My first real job, at 16, was at a delicatessen on West 7th in St. Paul. I cooked pizzas and di

thoughts on the New York Mayor's Race

I showed up at the cafe yesterday to find a lively discussion of the NYC mayor's race. Friends who grew up in the Bronx and Brooklyn echoed what another friend of mine, a Manhattanite, had told me months ago: Michael Bloomberg was a shoe-in for reelection because he'd been good for "all of New York City." Bloomberg was essentially a Democrat with an "R" behind his name who'd proved himself in his first term to be worthy of a second by being a hard-working reformer who brought a no-nonsense, inclusive, meritocratic approach to running city government. Further, my old school New Yorker friends at the cafe were insistent that New York Republican mayors like Fiorello La Guardia and John Lindsay and Senator Jacob Javits represented a longstanding positive trend in New York City politics that Republicans have stood for reform against the Democratic Party's association with Tammany Hall , machine politics, and more recently, in the words of the New Y