Health care – or the remarkable lack of it available to the US population – is one of my pet issues. Regrettably, it has flown under the radar for a long time. This is too bad, because no other issues has such a profound effect on the well being of the middle class. If people don’t have the opportunity to take care of their basic health, their entire standard of living comes into jeopardy.
Read MoreIt appears we are rapidly approaching the watershed moment for the Bush Administration. Not only are numerous top officials about to face serious questions about their actions, but the cornerstone on which Bush has built his Presidency will be tested and judged: his ability to judge character. From almost the start, Bush has run a “trust me” kind of Presidency. He has often led the American people to believe that he has an almost innate ability to discern the motivations and character of people simply by meeting them. He has pronounced foreign leaders “good men”, he has “looked into the hearts” of numerous appointees, and has generally asked the American people to trust him about his decisions. His nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court is the most recent example of this pattern. But now a reckoning is about to occur. The American people are about to face a simple question that will determine Bush’s fate and legacy.
Do you believe that those members of the Bush administration who were responsible for the making decisions about war and peace considered the documents dealing with Iraq’s attempts to acquire uranium in Niger to be genuine?
An examination of the documents shows that there is no “good” answer to that question for Bush.
Read MoreTwo women caught in the middle of two very big messes at the same time – both the result of their own arrogance: Judith Miller, irascible New York Times reporter and Harriet Miers, woefully inexperienced Supreme Court Justice nominee. Both are in the headlines every day and the stories behind those headlines keep getting worse. Yet, neither woman has the humility necessary to simply stand up, declare “mea culpa” and just walk away – sparing the rest of us the circus they’ve both created.
Sunday’s NYT has yet another story by yet another colleague of Miller’s, Byron Calame, “the reader’s representative”, throwing even more poisonous darts at her in an attempt to push her out the door. And she deserves to be pushed – hard.
I suspect we’ll see many of these in days to come as the NYT tries to save what little is left of its former reputation thanks to Miller’s stonewalling and self-absorption. Unfortunately, this will continue to be a spectator sport in which the audience members are tied to their chairs, forced to watch as the paper continually flogs itself in an act meant to convince people that, this time, it really means it – it will change. Note to the NYT: we can only take so much.
Meanwhile, Miers reputation is again coming under fire – this time for receiving excessive funds from Texas officials for a land deal she was involved with. This new scandal is sure to keep the media busy for at least the next couple of days.
Harriet Miers needs to withdraw her name from the nomination process immediately. It’s become quite obvious that a person so full of themselves that they would even consider accepting a nomination for US Supreme Court Justice with the obvious lack of qualifications she has places herself above what’s good for the court and the United States. There’s more than enough hubris in Washington to go around these days. Bush commends Miers’ character. That’s only because it reflects his to a tee – take what you want and screw everybody else.
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“There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold;”
– Robert W Service
When I first got old enough to vote, I was living in West Philadelphia. I remember the registration form vaguely, and the one element that still stands out to this day was the box asking for skin color. As I was wont to do, I wrote “tan.”
Wilson Goode was running for mayor, and was likely to be the first black mayor of Philadelphia. I was excited to vote in my first election. When my registration card came, under skin color was the word, “black.” When election day came, I walked to my polling place, (I loved walking around West Philly), and waited in line. When I got to the table, the poll worker could not find my name in the book. I showed my registration card, it did not matter. He checked the date, saw that I had registered in time, and should have been eligible to vote. He did not seem surprised. I was told that I could go to court, swear that I had registered on time, and the judge would issue a warrant which I could bring back to the polling place and I would be allowed to vote. The poll worker said I could probably get a ride from someone outside.
Outside, indeed. There was someone with a clipboard standing outside a van, collecting people who needed to go to the courthouse. I took the ride. When the van was full, off we went. At the courthouse, the line to see the judge was long, and it seemed everyone was there for the same reason. The judge seemed blurry-eyed, the bailiff held up a bible. I had never been in court before. I think I asked if I could skip swearing on the bible. Maybe I didn’t. But I got the warrant, got back in the van, and when it was full we went back to the polling place. My name was added to the book, and I cast my first vote, and it was for Wilson Goode.
A few years later I came to regret that vote. West Philadelphia had a group called MOVE! in residence, and they were not well liked. One member of the group was in jail for killing a Philly cop. The cop had most likely been killed by other cops, by accident, during a standoff with MOVE! years before. Now MOVE! had a new house, and were prone to harassing the neighborhood with loud broadcasts from their rooftop. A lot of people lived in the house. Some were children. They were dirty, ate raw food, had boarded up the windows, wore dreadlocks, followed a man called John Afrika. But they were in West Philly, in a black neighborhood.
Now, the Philly cops were a bad lot at that time. They drove baby-blue St. Regis Plymouths. And they were mean. More than one friend of mine had been beaten up by cops on the way home from the bar late at night. And their allies in the city government were notorious. I can’t remember the whole cast of characters from that time, but the punchline of their history is that years later, Frank Rizzo died of a heart attack while taking a crap in his campaign headquarters. And there was never a more fitting end to a political career.
In any case, eventually a warrant was issued to protect the children in the MOVE! house. “Attention MOVE!, this is America.” was shouted at the house through a bullhorn before an all-out assault began. Over 10,000 bullets were fired into the house, it was inundated with water from firehoses, teargas was pumped in, and eventually a bomb made of C-4 explosive was dropped onto it. Most of everybody inside was killed, as the fire started by the bomb was let to burn. The entire block was engulfed in flames. Those who tried to escape into an alley behind the house were shot by police.
In the aftermath, Mayor Goode stood by the police. The city rebuilt the entire block. The twenty-year anniversary has come and gone. Most people I know claim to have never heard of this event.
I am not certain why I remember this now. My dreadlocks are pretty long these years later. I have been stopped for nothing by many cops since then. I’ve had rocks thrown at me by kids shouting “nigger.” I still vote every time election day arrives. And I still think of those children huddled under wet blankets, in a basement on Osage Avenue, in dirty water, waiting to burn.
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