Now that is insecure

From The New York Times: By Thomas Friedman

This Iranian regime is afraid of its shadow. How do I know? It recently arrested a 67-year-old grandmother, whom it accused of trying to bring down the regime by organizing academic conferences!

Yes, big, tough President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — the man who shows us how tough he is by declaring the Holocaust a myth — had his goons arrest Haleh Esfandiari, a 67-year-old scholar, grandmother and dual Iranian-U.S. citizen, while she was visiting her 93-year-old mother in Tehran. Do you know how paranoid you have to be to think that a 67-year-old grandmother visiting her 93-year-old mother can bring down your regime? Now that is insecure.
It’s also shameful....

In other words, our only hope of either changing this Iranian regime or its behavior, without fracturing the country, is through a stronger Iranian middle class that demands a freer press, consensual politics and rule of law. That is our China strategy — and it could work even faster with Iran.

I'm not quite sure how fast that is, but it probably does beat another war.

David Brooks on Al Gore's "Vulcan Utopia"

From The New York Times:

Fortunately, another technology is here to save us. “The Internet is perhaps the greatest source of hope for re-establishing an open communications environment in which the conversation of democracy can flourish,” he writes. The Internet will restore reason, logic and the pursuit of truth.

The first response to this argument is: Has Al Gore ever actually looked at the Internet? He spends much of this book praising cold, dispassionate logic, but is that really what he finds on most political blogs or in his e-mail folder?

Go animalistic on me, David!

Maureen Dowd goes Greek with W, neocons

How We’re Animalistic — in Good Ways and Bad - New York Times:

Harvey Mansfield, a leading Straussian who taught political science at Harvard and who wrote a book called “Manliness” (he’s for it), gave the Jefferson lecture recently at the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington.

It was an ode, as his book is, to “thumos,” the Greek word that means spiritedness, with flavors of ambition, pride and brute willfulness. Thumos, as Philip Kennicott wrote in The Washington Post, “is a word reinvented by conservative academics who need to put a fancy name on a political philosophy that boils down to ‘boys will be boys.’ ”...

With cold realism, Thucydides captured the Athenian philosophy in the 27-year war that led to its downfall as a golden democracy: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

What message can we take away from Thucydides for modern times?

“To me,” Professor [Donald] Kagan [of Yale] said, “the deepest message, the most tragic, is his picture of civilization as a very thin veneer. When you punch a hole in it, what you find underneath is hollow, the precivilized characteristics of the human race — animalistic in the worst possible way.”

On a lighter (and tastier) note...

The New York Times > Katz's Delicatessen Restaurant Review > :

To revel in its pastrami sandwich, one of the best in the land, with an eye-popping stack of brined beef that’s juicy, smoky, rapturous. To glory in the intricate ritual of the place: the taking of a ticket at the door; the lining-up in front of one of the servers who carves that beef by hand; the tasting of the thick, ridged slices the server gives us as the sandwich is being built; the nodding when we’re asked if we want pickles, because of course we want pickles.

It’s a ritual unique to Katz’s, an argument, along with Katz’s age, to consider it the king of New York delis, reigning above the Carnegie, above the Second Avenue Deli, which closed a year and a half ago. It may reopen, but not on Second Avenue, a reminder that nothing can be taken for granted.

Katz’s shouldn’t be. At few other restaurants can you feel that you’ve stepped this surely into a living museum, a patch of urban mythology....

“You’ve got to assume it’s not the ‘Sex and the City’ tour,” said a lunch companion.

I remain loyal to Carnegie for deli. When I'm near Houston St., I head for Yonah Schimmel's for a knish. But next time I'm in the neighborhood, maybe I'll drop by Katz's for some tongue.

Return to Arlington

Today we (my mother, brother, sister, nephew and I, and then later, my wife, son, daughter and son in law) returned to Arlington National Cemetery to visit my father's grave and, I guess, to try to take in the place with emotions slightly muted from the funeral itself. Another bright, beautiful, warm Washington day. This time the route was more familiar, without the extra anxieties of the funeral schedule and the caravan of cars--we all squeezed in, and were able to take advantage of the lifetime pass to the cemetery provided to first degree relatives of those buried there.

So many Jewish prayers begin with invocations of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (and today, of Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel and Leah), asked that their merits in G!d's eyes be conferred on us, who are less deserving of G!d's consideration. So too here--we relatives are given privileges (and treated with a special deference by the many Arlington guards and guides), owing entirely to Dad's merits, and not to our own.

Dad is buried just inside the main gate, in section 33, within a short walk of the Administration Building and Visitor Center, and reasonably accessible via the Metro station, for those better able to walk than I. the Kennedy grave sites (which we visited today) are not too far; nor, we think, are the tombs of the Unknowns. Tour groups walk nearby, but not right at the spot. Most of the graves nearby date to 1955 and 1956, and the grave immediately left of his belongs to a veteran of the Spanish American War. A couple of graves nearby contain veteran, spouse and infant child (one a junior)--heartbreaking to contemplate. We didn't notice other Jewish graves in the immediate vicinity. There were flowers on Dad's newly filled grave, from cousins in California. One of the strange things about yesterday's ceremony, with the military pallbearers and protocols, is that we (my sister excepted) did not actually touch Dad's casket (although we participated in the Jewish ritual of reluctantly shovelling a bit of dirt on it). Today, I lay down next to the grave and bawled.

Back at the hotel, we watched a newly made DVD copy of a video interview my sister conducted with each of my parents 13 years ago (they were 73 then), during a calm and reflective moment when their memories were sharp (my mother's, amazingly so) and their health was better. They each spoke about their families, the journeys to America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, their growing up experiences during the hard times of the Depression, the War years and experiences, and their early life as a couple, before and just after moving to Miami. Seeing and hearing Dad, so focussed, so compelling as a storyteller, so moving in describing his military training and time in combat, his reflections on both the terrors of war and the lessons--particularly discipline and learning to get along with very diverse others in the most trying circumstances--was incredibly powerful. His reflections on the need for mandatory national service and the benefits he thought that would bring to American life (a position I largely share, although I never realized Dad felt so passionately about it) were really inspiring to me.

Mom has been having a very difficult time, and the combined emotional and physical stresses of recent weeks have taken a heavy toll. My brother decided to take her home a day earlier than initially planned, and my sister to accompany them, so we disbanded shortly after viewing the video as they headed for the airport. We decided to stay, not least because several Washington-area friends were planning to visit at tonight's shiva gathering. We took the "kids", and our new son in law (making his first visit to D.C.--amazing!) on a quick tour of the monumental and governmental city in all its majesty, winding up with a visit to the apartment building on Woodley Place, between the Connecticut Avenue and Calvert Street bridges, where we lived from 1978-82 (leaving almost exactly a quarter century ago, almost to the month), when both our children were born, and where Mom and Dad visited to help us with our newborns and glory in their first grandchildren. Such a wonderful period in all our lives.

Ah, the arcs and cycles of life. Very much present in our lives this week.

R.I.P. (Part One, to be continued)

Today we buried my father and began our shiva, the Jewish formal mourning practice, typically lasting seven days from the date of burial. In our case, the timing has been odd, since Dad died on May 18, eleven days ago. Burial was delayed because of the wait for burial at Arlington, the intervening Jewish holiday of Shavuot (during which Jewish burials are not conducted), and the Memorial Day holiday weekend (during which burials are not conducted at Arlington).

A Jewish burial at Arlington National Cemetery is a distinctive and memorable experience, a blending of disparate cultures and customs, of different modes of honoring and remembering.

The day beckoned bright and warm, with a beautiful, expansive blue sky and the distinctive view of Washington's monumental skyline visible in the distance. We are told the Superintendent of Arlington picked a special spot for Dad, in an established section of the vast military cemetery, amidst other highly decorated veterans of World War II, not so far from the Administration Building where we gathered to complete the initial paperwork. They had his date of death wrong, and were able to correct that on the official record and design for his gravestone marker. They had his rank and medals right, and knew that his would bear a Star (or Shield) of David, rather than the ubiquitous crosses one sees here. Dad wanted his fellow citizens and all others to know that Jews fought and fight for their country, most particularly in the War against Hitler and Nazism.

We were helped through the formalities by a retired Sergeant-Major, an African American man of military bearing and a helpful and compassionate disposition. He first checked the readiness of the gravesite, then returned to lead our convoy to it. No horse-drawn caisson--that is reserved for more senior ranks, and requires a very long wait in any case. With war casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan, and the passing of the Greatest Generation, that can be three months nowadays. How do families cope with that?

So, we made our way by car behind the hearse to the point of roadway nearest the open plot, then made our way across the unsteady ground. The flag-draped casket was borne by military pallbearers, who moved with well-practiced, elegant precision. My brother and I, with some help from the sergeant-major, helped our mother with the difficult and emotional trek. The pallbearers stood to attention, holding the flag taut above the casket, awaiting our slow-paced arrival.

Then began the interdigitation of Jewish and military elements of the ceremony. The rabbi was an old friend of mine, dating to overlapping high school and college careers and overlapping time in Israel in the early 1970s: Gerald Serotta, longtime Hillel rabbi at George Washington University, more recently a congregational rabbi and peace and human rights activist. I have long admired him, and was delighted he was able and willing to assist with Dad's funeral. Gerry introduced the service, explained the unusual sequence of events, and read a favorite passage from Ecclesiastes. Then the military: a firing party, a poignant buglar's taps (bringing my brother, among others, to tears), the ceremonial folding of the flag and its presentation to my mother, "with the thanks of a grateful nation" for my father's service. Quite an emotional moment to live through, however often one has read about it or seen it depicted in the movies. And the note from "the Arlington lady" on behalf of the Army. The military detail marched off, to ready for the next of the 29 burials scheduled for that day at Arlington, leaving us to conclude with the Jewish part of the service.

Goodbye, Dad

Weisbard, Ralph M.
Ralph M. Weisbard died on Friday, May 18, 2007, after an extended illness.

Ralph was born on Nov. 7, 1920, in New York City, the son of Irving and Sadie (Cohen) Weisbard. Growing up in a working-class family (his father was a milkman and grocery worker) during the Depression, he lived in numerous apartments in Brooklyn and Manhattan and in Elizabeth, New Jersey. (His uncle, the celebrated Cantor Yossele Rosenblatt, who had been scheduled to officiate at Ralph's bar mitzvah in 1933, died during a visit to Palestine some months earlier.)

Ralph worked as a civilian at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during the early years of World War II, where he met (and worked under the supervision of) Ruth O. He repeatedly attempted to enlist for military service, but was turned down on medical grounds. He then secretly sought the aid of a physician to treat him and help camouflage his condition, also hiding this surreptitious activity from his mother, who, had she known, probably would have killed him before he met the enemy. He then asked to be reclassified as draft-eligible and entered the army.

Following eventful training as a bespectacled, flat-footed New York Jew at Camp Shelby in Mississippi, he was assigned to the combat infantry ("so he could see the enemy") and sent, as he had desired, to the European theater to fight Hitler. He served heroically with the Seventh Armored Division at the Battle of the Bulge and moved with the lead units into and across Germany during the final year of the War. He was awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and other decorations for his valor.

During his time in uniform, he maintained an active correspondence with Ruth. A friendly relationship blossomed into a romance, and they married on his return from the War.

Ralph completed a degree in accounting at NYU and soon thereafter moved with Ruth to Miami, where they began a family. Ralph joined the Miami accounting firm of Weber Thomson and Lefcourt (which subsequently merged into the national firm of Laventhol and Horwath), becoming a CPA and serving as partner until his retirement in the mid-1970s.

Ralph took great pleasure in being with people (including many relatives from the New York area who visited and sometimes retired to Miami Beach and surrounding communities). He enjoyed a variety of athletic activities, including league bowling, tennis, and especially golf. He participated in a number of veterans, Masonic and Jewish activities. He was also a lively story-teller, taking particular pride in recounting episodes of standing up to anti-Semitic provocations during his school years and army service, particularly during his army training in Mississippi. Ralph was proud to be a Jew and an American, and exemplified the promise of American life.

Ralph was a devoted husband and loving father and grandfather, who encouraged and supported the education of his children and grandchildren. He is survived by his wife of nearly 61 years, Ruth (O.); by three children, Alan (Phyllis) of Madison, Marshall (and Donna Rosenblum) of Santa Fe, N.M., and Cheryl Weisbard (Dr. Steven) Foung of Palo Alto, Calif.; by four grandchildren...and two step-grandchildren..., and by sisters, Yvette W. Fields and Helene W. Moldan. Ralph will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery on May 29, 2007. Shiva at the Weisbard home on Sunday, June 3, 2007.

Contributions in Ralph's memory may be made to the Holman Weisbard Fund for Adult Jewish Learning at Beth Israel Center in Madison, WI , to the UW Center for Patient Partnerships, to hospice, or to another charity of your choice.

Honoring Our Dead

Arlington National Cemetery
FUNERAL SCHEDULE FOR Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Please report to origin 1/2 hour prior to start time


NAME ORIGIN TIME
1 MARY L. HATHAWAY, 1STLT, USA POST CHAPEL 9:00
2 LLOYD N. HAUGLAND, GMC, USN ADMIN BUILDING 9:00
3 IRA ARTHUR JETT, CAPT, USA MEMORIAL GATE 9:00
4 HOWARD R. WALLS, SGT, USAF ADMIN BUILDING 9:00
5 STARKS HENRY ALLEN, MSG, USAF ADMIN BUILDING 10:00
6 MICHAEL L. STARNES, SR, USN ADMIN BUILDING 10:00
7 ALFRED SYBOT, PFC, USA ADMIN BUILDING 10:00
8 RALPH M. WEISBARD, TSGT, USA ADMIN BUILDING 10:00
9 JAYNE D. COERS ADMIN BUILDING 11:00
10 EDWARD P. FOLEY, CPL, USA ADMIN BUILDING 11:00
11 JOHN NORMAN MEDINGER, COL, USA POST CHAPEL 11:00
12 WILLIAM RUSSELL REDDICK, CAPT, USMC ADMIN BUILDING 11:00
13 HAROLD YOSKIN, LT, USN ADMIN BUILDING 11:00
14 JACK R. LEACH, SFC, USA ADMIN BUILDING 1:00
15 WILLIAM RICHARD MANNING, COL, USAF POST CHAPEL 1:00
16 RALPH ORLANDO MCKIE, CTACS, USN ADMIN BUILDING 1:00
17 CHARLES E. UNDERCOFFER, LTC, USA ADMIN BUILDING 1:00
18 ELLEN B. UNDERCOFFER ADMIN BUILDING 1:00
19 WILLIAM F. BAUER, ENCS(SS), USN ADMIN BUILDING 2:00
20 ALBERT J. GROUX, CPL, USA MEMORIAL GATE 2:00
21 JAMES EDWARD PETERSEN, MSG, USA ADMIN BUILDING 2:00
22 HARRY MEYERSON, MSGT, USA ADMIN BUILDING 2:00
23 ELLEN JANE MEYERSON ADMIN BUILDING 2:00
24 ROBERT JAMES BILLINGTON, COL, USAF ADMIN BUILDING 3:00
25 ERMA L. LAROCHE ADMIN BUILDING 3:00
26 FRANCIS G. MONAN, LTC, USA ADMIN BUILDING 3:00
27 CHRISTOPHER E. MURPHY, CPL, USA ADMIN BUILDING 3:00
28 MAX WILLIAM YANO, SGT, USA ADMIN BUILDING 3:00
29 CATHERINE M. YORAN POST CHAPEL 3:00 The ZIP CODE for Arlington

Directions:
National Cemetery is 22211. Use internet search engines for obtaining maps to the area.

From Richmond:
Drive north on Route 95. Near the Washington Beltway, Route 95 will merge with the Beltway-do not merge with the Beltway. Continue traveling north on Route 395 toward Washington, DC. Take Exit 8-B (Arlington National Cemetery exit). This exit is to Route 27. Stay in the left lane until reaching the circle (on the Virginia side of the Arlington Memorial Bridge). Proceed counter-clockwise around the circle to Memorial Drive.

On Memorial Drive there will be a traffic guide who will be directing all traffic into the pay parking facility. If you are here for a funeral, stay to the right on Memorial Drive and inform the traffic guide that you are here for a funeral (please provide the name of the decedent to the guide). You will then continue on Memorial Drive. At the end of the street, turn left into the cemetery (if you are going to a service at the Administration Building) or turn right into the cemetery and follow the white line (if you are going to the Old Post Chapel on Fort Myer for a chapel service).

From Frederick, Maryland:
Travel south on Route 270. Near the Washington Beltway (Route 495) the lanes will split. Stay to the right and follow the signs to Virginia. You will merge with the Beltway and continue traveling south on the Beltway. Upon crossing the American Legion Bridge (leaving Maryland and entering Virginia), get into the right lane and take the first exit (George Washington Parkway). Travel on the GW Parkway until you start going under bridges. Take the Arlington Cemetery-Memorial Bridge exit. Merge left with the traffic exiting from Route 110. At the stop sign make a left onto Memorial Drive. See the directions above for Memorial Drive.

From Baltimore:
Drive south on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway or on Route 95 to the Washington Beltway. You can travel on Route 95 (eastern side of the Beltway) or travel on Route 495 (to the western side of the Beltway). If you follow Route 95, stay on the Beltway to Route 395 north (see directions from Richmond). If you follow Route 495 stay on the Beltway to the George Washington Parkway (see directions from Frederick).

From Western Virginia:
Follow 66East to Exit 73 “Lee Highway.” Follow Lee Highway to Fort Myer Drive. Make a right on to Fort Myer Drive. Follow Fort Myer Drive, immediately after passing over a bridge make a left on route 50. Iwo Jima Memorial will be on your right side. Follow route 50 and stay in your right lane. Exit on to George Washington Parkway. Stay in your right lane. Follow Parkway until you see a sign for Arlington National Cemetery. Take exit to Arlington National Cemetery. Stay to your left. After stop sign make a left turn. Cemetery is straight ahead.

One and only: The Wise Bard quotes Robert Novak

Murtha's Friends - washingtonpost.com:

Jack Murtha, the maestro of imposing personal preferences on the appropriations process, looks increasingly like an embarrassment to Congress and the Democratic Party. But there is no Democratic will to curb Murtha, one of Speaker Nancy Pelosi's closest associates. Nor are Republicans eager for a crackdown endangering their own earmarkers.

So far as I can tell, Jack Murtha's sole redeeming feature is his military credibility as an opponent of the Iraq War. For that, he deserves both kudos and appreciation.

But this old style pol otherwise exemplifies everything wrong with get along, go along politics as usual, especially on the ethics front. Having nearly been elected House majority leader with Speaker Pelosi's strong support, he is, as Novak suggests (even broken clocks are right twice a day) an acute embarrassment to the Democrats' ethics platform in the last election, and, with the cave-in on funding for the War, a threat to the Party's credibility with its own supporters, not to speak of the wider American public.

It is worth remembering that however critical one may be (and I am) of Newt's 1994 contract on America, the Democratic Congressional majority of the time was corrupt and largely ineffectual (think of its fragmented and disastrous performance on health care reform), and richly deserved to lose, as it did, "big time." Too bad there wasn't a better opponent to take charge. (Ralph, where were you then, when we needed you? Actually, if memory serves, Nader was speaking out...)

Bottom line: Dems, get your act together, and keep your promises to your supporters and the American people! No more politics as usual. Leadership should lead, not be complicit. Insist that Murtha, and other opponents of meaningful political reform, start to behave themselves-- maybe for the first time in their careers.

The Wise Bard does not hew any party line.

Trust and Betrayal - New York Times

From The New York Times:
By PAUL KRUGMAN

“In this place where valor sleeps, we are reminded why America has always gone to war reluctantly, because we know the costs of war.” That’s what President Bush said last year, in a Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.

Those were fine words, spoken by a man with less right to say them than any president in our nation’s history. For Mr. Bush took us to war not with reluctance, but with unseemly eagerness....

The truth is that the nightmare of the Bush years won’t really be over until politicians are convinced that voters will punish, not reward, Bush-style fear-mongering. And that hasn’t happened yet.

Here’s the way it ought to be: When Rudy Giuliani says that Iran, which had nothing to do with 9/11, is part of a “movement” that “has already displayed more aggressive tendencies by coming here and killing us,” he should be treated as a lunatic.

When Mitt Romney says that a coalition of “Shia and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda” wants to “bring down the West,” he should be ridiculed for his ignorance.

And when John McCain says that Osama, who isn’t in Iraq, will “follow us home” if we leave, he should be laughed at.

But they aren’t, at least not yet. And until belligerent, uninformed posturing starts being treated with the contempt it deserves, men who know nothing of the cost of war will keep sending other people’s children to graves at Arlington.

A World Apart Within 15 Minutes

Israel and the Price of Blindness

From The New York Times:

...The documentary, called 'A World Apart Within 15 Minutes' and directed by Enas Muthaffar, captures the psychological alienation that has intensified in recent years and left Israelis and Palestinians worlds apart, so alienated from each other that a major Palestinian city has vanished from Israelis' mental maps.

Never mind the latest flare-up in Gaza. What matters in the world's most intractable conflict is the way the personal narratives of Israelis and Palestinians, coaxed toward intersection by the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, have diverged to a point of mutual nonrecognition.

Ramallah is about 10 kilometers north of Jerusalem. For most Israelis, it might as well be on the moon. It is not just the fence, called the 'separation barrier' by Israelis and the 'racist separating wall' by Palestinians, that gets in the way. It is the death of the idea of peace and its replacement by the notion of security in detachment....

But detachment is an illusion. Life goes on behind the physical and mental barriers Israelis have erected. Or rather, it festers. As Itamar Rabinovich, the president of Tel Aviv University, remarked to me: "Palestine is a failed pre-state."

For that failure, Palestinians must take responsibility. But this aborted birth is also Israel's work....
The West Bank, after 40 years under Israeli control, is a shameful place. If this is the price of Israeli security, it is unacceptable. Power corrupts; absolute power can corrupt absolutely. There are no meaningful checks and balances in this territory, none of the mechanisms of Israel's admirable democracy. The result is what the World Bank this month called a "shattered economic space." ...

Israel has an obligation to open its eyes and do some wall-jumping. The country has just been shaken by the Winograd Report, a devastating look at last summer's war against the Lebanese militia, Hezbollah. It is now time for a report of similar scope on Israel's West Bank occupation.

I can see no better way to arrest the cycle of alienation. Time is not on the side of a two-state solution.

Critical Care Without [Individual] Consent

Critical Care Without Consent - From washingtonpost.com: By Rob Stein

The federal government is undertaking the most ambitious set of studies ever mounted under a controversial arrangement that allows researchers to conduct some kinds of medical experiments without first getting patients' permission.

The $50 million, five-year project, which will involve more than 20,000 patients in 11 sites in the United States and Canada, is designed to improve treatment after car accidents, shootings, cardiac arrest and other emergencies.

The three studies, organizers say, offer an unprecedented opportunity to find better ways to resuscitate people whose hearts suddenly stop, to stabilize patients who go into shock and to minimize damage from head injuries. Because such patients are usually unconscious at a time when every minute counts, it is often impossible to get consent from them or their families, the organizers say.

The project has been endorsed by many trauma experts and some bioethicists, but others question it. The harshest critics say the research violates fundamental ethical principles.

My colleague at UW, Dr. Norman Fost, was a leading proponent of the regulatory changes that permit such research. I have been of mixed mind on this topic.

Petro-Bleak House

adn.com | money : U.S. appeals court tells Exxon to pay fishermen:

A federal appeals court on Wednesday denied Exxon Mobil Corp.'s request for another hearing, letting stand its ruling that the energy giant owes $2.5 billion in punitive damages for its 1989 oil spill in Alaska.

The ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco is a milestone, ending a ping-pong cycle of decisions and appeals between the California court and the Alaska district court.

Now only the U.S. Supreme Court can consider any further appeals.

An Exxon spokesman said yes, the company will appeal...

Lawyers for the plaintiffs say about 20 percent of their clients in the extensive class action have died waiting for payment. The class now stands at about 33,000 commercial fishermen, cannery workers, landowners and Natives, local governments and businesses.

Reveal your favorite fonts...

From Slate Magazine:
This is fun, sort of. Take a look if so moved.

Fitzgerald on Libby sentencing

From Salon.com:

'While the disappointment of Mr. Libby's friends and supporters is understandable,' Fitzgerald writes, 'it is inappropriate to deride the judicial process as 'politics at its worst' on behalf of a defendant who, the evidence has established beyond a reasonable doubt, showed contempt for the judicial process when he obstructed justice by repeatedly lying under oath about material matters in a serious criminal investigation.'

Fitzgerald continues: 'Mr. Libby's prosecution was based not upon politics but upon his own conduct, as well as upon a principle fundamental to preserving our judicial system's independence from politics: that any witness, whatever his political affiliation, whatever his views on any policy or national issue, whether he works in the White House or drives a truck to earn a living, must tell the truth when he raises his hand and takes an oath in a judicial proceeding, or gives a statement to federal law enforcement officers.'...

"The judicial system has not corruptly mistreated Mr. Libby; Mr. Libby has been found by a jury of his peers to have corrupted the judicial system."

Bill Maher ends season in full suck mode

From Salon.com:

... But I was up all night on Wikipedia doing an exhaustive study of former presidents, and while other presidents have sucked in their own individual ways, Bush is like a smorgasbord of suck. He combines the corruption of Warren G. Harding, the abuse of power of Richard Nixon and the warmongering of James K. Polk.

I mean, who would you rank lower than George W. Bush? Nixon got in trouble for illegally wiretapping Democratic headquarters; Bush is illegally wiretapping the entire country. Nixon opened up relations with the Chinese; Bush let them poison your dog. Herbert Hoover sat on his ass through four years of calamity, but he was an actual engineer. If someone told him about global warming, he would have understood it before the penguins caught on fire. Ulysses Grant was a miserable drunk, but at least he didn't trade booze for Jesus and embolden the snake handlers -- he did the honorable thing and stayed a miserable drunk. Grant let his cronies loot the republic, but he won his civil war.

For some inexplicable reason Republicans have taken to comparing Bush to Harry Truman -- a comparison that would make sense only if Harry Truman had A) started World War II and B) lost World War II. Harding sucked, but he once said, 'I am not fit for this office and never should have been here.' So at least he knew he sucked. He never walked offstage like Bush does after one of his embarrassing press conferences with a look on his face like, "Nailed it." Bush still acts like every failure is just a friend he hasn't met yet.

BTW, Maher also took a good, if less colorfully worded, shot at the Dems before heading for Las Vegas.

I don't Kevork, but he did. Will he again?

LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- For nearly a decade, Dr. Jack Kevorkian waged a defiant campaign to help other people kill themselves....


But as he prepares to leave prison June 1 after serving more than eight years of a 10- to 25-year sentence in the death of a Michigan man, Kevorkian will find that there's still only one state that has a law allowing physician-assisted suicide -- Oregon.

Experts say that's because abortion opponents, Catholic leaders, advocates for the disabled and often doctors have fought the efforts of other states to follow the lead of Oregon, where the law took effect in late 1997...

'End-of-life care has increased dramatically'' in Oregon with more hospice referrals and better pain management, says Valerie Vollmar, a professor at Oregon's Willamette University College of Law who writes extensively on physician-assisted death.

Opponents and supporters of physician-assisted death say more needs to be done to offer hospice care and pain treatment for those who are dying and suffering from debilitating pain.

''The solution here is not to kill people who are getting inadequate pain management, but to remove barriers to adequate pain management,'' said Burke Balch, director of the Powell Center for Medical Ethics at the National Right to Life Committee, which opposes assisted suicide....

Kevorkian has promised he'll never again advise or counsel anyone about assisted suicide once he's out of prison. But his attorney, Mayer Morganroth, said Kevorkian isn't going to stop pushing for more laws allowing it.

My father suffered during his final days (indeed, during his final year or more), and we with him. His strong heart held out much longer than anyone anticipated. He was able to avoid being moved from the room at the assisted care facility that he was used to (we brought in a hospital bed and other assistive equipment to help him move about), and we managed to avoid catheters and invasive tubes and machines. He largely stopped eating, although we tried to keep him (naturally) hydrated as best we could. We worked with a superb geriatrician, and reached a consensus in his last weeks that our goal was to make Dad as comfortable as possible, without invasive interventions that would only slow the inevitable. We arranged for hospice care over the final weeks, and the hospice team kept him comfortable with appropriate pain care. They were also excellent in providing psychological support both for him and for us. Although there were some misunderstandings and mis-steps along the way, all those involved in Dad's care brought compassion and dedication to their task. In the hours after his death, many of those involved in his care came by to hold his hand, some to kiss him, and to say goodbye. I'm very glad "doing away with him" was not an option on the menu, for him, for the family, or for the caregivers.

We were, of course, very lucky to have the resources and access to caregivers to make this possible. Others don't.

And, of course, others think differently.

The Moon and the Sun Over Miami

Donna Smith: The Huffington Post:

But on that boat in the bay we were all quiet. The wind blew through our hair as the daylight drifted away, and we were left with our imaginings. The sound of the boat's engine and the flap of the flag droned in the background. What brought us to this spot and this moment was pain. What was easing us into what was to come was an emulsion of nature and wonder and fear and hope. I wanted to tuck the image away somewhere safe in my soul. I wanted it etched there forever. What I did not know was how many moments like it would come in the days ahead.

For me, the past 20 years had been filled with fights about insurance coverage, humiliation about not being able to pay large deductibles and co-pays, and general strain on my marriage and my family that resulted from the financial pressure. Though we never, ever went without insurance, we had been bankrupted by the crushing medical costs not covered by insurance. Few people understood how we got into that financial boat, and we not only faced my husband's heart disease, my cancer and several major medical crises, but also the shame of failing financially. We felt so alone and lost.

I wrote a response to Michael Moore's call for 'health care horror stories' back in early 2006, and here I was nearly a year later as part of this amazing group of fighters and heroes, traveling on this unknown journey together.

What Do You Want to Ask Al Gore?

Arianna Huffington: The Huffington Post:

But it's a Catch-22: the Gore on display in Assault -- and during much of the press he's done in support of it -- is extremely compelling: bold, passionate, knowledgeable, thoughtful, articulate, self-deprecating. Exactly the qualities that have so many Democrats eying him with nothing short of lip-smacking longing.

So far, much of Gore's book tour has been drenched in irony, with his castigation of the mainstream media's fixation on the horserace aspects of politics being met with horserace questions, while his rebuke of our cultural obsession with nonsense like Britney's hair, Lindsay's sex life, and Nicole's weight has been met with stories obsessing about his weight, his double chin, and his love of clam dip.

Was it ever thus, or is all of this new?
I suspect JFK was elected, at least in part, on his looks (and/or Nixon defeated on his jowls, stubble and sweat), and their great debate was far from Lincoln-Douglas. When was the last time a Presidential election was decided on the basis of meaty, substantive debate on the major issues facing the country? One might argue Reagan- Carter, although saying that gives me hives.

I am inclined to think the nature of media coverage has changed things. Newsmen used to at least pretend everyone cared about "the issues"; that is now the exception rather than the rule, and so many of the punditocracy and reporters are bubbleheads.

How Monica Goodling played the "girl" card

By Emily Bazelon and Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine:

Let's pretend for a moment that the world divides into two types of women: the soft, shy, girly kind who live to serve and the brash, aggressive feminists who live to emasculate. Not our paradigm, but one that's more alive than dead.

When she was White House liaison in Alberto Gonzales' Justice Department, Monica Goodling, 33, had the power to hire and fire seasoned government lawyers who had taken the bar when she was still carrying around a plastic Hello Kitty purse. Goodling, in fact, described herself as a 'type-A woman' who blocked the promotion of another type-A woman basically because the office couldn't tolerate infighting between two strong women. ('I'm not just partisan! I'm sexist, too!') That move sounds pretty grown-up and steely. Yet in her testimony this week before the House judiciary committee, Goodling turned herself back into a little girl, and it's worth pointing out that the tactic worked brilliantly."...

What really shot Goodling into the stratosphere of baby-doll girls were her own whispered words: "At heart," she testified, "I am a fairly quiet girl, who tries to do the right thing and tries to treat people kindly along the way." The idea, of course, was to scrub away her past image as ruthless, power-mad, and zealously Christian....And at the heart of Goodling's ingénue performance? The astonishing claim that while she broke the law, she "didn't mean to." This is the stuff of preschoolers, not cum laude graduates of law school....

But heed the lesson, girlfriends. It works. Republicans on the House judiciary committee had only gentle words and lavish praise for this girlish Monica. Even as she testified to repeatedly breaking the law, these genial uncles lauded her "class" and her courage, falling over themselves to observe how hard testifying must have been for her. Kyle Sampson must be wondering where all this sympathy was when he was on the stand. For the most part, even the Democrats were too bamboozled to be effective. It's no accident that some of the day's most brutal questioning came from Reps. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif.; Maxine Waters, D-Calif.; and Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas; who may well have been as annoyed by Goodling's Girl Secretary performance as they were by the underlying conduct....

What will happen to Goodling? She'll lay low for a while. She'll leave Washington, maybe. And then she'll re-emerge in another position of power; power that she will cast as reflected glow from greater men. Because to help yourself by playing helpless is the stuff of real smarts and savvy. Goodling's day in the spotlight wasn't exactly a good day for feminism. But in the end, maybe she's bamboozled us, too, because if we ever have to testify before Congress, hand us the pigtails and lollipop.

If this doesn't elicit some comment, I'm not sure what will.

FLASH: Report Says Iraq Problems Were Expected

From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. intelligence analysts predicted, in two papers widely circulated before the 2003 Iraq invasion, that al-Qaida would see U.S. military action as an opportunity to increase its operations and that Iran would try to shape the post-Saddam era. The top analysts in government also said that establishing a stable democracy in Iraq would be a long, turbulent challenge.

Democrats said the documents, part of a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation released Friday, make clear that the Bush administration was warned about the challenges it now faces as it tries to stabilize Iraq.

''Sadly, the administration's refusal to heed these dire warnings -- and worse, to plan for them -- has led to tragic consequences for which our nation is paying a terrible price,'' said Senate Intelligence Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.

But that's not nearly as interesting as a Republican response:

But some Republicans rejected the committee's work as flawed. The committee's top Republican, Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri, said the report's conclusions selectively highlight the intelligence agencies' findings that seem to be important now, distorting the picture of what was presented to policymakers.

He said the committee's work on the Iraq intelligence ''has become too embroiled in politics and partisanship to produce an accurate and meaningful report.''

Kind of takes the breath away, that politics and partisanship might result in selective use of intelligence, distorting the overall picture presented to the public. Thank goodness the Republicans in Congress are ever-alert to protect us from such dastardly behavior.

And you can quote me on that!

Former Tour de France Winner Admits to Doping

Fans shocked, shocked...
From The New York Times: By IAN AUSTEN

Topping off a week of doping confessions, Bjarne Riis of Denmark became the first Tour de France winner to admit to the use of performance enhancing drugs.

Speaking at a televised news conference, Riis said Friday that he used the blood boosting hormone erythropoietin, or EPO, from 1993 to 1998, including the period when he rode to victory in the 1996 Tour de France. He said he also used cortisone and human growth hormone.Riis, who now manages the elite cycling team CSC, offered to give up his Tour title, an unprecedented event in the history of the 104-year-old race....

However, given Riis’s offer, McQuaid said that the race records may be altered to show that the 1996 Tour had no winner.

That may be just as well. The second-place finisher that year was Riis’s teammate, Jan Ullrich of Germany, who is now the subject of a doping investigation. Third place went to Richard Virenque, who was the leader of a team that became of the focus of a series of antidoping raids by police in 1998.

Study: 38 Percent Of People Not Actually Entitled To Their Opinion

CHICAGO—In a surprising refutation of the conventional wisdom on opinion entitlement, a study conducted by the University of Chicago's...

Sicko!

Film Offers New Talking Points in Health Care Debate -From The New York Times:

Few of them may become Michael Moore fans. But some insurance industry officials and health policy experts acknowledged yesterday that the film documentary “Sicko,” Mr. Moore’s indictment of health care in this country, taps into widespread public concern that the system does not work for millions of Americans.

The movie, which had its first showing at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday and received many favorable reviews, presents a series of heart-rending anecdotes meant to illustrate systemic failures and foul-ups under the nation’s insurance industry — even if many of the major pieces of evidence are ones that have been widely reported elsewhere and in some cases date back 20 years...

Uwe E. Reinhardt, a health economist at Princeton, said that based on reviews, the movie is “exaggerated, biting, unfair,” but he added that a number of recent books and reports by academic experts had been at least as critical...“My point is we are on the verge of a populist reaction to the health system,” Professor Reinhardt said. “The American people are on the point of being fed up.”...

“They hate the system — it’s too expensive — but we have been hearing about these things for 35 years,” Professor Altman said. “Unless we have a meltdown which affects the middle class — that is nowhere near happening — we will not be willing to fundamentally restructure the system.”...

The conversation turned to whether Mr. Moore planned to back any of the current proposals for health care reform, or whether he would come up with his own plan. Some suggested that he stick to his position that the insurance companies be done away with, replaced by national universal health care system.

“Let’s be honest, no one’s going to support dismantling the private health care system,” Mr. Moore replied. “I don’t think the insurance companies are just going to give up the profit motivation.”

New Machine Keeps 'Heart in a Box' Beating

blog.bioethics.net: Art Caplan on MSNBC:

Now there's a machine that can do what Poe imagined - preserve a beating heart in isolation. And while this might seem to be the yuckiest idea to come down the pike in a long time, it really represents a bold and fascinating advance in trying to save the lives of people with failing hearts.

The 'heart in a box' machine, known as the Organ Care System, is made by TransMedics Inc., of Andover, Mass. Doctors in Pittsburgh recently announced that they used the machine to keep hearts beating for hours on their own after being removed from cadavers. Three patients, a 47-year-old man and two women in their 50s, received these hearts and all seem to be doing very well.

The machine will be tested further in the coming year at five transplant centers in the U.S. - the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, the University of Chicago Hospitals' Cardiac Center and the Cleveland Clinic. The researchers want to be sure that hearts transplanted out of the box really work as well as those preserved by current methods.

A Short American Life

From The New York Times:

I asked Leana about her health insurance coverage, just in case she catches leprosy on the Africa trip.

“Actually, I was going to become one of the 45 million uninsured for the summer,” she said. “The think tank does not provide insurance for ‘temporary’ employees, and my school did not allow extension of health insurance post-graduation. I still haven’t found a reasonably priced insurance plan for this period.”

Aaaaargh! When a newly minted doctor investigating Americans’ access to medical care has no insurance — then you know that our health care system is truly bankrupt....

Even if a single-payer system isn’t politically possible right now, universal coverage is feasible through other mechanisms — as Massachusetts has shown. We need to hold the presidential candidates accountable, for universal coverage is an idea whose time came in the 1920s. We should insist we get it before the 2020s.

Rethinking Old Age

From The New York Times:

Is it any wonder most people dread nursing homes?

The things she misses most, she told me, are her friendships, her privacy, and the purpose in her days. She’s not alone. Surveys of nursing home residents reveal chronic boredom, loneliness, and lack of meaning — results not fundamentally different from prisoners, actually.

Certainly, nursing homes have come a long way from the fire-trap warehouses they used to be. But it seems we’ve settled on a belief that a life of worth and engagement is not possible once you lose independence.

Compared to What?: Palestine

Common Ground News Service:

At this sad juncture, it has become apparent that neither Hamas nor Fatah, alone or combined, have learned the political art of working together in a coalition to serve their public, the Palestinian people. Party politics and the struggle over power have led to killings and almost to civil war. The only way to prevent total disaster is for the Arab nations, with the backing of the UN and acquiescence of Israel, to work together in order to prevent the growing snowball of violence from spreading all across the region.

* Hanna Siniora is the Co-CEO of IPCRI – the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.

Nobel laureate cancels London trip due to anti-Semitism

From Ynetnews:

An American Nobel laureate has cancelled a planned visit to a London university because of what he perceives to be 'a widespread anti-Israel and anti-Semitic current in British opinion', the Guardian newspaper reported Thursday.

Steven Weinberg, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, had been invited to Imperial College to speak in honor of a Pakistani physicist, Abdus Salam, and to deliver a talk at a conference on particle physics.

Where's the tofu?

Clinton offers plan to control health care costs | Chicago Tribune:

For Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the problems of the American health care system have been a political danger zone since she unsuccessfully tackled the issue as first lady in the early