September 11, 2007
A year ago there was some controversy about some of the sayings made a part of Arizona’s Sept. 11 memorial, which was dedicated Sept. 11, 2006. Today there were few people there, though throughout the day a few hundred people likely visited.
One person who was there today was Calvin Washechek, who was interviewed by an Associated Press writer as I left. Washechek sat with a few documents about his - and many others’ - theory about how the Twin Towers in New York City collapsed. He didn’t talk about it unless you asked, which I did in general terms, already knowing many of the variety of theories of which people want to subscribe.
I had not been there at all, but spent about 40 minutes there today as a stop on the way to work. For the last month I have driven by the freeway sign that says “State Capitol” and as Sept. 11 came up, I knew I wanted to visit and see the memorial, before it undergoes, if it undergoes, any changes. One of the phrases that caused consternation was this one: YOU DON’T WIN BATTLES OF TERRORISM WITH MORE BATTLES.
There’s so much in detail and simplicity. A few people came by and were underwhelmed. They had expected shiny marble, and largess. They had expected all the names of those who died on Sept. 11 in the collapsed towers, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field. Instead, the entire memorial is about 25 feet across, and people have to read. What is there are simple remembrances of the day. A 12-year-old boy designed a T-shirt. People stood in 100-degree weather to give blood. A woman wrote songs to her dead brother. A Sikh man was killed in Mesa, Arizona in the aftermath - one of a few religious-based killings that occurred in retaliation.
The memorial has a piece of the tower embedded in it. It is very simply designed, with a wide circle of metal, and a concrete sitting bench inside. The only words are at the centerpiece acknowledging the dedication, and those carved into the metal so as to create words of light when the sun shines.
I signed the book there, not the official book, in my scrawl, in which I noted, “Oh, if things could have been different - and history brought us ______?”
Since, a copy of George Washington’s 1796 Farewell Address to the nation was at hand, courtesy of Mr. Washechek, I read aloud these paragraphs:
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
Images © 2007 Temple A. Stark
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BY: Temple Stark | Comments and Links (1)
September 9, 2007
Gov. Janet Napolitano has formed the Competitive Edge Public Action Committee for what various blogs and newspapers are heavily speculating is a 2010 U.S. Senate run.
That’s would put her against the then 77-year-old McCain. Napolitano turns 50 on Nov. 29.
An Aug. 21 poll found Gov. Napolitano was more popular than she’s ever been. Or as blogger JM Bell put it, quoting the Associated Press:
The Rocky Mountain Poll of 629 voters across the state also finds the Democratic governor is the most popular statewide elected official. She was ranked as doing an excellent or good job by 59 percent of those asked, and only nine percent gave her a poor or very poor rating. That’s the lowest negative rating for Napolitano since she took office in 2003.
Ouch.
She has pushed for more federal Border Patrol officers and made illegal immigration and education the twin centers of her agenda. As a former US Attorney and state Attorney General she has her bona fides on being tough against crime. Sheriff Joe Arpaio, most popular by the block- guranteed-to-vote - white hair, wrinkles - has also endorsed her in the past, though not without some controversy.
In an article that miraculously only manages to quote Republican political consultants, the Phoenix Business Journal says attorneys Sal Rivera and campaign legal counsel Andrew Gordon also have leadership roles in the PAC, with Napolitano.
About $50,000 has been raised, to date. Some of those dollars have already gone out to governor candidates in Kentucky and Missouri. Forming a PAC to help others in your party is widely considered the default, “How to win Friends and Influence People.” When it comes time for your electoral moment in the sun, the goodwill and perhaps money is supposed to come in like an overflowing JackPot slots machine.
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BY: Temple Stark | Comments and Links (0)
September 8, 2007
The least religious candidates lead the US presidential race.
A new PEW Research Center poll shows that Hillary Clinton and Rudolph Giuliani are considered the least religious among the 2008 presidential candidates currently in the running.
Fourteen percent of respondents considered Giuliani “very religious.” He leads the GOP candidates, while Democratic frontrunner had 16 percent saying the same. Sen. Clinton also had the highest number (31%) saying she was not at all religious.
Mitt Romney was considered the most religious of all the candidates, just ahead of non-candidate President Bush.
Despite the runaway headline that seems to indicate that religious views are less important then they used to be, 70 percent also said, according to the survey of 3,000 people, that they prefer a president with “strong religious beliefs.”
“Roughly six-in-ten Americans (61%) say they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who does not believe in God,” a PEW news release states.
These are only perceptions, of course, and not necessarily a reflection of the candidates’ actual beliefs.
The Democratic Party as a whole was seen as “less friendly” to religion.
More numbers at PEW’s Web site.
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BY: Temple Stark | Comments and Links (1)
(UPDATE: Oops, on a relook they’re looking for Iraq Civilian casualties. The post in isolation wasn’t completely clear, but in context of other posts, it was)
It seems odd to me that Mr. Marshall, a longtime reporter online and off thinks the Associated Press has not done their homework in regard to collecting information on United States military casualities in Iraq. To wit, he says:
The one set of numbers we’ve found that appears to go back some way (a couple years) and have a consistent methodology are those compiled by the Associated Press from police reports about deaths in Iraq. To further the confusion, though, the AP seems unwilling to assemble these numbers together in one place, so you need to go back and piece together the separate monthly numbers from individual stories.
There’s a collection of fine minds at Talking Points Memo so I find it strange that none have ever hooked into the Associated Press Web site for members. The site, called YourAP.org has a link right at the top of the page after you sign in that says “Iraq Casualty DB.” DB = database.
When you click that (only available to AP members) it gives exactly what Mr. Marshall, and his colleague Spencer Ackerman says is not available, a monthly breakdown of the deaths of American and British soldiers since the war began. A few more clicks reveals that these men and women can be listed by state, with photos and short bios provided for each.
Today the number is at 3760, with, the page says, 3754 confirmed by the Department of Defense.
This isn’t to say the AP figures are definitive, but they are there.
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BY: Temple Stark | Comments and Links (0)
August 30, 2007
A Republican is a perosn who says we need to rebuild Iraq bu tno tNew Orleans.
Who can disopute that clear fact of idiocy? It’s a thought that first came to me less than a week after one of the country’s worst natural disasters. When Repupublicans were happily saying that the federal government shouldn’t spen dmoney to help their own people .Not just help, of course, but get thm out of a deathly third-world existence brought upon them in an act of God.
If that doesn’t tickle your ass try this one:
Conventional Wisdom says:
Democrats want bombs to go off in Iraq to prove we are still in danger from “the second Vietnam.”
Republicans want bombs to off in America to prove we are still in danger from terrorism.
None of the above is wrong. Libertarians, of ocurse, wouldn’t be elected to make a difference. Not in today’s world, not with the principles based in an unreal nature, and an ignorance - a blatant ignorance of - and detachment from human nature.
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BY: Temple Stark | Comments and Links (1)
August 25, 2007
There’s been a huge tussle over governors vying to move up their states in the primary schedule to be relevant. Many of them were also-rans to help decide the party’s nominations, Democratic, Republican and more.
But Kathy Sullivan, a New Hampshire Democratic Party member working on the primary plan, threatened with state delegates not being allowed to the Democrat’s national convention in Denver, seems quite happy to accept that.
So, the sword she’s fallen on has this edge: The winner in New Hampshire gets the headlines for winning, and being popular. This may effect the early running for the candidates and help decide which ones drip out. But the winner will then have exactly none of that support represented at the convention.
Florida is faced with the same self-inflicted empty gesture after they appeared to have settled on a Jan. 29 primary date.
Arizona was the latest to move its primary up three weeks to Feb. 5, by a special governor’s decree allowed by law. By doing so it is part of what has been dubbed SuperDuper Tuesday, one step above the traditional Super Tuesday.
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BY: Temple Stark | Comments and Links (0)
August 19, 2007
John Edwards is on the cover of the latest quarterly issue of Men’s Vogue. John Edwards, the guy being painted as an metrosexual, effeminate “bBreck girl.” Here, of course, he has a dog and a pickup - more than canceled out by the fact that it’s Men’s Vogue. Just saying, your “Two Americas” aren’t reading Men’s Vogue; it’s an oxymoron.
Now let me quickly add that I consider this post substance free - for obvious reasons - but this “playing into the hands of your enemies stereotype” thing can be avoided rather more easily than on the cover of a magazine that will be sitting on the racks for the next 90 days.
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BY: Temple Stark | Comments and Links (2)
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