Columnist.
Does the American taxpayer have a right to know just who's feeding at the public trough? Not according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (and Secret Subsidies). The department has just announced it's going to stop revealing the names of just who gets all those generous checks compliments of the rest of us. Just in time for them to collect the additional $1.5 billion that Blanche Lincoln (D-Agribusiness) wants to shower on them.
James Jackson Kilpatrick was always a welcome and, to some of us, awe-inspiring sight whenever he would show up at the editorial writers' convention. Yes, editorial writers have conventions, too, though our annual confab is more of an anarchists' assembly. When you spotted him there, it was as if history had just walked in the door, for he'd played so prominent a role in it -- at least if you were a Southerner who'd gone through the second Reconstruction, aka the civil rights revolution. Jack Kilpatrick's starring role, unfortunately, was on the wrong side.
What's this? A federal judge has cited not only chapter and verse, section and clause, of the law when it comes to experimenting on human embryos, but common sense. How unusual. But that's what His Honor Royce Lamberth did in the course of issuing a preliminary injunction against the federal government's funding research that involves using stem cells derived from human embryos.
It's a hit of the television season -- again. What with Hollywood turning out one silly movie after another, the little screen is reasserting itself as the place to go for, if not serious drama, than the kind that rivets the viewer's attention between commercials. Much as "The Sopranos" did a few seasons back.
The continuing foofaraw over construction of a mosque near Ground Zero in lower Manhattan illustrates, among a number of things, the crucial difference between the letter and spirit of the law.
The hardest lines Patricia Neal ever had to recite in a film were "Gort, Klaatu barada nikto! Klaatu barada nikto!" Not that the gibberish was hard to remember; it's since become something of a password among sci-fi fans. The challenge was to repeat it with a straight face in "The Day the Earth Stood Still," a B-movie made in 1951, when the spaceships were still made of cardboard and the transmissions from the moon were still fictional. A real actress in an unconscious parody, Patricia Neal kept breaking into giggles and spoiling the shot.
News item, July 8, 2010: "The periodical shelves at Stanford University are nearly bare. Library chief Helen Josephine says that in the past five years, more engineering periodicals have been moved online, making their print versions pretty obsolete -- and books aren't doing much better. ... In 2005, when the university realized it was running out of space for its growing collection of 80,000 engineering books, administrators decided to build a new library. But instead of creating more space for books, they chose to create less. The new library is set to open in August with 10,000 engineering books off the shelves -- a decrease of more than 85 percent from the old library ... eventually, there won't be any books on the shelves at all."
The fatal air crash that took the life of Ted Stevens, who represented Alaska in the U.S. Senate for the longest time (from 1968 to 2009), wasn't the first one he'd been involved in.
It was the late 1950s, and out in Oklahoma's scrublands around Fort Sill, a G-2 officer was critiquing one of our field exercises, trying to teach us ROTC cadets some of the rudiments of military intelligence (yes, I know, some say that's an oxymoron) and maybe even just a little plain intelligence.
Remember all those jobs "created and saved" the administration was touting? Those numbers have proven about as solid as its claims that the president's stimulus package would keep the country's unemployment rate under 8 percent. Last time we checked, it was in the seedy neighborhood of 9.5 percent.
The calendar says this is 2010 -- I just looked -- but there are times when current events feel more like an historical re-enactment. It could be 1937 all over again: A president has been ushered into office on the wings of Hope and Change after a sweeping electoral triumph, and the clouds have started to lift. Vast new programs, however debatable or constitutional their merits, have been enacted.
Tie knotted, hair combed, middle button on blazer buttoned. Check. Briefcase in hand, wallet in breast pocket, car keys in hand. Check. Then out through the revolving door and into the fading light, a face prepared to meet the other faces. It would take a little longer for the practiced smile to fade after that presentation to the investors today. At least he hoped they were investors, not just lookers. He'd put a lot of work into that smile -- confident and friendly, but not cocky or familiar. Moderation in all things, that was the ticket.
First came the cascading apologies to Shirley Sherrod, the once and maybe future employee of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Her candid confession of how she overcame her racial prejudice decades ago to help a white farmer, delivered at an NAACP conference in Georgia earlier this year, had been highly edited to make her sound like a racist. Before the dirty trick was uncovered, she'd been forced to resign her job and found her good name impugned by the administration, the NAACP, assorted bloggers, and the gullible in general.
