There were pieces of the Great Pyramid in Egypt, the Taj Mahal in India, Notre Dame cathedral in France, and so forth.
Well, after a little searching we finally found the most important artifact in their collection:
Saturday, August 21, 2004
A piece of the Alamo
While we were in Chicago we had a friendly native point out an interesting feature about the Tribune Tower where the Chicago Tribune offices are located. All around the outside of the building they have collected bits of stone, brick and earth that was picked up at various famous places around the world.
There were pieces of the Great Pyramid in Egypt, the Taj Mahal in India, Notre Dame cathedral in France, and so forth.
Well, after a little searching we finally found the most important artifact in their collection:
There were pieces of the Great Pyramid in Egypt, the Taj Mahal in India, Notre Dame cathedral in France, and so forth.
Well, after a little searching we finally found the most important artifact in their collection:
Friday, August 20, 2004
Final word on the Swift Boat smear campaign
The New York Times has what should be the final word
on the slimy Swift Boat Liars for Bush story.
This comes just a day after the Washington Post exposed one of Kerry’s chief critics as a liar. Larry Thurlow, who commanded another swift boat during the incident when Kerry earned his Bronze Star, is contradicted by the military records that document his own Bronze Star that was earned on the same day. Thurlow has tried to claim that there was no enemy fire during the incident when Kerry fished James Rassmann out of the water, contradicting both Kerry and Rassmann and every other member of Kerry’s swift boat crew. Now, we find that the military records for Thurlow’s own Bronze Star make reference to enemy fire directed at all the swift boats at that time.
In response, Thurlow now makes the laughable suggestion that Kerry was responsible for writing up his commendation. How sad that this guy, who is by all rights a legitimate war hero, would stoop to defaming his own commendations in an effort to score political points against Kerry. Sad and pathetic.
But back to the NY Times piece. They start by showing the deep connections between the Swift Boat Vets group and the Bush campaign:
“Records show that the group received the bulk of its initial financing from two men with ties to the president and his family - one a longtime political associate of Mr. Rove's, the other a trustee of the foundation for Mr. Bush's father's presidential library. A Texas publicist who once helped prepare Mr. Bush's father for his debate when he was running for vice president provided them with strategic advice. And the group's television commercial was produced by the same team that made the devastating ad mocking Michael S. Dukakis in an oversized tank helmet when he and Mr. Bush's father faced off in the 1988 presidential election.”
Then they show how the leaders of the group have contradicted themselves over the years, some as recently as just a year ago:
“In an unpublished interview in March 2003 with Mr. Kerry's authorized biographer, Douglas Brinkley, provided by Mr. Brinkley to The New York Times, Roy F. Hoffmann, a retired rear admiral and a leader of the group, allowed that he had disagreed with Mr. Kerry's antiwar positions but said, "I am not going to say anything negative about him." He added, "He's a good man."
In a profile of the candidate that ran in The Boston Globe in June 2003, Mr. Hoffmann approvingly recalled the actions that led to Mr. Kerry's Silver Star: "It took guts, and I admire that."
George Elliott, one of the Vietnam veterans in the group, flew from his home in Delaware to Boston in 1996 to stand up for Mr. Kerry during a tough re-election fight, declaring at a news conference that the action that won Mr. Kerry a Silver Star was "an act of courage." At that same event, Adrian L. Lonsdale, another Vietnam veteran now speaking out against Mr. Kerry, supported him with a statement about the "bravado and courage of the young officers that ran the Swift boats."
"Senator Kerry was no exception," Mr. Lonsdale told the reporters and cameras assembled at the Charlestown Navy Yard. "He was among the finest of those Swift boat drivers."
Those comments echoed the official record. In an evaluation of Mr. Kerry in 1969, Mr. Elliott, who was one of his commanders, ranked him as "not exceeded" in 11 categories, including moral courage, judgment and decisiveness, and "one of the top few" - the second-highest distinction - in the remaining five. In written comments, he called Mr. Kerry "unsurpassed," "beyond reproach" and "the acknowledged leader in his peer group."
It sounds like the Kerry campaign could make a pretty good comercial of their own using these guys’ statements and the official record. Talk about flip-flopping!
The story goes on to relate how the Swift Boat group, with the backing of big Republican campaign donors, hired a private investigator to try and dig up dirt on Kerry’s war record. And he apparently accomplished this by misleading the people he interviewed and then misrepresenting what they said:
“Patrick Runyon, who served on a mission with Mr. Kerry, said he initially thought the caller was from a pro-Kerry group, and happily gave a statement about the night Mr. Kerry won his first Purple Heart. The investigator said he would send it to him by e-mail for his signature. Mr. Runyon said the edited version was stripped of all references to enemy combat, making it look like just another night in the Mekong Delta.
"It made it sound like I didn't believe we got any returned fire," he said. "He made it sound like it was a normal operation. It was the scariest night of my life."
The story goes on to poke further holes in the Swift Boat Vet’s allegations and by the end it is clear that their real gripe with Kerry is that he chose to protest the war after leaving Vietnam.
It is unfortunate that the group didn’t stick with that criticism instead of resorting to making false and malicious smears against Kerry’s military service. By casting aspersions on Kerry, they are also calling into question the credibility of every member of the military who served in Vietnam and received commendations. If we supposedly cannot trust the documentation for Kerry’s wartime medals (or for Thurlow’s) then can we trust any of them? I believe that we can and I find the charges being leveled by the Swift Boat Vets group to be scurrilous and denigrating to all military veterans. A truly despicable enterprise and one that George W. Bush should have denounced long ago if he had a shred of decency.
on the slimy Swift Boat Liars for Bush story.
This comes just a day after the Washington Post exposed one of Kerry’s chief critics as a liar. Larry Thurlow, who commanded another swift boat during the incident when Kerry earned his Bronze Star, is contradicted by the military records that document his own Bronze Star that was earned on the same day. Thurlow has tried to claim that there was no enemy fire during the incident when Kerry fished James Rassmann out of the water, contradicting both Kerry and Rassmann and every other member of Kerry’s swift boat crew. Now, we find that the military records for Thurlow’s own Bronze Star make reference to enemy fire directed at all the swift boats at that time.
In response, Thurlow now makes the laughable suggestion that Kerry was responsible for writing up his commendation. How sad that this guy, who is by all rights a legitimate war hero, would stoop to defaming his own commendations in an effort to score political points against Kerry. Sad and pathetic.
But back to the NY Times piece. They start by showing the deep connections between the Swift Boat Vets group and the Bush campaign:
“Records show that the group received the bulk of its initial financing from two men with ties to the president and his family - one a longtime political associate of Mr. Rove's, the other a trustee of the foundation for Mr. Bush's father's presidential library. A Texas publicist who once helped prepare Mr. Bush's father for his debate when he was running for vice president provided them with strategic advice. And the group's television commercial was produced by the same team that made the devastating ad mocking Michael S. Dukakis in an oversized tank helmet when he and Mr. Bush's father faced off in the 1988 presidential election.”
Then they show how the leaders of the group have contradicted themselves over the years, some as recently as just a year ago:
“In an unpublished interview in March 2003 with Mr. Kerry's authorized biographer, Douglas Brinkley, provided by Mr. Brinkley to The New York Times, Roy F. Hoffmann, a retired rear admiral and a leader of the group, allowed that he had disagreed with Mr. Kerry's antiwar positions but said, "I am not going to say anything negative about him." He added, "He's a good man."
In a profile of the candidate that ran in The Boston Globe in June 2003, Mr. Hoffmann approvingly recalled the actions that led to Mr. Kerry's Silver Star: "It took guts, and I admire that."
George Elliott, one of the Vietnam veterans in the group, flew from his home in Delaware to Boston in 1996 to stand up for Mr. Kerry during a tough re-election fight, declaring at a news conference that the action that won Mr. Kerry a Silver Star was "an act of courage." At that same event, Adrian L. Lonsdale, another Vietnam veteran now speaking out against Mr. Kerry, supported him with a statement about the "bravado and courage of the young officers that ran the Swift boats."
"Senator Kerry was no exception," Mr. Lonsdale told the reporters and cameras assembled at the Charlestown Navy Yard. "He was among the finest of those Swift boat drivers."
Those comments echoed the official record. In an evaluation of Mr. Kerry in 1969, Mr. Elliott, who was one of his commanders, ranked him as "not exceeded" in 11 categories, including moral courage, judgment and decisiveness, and "one of the top few" - the second-highest distinction - in the remaining five. In written comments, he called Mr. Kerry "unsurpassed," "beyond reproach" and "the acknowledged leader in his peer group."
It sounds like the Kerry campaign could make a pretty good comercial of their own using these guys’ statements and the official record. Talk about flip-flopping!
The story goes on to relate how the Swift Boat group, with the backing of big Republican campaign donors, hired a private investigator to try and dig up dirt on Kerry’s war record. And he apparently accomplished this by misleading the people he interviewed and then misrepresenting what they said:
“Patrick Runyon, who served on a mission with Mr. Kerry, said he initially thought the caller was from a pro-Kerry group, and happily gave a statement about the night Mr. Kerry won his first Purple Heart. The investigator said he would send it to him by e-mail for his signature. Mr. Runyon said the edited version was stripped of all references to enemy combat, making it look like just another night in the Mekong Delta.
"It made it sound like I didn't believe we got any returned fire," he said. "He made it sound like it was a normal operation. It was the scariest night of my life."
The story goes on to poke further holes in the Swift Boat Vet’s allegations and by the end it is clear that their real gripe with Kerry is that he chose to protest the war after leaving Vietnam.
It is unfortunate that the group didn’t stick with that criticism instead of resorting to making false and malicious smears against Kerry’s military service. By casting aspersions on Kerry, they are also calling into question the credibility of every member of the military who served in Vietnam and received commendations. If we supposedly cannot trust the documentation for Kerry’s wartime medals (or for Thurlow’s) then can we trust any of them? I believe that we can and I find the charges being leveled by the Swift Boat Vets group to be scurrilous and denigrating to all military veterans. A truly despicable enterprise and one that George W. Bush should have denounced long ago if he had a shred of decency.
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Republican congressman outs himself
U.S. Rep. Doug Bereuter, R-Neb., is coming out of the closet.
No, not that kind of closet. The closet where they stuffed all of the Republicans who didn’t agree with President Bush’s pre-emtive invasion of Iraq.
Here is what Bereuter told his constituents the other day:
”I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action," Bereuter wrote in a letter to constituents in the final days of his congressional career.
That's especially true in view of the fact that the attack was initiated "without a broad and engaged international coalition," he said.
"Knowing now what I know about the reliance on the tenuous or insufficiently corroborated intelligence used to conclude that Saddam maintained a substantial WMD (weapons of mass destruction) arsenal, I believe that launching the pre-emptive military action was not justified."
As a result of the war, he said, "our country's reputation around the world has never been lower and our alliances are weakened.”
Wow, John Kerry couldn’t have said it better.
Bereuter is not just any old congressman either. He is a senior member of the House International Relations Committee and vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Of course, Bereuter is only saying all this on the last day of his Congressional career before he steps down to take a job in the private sector, perhaps to clear his conscience or something.
No, not that kind of closet. The closet where they stuffed all of the Republicans who didn’t agree with President Bush’s pre-emtive invasion of Iraq.
Here is what Bereuter told his constituents the other day:
”I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action," Bereuter wrote in a letter to constituents in the final days of his congressional career.
That's especially true in view of the fact that the attack was initiated "without a broad and engaged international coalition," he said.
"Knowing now what I know about the reliance on the tenuous or insufficiently corroborated intelligence used to conclude that Saddam maintained a substantial WMD (weapons of mass destruction) arsenal, I believe that launching the pre-emptive military action was not justified."
As a result of the war, he said, "our country's reputation around the world has never been lower and our alliances are weakened.”
Wow, John Kerry couldn’t have said it better.
Bereuter is not just any old congressman either. He is a senior member of the House International Relations Committee and vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Of course, Bereuter is only saying all this on the last day of his Congressional career before he steps down to take a job in the private sector, perhaps to clear his conscience or something.
Monday, August 16, 2004
A jazzy new blog
My friend Robert Shearer has invited me to join him as co-author of a new weblog that will focus on classical music and jazz.
The new blog is called Theme and Variations and it will serve as an outlet where Robert and I can earnestly explore, espouse and express our enthusiasm for these great forms of music.
So I would entreat you to drop by and check it out on occasion as we embark on this exciting endeavor to eloquently elucidate our enjoyment of everything from Bach to Benny Goodman. OK, enough already.
The new blog is called Theme and Variations and it will serve as an outlet where Robert and I can earnestly explore, espouse and express our enthusiasm for these great forms of music.
So I would entreat you to drop by and check it out on occasion as we embark on this exciting endeavor to eloquently elucidate our enjoyment of everything from Bach to Benny Goodman. OK, enough already.
Sunday, August 15, 2004
The Bean
I finally figured out how to upload pictures to my personal web page provided by my ISP so now I can post them on my blog.
This is a picture of the new sculpture at Millennium Park in Chicago that I thought was so neat. They call it the Bean.
Wow, this is cool!
This is a picture of the new sculpture at Millennium Park in Chicago that I thought was so neat. They call it the Bean.
Wow, this is cool!
Mixed music
I got this idea from Rox
Populi who added me to her blogroll recently for reasons unknown to me.
I don't have an iPod or any other kind of MP3 player, but I do have iTunes
on my Mac at work and I have loaded up quite a few songs over time. It is
not by any means a comprehensive representation of my collection and right
now it has a lot of Bing Crosby and Bob Dylan. (My computer crashed a while
back and I lost all of the Beatles and Rolling Stones that I had put on it).
But for now here is what I came up with when I generated a random set of 12
songs:
"Life Could Not Better Be" - Danny Kaye
"Dust In the Wind" - Kansas
"Answer Me, My Love" - Bing Crosby
"Home on the Range" - Bing Crosby
"Ma-Ma-Ma Belle" - Electric Light Orchestra
"My Back Pages" - Bob Dylan
"Swinging On a Star" - Bing Crosby
"A Fine Romance" - Bing Crosby and Dixie Lee
"The Last Roundup" - Bing Crosby
"You're Getting To Be a Habit With Me" - Bing Crosby
"Dead Man Blues" - Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers
"Sam's Song" - Bing and Gary Crosby
I thought that was a lot of Bing Crosby, so I did it one more time and came
up with this list:
"Smoke on the Water" - Deep Purple
"Jump" - Van Halen
"Crying in the Chapel" - Elvis Presley
"I Got the Sun in the Morning" - Bing Crosby
"Hotter Than Hell" - KISS
"Are Your Lonesome Tonight" - Elvis Presley
"Oh, Lady Be Good" - Ella Fitzgerald
"The Spaniard That Blighted My Life" - Bing Crosby and Al Jolson
"Poundcake" - Van Halen
"The Jones Boys" - Bing Crosby
"Bobby Jean" - Bruce Springsteen
"Be Careful, It's My Heart" - Bing Crosby
Populi who added me to her blogroll recently for reasons unknown to me.
I don't have an iPod or any other kind of MP3 player, but I do have iTunes
on my Mac at work and I have loaded up quite a few songs over time. It is
not by any means a comprehensive representation of my collection and right
now it has a lot of Bing Crosby and Bob Dylan. (My computer crashed a while
back and I lost all of the Beatles and Rolling Stones that I had put on it).
But for now here is what I came up with when I generated a random set of 12
songs:
"Life Could Not Better Be" - Danny Kaye
"Dust In the Wind" - Kansas
"Answer Me, My Love" - Bing Crosby
"Home on the Range" - Bing Crosby
"Ma-Ma-Ma Belle" - Electric Light Orchestra
"My Back Pages" - Bob Dylan
"Swinging On a Star" - Bing Crosby
"A Fine Romance" - Bing Crosby and Dixie Lee
"The Last Roundup" - Bing Crosby
"You're Getting To Be a Habit With Me" - Bing Crosby
"Dead Man Blues" - Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers
"Sam's Song" - Bing and Gary Crosby
I thought that was a lot of Bing Crosby, so I did it one more time and came
up with this list:
"Smoke on the Water" - Deep Purple
"Jump" - Van Halen
"Crying in the Chapel" - Elvis Presley
"I Got the Sun in the Morning" - Bing Crosby
"Hotter Than Hell" - KISS
"Are Your Lonesome Tonight" - Elvis Presley
"Oh, Lady Be Good" - Ella Fitzgerald
"The Spaniard That Blighted My Life" - Bing Crosby and Al Jolson
"Poundcake" - Van Halen
"The Jones Boys" - Bing Crosby
"Bobby Jean" - Bruce Springsteen
"Be Careful, It's My Heart" - Bing Crosby
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