On Bob Herbert: The Problem Is Us

post from TalkLeft on 19 September 2007 09:52:00 AM. © TalkLeft

Kevin Drum highlights this Why Is Bob Herbert Boring? piece by T A Frank that I find ok, but lacking in self examination. Consider this:

All fair enough. Nevertheless, many of my sources who criticized Herbert's column underscored their admiration for the work of writers like Jason DeParle and Katherine Boo, who also illuminate the lives of the poor. Granted, these writers operate outside of the column format—in longer articles and books—but their ability to generate interest in Herbert's chosen subjects suggests that elite readers aren't incontrovertibly apathetic about the lives of those less fortunate.

The idea that Jason DeParle and Katherine Boo are big agenda setters seems laughable to me. Sounds like the people who mentioned them were name dropping in the way people do to seem deeper than they are.

I have read Bob Herbert since he was a columnist at the Daily News and no one doubted Herbert was an influential columnist or thought he was boring then. Of course, he wrote about New York mostly then.

Frankly, I think Drum and Frank let themsleves and the "elite" of this country off the hook. The problem is them. Not Bob Herbert. And yes, I am a Bob Herbert fan and read almost every column he writes.

P.S. Will Washington Monthly be doing a "Why Is Nick Kristof Boring?" column? Just wondering.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime/~3/158538053/3874

Digg this

Habeas & Webb

post from Eschaton on 19 September 2007 09:40:00 AM. © Eschaton

Call:

Please take some time this morning to make some calls ? in support of the restoration of habeas rights and in support of the Webb Amendment (or the Dwell Time Amendment, as it is also called) as well. As Maha says, just do it. It?s crunch time, and your call can really make a difference today!

You can call toll free here (H/T to Katymine):

1 (800) 828 - 0498
1 (800) 459 - 1887
1 (800) 614 - 2803
1 (866) 340 - 9281
1 (866) 338 - 1015
1 (877) 851 - 6437

Every single Senator needs a call today, regardless of whether they are on the target lists. Here are some Senators that I?m hearing could use some extra persuasion before the vote today on habeas:

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) ? 202-224-4041
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) ? 202-224-6551
Sen. John Warner (R-VA) ? 202-224-2023
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) ? 202-224-4224
Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) ? 202-224-4814
Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) ? 202-224-2752
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) ? 202-224-2523
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) ? 202-224-5344
Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) ? 202-224-5641
Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) ? 202-224-3353
Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) ? 202-224-2841
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) ? 202-224-5824
Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) ? 202-224-3753
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) ? 202-224-4944
Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) ? 202-224-5623
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) ? 202-224-4843
Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO) ? 202-224-5852
Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) ? 202-224-2353
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) ? 202-224-4822

All of the above have been designated as on the fence, potentially wobbly, or not taking a position as yet on the habeas amendment, and need an extra nudge, please.

The following need a nudge on the Webb Amendment:

Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)
DC: 202-224-6665
Anchorage: 907-271-3735

George Voinovich (R-Ohio)
DC: (202) 224-3353
Cleveland: (216) 522-7095

Elizabeth Dole (R-North Carolina)
DC: 202-224-6342
Raleigh: 866-420-6083

John Warner (R-Virginia)
DC: (202) 224-2023
Roanoke: (540) 857-2676

Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky)
DC: 202-224-2541
Louisville: 502-82-6304

Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania)
DC: 202-224-4254
Harrisburg: (717) 782-3951

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/bRuz/~3/158547965/2007_09_16_archive.html

Digg this

Lara Logan looks at success in Afghanistan

post from Crooks and Liars on 19 September 2007 09:35:34 AM. © Crooks and Liars

Thank the higher being of your choice for journalists like Lara Logan. While Katie Couric stays in the Green Zone and with heavily guarded escorts through a security-cleared market, Logan goes in and slogs through bio-hazardous waste and shows us exactly how much “success” our tax dollars have bought in Afghanistan. Download (0) | Play (0) [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/19/lara-logan-looks-at-success-in-afghanist
an/

Digg this

In Country

post from Jesus' General on 19 September 2007 09:29:00 AM. © Jesus' General

In Country is a novel about Christiana "Chryssie" Rutenberg RN and Dr. Mercury "Merc" West, as they travel across America to sort their lives out. Chryssie is married to Hampton, who is coming back from Iraq missing a hand. All three have been "In Country," that is, in Iraq during the war. They are currently in Las Vegas NV. The previous parts of the novel are on Corrente Wire. Yes, there is more going on that just the surface story, which, if you want to know about it, then ask in the comment thread.

4

Maybe even now, I need. All, everywhere, is designed, everything. That holds events and plans. Even lost ideas are designs entering oblivion. And chosen in letters, engraved on stone.

But only under limits of meaning. Even now, everyone needs.

Hasn't everyone made up reasons inside? And chosen an inside, outside, insane stain. A lie, gestates, enters, ends the endless kinetic ethics.

Pray on lies, lies as stars. Demanding in phases the infamous maw of useless states, praise such useless choices as sound. And in death intone: "Please rape our insides. Assassinate, plunder, slake every need."

Have everyone rape. Onward, onward, now.

Although understanding topple our senses, defeat everything, hold endless lessons or reasons in abeyance, to each understated choice ending comes under starry scintillation in night.

Thank you Dr. Shay. I will come home now.

I wake to see his iris eyes hang over me like an early twilight sky, with blackness engulfing overhead, and fringes of darkest blue around. An alarming wave rises from my body, I am having sex, even though I have been asleep. My bodies moisture has eased the slow and steady sliding of him into me. But my mind is not aroused, but looks disdainfully from the sidelines.

The day before had seemed wasted, with to and fro and waiting for statements to be made and given. But the evening had been one of pulsing excitement, we had cruised the strip and settled into a pounding acid house dance club, ripped with blaring blue lights. We were going to party like it was 2002, and the blasting blaze of blue is every where.

The bodies are not quite packed in yet, but they are sweating in the heat, and the small bubbles we put around ourselves in waking ours had begun to collapse under some insane pressure of heat and need.

One seemed to clear a space, to like a dervish spin to another time, and in another motion. With another energy, creating a divine wind. The blades of her hands made angles to her arms. The twist of her round, round hips swirling a shape that was like the torquing of the bends of a twister as it lands. Some one had sown her with the wind, and there she was, the whirlwind: her dark skin shown with a kind breathe of sweat, her fountains of henna washed locks shook and shimmered as she danced, her eyes on her own breasts, her own orange and multi colored sort dress. There was that bright smile of self-love on her whole countenance.

Like any woman, I could tell that the man on my arm had noticed her, in the sense of her as a synonym for it, Her angular arm gestures, something about her, which I knew to be the perfectly toned legs and muscles, her perfectly smooth skin that glowed in the snap crackle pop of the dance floor light. Others pressed aside to watch her movements.

She was not that tall, but she swept the floor in front of her, her plunging neckline implying not availability, but a taunting flavor that is the sweet smell of confidence. Her rounded cheekbones carried the touch of affluence, but her tapered waist said that she was on the machines every day. Beauty was clearly her profession.

I reached my hand around Merc's seeking reassurance and trying to sense his own pulse. I found myself pulled around, his hand on my spine, his fingers intertwined with mine, his eyes on mine, my hand raised into the just so place of the tango, that dance he had taught me. I was pulled forward in my chest, and rocked back in my hips. I could do nothing but follow.

Then and only then did I notice that the pumping speakers were pushing out some dance music cover of "Roxanne."

"It's a tango."

That it is.

He circled one foot back and stepped forward, I retreated. A foot fall left, a foot fall left. I pull up, crossing my legs and pressed my thighs together. He let me drop down but almost with out pause, he shifted off of sync and I fell into ochos, me feet falling alternately into place. Eights. My hips spin in figure eights, tracing them in the air.

With that space we invaded the woman's bubble. I could feel the fingers of our space break through into hers, like claws that rip the flesh off a rabbit, or the tendrils of dawn the rip away the night. Eyes followed us as he spun me, and drove me around in a circle. It was a thunder run of a dance, twisted turned, and ever rotating.

I expected the woman to react, to sour her face, or in some way observe our intrusion. But instead, she merely radiated, danced the same dance. Then I noticed she had begun to turn her self contrary to our motion, so that there were wheels within wheels.

Merc and I would dance, sometimes holding attention, but later retreating into the packed down. His hands on every point of my desire, his legs intruding between my own, his palm now on my back in a formal dance, then along my arms in a free form flow.

By the end of the night we glowed with perspiration, and every other moisture that raises and rises. My skin was stretched from waves of sweat and drying, my nipples aching from so many quivering moments when I saw some particular curve or stance of his body. He drove me that night. Oh god how he drove me.

Back in the room, I was peeling off my clothes as I walked in, carelessly tossing them aside on the way to the bed. I would not accept delay even for another instant.

I looked back to see that look that men have when half surprised at their handiwork, half smugly confident, realize that their woman is pulling them like an undertow to the bed with no transition from public foreplay, to immediate intimacy. I let the corner of my mouth form a knowing half smile. It is a thing I saw my mother do with my father. I have done it so often now, that it is my own.

In a few moments his face was above mine, his features the clouds of a rolling storm. He looms over me, his nose strikes down towards me.

He is plowing up and down across my midriff, suddenly I have the intense urge to pee. I can't help it.

"Let's take a shower together." This is my old strategy to keep the mood up, and still not spend half an hour thinking about nothing but holding it in.

He rolls off of me, and in a cat quick motion plants his feet on the floor, grabs my wrist and pulls me up to standing. It feels like I am flying for a moment, and then I land, giddy.

"How do you do that?"

"It's easy with an angel to make her fly."

I almost want to blush, I drape my naked flesh over his shoulder and push us with little steps into the bathroom. As he is getting the water started, I do the necessaries and almost hop in, the water splashing off the sweat.

"You know, I had my claws out with that dancing girl. The one with the hot floral skirt and all the moves on the dance floor."

I wrap one leg around his and draw the cleft of my legs over his

He shakes his head.

"No, she is too much like my ex-wife."

"What ex-wife?"

Read The Full Article:
http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2007/09/in-country.html

Digg this

Rudy's Iffy Invasion of the Isles

post from Connecting.the.Dots on 19 September 2007 09:27:00 AM. © Connecting.the.Dots

Read The Full Article:
http://ajliebling.blogspot.com/2007/09/rudys-iffy-invasion.html

Digg this

Rudy's Iffy Invasion

post from Connecting.the.Dots on 19 September 2007 09:27:00 AM. © Connecting.the.Dots

Read The Full Article:
http://ajliebling.blogspot.com/2007/09/rudys-iffy-invasion.html

Digg this

Join me at the Young Voter PAC's open-bar event
on the Hill tonight

post from AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth on 19 September 2007 09:21:00 AM. © AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth

September 19, 2007
6-8pm
Top of the Hill Bar
319 Pennsylvania Ave., SE
Open Bar of Beer + Wine

In DC, our celebrities are "politicos," so come get a drink (yes it is really an open bar from 6-8pm) from one of our previously endorsed candidates and other Democratic leaders who support the youth vote. Buy your ticket today and watch for more confirmed bartenders at www.youngvoterpac.org.

Celebrity Bartenders (confirmed)
Rep. George Miller, the College Affordability Crusader
Rep. Harry Mitchell, Everyone's Favorite Teacher
Rep. Patrick Murphy, the Iraq Vet
John Aravosis, America's Blogger
Anthony Daniels, the Chair of Future Educators
Scott Kleeb, the Hot Rancher
Celinda Lake, the Goddess Pollster
Christine Pelosi, Campaign Boot Camp Drill Sergeant

Sponsor
National Educational Association

Host Committee
Alexandra Acker
Roshanak Ameli-Tehrani
David Burd
Julie Burton
Julia Cohen
Ryan Friedrichs
Ivan Frishberg
Jane Fleming Kleeb
Chris Gallaway
Andrew Gillum
Lane Hudson
Sarah Ingersoll
Brooke Lierman
Parag Mehta
Christine Pelosi
Crystal Strait
Jessy Tolkan
Simone Ward

Buy Your Ticket Today
A $50 cover charge, payable before the event at www.youngvoterpac.org or at the door, gets you into the event. All tips to our Celebrity Bartenders will also go to the Young Voter PAC's 2007 endorsements, our 18-35 Presidential Primary program and our new State Party Youth Director program. Guests must be 21 to attend the event. To become a Host or Sponsor of the event, email director@youngvoterpac.org.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Americablog/~3/158635092/join-me-at-young-voter-pa
cs-open-bar.html

Digg this

Cheers and Jeers: Wednesday

post from Daily Kos on 19 September 2007 09:20:44 AM. © Daily Kos

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

JEERS to the dishonest jerk of the month. Someone named "Mark I" over at Red State takes Hillary Clinton to task for stating the obvious:

-
"Here in America people are dying because they couldn't get the care they needed when they were sick."
-

Mr. I, summoning the raw intellectual power of a bag of sand, responds:

"Really? People are dying while waiting to receive health care? Doesn’t the Senator know that there is a Federal law requiring stabilizing treatment for anybody presenting at a hospital regardless of their ability to pay? [...] Clinton wants voters to focus on the emotions evoked by her image of emergency rooms filled with poor, dying patients. No such thing exists; at least not in this country."

Actually she didn’t say anything about emergency room wait times, you twit. She's talking about the thousands and thousands of people who get turned down by their fucking HMOs time after time after time because the companies so often put profits ahead of patients. Going to the emergency room to be cured of kidney cancer because your HMO turned you down ten times makes about as much sense as asking a Republican for advice on...well, anything.

But Hillary is also talking about the millions of people who can't afford to go to the doctor because they don’t have insurance, so they walk around with health issues like diabetes or heart disease or any myriad of undiagnosed conditions that an emergency room will only treat if someone is suffering from the end-stage consequence of those conditions: a heart attack or stroke or diabetic shock, for example.

Eighteen thousand people die each year because they lack health insurance. So it's not about how many butts are parked in emergency room seats, Mr. I. It's about how many dollars are in people's pockets and whether those dollars first have to go toward things like heat and rent and gas and food and electricity before they can go toward health care. That is, if they even have any dollars left over after they pay the credit card companies for all the health care-related charges that have left them on the verge of bankruptcy (which, of course, they can no longer get relief from, thanks to the draconian and very Republican bankruptcy bill).

But, in fairness, Hillary did mention wait times once, but in a different context. Perhaps, Mr. I, you might want to read it:

In the Senate I've worked to expand health care to our men and women in uniform. Believe it or not, many of our National Guard and Reserve members, the men and women who have been called to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan did not have health insurance for themselves or their families when they were activating. I'm proud of the legislation I passed to address that glaring problem. I've been fighting more generally to improve health care for veterans because it is outrageous that so many service members are returning home and being told to take a number and wait in line for the health care they need.

On that, Mr. I, perhaps you and I can agree.

Thanks to nyceve for her guidance on this yesterday. Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/158519638/5549

Digg this

UltravioletUnderground: Concerned Blogosphere
Launches Grassroots Virtual March in Support of Jena 6

UltravioletUnderground: Concerned Blogosphere Launches Grassroots Virtual March in Support of Jena 6

Read The Full Article:
http://francislholland.blogspot.com/2007/09/ultravioletunderground-concerned.html

Digg this

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Broder's comeback kid bounces all the way to new low.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress registered record-low approval ratings in a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday, and a new monthly index measuring the mood of Americans dipped slightly on deepening worries about the economy.

Only 29 percent of Americans gave Bush a positive grade for his job performance, below his worst Zogby poll mark of 30 percent in March. A paltry 11 percent rated Congress positively, beating the previous low of 14 percent in July.