Author: Tim Jarrett

What color is your philosophy?

Greg: Alex Cockburn, Arbiter of Black Authenticity. Greg unleashes some pointed thought on the issue of whether one can be “black in skin tone but not in philosohy” (I’m paraphrasing). Greg sez:

…you get to spell out what my fellow Alabamans — Condolezza Rice and Cynthia Tucker — and I have in common save skin tone, good looks and a firm conviction that Dreamland cooks the best barbecue ever.

And maybe then you can help me figure out why you and Pat Buchanan don’t seem to think much alike. How am I supposed to know which one of you is philosophially white?

more…

An administration incapable of telling the truth?

Paul Krugman in the New York Times: The Memory Hole. Krugman discusses the origins of the “trifecta” quote (about Bush’s statement that he said he would only let the budget go into deficit in case of war, recession or national emergency; there’s no evidence he ever promised any such thing). Now evidence that OMB and other agencies may not be telling the truth in new budget deficit projections just disappears.

Every government tries to make excuses for its past errors, but I don’t think any previous U.S. administration has been this brazen about rewriting history to make itself look good. For this kind of thing to happen you have to have politicians who have no qualms about playing Big Brother; officials whose partisan loyalty trumps their professional scruples; and a press corps that, with some honorable exceptions, lets the people in power get away with it.

Lucky us: we hit the trifecta.

Thanks to Brendan Nyhan at Spinsanity for the link.

Update: Forgot I wrote about the trifecta already; just linked it in.
more…

Cool morning, gray skies

This area never fails to surprise me. The morning is cool and gray here, but light. Driving in this morning the local DJ announces a request from an Internet listener in LA. The car hums up 520, almost a shame to take the freeway for such a short hop but it brings my gas mileage up to 21.5 for the trip.

Driving down 40th Street onto the Microsoft campus, traffic stops. What’s going on? A line of ducks, five ducklings following their mother, are crossing from where a drainpipe emerges from the edge of campus to the wooded apartment complex on the other side. Jeff Tweedy sings “I am trying to break your heart.”

Blogtree: the lineage of blogs…

The newest addition to the nav bar on the left side of this site is my Blogtree link. You can see the blogs that inspired me to start blogging; blogs that were inspired by the same “parents”; and blogs that I’ve inspired there. Kind of a cool idea—and when I checked about 1100 blogs had registered.
more…

Run it up the middle (again and again)

It would appear that the fans of my college football team, the Virginia Cavaliers, can’t take a joke. Greg thinks he caused the problem, but I’m sure that the original poster could have come across the poems in question through Google, where they are hit #6 for the good coach. (Note: The new link for the George Welsh poems is now on this site.)

For what it’s worth, I really respect Welsh. His work as a football coach made us cheer much more often than it made us moan. But in 1993, after watching yet another press conference after a win where he smiled about as much as a man with a gastric ulcer, Tyler, Joe, Patrick and I realized that there was something funny about the thought that this stoic man might have a secret literary life. Hence the poems. Of course half the fun was parodying the lit crit that might surround Welsh’s oeuvre.

Pork Products Transcend

    It's fourth and ten, boys,
    Florida State... You gonna
    eat that 'wurst, Frank?  Damn.

more…

Rearranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic…

Time: Could 9/11 Have Been Prevented? Scary view into how the sloth-like, generally arteriosclerotic processes of government caused a plan to take out Al Qaeda to be lost during the transition between the Clinton administration and the Harken-Halliburton administration. The article details a series of missed opportunities, the detailed warnings that a big attack was coming–and the breakdowns in government function that caused a failure to act. Scary thoughts:

No other great power handles the transition from one government to another in so shambolic a way as the U.S.-new appointments take months to be confirmed by the Senate; incoming Administrations tinker with even the most sensible of existing policies. The fight against terrorism was one of the casualties of the transition, as Washington spent eight months going over and over a document whose outline had long been clear.

Thanks to Scott Rosenberg at Salon for the link. While I was writing this, Dave summed up the essence of the nightmare here: “Sometimes when we bluster and attack aimlessly, we cement relationships between forces that wish us harm.”
more…

Move count: Two Jarretts

Esta moved into a new place in downtown Richmond this weekend. Apparently she’s quite happy with her new place, 6-minute commute and all.

One word of advice to Esta for her new place’s hardwood floors: Swiffers. A finer cleaning product has yet to be seen. Not an employee, just a happy customer. Procter & Gamble really understand their customer too. There’s nothing more satisfying than picking up the Swiffer mop, shuddering at all the dust, hair and other detritus that’s been picked up, then throwing the crap away.

Busy weekend

Sorry for being quiet this weekend. Lisa and I went to visit Shel in Portland on Saturday. Had a great time—a quick lunch and some hardware hunting followed by an afternoon stroll in the Rose Test Garden.

Today has been home project day. Lisa’s long been unsatisfied with the lavender color of our “laundry hall”—which connects the living room to the dining room and the two front bedrooms. The walls were dark, in a space that gets little natural light to begin with. So we found a shade of white called “Snow Ballet” that brightened up the hall considerably. And I had to buy a drill so I could start installing towel rods and so forth in our newly remodeled guest bathroom. I also had a moment of transcendence: sitting in our garage at my workbench (I have a workbench!) sorting screws into a new 37-drawer storage unit that I mounted, I realized I was feeling more peaceful than I had in some weeks. There’s something to be said for ordering your environment and working with your hands.

Florida: where electoral law is optional

NYT: Again, Election Confusion for the Florida Secretary of State. Seems that the state of Florida, who have already given us the Harken–Halliburton presidency, continue to blaze a trail in creative interpretation of electoral law. It seems that Katherine Harris (yes, former Florida secretary of state Katherine Harris, who was so insistent during the recount controversy in 2000 about sticking to the letter of the electoral law) is running for Congress, but hasn’t figured out how Florida electoral law applies to her. By violating Florida’s “resign to run” law, she’s landed herself in a bit of a mess.

I like the commentary from the Florida Democratic Party:

“She doesn’t know election law,” said Bob Poe, head of the Florida Democratic Party. “She couldn’t even resign properly.”

Tip of the hat to Greg, whose blog is rapidly becoming required political reading, for the pointer.