Moving, Part 1

By the time this posts, I'll already be moved and mostly settled in. But it still means no real post. Why?

Because of the fact I write my posts up on Saturday. And I was busy unpacking/resting, instead of my usual routine.

I do want to post a thought though...what makes us gravitate towards the neighborhoods we do? What makes you, when driving through a different part of town, think to yourself "What a nice place to live!"

I've been giving it a lot of thought, and I think what's nice about this particular place we moved to is the fact drugs aren't openly sold in the parking lots. That says a lot, about many things, right there.

Monica Goodling Says It All With Her Actions

I'm a little behind the times...but this is important stuff.

The situation in the Justice Dept under Ashcroft and Gonzales...pretty much tells me everything I need in order to be disgusted with the Administration and how it's perverted our country's laws and systems.

Here's the Wikipedia entry on Monica Goodling, a conservative Christian woman who faithfully served the Republican Party and George W. Bush for several years. The part of her job we have come to worry about the most is the personnel management she did for the Justice Department.

The first time her name hit public consciousness was during the US Attorney firing scandal. I could go on for hours on that issue, but suffice it to say Ms Goodling was a key player in many of those dismissals, and in the aftermath of trying to control the public reaction. In fact, she refused to testify without immunity when Congress tried to simply get an explanation from the Justice Dept.

With good cause, apparantly. A report on Monica Goodling's hiring practices released on July 28th by the Justice Dept confirmed she had violated federal law by making decisions based on the political affialiations of applicants wives and rumors of lesbianism, among others. It's good have priorities straight.

So yes. Apparantly, ones ability to actually uphold the law took a very back seat to supporting the Republican Party in general and the President in specific. Way to keep the rule of law paramount and the premier, way to uphold the Constitution.

Though really...do we expect that out of Bush anymore?

Other Blogs

One of the big things I don't do enough is read other news/political blogs.

It's a hard thing to do! It's not that I don't like to...but it really is hard to work it in. It's not like webcomics, that I can punch into my Bloglines and glance at each day and then move on. Most of the stuff in a news or politics oriented blog is worth more thought and consideration than that, and I feel like I'm doing it halfway if I can't give that.

That being said, I DO have a few I look at regularly, and here they are:



http://www.ctbob.blogspot.com/ Connecticut Bob does a fabulous job of being a more or less bona fide journalist. But he's all blogger, as this post about Edwards shows. With a focus on Connecticut politics, he does an excellent job keeping up with the national showcase while being all over the local scene.



http://harazquack.blogspot.com/ This fellow I found more or less by accident a few years ago, and I haven't stopped reading yet. More of an international focus, this blog is full of satire and sarcasm...but serves (for me anyway) a startling call for awareness, especially by the way he doesn't mince words or pull punches.

A related site to the Harazquack Times is the Evil Leaders League, an offshoot of a feature the author started on the original blog. Basically, it's a satirical competition between the "evil leaders" of the world, based on how tyrannical they are. Using news (real and imagined) on each of them from the week, the author ranks their relative evilness. Dark, twisted, pointed...but funny.



http://www.dailykos.com/ I've actually just discovered this one. The first post was a video of George Bush not looking very Presidential at the opening ceremonies...I was sold. Not wanting to be that shallow, I kept reading...and found myself intrigued by almost every post. So I went and subscribed.



So here's to a new effort to cross link and what not...for that's really the power of the blogosphere, getting all sorts of opinions and perspectives on the world and events we live in.

Right Vs Responsible

I had an epiphany the other day. It wasn't so much a sudden blinding flash of the obvious but the sheet finally falling away from the obvious. Something I wasn't aware of all at once, but something I've been gradually becoming aware of.

It's the simple fact that following the rules doesn't necessarily make one responsible.

A classic real world example of this is calling in "sick" to work. (Note the quotes...I'm all in favor of not working when sick, but simply taking the day off should be a far rarer occurance.) While the rules will probably allow you to not show up, leave early, come late, for many many shifts and get away with it...that doesn't make it ok.

Just because the rules state, "It's ok to be late/absent/leave after an hour with appropriate notice," it doesn't stop your coworkers from getting the shaft. They counted on your coverage they can't replace now. You may be ok in the eyes of the law, so to speak, but you fail at being a responsible person.

On the flip side, sometimes breaking the rules is the responsible option. For instance...you're not supposed to work in another department right now because of the way labor hours are allocated. But they're completely swamped, and the big order isn't going to get out in time without extra help.

The rules in this case would condemn a person from lending a much appreciated hand on a project that ultimately makes money for the company. Following the rules would mean sitting by and watching things go to hell, and last time I checked that's not a responsible action.

How does the apply to news and politics? Well lets think...maybe because the Bush Administration (and multitudes of others in Washington on both sides of the aisle) has alternately taken one or the other approach on their so-called war on terror.

• When the rules clearly wouldn't allow the Administration to do what they wanted with detainees, they set up the prison camp outside jurisdiction of law.


• They tried to rewrite the rules on tribunals in order to make things seem kosher, because if the rules say it's ok then it's ok, right? Ditto on the DOJ memo's authorizing torture.


• The Administration was careful to make sure they followed all the rules to authorize the carnage in Iraq, even though the basis was a net of lies and the aim questionable.

And it goes on and on.

Basically, it takes some good judgement to know when to follow and when to break the rules. It's a sign of growth, of maturity, of wisdom. Time and again, the Bush Administration has failed to make the right call. Now...the nation, and the world, is in one of the worst situations ever for peace and stability.

So now we'll see if the American voter has noticed. We'll see if they've learned. We get to watch in November as they decide the fate of Congressmen and Senators who failed in their duties to oversee the President and provide a check and balance. We get to see if they've learned to cut through the political foam that comes from a candidate's mouth and determine their real character.

We get to find out if we the people will again be represented in Washington. If responsibility will again take precedence over being "right."

John Edwards and His Affair

So, I heard something vague this week on NPR about John Edwards having a love child in an extramarital affair. I just now got around to looking into it, and it's not quite as sleazey as I thought it was.



Here's the scoop from NPR, here and here; two stories because they each have a fresh perspective.



I'm not sure what I feel on this issue. Since Clinton, I've had to grapple with the fact that it IS possible to lead an exceptional professional life, even if your own house isn't quite in order.



(I mean that quite literally in my own case...if you looked at my work space, and then my desk at home, you'd assume someone had ransacked my apartment because they can't belong to the same person.)



Temptation is just that...it's there, it sucks, and even the best of us succumb to it. The fact his wife and family stayed with him and supported another Presidential run (one that, in retrospect, I'm sort of glad he lost) says a lot to me.



Of course, I do not think highly of the fact he lied about the affair for a year, and only came clean after photos emerged. I give him credit for coming clean as he did...but timing is everything, and he loused that part up pretty well.



The point? I don't hate the guy and I'm not overly disgusted. But I'm glad he failed in his bid, because I do not think this country would weather a McCain presidency very well. The fact John Edwards had this skeleton in his closet, and had to lie about it during primary season, and STILL kept running for the nomination makes him completely irresponsible.



Now how about we let this drop, and not drag out the pain for the family too long? I mean since this is the 2nd time they'd have to open this wound?

Olympics!

The Olympics open today! 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, China!

Say what you will about China. Say what you will about the games. But this is pretty much a big deal, boys and girls.

Freedom-loving people don't need to think about whether or not they'd want to live in China (can I get a HELL-no?). They've done some pretty nasty stuff recently. In Tibet ("Beat the protestors until they get happy!"). In the alleys of Beijing ("Destroy all the housing and move the residents elsewhere so we can build the pole-vault"). And they've simply been criminally negligent in maintaining rural infrastructure ("It's just a school full of children. We have too many of those anyway, so if it falls down no biggie").

But...I think you can argue they've come a ways from the reign of Mao. I heard recently on NPR that the Olympics is often a stepping stone towards becoming a functioning democracy (except in cases like Hitler's Berlin...but say no more), instead of a reward for achieving it. The fact they're having to deal with the public saying, "Wait, you're assholes...why shouldn't we boycott the Olympics?" has shifted the perspective for China.

It's made them aware of the international spotlight...and I don't think you can just ignore the effects of that sort of scrutiny, even after it stops. So go watch the shotput, and don't feel guilty about it. It's all part of the bigger picture.