Monday January 8, 2007

Alton Verm of Conroe, Texas, must be publicly shamed at every possible opportunity.

From the ABC station in Houston:

A book about banning books is under fire. A Montgomery County family wants the classic novel “Fahrenheit 451″ pulled from the high school reading list. But some students are working to show support for the book.

Harry Potter books have been the basis of complaints in recent years. But now a book that’s been on literary lists for years is suddenly being thrust into a debate over what’s appropriate reading material for students at one Conroe school.

“Fahrenheit 451″ was first published 53 years ago. It’s said to be named for the temperature at which paper burns. In this world no free thought was allowed and books were destroyed by fire.

Two weeks ago at Caney Creek High School, a tenth grade English class was given “Fahrenheit 451″ as a reading assignment. But Diana Verm stopped after just a few pages. She said she was offended by “the cussing in it and the burning of the Bible.” (Is the girl really dumb enough to not pick up on the fact that this is being CRITICIZED BY THE BOOK?! Wouldn’t this be a good thing? Maybe the teacher needed to explain what a dystopian novel actually is before the kids started reading it?)

Diana complained to her father. She was given an alternate reading assignment, but her dad is pushing the issue. It is ironic in the truest sense that a fictional book on book banning is now the target of a request to remove it from school curriculum. (If it’s obvious enough for local news to pick up on it, that should tell you something.)

“With God’s name in vain being in there, that’s the number one reason,” said Diana’s father Alton Verm. “There’s no reason for it being read.” (Well if that’s the standard now, then I don’t think there’s any literature that can be read in school.)

The school has appointed a committee to review Verm’s objections. But students are now circulating a petition in support of the book. They plan to wear t-shirts on Friday voicing their opinions.

“This was probably one of the greatest eye openers that we’ve had in our school curriculum,” said student rally organizer Darrell Lee. “A lot of the people who did sign said that of all the books they had to read, this was the one they enjoyed. It really makes you think about the situation.” (Saints be praised, there’s at least one sane person left.)

Coincidentally, this book was assigned during National Banned Book Week. (Hold on … I need to take a breather. I can only take in so much dark humor at once.)

In the complaint filed against the school by Alton Verm, he listed each objected item line by line, complete with individual page numbers. Besides bad language and violence, Verm lists “downgrading Christians” and “talking about our firemen” as reasons the book should be banned. (Okay, that line doesn’t even make any sense.) The school committee is expected to meet about the book.

At least there’s reason to be encouraged here, because the students figured out how insane this is.

Incidentally, IMDb says there is apparently a film version of Fahrenheit 451 coming on February 9.

Last, I feel obliged here to link to one of the best articles ever written by the scribes of The Onion.

Monday January 8, 2007

Sean Hannity now has a Sunday night news magazine program on Fox News Channel — “Sean Hannity’s America” — because three hours a day on the radio and another hour at 9pm nightly (in which he graciously allows Alan Colmes to occasionally speak) apparently weren’t enough.

Why do I bring this up? Well, presumably in response to Keith Olbermann’s occasionally petty but generally quite humorous “Worst Person in the World” segment, wherein it’s almost always clear that the dishonor is awarded tongue-in-cheek. Hannity has a similar award whose title is thoroughly horrifying on multiple levels and shows how mean-spirited he is in comparison. Care to hear it?

Enemy of the State.

*lights and sirens*

Now it’s enough of an issue that one pundit sees fit to make judgments on who should be the enemy of the most coercive authority on the planet, the government of the United States. (One wonders, presuming this show is still on the air in 2009, whether the award will still be handed out if a Democrat is President.) The most frightening angle here, however, is the implication of the phrase. It’s one that has been used not by democracies, but by authoritarian regimes. The first such declaration comes from Ancient Rome in 82 BC, not coincidentally as the republic had then become an empire in all but name. In more modern times, it was a term employed by the Revolutionaries in France during the Reign of Terror and the Soviet Union, which slightly twisted the phrase into “enemy of the people” — but the spirit was certainly the same. It has also been employed in, y’know, every dystopian novel ever written, with the recently noted Emmanuel Goldstein being the most obvious example. On top of all that, it was the title of a blockbuster movie where the government destroyed the life of an innocent man.

What part of that is desirable to be associated with?

And of course, here’s the graphic from the TV show:

Mmkay. Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Kim Jong-Il, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are on the left side of the screen. Most of us can agree that they wish this country and its inhabitants something less than cordial greetings. But … Alec Baldwin, Michael Moore, Sean Penn, and Barbra Streisand? Well, Sean, if you didn’t go out of your way to label them with over-the-top monikers like this, barely anyone would notice what their political views were. Personally, I’ve never heard of Alec Baldwin attempting to develop nuclear weapons. On the contrary, he averted a nuclear war in The Hunt for Red October.

All I have to ask Mr. Hannity is this: What do I have to do to be named Enemy of the State in any given week? Please let me know. I’d love to be honored that way. Once upon a time, about twelve years ago as Newt Gingrich rose to prominence, the GOP used to think that they were, in a way, enemies of the state, committed to the dismantling of the Democrats’ bureaucratic apparatus (to the point of shutting down the government). Now they feel so emboldened by power, even after control of Congress has been confiscated from them, that they label their opponents with such a term.

It’s hard to believe that I actually used to be a Republican.

Monday January 8, 2007

Today was supposed to be the start of the newly-minted Democratic Congress’ so-called “100 Hours” agenda, loaded with a whirlwind of new bills. So why the delay?

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on Friday handed out this week’s schedule. It noted that House legislative actions would not begin on Monday, but would be postponed until Tuesday.

Though the schedule does not offer an explanation for the delay, Hoyer, D-Md., said on the House floor that he wanted to let lawmakers from the big states of Ohio and Florida off, presumably so they could attend the game or participate in game-related activities at home.

“There is a very important event happening Monday night, particularly for those who live in Ohio and Florida. In the spirit of comity, and I know if Maryland were playing, I would want to be accommodated and I want to accommodate my friend, Mr. Boehner,” Hoyer said in reference to new House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

While the decision benefits both Democratic and Republican football fans, it signals a step back from the reform-minded pledge Democrats took after they won control of Congress to work a five-day week in Washington, up from three-day weeks during the Republican Congress.

Take that for whatever you think it’s worth. Then again, Ohio State fandom is pretty intense — after all, a recount was delayed because of the Michigan game.

Monday January 8, 2007

I’m sure I’ve had part of this quote on this blog before, but I feel compelled to say it once again at this crossroads. When the punchline is considered in context, though, it seems to ring even more true now. Hence, from Kerry’s testimony as leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War before the Senate in 1971:

Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn’t have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can’t say that we have made a mistake. Someone has to die so that President Nixon won’t be, and these are his words, “the first President to lose a war.” We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? But we are trying to do that, and we are doing it with thousands of rationalizations, and if you read carefully the President’s last speech to the people of this country, you can see that he says, and says clearly: “But the issue, gentlemen, the issue is communism, and the question is whether or not we will leave that country to the communists or whether or not we will try to give it hope to be a free people.” But the point is they are not a free people now under us. They are not a free people, and we cannot fight communism all over the world, and I think we should have learned that lesson by now.

Replace “communism” with “terrorism” and read the last few lines again. Let me know what you think.

The Associated Press sums up the surrealistic, disastrous landscape of the debate over the war in Iraq:

WASHINGTON – President Bush will address the nation at 9 p.m. EST Wednesday about his new approach for the war in Iraq, the White House said. Bush is expected to announce an increase of up to 20,000 additional U.S. troops.

Bush’s decisions, more than two months in the making, already are drawing criticism from new Democratic leaders in Congress who say it is time to begin ending the war, not to send in more U.S. forces.

Now in its fourth year, the war has claimed the lives of more than 3,000 members of the U.S. military and was a major factor in the Republicans’ loss of Congress in the November election. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told Bush in a letter last week that “we do not believe that adding more U.S. combat troops contributes to success.”

White House press secretary Tony Snow said Monday that Bush “understands there is a lot of public anxiety” about the war. On the other hand, he said that Americans “don’t want another Sept. 11″ type of terrorist attack and that it is wiser to confront terrorists overseas in Iraq and other battlegrounds rather than in the United States.

Snow said he contacted television networks Monday morning to request air time for the president’s speech, to be delivered at the White House. He said the administration welcomes a debate about Bush’s new policy.

“I think it’s important to get congressional support,” the spokesman said. Yet he would not say whether Bush will seek specific congressional approval for his new strategy.

“Rather than me jumping out and talking about resolutions and budget items and all that, I’m not going to do it,” Snow said. “But there will be a debate about the particulars in the way forward, as there should be. We welcome it.”

Pelosi on Sunday cautioned Bush to think twice before proposing a troop increase, suggesting the new Democratic-controlled Congress could deny him the funding.

But the Senate’s top Republican said he believed that Bush will get the money he needs and cast doubt that Democrats would – or could – block him. “Congress is incapable of micromanaging the tactics in the war,” said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

In issuing her warning, Pelosi made clear that her party supported boosting the overall military size “to protect the American people against any threats to our interests” and would not cut off money for troops already in Iraq.

But Bush will not get a blank check for an open-ended commitment there, she said. Any funding he seeks for additional forces in Iraq – Bush’s expected plan could send as many as 20,000 more U.S. troops – will get the “harshest scrutiny.”

“The burden is on the president to justify any additional resources for a mission,” said Pelosi, D-Calif. “Congress is ready to use its constitutional authority of oversight to question what is the justification for this spending, what are the results we are receiving.”

“There’s not a carte blanche, a blank check for him to do whatever he wishes there,” she added in an interview taped Saturday and broadcast Sunday.

Asked about Pelosi’s remarks, White House spokesman Alex Conant said Bush welcomed any ideas on Iraq that “lead to success.”

“We’re glad the speaker wants us to succeed in Iraq,” he said.

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Congress has approved about $500 billion for Iraq, Afghanistan and other terrorism-fighting efforts. The White House is working on its largest-ever appeal for more war funds – a record $100 billion, at least. It will be submitted along with Bush’s Feb. 5 budget.

While leading Democrats reaffirmed their opposition to a troop buildup, several did not join Pelosi in suggesting it was possible Congress could deny Bush the money for the additional forces.

“I don’t want to anticipate that,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md.

Sen. Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a 2008 presidential candidate, said increasing troops would be a “tragic mistake.” But he contended Congress was constitutionally powerless to second-guess Bush’s military strategy because lawmakers had voted to authorize the commander in chief to wage war.

“As a practical matter, there’s no way to say, ‘Mr. President, stop,’” said Biden, D-Del., unless enough congressional Republicans join Democrats in persuading Bush that the strategy is wrong.

Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told Bush in a letter last week that Democrats oppose additional U.S. forces in Iraq and want him to begin withdrawing in four months to six months American troops already there.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., wrote in Sunday’s Washington Post that boosting troops for an indefinite time was necessary to secure peace in the Mideast.

“When we authorized this war, we accepted the responsibility to make sure they could prevail,” he wrote. “Even greater than the costs incurred thus far and in the future are the catastrophic consequences that would ensure from our failure in Iraq.”

It’s time to show some guts, Democrats. Cut the funding. Bush will not listen to you no matter what you say unless you end this jaunt, an expensive one in terms in sheer money, international credibility, and — most importantly — the lives of 3,014 American soldiers. How many more, and to what end, Mr. President?

Monday January 8, 2007

ADDED (midnight): Okay then. Just, um, ignore all of this. This post never happened.

… to the BCS National Championship Game, where Ohio State will, out of obligation, be compelled to play one more game against Florida before being awarded the national championship trophy. (Too cocky?) There’s only one team that deserves a crack at the Buckeyes — the Broncos of Boise State, the only other unbeaten team remaining in Division I-A. Memo to everyone else: if you had won all your games, you would have a reason to be pissed. You haven’t, so you don’t.

(As an aside … they couldn’t come up with a better name than “BCS National Championship Game”? That’s clunky beyond all reason and defies the tradition of every single postseason matchup in the history of the sport being called a bowl game. Since the trophy is a crystal football, why not the “Crystal Bowl”? Just a thought.)

Anyway, my official prediction is Ohio State 31, Florida 13 — and it may not even be that close. It seems thoroughly impossible that the Florida defense will be able to withstand the onslaught of the myriad weapons that the Buckeyes will have at their disposal, considering the offense has produced 35 points nine times this year, including 42 against the Wolverines, whose defensive line looked positively impenetrable to that point. (Michigan was allowing less than 30 rushing yards per game; Ohio State had two running plays longer than that in the game.)

The Gators, on the other hand, are insanely lucky to have even gotten here, having escaped Tennessee and South Carolina by one point each and staggered through their SEC schedule without a blowout victory. (C’mon, games against Vanderbilt should not be in doubt in the fourth quarter.) Their offense just lacks the firepower, as they were only able to manage 22 points per game in regular season conference games against defenses that, with the exception of Auburn and Louisiana State, were unquestionably weaker than that of Ohio State. Finally, they should be automatically disqualified for scheduling I-AA Western Carolina in November, whom they mercilessly destroyed 62-0. Cupcakes should be devoured in the month of September only and the football gods will strike you down for it.

In other words … I hope everyone enjoyed the Fiesta Bowl, because that’s the only game anyone is going to remember from this bowl season.