"To be an American is to commit a daily act of faith."

Happy Three Kings

Next Oscar host?

None other than Mr. Jon Stewart.

Worth reading.
Particularly this report, Under Mined, by Clara Bingham.

You'll find no edgy anagrams

... or nasty remarks here.
Just observing how odd it is that b/Bulldozers would be in the news twice today. Or do you suppose that's what set him off?

God bless the families of all those who grieve today. We are but humans at heart, and have more in common than we'd like to admit, I believe. Here's to a better, fresher future.

"It's a very emotional time. "

"The employees families are grief-stricken, and frankly angry and I, I, I'm not surprised or upset with them because they certainly have... some basis for their frustration having been put thought this emotional rollercoaster."

You would think any written or verbal statements at this time would be carefully controlled and pre-screened by a PR person.

Thick as a Brick

... and you shake your head (hmphf)
and say it's a shame.

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Apologies to Tull. And if it should turn out that this laundry list, including ventilation violations, in no way contributed to the accident, well shame on the owners and supervisors for not insisting these possibly minor federal violations were corrected immediately. There is risk, there are Acts of God, and there are possibly preventable situations. Once we accept responsibility and learn to practice accountability, things will get better.

But damn sure nothing ever changes when people just keep their heads down, questions inside, sitting this one out, letting the spin doctors spin. We have to start asking why, proceeding neutrally and scientifically, and learn what can be done differently. Accept the things you cannot change, sure, but work to change the things you can. And be wise, so that you may know the difference.

Workers' safety, not just ergonomics for desk jobs, matters still. As the strength of labor declines, we can't forget safety so long as there are blue-collar jobs necessary for maintaining the American Lifestyle. As our society becomes more and more segregated by class, there will always be college kids who think regulations are so yesterday. Burdening businesses. These are tomorrow's leaders. Spitting out what they have been fed to earn a grade that will help them to get the best jobs making the most money with the most benefits. It costs a lot to take your family to Europe these days after all, and why pay for it yourself ?

If you don't see a problem, you don't recognize it. That doesn't mean it isn't there. God bless our country, and give us the strength to help ourselves.

"We don't need to tame nature, we need to keep the wild out there."

Amen.
---
This story reminds me of the rise in emergency calls in wild places, now that cell phones and GPS have become more common. Hello, people? Take preparation and caution, because I hear it is getting expensive "rescuing" city folk who don't respect their own boundaries, or nature's. If you head out into the wild and aren't prepared to make it out on your own should an emergency arise, don't go in. These technological advances can provide better communication, but that's no substitute for common sense and trip preparation.

Remembering a good man, who did a great thing.

Truman K. Gibson, Jr.

(In these days of Trumps, Abramoffs, Lays and DeLays, to name but a few, it's good to remember when admired men had the courage to state their beliefs -- nevermind what the bosses want to hear -- and the genuine integrity and wherewithal to make life better for all people. Someday, soon I hope, the pendulum will swing back.) Remember, if you're selling out your beliefs to gain greater power and money, it's not so easy to just swing back when the mood shifts the other way. And it will.

What you say and -- more importantly -- do today affects the future. Will your obit read as though you stand for something and aren't afraid of equal opportunity, or will it be interpreted that you appeased and groveled and played to the people in power, just to hold on to the inbred privileges that help protect you and yours? That begets the question: does my own hard work and effort earn me my place in the community, or did my advantages come at the cost of equal opportunities for others in neighboring places? Maybe we're not all as competitive as we like to think.

Also up for discussion...

Here's what I don't get:
Why spend the time, money and ink taking a case to the highest court, if their ruling presumably will not be enforced on the ground?

Isn't this the ultimate disrespect to the system of law, that what we have on paper and what we have "in action" are separate and distinct? Wouldn't it be better to admit, before judging on what "the law" is, these real-life limitations? Otherwise, it seems like hypocrisy to have people saying one thing and then looking the other way when it comes time to enforce "the law".

Again, it seems like wasted energy to me, this lofty idea of our most educated and intelligent elites deciding the law that is not followed in practice. (Though I must admit I did get a chuckle out of Scalia's federalism inconsistencies.) Worse, will such "laws" be selectively enforced? Better perhaps to have less "intelligent" judges and justices, on paper, who can see past their paper proclamations to a bigger idea of how law and justice works?

Maybe I just don't get it, but this whole War on Drugs thing seems to mirror the War on Terror in its effectiveness. But what do I know? Maybe we are all more safe from violence now, and medical drug use is in decline. Here's hoping ...

Accidentally deleted this one, I see.

Want to put it back up, since I'd like to spark discussion here. Legit policy? Collective punishment of the entire population, likely to turn people against... whom? Or do you believe, as I do, that this is an abuse of power? Not a real military tactic, just a way to laugh at making people's lives just a little more miserable, because it makes one feel... macho, instead of victimized?

Nobody wants to play the victim, afterall... right?

In other news, the fellows at Andrew Sullivan's blog link to this post, counting up when and where media criticism is not appropriate, and someday perhaps where it is?

Will the real Sam Alito

... please stand up... (please stand up, please stand up):

Marsha Levy-Warren, who graduated from Princeton a year after Alito in 1973 and was part of the university's first coed class, says he was known to be conservative but not noisy about it. While Princeton was not as restive as some other universities at the time, she says, anti-war and liberal sentiments nonetheless were strong, and students such as Alito who "stood kind of in the opposite camp were known."

As unrest mounted, the university set up a special committee of faculty, students and administrators to study how the school was governed. Stanley Kelley, the professor who chaired the committee, selected Alito as his staff assistant.

Kelley, now retired, said that in a highly charged environment, Alito didn't align himself with extreme views on either side.

"He chose to associate himself with the middle," said Kelley.

Alito himself painted a much sharper and conservative political self-portrait in completing a 1985 application for a job in the Reagan Justice Department. He wrote of being most influenced in the 1960s by the writings of William F. Buckley, the National Review and Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign. He also cited his membership in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, a conservative alumni group known for its opposition to opening the school to women and bringing in more minorities.

"That's all certainly news to me," says Dwyer. "I would remember if Sam had ever said anything pro-Goldwater."

Levy-Warren, a New York psychologist and psychoanalyst, said she finds Alito's disclosure of membership in Concerned Alumni of Princeton "distressing" and "painful," remembering CAP as a polarizing group that felt the school was moving in the "wrong direction" by welcoming women and minorities.

Alito now says he has no recollection of being a member of the group or participating in its activities.

___

As documents from Alito's past have trickled out, the judge's strongly conservative paper trail sometimes seems to clash with his more measured public comments.

He has been working to reassure senators that he maintains an open mind, despite pronouncements like those on the job application stating that he was "particularly proud" of his work on cases arguing that the Constitution does not protect the right to an abortion and opposing racial and ethnic quotas.

"The idea that Alito maintains an open mind on reproductive rights is simply not credible," says Ralph Neas, president of the liberal People for the American Way. Marcia Greenberger, co-president of the National Women's Law Center, sees "a series of mounting inconsistent statements and evasions."

Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass., said the seeming contradictions mean that Alito will have "an especially heavy burden at the hearings in January to explain the growing number of discrepancies between his current statements and his past actions."

Road Birth
More Signs
A Grandmother's Clock
December Snow

Today, it rained.
The snow is gone.

If you're sober by noon...

a Line in the Sand in today's NYT is worth reading. Not a simple take, but not so complex it bears skipping.

At the center of this debate is Eyal Weizman, a 35-year-old Israeli architect and activist who has been a controversial figure in his homeland since 2002, when he published a report for a local human rights organization that essentially accused Israeli architects of being collaborators in the colonization of the West Bank.

Building is never a neutral act, of course, and Mr. Weizman makes no distinctions between the realms of architecture and politics. For decades, he has often noted, Israeli architects made much of their livelihood designing settlements in the occupied territories. Many felt their job was to solve problems - to make spaces functional, more humane, more aesthetically pleasing. But in doing so, Mr. Weizman argues, they also made the unacceptable seem tolerable, lending an oppressive policy a veneer of good taste.

The article concludes with this, a death knell for moderate postitions:

If some of the new cities of Israel reflect the successes of Modernism, the barrier represents the worst aspects of it - the rationalist tendency to reduce the world to a system of abstract relationships, a faith in tabula rasa planning, a distrust of urban chaos - without its idealism.

The consequences extend beyond the ghettoization of Palestinians and Israelis. The wall destroys the space for those who once occupied the middle ground: those who refuse to divide the world into good and bad, civilization and barbarity. It threatens to sever the threads, already fragile, that might one day be woven into a more tolerant image of coexistence.

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If that's too complex for your head to follow this fine morning, try this opinion piece from Mr. Larry David. Larry comes to realize the only thing he has to fear, is himself. So he stays away. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

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Finally, Harold Bloom recounts the contribution of Limbo to literature, and remembers his friend, the great Anthony Burgess.

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So there you go. Nothing simple really, but then what worth fully knowing ever is? Myself? I'm holding off on proclaiming the new year, until we see if it's really just more of the same, in fresh packaging. George McEvoy too finds blind optimism hard to come by this year.