For your consideration, film maker Michael Moore on the left & media personality Glenn Beck on the right. As always.
Glenn Beck:
“I think I have just read about the man for which I have waited. Earmarks of a real hero.”
Michael Moore:
“HERO OF THE YEAR: #EdwardSnowden NSA tech assistant reveals he is the source of stories on U.S. Gov’t domestic spying.”
It is a very rare day when Glenn Beck and Michael Moore agree on anything. What do they agree on here? That Edward Snowden – the guy who leaked the information about the NSA court order to receive all of the Verizon “telephony metadata” – they agree he is a hero for defying orders of secrecy. This is the same guy that some people are urging should get the death penalty for releasing government secrets.
For your consideration, President Obama on the left and Congressman Rand Paul on the right. As always.
Rand Paul:
“I have no problem if you have probable cause and you target people who are terrorists and you go after them and people that they’re communicating with, you get another warrant.
“But we’re talking about trolling through billions of phone records. We’re not talking about going after a terrorist. I’m all for that. Get a warrant and go after a terrorist, or a murderer or a rapist. But don’t troll through a billion phone records every day. That is unconstitutional, it invades our privacy and I’m going to be seeing if I can challenge this at the Supreme Court level. I’m going to be asking all the Internet providers and all of the phone companies, ask your customers to join me in a class action lawsuit. If we get 10 million Americans saying we don’t want our phone records looked at then somebody will wake up and say things will change in Washington.”
President Barack Obama:
“You can’t have 100 percent security and then also have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience.”
For your consideration, former Vice President Al Gore on the left and media personality Glenn Beck again on the right. As always … but here, they’re on the same side.
Glenn Beck:
We must NOT trade liberty for security any longer or we will lose both and deserve neither.
Al Gore:
In digital era, privacy must be a priority. Is it just me, or is secret blanket surveillance obscenely outrageous?
For your consideration, Senators Jeff Merkley and Harry Reid. Both are Democrats. Merkley is on the left, but you’ll have to figure out who should be on the left & right here.
Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon)
“The type of secret bulk data collection is an outrageous breach of Americans’ privacy.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada)
“Right now I think everyone should just calm down and understand this isn’t anything that’s brand new.”
* * * * *
This is one of those rare issues these days that is not about right or left. It’s about right and wrong.
Obama and Reid are stating the government’s position clearly: the federal government thinks it should monitor EVERYONE. You know, because that way they just might find someone doing a bad thing. So let’s monitor EVERYONE.
A part of this discussion, I believe, is that Verizon uses cellphone technology, which uses the “public airwaves” – Verizon is licensed to use a part of the electromagnetic spectrum, which belongs to the public. They are licensed to use this spectrum just as radio and TV stations are. I believe that’s why the government sought the “public” information broadcast over those airwaves in the Verizon court order. Public information, such as a picture taken of you when you are walking down a public sidewalk, is fair game. But private information, like who an innocent person is calling? That’s exactly what the government is gathering – that we know about. We don’t know what other data they are gathering.
How much does this cost? Don’t know. How many terror plots has it already prevented? Don’t know. Is it constitutional? Don’t know.
But do I like it? No.
The only quote shown above that I really agree with is Rand Paul’s. (…and that’s the only time I’ve ever said that.)
I cannot state that Snowden is a hero at this point. He took the law into his own hands, and revealed a secret program that a federal court had judged to be legal. It is not heroic to tell the government’s secrets — and the Supreme Court may still rule that the telephony metadata was appropriately obtained. We don’t know.
Harry Reid’s comment is laughable, I think. We should tolerate the program because it’s old news? Riiiight.
However, I don’t see that the program is outrageous, or obscenely outrageous. The government isn’t listening to the calls, and they’re not getting recordings of the calls. They are (apparently) just getting information about the calls.
“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”
– 1984, by George Orwell
So now you should know the federal government is gathering data from millions of calls every day.
Who calls who. Where calls originate, and where they go.
American citizens calling American citizens … and it is being monitored because the government has decided its a good idea.
And, by now you may know that the reaction to this is … (yawn).
Everyone wants the terrorists to be stopped. Can we prevent another 9/11? Then do so, please. Just don’t give us the details. We trust you to get it right.
REALLY?
Right now, trust is in very short supply. We don’t trust Obama to tell the truth about how the IRS is targeting the tax-exempt status of political enemies. We don’t trust Bush to tell us who our enemies are. We don’t trust Christie to choose when to elect a Senator (Oh, wait, we do trust him, and New Jersey has now done a $24 million giveaway because he thinks it’s good for his political career).
A leaked court order has Verizon giving the NSA “telephony metadata” – such as what phone number called what phone number, from where to where – for all calls involving domestic US callers. That court order would not have been made public until 2038, except for this leak and its publication. What do you think: are the other cellular providers also turning over their data? That’s a secret … still.
But let’s all trust faceless bureaucrats in the intelligence community who are collecting millions of datapoints from innocent, unsuspecting citizens every single day because it just might lead them to figuring out another terrorist attack.
Oversight? Well, that’s secret. How much is this costing? Well, that’s secret. Congressional approval? Well, they are kept informed, trust me. And that’s secret.
Did it prevent the wackos from bombing the Boston Marathon? No. Did this prevent a wacko from shooting up Santa Monica yesterday? No. Did this prevent a pregnant wacko from mailing ricin-laced letters from Texas in a bid to implicate her husband? No.
But it’s a good thing. Trust us.
“If people can’t trust not only the executive branch but also don’t trust Congress, and don’t trust federal judges, to make sure that we’re abiding by the Constitution with due process and rule of law, then we’re going to have some problems here.”
– Barack Obama, 6/7/2013
President Obama is on board with the program, but his obfuscation about how it works and what the benefits are is troubling. His obsession with prosecuting journalists for investigating government activities indicates he really doesn’t want independent evaluation of his administration’s actions. (He did say he found the leaks “troubling.”) That’s why his justice department got permission to monitor communication through the Associated Press — to see who they’re talking to, and see what they’re writing about. He needs to know that, because he knows best what information should be released about the activities of his administration.
We’re just supposed to trust him.
Please, don’t think this is an anti-Obama thing. It’s not. It’s about trust.
I trust open, transparent governance. I trust independent thought. I trust an independent free press.
But I don’t trust Big Brother.
“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty, than those attending too small a degree of it.”
– Thomas Jefferson, 1791
Please read the chilling article by Jack Shafer, link below, which updates and extends the news about the leaks that have happened and continue to happen.
“A good friend of mine used to say, ‘This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.” Think about that for a while.”
– “Nuke” Laloosh as played by Tim Robbins, in Bull Durham, 1988
A glorious game.
A wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
It’s true that there are 162 games in a season, but it’s also true that every team gets a day off occasionally. And sometimes it rains. For those days when you need more baseball, here are my favorite baseball movies.
The Starting Nine
1. For Love Of The Game
Stars: Kevin Costner, Kelly Preston
Position: Pitcher
Team: Detroit Tigers
Year: 1999
IMDB Rating: 6.3
Plot: Kevin Costner said he was going to keep making movies about baseball until he got it right. He did. Any movie with Vin Scully doing play by play will be great.
2. Bull Durham
Stars: Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins
Position: Catcher
Team: Durham Bulls
Year: 1988
IMDB Rating: 7.0
Plot: Costner is a long-time minor leaguer sent back to A-ball in the minors to mentor a young hot prospect. Sarandon also thinks the prospect is hot … she married Tim Robbins after they were in this wonderful, fun movie. For Love of the Game is a serious look at baseball … this is the irreverent turn that shows the joy in the boys’ game.
3. The Natural
Stars: Robert Redford, Robert Duvall, Glenn Close, Kim Basinger
Position: Right Field
Team: New York Knights
Year: 1984
IMDB Rating: 7.4
Plot: Redford is a prodigy from the country that is welcomed to the majors late in life. His talents are almost wasted because of the distraction of a woman. Great film, great acting, great script.
Position: Eastwood is a major league scout, looking at a high school player with the Grizzlies from Asheville, NC
Team: Atlanta Braves
Year: 2012
IMDB Rating: 6.7
Plot: Eastwood directs, and basically reprises his role from Gran Torino as a fading curmudgeon. Amy Adams is his baseball-loving daughter, helping him on one last scouting trip where she meets Timberlake, who is on his first scouting trip.
5. A League Of Their Own
Stars: Tom Hanks, Geena Davis
Position: Pitcher
Team: Rockford Peaches
Year: 1992
IMDB Rating: 7.0
Plot: Tom Hanks is an alcoholic ex-major leaguer chosen to manage a girl’s pro team during WWII. The assembled team includes Geena Davis as the star pitcher and Rosie O’Donnell and Madonna for comic relief. The iconic line of the film: “There’s no crying in baseball!”
6. Fever Pitch
Stars: Drew Barrymore, Jimmy Fallon
Position: Fan
Team: Boston Red Sox
Year: 2005
IMDB Rating: 6.1
Plot: Fallon is a Red Sox season ticket holder, which means he believes in hope. Barrymore meets him, and a match is made … that has to survive Fallon’s obsession with the Sox.
7. Moneyball
Stars: Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Position: Manager
Team: Oakland Athletics
Year: 2011
IMDB Rating: 7.6
Plot: This biopic is about Billy Beane, the A’s manager that challenged and re-made baseball with his beliefs about what statistics are important, and which ones are important enough to pay for. Another film with great acting.
8. Major League
Stars: Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, Corbin Bernsen
Position: Catcher
Team: Cleveland Indians
Year: 1989
IMDB Rating: 7.0
Plot: It’s described as a screwball comedy, for better or worse. It’s an ensemble comedy that holds up – it’s not an award-winner, but it’s a fun couple of hours. (Warning: do not bother with the sequels.) This movie is an entertaining look at a lovable bunch of misfits assembled by a maniacal owner that wants them to lose. Berenger is the aging catcher that holds them together; Sheen is the fire-balling bad boy that needs to save the day.
9. Summer Catch
Stars: Freddie Prinze, Jr, Jessica Biel
Position: Pitcher
Team: Chatham Athletics
Year: 2001
IMDB Rating: 4.7
Plot: Prinze is a local kid struggling to escape from his home town. He’s playing in the Cape Cod Baseball League and hoping to get a break when big league scouts come to town to watch the stars on the roster. He falls in love with the boss’s daughter … it’s a romantic comedy. It’s a baseball movie. I’m two for two, and really like this film. I don’t care what some may say. Enjoy the popcorn!
Relief Pitcher: Field Of Dreams
Stars: Kevin Costner, Amy Madigan, Ray Liotta
Position: Fan
Team: Chicago Black Sox
Year: 1989
IMDB Rating: 7.5
Plot: This film is cited by many as their favorite baseball movie, but I just can’t go there. Costner plays an Iowa farmer that has visions and builds a baseball diamond in his cornfield … that is then visited by major league players that only he can see. Emotionally wrenching moments ensue. Where I come from, farmers don’t have visions, so I can’t support this film.
Extra Innings: The Sandlot
Stars: Tom Guiry, Mike Vitar
Position: it’s a team game
Team: it’s a neighborhood team
Year: 1993
IMDB Rating: 7.6
Plot: We follow a bunch of kids playing a never-ending game through their summer vacation. It’s really a nice movie about kids, baseball, and the importance of having fun.
The White House selected Robert Anderson, a Connecticut portraitist and a Yale classmate of the President, to create this painting for the National Portrait Gallery.
George Walker Bush (1946 – )
The 43rd President of the United States, 2001 – 2009
AKA: Dubya, W, Bush 43
From: Texas
College: Yale University, Harvard Business School
Married to: Laura Welch
Children: Barbara, Jenna
Party: Republican
Previous Jobs: Lieutenant in the Texas Air National Guard, Oil industry entrepreneur, Owner of the Texas Rangers – a Major League Baseball team, Governor of Texas
In His Words: “The protection of America itself will assume a high priority in a new century. Once a strategic afterthought, homeland defense has become an urgent duty. For most of our history, America felt safe behind two great oceans. But with the spread of technology, distance no longer means security.”
“America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens.”
White House photo by Eric Draper
“My administration has a job to do and we’re going to do it. We will rid the world of the evil-doers.”
“If the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation and anger and violence for export. And as we saw in the ruins of two towers, no distance on the map will protect our lives and way of life. If the greater Middle East joins the democratic revolution that has reached much of the world, the lives of millions in that region will be bettered, and a trend of conflict and fear will be ended at its source.”
“Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”
“Returning to the moon is an important step for our space program. Establishing an extended human presence on the moon could vastly reduce the costs of further space exploration, making possible ever more ambitious missions. Lifting heavy spacecraft and fuel out of the Earth’s gravity is expensive. Spacecraft assembled and provisioned on the moon could escape its far lower gravity using far less energy, and thus, far less cost. Also, the moon is home to abundant resources. Its soil contains raw materials that might be harvested and processed into rocket fuel or breathable air. We can use our time on the moon to develop and test new approaches and technologies and systems that will allow us to function in other, more challenging environments. The moon is a logical step toward further progress and achievement.”
“A year ago my approval rating was in the 30s, my nominee for the Supreme Court had just withdrawn, and my vice president had shot someone. Ah, those were the good ol’ days.”
“We got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel. So I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”
“I suspected there would be a good-size crowd once the word got out about my hanging.” – a statement made at the unveiling of his Official White House Portrait
Not true: There was wide-spread reporting during the Bush administration that he was not intelligent. Mix in a little Texas accent, some verbal miscues and a healthy dose of parody from late night comedians, and that image remains common. Here’s an alternative view from Keith Hennessey, former Bush economic advisor and current Stanford business and law professor. Read it, here.
True: Bush was the first President to have an MBA.
Bush won the 2000 Presidential election by winning 29 states, including Florida. The closeness of the Florida election resulted in an enduring controversy that ended up in the Supreme Court. They ruled that the use of different standards among Florida’s counties violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. This ruling resulted in the machine recount being certified as official, which showed Bush won Florida by 537 votes out of 6 million votes cast. Bush lost the popular vote nationwide, but won the election 271 electoral votes to Gore’s 266.
The 9/11 attacks transformed Bush into a wartime President. George H W Bush, his father and the 41st President, said that his son “faced the greatest challenge of any president since Abraham Lincoln.”
Bush formed a new cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security.
His most controversial act was the invasion of Iraq, on the belief – supported by his advisors – that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, and posed a grave threat to the United States. Hussein was deposed, but the weapons of mass destruction were not found, which became an enduring crisis.
The war against terrorism focused on the Taliban and its leader, Osama bin Laden. The Taliban was disrupted, but Bush was blamed for not capturing bin Laden.
With America drawn into an extended war against terror, the domestic economy entered the largest recession in the post-WWII economy. This was exacerbated by the housing crisis, fueled by subprime mortgages and the meltdown of the housing industry. The combination of the war and the economic crisis has lead many historians to rank Bush as one of the worst Presidents.
Bush was one of the most popular, and unpopular, Presidents in history. He received the highest recorded Presidential approval ratings in the wake of the 9/11 attack, and one of the lowest approval ratings during the financial crisis in 2008.
The Official Portrait: John Howard Sanden painted the White House Portrait of Bush, which was unveiled in 2012. There’s an excellent article on Artnet.com, link below, that describes the process and interviews both Sanden and Robert Anderson (who painted Bush’s portrait for the National Portrait Gallery).
The University of Missouri – Columbia’s Journalism School has selected prize-winning photographs since 1944. That event eventually evolved into Photos of the Year International, which has thousands of entries and hundreds of photographs receiving recognition in a dizzying array of categories.
The image below won the First Place award in the Reportage Division, News Picture Story – Freelance/Agency in the 70th annual competition. The link to the POYi website is below; you can browse through the gallery of images that ranges from the Olympics to Environmental Awareness to all too many pictures of war.
The mission of POYi is to promote and extend the reach of documentary photographers by engaging citizens with documentary photography. POYi is a non-profit, academic program dedicated to journalism education and professional development.
POYi First Place – NEWS PICTURE STORY (Javier Manzano/Agence France-Presse) Two rebel soldiers stand guard in the Karmel Jabl neighborhood of Aleppo as more than a dozen holes made by bullets and shrapnel pepper the tin wall behind them. The dust from more than one hundred days of shelling, bombing and firefights hung thick in the air around them as they took turns guarding their machine-gun nests. Both sides (the Free Syria Army and the regime) rely heavily on snipers – the cat and mouse game of Aleppo’s front lines. The Karmel Jabl and Al-Arqoob neighborhoods are strategically important because of their proximity to the main road that separates several of the main battlegrounds in the city from one of the largest rebel-controlled regions in Aleppo. It is widely believed that if the regime ordered its infantry (most of it is largely composed of Sunni Muslims) to charge the rebels, a large number of the soldiers would defect to the opposition. For this reason, face-to-face combat is rare. Instead, the regime relies mostly on tanks, indirect fire (mortars and artillery), airplanes and snipers. Snipers can hold a line of several streets and can take weeks for the rebels to locate and neutralize.
