Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

By Charles Levendosky of the Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune
The Salt Lake Tribune, Sunday November 09, 2003

President Bush has never been an advocate of the First Amendment. Even when he was governor of Texas, he prohibited demonstrations on the walkways in front of the governor’s mansion, an area which had traditionally been used for peaceful protests.

As president, Bush has widened his restrictions on demonstrations against his policies. Anti-Bush protesters are now relegated to what are euphemistically called Free Speech Zones. These areas are cordoned off as far as a mile away from the president and the main thoroughfares, so that Bush cannot see the demonstrators, or their signs of protest, nor hear their chants.

The free speech enclosures are only for those who disagree with the administration’s current policies. Those citizens who carry pro-Bush signs are allowed to line the street where the president’s motorcade passes.

Members of the Secret Service or local law enforcement officers under orders of the Secret Service demand protesters move into a free speech area.
Brett Bursey, of South Carolina, attended a speech given by the president at the Columbia Metropolitan Airport. He was standing among thousands of other citizens. Bursey held up a sign stating: “No more war for oil.”

Bursey did not pose a threat to the president, nor was he located in an area restricted to official personnel. Bursey wasn’t blocking a corridor the Secret Service needed to keep clear for security reasons. He was standing among citizens who were enthusiastically greeting Bush. Bursey, however, was the only one holding an anti-Bush sign.

He was ordered to put down his sign or move to a designated protest site more than half a mile away, outside the sight and hearing of the president. Bursey refused. He was then arrested and charged with trespassing by the South Carolina police.

However, those charges were dropped. Understandably, courts across the nation have upheld the right to protest on public property.

Instead, Bursey was indicted by the federal government for violation of a federal law that allows the Secret Service to restrict access to areas visited by the president. Bursey faces up to six months in prison and a $5,000 fine.

Members of the U.S. House, including those on the House Judiciary Committee and the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft urging him to drop the federal criminal prosecution of Bursey.

The letter signed by 11 members of the House, including Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, states, in part: “As we read the First Amendment to the Constitution, the United States is a ‘free speech zone.’ In the United States, free speech is the rule, not the exception, and citizens’ rights to express it do not depend on their doing it in a way that the president finds politically amenable. . . . We ask that you make it clear that we have no interest as a government in ‘zoning’ Constitutional freedoms, and that being politically annoying to the president of the United States is not a criminal offense. This prosecution smacks of the use of the Sedition Acts two hundred years ago to protect the president from political discomfort. It was wrong then and it is wrong now.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, on behalf of four national advocacy groups, has filed a lawsuit in federal court charging the Secret Service with a “pattern and practice” of discrimination against protesters that violates their free speech rights. The suit seeks to ban the Secret Service and local police from confining protesters to areas away from the view of public officials and the press.

The federal government has gone much further, however. The Oct. 3, Fresno (Calif.) Bee reported that a member of the Fresno Sheriff’s Department had infiltrated a peace group, Peace Fresno, to collect information on members of the group. Peace Fresno has no history of violent protests that would endanger national security.

And on July 13, the Department of Justice charged the environmental organization, Greenpeace Inc., with conspiracy to board a cargo vessel without the ship’s permission and without other lawful authority before the vessel arrived at its destination. The second count under this prosecution charges Greenpeace with boarding the vessel before arrival. The maximum penalty for each count is a $10,000 fine, as well as a probation period that could reach 11 years. The cargo vessel was approximately three miles from the port of Miami.
The protest that sparked this federal prosecution occurred back in April 2002. Two Greenpeace activists climbed aboard a cargo ship to unfurl a banner protesting the ship’s illegal cargo of Amazon mahogany wood. The banner simply read: “President Bush: Stop Illegal Logging.” The activists were detained before they could unfurl the banner. It was an effort to prompt U.S. authorities to seize the ship’s cargo.

However, the mahogany was never seized and the ship’s captain was not detained for carrying illegal cargo. Instead, Greenpeace became the target of federal prosecutors.

The pattern is clear: the Bush administration wants to suppress civil disobedience and peaceful protest. The federal government has never criminally prosecuted an entire organization for the free speech activities of its supporters. It’s an attack on the very core of the First Amendment.

One of this nation’s founding documents, the Declaration of Independence, is a forceful protest against the actions of King George III and the British government. Protest actions like the Boston Tea Party, the civil rights movement and anti-war demonstrations have shown that active citizens have the ability to promote and secure democratic ideals.

Charles Levendosky is editorial page editor of the Casper Star-Tribune.

© Copyright 2003, The Salt Lake Tribune.

Original article

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It’s a lovely eleven morning
I heard eleven worms yawning (yawn)
I saw eleven cows sleeping ‘midst the buttercups
I said, How’s the cottage cheese?
And they said, Oh, dry up!
Oh!

Eleven little birdies in the trees
Bright yellow beaks and pinky knees
Eleven chicks hatching
Eleven cats scratching
Eleven’s the number for me

Eleven ducklings quacking
(quack-quack-quack)
Eleven pigs, lips smacking
One two three four five six
Seven eight nine ten eleven
Eleven’s the number for me
Don’t you see?
Eleven’s the number for me!

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(Then the cartoon shepherdess tumbles into a pigpen.)

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Sesame Street song, circa 1980.

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Feedster power-users–can you help?

Gary Wolf needs help with a Wired story he’s writing about Howard Dean. Wolf lays out some hypothetical rules for the Dean campaign, and asks his blog readers to send him

… examples and counter-examples – confirmation and correction. Are these really the principles that underlay the architecture of the campaign? Are there concrete examples you can suggest?

So how can Wolf find examples of first-hand reports from the Dean grassroots? Feedster, of course! Instead of asking the few hundred people who read his blog today, Wolf could be querying millions and millions of blog posts by thousands of bloggers.

This is where Feedster’s many power users come into the picture. Figuring out what to ask isn’t always simple.

The Rafester, the Scottster, and I were IMing about this.
I thought that “I met Dean” would find first-hand reports. That worked surprisingly badly–somebody dreamed about meeting actor Dean Cain, that’s the top result of 11. Hmmmm.

Then, remembering how I actually met Dean at a houseparty in somebody’s NH back yard, I tried “Howard Dean” + “back yard”. That turns up 10 posts, one of them mine. “Howard Dean” + “living room” turns up 21.
Feedster found people, not all of them fans of Dean, talking in blogs about their own experience.

If you can find better searches, and help Wolf illustrate other points about Dean’s grassroots outreach, please add your suggestion to his list of comments.

I do like Scott Johnson’s suggestion–do a Feedster search on Howard Dean changed my life.

Advance preparation: (can be done hours before)

Cheese–Swiss and cheddar– grate 1 1/2 cup. Toss with 1/2 tsp cornstarch and 1/2 tsp flour.

Cream sauce–Melt 3 T butter, stir in 3 T flour. Slowly stir in 1 cup milk. Season to taste with pinch salt, 1/4 tsp basil or garlic or both. Stir in grated cheeses, then let sauce cool.

One hour before serving, preheat oven to 425.

Then, butter 2-quart soufflé dish or straight-sided casserole.

Separate 4 eggs. Beat whites until stiff. Beat yolks until thick. Stir yolks into cream sauce first.* Then, gently fold in whites. Pour mixture into buttered casserole.

Bake at 425 for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 325 until done, about 20 more minutes. Serve immediately.

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* The fluffy, stiff egg whites are the last thing you add to your soufflé. So why do you beat the whites first, just to set them aside while you mix and add the yolks? Because, after you use your mixer on the yolks, you’d have to wash the beaters with care before trying to whip up egg whites. But, you can take your beaters right out of the whites and use them to froth up the yolks without any problem.

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The Register announced today their new directory of IT events.

I checked out a few of their top events so far

• Solaris Administration: A Hands-On Introduction–£1,575
• Strategic Modelling for Building Enterprise Architecture–£1345.38
• Strategy Planning for PR Professionals–£395

Uh oh. The Register’s motto is “Biting the Hand that Feeds IT”, but Andrew Orlowski is going to chew those guys up and spit them out.

The Register failed to warn event sponsors of Orlowski’s Prime Directive: no conference should cost more than DefCon ($75) or CodeCon ($95).

Remember, it was BloggerCon’s $500* ticket that made Orlowski sink his teeth into organizer Dave Winer, asking what gave him the right to “fleece” bloggers “for real bucks.” And, compared to some of Orlowski’s other remarks in the article, that was just a love bite.

We can still hope–I like to look on the bright side–that Orlowski may not notice his paper’s new event page. After all, he never noticed BloggerCon’s free Day 2. I mean, if he did, you have to wonder why he never apologized for even one of his earlier nasty remarks.

On an even brighter side, Orlowski’s BloggerCon feeding frenzy changed his previous stance of all abuse, all the time, of every blogger. He actually acknowleged the world includes a few “excellent, content-first webloggers.”

Okay, so this group includes only bloggers not speaking at BloggerCon. Still, that’s got to be some kind of progress.

And in conclusion, may I point out that there’s a difference between biting the hand that feeds IT and just…biting.

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* $500 is more than my blogging budget for a decade–not counting the coffee I spill on my keyboard. That’s why I’m going only to Day 2 of BloggerCon–a free day, with even more events than the $500 Day 1.

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Definition list

Iraq (past)

I thought we should have waited for the weapons inspectors to finish their job–or at least for the UN to agree to join us. I don’t like pre-emptive war against people who haven’t attacked us or our allies–and that doesn’t mean I like Saddam Hussein. I also don’t like the leaders of North Korea, Iran, Liberia….should we declare pre-emptive war on all of them?

Iraq (present)

I believe there are lots of Iraqis who are glad we’re there.

Iraq (future)

If we want the UN to help us help Iraq–and I do–wouldn’t it be reasonable to share control there? I’d like to help Iraqis fight off the forces of chaos until a real government gets established.

Bush’s tax cuts

I think we should get rid of the many cuts that help billionnaires, but save the very few that benefit poor families. (Here I agree with Kerry rather than with (my guy) Dean, who wants to get rid of every one of the tax cuts.)

Israel

“We will pursue peace as if there is no terrorism and fight terrorism as if there is no peace.”
— Yitzhak Rabin

“The Democratic candidates continued their patter of political hate speech. These kinds of harsh, bitter personal attacks are unprecedented in the history of presidential politics.”

Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, quoted by ABC News, Sept. 10”

Good news for Ed Gillespie! “Whispers and screams,” a recent Harvard study of 510 editorials spanning a decade (pdf here) compared coverage of Bush and Clinton in The New York Times and The Washington Post (liberal papers) as opposed to The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Times (conservative papers). The conservative papers were much less likely to criticize “their team” and used much more bitter and intense language against those they disagreed with.

Here is the executive summary by author Michael Tomasky:

This study of the partisan intensity of the nation’s agenda-setting liberal and conservative editorial pages finds that while the pages are more or less equally partisan when it comes to supporting or opposing a given presidential administration’s policy pronouncements, the conservative pages are more partisan-often far more partisan-with regard to the intensity with which they criticize the other side. Also, the paper finds, conservative editorial pages are far less willing to criticize a Republican administration than liberal pages are willing to take issue with a Democratic administration.

This paper looks at the editorial stances during the Clinton and Bush II adminstrations of The New York Times and The Washington Post (the liberal papers) on the one hand and The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Times (the conservative papers) on the other. It identifies ten issue areas confronted by each administration that are “roughly comparable”-for example, the controversy surrounding Bill Clinton’s nomination of Zoe Baird to be attorney general, and the similar controversy surrounding George W. Bush’s nomination of Linda Chavez to be his labor secretary. Editorial comment from all four newspapers on this and nine other similarly comparable topics was collected; editorials were given a “score” of being either positive, mixed, or negative; numbers were tallied with regard to how often each of the four papers supported or opposed Clinton and how often they backed or opposed Bush. Finally, certain conclusions about the papers’ differing views of partisanship, as expressed on the page, were drawn. In all, some 510 editorials covering a decade were included in the study. The body of this paper (pages 10-50) will walk the reader through what each newspaper had to say about each of the ten issue areas under study. Appendices at the end will provide the raw numbers. But here is a quick sample of this study’s findings:

• The liberal papers criticized the Clinton administration 30 percent of the time. By contrast, the conservative papers criticized the Bush administration just 7 percent of the time.
• The liberal papers praised the Clinton administration only 36 percent of the time (the balance were mixed). The conservative papers, on the other hand, praised the Bush administration 77 percent of the time.
• The liberal papers criticized Bush 67 percent of the time. The conservative papers criticized Clinton 89 percent of the time. The study finds that there was often a striking difference in tone between the two sides as well.

  The Clinton adminstration had barely unpacked its bags when The Wall Street Journal referred administration figures as “pod people from a ‘Star Trek’ episode. . .genetically bred to inhabit the public sector.” That sort of language does not appear on the liberal pages. In sum, the two sides define partisanship quite differently and envision the roles they play as political actors very differently as well.

So if Gillespie redirects his charges toward the people on his own team, he has a darn fine chance of doing some good.

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Report: U.S. Army extends tour of reserves in Iraq

WASHINGTON (Reuters) –The U.S. Army has ordered thousands of National Guard and Army Reserve forces in Iraq and nearby countries to extend their tours of duty to a year, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

The new order, requiring 12-month tours, means many Guard and Army Reserve troops could have their original yearlong mobilizations extended for anywhere from one to six months, the newspaper said, citing unnamed Army officials.

The Army issued the new policy late Friday night but made no formal announcement of the change, the report said.

While defense officials have had authority since the September 11, 2001, attacks to activate Guard and reserve troops for two years, most have been called up for only a year of total service, the newspaper reported.

A Pentagon spokesman was not immediately available for comment early Tuesday.

There are 122,000 Army personnel in Iraq, including 3,000 National Guard soldiers and 5,000 reservists, Army officials told the Post. Another 5,000 Guard soldiers and 7,000 reservists are serving in Kuwait.

Army officials told the newspaper that the scarcity of active-duty forces and security concerns in Iraq made it necessary to keep a large number of Guard and Reserve troops in the region as long as possible, The Post reported.

“Because of the dynamic situation in theater, we had to take a look at our overseas forces to make sure we were maximizing their deployment opportunity,” one Army official was quoted as saying.

The newspaper reported that the new deployment policy only applies to those now serving in Iraq and will not affect Guard and Reserve troops deploying in the future, including two National Guard brigades scheduled to deploy on six-month tours in coming months.

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Copyright 2003 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

 
Find this article at:
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/09/09/sprj.irq.reserves.reut

 

“Language Emergency Kit”–ten rock-bottom minimum sentences for any trip:

1. Where’s the bathroom? (vahr air too-a-lett’-en?)
2. Thank you very much. (tuck saw mewcket)
3. Please. (var so good)
4. Yes. (yah.)
5. No. (nay.)
6. No, thank you. (nay, tuck)
7. I’m sorry. (fur-lawt’ may).
8. My husband is vegetarian. (min man air vegetaree-ansk’.)
9. Without meat? (eutan churt?)
10. Where can I access the Internet? (vahr kun yahg komma in paw internet?)

Two bonus sentences, in case you don’t have a vegetarian husband:

“Can we sit in a non-smoking area?” (kun vee sitta veed boord fur ickeh-rurkareh?)
“That’s beautiful.” (den air vack’-er)

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Left to right: Dean’s dynamite staffer Mike Weissman, Dean database guru Aaron, mega-blogger Dave Winer, NH Dean volunteer Chace Vanderwolk, looking forward to casting his first vote for Howard Dean.

Dean came strolling down the street with TV cameras and pundits following him. He seemed to be having fun, and to like them all.

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