Author Archives: floegel

Surged or Scourged?

11/20/2007 – 1:31 pm

Six to nine months after the surge in U.S. troop levels in Iraq, violence is down, or at least we’re told violence is down. How would we know, really? Pentagon press releases? The mainstream media? Last week’s issue of the New Yorker has a piece on the surge by Jon Lee Anderson, in which he […]

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The Iraq Double Standard

11/20/2007 – 11:35 am

The Associated Press reports today that its award-winning Iraqi photographer Bilal Hussein, who has been held without charges by the U.S. military for 19 months, will finally be brought to trial. In the year and a half Mr. Hussein has been jailed, the Pentagon has changed its story several times, all the while making vague […]

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Never Forget

11/15/2007 – 10:44 am

Four hundred and ten years later, the quality of mercy is still not strained. The ability to forgive is still a boon, both to the transgressor and the transgressed. There are, however, other issues. There are questions of justice and how we conduct ourselves as a society. Twenty-two years ago, a team of French commandos […]

Posted in Civil Liberty, Commentary, September 11th | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Feeding Back

11/8/2007 – 11:10 am

For years climate scientists have warned rising temperatures will create “feedback loops” – self-perpetuating cycles in which cause and consequence take on lives of their own.  Warmer temperatures melt pack ice in the Arctic Ocean, dark water reflect less light than ice and snow, hastening the melting of the remaining ice, creating more surface water, […]

Posted in Commentary, Oil | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Twelve Dollars a Year

11/1/2007 – 10:06 am

In the late winter of 2006, the citizens of Burlington, Vermont prepared to elect one of five candidates to a three-year term for an open mayor’s seat. At one forum, a citizen stood up and asked, “Within the next mayoral term, it’s likely the price of oil will hit $90 a barrel and gas will […]

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Weird Little Gift for America

10/25/2007 – 10:52 am

The autumn afternoons are ripe and warm; the mornings are heavy with dew that is not yet frost, but soon. It’s the annual nostalgia for the summer passed and anxiety for the winter to be endured. I was staring through the window at the blaze orange of a sugar maple the other day, caught up […]

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The Money Primary

10/11/2007 – 10:04 am

Early in the Republican primary race to see who would challenge Bill Clinton in 1996, then-Texas Senator Phil Gramm said, “The only primary that counts is the money primary and I’ve already won it.” Mr. Gramm raised and spent an impressive $20 million, but he was nonetheless out of the race before New Hampshire citizens […]

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