All you need to know

about everything is set forth here, more incisively and articulately than I could ever write it. Enjoy.

I don't know whether to applaud or cry

about this fabulous job of reporting by AP writers on a Pentagon coverup of a series of massacres of civilians by the US Army during the Korean War. It's 57 years too late to be helpful to those who were affected, and the Army is still denying any wrongdoing, but at least the truth is emerging. The story is written in direct prose, without those irritating qualifiers that so often fuzz over the reporting these days. The Army lied and is lying still, and may never cease lying, but these reporters, undaunted, are exposing the truth.

So--I suppose, on balance, I'm applauding.

Enough, already!

This Don Imus thing. What a waste of energy! There are so many evils, far more evil than Imus' remarks, that are disregarded by the media, while it flails away at this story. I've tried not to comment, but now find I must in order to maintain my sanity.

I used to listen to "Imus in the morning" regularly. About six years ago I quit, finding his commentary negative and inane. I also believed his project to build a "ranch" in New Mexico to host cancer-afflicted kids (using largely sponsors' funds for the construction so that the bunkhouse was named the American Express Bunkhouse, and so forth) was simply an excuse for him to return to the desert and have a toy to play with. Also, I found his interviews with newsmakers (which he touted as incisive and informative) were pap. I didn't really have trouble with the often-shaky references he made to various minorities, and even after seeing the lists of his remarks in various stories lately, I find many of them offensive but not incendiary, not more vulgar than what passes in many quarters these days for humor.

Of course, MSNBC can cut off its simulcast of his radio show, and others who carry his daily program can cease broadcasting it. That's their right (assuming they're not contractually bound to the contrary). But--and here's where my old ACLU instinct arises--he has a protected right to say what he says, and although it's not my cup of tea it may be somebody's. And--and here's my point--if it's nobody's then "market forces" will drive him off the air because nobody's forcing his listeners to listen.

Furthermore, I find the posturing and feigned outrage of many (especially politicians and media wags who've regularly appeared on his shows over the years, during which time he often used offensive words and references) to be beyond hypocritical, if there is such a state.

There, I've said my piece. Just as Imus has a right to say his.

Explain this to me

Over the years, I've seen (we've all seen) scores of photos of Iraqis holding dead or injured loved ones, wailing in outrage or sadness. Many of the dead were killed by U.S. troops, no doubt, which caused me even greater pain to see. But somehow this photo and its caption make me want to rise up and strike back at those in our nation who've caused this to happen. The man, beholding his wrecked pickup--probably his major asset, probably his means of livelihood--seems so anguished, in such helpless despair. And I can just imagine the hotheaded, frightened U.S. soldiers--teenagers, probably--who were driving the Bradley fighting vehicle, or whatever, that ran over his truck. They were likely afraid to wait for traffic to clear--they're sitting ducks in Baghdad--and so...this. A ruin of a man's life and livelihood.

For what?

One of the benefits of being older

is that I won't have to live in a world like this.

An old friend on film

Environmentalist, humanist Edward Abbey was a friend of mine, and a client. I met him in the mid-sixties when I represented his wife, Judith, who'd been arrested in an antiwar protest. (Judy, still in her thirties, died a few years later.)

Ed later moved to Tucson (my realtor brother, Charlie, found his home in the foothills of the Tucson Mountains), and we saw each other often, for legal stuff and social stuff.

Ed's books were reverent celebrations of the American west. Desert Solitaire, an early book, described his summer as a park ranger in Utah, and a later book, The Monkey Wrench Gang, decried the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona, a huge project that dammed the Colorado River, flooding the Glen Canyon's fabulous terrain and monumental geological structures.

This video shows Ed in 1981 giving a speech on the top of Glen Canyon to a gathering that is said to have been the genesis of the environmental group, Earth First! It was good to see my old friend, alive and kicking. He died about ten years ago, and as with many things in his life, his death was shrouded in controversy. But that's another story.

Must see

I seldom demand that my vast readership follow my links, but here's one you gotta see.

Jon Stewart for President

Okay, so only 8% of those polled said they'd definitely vote for him, but the percent who'd definitely not vote for him was lower than the percent that definitely wouldn't vote for Newt or Hillary. What does that tell us? I don't have a clue.

Iraq Today

This site regularly lists military developments and acts of violence throughout Iraq. Several weeks into the "surge" the news from yesterday, April 5, doesn't look so good, does it? I wonder how long the U.S. public would stand for our continued presence in Iraq if a daily tally such as this were featured in a boxed article on page one of just a few MSM newspapers.

(No need to read each word of the day's accounts--but do scroll through the entire April 5 post to get a sense of the scope and variety of mad acts. The site was recently moved from here, a site that contains three years' worth of archives of previous daily postings to a similar effect, if you want to compare the present level of violence to earlier periods. Hint: No big difference, except in the increasing sophistication of forms of attacks.)

Holding my breath

The rumor of an imminent attack by the U.S. on Iran, due at four a.m. Iran time tomorrow (see my post below, "Whaddya Think?") has bounced around the web for a few days and I've even heard it discussed among some of my leftist friends, whose reaction is "I don't doubt it one bit."

Well, I do doubt it, frankly. But then I doubted Bush would attack Iraq in the months before the invasion; I doubted he'd nominate Bolton, Alito, Roberts, Gonzalez; I doubted he'd veto embryonic stem-cell funding. In fact, I've doubted scores more actions by this administration only to be proven wrong, and yet I still can't believe Bush is the monster he--it turns out--actually is.

So, having been wrong about Bush so many times in the past, I'm turning on my TV at eight this evening, hoping all's quiet in Persia.

BTW--Here's a fellow nonbeliever, but for a different reason.

Maybe there's hope for us, for the U.S.

I have long argued--including several times in this blog--that true conservatives and liberals agree on a fundamental tenet of constitutional law: a strict restraint on executive power over personal freedoms. Now, finally, we are seeing a rejuvenation of a conservative movement that represents that view--as opposed to the Anne Coulter wing of the right, that accedes to any presidential power that Bush seeks--and its joinder with the liberal left. (Note the membership list in the middle of the article.) Could it be that sanity, and constitutional law, will once again obtain in this republic?

Yeah, what about that?

Remember the "incident" back in January, where American forces grabbed five Iranians in a town in northern Iraq? The justification for it was that they were "Iranian agents" or something, and we've not heard a peep about their whereabouts or disposition since. Well, now it turns out that that act was apparently a blundered attempt by the US to snatch senior Iranian officials--highly-placed intelligence officers--who were in Iraq at the time.

So what's the difference between Iran's seizure of British sailors--even if they were in Iraqi waters--and America's seizure of Iran's officials on Iraqi soil? They're either both illegal, or neither is. But there's this difference: We know where the British sailors are.

You can't make this shit up

From the Washington Times:
"The head of a California company hired by the U.S. government to help build a fence along the Southwest border to curb the flow of illegal aliens into the United States has been sentenced on charges of hiring illegals for the job."

Radical?

He calls for an end to US occupation of Iraq, he calls for a day of protest, of hanging Iraqi flags throughout the nation. He lists the miserable conditions in Iraq since the US invasion.

Just once, I'd like to see al Sadr's name appear in an article without the adjective "radical." His words sound like those of any patriot whose nation is under occupation by a foreign power.

Whaddya think?

This report of an April 6 attack by the US on Iranian sites is awfully (literally) specific. Too specific to be true, or to be untrue?

Free speech?

Apparently not if you say that the US ought to move its embassy out of the heart of Baghdad.

I don't understand

I mean, I just don't get it. Who are those people who stand in line on the opening night of a movie's run, who crowd into the theater with hundreds of others who've paid full-boat ticket prices, to fulfill some need to see the film immediately after its release? What's the benefit from seeing a movie on day one as opposed to day four, or week four?

For that matter, who are those people who bought and installed Microsoft's new Vista system--millions did so in the first weeks of its release--only to learn that it has numerous kinks that cause difficulties with photo and audio peripherals and other applications? Everybody knows a new system will have wrinkles when it's first submitted to widespread use by the public, and the "old system"--Windows XP, which I have on my computer--ain't so bad. So what's the goddam hurry? Why not wait for a month or two or three until the system's been tried in the real world and some of the initial wrinkles ironed out. Really. I want to know.

Let them eat pizza

Given these numbers, where are the bread riots?

High stakes

With some form of troop-withdrawal legislation, tied to funding, apparently nearing the President's desk, and with Bush's vow to veto it, clear battle lines have been drawn. At this juncture, Congress looks to hold the upper hand, politically.

But after the veto, Congress will fail to override and there will be no funding forthcoming for the troops. Then what? Who will win the propaganda war that then ensues? From my perspective, Congress will then be forced to acquiesce in Bush's position to avoid allowing funding to languish, and Bush will have scored a political victory, given the influence of MSM spin and the stupidity of the American people.

We'll see.

Tell me what you think

of these two poems by a 19-year old Barack Obama.