Piece of cake…

Gosh with this handy interactive training graphic, I don’t see how we couldn’t all be doing 1080s on our snowboards! I mean, at least those of you with snowboards, halfbowls, death wishes, and no major mobility or vestibular issues… Follow the link and click each “next”; it’s pretty cool, and I’ve only posted the final frame. (Update: I re-posted a cropped version of the photo to get rid of all the screenshot clutter. But just follow the link and check it out for yourself!)

This is your media on thorazine

I heard this part of this interview Sunday morning, but I was still wrapping up a paper Monday and couldn’t post the details. I nearly spit my diet coke at the TV when Koppel said “If 9/11 had happened on Bill Clinton’s watch, he would have gone into Iraq.” When I cruised through blog sites yesterday, I couldn’t believe that I wasn’t seeing more about it, but apparently, a few people have finally taken notice.

But Koppel topped himself when he declared that the American people will probably agree that Bush needs the power to spy on US citizens, in order to keep them safe:

MR. KOPPEL: We do a great job, Tim, of patting ourselves on the backs, not just the media but the great American democracy, for how much we believe in the process of disclosure, of public debate, of fully vetting the issues and deciding them through our elected representatives. In point of fact, often as not, we don’t do that. Often as not the decision is made that you, the public, simply are not mature enough or sophisticated enough to understand everything that’s at stake here. What scares the heck out of me is that there will be another terrorist attack in this country. And after the next terrorist attack, if it’s anything like 9/11, there won’t be any debate about whether the government should have the right to eavesdrop. The appropriate time to have this discussion, this debate, in Congress, in the media, is now.

MR. BROKAW: Right.

MR. KOPPEL: Because after the next event, it’ll be Katy, bar the door. Why didn’t you do more? And the fact of the matter is, in saying we need the debate, I’m not prejudging what the outcome would be. Quite frankly, I think the outcome may well be that the American public, through its elected representatives, will say, “You know something? We feel the president needs that right. He has to have the right to be able to order the wiretapping of terrorist suspects.”

MR. RUSSERT: Let’s have the debate.

MR. KOPPEL: But let’s have the debate. Let’s argue these issues out before it’s too late.

(Now how exactly is it that he is not “prejudging what the outcome would be”?) Transcript here. Emphasis, mine.

A little something for Christmas

I’m still writing a paper (my last of the semester), so I’m not doing much news-reading, but here’s a little stocking stuffer for you: Barron’s (Wall Street Journal-owned finance mag) used the I-word!!!

Now, brace yourself, because this will send you reeling… Apparently nothing the president has told us about his domestic spying program is true… Not the numbers, not the “international calls only” focus, not the alleged congressional authority…

But cheer up, because everything your third-grade friends told you about Santa Claus was a lie. He’s real!
(Photo snatched from here.) Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Season’s Greetings, everybody!

The most eloquent comment yet…

…on impeachment is this thoughtful piece by Jonathan Schell. Would that the Congress might take his words to heart and act accordingly.

Now in good company

Although I don’t necessarily want to “eat pie with no seconds” (see previous post, Marge Piercy poem) with the likes of Norman Ornstein, I just point out that there seems to be a rising tide of opinion on the question of impeachment. See here for more.

And, typing the above, I typo-ed the I-word as “impeacement.” I think that’s a new coinage, albeit an accidental one. But wouldn’t it be great if there were a rising tide of opinion that peace is the way. I think Jesus might approve!

Sense and sensibility in Dover, PA

The US District Judge ruled against intelligent design proponents in Dover, PA:

Intelligent Design Barred From Pa. School District (Update1)
Dec. 20 (Bloomberg) — A Pennsylvania school district cannot require the teaching of intelligent design in high school biology classes, a federal judge ruled in a case that may influence other challenges to the theory of evolution.

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, ruled today that the Dover, Pennsylvania school board can’t force the teaching of intelligent design, a theory that claims that the universe is too complex to have developed randomly and must have been designed by a superior power. The board in October 2004 ordered that intelligent design be introduced alongside the theory that life evolved by natural selection.

“To preserve the separation of church and state” mandated by the First Amendment, the Dover Area School District is barred from maintaining the ID policy in any school, Jones wrote. “The students, parents and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.”

Here’s the story.

"Three people are a delegation…."

I seem to be on the impeachment bandwagon, now joined by Jonathan Alter, who at least mentions the possibility in this piece revealing that early last week Bush importuned the Times editors to spike the Snoopgate story once and for all. I am reminded of that wonderful poem by Marge Piercy, “The Low Road.” Question: is she on the enemies list for writing it, or I for quoting it, or both?

What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can’t walk, can’t remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can’t stop them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.

But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.

Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.

O Christmas (or Holiday?) Tree….

Loved this piece by Sister Joan Chittister, one of my all-time favorites in the religion-and-politics realm. A sample of her prose:

If I were you and I really wanted to be a sign of Christianity, I wouldn’t set out to prove it by fighting over the Christmas tree.

Sounds right to me.

The I-Word, Part 2

At least I’m in pretty good company (what I’ve always said about those of us on the margins of one system or another): here’s what Karen Kwiatkowski had to say about the possibility of impeachment. Listen up:

In my opinion, we need to fight, resist, refuse to subsidize Washington in every way, and we must immediately begin impeachment proceedings against this particular president, not only because he has clearly earned impeachment, but in order to revive a national awareness of the intent of the Founding Fathers to circumscribe centralized state power, and their vision of a free and peaceful Republic.

This comes from a truthout piece by William Rivers Pitt. You’ll have to ignore the final paragraph, in which he credits Solomon with the writing of the book of Proverbs — not quite as egregious as Howard Dean’s locating Job in the New Testament. The attribution to Solomon, which biblical scholars uniformly understand to be apocryphal, is just one more example of what happens when you take the scriptures literally.

Impeachment, Anyone?

The NY Times, without mentioning the I-word, lays out the case in good “gray lady” fashion. Of course the decision-makers should be taken to task for sitting on the story for all these months. Having been married once to a reporter, I’m guessing that the ones who got the story were beside themselves about the (albeit temporary) spiking. That aside, this all has a real Watergate feel to it. If you like the idea of a Bush impeachment (and hey, let’s throw in Cheney too for good measure), and your member of Congress sits on the House Judiciary Committee, make some noise. Yeah, yeah — I know that committee chair Jim Sensenbrenner will convene impeachment hearings in the year hell freezes over. Still, make some noise; that’s how representative government is supposed to work. Also, and better yet, work like hell to get a Democratic Congress elected in 2006. Then, when Bush and Cheney are both thrown out and the next in line is sworn in as chief executive, we’ll have President Nancy Pelosi (who’ll be moving from her new post as Speaker of the House) — way better than Geena Davis. Cool, huh? Sounds like a dream, but it could happen if anybody cares enough to make it so.