Stokes County Courthouse

Danbury, NC is a pretty little town along the Dan River, just about an hour’s leisurely drive northwest of my home. I passed through there today, and stopped to take some pictures of the Stokes County Courthouse (built in 1904). In front of the courthouse stands this memorial to local Confederate war dead. A central [...]

How Obama could earn that Nobel

Garry Wills cogently argues Obama should withdraw from Afghanistan, even at the risk of being a one-term President. I wish I had any reason to hope that Obama might heed that advice. It might make me more enthusiastic about seeing him re-elected.

The ultimate sacrifice

Just in case there was anyone left who didn’t think George W. Bush is a complete asshole: For the first time, Bush revealed a personal way in which he has tried to acknowledge the sacrifice of soldiers and their families. “I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander [...]

This just in: John Ashcroft is a repulsive, abusive, dissembling asshole

Sure, you already knew that. But some things bear repeating, like this exchange between Ashcroft and a Knox College student: ME: First off, Mr. Ashcroft, I’d like to apologize for the rudeness of some of my fellow students. It was uncalled for–we can disagree civilly, we don’t need that. (round of applause from the audience, [...]

You set back and watch, when the death count gets higher

I wonder what it is we’ve done

Five years. Thousands of lives. Billions of dollars. No good reason.

And no end in sight.

Five years, my brain hurts a lot

In anticipation of tomorrow’s dismal anniversary.

Pacific coast port workers to shut down ports in anti-war protest

The International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU), which represents dockworkers on the West Coast (and which I had the privilege of representing during my California stint), will stage a one-day shutdown on May 1st to protest the ongoing U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq.

No matter how “clean”, “modern” or “humane”, Guantánamo is wrong

IOZ, responding to this, hits the nail squarely on the head with his usual pith and aplomb: In many aspects of our empire, we seem to believe that qualitative improvements will obviate categorical wrongs. Thus the prevalence of the idea that the “success” of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan has some bearing on their [...]