Here I am, in the green mask, throwing my arm off to a large swath of friends on the ground in the picture below and handing down some highly-prized spears in the picture on the right. Notice the flag beads around my neck? Can you guess the country? [NOTE: Credit the pictures to colleague and friend, JW.]
I have to say that, if I were RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, President Bush, or Karl Rove (and if I had a conscience) this, from Republican Frank Schaeffer, would sting like the dickens:
I'm a Christian, a writer, a military parent and a registered Republican.Ouch!
On all those counts, I was disgusted by an e-mail I just received that's being circulated by campaign supporters of Republican George Allen, who's trying to retain his Senate seat in Virginia.
The message goes like this: "First, it was the Catholic priests, then it was Mark Foley, and now Jim Webb, whose sleazy novels discuss sex between very young teenagers. ... Hmmm, sounds like a perverted pedophile to me! Pass the word that we do not need any more pedophiles in office." Democrat James Webb is a war hero and former Marine, wounded in Vietnam and winner of the Navy Cross. He was writing about class and military issues long before me and has articulated the issue of how the elites have dropped the ball on military service in his classic novel Fields of Fire. By the way, that's a book Tom Wolfe calls "the greatest of the Vietnam novels."
Mr. Webb's son is a Marine in Iraq. That's an uncommon fact in this era in which most political leaders' children act as if it is only right and proper that it's someone else's war to fight.
Mr. Webb also happens to be running against a desperate opponent supported by people who circulated the stupid e-mail, something that reminds me of a 2000 smear campaign aimed at another war hero, John McCain.
I never served in the military. It was my son's unexpected volunteering that connects me to the military family and to my country. And I've been voting Republican for years. My late father – Dr. Francis Schaeffer – was an evangelical theologian, friend to Jerry Falwell and White House guest of Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford and the first President Bush.
I have nice handwritten letters from various members of the Bush family, including Barbara, thanking me for my books on military service. So I have every reason to stay in the Republicans' good graces. (It's nice to be complimented on television by the First Lady.)
But enough is enough. I've had it with Republican smears.
The Webb e-mail is the embodiment of the cynical Republican strategists, some of whom must know the difference between fiction and nonfiction. Was Agatha Christie a murderer because she wrote about murder?
According to the Allen camp's logic, God would be a pedophile, too. After all, we Christians believe God inspired the Bible. And God-the-author chose to include the "sleazy" story about Lot offering to send out his young virgin daughters to be raped by the men of Sodom.
The Bible has masturbation scenes, rape, pedophilia and God's favorite man – King David – warming himself with a young virgin in his old age. He's the same man God tells us committed murder after he indulged his peeping Tom fantasies.
Lucky for God-the-author that He's not running against George Allen.
Remember when Republicans incessantly and relentlessly mocked John Kerry for his famous "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it" flip-flop on a wartime spending bill? I sure do. You know, at least Kerry could point to the fact that he did vote differently on the same subject in two different moments. Regardless of what it says about Kerry's lack of convictions, or his inability to articulate what he was trying to say, it's at least a true statement in some measure: Kerry actually did vote for an $87 billion wartime spending measure that he supported before voting against another alternative $87 billion wartime spending measure that he did not support.
Then there's Bush ... who just out-and-out lies.
Notice the ghost-town silence among conservative bloggers when Bush lies.
This time, there's no equivocation about it; and Bush can't even articulate even a feeble defense of his position, as Kerry was able to.
Here's an explanation and a take-down of the duplicity and outright lies of Bush. Here's the relevant part of the transcript in a Bush interview with George Stephanopolous:
STEPHANOPOULOS: James Baker says that he’s looking for something between “cut and run” and “stay the course.”And Andrew Sullivan links to a YouTube clip of Jon Stewart who just blasts Bush on the point. Check it out and let me know who's worse: Flip-flop Kerry or Lying Bush.
BUSH: Well, hey, listen, we’ve never been “stay the course,” George. We have been — we will complete the mission, we will do our job, and help achieve the goal, but we’re constantly adjusting to tactics. Constantly.
This speech is so awesome and inspirational, I almost can't contain myself with a swelling and emotional pride that this man is a liberal and a Democrat. He represents precisely why I am a liberal Democrat. The whole speech is incredible, from start to finish; but I found his concluding segment to be humbling, utterly beautiful, and stunningly magnificent:
So let me end with another interaction I had during my campaign. A few days after I won the Democratic nomination in my U.S. Senate race, I received an email from a doctor at the University of Chicago Medical School that said the following:Amen, brother! I will follow this incredible leader all the way to the White House, because that is most certainly where he is heading. He is the real deal.
"Congratulations on your overwhelming and inspiring primary win. I was happy to vote for you, and I will tell you that I am seriously considering voting for you in the general election. I write to express my concerns that may, in the end, prevent me from supporting you."
The doctor described himself as a Christian who understood his commitments to be "totalizing." His faith led him to a strong opposition to abortion and gay marriage, although he said that his faith also led him to question the idolatry of the free market and quick resort to militarism that seemed to characterize much of President Bush's foreign policy.
But the reason the doctor was considering not voting for me was not simply my position on abortion. Rather, he had read an entry that my campaign had posted on my website, which suggested that I would fight "right wing ideologues who want to take away a woman's right to choose." He went on to write:
"I sense that you have a strong sense of justice...and I also sense that you are a fair minded person with a high regard for reason...Whatever your convictions, if you truly believe that those who oppose abortion are all ideologues driven by perverse desires to inflict suffering on women, then you, in my judgment, are not fair-minded....You know that we enter times that are fraught with possibilities for good and for harm, times when we are struggling to make sense of a common polity in the context of plurality, when we are unsure of what grounds we have for making any claims that involve others...I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words."
I checked my web-site and found the offending words. My staff had written them to summarize my pro-choice position during the Democratic primary, at a time when some of my opponents were questioning my commitment to protect Roe v. Wade.
Re-reading the doctor's letter, though, I felt a pang of shame. It is people like him who are looking for a deeper, fuller conversation about religion in this country. They may not change their positions, but they are willing to listen and learn from those who are willing to speak in reasonable terms - those who know of the central and awesome place that God holds in the lives of so many, and who refuse to treat faith as simply another political issue with which to score points.
I wrote back to the doctor and thanked him for his advice. The next day, I circulated the email to my staff and changed the language on my website to state in clear but simple terms my pro-choice position. And that night, before I went to bed, I said a prayer of my own - a prayer that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me. [Emphasis is mine.]
The Council on Hemispheric Affairs comments on the legacy of the U.S.'s training of Latin American military officers at the WHINSEC (Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly the SOA or School of the Americas). Combining the current anti-terrorist fears in the U.S. public, an administration policy that tends to ignore or dismiss torture as legitimate interrogation techniques, and border security concerns, one wonders if WHINSEC might not just stay open, but might also ramp up its old ways again.
For those of us paying attention to the fallout from Hurricane Katrina, we hear a lot of talk about who among the affected groups has been abandoned and forgotten, who is being left behind, and why. Well, let me tell you what I think about this whole debate ...
I think the whole notion that some gindividual or group is more "forgotten" than others is a pile of selfish b.s. Everyone feels that way. I felt that way because St. Bernard residents were allowed officially to come take a look-see before Orleans Parish residents were. I heard a black female professional from New Orleans East say she felt abandoned because only poor black people in the Superdome and Convention Center and rich white folk in Lakeview and uptown were getting all the attention and coverage from media and public officials. I heard numerous people from Slidell say they were the forgotten ones and that New Orleans was getting all the attention. Folks affected by the breach in the industrial canal thought that they were forgotten amidst all the attention given to the 17th street canal breach and the neighborhoods affected by it. Lakeview residents felt abandoned because they couldn't see their property until a week after the CBD and certain parts of Uptown were given the green light. All who were affected by this, who experienced grief and separation from their homes, feel as if nothing is soon enough and that everyone else has it better. This person's FEMA check came and mine didn't... That person got a $1500 cash debit card from the Red Cross and all I got was a case of bottled water... My next door neighbor got his power restored or his cable connected, but mine still doesn't work... That person's flood or homeowner's adjuster came and met with him at his property to assess his claim, and I can't even get my adjuster to call me back, and we're both insured by the same company, so on, ad infinitum.
It's perfectly understandable that when one feels a loss, it's a very solitary feeling for that person. And the fact is that we from the Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama Gulf Coast are ALL in this boat to some degree or another. And when we each have a problem linked to the same source, it is natural that my problem is just as important as the next affected person's problem, so when my problem is not addressed but the next person's is, I feel "abandoned" - and lash out trying to understand why I'm being "dissed." Is it because I am white (as Lakeview's Mr. Forgotston and St. Bernard residents have charged)? Is it because I am black (as Jesse Jackson and Kayne West have charged)? Is it because I am poor? Is it because I live in Kenner and not in New Orleans? Is it because I am just a worker and not a business owner? Why am I being left behind? What is it about ME that causes my sufferings to go unaddressed when others are being taken care of.
But the rational person would know that the FACT is that emotion and not reason is driving these false charges of abandonment. The rational person has to know that there is not a concerted effort to discriminate against anyone for any particular reason. It's a friggin' catastrophic disaster and we're all hurt and we all want immediate attention from someone in authority who will listen to us grieve, who will lament our losses, and who will tell us everything will be all right in the midst of upheaval and chaos. So when someone makes the claim that they are Katrina's forgotten ones, I say "Puh-leeze! Join the club of everyone."
Hi, all. It's been a while since I posted anything here. I've been busy with many other things, including running multiple blogs for my scattered office. In any case, I thought I'd give just a quick update on how I've fared.
First, I've managed to get to my home in New Orleans some 7-8 times now, as of at least a couple of weeks ago.
My home sustained some serious flood and wind damage. It took on 2-3 feet of water in the first (ground) floor level. Fortunately, it is more like a garage/basement area and our main living area is on the upper floor. Still, we had a guest bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom on the ground floor level; and our laundry room, hot water heater, tools, kid's play room, etc., were also on the ground level. Needless to say, we lost a good bit of stuff, not to mention the demolition and rebuilding of the walls we'll have to do and the mold we'll have to content with. But it's o.k. We have good flood insurance (though I am still waiting to meet with the adjuster, so who knows how it will turn out).
I also lost about 75% of my slate shingle roof. One part of the roof which was made of sheet metal (it was over a formerly enclosed exterior porch that had been remodeled and converted to an indoor room) blew off and water seeped down into the room causing the ceiling to collapse and bring with it some mold. But, I'm not all that worried about this, yet, because we have an old seal-tab shingle roof underneath the slate shingles that, although very compromised itself, has kept the water (except in a few isolated spots) out of the main living area of the house. And now that I have a blue tarp on the roof, I think we'll be o.k. in any other rain storms. And, we have good homeowners insurance coverage, too.
My family (wife and two daughters) have relocated for the time being to Chesapeake, VA, where they are staying with my wife's father and step-mother. I'm basically still in the New Orleans area and will plan to rejoin them when I can, at least for short visits if not for longer stretches of time.
We're committed to being a part of a renovated New Orleans. Already the City is showing signs of life, and though it won't ever be exactly the way it was, it's charm will still be around. I can already see it. Hell, the Maple Street Bar is now open again! That's a great sign. I'll try to keep giving regular updates, but I make no promises. Just check back every so often and maybe I'll have something new on there.
To my fellow Louisiana bloggers: hope you made out all right in these storms and I look forward to catching up with all of you via your blogs soon.
Long Live NOLA!
School Board: ISL Updates? - My daughter attended the Interntional School of Louisiana. I am looking for any contact information or websites that can give us current news on the school, its status, and its future plans. Also, I'm very anxious to find out how my daughter's friends fared during and after the storm. If you know anything, please post it in the comments section or send me an email. Thanks.
Lagniappe: Tulane Latin Americanists - I have set up a blog site for Tulane Latin Americanists in order to maintain some type of centralized communication among our Latin Americanist Community. I am calling the blog the RTS Center for Latin American Studies Blog.
On this blog, I will post any relevant information that passes my way. I will also maintain an email contact list there for those who might want quick reference to the non-Tulane email addresses of the Latin Americanist community.
If you want to send me an email, please send it to me here: rtsclasblog@hotmail.com
Hope you and yours are well. My wife, Michele, and my two daughters, Daisy and Ella Rose, are out of state with relatives. I'm waiting around for a week or two more to see what develops with the situation and particularly with Tulane, before I head out to join them. I am still sticking it out in Abita Springs on the Northshore at my parents house. If for some reason you want or need to reach me by phone, send me an email and I'll reply with the phone number.
Lagniappe: Confidential to my Tulane Colleagues - I can be contacted by telephone by ground line service at my parents' house in Abita Springs. I cannot call out to any 504 area code numbers, including cell phone numbers. If any of you have a functional cell phone or access to ground line services, please send me an email to my hotmail account: huckupchuck@hotmail.com and I will make contact with you or give you my parents phone number. Take care and hope all is well for all of you.
Lagniappe: Katrina Recovery - First off, we are all fine in the immediate Huck family. We have also heard from most of the extended family, and everyone appears to be fine. Once my wife and I realized that the storm track wasn't likely to change and that Katrina was growing in intensity, we prepared the house for the worst, packed up what we could of valuables, secured what we could, and left for my parents house across the lake in Abita Springs.
At my parents house were my family (wife and two daughters), my brother's family (wife and two children), my two sisters and their families (husbands and children), my paternal grandmother, and a family friend whose husband was away overseas.
One of my brothers who is a Jesuit stayed in New Orleans at the Jesuit residence at Jesuit High School, a solid structure with four floors. We have heard from him and he is fine. He is now out of New Orleans and is being bussed to his community residence in Grand Coteaux, Louisiana, which is near to Lafayette.
Being in Abita Springs was not much better than being on the southshore given that we were about 15 miles west of the eye wall of the hurricane. We spent a very scary couple of hours during the storm's worst; but my parents' house and the convoy of vehicles as well as all of the vital equipment necessary for survival were unscathed.
We prayed about 5 rosaries as a family over a period of 12-18 hours and we are all convinced that God had a hand in keeping us safe.
Thank God my dad is a self-sufficient type, because his house was well prepared. Even though we lost power, phone service, and cell phone service, we turned out all right. My parents house has a 20KW generator fueled by a large propane tank, which had almost 75 gallons of propane fuel in it. It wasn't filled to capacity, but it was more than enough for what we needed.
As for running water, my parents have their own well system, the pump of which runs as long as we have generated power. The house is also equipped with a septic tank and waste disposal system which means that we are able to flush toilets and drain sinks and tubs. And we are stocked with plenty of food. We also have a couple of 5KW gas generators which we use to keep the refrigerator on when we turn off the main generator to conserve our propane fuel.
We have five vehichles at our disposal: two cars and three pickup trucks. All the gass tanks are full and we have about 40 gallons of gasoline in containers in reserve.
Today, Thursday, our ground telephone service has been restored, which allows us to call out anywhere except in the Greater New Orleans area. For this reason, I am also able to make this posting.
Once we realized the extent of the damage and the long time for the recovery, we sent the wives and kids up to family and relatives in various parts of the country. For my family's part, the wife and kids are safely in South Carolina at my Mother-in-Law's house. I was able to speak with them this morning and we are thinking about an intermediate term plan for survival there -- schools for the kids, insurance claims, temporary jobs, etc.
I have still not seen my house in New Orleans and I have yet to see any aerial photographs of my neighborhood. I live in the Fountainbleau area of New Orleans -- very near to the Notre Dame seminary about a half mile off of Carrollton Ave. on Pine Street. If anyone knows what the situation on the ground is in that area, please leave me a note in the comments section.
My area generally does not flood during normal circumstances. We didn't get any water during Hurricane Lily, for instance. In fact, it didn't even rise above the curb suring that srorm. But Katrina is another thing altogether. And I suspect that a part of my house is underwater.
Providing that there has been minimal damage to the house from the winds and falling trees (which is a big assumption since my house was surrounded by some very big, heavy trees), we should be o.k. as far as the flooding is concerned. The good thing about my house is that the main living area was about 9 feet off the ground. Our bottom floor, which served as a basement of sorts, is probably flooded, but I have no idea how high. Even the bottom floor is about 2-3 feet up from the street level, but that probably means very little.
I don't know quite what to say anymore. It is just so emotionally draining and overwhelming. And to hear the stories of looting is almost enough to turn me into a "shoot-to-kill" vigilante justice advocate. (Just kidding!!). Seriously, though, it has been very disheartening to hear of the looting.
But it is true. The devastation is immense. Orders of magnitude above anything anyone anywhere could ever conceive of. And the emotional and psychological trauma done to people, even people from New Orleans who are watching the scenes from a comfortable hotel room or relative/friend's home far away, will require attention and care.
It is just unbelievably sad and stressful.
But, we aren't giving up. We have hope.
I said in my previous post that we were ready for Katrina and that she should bring it on. Well, she brought it on and it brought us to our knees; but I stand by my positive, challenging tone. We'll beat her yet! Thanks for your prayers. I'll keep you updated as I can.
Cuaderno Latinoamericano: Pat Robertson, Hugo Chavez, and the Christian Doctrine of Assassination? - The news of Pat Robertson's assinine comment calling for the assassination of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez (and his even more assinine joke of a defense/apology of his comments) has been all over the news. I'm coming to it late because work has been all-consuming this past week. Given the recent media attention surrounding this gaffe, there is really no need for me to elaborate more on it except to say Robertson is an ass and an embarrassment to Republicans. Based on the pretty solid denunciations of Robertson coming even from among his fellow Christian conservatives, I think we can thank God that a vast majority of Americans (Christian and otherwise, liberal and conservative) have a better-informed conscience than this "Christian" charlatan. I don't see how people can tolerate this guy, much less support him.
Ex Cathedra: Archbishop Hughes and Fair Wages - As a relentless critic of Archbishop Hughes and the Archdiocese of New Orleans, I would be guilty of the sin of omission if I did not cheer the Archbishop for his editorial on the dignity of the worker and the need for fair wages. Best of all is Hughes's clear directive at the end of his editorial that all agencies of the Archdiocese pay their workers at least $1.00 above the current mandated minimum wage. He writes:
The Church's social teaching requires us, as employees, as voters, as parents, as sisters and brothers in Christ, to give serious attention to this critical issue. While no one particular proposal can lay sole claim to translating the Gospel teaching into practice, the proposal to raise the minimum wage is an important way to make concrete the Church's teaching that workers should be able to realize a family living wage. I am, therefore, asking our schools, agencies and parishes to ensure that they are paying full-time employees at least a dollar above the minimum wage.That's not to say that $6.15 an hour really affirms the dignity of the worker; but it's a clear step in the right direction. And I know a lot of conservative Catholic entrepreneurs in this city of New Orleans who defend as low a wage as the market will allow (and some who even bristle at the very idea of a mandated minimum wage) will be chastened by the Archbishop's words. Good for you, Archbishop Hughes! I'm with you all the way on this one.
Liberal Lighthouse: Raspberry on "Profiling" - A while back, I engaged in a rather interesting exchange with some folks at Kira Zalan's blog on the very subject of "racial/ethnic" versus "behavioral" profiling. You can see the full extent of this exchange here on Kira's comment board for her relevant post. Here's what I posted in my very first comment on the subject:
18. Jimmy | August 9th, 2005 at 9:49 pmMy comment generated a rather bizarre set of responses because I didn't want to restrict "behavior" profiling to "dark-skinned Muslims" based on the notion that color-blind behavior profiling would do more to protect us from terrorism (and be more fair) than a "color first, behavior second" profiling scheme. In any case, if you're really interested in this exchange, you can read it for yourselves.
“The profilers are trained to look for signs of suspicious behavior (body language), which provides effective clues of whom to question.”
If this is how profiling is to be conducted, then I’m all for it. By that measure, profilers should be searching people of all races and ethnicities who are acting suspiciously. But there are some potential flaws to this: (1) I would imagine the well-trained terrorists know how to give out the “correct” unsuspicious body language; and (2) innocent folks of particular ethnicities that are most often associated with terrorism might be unable to avoid acting suspicious out of understandable nervousness at being profiled. The result: suspicious-looking innocents will be searched while the cool-as-cucumber terrorists walk by without a second glance.
The other, more serious problem is that the pro-profilers are fighting the last war. If someone had stopped 19 young Muslim men from boarding four jetliners four years ago, Sept. 11 wouldn't have happened. Therefore, security requires that we make it difficult for young Muslim men to board jetliners. It's as though white people come in all sizes, ages and predispositions, while young Arab men are fungible.Profile that, indeed. For my part, I would add to Raspberry's sensible critique that post-9/11 will most likely see terrorists who DON'T fit the racial profile carrying out the next wave of attacks. Why? Because the terrorists aren't stupid. They know that young dark-skinned men who look like they could be Muslims of middle-east origins will have a harder time now getting by security. But they also know that the more that skin-color/appearance becomes the prime measure of profiling, the more likely it is that the terrorist who doesn't fit this racial/ethnic profile can slip by unnoticed.
Random checks at least have the virtue of rendering us all equal. I can talk with any fellow passenger about the absurdity of having to remove my loafers, because that fellow passenger has been similarly inconvenienced. But with whom does a young Arab (or Turk or dreadlocked college student) share his humiliation?
And make no mistake, it is humiliating. Stop me once because someone fitting my description or driving a car like mine is a suspect in a crime and I shrug and comply. Stop me repeatedly because of how I look and I respond with less and less grace.
Am I arguing against all efforts to protect America from terrorism? Of course not. But since Americans look all sorts of ways, a more sensible way of deciding who gets extra attention is behavior.
The profilers say this is just political correctness gone mad. McCarthy puts it bluntly: "Until we stop pretending not to see what the terrorists who are attacking us look like, we may as well give them an engraved invitation to strike again."
Well, we do know what they look like. They look like the 19 hijackers of Sept. 11, but they also look like Richard "Shoe Bomber" Reid, John Walker Lindh, Jose Padilla and -- don't forget -- Timothy McVeigh.
Profile that.
Liberal Lighthouse: 9/11/2005 -- Where's Osama? - Michael Tomasky has a powerful piece [subscription required] in the September 2005 print issue of The American Prospect (Vol. 16, No. 9) as we approach the 4th Anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. For those of you who won't be able to access the full article, here are some of its best parts, starting with its opening paragraphs:
This September 11 will mark the fourth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States. The media will focus on the ceremonies at the former World Trade Center site, the Pentagon, and other cities and towns around the country that will honor the dead. The Bush administration, meanwhile, will do its best to remind Americans that today’s George W. Bush -- except for the Watergate-era Richard Nixon, the most unpopular two-term president, at this point in his tenure, since scienti?c polling began in the 1940s -- is the same man who led the country through tragedy.Five paragraphs later, Tomasky notes in discussing the Bush Administration's rush to war in Iraq and its abandonment of the hunt for Osama in Afghanistan/Pakistan:
In truth, the anniversary should be the occasion for a thoroughgoing discussion of how America has combated terrorism in the last four years. And on that front, even the disaster Bush has created in Iraq takes a back seat to one overwhelming fact: By the time night falls on September 11, Osama bin Laden will have been at large for 1,461 days.
America vanquished world fascism in less time: We obtained Germany’s surrender in 1,243 days, Japan’s in 1,365. Even the third Punic War, in which Carthage was burned to the ground and emptied of citizens who were taken en masse into Roman slavery, lasted around 1,100 days (and troops needed a little longer to get into position back in 149 B.C.).
Whatever the apologists say, the truth is simple: The administration held back troops from Afghanistan so that it could send 150,000 to Iraq. That, and nothing else, is the reason bin Laden is still at large.Then, Tomasky ends his piece by imagining how the right-wing would be reacting to a Gore Presidency with Osama still at large under the exact same conditions and levies a parallel and fully justified condemnation of Bush:
But listen closely to the silence: Outside of magazines like this one and a handful of liberal Web sites, the subject is rarely discussed.Let's remember this come 9/11/2005. Thanks, Michael Tomasky, for keeping the light shining on this obvious and sobering truth.
Just imagine bin Laden having been at large this long in President Al Gore’s administration. In fact, it’s impossible to imagine, because President Gore, under such circumstances, wouldn’t have lasted this long. You probably didn’t know, until you read this column, the number of days bin Laden has been at large. But I assure you that if Gore had been president, you and every American would have known, because the right would have seen to it that you knew, asking every day, “Where’s Osama?” If Gore hadn’t been impeached, it’s doubtful he’d have survived a re-election campaign, with Americans aghast at how weak and immoral a president had to be to permit those 2,700 deaths to go unavenged this long.
To be sure, the difference is partly a Democratic failure -- they’re afraid of the right-wing noise machine, pure and simple. That’s a failure of nerve, and it’s an appalling one.
But the moral failure belongs to Bush and his subordinates and their amen chorus of slatternly propagandists and so-called intellectuals, who made great political advantage of 9-11 but spit on the grieving families by pretending that there is no imperative in seeing justice done for their losses. They may be able to control the dialogue, but they can’t control the facts -- and the facts condemn them all.
Cuaderno Latinoamericano: Thomas Shannon, State's New LA Affairs Chief - Andres Oppenheimer introduces the Bush Administration's new chief of the U.S. Government's Latin American policy thus:
Thomas A. Shannon, President Bush's pick to become the head of the State Department's Latin American affairs office, is a low-profile career officer who is likely to conduct a less strident U.S. foreign policy in the region. But, from what some Republicans say, he may speak softly and carry a big stick.As a student of Latin American International Relations and US-LA Relations, I think Shannon's appointment is a much better and more pragmatic choice to take on this job than either of his two predecessors (Roger Noriega and Otto Reich). Shannon, as a career State Department officer, will understand the nuances of the Latin American reality much better and will certainly be much less ideologically-driven in his approach to the region. Noriega and Reich seemed to have difficulty getting "unstuck" from pre-Cold War mentalities that defined US-Latin American relations. This should not be the case for Shannon.
Shannon, whose current job is White House chief advisor on Latin American affairs, was nominated this week to replace Ambassador Roger F. Noriega -- a political appointee -- as assistant secretary of state for Western hemisphere affairs.
''We are likely to see a change in style, in favor of greater moderation, multilateralism and quiet diplomacy,'' says Michael Shifter, a Latin American expert with the Inter-American Dialogue, a middle-of-the-road Washington, D.C., think tank. ``He understands the need for a different style to be effective.''
Ex Cathedra: The New Orleans Archdiocese, Project Lazarus, and the Metropolitan Community Church - A couple of days ago, the Times-Picayune reported that the Archdiocese was terminating its lease with the Metropolitan Community Church of New Orleans. According to the Archdiocese's spokesman, Fr. William Maestri [he's all over the place, isn't he?], here's the reason:
Archdiocesan spokesman the Rev. William Maestri confirmed that doctrinal differences with the Metropolitan Community Church triggered the eviction.Now, the Archdiocese can do what it likes with its property as far as I am concerned. But there is something in Maestri's language that rubs me the wrong way. Doesn't anyone find it a bit disingenuous when Maestri claims that if the Archdiocese continued the lease it might create a wrong impression of the Church's stance regarding gay marriage or the blessing of gay unions? I think it is patently obvious where the Catholic Church stands on this issue; and I find it absurd to think that what the MCC (a non-Catholic Church) does on property it leases from the Church somehow would reflect Catholic Church support for or indifference to the practice of blessing gay unions.
"This particular group blesses gay unions, which we do not support," Maestri said.
After learning of the Metropolitan Community Church's teachings, the archdiocese had to act, Maestri said. Continuing the lease might create the impression that the Catholic church is either indifferent or in support of the teachings of that church, "which we are not," Maestri said.
The Catholic Church's views on homosexuality are not exactly a secret. There would be no turning a blind eye if a priest were caught solemnizing a gay marriage. The church may have been morally ambivalent on the sexual molestation of children, but it has remained steadfast on the important issues.Ouch!
Liberal Lighthouse: Pork, and I mean PORK! - We all know that George W. Bush is about as fiscally conservative as Michael Moore is socially conservative. But this example of Pork Legislation [From The New Republic] the size of Mount Rushmore just takes the cake for Republican pretenses to thriftiness:
Don Young's Way conjures images of a quaint little street akin to a "lane" or a "drive," a modest tribute to a beloved public servant. But the planned bridge connecting Anchorage, Alaska, with the sparsely populated section of land across the Knik Arm Channel will be anything but modest. Named in honor of the House Transportation Committee chairman who helped push the project through Congress as part of last week's transportation bill, the two-mile span will rival the Golden Gate Bridge in length, and the $229 million in federal funding approved for it is expected to be just the tip of the iceberg. The bill, in which Alaska received almost $1 billion in pork-barrel projects, also included $220 million for another huge bridge connecting the city of Ketchikan (population 8,000) with nearby Gravina Island (population 50).NOTE: For the Ketchikan/Gravina Island bridge, that's a per capita expenditure of $27,329. Just let that sink in for a while and try not to get too angry when that homeless person on the street corner asks you for a dollar so that he can eat.
Left out of the $286 billion transportation bill, however, was $400 million in funding for another namesake bridge, of sorts, in Washington, D.C. In 2001, the Kennedy Center announced plans for a massive plaza to be built over the Potomac Freeway, which would link the isolated performing arts center with the National Mall. Congress had supported the idea but failed to provide the funding on which the project hinged. According to The Washington Post, Kennedy Center Trustee James V. Kimsey "said he understood that Congress had to make tough choices with the war in Iraq and the president's demand for a tight budget." If he believes that, we know of a bridge in Brooklyn that's for sale. Or, better yet, a couple in Alaska.
Cuaderno Latinoamericano: The Millenium Challenge Corporation - From an article published by the Council on Hemishperic Affairs:
In 2000, the United Nations launched an effort to eradicate worldwide poverty by 2015, adopting eight objectives called the Millennium Development Goals. In 2004, President Bush, in attempting to address these goals, founded the Millennium Challenge Corporation, which is in charge of allocating grants to a list of carefully selected developing nations. However, after almost two years of operation, the MCC has accomplished surprisingly little. Founding CEO, Paul Applegarth, who suddenly announced his resignation on June 15, left the post on August 8, and only a temporary replacement, Charles O. Sethness, has so far been selected. Although Applegarth’s reasons for departing the position were to spend more time with his family, Andrew Balls, of the Financial Times, reported that his resignation “resulted from falling confidence within the Bush Administration that the flagship aid programme was fulfilling expectations.” The question now remains whether this new approach to development aid can live up to its lofty goals or if it will end up being just another Bush administration scheme to further its conservative policy objectives in Latin America as well as in other parts of the developing world.Along with the just about every other promise made by the Bush Administration to support the dignity and welfare of the world's poorest, it's all nothing but empty puffery.
Posts
All Comments
|
|
