commentary on the passing parade

Agree? Disagree? Tell me

My Other Blog

 
DISTURBING IMAGE FROM THE BIG EASY

It’s an image that I can’t get out of my mind - so disturbing that I’ve interrupted my end of year blog break to record my reactions to the execution of 38 year old Anthony Hayes on the streets of New Orleans - an execution pronounced as justified by police chief Warren Riley.

No doubt Mr. Hayes was a disturbed man. Who else but someone not totally aware of the seriousness of his actions would have continued to ignore the orders of more than a dozen police surrounding him with guns drawn and aimed directly at him?? But a "justified’ shooting? A shooting that killed?

The news reports said that earlier in the unfolding incident - police officers attempted to disable the man with pepper spray but were unsuccessful - leaving me to believe that they were either off the mark with their spray attack or the spray had lost its effectiveness.

But what I saw on my television screen was a man exhibiting irrational but - even though he was waving a knife - hardly dangerous behavior while surrounded by police - all with guns drawn. Not a single police officer was prepared in any way to restrain or disarm Mr. Hayes other than to shoot him. And the news reports speak of nine bullets being fired by three different officers.

Justified? A justified way of restraining a man with a knife surrounded by police? The police allege that they opened fire when he "lunged" at one of them!! Lunged? They couldn’t have stepped back out of his "lunging" range? Running at a police officer with a knife raised and ready to strike is something else and would probably call for a gun to be fired - though even then, only a single gun. But I watched the scene on television and Mr. Hayes was waving his knife back and forth more or less aimlessly all the time the police were closing in on him and it didn’t leave an impression that any of the officers were in danger of being harmed.

My mind went back to the incident earlier this month at the Miami airport where the response to another deranged but not dangerous man was to shoot and kill him. And to the London incident where another man was shot dead without cause during the panic that followed the July 7 train and bomb attacks. That was someone who hadn’t even exhibited threatening behavior - just - according to the police who killed him - suspicious behavior. And the London bobby who is an American says he will quit being a bobby if all London beat police aren’t armed with deadly weapons!! That’s London bobbies who have been dealing with and subduing violent offenders for decades without the use of deadly force.

I am not against police being armed with deadly weapons - but there is no way in my mind that I accept summary executions - and let’s face it, that’s what they are - of people who exhibit irrational and even potentially dangerous behavior - as an appropriate police response.

I know street cops in big cities face deadly danger every day - but there’s something wrong with their training or with their leadership if the only way they know how to respond to a situation like that presented by Mr. Hayes is to use deadly force. Apparently in New Orleans - and probably in other metropolitan areas -police don’t carry taser guns or any other non-deadly weapon that might have been used to subdue someone like Riley. That’s something that SWAT teams are supposed to - and the claim is that there wasn’t time to call them in. There was also a ridiculous statement by Chief Riley that the use of a taser would not necessarily have prevented Hayes’ death!!! So what the hell - let’s just use real guns and real bullets.

The last report I read about this incident said there were as many as eighteen police surrounding Mr. Hayes. Apparently that wasn’t a large enough group to distract him so that one or more of them could have knocked the knife from his hand or knocked him out. They had to shoot to kill - which the news reports say they are trained to do. They are not even trained to shoot in any other way such as to "disable" - to aim at a leg or an arm. But I’d be willing to give large odds that if he’d been surrounded by eighteen London bobbies with truncheons drawn, he’d be alive and in a jail cell today - perhaps with a cracked skull but alive - and no one else would have been hurt.

The bystanders who videotaped the confrontation didn’t catch the conclusion - the shooting. But even without it, the image is a disturbing one that lingers because we know how it ended - and no matter what Chief Riley or anyone else says about how the killing was "justified" - I am deeply disturbed at the idea that this is an acceptable way of dealing with irrational people on the streets of New Orleans or any other American city.

posted by Jeff Smith at 12/29/2005 10:05:00 AM

 
SPY AGENCY DEJA VU

I’m still on an end of the year blog break - but just a couple of very brief observations. Since I wrote a few words about the unrestricted and unsanctioned spying on American citizens at the end of my comments of December 21, 2005, some kind of deja vu feeling has been gnawing at me. I figured out what it was this morning. Something that happened to me 40 odd years ago and that I wrote about on July 7, 2004.

That was about the FBI rather than the NSA - but the feeling it left in the gut then is the same as I’m getting now. More plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" - and I wrote about that just below - on December 22, 2005. Could we be in some kind of a time warp that we don’t know how to climb out of??
___________________________

Speaking of spying on citizens of one’s country and other erosions of civil liberties in the name of waging "war" against terrorism. I’m not sure how I feel about the latest news out of England where just about all the things that Tony Blair wanted to do in concert with his American counterpart have been shot down.

My initial reaction to Blair’s initial proposals was positive - and I had a few of my own to offer - (ENGLAND’S NEW "BLACKSHIRTS" - HOME GROWN MUSLIM EXTREMISTS) As you can see, my ideas were specific as opposed to the kind of secret, sweeping authority that Mr., Bush has assumed for himself.

But now it seems that Blair is out of step - with the British public - and with a majority in the House of Commons - including a healthy number of his own Labour party members.

In the effort to control the domestic growth of terrorist ideals and activities, democracies need to strive for balance between the civil liberties that are the bedrock of our civilizations - and the ability to deal with terrorist activities without being hampered by restrictions that those same civil liberties impose.

It isn’t easy - as we can see by what is happening on both sides of the Atlantic. On our side we have a President who many people believe is not just tipping the balance too far away from civil liberties in waging his "war on terrorism" - but doing so illegally, while in England, the situation is almost totally reversed with civil liberties being protected at the possible expense of terrorist organization and rhetoric continuing unchecked.

I think it would be easier to adopt measures in England that would help to put a damper on the activities of their known terrorist advocates than anything being done over here - but I guess the Brits haven’t been quite shocked enough to support the measures that Blair has proposed. I hope he keeps trying and that it doesn’t take something far worse than the July 7, 2005 attack for Parliament and the British public to get angry enough to give Blair’s proposals their stamp of approval.

posted by Jeff Smith at 12/27/2005 02:39:00 PM

 
NO WAR AGAINST CHRISTMAS - BUT SCROOGE IS ALIVE AND WELL

Time for a Christmas/Other Holidays break - the same as last year - except that last year I "broke" on December 19. Looking back at what I was writing about in the last couple of months of 2004, one thing stood out - perhaps if not above all others, at least prominently.

"Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose." The more things change, the more they stay the same.

This year, a "war on Christmas" became a subject of discussion - even though there is no such thing except in the twisted minds of people like Bill O’Reilly. This caricature of a newsman whose continued presence on the air remains a mystery to all except mindless right wingers, didn’t take up this battle cry last year. He could have of course. He could have latched on to the usual outburst of "Christmas Complainers" - people who believe that Christmas has lost its meaning - because they appear regularly at this time of the year and this year is no exception.

The nature of those complaints never seem to change - except for the crazies who point to them as evidence that a war is being waged against Christmas.

So instead of writing about this year’s complaints and this year’s crazies, I’ll just provide the link to what I wrote as I broke for a Christmas season hiatus last December. You will see. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.

And while I’m about it, here’s a link to what I posted here in November of 2004 - three days after last year’s "Black Friday" - the Friday after Thanksgiving when the Christmas shopping season began with a vengeance. It included an ancient piece of fiction about "Christmas" which might be considered prophetic if there really is a war and the "let’s stamp out Christmas": crowd wins.

But even though there wasn’t any "war" against Christmas last year and there isn’t one in progress this year except in the minds of a few nuts, there has been and always will be Scrooges among us. Yesterday, the Scrooge of 2005 reared his ugly head and identified himself. The Senate passed a so called budget bill only because Dick Cheney was called back from his overseas travels to cast a tie breaking vote. The Senate was locked 50/50. Even some Republicans couldn’t stomach what the administration wanted to do to reduce the deficit that it has been building since it came to power. On the backs of the least among us. Cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and student loans.

But it wasn’t Cheney who earned the title of Scrooge of 2005. It was the leader of the Senate - long distance medical diagnostician via videotape images Dr. Bill Frist. Multi- millionaire Bill Frist. Dr. Frist announced the passage of the budget bill with a triumphant flourish. And as to those whose lives will be affected by the cuts? "People will have to learn to make do with less" said Dr. Scrooge. Or words to that effect.

Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?

And a merry Christmas to all.

posted by Jeff Smith at 12/22/2005 04:09:00 PM

 
ARE WE BEING SPOOKED??

I’ve written about this before. E-mails that arrive with strange subject lines, the actual content of which are simply sales pitches for drugs or watches or tips on a "hot" stock. In the past, I’ve deleted such e-mails without giving them a second thought. Or a first thought for that matter. But I’ve always wondered why they do it - these individuals or companies trying to sell me something. Why the ridiculous subject lines? It certainly isn’t going to make the swift deletion of these annoying solicitations any less swift. So why?

Here’s a handful from the past couple of days - and indeed they purport to be selling prescription drugs, recommending "hot" stocks and suggesting Internet sits to visit for reasons unknown.

A hear in cuffs tension
malfeasant, and committeewomen
bantu on Shina, try jacksonville
Re: asylum Jill
Re: Be clean on precision
complain but Robinia, it testify

And as usual, I deleted them as fast as I could, But yesterday, I began to wonder if this was the right thing to do. Or if there was something else that I should be doing. Yesterday, I was no longer sure that these were annoying and unsolicited but otherwise harmless intrusions into my e-mail in-box, because yesterday I learned that an unchecked big brother in the form of the National Security Agency might be monitoring my communications with fellow citizens or with overseas correspondents.

I know the news was about "wiretapping" which makes you think that the snooping is only on telephone conversations - but I also know that if "viruses" and "worms" can get inside my computer and take over its operation - monitoring my e-mail must be child’s play for the super spooks at the NSA.

But having thought about it, I’m beginning to believe that if it is happening, the NSA isn’t just monitoring my communications - they are attempting to affect them. - and me!! Look at those seemingly innocuous and meaningless subject headings. Then look again - but carefully. Call me a conspiracy theorist if you will, but you’ll need to be very persuasive to convince me that these messages aren’t sending some sort of signal to my computer and through my computer to me.

Look at the subject headings. "Tension!!!" What do you think that is saying to my hard drive? "Malfeasant!!" It doesn’t need any interpretation. And I’m not even a public official. These people don’t care. They’ll use any weapon available to them to get what they want. "Try!!" Yeah - an innocuous word in most circumstances unless it’s the verb that describes what goes on when they haul you away and in front of a judge - if you’re lucky!! What we’re finding out is that these people don’t believe in courts and judges and "trying" you for your malfeasance. No wonder you’re tense!!

Then "asylum" Are they offering me a deal or telling me in a not too subtle way where I’m going to finish up if I don’t let down my firewall and tell them everything I know? (But I don’t know anything. Really). And who’s Jill? I know a Jill but she can’t be their Jill. If she is, she’s the best deep cover spook that ever was.

And " clean" and "precision" in a single e-mail subject heading. Forcing me to come clean or preparing to "clean" me with "precision?" Any doubt left about why this whole assault began with "tension?" At least they combine a warning with their initial onslaught! And finally "complain." Yes, that privilege of American citizenship hasn’t yet been declared unconstitutional by our Royal President and his spying minions - but the caveat is clear. There’s no free lunch in the new America. Complain yes - but testify!! "Or else" being understood.

Now of course by selecting just the messages with strange subject matter descriptions that arrived during the past two days, I may be jumping to conclusions about what they mean and how they might be affecting me and my computer. If I were to go back and gather all such incoming communications for the past week - or month - or even a longer period, a cryptographer might come up with an entirely different interpretation. But since the NSA activities have been made public only over the past couple of days, I’m inclined to believe that they have stopped trying to be subtle about their eavesdropping activities and are following their leader’s example with an "in your face assault" on my privacy - and yours.

What can be done about this? Not much I’m afraid - other than to avoid using language in outgoing e-mails that could buy us a ticket to a midnight ride to an undisclosed location for a little friendly Q and A.

On a more serious note, I’m still appalled when I hear the partisan take on all of this coming from the radio talkmeisters. When you listen to the garbage that some of the right wing ranters and ravers spout - as I did driving around today and punching from one station to another - you wonder if we’re ever going to become a nation where the overwhelming majority of our citizenry will put the best interests of the country above political partisanship.

At least there are some Republicans in the Senate who are questioning the President’s assertion that he has an absolute right to spy on American citizens without any court approval. But the radio pundits will have none of it. To them, there is no limit to the assertion of unchecked presidential power in this "war on terror" - and they don’t see any possible danger in allowing such activities to go on unchecked. Hey, they say, tell me what civil liberties are being violated. Show me anyone who has had his civil liberties violated. Where are all the people complaining about their civil liberties being violated?

It brings to mind the words attributed to the German Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemoller.

First they came for the Communists. I was silent. I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists. I was silent. I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews. I was silent. I was not a Jew. Then they came for me. There was no one left to speak for me.

There are various versions translated from the German, some including Catholics and Social Democrats as those for whom "they" came - but they all more or less say the same thing and the moral is obvious. It’s a pity that the right wing ranters and ravers don’t see it.

posted by Jeff Smith at 12/21/2005 02:50:00 PM

 
DISTURBING TELEVISION IMAGES

From Iraq………

Elizabeth Vargas - who along with Bob Woodruff has been selected to fill the enormously large reportorial shoes left by the late Peter Jennings, was in Iraq recently, co-anchoring the ABC World News Tonight program from there. A few days ago she did a special piece - an interview with a group of American servicemen and women about how they viewed their mission . I’ve always thought of Vargas as a serious news person and I was truly astonished to see that kind of report as part of the evening newscast. Not that a news anchor shouldn’t report on how service people that he or she interviews view their mission - promising them anonymity - as would any good print reporter wanting to get unvarnished truths. But to put a group before a camera and ask them to tell the American people how they think things are going in Iraq is something quite different.

It was exactly as expected. I would have staked my life on what the group of service people would say. They were all positive and proud of what they were doing. The mission was "nation building" - though no one used that term. But there were none in the group who even looked as though they had a critical thought in their head about what they were doing there and how their mission was going.

Surely Vargas knew that the only comments she was going to get from any military personnel willing to do an interview that would be broadcast coast to coast - very likely personnel who had been given permission to do such an interview - and almost certainly to be viewed by military brass - would be little more than echoes of the President’s rosy assessment of the mission and it’s progress. One has to wonder - was she taken in or a willing participant in a charade?

I’m not saying that the men and women in the group weren’t sincere in their comments. When you’re putting your life on the line every day, it helps to believe that what you’re doing is noble and worth while. But not everyone over there or who has been fortunate enough to come back in one piece thinks that way and what I’m saying is that any military personnel who would openly criticize the mission while they were still on duty - who would suggest that they were there under false pretenses, would very likely be committing military career suicide - and they’re not going to make themselves available for an ABC World News interview with Elizabeth Vargas. Nor would military brass give permission for a network interview where they knew the interviewees would be critical of their mission.

So for Vargas to present this kind of set piece as part of the news - indeed as news was in my view somewhat out of place. It might have pleased the people who complain that not enough "good" news gets reported out of Iraq but it was almost as disturbing an image to me as was the rehearsal of the President’s "spontaneous" dialog with troops in Iraq in October.
____________________________

And Chicago…….

Of Whom Dick The Butcher Spoke?? ( King Henry the Sixth, Part Two)

.The accident at Midway Airport in Chicago that resulted in the tragic death of a six year old child who had the misfortune to be in one of two cars that were struck by a Southwest Airlines plane that broke through a barrier and into the street December 8, is under investigation by the National Transportation Board. Preliminary findings indicate that one of the causes could be attributed to where the plane touched down on the short runway, leaving very little room in slippery conditions form the brakes to bring the aircraft to a stop.

The investigation is far from over and there will be many factors that the NTSB will consider before issuing a final report.

But for several days after the accident, television news programs brought us the image of the dead child’s "family attorney" asserting that the accident was totally a case of pilot error - comparing it to a car being driven too fast for conditions and quoting the family as saying that Southwest Airlines murdered the child.

The words weren’t spoken but you could hear them between the lines just as you can often read unspoken statements between the lines of what appears in print. There’s going to be a lawsuit. Probably an open and shut lawsuit that will be settled without a trial. There’ll be big bucks and I get one third!!!

Why else would a "family attorney" be making any kind of statement for the television camera and microphones? He has nothing to offer in the way of information - perhaps other than to state the obvious - that the family of the dead child is grieving. For that matter, why on earth would the television stations even put this guy on the air with his accusative statements when the NTSB investigation is in its infancy?

It’s bad enough that this attorney is acting like the model for every attorney joke ever written by trying to assign culpability in advance of an investigation. There’s no excuse for the broadcast media accommodating his efforts to lay the groundwork for the inevitable law suit.

posted by Jeff Smith at 12/20/2005 01:18:00 PM

 
REACTION TO A SPEECH I DIDN’T HEAR

I didn’t watch or listen to the President’s speech last night because I’ve long since given up on hearing anything from him about Iraq that I could think of as being helpful - to me or to the problems of post Saddam Iraq. And certainly not to the "war on terror." I lived through a real war where the leader of the country that I was living in told its citizens what they were facing and why and inspired them to "stay the course" of that era. I didn’t know Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill was never a friend of mine. But I can say with some degree of confidence that George W Bush is no Winston Churchill and that’s just one of the reasons why I frequently pass on opportunities to listen to him. Believe me, there are many more.

And since Suzanne Ryan of the Boston Globe interviewed 87 year of Mike Wallace earlier this month, his answer to a question posed by her pops into my head just about every time I see or accidentally hear or hear about President Bush.

She said "President George W. Bush has declined to be interviewed by you. What would you ask him if you had the chance?" And Wallace answered:

"What in the world prepared you to be the commander in chief of the largest superpower in the world? In your background, Mr. President, you apparently were incurious. You didn't want to travel. You knew very little about the military. . . . The governor of Texas doesn't have the kind of power that some governors have. . . . Why do you think they nominated you? . . . Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that the country is so [expletive] up?"

Use your own word where it says "expletive." I’ve picked mine and it applies.

And of course you can imagine why Mr. Bush would never agree to be interviewed by Mike Wallace. The people who he does agree to be interviewed by would never ask such a question.

For example. when Jim Lehrer interviewed the President for the News Hour’s December 16, 2005 broadcast, the question of alleged connections between Iraq and 9/11 came up as follows:

LEHRER: So the question is, was there intelligence at the time, that you had, that indicated that Saddam Hussein and Iraq were capable and about to do the same kind of thing--hit the continental United States in a 9/11 type attack?

BUSH: No, and others have said, well, you know-- there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the attack of 9/11. I agree. I've never said that and never made that case prior to going into Iraq.

LEHRER: So they're not related, in a way, directly?

There’s no way to know whether or not Mike Wallace or anyone else would have held the President’s feet to the fire with one quote after another linking the two - from him and more directly from Cheney. There was even an attempt to continue that link in his answer to Lehrer’s softball question closing out the Iraqi/9/11 connection issue.

BUSH: Well, I think they are related in the war on terror because he had terrorist connections, as you might remember.

The link to the transcript of that interview is on this page and maybe you might think that it was a worth while half hour or more.

For me, I’ve pretty much concluded that the interviews and press conferences and speeches of this administration are never going to reveal anything worth while to the American public - or to the world for that matter. The President and his cohorts have the scenario that they’ve created and their answers to questions are all pre-scripted from the master script of that scenario.

I’m not saying that they wouldn’t stick to it just as religiously with aggressive questioning and aggressive follow ups - if such things were permitted - but just as in Question Time in the British House of Commons - while you might not get the answers you’re looking for, at least you’d stand a better chance of getting the right questions!!

*******
And this morning there was a press conference that I partially heard while driving but that I just couldn’t listen too any more after I heard him say that he had the right to monitor phone calls of citizens within the United States without going through the FISA court and that his authority was in the Consitution and in the "authorization of force by the US Congress."

It’s amazing. Truly amazing. He’s practically challenging Congress to vote a bill of impeachment, knowing that they’ll lie down and let him trample all over the constitution that he says he relies on to commit impeachable acts!!

We need a shift in the balance of Congressional power next year - if not to impeach, at least to call a halt to this march from a Republic to a Presidential monarchy

__________________________

Time for more discussion of religion…..

Which will be appearing on this blog shortly. I’ve stayed away too long and arguments are raging hot and heavy - in newspapers and magazines and on call in radio talk programs.

Meanwhile, while I’m closely monitoring the letters selected for publication in the Chicago Tribune’s "Voice of the People" section, to document my contention that something screwy is going on in that section of that newspaper, I was pleasantly surprised over the week-end to find a letter putting the religion/evolution/intelligent design argument into a neatly stated perspective.

posted by Jeff Smith at 12/19/2005 11:39:00 AM

 
MORE NONSENSE IN THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Regarding my comments of Wednesday about the Chicago Tribune, here are two sample letters both published on December 7, 2005 - an ominous date on which you might think a major American newspaper would opt to publish letters from readers about the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. But on this 64th anniversary of our entry into World War 11 , it published several pieces of utter nonsense.

One - a hate letter about Democrats suggests that "the annihilation of nearly 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001 - men, women and children- means nothing to them."

Apart from the fact that the letter contains easily checked inaccuracies regarding the number of people killed and their nationalities - a carefully calculated total of 2752 in the World Trade Center of which an estimated 500 were from 91 different countries - plus 147 passengers and crew on the two crashed planes, some of whom were also not Americans - one has to wonder why a Tribune editor would decide to publish such an obvious piece of hate filled nonsense.

It may be someone’s "opinion" that the murder of thousands of Americans mean nothing to Democrats - but there are also those who hold the "opinion" that Jews slaughter Christian babies in order to use their blood to make matzo. Would the Tribune publish such a letter with the justification that it’s one man’s opinion and that he’s entitled to voice it? I think not. But the deaths at the World Trade Center on 9/11 meaning nothing to Democrats? Does some editor at the paper agree with that ridiculous canard? Is that why it found it’s way onto the pages of the Chicago Tribune? Is that why it wasn’t tossed into the nearest wastebasket?

The publication of letters that contain factual inaccuracies is a frequent event at the Tribune. Obviously, they don’t check factual assertions. If they like a letter for whatever reason, in it goes, complete with whatever lies and distortions it contains.

A second letter on the same day also attacked Democrats - this time for not being as charitable as Republicans, alleging that "Democrats don’t give their own money to charities; they only want to give away other people’s money." Italics added by me.

It just seems to me that these kinds of ridiculous assertions which might pass as routine commentary from someone like Rush Limbaugh - or perhaps even excused as fair game in a bitter political contest, should never find their way onto the pages of a serious metropolitan newspaper - other perhaps than part of a regular feature about "The Nuts Among Us."

The Tribune, which often will not publish any letter criticizing or refuting published nonsense letters, does provide a place where this can be done on their web site. But the print edition boasts a daily circulation of close to 600,000. Anybody want to guess how many people read letters to the editor on line???

I’ll be back to this subject soon. Maybe here. Maybe at a new web site
______________________

The President Finally Explains Iraq. They attacked US!!

I didn’t get to hear the President’s latest speech about Iraq on Wednesday - but fortunately - I guess since he’s so darn proud of everything he says - a full transcript is available at the White House web site.

I needed to check it because of what I heard someone on the radio say the President said. It didn’t surprise me. The President has said many things about the Iraq adventure that sound like they were lifted from the works of Lewis Carroll, so I’m no longer surprised when he comes up with another zinger.

And indeed when I checked it, I found that it was quoted correctly. "The United States did not choose war -- the choice was Saddam Hussein's." So there!! Now you know!!!

We had no desire to go to war. We didn’t want to face Saddam’s mighty army, navy and air force armed to the teeth with their weapons of mass destruction. It was Saddam Hussein who chose to go to war with us. It was Hussein who forced the war upon us!!

Now it can be told. Saddam’s famous "Bring ‘em On" speech at the Bijou Mosque in downtown Tikrit, carried by Al Jazeera and broadcast to the entire Arab world but blacked out in the US by the liberal media that wanted to keep the news from the American public . But a full transcript of Saddam’s declaration of war against the Great Satan can be found at what me lie?. If the page doesn’t come up, you can be sure that it’s because it’s being blocked by that same liberal media and by the rest of the President’s critics who take pleasure in giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

Then there was the vicious shelling of the Brooklyn Bridge within hours of the mysterious order at the New York stock exchange to sell Brooklyn Bridge Preferred short. We didn’t hear about that either.

Of course it was Saddam who went to war against us - not the other way round. If the liberal press hadn’t suppressed the news of the Brooklyn Bridge attack and if Michael Moore hadn’t destroyed that eye witness tape that was to have be shown on Fox News, critics wouldn’t be criticizing the President’s truthfulness. Or is that truthicity? Or maybe truthiness?

Anyway, I’m glad I checked the White House URL

posted by Jeff Smith at 12/16/2005 11:47:00 AM

 


I love dogs and I’ve written about them on more than one occasion as I did back on July 27, 2004, so it isn’t surprising that I’m making my blog available to record these wonderful sayings that I received in an e-mail today.


The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue.
-Anonymous

Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.
-Ann Landers

If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.
-Will Rogers

There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.
-Ben Williams

A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.
-Josh Billings


The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.
-Andy Rooney

We give dogs time we can spare, space we can spare and love we can spare. And in return, dogs give us their all. It's the best deal man has ever made.
-M. Acklam

Dogs love their friends and bite their enemies, quite unlike people, who are incapable of pure love and always have to mix love and hate.
-Sigmund Freud

I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult.
-Rita Rudner

A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down.
-Robert Benchley

Anybody who doesn't know what soap tastes like never washed a dog.
-Franklin P. Jones

If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.
-James Thurber

If your dog is fat, you aren't getting enough exercise.
-Unknown

My dog is worried about the economy because Alpo is up to $3.00 a can. That's almost $21.00 in dog money.
-Joe Weinstein

Ever consider what our dogs must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul -- chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we're the greatest hunters on earth!
-Anne Tyler

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
-Robert A. Heinlein


If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man..
-Mark Twain

You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says, 'Wow, you're right! I never would've thought of that!'
- Dave Barry

Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.
-Roger Caras

If you think dogs can't count, try putting three dog biscuits in your pocket and then give him only two of them.
-Phil Pastoret

My goal in life is to be as good of a person my dog already thinks I am.

To which I can only add - in the words of Lilly Tomlin's "Edith Ann" -AND THAT'S THE TRUTH!!!
posted by Jeff Smith at 12/15/2005 02:11:00 PM

 
CHALLENGING THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

I think I have to go to war with the Chicago Tribune.

It will be an uneven battle. The Tribune Company is all powerful - dominating newspaper readership in the Chicago area, and reaching others through their ownership of newspapers in Los Angeles and other parts of the country.

It will also be uneven because this little blog is not one of the well known stars of blogosphere commentary such as instapundit or dailykos that get thousands of daily visits. If I’m going to have any impact at all, I may have to join them. That is, do whatever it takes to become a recognized player in blog commentary, something I haven’t bothered with up to now. It may require reciprocal linking to a lot of other blogs and it may require a brand new blog devoted to critiquing newspapers engaging in the kind of sloppy publishing that I’ve observed the Tribune doing on too many occasions since I’ve been writing this blog.

Here’s what has led up to this decision. There was no real start date, but by way of introduction, I would suggest you read my not totally tongue- in - cheek general observations about letters to the editor and then read what was one part of a three part commentary on the Tribune’s publication of a blatantly anti-Semitic cartoon in which I make reference to the fact that the Tribune had published a letter filled with vitriolic, unsubstantiated accusations against Israel but had not published any subsequent letter taking issue with what the letter alleged.

Then something very similar happened beginning in the first week of November of this year. There was an op-ed piece containing a sneaky bit of misinformation. I wrote a letter to the Chicago Tribune correcting the misinformation. It wasn’t a question of a difference of opinion. The op-ed piece had quoted a government publication incorrectly and I quoted it as written. The Tribune ignored my letter but published another - praising the truthfulness of the distorted article.

I subsequently referred the entire matter to the Tribune’s Public Editor from whom I have not even received the courtesy of an automatic acknowledgment of receipt. And on December 5, 2005, I referred the matter to the Publisher of the Chicago Tribune - one David Hiller. That was nine days ago and again, no response and no acknowledgment - not even an auto-acknowledgment.

Something smells at the Tribune and I’d like to try and ferret out its source. Stay tuned. I’ll report on what forays against this behemoth I may dream up and whether or not they achieve any measure of success.
_________________________

Could "Tookie" Williams have saved his life?

In the follow up stories about the execution of "Tookie" Williams, one phrase leaped out at me from the pages of my newspaper.. That up to the last minute, Williams denied committing the murders for which he had been convicted and sentenced to death - even when an admission of guilt might have helped save his life!!

I had to read it a couple of times to let it sink in - and even then I wanted to reject the absurdity of the statement. That the Governator of Caleeefornia might have spared his life if only he had confessed and atoned.

Where and when are we? In Europe in the Fifteenth Century? Are we looking to the Spanish Inquisition as a model for how we treat prisoners who refuse to "confess?"

It boggles the mind that this is today's standard - or a good part of today's standard - for consideration of clemency or for parole. To insist on confession and contrition from any convicted felon who wants to have his sentence reduced. Think of all the people who sat on death row for years before DNA and college students freed them. How would the proof of their innocence have stacked up against years of effort to be pardoned or released through confession and expressions of remorse? False confessions and false remorse!!

I made reference to this phenomenon when I was writing about Michael Cardamone on December 8. Both the judge and the prosecutors in his case said that he is an "untreated and untreatable" sex offender because he will neither admit guilt nor express remorse - and he got 20 years in the slammer. Here is a man who says he will fight his conviction to the death and will never confess to something he says he didn’t do. But it seems clear that had he expressed contrition after a jury found him guilty - even if indeed he was innocent - he might have received a lesser sentence.

There was no guarantee that Schwarzenegger would have spared William’s life if he had confessed and expressed remorse. But since his chances would at least have been improved had he done so, you have to wonder what inner agony he wrestled with as he tried to decide which course to take. To maintain his innocence up to his dying breath if indeed he was innocent - or to lie to save his life. To lie not about being innocent - but about being guilty.

Williams made his choice and now you have to wonder. He was unquestionably a bad guy who did a lot of terrible things, but could it be that he was - as he maintained to the end - innocent of the crime for which he received the death penalty?

I don’t ever expect to have to face that kind of choice in my life. I don’t suppose anybody does. But after reading about the last days and hours of Williams’ life, I can’t help wondering what choices I might have made in his shoes - and the thought sends shudders down my spine.

posted by Jeff Smith at 12/14/2005 03:57:00 PM

 
LONDON UNDER SIEGE

It’s a continuing saga on this blog - the demise of the Britain I once knew - and particularly its capital city. . Such things as bobbies in turbans - and usually polite English people being beastly.

And on and on it goes. There will be no more Routemaster Double Decker buses traversing London’s winding streets. They’ve given way to more modern vehicles - more accessible for the handicapped.

No more running to catch a moving bus and being able to grab a pole and leap aboard the open entrance. No door to open or close. No more using the learned skill of jumping off a moving bus. (You hold the pole, stand facing the direction the bus is traveling and push off backwards , landing first on your left foot, then your right.) At least that’s the way that I did it. No more conductors calling out "plenty of room upstairs." No more smoking upstairs. Though that disappeared in 1991 when smoking was banned on London’s buses. Maybe I should have known then that their demise was already well under way.

And now we have an American bobbie - if that isn’t an oxymoron - urging that the Metropolitan Police become the gun toting Metropolitan Police!!

Instead of "hello, hello, hello, what’s all this then?’ - officer Ben Johnson wants the London bobby to approach someone who may be involved in criminal activity with "reach you varmint or I’ll fill you full of lead!!!"

Now I’m not saying that Johnson doesn’t have a point. For decades, there was no need for bobbies to carry guns because the type of criminal that they had to face in the course of their duties rarely carried a gun. The bobby’s truncheon, handcuffs and physical strength and skill was usually enough to subdue anyone resisting arrest. And there was that unwritten law that bobbies represented the best of what Britain was all about and were thus deserving of instant respect from everyone. Even the grudging respect of criminals. That may be changing. Despite having one of the most stringent gun laws of any nation, more and more criminals are acquiring and using deadly weapons. Maybe more police should carry guns. Maybe all British police should carry guns.

But there’s more to this story of a "The Yank who Became a Bobby" than his complaint about feeling more at risk on the streets of London than he felt policing the streets in Texas. If he doesn’t get a gun to tote through Westminster or Covent Garden or the East End or whatever part of London he is assigned to protect - he’s going to quit being a bobby and put an end to this fairy tail before Steven Spielberg acquires the rights to the story and signs George Clooney to play the title role. And well he should because he has determined that his fellow bobbies are not just improperly armed - they’re improperly trained!!

Johnson is described as six foot three inches and "razor thin" - but from where I sit, his words and deeds describe him as an "Ugly American" - something that poor old London, which is going downhill anyway - doesn’t need on its streets to hasten its decline. He should take his British bride and go back to protecting the good citizens of Texas. That is if his wife is willing to give up London for Garland, Texas!!!
posted by Jeff Smith at 12/13/2005 03:46:00 PM

 
BITS AND PIECES…

A heading that I use when I’m not commenting on a single subject…..

It seems like every time I turn on the television nowadays, I get a blast of deja vu. First it’s Maureen Dowd being interviewed about her book on the question of whether or not men are necessary. I don’t know if that’s a question that relates to her world or her life style or if it’s just a catchy title having nothing to do with what one might think it’s about, but I do know that she’s getting a huge amount of free publicity and it makes me wonder why.

I know she’s not a bad looking woman but she’s being interviewed by men and women alike so it isn’t a sexist thing. So you have to wonder. She’s from the New York Times. Judith Miller was from the New York Times. Judith kept secrets. Maureen wrote about Judith. These New York Times people are into this whole world of secrets and writing about secrets. Could it be that Dowd is in possession of another book - maybe a "little black book?" What has she got on all these people falling over each other to interview her about the lack of need for my sex??

I’d like to see her and her fellow feminist females get along without us. Has Patrick Fitzgerald heard about this? Could there be a connection with Libby and Rove? Has he hauled her in front of a grand jury? If not, could all this evidence persuade him to do so? I think I’m on to something here. Boy it’s fun playing investigative reporter….

Another bit of deja vu that hit me over the week-end was when I was watching some of the talking head shows. It kept happening as I clicked from CBS to NBC to ABC and back again. It was probably happening on CNN and other outlets too, though I couldn’t swear to it because I pretty much confine my Sunday morning viewing to the three non-cable networks. It was there in the cadence. It sounded so terribly familiar that for a while I didn’t realize what it was. And then suddenly it hit me. All of the guests were engaging in Rummyspeak!! Not all of the time of course. No conversation can consist totally of Rummyspeak, even if most of it consists of answering questions posed by a moderator. But there was no getting away from the influence. Donald Rumsfeld has not only left his mark on the history of the Iraqi adventure - however it turns out. He has left his mark on the English language - or at least that part of it loosely recognized as political discourse.

Do I know what I’m talking about? Perhaps. Could these talking heads have adopted what I’m calling Rummyspeak had there never been a Rumsfeld? Maybe. Do I wish they would stop answering questions by asking themselves questions? Absolutely. Do I have anything more to say on this general subject? Maybe yes, maybe no. Ask me later. And now for a John Cleese segue - (something completely different).
_____________________________________

Commenting on two of today’s news items. I have no strong feelings one way or another about "Tookie" Williams but I don’t see that there’s much sense in carrying out a death sentence that was handed down 24 years ago. Williams has been in jail since he was arrested in March of 1979 - that’s better than 26 years ago. Of course he’s not the same man as he was at the time of his conviction - whether or not he wrote or participated in the writing of children’s books designed to steer kids away from joining gangs. There’s a lot to be said for a system that allows for multiple appeals and multiple reviews before the ultimate punishment is carried out. We have seen how men have sat on death row for years only to have evidence surface to prove their innocence. Without the delays built into the system, some of these innocent men would have been put to death.

But when the delay gets beyond two decades and the state still insists on putting a prisoner to death, you have to ask the question - what is to be gained here? Revenge? "Closure" for the family of his alleged victims? Not much of a gain really compared to the illogic of carrying out a 24 year old sentence against someone who might possibly be capable of making a worthwhile contribution to society that he can never make by dying. It just seems silly to me - but then I’m neither a former movie performer nor a judge.

The other news item was the President’s speech on Iraq and the reaction to his statement that had he "known then what he knows now" he would have done the same thing. Some pundits are making a big deal about this "revelation" - but for anyone with half a brain and with 20:50 vision using a magnifying glass, it’s been obvious from just about the beginning. We heard it from Paul O’Neil. We heard it from Richard Clarke. We heard it all over the place and we’ve been hearing it one way or another from the President himself since he began to roll out his litany of reasons for the Iraqi adventure. And now he’s just about told us the truth. He wanted to get rid of Saddam Hussein and he sent the nation to war to fulfill that ambition, using every reason but the real one to justify the action. He’ll never have to answer for it and for our casualties and Iraqi civilian casualties even if the balance of power changes in Congress next year. But just let him have a weak moment and tickle a female intern below her coccyx and then deny that he ever did such a thing and watch the Congressional fur fly!!

Only in America!!

posted by Jeff Smith at 12/12/2005 09:45:00 PM

 
THE WHITE HOUSE GREETING CARD - A RIGHT CHOICE BUT FOR SOME NOT "RIGHT" ENOUGH

I’m no fan of President Bush as anyone who reads this blog quickly discovers, but it sometimes seems that the poor guy can’t catch a break from any part of the political spectrum. Here the guy did something appropriate for a change - sending out over a million White House "Happy Holiday Season " cards instead of "Christmas Cards" and his evangelical buddies are all over his case.

I do believe that he’s been sending this type of "Christmas" card since he took office. I’ve never received one myself, but that’s what I recall reading a while back. By avoiding any religious reference, the White House shows that it recognizes a couple of things. One is that many of these cards go to people who are non-religious or who do not practice the Christian faith or who are atheists - but who nonetheless "celebrate" the "Christmas Season." Which leads to the second thing and that is that the White House recognizes or seems to recognize the fact that "Christmas" has become far more than a religious holiday celebrated by one religious faith. It has become a national holiday - religious to some, secular to many others, but celebrated by all as a joyous season.

The White House card is appropriate. The critics from the religious right are - as usual - off their rocker.
_____________________________

AIR MARSHALS AND COPS - A SAD TALE OF TWO CITIES

As a consumer of news from a distance, I have no way of knowing if the fatal shooting of Rigoberto Alpizar was justified, but I’m disturbed by the fact that there have been two deadly reactions to what law officers believed was a terrorist threat - one two days ago in Miami and one last July in London - and neither of the victims was a terrorist.

Supposedly, our air marshals have received training in the recognition and handling of mentally disturbed and drunk passengers, but it certainly didn’t help them to bring this incident to a non-deadly conclusion. Passengers have reported that the victim’s wife was screaming that her husband was bi-polar and hadn’t taken his medication. If the marshals were, as reported, chasing Alpizar off the plane, surely they too would have heard the same thing.

But even if they didn’t and even if, under the pressure of the moment, they didn’t conclude that the carry on luggage that he was holding had just been through a screening process that surely would have detected a "bomb" - why would they need to use deadly force?

Is it possible that the only weaponry provided to our air marshals is deadly weaponry? Would they be expected to subdue a drunk or an obviously mentally disturbed but violent passenger with nothing but guns??

From all of the news stories I have read about the relative positions of Mr. Alpizar and the marshals, he could easily have been subdued with a non-deadly (usually) Taser gun - and this morning he would have been alive and perhaps back on his medication. But are U.S. Air Marshals supplied with Taser guns and with training for when it’s appropriate to use them?

I find that thought and that question somewhat ironic in view of another story that was reported on television maybe the day before the American Airlines incident. It was about something that happened last April but became a news story only recently because a law suit has been filed and a videotape of the incident exists and has now been seen on television from coast to coast.

Beverly Kidwell, a 68 year old grandmother, was waiting to talk to Police Lieutenant Wayne Bowling in a Franklin, Ohio police station - got tired of waiting and decided to leave. This didn’t sit well with the officer who wanted her to stay, so he decided to keep her there by rendering her helpless through the use of a Taser gun!!

This presumably fit and healthy police officer who delivered shock after shock to this apparently dangerous senior citizen claimed that he was the victim in this case - that he believed he was in danger of life and limb from her!! And the television report that I saw quoted the Franklin police department as saying that the officer "acted appropriately."

It was "appropriate" to Taser this 68 year old woman FIVE times in order to make sure that she didn’t leave the station until they were through with her.

I’m juggling these two incidents in my mind and trying to make some sense of them. I know that they somehow reflect on each other - that there’s some sort of moral here - something important to be learned. Unfortunately, all I can come up with is an overwhelming sense of sadness and bewilderment and maybe a sense of relief that it wasn’t Police Lieutenant Bowling at the Miami airport and the air marshals at the Franklin police station. Rigoberto Alpizar might still be alive even if a little sore from being shocked, but Grandma Beverly would be dead for sure.

posted by Jeff Smith at 12/09/2005 02:40:00 PM

 
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT - NOT ALWAYS A "FIT"

Inappropriate punishment for questionable criminal offenses seems to have been a recurring theme in some of my recent commentaries. On November 29 it was the story of Tuong Van Nguyen , the Australian who was convicted of a drug offense in Singapore and was hanged for that offense last Friday. And the very next day it was the pediatrician who was sentenced to five years in jail for owning a collection of child pornography pictures.

Neither of these convicted "criminals" was in any way railroaded. Singapore has a mandatory death penalty for many drug offenses and Illinois considers it a crime to be in possession of photographs that show young children engaged in sex acts. I just have a hard time coming to grips with the idea that death is an appropriate punishment for breaking any drug laws, particularly a one time offense for what the offender believed was a noble purpose - and I think it’s one hell of a stretch to make just the ownership of some dirty pictures a criminal offense punishable by incarceration - even if they are pictures of children and the owner is some kind of sicko.

Now we have another case where questions are being raised about the validity of a guilty verdict which is going to be vigorously appealed. But in the meantime, the convicted offender is sitting in jail about to start a twenty year sentence for a crime which is being described as "inappropriately touching seven young girls" while they were being coached in a gymnastics clas.

Whether or not the verdict will be overturned is not a matter on which I can’t comment. A jury heard evidence, including the testimony of the girls in question - and believed that the coach - one Michael Cardamone - did indeed "molest" them. He denies it and he or friends of his have set up a web site to help appeal the verdict. If he isn’t successful, he’s going to be in jail for a long time because he insists that he is innocent and thus will never express "remorse" - which seems to be a requirement for a felon to be even considered for parole.

Although I haven’t followed the case closely, I am aware that none of the "molestation" took place in private - out of the sight of witnesses. No - it all took place in a large, open gym, while coaching was going on and while the gym was filled with people other than the alleged victims. So obviously there was no rape or attempted rape. Obviously there was no embracing and kissing going on. This sort of activity would have been spotted by many people. Hell - the kids would have screamed to high heaven. The "crime" seems to have consisted of the coach touching the girls "inappropriately" while he was working with them. The accusation was that he had touched them under their leotards while they were doing certain exercises.

I don’t know how a coach touches kids "under their leotards" which, the last time I looked, were one piece, tight fitting garments. I know that coaches will sometimes touch someone they’re working with to get them into the right posture or to direct how an exercise is to be done or to support them in an exercise. I wasn’t much of a gymnast when I was a kid in school, but I know I was touched by gym teachers from time to time and I suppose I could have considered some of the touching "inappropriate’ if my mind had moved in that direction. And I know that groups of kids - or a clique of kids - can sometimes get together and - perhaps innocently - make "something" out of "nothing" and then find themselves unable to back away from it when it becomes serious and puts someone in jeopardy. I don’t know if it happened in this case but I’d be willing to bet that if you could have sat these kids down before their coach was arrested and told them that if they insisted that he had molested them he would be going to jail for 20 years, they would have backed off. Assuming they could understand what was being said. According to news reports, some of these kids were as young as three years old when the "abuse" began in 2000. The allegation was that the offenses took place between 200 and 2002.

But let’s assume for a moment that Cardamone did touch some kids "inappropriately" and was able to do this in full view of dozens of other people in the gym , including other instructors. What does that make him? Is he a pedophile and a serial molester as both the judge and the prosecutors in the case labeled him? They insist that he is indeed an "untreated and untreatable" sex offender because he will neither admit guilt nor express remorse. A little hard to do if you sincerely don’t believe you have done anything wrong. Cardamone had no prior criminal record. He’s married and has children. He had never been accused of anything that the average person would recognize as a sex crime. The judge in the case had the authority to grant probation. Instead, he got 20 years - more than some murderers get for their crimes!!

I don’t know Cardamone or much of anything about him and as I’ve already said, I haven’t followed the case closely Most of my knowledge of it is confined to very recent news stories. He could be innocent. Juries get it wrong. Criminal cases are brought inappropriately. I know. I was a victim myself once. Or he could be guilty as charged. My beef is with the sentence which I consider to be way out of line - as I believed the five year sentence for owning pornographic pictures to be not just out of line but close to ridiculous. It seems that when it comes to any kind of "sex" offense - no matter how remotely removed from what the average person would think of as criminal behavior it might be - harshness is the order of the day.

I thoroughly endorse the idea of removing violent pedophiles from society and locking them away for a long time. Sub-humanoids who assault helpless children should be thrown in jail and never see the light of day. But this kind of sentence for the possible crime of "touching" - under skin tight leotards yet - strikes me as a criminal justice system run amok. Though I guess Cardamone can consider himself lucky in one sense. The prosecutors wanted a sentence of 35 years and the judge could have sentenced him to as much as 63 years!!!

For his inappropriate touching.

I guess he’s even luckier that it happened here. If it had happened in Singapore, we’d be talking about the arrival of his body from that far off island paragon of virtue and justice.

posted by Jeff Smith at 12/08/2005 11:04:00 AM

 
PERILS OF ARMCHAIR PUNDITRY

An ominous date. I had almost forgotten until I typed it in. Sixty four years ago when Japan launched an attack against Pearl Harbor and catapulted the USA into World War11. Though I’m old enough to remember the war and though I lived in a war zone - England - I’m not going to try to comment on the event or the anniversary. I was a child when it happened and have no personal memories to recount.

But today I have some comments about what has been a virtually permanent war zone going back almost as far as the time of the Pearl Harbor attack - and that is the state of Israel. Of course it wasn’t considered a state until the UN vote of 1947, even though the historic state of Israel had been founded thousands of years earlier and has continued to exist as a focal point of the Jewish faith. For centuries, "Next Year in Jerusalem" was a phrase uttered by Jews around the world as they ended their Passover services. For them, Israel had always existed as a state - the homeland of Jewish people.

I guess it’s partially because of that strong bond between Jewish people and the land of Israel - even if they’ve never been there - that makes them believe they have some special understanding of the place. I know I’ve made many a comment in this blog, ranging from appraising the problems caused by Palestinians supporting Yasser Arafat to a semi-serious offered solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. All from the comfort of my armchair. Or at least the comfortable chair I sit in when I’m working on my computer.

I’m not alone of course. There are armchair pundits commenting on Israel and the Middle East everywhere - many obscure like myself - and some prominent, like the conservative columnist who, a s far as I know has never had a critical word to say about Israel - Charles Krauthammer.

One of the problems with being an armchair pundit commenting on things and events far removed from one’s armchair - in Doctor Krauthammer’s case, his wheelchair - is that the conclusions one reaches are highly influenced by the logic of what should be, based on all of the information one has available from various far distant sources Thus, on a day when a Palestinian terrorist blew himself to bits in Netanya, killing five Israelis, Krauthammer’s syndicated column spoke of new signs of hope for a peaceful Middle East and an ultimate resolution of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

I’m not saying that Krauthammer’s thesis loses credibility because it happened to be published on a day when the news out of Israel represented the antithesis of "hope" - but it does tend to remind one that punditry and reality are often mutually exclusive entities.

A better balance to the Krauthammer column than the news of a suicide bomber, is an article from one of the editors of Mideast on Target - an Israeli newsletter to which I subscribe and which I would recommend armchair pundits read before penning their next long distance analysis of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

It doesn’t necessarily refute Krauthammer’s thesis of "hope" - but it gives you a better idea of why there are fewer terrorist attacks, giving the feeling that the Palestinians are "maturing" and moving more in the direction of seeking peaceful solutions. It’s because the Israeli Defense Force is on constant alert and is preventing them.

And thank heaven for the IDF - doing the job that provides glimmers of hope for all of us armchair pundits who support Israel - Krauthammer included - to write about.

December 9,2005 3 p.m. CST

And here’s a further article from the Mideast On Target people that gives a different view of the current state of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict than the sanguine analysis of Charles Krauthammer.

posted by Jeff Smith at 12/07/2005 10:33:00 AM

 
THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW

Gripes on a cold Tuesday morning. Actually written on a Monday morning but blogger wouldn’t let me make this a Monday post because I let it sit on my screen until Tuesday.

Anyway…..Wow! Thanksgiving is over. People are shopping. The stores are crowded. People looking for bargains. How about that?

Wow. It’s winter time. It’s cold. Brrr. It’s snowing. Plows are plowing. Salt spreaders are spreading. Wow!! How about that?

I don’t know about you, but I get into a condition of anticipatory squirming as these inevitable gushing "news reports" are broadcast to greet the post Thanksgiving and early winter/Christmas season.

It isn’t "news" - any more than the sun rising in the morning and setting in the evening is "news." I know why they do it, but I wish they’d stop it. The "why" of course is to satisfy the assumption that the viewing/reading/listening audience is made up of sheep. Very young sheep. More like children. And children of course are entranced by listening to the same story over and over. They get to learn the story themselves and as it is being read to them, they can mouth the words in unison and it gives them a sense of contentment and security.

But since I’ve been an adult for more years that I care to think about, repetition of the obvious masquerading as "news" is just plain irritating. I know people go shopping after Thanksgiving. It would be "news" if they didn’t!! And I know it gets cold and it snows in the winter in the mid-west. It would be "news" if it didn’t.

Particularly annoying are the television programs that issue "warnings" about the dangers of cold weather and the suggestions that you - as a mother might admonish her child - "bundle up." Even more annoying are the inevitable warnings directed at homeless people - urging them to go to "warming centers" where they can find protection from the cold. Where do they think homeless people are watching television? In their homeless dens or media centers?

It’s bad enough to know that death and taxes are inevitable. There needs to be a law to protect us from the annual inevitability of the gushing non-news shopping and cold weather "news reports."
_________________________________

Blue Cross/Blue Shield is an insurance company. A hard nosed insurance company. They’re supposed to be a "not for profit" company, but the way they operate is no different from major for profit companies selling health care insurance. They pay out the least amount they can get away with on any claim and they make sure that no claim sneaks through for the laundry list of medical procedures that they don’t cover. I know. I had some therapy that I thought was covered and is covered by Blue Cross in some states but, as I found out, not in mine - and now I’m stuck with a denied claim for thousands of dollars.

But these comments are not about what Blue Cross covers or doesn’t cover or how they handle claims. It’s about the way they advertise. As I’ve said, they’re a hard nosed insurance company. You pay your premiums - and if you abide by all their rules and file your claims properly - you finish up paying only your agreed share of your medical bills . But if you listen to their radio advertising - which is where they seem to invest a large dollar - you would think that Blue Cross was everyone’s "Church of Angelic Assistance."

Their collection of ads feature patients - or actors pretending to be patients - relating how wonderfully protected they feel with their Blue Cross cards snuggled against their wallet pocket or in their purse. Other ads feature doctors - or actors pretending to be doctors, who relate how wonderful it is to be practicing medicine in the era of Blue Cross. And all of the ads feature a narrator who doesn’t talk about the hard and fast business of reasonable cost for maximum benefit or how Blue Cross differs or is better than the dozens of insurance plans available from dozens of other insurance companies - but does speak soothingly in "Church of Angelic Assistance" tones about Blue Cross "Shining Through."

That’s the theme of the ads promoting the benefits of Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Illinois. That this insurance company is "Shining Through" for you. I don’t know what the hell it’s supposed to mean but the implication is that they’re not an insurance company as much as they are an advocate for you and your health needs and that they’re going to come through for you no matter what - as opposed to other insurance companies that they don’t mention but who you know don’t care about you the way Blue Cross does because they don’t advertise that way.

I’m not saying that the Blue Cross advertising campaign is fraudulent or even deliberately misleading. After all, there are plenty of television ads that are highly amusing, fun to watch and make no special attempt to sell you the product they’re advertising other than to mention the product’s name. But ads that leave the impression that the company doing the advertising is something other than what it is - specially a company in the healthcare business - are more likely to be misleading than amusing or helpfully informational.

If you don’t think so and you’re insured by Blue Cross - just try doing something that doesn’t conform to the rules and regulations of your particular contract - maybe something like having some surgery that calls for "prior approval" and forgetting to get that approval. Then see how bright that light is that they use to come "Shining Through" for you. There ought to be a law against insurance companies pretending to be guardian angels instead of insurance companies.

posted by Jeff Smith at 12/06/2005 02:17:00 PM

 
A PERSONAL BLOG ENTRY - MY MYELOGRAM

Of the hundreds of thousands - maybe millions of blogs on the Internet - huge numbers are used as little more than personal diaries. From time to time, I myself have included personal items on this commentary blog which have had little to do with observations of the passing parade. For example, in October of 2003, I included an ancient piece of fiction that once appeared in an ABC Television House Organ that I wrote and edited a lifetime ago. And there have been other such deviations from contemporary commentary over the past 33 months.

Many years ago, at a relatively young age, I had an operation that is usually thought of as a procedure that is common in elderly males. Before the operation I tried to read up on what to expect but it wasn’t easy to find any useful material. This was in the days when there was no Internet, so searching for information was time consuming and not very fruitful. What information existed was written in a stilted fashion, more suited for a medical professional than a layman about to go under the knife. I determined, after the operation, to create something that could be used by others facing the same kind of surgery and indeed I put something together in readable form that I thought would be extremely useful to other patients. I was never able to do anything with it in terms of getting someone like a pharmaceutical company to distribute it to surgical specialists around the world. And I’m not that sure that it would have served its intended purpose because individual experiences of the same operative procedure vary.

Still, I think it’s helpful for laymen to describe their experiences of various medical procedures rather than leave professionally produced explanations by medical people as the only source of information when one is doing a search - in this day and age of course on the Internet.

Yesterday, I underwent a myelogram of the lumbar spine, which I researched on line for days before the procedure. Here is a typical site chosen at random that is full of information that differs somewhat from my personal experience. There are hundreds of such sites. Just type in myelography or myelogram and up they pop.

Most sites say that you will be given all kinds of instructions and warnings before you appear for your test. It didn’t happen for me but that may have been an oversight of the hospital. If so, I’ll come back and correct this segment. The doctor performing the test did give me a consent form to sign before the test and quickly ran through a few of the risks that are listed at many of these sites.

From my perspective, it was a reasonably benign procedure. My test began with being positioned face down on the table with a pillow under my belly, a pillow - later replaced by a soft towel under my head to get my shoulders closer to the table - and some soft material under my ankles and feet that I requested for comfort and placed there without question. They wanted me in a particular position and to be able to hold it and I must admit it wasn’t the most natural position one would select to lie face down - but then again I wasn’t there to take a nap - I was there to be in the best position to get contrast dye injected and take pictures.

The procedure begins with numbing the skin. Contrary to what is described in many of the web sites I checked, I did not have to pull my knees up under my chest or sit on the edge of the table. The numbing injections - which the doctor said were the "worst" part of the test, were done while I was lying face down on the table. There was nothing bad about the numbing injections. What the doctor described as a "bee sting" that I would feel for the first injection was more like a pin prick. There are multiple injections to get the numbing effect deeper and deeper and I only felt the pin prick of the first one.

What takes the most time in these tests - and mine was no exception - is finding the right pathway to get the contrast dye injected into the cerebrospinal fluid. It’s often trial and error and it was in my case. The first selected site didn’t work because there was some bone in the way and the doctor had to try another level of the lumbar spine to get the spinal needle in place.

Most all of the sites say a couple of things about the spinal needle. One is that you may feel "pressure" as it’s inserted. Yeah, maybe. I really wasn’t sure when it was being inserted. Certainly I didn’t feel it going in. The other is that you may feel a "sharp pain" while the doctor is positioning the needle and this gives the impression that there may be a "sharp pain" at the needle injection site. I did have a couple of "sharp pains" that lasted perhaps a fraction of a second - but they were in my legs and more like a sudden electric shock. And when I say legs I don’t mean both at the same time. When the doctor was trying to insert the needle at the first site, I got a momentary shock in my left leg and it happened in the other leg when she was trying an alternative site.

I must emphasize that this is not "pain" that one has to "endure." It happens suddenly and is over so quickly that it doesn’t have time to register as "pain" - and the first time it happened , the doctor said "good - that means I’m in the right position."

After a good path to the subarachnoid space was located, in went the contrast material which I didn’t feel going in at all. I had to ask what was going on. The doctor asked me if I felt anything - like heat - and the answer was no. I felt absolutely nothing. The spinal needle then came out and the picture taking - which takes very little time - began. I wasn’t strapped onto the table and it wasn’t tilted every which way as the various sites describe. The only "titling" was when they took a close to upright position picture. The table was tilted upwards and I was more or less standing on a protruding ledge at the back end of the table with the rest of my body still pressed against the table, For all other pictures, I was placed in different positions rather than the table being tilted.

I can’t say that my personal experience was typical of what the average patient undergoing myelography will experience, but if they asked me what to expect, I would tell them that it’s a pretty benign experience and nothing to be worried about. I was somewhat apprehensive in the days before my test and waiting for it to begin. I wouldn’t be in the least apprehensive if I had to undergo it a second time. I had a similar experience a year or two ago when I had two series of epidural injections to try to relieve my sciatic pain. Before the first injection, I was tense and apprehensive. For the second I was loose as a goose.

After my myelogram, I was taken for a CT scan while the contrast material was still in my body. This doesn’t happen after every myelogram but it was what my doctor had ordered. After that was finished, I had to lie down for a couple of hours before they’d let me go home which I guess is routine. Some sites talk about many more hours and some talk about having to "lie flat for 24 hours." From my experience, I doubt that that happens - or if it does, that it’s a rare happening.

I didn’t get a headache or have any other kind of reaction. I did feel a little tired and slightly unsteady for a while as I was leaving the hospital but it soon passed. It is after all an invasive procedure and I’m a senior citizen . Someone a lot younger might not feel in the least bit bushed.

A and that’s my personal story for today - and most likely the last of this year.

Incidentally, if you didn’t click on the above link to view an earlier sample of "personal" blogging, you’re missing something worth while. After all these years, it’s still one hell of a cute short story.

posted by Jeff Smith at 12/02/2005 03:57:00 PM

 
ONE BLOGGER’S REACTION TO THE NATIONAL STRATEGY SPEECH

I must admit that I didn’t listen to the President’s speech on his "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" but I’ve heard and read enough snippets to conclude that our President is living in a world of his own creation that doesn’t have to be connected to reality because he creates his own reality.

I detected nothing new in his speech. The catch phrases that he has been using for months were all there. Stay the course. When they stand up we’ll stand down. We’ll never surrender. Total victory. Meaning absolutely nothing to this unhappy voter.

I guess when you create your own reality, it makes perfect sense to offer the "reason of the day" for being in Iraq and be able to do it with a straight face. What scares the life out of me is that large numbers of people pick up and repeat this dogma as justifiable argument for continuing on the same path.

As I recall, it all started out as a mission to seek and destroy weapons of mass destruction that were poised to attack the United States. It would either be the Iraqis doing the attacking or the weapons would be handed to miscellaneous terrorists to do the dirty work. Remember the fear of mushroom clouds rising above the American horizon as a sufficient reason all by itself to invade Iraq before they invaded us - or at least attacked us with mushroom cloud makers?

I don’t need to dwell at length on the obvious. We went. We searched. We didn’t find any weapons of mass destruction. But we toppled the Iraqi regime. We captured and jailed Saddam Hussein and most of his top echelon. We killed his two sons. Then we started making one mistake after another. We disbanded their army which might have been capable of maintaining some semblance of order. We shrugged at the looting that ensued after Saddam was toppled. What was it that Rumsfeld said about looting? Freedom is untidy? And we began the process that our President said he would never engage in - at least while he was running for President. During a debate with then-Vice President Al Gore on Oct. 11, 2000, in Winston-Salem, N.C., Bush said:

"I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation-building. I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I'm missing something here. I mean, we're going to have a kind of nation-building corps from America? Absolutely not."

And after the nation building began in Iraq, with a cost of untold billions to the American taxpayer and untold profits for insider companies - Haliburton and the rest - the reason for the operation began to change.

Today, we’re stuck with a collection of reasons for maintaining a large military force in Iraq for an indeterminate period - even though - under obvious political pressure, we are now hearing talk of "drawing down" some military personnel. It’ll probably be mentioned more and more as the mid-term elections get closer and maybe a few thousand troops will be back by then. But since the days when it became clear that there were no weapons for our military forces to find and destroy, the many new reasons for our continued presence began to unfold. We have to stay there because or terrorism. We’re fighting terrorists there so we don’t have to fight them here. We’re bringing freedom to the Iraqi people. We’re helping the Iraqis build a democratic society. And on and on.

One of the most ridiculous things that I’ve heard in defense of all of these arguments - though I can’t remember the source - was that while we haven’t had any major terrorist attack since 9/11, other countries have - and that is offered as proof that the theory of "fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here" is valid. Another ridiculous thing that I’ve heard is that the brave men and women serving in Iraq are "defending our freedom." Give me a break!!

I agree with the President and others on one point - that we can’t just suddenly leave. It needs to be a phased withdrawal - but it needs to begin quickly. Following the Iraqi elections would be a good moment to begin. . And I also agree with Congressman Murtha that our presence their is contributing to the violence and I don’t buy the argument that the violence will get worse once we’re out of the picture. The idea that we will stay there until we have achieved the President’s version of "total victory" strikes me as illusory - and I’m being kind in my selection of that word.

I was hoping for something different from Mr. Bush but I didn’t really expect it. As long as he continues to make justification speeches against military backdrops, our policy won’t change and we’ll continue to lose American life and limb and billions of taxpayer dollars indefinitely. There is no reason to listen to him any more. If anything approaching a change in policy that makes sense, I’ll hear about it.

In the meantime, I expect that one of the major themes - if not the major theme of the Democratic party and its nominee for the 2008 election, will become increasingly insistent in the months ahead. It won’t be Eisenhower’s "I Will Go To Korea" but I suspect by November of 2008, the nation will be ready for "I Will Bring Our Troops Home From Iraq!!"

posted by Jeff Smith at 12/01/2005 11:40:00 AM

 
NEVER MIND SINGAPORE - DON’T COLLECT DIRTY PICTURES IN ILLINOIS

Yesterday I commented on an Australian who faces death by hanging in Singapore for possession of heroin - a punishment that seems totally inappropriate to most people in the western world. But we have our own laws and punishments that seem inappropriate to many people - certainly to me.

To begin, let me make something very clear. I can’t conceive of any punishment too severe for monsters who inflict bodily harm on children and helpless animals. I don’t necessarily advocate executing them. In general, I’m against the death penalty, though there are some criminals that I often think I could kill with my bare hands and not lose a moment’s sleep over it. I also think that penalties for deliberate cruelty to helpless animals should be as severe as those for helpless children. In terms of helplessness, I place kids and puppy dogs in the same category.

The worst kind of monster is the sub-humanoid who tortures or sexually abuses young children and derives pleasure from these obscene acts. For these creatures, I would advocate a punishment that fits the crime. We don’t have such punishments but this would be one instance where I might be supportive of the kind of justice that I spoke of disparagingly yesterday. But lacking that, I would be all for locking these monsters away and never letting them out.

But then there is another kind of twisted - or maybe just mixed up individual - who doesn’t commit any acts of physical aggression against young children, but thinks about them being victims or being in compromising situations. This is someone into child pornography from a distance. Someone who looks at pornographic pictures. Someone who collects such pictures - who maybe looks for and downloads them from the Internet. Just a collector. A looker. A thinker. But who doesn’t engage in physical pornographic acts with anyone.

Is such a person a criminal? Is such a person breaking laws just by looking at these pictures and thinking pornographic thoughts - maybe deriving sexual pleasure from looking at them? Apparently the answer is yes according to the laws of the state in which I reside. A pediatrician of all people - a doctor with no criminal record of any kind was recently sentenced to five years in the hoosegow for collecting hundreds of child pornography pictures for which he paid close to ten thousand dollars!! Just for having the pictures!!

Now I suppose one could make the assumption that someone who spends that kind of money collecting child pornography pictures has the potential to go beyond looking and thinking and to go out and engage in actual physical pornographic acts with children. But that’s a little like saying that any adult who reads or views any kind of pornographic material has the potential to commit criminal acts mimicking the pornography that he or she read or viewed. Some psychiatrists and psychologists would argue just the opposite - that the reading and viewing of pornographic material acts as an outlet for fantasy desires and is more likely to prevent than cause criminal activity.

People who are drawn to child pornography may well be a different breed - but again, I would think that using such methods to indulge in ones fantasies is more likely to prevent indulging in actual pornographic acts with young children than cause it to happen.

There’s probably little doubt that harm is caused to the children that are photographed to produce these pictures and that it is likely classified as a criminal activity no matter where it took place. And I guess that technically, buying pictures that were criminally produced could be thought of as a crime - an "accessory after the fact" type of crime.. But the good doctor who will be going to jail was sentenced under a law that makes it a crime in the State of Illinois simply to possess such pictures.

I find that scary. A little too close to the concept of the bedroom police who can peer through your window to see what kind of activities are going on in or out of your bed. Or the library police who can check to see if you are borrowing books that may be pornographic in nature and that might induce you to engage in acts of physical pornography.

I know the law’s the law and there’s no getting around it. But I have a hard time understanding or accepting this particular law. I can understand "possession" being a crime when it comes to heroin or some other illegal drug. The assumption is obvious that it’s not just in your possession to look at and admire, but to use or to sell to someone else - and there are laws against the use of illegal drugs. Fortunately, they’re not like Singapore’s laws and there’s no death penalty involved. Of course there may be for possessing kiddy porn pictures. I haven’t checked all the laws of Singapore.

I’m willing to concede that’s it not an entirely bad idea to make it some kind of offense to amass huge collections of kiddy porn pictures. But I believe that making it an offense that is punishable by years in jail - if no crime was committed other than owning the pictures - is unconscionable. A fine would seem to be more than appropriate - that and the fact that the story of the arrest and arraignment would likely be in the papers and on the news and result in a degree of shame and embarrassment that could be as severe a punishment as incarceration to most people.

To my mind, the law and its punishment as it stands, is one such as Dicken’s Mr. Bumble described in Oliver Twist. He was speaking of a matter far removed from what this issue is about but the words seem appropriate to what the current law "supposes" about the person who possesses pornographic photographs. That he is some kind of criminal. ".If the law supposes that," said Mr. Bumble "the law is a ass - a idiot!!"

posted by Jeff Smith at 11/30/2005 09:32:00 PM

 
IF YOU SPIT, CHEW GUM OR SMOKE POT - STAY AWAY FROM SINGAPORE

It isn’t listed as a "rogue" nation or a member of the "axis of evil" or on the lists of dictatorships or repressive regimes, but if I was a leader of a western democracy, I would be concerned about any of my citizens setting foot in the Republic of Singapore.

Remember the American teenager Michael Fay who was caned on his bare buttocks for vandalizing two cars?

Australian citizen Tuong Van Nguyen didn’t vandalize anything. He was arrested in Singapore and sentenced to death by hanging for being in possession of 386 grams of heroin 3 years ago. He wasn’t a drug dealer. It was a one time effort that appeared to be an act of both love and desperation. He was trying to raise money to pay off his twin brother's considerable debts.

It didn’t matter to the Singapore government. You’re caught with drugs - you hang - and that’s what will happen to Van Nguyen on Friday. No fifteen to twenty years of appeals. He’s lucky he’s lasted three years since his sentence was pronounced.

I don’t know what kind of warning Australians get about travel to Singapore, but if you’re an American citizen planning a trip, you’d be well advised to read the information provided by our government as follows:

While in a foreign country, a U.S. citizen is subject to that country's laws and regulations, which sometimes differ significantly from those in the United States and may not afford the protections available to the individual under U.S. law. Penalties for breaking the law can be more severe in Singapore than for similar offenses in the United States, and persons violating Singapore laws, even unknowingly, may be expelled, arrested or imprisoned.

There are strict penalties for possession and use of drugs as well as for trafficking in illegal drugs. Singapore has a mandatory death penalty for many narcotics offenses. Convicted offenders can expect long jail sentences and heavy fines.

Visitors should be aware of Singapore's strict laws and penalties for a variety of actions that might not be illegal or might be considered minor offenses in the United States. These include jaywalking, littering, and spitting. Singapore has a mandatory caning sentence for vandalism offenses and caning may also be imposed for immigration violations and other offenses. Commercial disputes that may be handled as civil suits in the United States can escalate to criminal cases in Singapore, and result in heavy fines and prison sentences. There are no jury trials in Singapore, judges hear cases and decide sentencing. The Government of Singapore does not provide legal assistance except in capital cases; legal assistance may be available in some other cases through the Law Society.

Pleas for leniency for Van Nguyen have fallen on deaf ears - specifically on the deaf ears of Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee_Hsien_Loong. It was the same in the case of Michael Fay. A different Prime Minister but the same response to international pleas for mercy. Deaf ears.

Supposedly, we have "good relations" with Singapore , but apparently we turn a blind eye to what has been called a pseudo-democracy and to their interesting ideas about crime and punishment.

I have sympathy for Van Nguyen who had the misfortune to be caught smuggling heroin in Singapore rather than in the United States of the United Kingdom, but the main reason that I comment on his case is to make the point that there are many countries in this world that are the antithesis of everything we believe and hold sacred - but that we deal with on a "friendly basis." Others we attack, condemn or - as in the case of our neighbor a few miles off our southern shore - we ostracize. But I also comment because the Van Nguyen story is a chilling reminder that both Singapore and the United States are among the minority of the world’s nations that still utilize the death penalty - though so far the United States only executes people for murder or treason. And in case you’re interested in who the rest of those minority countries are - minority in the sense that more countries have abandoned the death penalty than those who retain it - they are:

AFGHANISTAN, ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA, BAHAMAS, BANGLADESH, BARBADOS, BELARUS, BELIZE, BOTSWANA, BURUNDI, CAMEROON, CHAD, CHINA, COMOROS, CONGO , CUBA, DOMINICA, EGYPT, EQUATORIAL GUINEA, ERITREA, ETHIOPIA, GABON, GHANA, GUATEMALA, GUINEA, GUYANA, INDIA, INDONESIA, IRAN, IRAQ, JAMAICA, JAPAN, JORDAN, KAZAKSTAN, KOREA (North), KOREA (South), KUWAIT, KYRGYZSTAN, LAOS, LEBANON, LESOTHO, LIBYA, MALAWI, MALAYSIA, MONGOLIA, NIGERIA, OMAN, PAKISTAN, PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY, PHILIPPINES, QATAR, RWANDA, SAINT CHRISTOPHER & NEVIS, SAINT LUCIA, SAINT VINCENT & GRENADINES, SAUDI ARABIA, SIERRA LEONE, SOMALIA, SUDAN, SWAZILAND, SYRIA, TAIWAN, TAJIKISTAN, TANZANIA, THAILAND, TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO, UGANDA, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, UZBEKISTAN, VIET NAM, YEMEN, ZAMBIA, ZIMBABWE

To paraphrase an old adage, the death penalty sure makes for some pretty odd bedfellows.

posted by Jeff Smith at 11/29/2005 09:34:00 PM