It’s imminent! My take on the case here.
GITMO AND PERSPECTIVE: As Cheney and Rumsfeld dig in further, Fred Hiatt gets it exactly right. Meanwhile, Anonymous Liberal tries to reach the right balance on Iraq.
BLAIR VERSUS BUSH: The honeymoon is over. Novak is, of course, over the top, but the truth is that Blair is deadly serious about aid to Africa and resuscitating Kyoto. He’s working on Putin, already has Europe in his pocket on this one, and is shoring up his standing at home by taking on the French on the EU rebate. I wonder if the president knows what’s coming at Gleneagles.
REFLECTIONS ON “LOVE IN ACTION”: A reader was moved by the story below on a young teen sent to an evangelical “straight camp” where he will be tormented for his sexual orientation and has allegedly been told by his supervisor that suicide would be preferable to leaving the camp to be proud and gay. He sent me the following poem by A. E. Housman, of whom Auden once said that he “kept his tears in a drawer.” It says a lot about the vast, unnecessary pain we inflict on gay kids and teens, and the cruelty that still exists and still legislates and still threatens:
Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?
And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists?
And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air?
Oh they’re taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.‘Tis a shame to human nature, such a head of hair as his;
In the good old time ’twas hanging for the colour that it is;
Though hanging isn’t bad enough and flaying would be fair
For the nameless and abominable colour of his hair.Oh a deal of pains he’s taken and a pretty price he’s paid
To hide his poll or dye it of a mentionable shade;
But they’ve pulled the beggar’s hat off for the world to see and stare,
And they’re taking him to justice for the colour of his hair.Now ’tis oakum for his fingers and the treadmill for his feet,
And the quarry-gang on Portland in the cold and in the heat,
And between his spells of labour in the time he has to spare
He can curse the God that made him for the colour of his hair.
BURGER BLOG: Rare and yet well done.
The Dish 