"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." —Mark Twain
In the news
During the last few days stories about armed groups shooting and killing illegal immigrants have begun to appear on TV and in local newspapers. Stories like this. Here’s another. The media seem determined to sooth us by describing these armed groups as “bandits,” perhaps rival gangs of immigrant smugglers fighting each other. As in this quote from an ABC […]
I thought I was reasonably on top of the Scooter Libby trial story. But Nicholas Lemann of The New Yorker threw me with this, in his most recent Talk of the Town commentary: What’s ultimately behind Libby’s trial is the Administration’s obsession with finding hard evidence for what it already believes. President Bush is often […]
It snows in Tucson about once every two years, usually in late January or early February. So yesterday’s snow was right on schedule. Little did I know, when I took this photo from our front door, that less than an inch of snow would shut Tucson down. My God, you’d have thought it was End […]
. . . or does anyone else see this coming? Even I, a peacenik from way back, have to admit: we can’t leave Iraq. Ever. No matter how bad it gets. So the Iraqis turn out to be unredeemably venal and corrupt, a nation of murderers bent on ethnically cleansing themselves out of existence. So […]
Ever since Ethiopian forces went into Somalia, and more so since this week’s US AC-130 gunship attack on what is said to have been a Somalian Al Qaeda encampment, news commentators and reporters have been talking about Black Hawk Down. As in: “US forces strike Somalia again, more than 13 years after Black Hawk Down.” When […]
I subscribe to a Honda Goldwing owners’ message board. Too frequently for comfort, members post messages that make you suspect that after they park their bikes for the night, they hang up their leathers and put on white robes. Like this guy, who wrote today: President signs E.O. for illegals to get FULL S.S. If a […]
Earlier this month, our friend Mary Anne flew to Tennessee to visit her mother and sister. All would have been well had not United routed her homebound flight through Denver. We can thankfully say we don’t know anyone who died in, or narrowly escaped from, the World Trade Center towers on 9/11, but we can say […]
Woo-hoo, the Arizona no smoking proposition passed (the real one, not the one sponsored by R. J. Reynolds). I can hang around in bars again! As for the election in general, I, for one, welcome our new congressional overlords. Try not to screw up, okay? And while you’re at it, try not to screw us […]