We’re smoking them out of their caves; Bush reaches out to the allies; Zimbabwe’s opposition leader fears for his life; Letterman stays at CBS; one of Anglo-America’s greatest actresses, Irene Worth, dies.
TWO OFF-HAND COMMENTS: One from the proverbial administration official. He told me over the weekend, “On September 10, I believed that the terrorists probably had a nuclear capacity, but that they weren’t crazy enough to use it. Now, I believe the complete opposite. They probably don’t have any yet, but the minute they do, they’ll deploy it.” Another person involved in the administration told me that an attack on Iraq was inevitable – and that it would be much sooner than most of us expect.
RAY OF LIGHT: What a brilliant concept. When I first saw the New York Times Magazine cover of September 23, my breath was taken away with the idea. The towers reach to heaven, they dominate the sky-line, they are full of light. “Seeing those huge monoliths, as seemingly timeless as the pyramids, vanish taught us something about our buildings, our institutions, and ourselves,” one of the designers, Gustavo Bonevarti, writes in Slate. “We learned how ephemeral life really is. Light is ephemeral, but it is also universal-that’s what we wanted this project to be.” Whatever replaces this should never substitute it entirely. I hope that every September 11 from now on, those lights are re-lit. Every September 11 – a ritual and memorial of light.
BEAM ME UP, BLOGGER: Yep, William Shatner’s got one. Should the rest of us retire immediately?
DEPORTED TO HELL: A while back, I mentioned a story I’d read in the British press about a forced deportation of 27 Somali immigrants by the INS. The immigrants were picked up on minor charges, from years ago, some drug-related, but many had cleaned up their acts and were living productive lives. Many had no idea what Somalia was, had no family or friends there, and had been in the U.S. for close to twenty years. After reading my site, an editor at Canada’s National Post decided to check the story out. It’s true. One of the deportees, Fuad Ismail, was described as a model employee who recovered from a drug habit in a six-month rehabilitation program at the Salvation Army, and was working legally in the United States. “He was determined to get better and he did,” said one Salvation Army Major. “He is one of the most gentle, religious people I’ve ever met.” His reward? Dumped into a war-zone by the U.S. government, with no possible appeal or escape. Read this horrifying tale of the U.S. government’s brutality toward immigrants in the wake of the legislation passed in the 1990s. I hope Bush finds a way to moderate some of the cruelty of the Clinton-Gingrich immigration laws. It would do a lot to put the compassion into his conservatism.
CORRECTION: I described the Boston Herald’s columnist Joe Fitzgerald in an earlier post as a Catholic. It turns out he isn’t. I’m not sure whether to be appalled or relieved. I think I’m relieved.
AN INTERESTING POINT: From an emailer today:
The church I attend, Metropolitan Community Church, is a Christian church with a primary ministry to Gay people. Nearly all of our denomination’s religious leaders are Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and/or Transgendered. Yet, to my knowledge, none of our religious leaders are under investigation for pedophilia, ephebophilia, or whatever you want to call it. Now, if the presence of Gays in religious leadership puts children at risk for sexual abuse, why doesn’t this problem affect our church, too?
Good question, huh?
THE GENERATION GAP: The Onion nails it. Perhaps I should support a budget-busting senior drug entitlement. They might just spread some wealth around.
DERBYSHIRE AWARD NOMINEE: “Let’s say that Washington really was incinerated. As difficult and alarming as this sounds, we live in times when horrible realities confront us every day. It is time that we deal frankly and honestly with the ugly prospect. The first thing that would happen is that your personal income would rise equal to the 40 percent you currently pay Washington in taxes. Because there would be nowhere to actually send the checks – excise taxes, income taxes, and payroll taxes would be meaningless. Instead of having to wait for politicians to give us “private accounts” for some portion of Social Security, we’d get real privatization with no FICA at all. The country would be immediately vulnerable to attack by terrorists! On the other hand, there would be no one to enforce sanctions against Iraq, pay the troops in Saudi Arabia, or fund the settlements on the Gaza Strip, so the terrorists would lose their rationale for suicide bombings and the like. They might just choose to go home to their wives and kids.” – Lew Rockwell, looking on the bright side of the nuclear destruction of the capital. As sick as Ted Rall – but from the far right.
The Dish 