ANOTHER SIDE OF THE CITY
Jim Capozzola has a touching essay on attending the viewing of Faheem Thomas-Childs, the 10-year-old killed in drug-dealers’ crossfire near his Philadelphia school last week.
Go read it.

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IT’S A SMALL WORLD, AFTER ALL
I’ve been spring cleaning my life (figuratively and literally) and decided to say goodbye to my cassette collection. So I posted on a freebie list offering them all to a good home (or car).
The person who got to me first turned out to be a local musician, a guy who [...]

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‘AND THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE’
Patti Davis (Ronald Reagan’s daughter) on love and gay marriage:
Whenever I hear about the furor over gay marriage, and whenever I step back and look at how tentative and wary we are about love (I’m including myself in that one) I wonder the same thing: What is it about [...]

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‘WE LOVE THE SUBS’
I see I’m not the only twisted soul who loves the Quiznos ads.

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IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT
Even Andy gets it now.
The sanctity of the Constitution is what we are fighting for. We’re not fighting just to defend ourselves. We are fighting to defend a way of life: pluralism, freedom, equality under the law. You cannot defend the Constitution abroad while undermining it [...]

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STOPPING THE SHAME SPIRAL
Here’s the latest from the Austin front on that “Rick Perry caught with his pants down” rumor.

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ALL IN THE FAMILY
More on my favorite local congressman:
Yesterday, public-interest groups criticized Weldon’s advocacy for the two Russian firms and the Serbian brothers, charging, that his actions created the appearance he was shaping public policies to benefit his daughter and Sexton’s business.
“To me, this looks like a scheme to feather the nest of his daughter,” [...]

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SHELL GAME
Atrio is right on top of what the Musgrave amendment would really mean, and I’ve been wondering why the press isn’t all over it:
You know, after all these years I just can’t believe these people. And, I can’t believe the media for just printing their bullshit practically unchallenged. Here is the Musgrave FMA amendment:
Marriage [...]

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MAKING HISTORY
The thing to remember is, the anti-gay-marriage amendment Bubble Boy is supporting is the first in our history to actually limit a group’s liberties instead of expanding them.
Way to go, asshole.

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SUCCESS OR SOMETHING LIKE IT
I see that “war on terrorism” thing is really working well.
A senior leader of Al Qaeda threatened further attacks against the United States and denounced France for banning Islamic head scarves in statements on two audiotapes broadcast by separate Arab satellite channels on Tuesday.
Analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency said the [...]

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GLASS HOUSES
Well, I just got done reading Scotty’s little tapdance on gay marriage at today’s White House press briefings, and the whole mess is just too long and silly to repeat here. Go read it if you want.
But I must say: Am I the only person who finds it insane that the party with proud [...]

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THE LADY OR THE TIGER
So I’m watching C-SPAN, and they have on Linda Lingle, the Republican governor of Hawaii. She just said how she doesn’t agree with the president on “a few things,” but that he was done “a wonderful job of leading our nation through a very difficult time.”
“A wonderful job.”
And she didn’t choke, [...]

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Breslin on Kerry:
A couple of labor people had preceded Kerry on the stage and they told stories about the jobless that were supposed to cause you to cringe, but they were bloodless in the telling.
As were Kerry’s anecdotes. He ought to get them, and his general comments, better. This can be done with the [...]

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A WEDDING STORY
Yet another wonderful wedding story from San Francisco:
And the dawn brought something else: the support of people all around us. Suddenly we had more than the fellowship of those soggy people in line, but from commuters and passersby too. Cars and buses honked and the people inside them waved at us happily. A [...]

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ALMOST HERE
Kos has a post reminding me why I hate the Yankees.
I was working on assignment in Florida a few years ago and wandered into a baseball memorabilia store in St. Pete. The Yanks had just won the Series - again - and the store owner asked if I wanted to hold a jersey signed [...]

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FEAR ITSELF
Pat Buchanan reviews the Dick Perle-David Frum book:
In his first inaugural address, FDR admonished, “[T]he only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
Fear is what Perle and his co-author David Frum are peddling to stampede America into serial wars. Just such [...]

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DISTURBING
So this isn’t on the fringes anymore:
American investigators were given the first name and telephone number of one of the Sept. 11 hijackers two and a half years before the attacks on New York and Washington, but the United States appears to have failed to pursue the lead aggressively, American and German officials say.
The information [...]

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THE TICK
I knew he reminded me of a cartoon character.

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I SWEAR TO GOD - AS OPPOSED TO THE REST OF THE TIME, WHEN I’M LYING THROUGH MY TEETH
Good old Helen Thomas sticks it to Scotty again:
Q On the 9/11 Commission, why — you’ve indicated that the President has agreed to a private meeting with the co-chairs of the commission. Why is the President unwilling [...]

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It’s always interesting when they start eating their own. The GOPers have turned on Orrin Hatch for doing the right thing:
No matter that Hatch has spent the past three years fighting nonstop to confirm George Bush’s judicial nominees. After Hatch declared himself “mortified” by the file-stealing allegations and said he supported a formal investigation, angry [...]

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Dr. Thompson on Bubble Boy:
This is no time for the “leader of the free world” to be falling asleep at massively-popular sporting events. He is already trailing heavily in polls among football fans and young males who would do anything to see a naked female nipple during halftime at the Super Bowl.
That is a hell [...]

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Sometimes Alterman is such a tool.

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THE CHEERLEADING CONNECTION
Laughing my ass off at this from Betty Bowers, America’s Best Christian, via Gossiplist:
Get ready to howl with laughter, Betty Bowers has a new bumper sticker out: ‘Gay Marriage Already Exists - Just Ask The First Lady of Texas’
Gossiplist also has this:
Have known about Rick being a switch hitter since he ran against [...]

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The Zen approach to terrorism:
Sipping tea, the monk said Buddhist teaching encouraged people to reach out to those perceived as enemies with “deep listening and loving speech.” Rather than demonize the terrorists, he said, he would like to understand them. “You must have hated us a lot?. Tell us why. Have we tried to destroy [...]

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GEARING UP
Only a million?
When the Republican National Convention comes to town, the Rev. Peter Laarman hopes to greet it with a quiet, reserved defiance. He wants religious leaders to hold discussion groups on concerns about politicizing Sept. 11. He wants to have seminars to discuss lost jobs. And he wants to bring experts to New [...]

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Bob Herbert strikes fear into our very hearts:
In this dynamic, potentially very treacherous labor market, few people are looking out for the interests of the American worker. The very concept of the traditional high-paid American job, with its generous health and pension benefits and paid vacations, is at risk.

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SILLY QUESTION
From Nick Confessore over at TAPPED:
Another question: Is there anybody on the Bush administration’s economic team thinking about ways to create new jobs, instead of thinking about ways to fool people into thinking they’ve created new jobs?

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‘WHY WATCH WHEN WE DO IT FOR YOU?’
Here’s some fresh-squeezed Pundit Pap from the American Politics Journal:
For those of you who didn’t catch Meet the Press — and who can blame you — Gillespie looks like a nerdy snake oil salesman in an ill-fitting suit without a scintilla of credibility himself. He talks so fast [...]

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WHAT I’M LISTENING TO: “On the Radio,” Donna Summer - Someone found a letter you wrote me on the radio/ And they told the world just how you felt/ It must have fallen out of a hole in your old brown overcoat/ They never said your name/ But I knew just who they meant/ I [...]

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‘ASK AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE’
I’ve posted this on a few “freebie” lists but I may as well throw it up here, too.
I’m looking for a free laptop. Should be working, complete with battery, power cord and modem, all that stuff. Something relatively fast that can handle Windows 2000 - no antiques, I don’t have the [...]

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