Guy

The Ill Natured Girl

/ Conduct, Texts

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Here is a representation of an ill natured little girl. See what an angry and unpleasant expression her countenance has assumed. She is angry at her sister and is tearing up a note, sent to her sister by her grandmother. I will tell you the story. The grandmother of those three children, was on a visit to the house. She had observed how violent and overbearing Susan was, and how properly her sister Annie behaved. Annie was of a gentle, mild, and willing disposition. If Susan's brother should happen to take up her book, she would immediately scream out in a sharp tone, "let my book alone." If her brother should attempt to reply, she would snappishly retort, "I don't care, you shall not meddle with it." Her conduct towards Annie was just the same, in fact, she more than once answered her grandmother in such a tart and abrupt manner, that her mother whipped her for it.

A few days after the grandmother had left, there was a package came for -- "Miss Annie." It proved to be a most beautiful writing desk, made of rosewood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. It was filled with fine paper, pens, wafers, sealing wax, and a nice seal. It contained a note in these words: -- "This present is for a little girl who knows how to keep her temper. From her affectionate grandmother." Susan was so angry that she snatched the paper and tore it into pieces. The lesson will do her good.

-- The Girl's Cabinet of Instructive and Moral Stories by Uncle Philip

August

/ Photography, Places, Time

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August is a dramatic month. Humidity is a form of madness. Writing is a form of suicide. The temptation to talk like this, in short clips, is overwhelming. Short sentences are like raindrops: loud, splashy, and desirable.

-- Andre Codrescu, A Craving for Swan (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1986), 33.

Bush and the Environment: Four More Years

/ Environment, GW Bush Admin, Politics


"Environmentalists See Trouble Ahead" -- John Heilprin (AP) in The Washington Post, 11/30/04:

WASHINGTON - Environmentalists see some of their worst fears playing out as President Bush moves to cement a second-term agenda that includes getting more timber, oil and gas from public lands and relying on the market rather than regulation to curb pollution.

Bush's top energy priority - opening an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling - is shaping up as an early test of GOP gains in Congress.

"This is going to be a definitional battle, and we're ready," said Deb Callahan, president of the League of Conservation Voters.

Though the election didn't emphasize such issues, administration officials believe the results validated their belief that many environmental decisions are better made by the marketplace, landowners and state and local governments.

James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the administration will continue a "partnership with the oil and gas sector" but also will work with conservation organizations - as long as they are "willing to engage constructively on defining priorities and practices in domestic production."

Bush's environmental priority is to rewrite the Clean Air Act to set annual nationwide limits on three major air pollutants from power plants and to allow marketplace trading of pollution rights rather than regulation to meet those goals.

He does not plan to change his mind on his rejection of the Kyoto international climate treaty that would impose mandatory caps on carbon dioxide emissions. "Kyoto's unworkable," Connaughton said. . . .

Republicans in Congress plan to re-examine other landmark 1970s laws: the Endangered Species Act protecting rare plant and animal species and their habitats, and the National Environmental Policy Act that requires the government to judge beforehand if actions might damage natural resources.

One area where environmentalists and the White House could find agreement is ocean issues. The administration is looking at setting catch quotas for individual fish species, new protections for fragile coral reefs and ecosystem-based management of rivers and streams, Connaughton said.

Some huge regional issues also will get attention. They include restoring the Florida Everglades, aiding the recovery of Pacific Northwest salmon, improving water quality in the Great Lakes and dealing with drought in the West and coastal erosion in Louisiana.

The administration put off until after the election a final decision on a plan to allow road building and logging on 58 million acres of remote forests where both are now banned.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton's agency is rewriting 162 plans for managing about one of every 10 acres in the United States. The decisions will affect whether wildlife protections or new oil and gas drilling projects are favored. Norton wants to give local governments more say.

One-Twelfth of an Iraqi

/ Iraq


"Flooding the Zone" -- George Saunders in The New Yorker, 12/6/04 (accessed 11/30/04):

There are approximately twenty-five million Iraqis in Iraq. There are approximately three hundred million Americans in America. This means that there are approximately twelve Americans for every Iraqi. This means that, if we all go, each American will be responsible for one-twelfth of an Iraqi. An Iraqi family of five will thus be attended by sixty Americans. We will come, this second wave of three hundred million of us, unarmed. We will bring nothing but ourselves. We will simply show up, saying, “What would you like for dinner?” While we cook, our Iraqis can just relax. God knows they have had a terrible couple of years. We will encourage them to sit on their couches, if they still have couches, while we clean up after dinner. We will bring them coffee, tea, dessert, whatever they like. All these months, we have winced from over here, imagining their pain. Once we are there, we will do what we can to say, “We like you, and want the best for you. We’re sorry. This was not what we intended. No matter what it might have looked like to you, we have always wished you well.”

After dinner, our Iraqis will smile, whispering among themselves. “Not so bad, these unarmed ones,” they will say. “That coffee was super.”

Congress Is Busted

/ Conduct, GW Bush Admin, Politics


"Hastert Launches a Partisan Policy" -- Charles Babington in The Washington Post, 11/27/04:

In scuttling major intelligence legislation that he, the president and most lawmakers supported, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert last week enunciated a policy in which Congress will pass bills only if most House Republicans back them, regardless of how many Democrats favor them.

Hastert's position, which is drawing fire from Democrats and some outside groups, is the latest step in a decade-long process of limiting Democrats' influence and running the House virtually as a one-party institution. Republicans earlier barred House Democrats from helping to draft major bills such as the 2003 Medicare revision and this year's intelligence package. Hastert (R-Ill.) now says such bills will reach the House floor, after negotiations with the Senate, only if "the majority of the majority" supports them.

Senators from both parties, leaders of the Sept. 11 commission and others have sharply criticized the policy. The long-debated intelligence bill would now be law, they say, if Hastert and his lieutenants had been humble enough to let a high-profile measure pass with most votes coming from the minority party.

That is what Democrats did in 1993, when most House Democrats opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement. President Bill Clinton backed NAFTA, and leaders of the Democratic-controlled House allowed it to come to a vote. The trade pact passed because of heavy GOP support, with 102 Democrats voting for it and 156 voting against. Newt Gingrich of Georgia, the House GOP leader at the time, declared: "This is a vote for history, larger than politics . . . larger than personal ego."

Such bipartisan spirit in the Capitol now seems a faint echo. Citing the increased marginalization of Democrats as House bills are drafted and brought to the floor, Rep. David E. Price (D-N.C.) said, "It's a set of rules and practices which the Republicans have taken to new extremes."

No Intelligence Reform Bill

/ Conduct, GW Bush Admin, Politics


"Intelligence Overhaul Bill Blocked" -- Charles Babington and Walter Pincus in The Washington Post, 11/21/04:

Long-debated legislation to dramatically reshape the nation's intelligence community collapsed in the House yesterday, as conservative Republicans refused to embrace a compromise because they said it could reduce military control over battlefield intelligence and failed to crack down on illegal immigrants.

The impasse, which caught congressional leaders by surprise, was a blow to President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and others who had personally asked House conservatives to accept the measure proposed by House-Senate negotiators early yesterday. It also marked a major setback for the Sept. 11 commission -- whose July report triggered a drive toward overhauling the nation's intelligence operations -- and for many relatives of victims of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The sidetracked bill would have created a director of national intelligence and a counterterrorism center, along with scores of other changes to the nation's approach to gathering intelligence and battling terrorism. The measure would have given the new intelligence chief authority to set priorities for the Central Intelligence Agency and 14 other agencies that gather intelligence, including several at the Defense Department. Hastert refused to call the proposal dead, saying Congress may reconvene Dec. 6 to try again, although lawmakers had planned to close out the 108th Congress this weekend.

Even some key Republicans, however, said prospects appear slim for producing a compromise that the House and Senate can pass. "I don't now see a process for which we can get this done in the next few weeks," said Rep. Peter Hoekstra (Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee and the House's top GOP negotiator.

Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), the committee's top Democrat, said, "I think those who are vehemently opposed are not going to come around." She said it is up to Bush, Hastert and other GOP leaders to overcome the House conservatives' resistance. If a bill is not enacted by year's end, efforts would have to start anew in the 109th Congress that convenes in January.

The Republican Spending Bill

/ Conduct, Politics


"$388 Billion Bill Is Show of GOP Power" -- Alan Fram in The Chicago Sun-Times, 11/21/04:

WASHINGTON -- Republicans whisked a $388 billion spending bill through Congress on Saturday, a mammoth measure that underscores the dominance of deficit politics by curbing dollars for everything from education to environmental cleanups.

The House approved the measure 344-51 margin, while Senate passage was by 65-30. . . .

From its tight domestic spending to the Democratic-backed provisions on overtime and other issues that were dropped, the bill is a monument to the GOP's raw power controlling the White House and Congress.

Even Bush's initiatives were not immune to cuts as the bill's GOP chief authors heeded his demands to control spending. His request for development of new nuclear weapons was rejected; his budget for the AmeriCorps volunteer program was sliced 12 percent, and the $2.5 billion he wanted to aid countries adopting democratic practices was slashed by $1 billion.

Passage would crown the lame-duck session of Congress, which began Tuesday. Lawmakers hoped to leave town for the year Saturday night, but Senate delays on the spending bill and the collapse of bargaining over a measure reorganizing U.S. intelligence agencies left timing in doubt.

Also enacted during the post-election session was an $800 billion increase in the government's borrowing limit. The measure was yet another testament to record annual deficits, which reached $413 billion last year and are expected to climb indefinitely.

Congress made it a little easier for hospitals, insurers and other to refuse to provide or cover abortions. A provision in the bill would block any of the measure's money from going to federal, state or local agencies that act against health care providers and insurers because they don't provide abortions, make abortion referrals or cover them.

Congress Is Broken

/ Conduct, Politics


"Republicans Red-Faced over Measure Allowing Tax Returns to Be Disclosed without Penalty" -- Matt Yancey (AP) in The Boston Globe, 11/20/04:

Congress passed legislation Saturday giving two committee chairman and their assistants access to income tax returns without regard to privacy protections, but not before red-faced Republicans said it was all a mistake and would be swiftly repealed.

The Senate unanimously adopted a resolution immediately after passing a 3,300-word spending bill containing the measure, saying the provision ''shall have no effect.'' House leaders promised to pass the resolution next Wednesday.

''We're going to get that done,'' said John Feehery, a spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

The spending bill covering most federal agencies and programs will not be sent to President Bush until the House acts on the resolution repealing the tax returns language.

''There will be no window where this will be law,'' Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said. He referred to the provision as the Istook amendment and congressional aides said it was put in the bill at the request of Rep. Ernest Istook Jr., chairman of the House Appropriations Committee's transportation subcommittee.

The provision and the inability of Hastert, R-Ill., to get the votes he wanted on an intelligence overhaul bill left Republican leaders chagrinned on a day they had intended to be a celebration of their accomplishments.

''This is a serious situation,'' said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. ''Neither of us were aware that this had been inserted in this bill,'' he said, referring to himself and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla.

Questioned sharply by fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, Stevens pleaded with the Senate to approve the overall spending bill despite the tax returns language.

But Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said that wasn't good enough. ''It becomes the law of the land on the signature of the president of the United States. That's wrong.''

Conrad said the measure's presence in the spending bill was symptomatic of a broader problem Congress writing legislation hundreds of pages long and then giving lawmakers only a few hours to review it before having to vote on it.

Stevens, who repeatedly apologized for what he characterized as an error, took offense at Conrad's statement. ''It's contrary to anything that I have seen happen in more than 30 years on this committee,'' he said.

Pounding on his desk, Stevens said he had given his word and so had Young that neither would use the authority to require the IRS to turn over individual or corporate tax returns to them. ''I would hope that the Senate would take my word. I don't think I have ever broken my word to any member of the Senate.''