Do you feel a draft? Maybe not yet, but you might feel one soon. I have yet to see it in an American news source, but the Toronto Star and the UK’s Guardian are both reporting that the Department of Defense is shoring up the infrastructure for a national draft. This is no surprise. The […]
In his “long, hard slog” memorandum three weeks ago, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wrote, “Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror.” Like so many other statements in that memo, Mr. Rumsfeld’s quest for metrics reveals much about our position in the war on terror, regardless […]
The Islamic holy month of Ramadan began Monday, and not in the usual way. Five suicide bombers took 34 lives and wounded dozens of others. More bombings and violence followed Tuesday and is likely to continue for the rest of the lunar month. Ramadan is not supposed to be about violence, it’s supposed to be […]
Congress has given President Bush the $87 billion he’s asked for Iraq and Afghanistan. Eighty-seven billion dollars is one of those Washington numbers that floats through the newspaper headlines without having a chance to sink into the public consciousness in a meaningful way. If you had a pile of 87 billion one-dollar bills, neatly stacked, […]
When people discover I used to work for Greenpeace, they often ask how many times I’ve been arrested. I never tell them. I point out Greenpeace’s direct actions are designed to go to those places where environmental crimes are being committed and bear witness to them, using cameras and the media to draw the attention […]
Gray Davis is soon to be a private citizen again; Arnold Schwarzeneggar is king of California. All I can think of is Florida in 2000, when so many people thought elections couldn’t get any stranger. It seems so long ago. If November 2000 seems long ago, then Bill Clinton’s impeachment must have faded into the […]
Cut and Run
Now that the World Series is over, baseball periodicals resort to all the old tricks to get through the off-season. A favorite is the “What ever happened to____?” article. Pick a moderately famous ballplayer who retired 20 years ago and find out what he’s been up to. More often than not, the answer is: fishing. […]