"Inconvenient Truth" producer Laurie David and musician Sheryl Crow have been crossing the country in a biodiesel bus to educate college students about global warming. I saw them discussing their mission with Bill Maher on HBO a couple of weeks ago.
In case you missed the big story of Saturday night:
Crow and David were at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner at the Hilton Washington.
The Washington Post's Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts reported the pair "walked over to Table 92 at the Hilton Washington to chat with Karl Rove -- and the resulting exchange was suitably heated.
"'I am floored by what I just experienced with Karl Rove,' David reports. 'I went over to him and said, 'I urge you to take a new look at global warming.' He went zero to 100 with me. . . . I've never had anyone be so rude.'
"Rove's version: 'She came over to insult me and she succeeded.'"
But what tickled me most was the Post's gossip-style piece on the post-dinner events, by Libby Copeland and Dana Milbank. They abandoned their serious reporter roles that night. Milbank wired himself with a microphone, then he and Copeland set out with mischief in mind.
They went to the Vanity Fair at writer Christopher Hitchens' home, where they see "World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, but we do not his see his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, the World Bank worker for whom Wolfowitz gallantly arranged a raise. We offer several women $20 to approach Wolfowitz and ask for a raise, but we find no takers."
That made me howl.
The pair then moved over "to the Capitol File party at the Colombian ambassador's residence, by now quite fuzzyheaded from teeny-weeny drinkie-winkies, and on our way in we catch sight of booted "American Idol" contestant Chris Sligh.
"Hey, Chris! What's it like to be temporarily famous?
"'Hopefully, it's not temporary,' he says politely.
"Oopsie-daisy. Awk-ward."
Catch other after-party glimpses, such as the exchanges between Michelle Kwan and Condoleeza Rice, Isaiah Washington and Greta Van Susteren, and what the gift/swag bags contained, in the Washington Post.
Burned by Stephen Colbert's roast of George W. Bush at the 2006 event, the entertainment this year came from impressionist Rich Little, who from most accounts (including this one) is desperately in need of fresh material.
An emotional Shin said that the U.S. sacrificed much for Korea, and this incident hurt him deeply.Andrew Leonard, writing in Salon:
"Conservative commentator Debbie Schlussel's first reaction to the news that an "Asian" was responsible for the Virginia Tech massacre was to declare that a "Paki" was likely responsible. After being confronted with irrefutable evidence of her nearly criminal idiocy, she amended her analysis: "Even if it does not turn out that the shooter is Muslim, this is a demonstration to Muslim jihadists all over that it is extremely easy to shoot and kill multiple American college students."
"Schlussel's racism, albeit appalling, is also instructional. Individual prejudices inform our comprehension of any new tragedy much faster than facts. For most of the American punditocracy, the Virginia Tech shootings have ignited an instananeous flare-up of the always smoldering gun-control/right-to-keep-and-bear-arms ideological brushfire. But if Schlussel could jump even farther -- to the immediate assumption that the shootings were a manifestation of jihad, imagine what the reaction has been in the Korean neighborhood of the Internet.
"Robert Koehler's excellent Korea-focused blog, The Marmot's Hole offers a way in. There, you can learn that the Korean government is worried what the news will mean for Korea's international reputation, and whether the killings will cast a pall on the almost signed-sealed-and-delivered Korean-U.S. free-trade agreement. In Koehler's comments area and on other English-language Korea-focused blogs, the battle is already raging over the truth-or-raciscm quotient of a stereotype that holds that Korean males are excessively prone to violent jealous rages. One blogger, demonstrating with embarrassing panache exactly why some people should not be given the keys to the Internet, has even declared that the calm efficiency with which Cho Seung-hui murdered so many people "immediately suggested someone with a level of rigorous military training that only South Korean males can generally be expected to have."
"Facts are useful in such situations: CNN is reporting that the 23-year-old Cho came to the United States in 1992. He would have been 8 years old. One wonders exactly how much military training he had received by that point.
"Another fact provided by the Marmot's Hole: According to one report, Korea has more students studying abroad in the U.S. than any other country: 100,000. Debbie Schlussel thinks that the foreign residency of Cho Seung-hui is "yet another reason to stop letting in so many foreign students." But 99.999 percent of those 100,000 Koreans somehow managed not to engage in mass killing sprees. My advice to the Korean blogosphere -- despite all the cultural hypothesizing that is about to swarm the mediasphere -- is to strive to stay calm. Jealous rage knows no borders."
Here's the link.
Reviewing the PBS series America at a Crossroads, Alessandra Stanley of the New York Times writes:
Richard N. Perle can sleep at night.
If “The Case for War: In Defense of Freedom” is any guide, this former chairman of the Defense Policy Board who so fiercely lobbied for the invasion of Iraq enjoys the deep, flannelly slumber of infants and the well medicated.
In an hourlong, first-person tour of his thinking, Mr. Perle admits neither mistakes nor regrets. The war is not even his main concern. Instead, Mr. Perle, a leading neo-conservative, uses much of tonight’s segment of the weeklong PBS series “America at a Crossroads” to argue that the United States should foment regime change in Iran, regardless of what Iran and other nations think.
“There’s got to be some advantage to being a superpower,” Mr. Perle tells Patrick J. Buchanan, the conservative columnist who worked with Mr. Perle in the Reagan administration.
Read the full article.
I got to talking to Operations Manager Scott Weatherly a few days ago about changes in the land of my birth. This is an expansion on part of the ensuing discussion.
The United Nations lists Singapore as the world's fourth most densely populated country, with 6208 people per square kilometer. The United States ranks number 172, with 31 people per square km. Here's the whole list .
Want an even more stark comparison? I live in Latah County, Idaho, with a population in 200 just under 35,000 on 1077 square miles.That's about 13 people on every square kilometer!
Singapore wasn't always that crowded. The country gained independence in 1965, when I was not quite three years old. The population then was about 2 million, land area about 225 square miles (figures drawn from memory, but fairly close!) That's 581 square kilometers, computing to nearly 3500 persons per square kilometer. Today, the population is more than double: FOUR AND A HALF MILLION. When I read recently that the government expects the population to rise to six and a half million, it made me sweat. Once you've lived in the tropics you'll never forget that humidity.
Still, the Singapore government has steadily made plans for the additional people. From 581 sq km (224 sq miles)in 1965, the island nation is now 650 sq km and plans to acquire another 100 sq km in the next 30 years.
How?
Build/reclaim more land!
It gets through 1.5 billion cubic metres (2 billion cubic yards) of dredged silica a year — 333 cubic metres for each man, woman and child. The Government has been forced to draw on its strategic sand reserve, which Singapore hoards as other nations keep stocks of oil and food.
Stop to think about that.
Where's all this dirt coming from?
Richard Lloyd Parry's March 17th article in the Times explains:
Singapore accused of land grab as islands disappear by boatload
With more than 17,000 islands — from the jungly expanses of Borneo and Sumatra to unnamed rocks jutting out of the sea — you may think that Indonesia would not mind if a few of them went missing. But the huge South-East Asian nation has become caught up in a furious dispute with Singapore, its tiny neighbour, which is accused of literally making off with its territory.
Indonesia has banned the export of sand and imposed strict controls on shipments of gravel, after fears that its islands were being loaded on to ships and carried away to Singapore. In its thirst for building materials and landfill to reclaim new territory from the sea, Indonesians allege, Singapore has been stealing the land beneath their feet.
The dispute reached a climax this week after 24 tugs and barges, carrying granite chips, were intercepted by the Indonesian authorities as they sailed home to Singapore. Jakarta announced that future exports would be allowed only if the granite could be certified as environmentally friendly.
Since Indonesia announced its ban on sand in February, the price of a cubic metre of it has increased more than seven times, from S$6.5 (£2.18) to S$50. The Indonesian Navy has mobilised 18 ships to intercept gravel pirates and sand bandits.
“Some of these islands are reduced to islets, and could even disappear below the surface,” Hendropriyono, Indonesia’s former intelligence chief, has said. “This could theoretically lead to a cartographic zero-sum game in which Singapore’s gain could be at Indonesia’s territorial loss.”
Relations between Singapore and its neighbours have been tense since the city state became independent from Malaysia in 1965, and disagreements often arise over natural resources. The Singaporean achievement was to create an affluent, highly educated society in a swampy, jungly, malarial island with a population of 4.5 million people at the tip of the Malaysian peninsula.
Singapore’s reliance on its neighbours gives them powerful leverage over it — in the past Malaysia, with whom relations are particularly prickly, has threatened to cut off water supplies across the Straits of Johor. But the sand sanctions are equally threatening.
After years of stagnation, Singapore is undergoing a construction boom, with an increased demand for sand for the manufacture of concrete. The island also has long-term plans to ease its overcrowding by reclaiming land from the sea.
At independence, Singapore was 581 sq km (224 sq miles); now it is 650 sq km and plans to acquire another 100 sq km in the next 30 years. It gets through 1.5 billion cubic metres (2 billion cubic yards) of dredged silica a year — 333 cubic metres for each man, woman and child. The Government has been forced to draw on its strategic sand reserve, which Singapore hoards as other nations keep stocks of oil and food.
There may be more to Indonesia’s position than a sudden rush of environmental conscientiousness. If Indonesia really does lose islands, it also risks losing the rights to the ocean surrounding them. “The Convention on the Law of the Sea dictates that national territory is traced according to the coastal base line, and if islands near Singapore disappear, then the base line is pulled closer to the mainland,” says Mr Hendropriyono. “As it now stands, Singapore is only 20 kilometres from Nipah island, which has been especially eroded by the loss of sand.”
Many in Singapore also suspect that cutting off the sand pipeline is intended to put pressure on them to sign an extradition treaty that would let Indonesia get its hands on alleged white-collar criminals who have taken sanctuary there.
“From time to time, we must expect countries to pressure us in the hope that we will then give way to their demands,” George Yeo, the Foreign Minister, told the national parliament. “Singaporeans know that if we give in to such pressures, we would only invite more such pressures.”
Here's Parry's full article.
I've got to hand it to Singaporeans, though: with so many people jostling against each other - day in, day out - the country still manages to have one of the lowest crime rates in the world. They are justifiably proud of that. Many people have noted (I among them) that it's a very strict society, with fines leveraged for even mild transgressions such as jaywalking and forgetting to flush public toilets. Let's not even speak of the punishment for drug use or trafficking, or sedition. Perhaps that's the price to pay for peace and harmony in a very tight space.
Georgia Thompson has been acquitted! This, after serving four months in prison.
Who is Georgia Thompson?
She was a Wisconsin state employee, who put a state travel contract up for bid. She awarded it to a company whose CEO had donated money to the re-election campaign of Democratic governor Jim Doyle.
U-S Attorney Steven Biskupic and US District Judge Rudolph Randa, both Republican appointees, put Georgia Thompson in jail on corruption charges while the case was appealed. Threat to society, maybe?
Meantime, Doyle's opponents spent millions in the 2006 campaign to tie the governor to Ms. Thompson. Still, he won re-election.
Did I mention that the travel company in question did submit the lowest bid?
On April 5th, a federal appeals court acquitted Georgia Thompson. A three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago also ordered that she be immediately released from prison.
Dave Zweifel writes in Wisconsin's Capital Times:
"The U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals...chided the U.S. Attorney's Office in Milwaukee for pursuing such a flimsy case, and ordered that [Georgia Thompson] be immediately released from prison, where she had spent the past four months.
"We've all seen the fallout since. Ironically, the tables have now been turned on the U.S. attorney, Steven Biskupic, who -- rightly or wrongly -- has been caught up in the hypercharged Washington scandal centering on George Bush's attorney general, Alberto Gonzales. It seems that each day brings new evidence that U.S. attorneys were pressured by the AG's office into pursuing Democrats and if they didn't, they would be replaced.
"The Washington scandal has legitimized claims by those who point to U.S. attorneys, like Biskupic, who took on Democrats just before last fall's election. Republican Mark Green's campaign for governor against Jim Doyle trumpeted the Thompson case during the entire campaign with attack ad after attack ad insisting that her conviction was proof that Doyle was a crook."
Adam Cohen has more to say on the subject in his opinion piece in the New York Times. He writes:
"While he was investigating, in the fall of 2005, Mr. Biskupic informed the media. Justice Department guidelines say federal prosecutors can publicly discuss investigations before an indictment only under extraordinary circumstances. This case hardly met that test.
"The prosecution proceeded on a schedule that worked out perfectly for the Republican candidate for governor. Mr. Biskupic announced Ms. Thompson’s indictment in January 2006. She went to trial that summer, and was sentenced in late September, weeks before the election. Mr. Biskupic insisted in July, as he vowed to continue the investigation, that “the review is not going to be tied to the political calendar.”
"But the Thompson case was “the No. 1 issue” in the governor’s race, says the Wisconsin Democratic Party chairman, Joe Wineke. In a barrage of commercials, Mr. Doyle’s opponents created an organizational chart that linked Ms. Thompson — misleadingly called a “Doyle aide” — to the governor. Ms. Thompson appeared in an unflattering picture, stamped “guilty,” and in another ad, her name was put on a graphic of jail-cell doors slamming shut.
"Most of the eight dismissed prosecutors came from swing states, and Democrats suspect they may have been purged to make room for prosecutors who would help Republicans win close elections. If so, it might also mean that United States attorneys in all swing states were under unusual pressure.
"Wisconsin may be the closest swing state of all. President Bush lost it in 2004 by about 12,000 votes, and in 2000, by about half that. According to some Wisconsin politicians, Karl Rove said that their state was his highest priority among governor’s races in 2006, because he believed a Republican governor could help the party win Wisconsin in the 2008 presidential election."
Alberto Gonzales is sure to be asked about this when he testifies on Capitol Hill Tuesday (4/17) morning.
Outside the possible political ramifications, I think many of us have Georgia on our minds. This woman was innocent, yet sat in an Illinois prison for four months. Worse, she lost her home. AND her life savings. If it turns out she was a pawn in a nasty political game, we should all fear something like that could happen to any of us.
It's out in the open, now.
From the Washington Post:
World Bank insiders confirmed reports that president Wolfowitz "directed personnel officials to give Shaha Riza, his longtime companion, an automatic "outstanding" rating and the highest possible pay raises during an indefinite posting at the State Department, as well as a promotion upon her return to the bank."
Wolfie apologized at a news conference yesterday. "I made a mistake for which I am sorry," he said.
After the presser he tried to talk to about 200 World Bank staffers, but didn't get to say much. Some of the people gathered there began hissing, booing, and chanting "Resign. . . . Resign."
Even as the Bush Administration is publicly showing support for its former Deputy Defense Secretary, one of its officials is privately expressing reservation: "his relationship with the staff is really bad, and I don't know if it's recoverable."
Booing and hissing from his staffers, who have filled the World Bank anonymous message board with messages criticizing Wolfowitz - I'll say the relationship is past repair!!
From the reaction of the WB staff, I'm guessing Wolfowitz wasn't a nice boss to begin with. People typically can handle a fair amount of nastiness from the boss, but it's clear this crowd had not a shred of affection of respect for their president.
Trying to draw the focus away from himself, Wolfie said "the controversy threatens to overshadow the official agenda of the bank's annual spring meeting," which includes "ratification of a global anti-corruption strategy and funding to reduce poverty in Africa."
His nepotism exposed, he thinks it's okay to be preaching against corruption?
Did Bush Administration hawk Paul Wolfowitz push for the invasion of Iraq at the urging of his lover?
That's the buzz in some circles today.
First, the backdrop.
Mention Wolfowitz and most people remember him as one of the architects of the Iraq war. He advocated - strongly - for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein immediately after the September 11th attacks.
The former Deputy Defense Secretary left the Pentagon two years ago to become head of the World Bank. His leadership there is now under question.
Wolfowitz began his WB tenure vowing to crack down on corruption by governments and officials in developing countries where the bank operates.
Now, he's being investigated for corruption over a big pay raise for a woman with whom he's been romantically connected for years - Shaha Riza.
A former World Bank colleague, Shaha Riza is a British Muslim. (Wolfowitz is Jewish, and possibly still married to Clare Selgin - though separated since 2001, it's not clear whether they're formally divorced.)
Six months after Wolfowitz was appointed to the World Bank, Riza was moved to the State Department to avoid conflict of interest. She remained on the WB payroll, however, and received a significant pay raise. The BBC reports the bank's staff association says the pay raises and promotions "were 'grossly out of line' with the Bank's staff rules."
That's the focus of the controversy, but Britain's Daily Mail has some pretty shocking news about Riza's effect on Wolfie.
Was this love interest part of the reason for his thirst for Saddam's blood?
The report says influential staffers at the World Bank claim Riza played a "key role in pushing the 61-year-old Pentagon official into the Iraq War. And the row comes amid claims that Wolfowitz's wife Clare once warned George Bush of the threat to national security any infidelity by her husband could cause.
"A British citizen - at 51, eight years younger than Wolfowitz's wife - Ms Riza grew up in Saudi Arabia and was passionately committed to democratising the Middle East when she allegedly began to date Wolfowitz."
What? Wolfowitz may have pushed for the war in Iraq because he was in love?
Frightening if true.
Here's the whole Daily Mail article.
In March 2005, the Washington Post's Richard Leiby wrote about neighborhood gossip about the Wolfowitz-Riza romance.
If you watched Farenheit 911, you may still have a sickening image of Wolfie spitting on his comb before running it through his hair. Or you may remember his visit to a Turkish mosque in January, when he took of his shoes and revealed holes in both socks.
I suppose if he was the man who could fulfil Riza's hopes, she could, and would, overlook those quirks.
(Still, ewwwwwwwwwwwwww..........)
Katie Couric has a certain earnestness that endeared her to morning TV audiences for years.
She brought that trait to the CBS Evening News, notably with the commentaries in the "Katie's Notebook" segment.
I don't watch her newscast, but Howard Kurtz, writing in the Washington Post, says "recent commentaries have ranged from the Iraq war and the paucity of female columnists to the movie "300" and many girls discarding dating for 'hooking up.'"
So I was really shocked to find this out:
Someone else writes these first-person pieces for Ms. Couric.
This came to light last week, when she did a piece on the joys of getting her first library card. Delivered in the first person, The piece borrowed substantially from a Wall Street Journal column by Jeffrey Zaslow.
"What made the ripoff especially striking," writes Kurtz, "was the personal flavor of a video -- now removed from the CBS Web site -- that began, 'I still remember when I got my first library card, browsing through the stacks for my favorite books.'"
CBS spokesperson Sandy Genelius said Couric was "horrified."
'Pon my soul!
What horrifies me is that Couric, paid millions and millions for her job, is willing to paint her face on a commentary she didn't write herself!
CBS says it's "very common" for the first-person commentaries to be put together by staffers without Couric's being involved in the writing, but that she does participate in topic selection. Really? Then why don't they let the writer speak in their own words, and put it on as an opinion piece, the way NPR airs commentary by Daniel Schorr, Ted Koppel, Judy Muller?
That plagiarism is an absolute no-no is Journalism 101. To show its contrition, CBS fired the producer who wrote the piece; the network issued profuse apologies, which WSJ has accepted. But what about Katie Couric? What's the penalty for her participation? I just cannot fathom is why she would give voice, in the first person, to thoughts she written by someone else. That seemed to be okay with her and CBS; they only seem ashamed about borrowing from the WSJ, without attribution. Had that plagiarism not occurred, might we have known that Katie's not really all about what she says she's about? This is a NEWS program, people!
It's a theft of ideas.
I remember some years ago working with a person I'll call LT, for Loathsome Toad. He often began conversations with "you know what I think?" He would proceed to spout an opinion gleaned from Entertainment Weekly, Vanity Fair or TV Guide. Worse, on more than one occasion, someone would come to me and say LT shared his idea for something or other...and then regale me with details of a plan I submitted to him, the day before! It's not just the lack of honor that was detestable; it was LT's utter stupidity in thinking the truth could be concealed in a small community.
Many public radio listeners enjoy Scott Simon on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday for his wit and enthusiasm, and also his commentary, delivered in the first person - and we KNOW Scott wrote it himself, in his inimitable style.
Here's the whole Washington Post article on the plagiarism incident.
One of the cleverest overseas aid programs I've ever run across is the Village Bicycle Project, based in my town of Moscow, ID. It collects used bikes and parts, and ships them to parts of Africa where transportation is often limited to walking. In addition, VBP provides tools and trains people in bike repair. From their website:
When the only other choice is walking, bicycles are a tool of development, improving access to farms, market, jobs, schools, and health care.
David Peckham is Director of VBP. He's a familiar face in Moscow, offering bike repair clinics, tune-ups and always happy to discuss Africa or bikes. (When my house was hit by that disastrous flood in 2005, Dave was the first man to dive into the three-foot deep mud and devise a plan for clean-up! What a great guy.)
The project started in Ghana in 1999, when Dave went there to study ways to make bicycles more accessible. He found several ways to make a real difference and the Village Bicycle Project was born.
