Archives: October 2004

LAST WEEK AT WASHINGTON COLLEGE, I WAS TREATED TO A PRETTY EXTENSIVE meeting with journalist Seymour Hersh — followed by dinner and a public lecture that followed.

RON SUSKIND LANDS THE BEST INDICTMENT YET of the Bush Administration’s hostility to reasoned, sensible and empirically-grounded policy making. Suskind writes: The nation’s founders, smarting still from the punitive pieties of Europe’s state religions, were adamant about erecting a wall between organized religion and political authority. But suddenly, that seems like a long time ago….

I WORKED FOR CLYDE PRESTOWITZ AS EVP of the Economic Strategy Institute for two years. We did great things together during that time, but we also didn’t see eye to eye on everything.

IN THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE BY WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, you can almost hear him lilting, “the RNC doth protest too much, me thinks.” In particular, I liked Buckley’s lines: Sen.

BRADFORD COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA JUDGE JEFFREY SMITH doled out an unacceptably harsh penalty against student streaker Russell Chmieleski, sentencing him to jail for six months to two years for a graduation prank, that he has decided was hard-core indecent exposure.

WHAT IS IT WITH THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IN THE SOUTH and disgusting political flyers and mailers? A nasty flyer has turned up in Tennesse politics which depicts a handicapped athlete running on a track with George Bush’s face pasted on.

I JUST DOWNLOADED GOOGLE’S NEW SEARCH TOOL that looks for items on your own computer, buried in files or email. It’s staggeringly good and fast. I read about the tool in this Washington Post article and wanted to make sure that others knew about it.

JAMES WOOLSEY CONTINUES TO SPREAD PARANOIA AND THE POLITICS of permanent threat to keep America focused on its fears rather than figuring out the best path back to a high trust/low fear world.

THE FIRESTORM OVER JOHN KERRY’S COMMENTS ABOUT MARY CHENEY, which are raging on all the spin shows and even on the public comments on this blog and in about 200 emails I have received about this, signifies that the question of society’s stance towards homosexuality is burning strong among the passions of many Americans.