Opinions
I guess I’m settled in the new place because I now have time to be preoccupied by current events again. For two months there was nothing rattling around the brain but work and moving-related chores. Kind of refreshing to pay attention only to things I could directly affect through my own actions.
My rule for talking about issues on the blog is that I do it only when I have something to say about them that I haven’t seen somebody else write.
I was pleasantly surprised by the sanity of the Moussaoui verdict, but so were many others. Nice to see that even in a symbolically demanding situation the jurors kept to the principle that you put people to death for the acts they commit, not those they wish they’d committed. I can only imagine the look on the face of Shoe Bomber Guy when Moussaoui roped him into his last-minute 9/11 fantasy. I also wonder what would have happened if Moussaoui had warned his captors in advance of 9/11. The man presents as fruit-bat insane. Would anyone have paid any attention to him?
As a dedicated follower of the truthiness movement, I’ve also wasted a sack of time reading responses to the Stephen Colbert appearance at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner. I enjoyed seeing the complacently deferential press corps squirm in horror as it slowly dawned on them that they'd hired a satirist instead of a mere purveyor of topical humor. As is often the case Jon Stewart had the pithiest observation when he said that there should have been no surprise that Colbert would do exactly the same thing he does on his TV show four nights a week.
Now the Hookergate scandal, with its trifecta of money, sex and the CIA, intends to nibble away at my attention span. How delightful, after the -gate suffix has been pounded into the ground by overuse, to have a story that really warrants it -- by virtue of being partially set at the Watergate Hotel. Sweet nostalgia.
But I’ll get my revenge on this story. I’m incorporating it into my work.