Doonesbury strikes again.

"On MSNBC they're covering the [Libby] trial like it's the Normandy Invasion, starring Elvis Presley, as told by Joseph Goebbels."

While I may listen to npr for my news, I depend on Garry Trudeau to keep me up to date on what is really going on in the world.

The above quote was featured in the "Say What?" section of the Daily Dose page on the Doonesbury web site a day or so ago. I believe that it was attributed to Ann Coulter.

Quotations from Ms. Coulter appear in the Mudline under the Doonesbury strip on a fairly regular basis, and I haven't figured out yet if those appearances are exactly complimentary. For the most part, it leads me to think that she is a loud woman who insists on being heard (rather than listened to). I'm not sure who her audience is supposed to be, but she certainly talks quite a bit.

In this particular case (oh goody! a pun!), however, she has hit the nail right on the head, although I'm not sure who Jeff Goebbels is. Every day there are extensive reports on the Libby trial, and every day there is very little new information. I get the feeling that it would be much like a daytime soap opera in that I could tune out for a week or two only to discover when I tuned back in that I hadn't really missed much.

Before I came across Ms. Coulter's assessment, I had been thinking that it seemed that the press wants to elevate this trial to the level of the Iran-Contra hearings. Since I was fairly young during the Reagan years, all I really remember about the Iran-Contra hearings is that they were boring and that they bumped my afternoon cartoons off the air.

At least the Lewinsky scandal had subplots of intrigue and betrayal to it.

In Libby trial is all about whether or not one guy lied about one piece of information. A piece of information which has been slathered across all sorts of newspapers, magazines and news programs. The bigger issue of *why* the CIA operative was outed in the first place--thus jeopardising her career and possibly her life--isn't even up for discussion, and that strikes me as a far more serious issue than whether or not one of the people supposedly involved in leaking the information is lying about doing it. The issue of the White House contradicting evidence--which an ambassador was specifically sent to collect--that did not support its agenda is also not up for discussion. Again, a more serious issue.

What kind of justice will really be served by this relentless public humiliation of Mr. Libby?

Lack of Experience

Hermits tend not to be particularly politically active. At least this hermit tends not to be particularly politically active. I start out interested in what is going on in an election. Then I get confused. Finally I become disgusted and throw my hands up at the whole situation.

I vividly remember one local election which was a fierce contest. As election day drew closer, the television ads became more and more frequent. The night before the election two completely contradictory ads were shown consecutively. One said that the incumbent had solved the education funding crisis. The other claimed that the incumbent had not only not solved the education funding crisis but also made it worse.

Surely only one of those assertions is true. Or is this one of those "truth from a certain point of view" situations?

In high school, as part of an extra credit project, I read a book entitled How to Lie with Statistics. I have been suspicious of the interpretation of numerical data ever since.

I am concerned about how early the 2008 presidential campaign is beginning. There is too much work to be done. The Congress needs to get something done now, or at least start getting something done now, rather than waiting for a change in twenty-two months. Let's focus on the matter at hand, shall we? There is the war that isn't helping anyone. Actually there are several wars that aren't helping anyone, and if we aren't careful, there are a few more on the horizon. There are too many people in this country who are hungry and underemployed and unable to afford health care. There are kids who can't afford to go to college. There are kids who can't get in to college because they aren't getting the education that they need in elementary and secondary school. There are veterans of current and past wars and their families who are not being taken care of properly. And we're all doing our part to destroy the planet.

But why work when we can start another contest? At least this contest hasn't gotten too ugly yet. So far the biggest concerns seem to be that one candidate is a Mormon and another doesn't have much in the way of experience on the national and international political stage.

Let's take a step back, shall we? Let's look at our current fearless leader. He's a born again Christian who openly talks to God and lets it be known that his faith influences his decisions, and his only serious political experience before becoming president was a single term as the Governor of Texas.

De ja vu anyone?

Rest in Peace, Indeed

Wow.

I am sitting on my book-strewn bed in a tangle of blankets and flannel sheets snacking on food that probably isn't meant for breakfast, listening to the radio and generally enjoying a leisurely Saturday morning, and Scott Simon on NPR's Weekend Edition just said something wonderfully sensitive, sympathetic and almost beautiful about the recently deceased Anna Nicole Smith.

In the last several days, I have been appalled at the coverage of this woman's demise. I was especially surprised at the extent of coverage on NPR. I don't want to sound like a snob and imply that Anna Nicole Smith wasn't good enough for NPR, but NPR usually doesn't cover the more titillating, sensational stories so thoroughly.

[As an aside, however, I have noticed that in general NPR seems to cover stories without a lot of substance for much longer than strikes me as informative. I can understand repeating the same story throughout the day, but when the same story is repeated for three or four days, is it really still news? It certainly ceases to be as interesting.]

When I first heard about Smith's death, my first thought, quite frankly, was "Who cares?" It's a tad harsh, I suppose, but I didn't find it to be particularly newsworthy, especially since I was fairly sure that her death was not being reported out of respect or concern but for the sensational reporting possibilities. Once more the press could make a spectacle out of a woman who has been simultaneously admired and criticized by the media who focus solely on the persona created by her obvious public actions--working in a strip club, having a child at sixteen, marrying a wealthy man almost three times her age, posing for Playboy, battling with weight problems--without concerning themselves with the troubled woman behind the persona.

The fact that she has died is only the beginning of the story. Now there must be an autopsy so that we can know the intimate details of where and how she died and thus speculate on the reasons it may have happened.

Whatever anyone may have thought of her, whatever she may have appeared to be in public, she was a human being who struggled through life just as most of the rest of us do. Sure, her struggles led to fame and fortune to some extent, but she had to deal with real hardship, the gravest of which was surely the loss of her son. I can't imagine any loss greater than that of a child, but after the young man's death, his mother was watched closely, but not out of sympathy.

Sure it can be argued that she sought out fame and fortune and enjoyed the spotlight that sensationalism offered to her, but now that she has died, is it really necessary to continue to look for as many sordid details as possible? Don't people have anything better to do? Wouldn't it be better to take a more magnanimous approach of not saying anything at all since you can't think of anything nice to say? Or just think about how you would feel to have the death of yourself or someone you love mercilessly and unsympathetically scrutinized.

Rest in peace, indeed.

Applied Education

The NPR show "Marketplace" had a segment about a unique business program at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont. In this era of rising education costs and big cutbacks by even bigger corporations, this kind of entrpreneurial encouragment might just be the key to the future. Click here to listen to the radio spot.

Can we afford to save the world?

Bill Gates and his wife Melinda have been getting a lot of press lately with their good works foundation, and while I am a huge fan of people with lots of money helping out those who have a lot less, I can't help wondering about the conseqences. War and poverty and disease and hunger are all terrible things, but they do serve a purpose. The human race is already stretching the planet's resources to their limits and beyond. Can it really support all of the people that philanthropic organizations are trying to help?

For example, I heard somewhere (probably from NPR) that one of the projects of The Gates' Foundation is vaccinating African children against preventable diseases such as measles. And we're not talking just a few hundred kids here. I think that the number (or maybe the goal) is up near a million. Okay, great. A million children are now protected against the sorts of nasty diseases we almost never see in the United States anymore. Given the poverty levels of most African countries, have these children been vaccinated only to have them die of starvation? What about education? And jobs? And is the Gates' Foundation going to be around to vaccinate, feed and educate *their* children?

By reducing the mortality rate, we are increasing the demand on the world's energy resources, so in addition to vaccinating, feeding, and educating people, there also needs to be funding for environmental protection, sustainable growth and agriculture, and alternative energy sources. I don't think that even Bill Gates has *that* much money, even with the addition of Warren Buffett's millions.

Saving the poor African children is glamourous. What about all of the children right here in the United States who don't get adequate health care, nutrition, and education? What about their parents who can't find jobs or get the help that they need to beat an addiction? What about the pollution of this county's waterways and destruction of its forests? Why does it seem to be so much easier to help complete strangers on the other side of the world when we have yet to first take care of our own?

Return to Sender

Wouldn't it be nice if e-mail could be returned to its point of origin the way that most snail mail can be?

Sure, there is usually some sort of link or instructions at the end of junk e-mail which claims to remove your address from the list, but first you must open the message which might contain a virus or worm, and then more often than not the link is a dead end or "remove from list" e-mail address doesn't really exist.

If only the address of origin could be the reply-to address.

At least junk mail usually comes with a postage paid return envelope so you can send everything back to the advertiser or credit card company, and catalogs are usually quite polite about removing addresses from their mailing lists.

Changing Men

Why is it that women labour (and sometimes labour intently and intensely) under the delusion that they can change men? And complain into the bargain that it is such hard work?

I don't remember where I read or heard it, but "A man loves a woman for who she is. A woman loves a man for who she thinks he can be."

How can a woman agree to love a man no matter what--for better, for worse and all that--if she is forever trying to turn him into a different man?

Ladies, if he wants to change in some way, then by all means be helpful and supportive, but don't try to take over and turn him into a project. If he doesn't meet your expectations, he'll feel terrible, and then you are probably worse off than before any attempts at self-improvement. And remember, thanks to the tidal nature of female hormones, he already thinks you are to some degree unstable and/or crazy, and fear of/concern about your reaction might well lead him to be less than forthcoming about his own shortcomings or change of heart, mind or plans.

Sure, relationships are about compromise, but neither person should have to give up the things that are most important to him or her. You don't have to like everything about the person or share all of the same interests. After all, there are still two individual people in a given relationship, so be individual. Do things on your own.

If a relationship (and relationship) is going to work, the people involved have to be aware and accepting of one another's faults. (Don't I sound like the all-knowing guru today?) And the only real way (which ironically turns out to be by far the most difficult way) to actually resolve any sort of issue is to have a frank, open discussion. As a general rule, however, people are notoriously bad at effective communication. They would rather shoot their mouths off in some sort of public forum, talk to other people not directly involved, or write op-ed pieces in the New York Times.

Take poor Seymour, for example, whose plight is featured in Neil Gaiman's blog. His girlfriend, who "happens to be a devout Christian," caught him reading Good Omens in bed and was apparently so horrified and scandalized that she left him. Now, we only know a very little about this relationship, but I wondered about more than a few things. What is a "devout Christian" doing sleeping in a bed with a man who is not her husband? How have these two people gotten to the point of sleeping in the same bed without her knowing what sort of things he likes to read? Why has Seymour chosen to discuss this matter with the author of the book rather than the girlfriend who left him? Then there is my perennial question of why Christians, especially devout ones, aren't more tolerant and understanding in accordance with the teachings of the man they claim to follow.

In response, Mr. Gaiman had a few questions of his own: "Your girlfriend left you because she caught you reading Good Omens next to her in bed? And she left you because she's a "devout Christian"? Had she read Good Omens and not liked it and told you not to read it too, or is it just the sort of book that she'd leave a boyfriend over without actually reading?"

I can't imagine that finding out that her problems with her boyfriend are being discussed in a popular public forum will make Seymour's girlfriend more inclined to work out the problem, but that's just a hunch on my part.

Memorial Day

NPR has a e-mailing list for daily installments of The Writer's Almanac. Today's entry included the following:

It was on this day in 1932 that World War I veterans began arriving in Washington, D.C., demanding their military bonuses about fifteen years early. Congress had approved the bonuses as a retirement plan back in 1924, and those bonuses weren't supposed to be paid until 1945, when the soldiers had reached the age of retirement. But it was the Great Depression, and most of those veterans were out of work and living in poverty, and they were desperate for early bonuses to help them survive.

The Bonus March was the idea of an unemployed former Army sergeant named Walter Waters, who stood up at a veterans' meeting in Portland, Oregon, on March 15, 1932, and said that every man at the meeting should hop a train to Washington, D.C., and demand the money that was rightfully his.

Walter Waters and his men arrived in Washington, D.C., on this day in 1932. Over the next few months about 25,000 others joined them. They had been congregating in D.C. for almost a month when the bonus bill finally came to the floor. It was passed by the House of Representatives, but it was defeated in the Senate two days later. Many of the Bonus Marchers went home, disappointed, but the original group of men stayed behind, vowing to remain until they received justice.

President Herbert Hoover ordered the Army to drive them out of town. Several army battalions of cavalry and tanks advanced on the veterans, tossing tear-gas grenades and setting the shantytown on fire. Over the next week, newspapers and newsreels showed images of veterans fleeing the burning shantytown with their families, through clouds of tear gas and smoke, followed by tanks and mounted troops waving swords. It was a public relations disaster. When presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt read a newspaper article about the eviction, he said, "This will elect me," and he was right.

It saddens me greatly to know that this country has such a history of failing to take care of the men and women who have fought to defend it.