The media silence, at least outside of New York, about the lawsuit by Anucha Browne Sanders against Isiah Thomas is inexplicable. I could find only three short articles in Espn.com, for instance, all of which mentioned that Isiah was one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History, as though anyone reading Espn.com needs to know that, and as though they listed Barry Bonds's accomplishments in every article about the steroids scandal. It seems to me that the fix is in, and the only explanations are the power of Madison Square Garden and perhaps the sense that claims of black on black sexual harassment is not as titillating to their mostly white audiences.

This is a civil lawsuit, there is just a need to prove a case by a preponderance of evidence; there is no presumption of innocence. That the case proceeded to trial indicates that there is a disagreement on facts that a jury must decide. Why then is this not a standard preoccupation of the tabloids and all sports talk shows?

The Kathy Griffin thing is just another false object of the Republican noise machine. No one need get exercised one way or the other. She was expressing her opinion about both the practices of Christians in accepting awards, and about religion in general. By having acceptance speeches after open competitions, organizations sponsoring contests take the risk that the winners will make their political statements, be the winners' statements popular or unpopular.

The Chemerinsky thing, on the other hand, is hugely important. I don't understand why UC Irvine hired him in the first place, or why he'd accept the job, but once that happened you'd think they would live with the decision. The UC Regents are neither representative of the people of their state nor particularly interested in the mission of their system, and the whole thing deserves far more attention and criticism than it has received so far.

Finally, as to Rachel Corrie, the production played in Seattle and made me sick to my stomach, but I didn't want to give it any attention. She's always seemed to me to be someone who just didn't get the memo about how being American no longer gives anyone any vulnerability or the power to stop considered policies--right or wrong--of governments. She was a naive idiot, not a martyr, but I accept that others may want to use her to symbolize something else. That is what free speech is about.

As Deep Throat said, "Follow the money." It costs a lot of money to run the automobile transportation system. Cars need to be made. They need to be maintained. They need expensive roads to drive on, and those roads need to take up a lot of land. And of course, they need to be fueled.

So how much of the political structure in this country comes from contributions from the automotive, auto parts, auto repair, construction, real estate and oil industries?

I think that answers the question. This country's policies are not based on what's right, but what fuels campaign contributions. And no investment a company can make pays off as well as one. As long as that system is in place, we get the results we have become used to.

This is a partial response to LipstickLibrarian's question about the Iraqi infrastructure.

There is far, far more money available for redevelopment in Iraq than there is anywhere in the US. The only condition, of course, is that it be funnelled through large multinational corporations who are Republican contributors, so that the actual effect on the ground may not be as positive as the dollars spent indicate. But that's okay, so long as Halliburton remains profitable.

Meanwhile, we have the Secretary of Transportation blaming falling bridges in the United States on earmarks for bike trails. Because clearly in this country, we cannot have both good bridges and good bike trails. We're too poor for that.

Extra-territoriality in Okinawa led to a major international incident when some US servicemen were accused of rape and the government refused to turn them over to the Japanese. The result was the perfect storm of both having to back down to the Japanese and lose our hard-earned credibility and trustworthiness with a longtime ally.

Now transpose that to Iraq.

First, we're talking contractors, not soldiers. The US government's need for extraterritoriality for contractors is of a much lower value than for its soldiers.

Second, we're talking Iraq, not Japan. A powder keg set to explode. So protecting these assholes is against our own needs and policies.

Third, what we're ultimately saying to the Iraqis is that your laws aren't good enough for us. Imagine a security firm working at the Iraqi embassy in Washington shooting up a bunch of people outside the gates? They'd be in jail before you could say "Osama".