Wednesday, October 22, 2003
The Morning Surf
Harper's Weekly Review is available only on the Internet, and is delivered by e-mail once a week. It's a collection of one- and two-sentence news items, but it's the way they're arranged that makes the Review a must read. Primary writer Roger D. Hodge juxtaposes stories so that they subtly comment on one another. Unlike many things on the web, if you skim it, you miss it. This week's review is particularly pointed, starting with "President George W. Bush traveled to Asia and gave a speech in Manila comparing Iraq to the Philippines, a former U.S. colony that was 'liberated' from Spain in 1898 and occupied for 48 years. Bush said that the Philippines, which he called 'the oldest democracy in Asia,' should be seen as the model for a new democratic Iraq, and then quickly left the country because of security concerns." Other publications (including sometimes mine) spend hundreds of words saying less effectively what Hodge put across there in less than 70.
In a little squib at the bottom of one of this week's "Mondo Washington" reports, James Ridgeway observes that California Democrats are pushing House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi as a vice-presidential candidate in 2004. This will never happen. Pelosi is earning Ted Kennedy-style enmity among conservatives for her leadership of the fight against the $87 billion for Bush's war. And not only that, the other night on C-SPAN, during the special order speeches--those given on any subject a member likes, mostly to an empty chamber--Republicans were lining up to bash her for a statement she made several months ago, in which she suggested she didn't believe the war on terrorism was really a war. Whichever Democrat gets the presidential nomination is going to have to endure 250 million dollars' worth of attack ads suggesting he's soft on evil. Explaining Pelosi--even though she's right--just won't get through the din. Never mind that she's no more inspiring a leader than Dick Gephardt was.
The story came out yesterday that this year's federal budget deficit is something like 374 billion dollars. Bridget Gibson of ICH News reports it's more like 500 billion once you account for the money that we spent but didn't count. Gibson's piece, Fatal Vision, is mostly an accounting of the human cost of war, and includes a damning quote from Barbara Bush about the irrelevance of casualties in Iraq, back before we had any to talk about. (ICH, International Clearing House, is what its webmaster calls "News You Won't Hear on CNN or Fox Mooooos." In yesterday's daily digest alone, there were stories about the administration's ban on covering the return of dead soldiers to the US, about dissention and desertion in the American ranks, and the usual boatload of stories about Israel--if you really want to know what's going on over there, ICH has the links every day.)
Harper's Weekly Review is available only on the Internet, and is delivered by e-mail once a week. It's a collection of one- and two-sentence news items, but it's the way they're arranged that makes the Review a must read. Primary writer Roger D. Hodge juxtaposes stories so that they subtly comment on one another. Unlike many things on the web, if you skim it, you miss it. This week's review is particularly pointed, starting with "President George W. Bush traveled to Asia and gave a speech in Manila comparing Iraq to the Philippines, a former U.S. colony that was 'liberated' from Spain in 1898 and occupied for 48 years. Bush said that the Philippines, which he called 'the oldest democracy in Asia,' should be seen as the model for a new democratic Iraq, and then quickly left the country because of security concerns." Other publications (including sometimes mine) spend hundreds of words saying less effectively what Hodge put across there in less than 70.
In a little squib at the bottom of one of this week's "Mondo Washington" reports, James Ridgeway observes that California Democrats are pushing House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi as a vice-presidential candidate in 2004. This will never happen. Pelosi is earning Ted Kennedy-style enmity among conservatives for her leadership of the fight against the $87 billion for Bush's war. And not only that, the other night on C-SPAN, during the special order speeches--those given on any subject a member likes, mostly to an empty chamber--Republicans were lining up to bash her for a statement she made several months ago, in which she suggested she didn't believe the war on terrorism was really a war. Whichever Democrat gets the presidential nomination is going to have to endure 250 million dollars' worth of attack ads suggesting he's soft on evil. Explaining Pelosi--even though she's right--just won't get through the din. Never mind that she's no more inspiring a leader than Dick Gephardt was.
The story came out yesterday that this year's federal budget deficit is something like 374 billion dollars. Bridget Gibson of ICH News reports it's more like 500 billion once you account for the money that we spent but didn't count. Gibson's piece, Fatal Vision, is mostly an accounting of the human cost of war, and includes a damning quote from Barbara Bush about the irrelevance of casualties in Iraq, back before we had any to talk about. (ICH, International Clearing House, is what its webmaster calls "News You Won't Hear on CNN or Fox Mooooos." In yesterday's daily digest alone, there were stories about the administration's ban on covering the return of dead soldiers to the US, about dissention and desertion in the American ranks, and the usual boatload of stories about Israel--if you really want to know what's going on over there, ICH has the links every day.)
