Hurricane Ike
More dire warnings for Galveston and Houston.
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What’s Going On: Evening News Roundup
Here’s tonight’s evening roundup:
- Thoughtful quiet reflection is in order today. Many papers have excellent coverage.
- Hurricane Ike, currently sitting in the Gulf of Mexico, is about 30 to 36 hours away from hitting the Texas coast. It is projected to strengthen to a category two or weak category three hurricane. The lights are still out for a large swath of southern Louisiana as another storm approaches. For those who are in the path, including Texas Liberal, please stay high and dry.
- I like Joe Biden. He got emotional as he talked about how his current wife restored his life. On the other hand, Governor Sarah Palin has granted her first interview with a national reporter, Charlie Gibson of ABC news. There are no surprises in her interview — at least the snippets that have been released so far.
- Senator Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, again links 9/11 to the war on terror — Iraq. This is one senator who will never let facts change his mind or sway his opinion.
- Why are we spending millions of dollars to build a fence? It is one of the stupidest political ploys that I’ve seen in the last eight years. Fences haven’t worked to keep out enemies since the Middle Ages. Anyway, there are more delays in the fence.
- General David Petraeus admits that he will never use the word “victory” in association with Iraq. Progressives have said for years that victory was not definable. Now General Petraeus says approximately the same thing in a BBC interview.
- The Economic Policy Institute came up with a new analysis showing that we’re spending more on health insurance than we are on energy goods and services.
- The press continues to be in denial. They can’t believe they were so terribly wrong about Senator John McCain. They can’t believe that McCain would be running such a dishonorable campaign. His sex education commercial continues to be a low point of McCain’s campaign. Until the press is able to see McCain for who he really is — a politician — we, the American people, will continue to suffer from biased and mediocre reporting.
- Research in Motion (the makers of the Blackberry) introduced a new flip phone. One reviewer believes that this will revolutionize the smart phone industry.
- David Broder, long time columnist for the Washington Post, reminds all of us that there’s a long time between now and the election. Republicans appear optimistic for the first time in over two years. Democrats, for reasons that are unclear, seem to be filled with self-doubt. As far as I know, the election is not tomorrow. The temporary bounce that McCain is enjoying will be temporary. We have over 50 days of campaigning and four debates to go.
- John Feinstein, of the Washington Post, has an excellent article on Texas Western basketball coach Don Haskins. Coach Haskins died of congestive heart failure on Sunday. In 1966, Texas Western played the University of Kentucky for the national championship. Five black players versus the five white players. Coach Haskins changed the face of basketball — forever.
Palin and Rape Kits
I heard this story on the Randi Rhodes Show a couple of days ago. I thought that it was too stupid to be true. There was NO way that anyone would ask rape victims to pay for their own rape kits. That’s more than heartless. That is like asking the robbery victim to pay for the robbery investigation. It’s nuts.
From Political Animal:
I was thinking the exact same thing. There just had to be more to this, some exculpatory information that didn’t make Palin sound awful. The Anchorage Daily News looked into the matter and, as it turns out, the policy really was that bad.
[Former Gov. Tony Knowles (D)] broke new ground while answering a reporter’s question on whether Wasilla forced rape victims to pay for their own forensic tests when Palin was mayor. True, Knowles said.
Eight years ago, complaints about charging rape victims for medical exams in Wasilla prompted the Alaska Legislature to pass a bill — signed into law by Knowles — that banned the practice statewide.
“There was one town in Alaska that was charging victims for this, and that was Wasilla,” Knowles said
A May 23, 2000, article in Wasilla’s newspaper, The Frontiersman, noted that Alaska State Troopers and most municipal police agencies regularly pay for such exams, which cost between $300 and $1,200 apiece.
“(But) the Wasilla police department does charge the victims of sexual assault for the tests,” the newspaper reported.
What’s more, USA Today reported that the state sponsor of the legislation on rape kits wrote the bill with Wasilla in mind. It was that one small town, in other words, that necessitated statewide legislation to protect rape victims from this absurd fee.
A Palin spokesperson, contacted by USA Today, said the governor “does not believe, nor has she ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test.”
That’s good, but there’s still the record to deal with. The town of Wasilla had rape victims to pay for their own medical exams during Palin’s mayoral tenure, and Palin’s hand-picked police chief publicly opposed the state law when it was passed in 2000.
Asked when Palin learned of the policy, and what Palin did to try to change the policy, her spokesperson chose not to respond.
Reflections on September 11th
September 11… I do not want to be misunderstood. I think that having a moment of silence and introspection and reflection is always good. Memorial celebrations and remembrances are also good. But should there be more? Should we do more to honor the lives of those lost on September 11th?
Here are a few things that I thought we should do or think about to honor those who died in a senseless act of violence.
Rebuild something on the World Trade Center site. I have no idea what kind of building needs to be built. I know it should be some sort skyscraper. It has now been seven years and all we have is a large hole in the ground. Both Republicans and Democrats talk about leadership, but this would be one thing a president should stand up about and stop the bickering. Let’s build something we can all be proud of.
After we have reflected, one question that always comes up in my mind is — are we safer? Are we safer today than we were on September 11, 2001? I think the answer is yes. I don’t think that airplanes are as easy to target for hijacking as they were seven years ago. Cockpit doors had been reinforced. There is more thorough screening at airports. This is good. We should be proud that we have done something constructive that should make it harder to attack us the next time.
As a country, it seems like we should demand more. The security at seaports still remains porous so our enemies could do something like ship themselves here in a cargo container. There is very little security on our railroads, which carry a huge amount of hazardous chemicals through densely populated areas. Our borders with Canada and Mexico have yet to be seriously addressed. We have tens of thousands of miles of coastline which also need to be addressed. It would seem that after seven years, we would have at least a plan to secure these areas that I just mentioned. But as far as I know, there is no such plan.
Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Although our military routed the Taliban in late 2001 and early 2002, we did not kill or capture many of the masterminds of 9/11. Yes, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is sitting in Guantánamo Bay. Yet so many of the other high profile Al Qaeda agents and leaders are still on the loose. After seven years, this seems to be a glaring piece of unfinished business.
Finally, I don’t think a free society will ever be invulnerable to terrorism. Once you lock down a society so tight that there never be a car bomb or any type of terrorist act, you have to trample all over civil liberties. So I don’t think it’s practical. Since we want to be able to freely move throughout our country, we have to balance safety with freedom. Maybe this is what needs more public discussion. Maybe this (safety - freedom) is what we all should be thinking about on this September 11th and future anniversaries to come.
Lipstick In Context
Now that I’ve posted this for everyone to see the whole phrase, it should be clear what democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama meant and who he was talking about.
Special Comment: 9/11 Hijacked
I usually agree with most of what Keith Olbermann has to say in his Special Comment. He is usually blunt and to the point, pointing to something glaringly obvious that has been ignored to some extent. This comment is about 9/11, the Republicans, and Presidential Candidate John McCain. I completely ignored McCain’s comment that he knows how to capture Bin Laden. I guess I shouldn’t have.
I saw it as the bluster of a campaign, but this is one subject no American should bluster about. This is important. If McCain knows how to capture Osama Bin Laden, isn’t it his duty as an American citizen to tell the President and/or to tell Generals in the Pentagon? Heck, isn’t it his duty to post the information on a blog or stand in the street and shout the information until somebody listens to him? I’m just askin’.
The transcript of Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment:
As promised, a Special Comment about our sad anniversary tomorrow.
Or, more correctly, what our sad anniversary tomorrow has been turned into by the presidential administration, and the current Republican candidates for President and Vice President.
This is supposed to be a day of remembrance. Remembrance of the attack, remembrance of the national unity which followed it.
Most important of all, remembrance of the dead.
But 9/11 has become a brand name. A Republican campaign slogan. Propaganda of the lowest form. 9/11 has become 9/11 with a trademark logo. [Read more →]
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Errington C. Thompson, MD, is a surgeon, scholar, fulltime sports fan and part-time political activist. He is active in a number of community projects and initiatives. Through medicine, he strives to improve the physical health of all he treats...
