A lot went on today that was worth considering and because I have
a couple of other things to do before bed I'm going to just combine a bunch
of the thoughts I had today into a sort of stream of thinking super-post:
I was angered reports this morning that the 'current' terrorist threat information is really pretty old and got even angrier when I tried driving into work and got stuck on 2nd Street for half an hour and realized that the additional security implemented as a response to these imminent threats consisted of looking through my car window into the back seat and asking for my congressional ID which I wasn't required to show because you don't yet need to work in Congress to drive down that street. Congresswoman Norton and Mayor Williams and therefore the residents of the District get screwed because we can object to our roads being closed but nobody has to listen and that is un-what-this-country-is-supposed-to-be. Listening to Howard Dean in Boston made me love that man again. He makes me believe that politics is worth doing, but only if you think about what it means and how to do it. Dean supports Samara Barend and now I do too. The FleetCenter was a mess; at one point a worker told me that since folks were complaining about the lack of passes they just handed out a thousand more. Personal integrity and public integrity are not one and the same. Jon Stewart may be a jackass at home (not saying he is, just that he could be) but he is a great man because he holds those who should know better accountable for what they say and do. We're at the point now that anybody can say just about anything, like how freakin liberal John Kerry and John Edwards are supposed to be, and we'll believe it without us asking that it be supported at least as well as was required by the teachers grading three-five essays back at Immaculate Heart Academy circa 1994. I'm still surprised by the cynicism of the mainstream press and what a really what a very bad job they often do and how can we get other people to see that? Dean told a story about how he flew to Oregon with Kerry to give a powerful speech before a great crowd and what got reported was that they played hearts on the plane. Judy Woodruff can kiss my ass. I too worship at the altar of Joe Trippi (thank you Rick Klau) but I think he's wrong about the future of the political parties -- at their best they're only meant to serve a limited purpose and we the people are supposed to do the rest. Homeland security and partial birth abortion and death tax and weapons of mass destruction are examples of the principle that you get to decide how people think about something when you decide how to name it. Complaining that political conventions are scripted is like doing the same about Broadway. David Brock and Media Matters are doing good work -- witness Oliver Willis's piece on how FOX News said the crowd didn't cheer during the military parts of Kerry's speech when, wait for it, that wasn't actually true. Why can't we accept that just maybe somebody like John Kerry is a good man that just might do a good job -- why isn't that possible anymore?
I was angered reports this morning that the 'current' terrorist threat information is really pretty old and got even angrier when I tried driving into work and got stuck on 2nd Street for half an hour and realized that the additional security implemented as a response to these imminent threats consisted of looking through my car window into the back seat and asking for my congressional ID which I wasn't required to show because you don't yet need to work in Congress to drive down that street. Congresswoman Norton and Mayor Williams and therefore the residents of the District get screwed because we can object to our roads being closed but nobody has to listen and that is un-what-this-country-is-supposed-to-be. Listening to Howard Dean in Boston made me love that man again. He makes me believe that politics is worth doing, but only if you think about what it means and how to do it. Dean supports Samara Barend and now I do too. The FleetCenter was a mess; at one point a worker told me that since folks were complaining about the lack of passes they just handed out a thousand more. Personal integrity and public integrity are not one and the same. Jon Stewart may be a jackass at home (not saying he is, just that he could be) but he is a great man because he holds those who should know better accountable for what they say and do. We're at the point now that anybody can say just about anything, like how freakin liberal John Kerry and John Edwards are supposed to be, and we'll believe it without us asking that it be supported at least as well as was required by the teachers grading three-five essays back at Immaculate Heart Academy circa 1994. I'm still surprised by the cynicism of the mainstream press and what a really what a very bad job they often do and how can we get other people to see that? Dean told a story about how he flew to Oregon with Kerry to give a powerful speech before a great crowd and what got reported was that they played hearts on the plane. Judy Woodruff can kiss my ass. I too worship at the altar of Joe Trippi (thank you Rick Klau) but I think he's wrong about the future of the political parties -- at their best they're only meant to serve a limited purpose and we the people are supposed to do the rest. Homeland security and partial birth abortion and death tax and weapons of mass destruction are examples of the principle that you get to decide how people think about something when you decide how to name it. Complaining that political conventions are scripted is like doing the same about Broadway. David Brock and Media Matters are doing good work -- witness Oliver Willis's piece on how FOX News said the crowd didn't cheer during the military parts of Kerry's speech when, wait for it, that wasn't actually true. Why can't we accept that just maybe somebody like John Kerry is a good man that just might do a good job -- why isn't that possible anymore?
