of the gate you sometimes look back from sunbright California grasses, over fallen rock and tossled waves, to see a tall tower of steel rising up above the fog. There is no city, there is no hubbub, only the wind blowing cool gray through a keyhole to cover all. The city falls gray blanket silent, while on the other side, the sun still shines.

The bridge is beautiful, but dangerous. The wind is not sufficient friend. Remain with us a while yet, bepop-o, looking to the sun.

I believe it was William Shakespeare who said "...brevity is the soul of wit..."

"Wit" here is used in its classical term to mean intelligence--and not what we are currently used to, that is, being funny...

Also, to measure quality by quantity is a plainly illogical argument as qualitative measures are inherently at odds and directly conflict quantitative measures.

Besides by removing one's self from the featured dialogue, GG presents as fairly an un-biased narrative as possible...one could argue that the sourcing of the material is biased, but I for one don't really see this as a point here...

So please, try not to be an dufus in front of everyone.

Oh...and on the emails:

Who the @! do they think they are kidding??? That horse left the barn right around "Compassionate Conservatism" left our Glorious Leader's mouth...

I've been known to worry that I spend too much time reading and commenting on blogs and that it takes up time that could be better spent. But counting words?! Get a life!

echo "<CTL-V>" | wc -w

Cheers,

9-11 DETAINEES ABUSED IN NY

Tapes Show Abuse of 9/11 Detainees

Justice Department Examines Videos Prison Officials Said Were Destroyed

By Dan Eggen, Washington Post Staff Writer, Friday, December 19, 2003; Page A01

Hundreds of videotapes that federal prison officials had claimed were destroyed show that foreign nationals held at a New York detention facility after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were victims of physical and verbal abuse by guards, the Justice Department's inspector general said yesterday....

...The report concluded that as many as 20 guards were involved in the abuse, which included slamming prisoners against walls and painfully twisting their arms and hands. Fine recommended discipline for 10 employees and counseling for two others who remain employed by the federal prison system. He also said the government should notify the employers of four former guards about their conduct....

...One focus of the report was an American flag T-shirt that hung from a wall at the MDC with the slogan, "These colors don't run." Four corrections employees told investigators that the shirt, which hung in a prisoner receiving area for months, was covered with bloodstains, including some that appeared to have come from detainees being slammed into the wall....

BTW, I'm overdue in saying it (certainly compared to the others here), but: Yes, I'm a fan of your posts too. You bring an element here to the "intellectual discoure" that ties it inextricably to the humanity and reality of our lives, and tehers it firmly to the "possible" and the "beautiful". And what's most wonderful is that, for the discerning (which doesn't include the likes of "shooter", "Jack", and "daleyrocks"), you leave little sparkles of diamond, little flashes that show a profound wisdom and knowledge inside the prose. Carry on, my friend!

Cheers,

I've had enough of this talk of Impeachment. It's on the table, it's not on the table...

It's time to get this down to brass tacks. It's not about Impeachment any more, which is so negative. It's time to put this in a positive light: we must begin the work to appoint President Pelosi.

Now more than ever, as Nixon used to say.

Pelosi-Murtha '07!

Not that we can draw direct correlation between word quantity and quality of work, but I know that the 153 words that I read did not slap me around and scream Pulitzer. I guess he's going for a Bloggie instead.

"I have made this letter longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter" - Blaise Pascal

The fewer words you use the harder it is for the reader to misconstrue what it is you have written.

Sometimes my posts consist of nothing *but* quotes, very often the original source speaks for itself better than anything I could add.

But then I often err in assuming that my reader is intelligent.

Many Canadians think Diefenbaker coined that insult, but he didn't.

In "Inherit The Wind" (1955), Hornbeck (the Mencken character) says of Brady (the Bryan character), "He's the only man I know who can strut sitting down."

The phrase was popularized in 1948, when it was one of many insults thrown at Dewey, but the insult has been kicking around for at least the past 90 years, probably far longer.

-- sysprog

Thanks! (And, needless to say, I feel very dumb, but I'm used to that, so it's no problem!)

I notice that this is the first time that our new friend jspring1 has posted a letter on Salon. What's the problem, bub, nothing to say? Word count, please.

I did get a chuckle out of his/her complaint because, as Glenn mentioned, the complaint is usually that he says too much.

Perhaps we're going to have to consider beginning with sanctions and working with a Coalition to stop this rogue regime from its plans.

And always remember: the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, or some such nonsense...

But I guess this type of lazy, phone-it-in blogging is what I've come to expect from Salon.

Ahh, so Glenn is "phoning it in," is he? Gee, where have I heard that before? Hmmm, how about every week for the past year (at least) in the comment section of Tom Tommorrow's "This Modern World," here at Salon.com:

http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aletters.salon.com%2Fcomics%2Ftomo+phone

Pathetic.

"Incidents like this get reported piecemeal, in isolation, by our national press, but the clear implications are almost never realized and/or explained."

Which is exactly why the major news outlets have missed some of the most significant news stories of the Bush administration, and why I rely on blogs to show me the big picture.

Traditional news organizations are terrible at connecting the dots, and are reluctant to assign motives for fear of being accused of "bias". Bloggers, on the other hand, are better at noticing a pattern of behavior and tying seemingly unrelated actions together.

Keep up the good work.