One year from today we will get to pick a new president. With the dearth of political coverage over the past few months you might not have noticed there is a presidential campaign going on right now. Charles Gibson of ABC News started tonight’s broadcast by making that announcement, “In one year Americans will decide who the next president will be,” he said, “In 52 weeks… (thank you for showing you know how many weeks are in a year, I know I was confused about that) so we are going to look past the primaries …” he continued to say they planned to look at the ‘battleground states’ and see ‘what people there are thinking. Granted, I do not live in one of these important states but I know what all this makes me think – make it stop!
Politicians and other leaders often cite what the founding fathers would think about this issue or that, often they are talking about guns or gun control but I think it would be interesting to think about what they would think of the mess our electoral process has become. For starters, they did not think the general public was smart enough to elect Senators directly and we do not really elect our president directly either so they would probably be appalled. As someone who has spent most of my life working on campaigns, it can be really hard to get people interested in campaigns. Most people assume politicians say whatever they have to say to get elected and lie as easily as they breathe so this unusually long campaign defies conventional wisdom and makes me wonder how reliable any of the polls can possibly be. In less than two months our premature primary process will begin and both parties will have nominees by February. Depending on who gets the respective spots, one has to wonder how many others will run as independents. Most ‘experts’ agree that the person a party nominates is not always the person who is the most electable -- that gets proven again and again. While Howard Dean had really already lost the nomination months before Iowa and his scream (when he peaked too early and members of his family publicly said he could not win, Rudy faces similar problems) but his apparent implosion left Senator John Kerry, whose campaign had been called dead weeks before the caucuses, perfectly poised to step in. Then, as now, the packed primary schedule left no time for other candidates to build on any momentum they had begun to build.
On a purely intellectual level, it will be interesting to watch how the different candidates do. The problem is that this is not an intellectual exercise and the country needs to seriously consider who will lead us after Dubya et al leave the White House. The damage they have done to our standing globally and the way our federal government operates domestically will take more than four years to fix so we need the media to stop yammering about covering the campaign and start actually reporting on the candidates – not their hair, clothes or even poll numbers but their positions. That would be coverage worth watching.
I am technically too young to be curmudgeon but I am about to become one. Ok, I said this would be a political and current events oriented blog but I have to wonder; what happened to manners and good grammar? Was there some decision I missed that made both obsolete?
While the grammar thing bothers me more, to be honest, it is clear that customer service is more important and that has gone to hell, in the US anyway. If I call my credit card or some other company to whom I owe money and want to pay them the person who answers the phone is not doing me a favor by taking my call. In fact anytime I call a company for a service that they offer the customer service representative is not doing me a favor by taking my call. They are doing their job. As someone who has done customer service and technical support for a living I understand how much it sucks to deal with angry customers or constituents, it sometimes sucks to deal with them when they are in a decent mood but you have to be nice to them. They are the reason your job exists and they don’t get paid to be nice and helpful, the customer service representative does so the responsibility to be nice is theirs. I hate it when I call a company and get treated poorly, worse when it is someone who represents me in my government.
And that leads me to my second issue; bad grammar. Does no one care about using their language properly? And you may think you have not done it or seen/heard it but you have. The saying is “I couldn’t care less” NOT “I could care less.” If you could care less then you care at least a little. And plural nouns do not need apostrophes, contractions do. If you want to know what that means, read the previous problem – “couldn’t” is a contraction between could and not and when contracted becomes couldn’t. Also it’s (a.k.a. it is) is the only time that works. I understand people think possessives require apostrophes as in “Sally’s car,” they often overuse them, especially when using “it’s,” as in “Did you see Sally’s car? It’s door has a scratch.” Even if you are referring to a possessive that involves an ‘it,’ such as the example above, you do not need the apostrophe. I mention this because it is one of my biggest pet peeves. My writing is far from perfect but these pop up all the time. I was at the doctor’s appointment and saw a note on my way out telling me that “prescription’s can be picked up at …” WTF? I am supposed to trust my health with someone who cannot speak their native tongue? And the doctor was from New York. It bothers me so much that when I was in New Mexico I could not go to a bar because their special was five dollar pitchers of “margarita’s.”
One reason it bothers me so much is that these signs are not the only place such errors are found. Whenever I get letters from my government, any agency, the letters are fraught with spelling and grammatical errors. I make mistakes, too but my letters, emails and blog posts are not on official letterhead. Does no one proofread these letters? Does no one care about grammar and spelling anymore? Did they ever? There are institutions in France and England that work to maintain the integrity of the respective languages and we do not have that here but maybe we should. This may be part of why we sounds like idiots when we go overseas or to any foreign non-English speaking countries because the locals speak our language better than we do.
I spent a summer living in an apartment with a woman and her teenage daughter. The daughter had left a paper she had written, for English class I think because it was about a book she had read and it was fiction not a science book, and I read it. Should I have? If you think “No, that was private.” I agree and still feel badly for invading her privacy but it wasn’t her journal so I feel a little better but I should not have done it. Having said that, I read the report and it depressed me more than I can say. I could make out what she meant in the paper but it was just a long run-on sentence that was neither a real sentence nor a paragraph. It was missing verbs and most words were misspelled. She was 17 years old and about to graduate high school. It is one thing to speak one way that differs from how you write or to use slang and/or poor grammar for stylistic effect but it is another to not know how to write. Many professionals, such as journalists have stopped using verbs. They use gerunds,(if you are not sure what I mean, you are not dumb lots of people do not know what they are.) A gerund is formed when you take a verb and turn it into a noun by adding ‘ing’ to it. Most major news outlets do it all the time and it annoys the crap out of me because the news industry usually tries to be as succinct as possible but this is not the way to do it, in fact it makes their sentences longer; It bothers me because it sets an example and when people read the paper they assume it is written correctly and then they mimic it. I know what you are thinking, there are much bigger problems to worry about in the world such as war and famine and natural disasters. It bothers me because we are not teaching kids the skills they will need to succeed in any business and good writers are hard to find.
Additionally, more and more I read letters and articles where people confuse a large vocabulary with intelligence. There are words listed in the New York Times’ Style Book that call certain words ‘more pretentious versions” of other words and recommend using the smaller word. Granted, that is a stylistic difference of opinion not grammatical/spelling error but I have also noticed people either use larger words or longer phrases than needed. They also do something worse; if they do not know a larger word for one they know, they make it up. I got and email that used this technique to the point where I had to call to find out what they meant, the message made no sense at all.
In my opinion, this is a sign of the downfall of our civilization. No, I am not kidding. Anyone who knows me knows I am not kidding. There are countries where violence against women has been a huge problem. One way they dealt with it was to crack down on ‘cat calling’ and other offensive behaviour. It may seem odd but the rational behind it is that when you create an environment where one kind of behaviour is allowed it leads to worse behaviour and crime. I think the same can be said about language. Words are powerful. What words and how we choose to use them says a lot about us as people and as a society.
Our words do more than express a thought or two but they define us and we should care about that.
Hillary’s back to her old theme of Stand by Your Man and gets support from some unlikely places.
This week, Senator Hillary Clinton came out and said that a vote for her is a vote to ratify her decision to stay with her husband through the problems and embarrassment he caused her. Politically, it helps her as many who disliked her prior to her show of loyalty during the Lewinsky scandal, a lot of these same people reacted the same way when she did the same thing during the 1992 campaign when the couple appeared on TV to explain how their marriage had weathered problems before and their love for each other and a lot of work had gotten them through it. Sure, speculation runs rampant around this union – is it a marriage of convenience? Is it a political union only? My only question is, why is it anyone’s business?
It is easy to understand why Hillary is doing this. There are people for whom Hillary represents a lot that they do not like but when she remained loyal to her husband, they were impressed and it seems her recent statement will only help her widen her lead in the national polls. With most of the primaries and caucuses around the corner, it is not a bad time to get a bump in that area.
This also brings up what I like to call the “F you factor.” With the longest presidential campaign cycle in history, politicians, pundits and pollsters have all combed through almost all factors that will determine who get the support from voters but they are overlooking this unusual but key factor. What is it? Many women of all political stripes and parties feel when Hillary is attacked for being a woman or for anything she has done in her personal life – remember she did not have the affair that led to the impeachment hearings, it offends a lot of people. One friend reported to me that a friend of hers said something very interesting. They live in a very conservative area in the south, a place where I would not expect to find many Hillary supporters but they are there. The friend said that all the talk about how women are not capable of running the country or that they would not be able to make the decisions a Commander in Chief needs to make and all that talk combined with comments about her hair or what she chooses to wear makes this women want to say “F&@% you! I am voting for Hillary. And she plans to vote that way, which will be the first time she will ever cast her vote for a Democrat. All of her female friends plan to do the same thing.
People talk about taking this or that group for granted and in a time when most pundits said the ‘soccer moms’ has turned into ‘security moms.’ The assumption continues by using that to give the reasons these women will always vote for Republican presidential candidates who will keep them and their families safer. That assumption has lost all credibility now. Rudy Giuliani remains a front runner due to his actions on 9/11 because the world has not changed but our view of it and our place in it has. Even I was comforted by his words that day but even women who may vote on one or two issues may turn to Hillary because of the sense that when she is attacked so are they. If I can see this, all the GOP candidates must at the very least have consultants who should tell them that whenever she is attacked her positives go up. In 2000 her campaign and a debate against Congressman Rick Lazio got a bit boost when he approached her during one of their debates. He walked over to her podium and asked her a very pointed question. Hillary’s polls numbers spiked because he seemed to be attacking her physically and people weren’t comfortable. It’s a funny thing, she is a woman and as much as we like to think sexism is dying and chivalry is long dead, it was a defining moment. In the spirit of full disclosure, Lazio’s campaign was just awful. He was in so far over his head that is was almost painful to watch.
Personally, I think the ‘F-you’ factor is a great thing. I feel like women are finally benefiting from the years of discrimination we have endured. I am glad people are offended when Hillary is attacked for being a woman. Oh and one last note,
Happy Birthday Senator!
New York is an interesting place. The city is full of everything you can ever want including a lot of sports. Being a huge media market, it can afford two big baseball teams; the Yankees and Mets. The manner in which both teams treated their Manager shows there is more than just a river that separates the two.
I would like to say this shows that one team has a lot more integrity than the other but the Mets have fired more good people than I can count and anyone who is a real baseball fan appreciates the Yankee franchise.
At the end of the season both teams had a decision to make, whether to keep their manager or find a new one. Despite their train wreck at the end of the season, the Mets decided to keep Willie Randolph. Yes, they went from having a seven and a half lead over the Phillies just weeks before the end of regular season play, they failed to reach the playoffs. As a Met fan, this is not so surprising. Seeing as the only inning that matters is the ninth -- if they are ahead by 7 runs going in, they may lose the game while going in seven behind they may win. I have watched them do this, and also break my heart more often that I like to remember, countless times. They stuck with Randolph because he is a good manager and has done an excellent job.
Joe Torre was not technically fired but was offered a one year contract that cut his pay by over 30 percent. As the second most winningest coach in the Yankees' history, it was a total slap in the face and he was right to walk away. He doesn't need the aggravation or that sort of treatment. I believe he brought that team to the playoffs just about every year he was there, if that is not a great track record (this is 12 years of success), what is? George Steinbrenner's penchant for firing managers is legendary and he didn't discuss his thought process behind this ridiculous decision with me so I cannot even claim to understand what they did. Any problems they had with Torre should have been discussed privately. If they wanted him gone they should have given him a chance to retire -- he has had a great career, anyone would understand that he may be tired of such a demanding job.
The Yankees (né the Orioles in Baltimore and renamed the New York Highlanders when they moved to NY and the current Orioles were the Milwaukee Brewers before moving to Baltimore) have one of the longest and greatest histories in baseball. While my Mets were born in 1962, the Yankees formed their team in 1901 and are one of the oldest teams in the sport. This recent episode may not be the worst thing they have done but it certainly is not their finest hour. Other than strikes, which do irreparable damage to any sport, behaving this way hurts as well. With so many sports calling out for the public's attention, this is not the time to give fans any more reason to turn the channel or just not pay attention.
The 2008 presidential cycle is already the most ridiculous in our history. Not only is it the longest ever, most candiates began in 2006 or before and Senator Clinton has been unofficially running since 1992 by some estimates and 2000 by others (during her first Senate campaign she accidentally started a sentance with "Once I am in the White House..." oopsie.) Others waited longer but not really.
Now the race turned to the states and their rush to be first. New Hampshire is toying with moving their date up to Decemeber 2007 and Iowa has talked about holding their caucuses on January 1st. STOP THE INSANITY!! This abbreviated yet drawn out process helps no one. It's worse for Democrats. Now that the California prex primary has been moved up, it will still hold a second election when the other was originally scheduled -- June. The problem is that it can be hard enough to get people out to one election in a year much less two but make no mistake the June election is extremely important. My view is democracy, like many other things, needs to be taken in moderation and they have taken their form a little far. In this case, they have a ballot initiative that would alter how their electoral votes are distributed. Currently states generally give them all to the winner of the popular vote in that state. The California proposal would divvy them up by Congressional district and give many more to the Republicans. It is well funded, by right leaning groups and has a decent chance of passing, especially given the projected low voter turnout. This is bad, bad, bad for Democrats who would lose key votes and end up spending a lot more time and California than normally. That part is not the real issue. The issue is that it is primarily Republican state with a few but large Democratic enclaves. Changing the system this way essentially hands the GOP at least 30 electoral votes.
Several other states have toyed with changing how their votes are allocated from using the popular vote in their state to that of the nation. The goal of the current system, devised before Americans could vote directly for the President makes the most sense to me still pushing all the primaries up so we have winners on both sides by February is just insane.
Dem Chairman Howard Dean took an idea Republicans toyed with -- I think back in the 1980's -- he proposed the country be divided into zones and each would have their primary on a day set one or two months apart to give candidates a chance to spend time in the states in each zone. It seems like a great idea. Having spent a lot of time in Iowa, I understand why California wants more of a say. Iowa, for all of its charm, is hardly representative of the country (and those who will point out that several recent presidents lost there, like Bill Clinton but other races have been decided. I think Senator Kerry became the frontrunner there because of Dean's inevitable implosion that just happened to occur in Iowa and the fact that the other primaries were so close together meant that other candidates who were gaining momentum just stopped -- John Edwards was one such candidate).
This cycle presents a quandary. We have both too little and too much time to decide. There have been debates every month but who is really watching? Consultants? Donors? Media? Maybe a few political junkies (not me). and then we don't have enough time when it matters.
A sad state of affairs, indeed.
Jon Krakauer's book Into the Wild (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Wild, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Krakauer ) has finally been made into a movie (http://www.intothewild.com/) and my first thought was, It's about time! I am a huge fan of Mr. Krakauer's writing and all of his books are on my favorites list. Under the Banner of Heaven (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_Banner_of_Heaven) was the most recent that I read so it is in my list of favorite books on this site but the book everyone has heard about, Into Thin Air, is a great book. When I trekked to Mt. Everest, it is sold at EVERY STOP ALONG THE WAY (and that seems a little counter-intuitive but it sells there and it is the least developed nation on earth).
Into the Wild is about a young man, Chris McCandless, who gave up all his money a gave into his instinct to go "anywhere but here." It was this aspect of his life that attracted me to the book and was very excited to see the movie. The only thing I would not have done that he does is burn the cash I have but also it's different for women, I would not feel safe hitchhiking around America (or anywhere else) and so some of the things he was able to do.
Honestly I had read about Chris before I read the book. News reports sais a young man died in Alaska and the general consensus was that he was young, inexperienced and stupid so he died as a result of his own mistakes. I bought into that completely and had little sympathy. My judgement came too early, and I feel badly about that. Then I read the Krakauer book and felt I better understood this man's purpose and what happened. The real tragedy is his few miscalculations (there was a spot that was pretty close to the bus he called home in Alaska where he could have crossed that river and had he known that the story would have a much different ending.
Most reviews I have read of the book have been bad and I do think you need to have read the book to enjoy the movie but I liked it. I think it did not fully explain some of Chris' reasons for doing what he did but it exelled at showing the impact he had on the lives of everyone who met him when he was on his adventure and how his disappearance affected his family. Both show one lesson he learned was clear: Happiness is only real when it is shared.
We live in a time when most Americans are more connected (internet, cell phones, IM, etc.) to each other but really disconnected to other people and nature. Most Americans spend their nights working or watching TV. TV is one of the most isolating thing. People come home and fufil part of Timothy Leary's ideas, they 'turn on and drop out.' People elsewhere do not do this. They spend their evenings either alone or with family but with the TV on, absorbed by whatever is on.
I get why this man ran away from the materialistic life he had always had and appreciate how freeing is must have felt to be on his own, for the first time in his life and be out there -- meeting new people and experiencing totally new things. I understand it because I try to do the same thing, though I cannot be as carefree as him but have taken several trips to places so remote there was no way to reach me unless you came and found me. I took a lot of precautions he never would have but it is so important to disengage from time to time. I challenge anyone who reads this to do just that: Take a trip to a place with no cell coverage or internet access. That's a tall order so if you cannot find a place like that, just turn the phone off on your next vacation. This is not meant to trivialize Chris' life or experiences but show that we can all learn something from him.
There is something I tell politicians (and others), when you are speaking to a group of people, you need to know that they are the most important people on earth. Do not check your blackberry when the person before you speaks because it is rude to them and your audience but we should think that way about the people we are with at gatherings of friends or family or whenever we go someplace new. We should learn to live in the moment and appreciate everything for what it is and not spend our time worrying about some work thing (and when you are on vacation, leave all the work accoutrements at home, there is nothing you can do about any crisis that occurs and if you spend your personal time doing work, you have missed the point). I saw a show where they interviewed really old people (over 90) and not one said "I wish I spent more time at the office." They all said they regretted not spending more time with friends and family and not telling the people about whom they cared that they loved them. That is the lesson Chris (not knowing him it's probably me projecting) tells us.
Happiness is not real unless it is shared. Chris McCandless aka Alexander Supertramp.
Now that he has won the Nobel Prize it seems only natural to me that he jump into 2008 campaign and run -- it feels like he spent his entire life readying himself to be president and caught a bad break in 2000 but times have changed. The issue he championed in his book Earth in the Balance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_in_the_Balance), global warming may not be the top issue on Americans' minds but it has moved up the ladder. Honestly, Iraq still tops the list of what people care -- and there are plenty of good reasons for that, as a short-term issue there is no more important one facing our country.
The long-term is a different story. Our dependence on oil is one of the reasons we are in this Iraq mess (or so many people think). When we invaded Iraq there was another cruel dictator who remains a real threat to us, Kim Jung Il, has always posed a bigger threat than anyone else. And just a side note; by attacking a county without nuclear weapons to remove one without them just inspires would be nuclear powers (look at Iran) to build them.
Back on point: global warming is the most important issue of this generation. We need to find new, renewable sources of energy, we need to conserve -- give up our gass guzzling cars, that make up a huge amount of the energy we use, if every house went solar tomorrow we would still have to deal with transportation, look at things like ethanol -- though Brazil imports no oil because of their own reserves and the fact that they use sugar to make ethanol but it's not a perfect solution, the water required for this conversion has sucked up a lot of that important resource there and heed the other suggestions made by groups studying the problem. It's a security issue that affects our national and economic security. People talk a lot about getting us off oil so that we do not have to depend on our allies in the Middle East but we should be as selfsufficient as possible, we have already let China buy all our bonds we need to reclaim at least part of our country. Additionally, there are great jobs in this industry -- the 'green business.' There are good, non-outsourseable jobs in this industry. We need people to develop the technology and show people how to use it. There are a million of options here, all were championed by Al Gore long before it was popular to do so.
I was never an Al Gore 'fan' if you will but I have read his book and watched his movie and thought they were both brilliant. That's one of his problems. Bill Clinton is the best politician of my time (David Brooks of the NY Times said the only campaigner who comes close is John Edwards) but he is the reason we have Dubya living in the White House. I do not think Dubya is an idiot, regardless of how I feel about him personally, he is not a dumb man except for the way in which he has governed but that's the stuff of books not blog posts. Bill Clinton is brilliant but he is also 'Bubba.' He is a guy people would like to go for a beer with. In 2000, his personality was split into two people; Al Gore was the brilliant side and George W. Bush was the fun guy. At their heart, campaigns at every level, are popularity contests, and I have heard more than one person say "I voted for Dubya because he reminded me of Bill Clinton." Their policies are very different but his public and privare personas are very different. In small meetings or at small events, he can be a really nice and funny (I mean that) person. On TV, during that election cycle, he was stiff and boring. The Mets were in the playoffs that year and I watched the Met game one night while the debate was on Granted I had made up my mind, NY is a D state so I did not think it would hurt anyone and a girl has to have priorities.
Now that both parties have had 100 debates each and even political junkies are not watching so all they are doing is provide the other side with footage for campaign ads, I think Mr. Gore should jump in. Shake things up a little. People might be pissed, they've been running for a lifetime already -- who is he to join the race now? He is the last Democract to win a presidential campaign, that's who. He may not live at 1600 PA Ave, NW but his new, relaxed nature and the substance of his work and ideas would add some much needed fresh air to a campaign -- that has more than a year left -- desperately needs.
Is Al Gore the best candidate? No one will know until he runs therefore I say, run Al, RUN!
Despite the fact that it is very unlikely that his guilty plea can be overturned, he does not seen poised to go anywhere.
Just repeating the point that if he really is gay, he should just have been less homophobic before and then he would not be in this mess. Silly, silly Senator.
This has been an interesting week for the US and Iran. Brought here to speak to the UN’s General Assembly, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did himself (or Iran) any favors by continuing to make comments denying the holocaust, that homosexuals even exist in Iran and generally poking at US policy wherever he could. The problem is while his first two comments are ridiculous, his criticism of American policy vis-à-vis our treatment of ‘enemy combatants’ and ordinary American citizens has been deplorable.
Here we have this idea, and I have heard it all over the US , that we are some beacon of freedom and democracy – our intentions are always good, we always wear white hats and our goal is always to make the world safe for everyone. The main problems with that is it does not match up with our record. We do what is best for the US. There are a few reasons there is no shame in that alone. We all act to do whatever is best for us. The problem for the US is that it spent the better part of the last century becoming the ‘last remaining super-power.’ That title doesn’t carry a trophy or prize but a world of responsibility. When countries look for a role model the idea was that they would look to us. Lofty goal, yes, was it met? Not by a long shot.
It would be easy to blame the current administration – and I will focus on their wrongdoings because I was alive during them and thus remember them but also because they are more relevant to today’s issues.
People like to say the terrorists hate us because we are free. In one way, that is true. We are free – to do whatever the hell we want to whomever we want, wherever and whenever we want. You cannot simultaneously exalt the ‘rule of law’ while abandoning it.
I have a hard time starting the next part of this because which is worse? The illegal wiretappibng of American citizens? The new rule that says any American traveling anywhere can be killed legally by their own government because they should know there may be terrorists around them? Or the way we treat non-citizens. Because their treatment has been the worst, let’s start there.
Torture is bad. It is bad for the people being tortured, obviously, but it is bad for the people doing the torturing. Before I muddle things up with the ‘why it doesn’t work’ argument, let me remind you that THE US DOES NOT TORTURE OTHERS SO THAT ITS OWN SOLDIERS ARE NOT TORTURED. At a GOP presidential debate only one Republican said he opposed its use. Surprise, surprise; it was John McCain. A New Yorker article (look it up it was from last spring I believe) was about the hit show ’24.’ Military officials approached the show and asked them to tone down the torture, why? Because people on the ground watch Jack Bauer (the show’s protagonist) use these methods with success and have asked ‘why can’t we do that?’ Good question:
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The US’ use of torture sets a precedent. Any two-bit dictator – or other nut with some power – gets the moral authority to torture anyone because, ‘hey, the US does it’ is actually a good reason, being that we are this example.
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“They did it, so now we can.” This was the argument Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) brought up last year in hearings with former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, who wrote the administration’s position on the subject. In his briefs on how to treat the ‘enemy combatants’ at Gitmo and elsewhere he said the Geneva Convention is ‘quaint’ and does not apply to anything we do. A bad idea given the above precedent it sets. I know one and two are pretty much the same but it is such a big deal that it deserves repeating.
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These tactics so not work does not work. Guilty people, and if you are talking about some groups who see dying for their cause as a great thing that will send them straight to heaven so torture will not get these people to talk. Innocent people with no information or training in how to deal with it may talk but nothing they say will be useful intelligence. If you hurt (physically or psychologically) or scared enough they will say anything they think` you want to hear just to make it stop. This is the reason numerous confessions have been thrown out in our judicial system – because police can lie to suspects and after many hours of being scared and alone, people do confess to crimes they did not commit just to get out of that situation. (Best thing about the Law & Order shows is they have educated many people about what their rights are.)
The erosion of our Bill of Rights is a bad thing.
In 1978 Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in response to fears about how the Nixon administration might have been listening in to its people. It is a court, whose proceedings are secret – like Grand Jury proceedings, that makes sure our law enforcement has what it needs to keep us and our freedoms safe. We have a right to privacy in this country and the Fourth Amendment protects us from ‘illegal search and seizure.’ Under FISA any law enforcement agency can listen in to any conversation it wants and can do so for three days and then get a warrant from the FISA court. I think the number of warrants denied since the court’s creation has been about five. Thomas Jefferson said, “When the people fear their government, it is tyranny. When the government fears its people, it is democracy.”
Moreover, to me this goes to the heart of the argument that ‘they hate us because we are free.’ While I have already said I that is wrong but even if true, it seems to counter-intuitive to do whatever you can to make our citizens less free by violating our basic civil rights.
Back to Iran…
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seems like he adds something stronger than sugar to his coffee in the morning. Some of his comments lately included:
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Women in Iran are the freest people in the world.
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Iranians are the freeist people in the world.
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The Holocaust never happened.
The real threat Iran poses right now is what happens when it develop nuclear weapons (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/28/AR2007092802342_2.html). The claim is their nuclear intentions are strictly for its energy potential but his administration’s credibility leaves much to be desired.
The real problem is our president has given their president excuses to do terrible things to its own people and develop a nuclear weapons program and should they need a template for how to do it, President Bush gave it to them.
Stay in the Senate. Keep your name and face on the front page. Keep it up as long you can. Maybe you have a legal defense fund to pay your bills and that will just remind voters a Senator was caught soliciting anonymous, homosexual sex in a bathroom. It's too bad he belongs to such an ant-gay Party, then he could have gone out and met a consensual partner, had himself a grand old time, kept his job in the Senate -- hey, no harm, no foul right?
Wrong. There's been lots of harm inflicted by the Senator himself. He has always been one of the biggest opponents of granting civil rights to gays and lesbians. His actions are so deplorable because of the hypocrisy goes beyond his any gay feelings. Senator claims he did not understand the forms he signed, and he was fixture on the Senate Judiciary Committee? Can he read? Can he find a lawyer who can (the papers were filed over a month after the arrest). He had plenty of time to see guidance but he thought he could sign the papers and it would all go away. We all know, know anyway, how Senators and Members of Congress get treated by DC cops, esp. after they have had a few two many and hit the road drunk. Unless they crash (See Rep. Patrick Kennedy), often the police just drive the person home and look the other way.
But back to sex scandals on the GOP side (ever notice most seem to gay related, the page scandal with Mark Foley? And this is the 'anti-gay' Party? I hope Out Magazine publishes the list of gay staffers and members. It is high time we started treating gays and lesbians like citizens and not pariahs. Maybe the Senator Craig could shut off his anti-gay rhetoric hose and start looking for love in places a little less seedy than an airport bathroom.
