Say this for Eliot Spitzer's judgment: it's gratifying that NY may soon have the first legally blind governor in U.S. history. Give Spitzer the "bone"-headed at least one point for choosing David Paterson as his running mate.
Maybe something good will come of this. Besides 1001 wisecracks and "Love Gov"/"Eliot Mess" headlines.
Y'know, I don't have a water cooler here in my home-based workplace. So permit me to observe among the weirder ironies in all this: Spitzer is one of maybe 347 males in NY state ever to have learned that inducing a prostitute to cross state lines is a greater crime--a *federal felony*--than picking her up on the street corner.
And maybe the only one to discover that detail before getting arrested. (Granted, I'm just presuming that someone who has prosecuted two prostitution rings would have absorbed this....)
From the wisecracks: my wife's pal Bill Bragin observes that it's a shame that Spitzer couldn't stick to his campaign promises—the governor at least could have patronized a brothel from some economically depressed town upstate.
In 2000, Bush was clearly ahead in the day-before polls, but gave up 4 percentage points on election day. This year, his Monday lead over his opponent is slimmer than it was four years ago. A good omen for Kerry, it would seem.
Yet here's a prediction straight from an oracle, with a surprise victor from the Democratic side.
In an valuable scoop, the Wall Street Journal reports today that the lawyers at the Pentagon wrote in a classified memo that the president has virtually unlimited power to wage war as he sees fit. Relying on legal logic that one might call "tortured," neither Congress, the courts, nor international law have any authority to stop him from ordering torture.
I'm pretty sure that I genuinely dropped my jaw while sitting at my desk. Jerry of Infoshop wrote: "The United States has AIDS. We have begun the descent into dictatorship and the political system can't seem to generate any antibodies against it." Now ordinarily that sort of metaphor seems to me to be pure anger rather than thought. But one line from the 100-page classified memo has creeped me out all day long: the executive branch of the government has "sweeping" powers to act as it sees fit because "national security decisions require the unity in purpose and energy in action that characterize the presidency rather than Congress." Imagine yourself standing in a phalanx on the field of a stadium, saying: Unity in purpose! Energy in Action! Unity in purpose! Energy—." Uggggh.
This feels like a turning point to me, even more than Abu Ghraib. One doesn't want soldiers in combat to get ragingly punchy while guarding the prisoners, but it was not that hard to imagine. I'm surprised we haven't heard about the wanton strafing of a village yet. But when they're sitting around a conference table in D.C. explaining to each other why WE CAN TORTURE people--isn't that civilization just plain cracking?
Consider that ghastliness next to another front-page story, (or, with a subscription) from a few days ago, in the Times. This was the one about the colonel who went too far and fired a gun next to an Iraqi policeman he suspected knew of a plot to ambush his men. Reflecting a civilized stance, he was booted out of the forces, even though he didn't actually harm the Iraqi.
Thousands of miles away, the Pentagon types were stretching for every possible legal workaround so they could declare that forcing a prisoner to stay awake for 96 hours straight did not count as torture.
All of a sudden, the people running the war seem depraved. I didn't need 829 dead to convince me that combat in Iraq was an ugly disaster, a tragedy produced by venal and errant leadership. Now this military invasion feels toxic right where I live.
So George W. Bush today reverses course and lets Condoleezza Rice fulfill her wish to testify before the 9/11 intelligence investigation panel. So how is he going to say he didn't cave in to overwhelming public pressure when he obviously did? Not only will he prevaricate, others must join him. A letter from the White House counsel says that, to hear Rice, the panel must deny that an obvious precedent is a precedent.
Perhaps in Bush's church, one can lie so long as the fraudulent words come out of the pen of one's attorney. At least the fraud appears to be harmless*: the paper that Kean signs will have no authority.
*Beyond teaching our country's kids to lie.
CBS's reality tv programmers now plan to rip the overalls off of Amish teens and push them into the Real World. I agree with the Republican Congress members that this is a tacky idea for a show, although I'm predicting that a few viewers will get religion after watching it and seeing the contrast between the kids' Amish home lives and their clumsy attempts at achieving decadence. (It's going to be set on the Sunset Strip.) Just please notice that the minority portrayal that most quickly gets the GOP out of their seats involves not black pimps, sleepy-eyed chicanos, etc., but pasty faces who don't even speak our language.
The U.S. Army now ghostwrites propaganda for unwitting soldiers laid up in the bed of a M.A.S.H. unit, reports the Gannett News Service.
(My first post; sorry, I haven't been able to find the hypertext mechanism yet.)
[NB -- fixed it for ya, Matt! Welcome to Ish!]
I mean here only to give you a glimpse of our nation's high courts in action. But take the following as a penis joke if you must: case 01-1615 of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, decided September 24, 2002, genuinely pitted Schwing v. Putzmeister in a dispute over "pumping equipment that is capable of moving large volumes of heavy, viscous material."
Friends:
Newsday published an opinion piece of mine this morning. The editors told me it was provocative, and they backed that up by placing it on the opening page of the viewpoints section. Read it and judge for yourself.
I hope you are all well and enjoying summer.
Regards,
Matt
The HBS story you posted missed the most laughable point of the whole Segway corporate mobilization. According to the Wall St. Journal, Dean Kamen has sent lobbyists across the nation to obtain a loophole from the usual state, or local, prohibitions against riding on the sidewalks. (Based on what I see on city sidewalks, I can't imagine that NYC has such a law.) Kamen's desired legal loophole would allow on sidewalks the riding of "electronic personal assistive mobility devices" that are "self-balancing."
Kamen also likes to say that these are not vehicles, they are "magic sneakers." Which only makes me wish that Kamen would sell actual inflatable sneakers that I could bounce around in.
| Segway
Someone just sent me this thought-provoking short online film -- maybe material for Ishbadiddle? Happy Valentine's Day & Chinese New Year!
-- Matt
I'm turning around in my cocoon of shock, absorbing the astounding sight of so many lights on in the windows of apartment buildings, taking in the progressive slowing of Peter Jennings' train of thought, taking in the ratio of people walking down the street with a cigarette in their hand, taking in the child psychologists' advice that parents should reassure kids that they are there to keep them safe--around one's baby, maintain one's routines. The parenting experts also say that if the kids are talking about how excellent it is to see bodies flying from buildings, then maybe it is a good time to share one's adult feelings about the many people in that building who won't be with their families anymore.
I fear I find myself guessing what percentage of kids won't be getting plain-spoken reassurance from their parents this week. Then I find myself reassured that the homeless guys are walking by with their bags of cans, just as they usually do.
I am most thankful that, contrary to what I speculated to Chris earlier, my former roommate Kay was not in the building. It's an understatement to say to say that it was a good move she quite her job on the 102nd floor of the WTC 2 weeks ago.
I'd like to note, since we all will end up at some point discussing today's awfulness by invoking previous historical awfulnesses (another recommendation to the parents, actually), that not one of the disaster management professors or other talking heads on the airwaves have managed to remember to include the recent deaths of 100,000 or so Hondurans by earthquake on their list of acts perpetrated by God or the devil.
May we all remain well, suffer a minimum of loss to our immediate circles, and have the fortitude to help where we can.
Yitgadal v'yitkadash v'yimlach malchutay b'chayaychon v'yomaychon--God's holy canopy of peace, come and cover us quickly in our days.
posted this | this entry's link | speak your mind | New York City
I don't need to read Agatha Christie or P.D. James, because I always have my own modern-day mystery plaguing every waking thought: What was that song's sample? The original record must be so insane! So I engage in unrestrained humming, asking strangers if they know, scanning band fan sites, and still.....I never get on the good foot. But no more, baby! I've found the place to bust my grooves: Sample FAQ.
This site takes you there. Takes you to all the secrets. Takes you to the true history of funk. For instance: You say, give me a sample-able funk groove, and I say James Brown and P-Funk. Correct, indeed. But if you know the right song to pick, and all you need is one song, then Melvin Bliss is JB's equal--Synthetic Substitution! P-Funk? They're busy huffing and puffing in their big boots to keep up with the Honeydrippers�Impeach the President!>
Check out all the give and take take take, and then you, just like Biz Markie in "I Hear Music," will be singing along with the Impressions, "We're a Winner...."
[NB: I was shocked to discover, on searching for "James Brown," that there were no samples listed! What kind of alternate universe hell had I fallen into? But I breathed a sigh of relief -- there are plenty under "Brown, James".]
| Sampling
