The Washington Post published an update on the controversy over singing the National Anthem in Spanish. Turns out the United States Government posts Spanish versions of the Star-Spangled Banner on some .gov Web sites, and Mr. Bush himself may have sung the anthem in Spanish at a campaign event in 2000. So much for consistency.
More later,
Russ
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Cold War tactics? Of course, the Bush administration has a cold war mentality.
This New York Times piece on United States' strategy toward Iran invokes the Cold War. I suspect we're seeing this strategy because Mr. Bush would like to take this country back to the 1950s.
More later,
Russ
More later,
Russ
Detainee abuse: Is the U.S. Government hypocritical or delusional?
How U.S. officials can feed this stuff to the media with a straight face is beyond me. Apparently, even the Bush administration says many (100s) of the detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility should be released. The U.S. Government wants to release them and send them back to their home countries. The U.S. won't release the detainees, however, because the governments in their home countries might torture them!
It's all right for the United States to torture the detainees, and it's all right to use extraordinary rendition to send people that the United States wants tortured to those same countries specifically so they will be tortured for any information they might have, but any torture not approved by the United States is not cool.
Interestingly, many of the detainees the United States wants to release are citizens of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait (more than 100 from each country according to the NYTimes article linked above) -- U.S. allies. Also, the article reports that 267 detainees have already been sent home. These items leave me with some questions:
1) How have the 267 released detainees been treated at home? If the U.S. Government doesn't know what happened to them, does that mean this concern over detainee abuse is new? Can you say "mid-term elections"?
2) Why is the United States the only country that can decide when torture is acceptable? Moot point. Torture is never acceptable.
3) Why is the U.S. allied with countries that practice torture? I guess this one doesn't matter because we are the "good guys" which makes everything we do OK.
More later,
Russ
P.S. - The extraordinary rendition link above goes to a CBS News item on the practice. I thought about linking to the Wikipedia entry on the topic, but if you look at my last post, you'll see why I didn't.
It's all right for the United States to torture the detainees, and it's all right to use extraordinary rendition to send people that the United States wants tortured to those same countries specifically so they will be tortured for any information they might have, but any torture not approved by the United States is not cool.
Interestingly, many of the detainees the United States wants to release are citizens of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait (more than 100 from each country according to the NYTimes article linked above) -- U.S. allies. Also, the article reports that 267 detainees have already been sent home. These items leave me with some questions:
1) How have the 267 released detainees been treated at home? If the U.S. Government doesn't know what happened to them, does that mean this concern over detainee abuse is new? Can you say "mid-term elections"?
2) Why is the United States the only country that can decide when torture is acceptable? Moot point. Torture is never acceptable.
3) Why is the U.S. allied with countries that practice torture? I guess this one doesn't matter because we are the "good guys" which makes everything we do OK.
More later,
Russ
P.S. - The extraordinary rendition link above goes to a CBS News item on the practice. I thought about linking to the Wikipedia entry on the topic, but if you look at my last post, you'll see why I didn't.
Political dirty tricks invade Wikipedia
The Washington Times reports that political campaigns are using Wikipedia, the online, user-produced encyclopedia, to hype their own candidates and discredit their opponents. But of course, being the Washington Times, the story features mostly Democrats as evil doers, doing evil to each other, and it reprints the lies spread by the evil campaign staffers about Democratic candidates. Maybe there aren't any Republican candidates' campaigns fiddling with Wikipedia.
Does that seem as unlikely to you as it does to me?
More later,
Russ
Does that seem as unlikely to you as it does to me?
More later,
Russ
Support the spirit of our national anthem, not the language
President Bush says "The Star-Spangled Banner" should only be sung in English. I don't get it. Our national anthem is about the spirit of the country. What difference does the language make? I guess he's playing to his political base.
The most interesting part of the story to me was the different ways the New York Times and Washington Times covered the story. Both paper's quoted Mr. Bush directly, and mentioned a proposed resolution by Senator Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., supporting the English version of the national anthem, but that's where the similarities end. The NY Times version quotes the song's producer and his reasons for producing a Spanish-language version of the anthem. The Washington Times story quotes no one in support of singing the anthem in Spanish and relies heavily on sources who actively support English as the national language. In fact, some of the Washington Times' sources make their living by promoting English. Can you say "conflict of interest"?
While I think the NY Times story isn't as strong as it could be (Why didn't they talk to more sources?), it presents the issue in a much more balanced way than the Washington Times. I know that shouldn't surprise me, but it does. I still think of journalists at purveyors of truth. My mistake.
More later,
Russ
The most interesting part of the story to me was the different ways the New York Times and Washington Times covered the story. Both paper's quoted Mr. Bush directly, and mentioned a proposed resolution by Senator Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., supporting the English version of the national anthem, but that's where the similarities end. The NY Times version quotes the song's producer and his reasons for producing a Spanish-language version of the anthem. The Washington Times story quotes no one in support of singing the anthem in Spanish and relies heavily on sources who actively support English as the national language. In fact, some of the Washington Times' sources make their living by promoting English. Can you say "conflict of interest"?
While I think the NY Times story isn't as strong as it could be (Why didn't they talk to more sources?), it presents the issue in a much more balanced way than the Washington Times. I know that shouldn't surprise me, but it does. I still think of journalists at purveyors of truth. My mistake.
More later,
Russ
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