I have this thing about animals and competition. The horses love to run, say the advocates. Do we still add weight to slow them down if they’re screwing up the odds? And what the hell is that event that always used to make ESPN, with a riot of horses falling down a riverbank? Oh, hell yeah. The horses really seemed to love that one.
Eight Belles crossed the finish line second in the Kentucky Derby today and then jockey Gabriel Saez heard the worst sound possible – a pop.
Saez said the filly did not take a bad step, but he heard the pop and tried to pull her up.
“I tried to get her to stop,” he said. “I tried to get her to stop, but she wouldn’t stop.”
Eight Belles, in scoring the best finish for a filly in the Derby since Winning Colors won the race in 1988, suffered condylar fractures of both front legs. She was euthanized on the track.
Okay, this is too cool to pass up. And it’s important, too. I suppose we should start with the important, which is a fantastic, even spectacular—by Beltway standards—exchange between venerable Hearst columnist Helen Thomas and White House Press Secretary Dana Perino regarding the ongoing saga of waterboarding and the torture question.
After a period of near disinterest by the White House press corps in the wake of an April 9 report by ABC news that put decisions regarding “enhanced interrogation techniques” much closer to the White House than officials had previously acknowledged, Thomas raised the issue during Perino’s regular press briefing on April 23:
Q The President has said publicly several times, in two consecutive news conferences a few months ago, and you have said over and over again, we do not torture. Now he has admitted that he did sign off on torture, he did know about it. So how do you reconcile this credibility gap?
MS. PERINO: Helen, you’re taking liberties with the what the President said. The United States has not, is not torturing any detainees in the global war on terror. And General Hayden, amongst others, have spoken on Capitol Hill fully in this regard, and it is — I’ll leave it where it is. The President is accurate in saying what he said.
Q That’s not my question. My question is, why did he state publicly, we do not torture –
MS. PERINO: Because we do not.
Q — when he really did know that we do?
MS. PERINO: No, that’s what I mean, Helen. We’ve talked about the legal authorities –
Q Are you saying that we did not?
MS. PERINO: I am saying we did not, yes.
Q How can you when you have photographs and everything else? I mean, how can you say that when he admits that he knew about it?
MS. PERINO: Helen, I think that you’re — again, I think you’re conflating some issues and you’re misconstruing what the President said.
Q I’m asking for the credibility of this country, not just this administration.
MS. PERINO: And what I’m telling you is we have — torture has not occurred. And you can go back through all the public record. Just make sure — I would just respectfully ask you not to misconstrue what the President said.
Q You’re denying, in this room, that we torture and we have tortured?
MS. PERINO: Yes, I am denying that.
Thomas, disgusted by the answer and the press corps’ complicity, rebuked her fellows: “Where is everybody? For God’s sake.”
Okay, yeah. Important and cool. But it gets even better. As word of the exchange—and the accompaniment C-SPAN footage—made its way around the web, an outpouring of gratitude made its way to Thomas. Musician and graphic designer Micah Fitch organized an online campaign to send flowers to thank her for her efforts. According to Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts of the Washington Post, at least fifty bouquets had arrived at Thomas’ office so far, and more than five hundred people contributed $4,300 to the tribute. Thomas intends to share the flowers with friends and hospitals.
Most folks don’t know much about me, apart from the feeling of injustice that hits when I walk into the room with my easy charisma and air of entitlement. I understand. It’s weird when your government passes legislation, like equal opportunity laws, that benefits one single person in the country — me, The Guy Who Got Where He Is Only Because He’s Black.
People think I have it easy, but it’s surprisingly difficult being The Guy Who Got Where He Is Only Because He’s Black, what with the whole having to be everywhere in the country at once thing. One second I’m nodding enthusiastically in a sales conference in Boise, Idaho, and the next I’m separating conjoined triplets at the Institute For Terribly Complicated Surgery in Buchanan, N.Y., and then I have to rush out to Muncie, Ind., to put my little “Inspector 12″ tag in a bag of Fruit of the Loom.
It’s exhausting, all that travel. Decent, hard-working folks out there have their religion and their xenophobia to cling to. All I have is a fistful of upgrades to first class and free headphones. Headphones That Should Have Gone to a More Deserving Passenger.
Help wanted: public servants willing to disclose major sources of income, business interests, real estate holdings and the names of their adult relatives.
Sayonara and good luck with that, said some 150 elected and appointed Oregon officeholders who walked away from their public service gigs this month rather than disclose personal data. Many said they were particularly disturbed by the new requirement — apparently unique to Oregon — that they name so many family members.
Resignations struck dozens of cities.
In rural eastern Oregon, the revolt against the state’s new conflict-of-interest disclosure law obliterated some city governments.
In Elgin, the mayor, all six City Council members and all five planning commissioners opted to quit rather than file. Lexington lost its entire council, Enterprise its five-member Planning Commission. Banks lost four council members, North Powder three; Rogue River, Umatilla and Stanfield lost two each.
A number of things come to mind. Foremost, of course, is a simple question: What the hell?
In the first place, it is not so much that I hate small dogs as I just, um … er … yeah. I’ll figure out how to finish that sentence in rewrite. Or maybe not. On the cosmic level, of course, I try not to hate anything. And, true enough, I doubt you will ever see me going out of my way to kick a small dog or anything, but the things could, in the end, be deal breakers. They’re among the things that make a potential lover unattractive. Small dog owners are one-nighters, not potential relationships. Maybe there’s some Darwinian aspect about it, a manifestation of natural selection at work: These two people should not mate.
I won’t even start on the crazy woman at the Lynnwood Park & Ride who had a small dog in a sweater and a chihuahua in a … in a … well, it looked like a freakin’ purse for carrying a chihuahua. A dog-satchel. And, yes, she was crazy. But she actually had a boyfriend, although he seemed to like to hang at the edge of earshot, smoking cigarettes and staring sullenly in the other direction. Keep reading →
There is an old Doonesbury from the 1970s, specifically from the Nixon/Ford era, in which the press corps was depicted as ludicrous and undyingly accommodating. A young Dan Rather challenged one or another spokesmen at the White House, got a vapid response, and attempted to reiterate the point only to be shouted down by his fellow journalists. The punch line that sticks out in my memory is, “Don’t be piggy, Dan.”
Dan Froomkin brings us a tale of our contemporary press corps that, while it does not read identically, reminds us at least of what we hoped was a bygone era: Keep reading →
Recalling tales of Rosie the Riveter, and the notion that World War II helped push women’s issues to the forefront in American culture—that during the Long Decade housewives grew impatient, and sometimes despondent at their return to the domestic bliss of subjugation—we should remember in twenty or fifty or a hundred years, when history finally has a chance to objectively assess the Iraqi Bush War—its causes, effects, and justifications—that were it not for George W., Iraqi women may well have languished under the passive-aggressive iron fist of monotheistic tradition.
Sabriyah Hilal Abadi began sleeping with a loaded AK-47 by her bed shortly after the war began.
It was a comforting possession for a woman who had lost her home, her husband and, last weekend, a room in a dilapidated building she shared with 27 squatter families, most headed by women.
The mother of four fought mightily to stay in the sparse, two-story building in the Zayouna neighborhood of Baghdad that once belonged to Hussein’s Baath Party, but soldiers forced her out.
Iraq’s government is intent on proving it can enforce the law. But in its determination to rid the party building of its squatters, the women say, the government has plunged them deeper into homelessness and may have pushed others toward violence.
Thousands of Iraqi women have in recent years embraced new roles as violence has claimed their men. For Abadi, 43, the turning point came when she accepted the powerful assault rifle from friends concerned about her welfare.
“Before the invasion — never,” said Abadi, who oscillated between rage and sadness during three interviews. Speaking about the army, she waggled her finger. Speaking about her son in college, she looked dismal. Speaking about her old house, she began to weep.
Times have changed, she said. “The women now take on the responsibilities of men and women.”
“You know, Bart, when I was your age, I pulled a few boners.” (Homer Simpson)
What? It was the first thing to mind.
Here, from Telegraph Online:
It cost £14,000 to create, but clearly no-one at the smart London design outfit that came up with the new logo for HM Treasury thought to turn it on its side.
The logo, for the Office of Government Commerce, was intended to signify a bold commitment to the body’s aim of “improving value for money by driving up standards and capability in procurement”.
Instead, it has generated howls of mirth and what is likely to be a barrage of teasing emails from mandarins in other departments.
According to insiders, the graphic was already proudly etched on mousemats and pens before it was unveiled for employees, who spotted the clanger within seconds.
Staff have apparently now stripped their office of souvenirs bearing the logo, which could appear on eBay within days.
Government wankers. At least the British have a sense of humor about it.
A spokesman for OGC said: “It is true that it caused a few titters among some staff when viewed on its side, but on consideration we concluded that the effect was generic to the particular combination of the letters OGC - and it is not inappropriate to an organisation that’s looking to have a firm grip on Government spend.”
A thought arose of late when considering a recent Italian court decision that apparently makes it illegal for a man to scratch or adjust himself in public.
The Italian ruling clubs together all forms of “crotch-scratching”— prompted by discomfort or by superstition — as offensive. Certain actions are considered inappropriate for public viewing. They not only offend the “average man” — a useful alibi for legislators — but also taint the sanctity of the public sphere. The issues raised by the Italian ruling go beyond the obvious question of violating an individual’s right to touch himself. Suddenly, this behaviour becomes as suspect as a range of other ‘uncivil’ activities — spitting, peeing or bathing on the streets — which would be severely condemned in any Western society ….
…. There is nothing inherently dangerous about crotch-scratching. Unlike spitting or peeing publicly, it does not ‘pollute’ in any physical sense. It is rather like a moment of unconscious intimacy with oneself, like biting fingernails or tugging at one’s hair. The West remains unmoved by unabashed public display of sexual affection, but is perturbed by a superstitious habit.
The Italian legislation is the outcome of a history of sensibilities that is unmistakably Western. These sensibilities have been formed as much by increased awareness of civic norms as by a heightened self-consciousness (as in the flatulent woman on the plane). It is unlikely that India will ever have a law that forbids men to touch their privates in public (in which case, every second man would have to be fined by the minute.)
