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Obama's Nuclear Terrorism Summit Deserves Applause
Tweet Share on Facebook April 14, 2010 Comment (8)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
If al Qaeda had triggered a homemade, or pirated, nuclear device in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, this week's summit of 47 nations here in Washington would not have been necessary. With the same energy that the United States has devoted to security in air travel, we would have led a worldwide effort to secure plutonium, old warheads and highly enriched uranium.
But the terrorists chose an airplane as their weapon, and so we have lines at airports. Meanwhile, the effort to lock up nuclear material has been dogged, around the globe, by complacency. It is the nature of human beings to deal with the tangible threat, and not the conceptual.
That is why, Republican or Democrat, we should applaud President Obama for the leadership he showed in gathering this crowd of world leaders to address this issue. And send thanks to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, whose administration identified nuclear terrorism as the most dangerous threat that America faces, and started the arduous process of getting Pandora's toys back in the box.
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Tim Pawlenty's Classless Attack on the Poor
Tweet Share on Facebook April 13, 2010 Comment (15)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
American politics can be, as Henry Adams once wrote, the systematic organization of hatreds. It doesn’t need to be. But too often, we let it become so.
There was evidence of this last week, in Minnesota, where Tim Pawlenty--a governor, hoping to become the President of the United States--decided that what America really needs right now is some good old-fashioned bashing of the poor.
Not welfare cheats. Not illegal immigrants. Just anyone who doesn’t have a lot of money. The poor.
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Tiger Woods' Masters Return: Good Start, But Can He Win It All?
Tweet Share on Facebook April 9, 2010 Comment (12)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Like much of the sporting world I was riveted yesterday afternoon to the spectacular performances on the golf course in Augusta, Ga.
On any other day, the bravura rounds by aged Tom Watson and aging Freddy Couples would command the headlines, or the one-stroke-back performance of Phil Mickelson, who is battling the distractions of his wife's breast cancer.
But, due to certain circumstances that most of us have heard about, yesterday's opening round was dominated by the performance of one Tiger Woods, who shot a 68 that might have been a 65, hit one or two of those astonishing recovery shots that he apparently can still summon, and is two strokes off the lead.
Important statistic: for all the rust from his five-month lay-off from the game, this was the lowest opening round that Tiger ever shot at Augusta. He never shoots in the 60s on opening day. Golfers beware.
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The Right Way to Honor Confederate and Civil War History
Tweet Share on Facebook April 8, 2010 Comment (23)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell's apology--for honoring Confederate veterans without bothering to mention the evil of their cause--is appropriate. The Civil War was about slavery. For 40 years before the South opened fire on Fort Sumter, Americans argued, bit, and scratched over every square mile added to the expanding nation, and whether new states and territories would be "slave" or "free." Finally, they took up arms. Lincoln found it politically convenient to declare that the North was fighting for "the Union," but it was slavery that the South seceded to save.
There may come a time to dwell on the great bravery, or superb generalship, of the Confederate armies without mentioning the depravity of slavery. But for now we need to keep Stonewall Jackson in the same class as Nazi Gen. Erwin Rommel, and remember to denounce the hideous regimes they fought for. Both armies showed grit and courage at Gettysburg and Shiloh, but only the Union had God on its side.
American history did not end in 1865. For a century after, too many Americans, North and South, nurtured systematic racism. And it has long been a specialty, among some southern politicians, to use the Confederacy, or its flag, as code for white supremacy. I don't know why McDonnell and his Republican colleague, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, have chosen to launch their terms with a series of divisive acts, but they do so within the context of history. And, sadly, it's not Bobby Lee that some folks pine for, as much as Jim Crow.
Is there a constructive way to honor the Confederate dead? As it turns out, there is. We can join to save the land they bled on.
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Video of Deadly U.S. Attack in Iraq Shows Reality of War
Tweet Share on Facebook April 6, 2010 Comment (22)John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The video of a 2007 attack by U.S. helicopters that killed two Reuters employees in Iraq should be required viewing by any reporter heading for a war zone. It is a deadly mistake to assume, because a group you're with is not engaged in combat, or even making threatening moves, that actual combatants are going to see it that way.
The video is "graphic evidence of the dangers involved in war journalism and the tragedies that can result," David Schlesinger, the editor in chief for Reuters News, told the New York Times.
But there is another lesson to be learned from the film, as we try to win the hearts and minds of the Islamic world. For all our technological marvels, well-trained troops, and sophisticated weaponry, war is a crude and brutal tool. Accidents happen. There is collateral damage. Kids get killed. And survivors don't forget.
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The iPad Is the Space Shuttle to the Future, and Journalism Should Hop Aboard
Tweet Share on Facebook April 5, 2010 Comment (18)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The iPad arrived as promised on Saturday, and it is everything it was cracked up to be, except the savior of journalism. After exploring iPad applications all weekend, I am chagrined to note that the quantity and quality of the news apps was sorely disappointing.
My decision to acquire an iPad dates back to November, when Mrs. Santa started dropping hints that there might be an Amazon Kindle under the tree on Christmas Day.
I am a voracious consumer of printed material, and I suspect she has just about had enough of the 2-foot-tall stacks of Esquires, New Yorkers, and Golf magazines around the house; the two or three newspapers we get each week, and the way that books, many now yellowing with age, overflow our bookshelves. Electronic consolidation seemed a promising option.
I asked her to hold off, however, because I had heard rumors that Apple and other computer companies were going to jump into electronic publishing with full-color touchscreens, video, and the like. The more I looked into the possibilities, the more I hoped that these computer tablets could save journalism from the current crisis by enabling newspapers, magazines, and news shows to develop new, sophisticated online products that people will actually want to pay for.
Well, the iPad is everything that Apple said it would be: slick, fast, portable, fun. And the various applications that Apple has been working on—its electronic book and video and E-mail apps—are delightful.
It's the journalism apps that have a long way to go.
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For TARP, Stimulus, Give Democrats and Republicans Credit as Economy Turns
Tweet Share on Facebook April 2, 2010 Comment (6)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The stock market is flirting, as I write, with a Dow Jones average of 11,000. Whatever the long-term effect of healthcare reform, it seems like the socialists on Wall Street don't share the worries of Glenn Beck and the stock-your-basement-with-canned-goods-and-ammo crowd.
Productivity is soaring, and the job report for March was bullish. Even after omitting the temporary bump caused by hiring for the 2010 census (a constitutional requirement, wingers), today's stats show that the economic upturn is beginning to create a significant number of jobs.
Remember the much-despised TARP program? How we all assumed that the money loaned to the banks and the auto companies was lost forever? It seems like maybe it wasn't so bad a deal after all. The Treasury plans to sell its 27 percent stake in Citigroup, at an $8 billion profit, in the coming months. The final cost of the $700 billion bailout may be less than $100 billion, much of which went toward saving jobs and retooling the U.S. automobile industry.
It may not be morning in America, folks, but there sure is a glow on the eastern horizon.
I am a big believer that, for all the talk about culture wars and racial milestones and populist outrage and West Hollywood bondage clubs, the determining factor in the 2010 and 2012 elections will be the economy.
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Hannity’s Audience of ‘Tim McVeigh Wannabes’
Tweet Share on Facebook April 1, 2010 Comment (27)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
During a recent show broadcast from the Reagan presidential library, Fox newsman Sean Hannity mischievously identified his audience as "Tim McVeigh wannabes."
At which point, his audience applauded.
McVeigh killed 168 people in Oklahoma City. More than a dozen of his victims were tots, in a daycare center.
This photograph broke our hearts.
Hannity made this remark to ridicule concerns that some right-wing nut-job, egged on by the conservative entertainment industry, will engage in an act of domestic terrorism.
I sure hope he is right.
