Letters to the Editor
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Bashing Charlie Rose
I find Charlie Rose to be an engaging, capable interviewer who has interesting guests. Someone who was a "faux liberal" or otherwise in the tank for the administration would have been very careful to not have anyone like those Iraqis on his show. I find all this bagging on Rose mystifying.
An earlier commenter linked to a blog post that revealed that Rose got his black eye by instinctively face-planting rather than smashing up his new Apple Macbook Air after tripping in a pothole. The man has the right priorities.
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Your government at work ...
http://www.ketv.com/family/15643474/detail.html?taf=oma
Tale Of Dying Girl's Imprisoned Dad Moves Viewers
The story of a 10-year-old Lincoln girl who is dying of brain cancer and her one dying wish spurred a lot of e-mail to KETV NewsWatch 7.
Discuss
Jayci Yaeger wants her father to be at her bedside, but that isn't likely to happen since Jason Yaeger is in a federal prison in Yankton, S.D.
Vonda Yaeger is pleading with the warden for compassion to grant her daughter's wish.
"She wants her dad. She goes to her room crying because she wants her dad," Yaeger said.
Jason Yaeger was convicted of methamphetamine charges nearly five years ago and is scheduled to be released next year.
"We've never asked them to release him early. Never asked them to change anything. We've asked them to just give him some time to be here," Vonda Yaeger said.
Several KETV NewsWatch 7 viewers said they've e-mailed the warden themselves after reading the story. Kevin Burton said he e-mailed a link of KETV's story to the warden, along with a note that said in part: "I feel heartbroken for this little girl. It sounds like a drug charge, and not a more serious crime. As a father of a young daughter myself, I hope that there is more to this story. I would hope in cases such as this some compassion can be shown and reasonable accommodations taken that safeguard the public, honor the judiciary, but still let this little girl see her father while she is still living."
Viewer Sandie Yeaman said she called South Dakota's governor's office, "pleading for them to allow Jayci's father to be at her bedside. I urge all Nebraskans to call Gov. Rounds office and plead for the dying wishes of this little girl and her family."
The South Dakota governor's office said it can't play a role because Yaeger is in a federal prison.
Another viewer suggested starting a nationwide petition to get Jason Yaeger to his daughter before she dies.
Jayci Yaeger has been allowed three escorted visits with her father, but each trip lasts only a couple of hours and costs the family hundreds of dollars. Requests for longer furloughs have been denied.
"They say it doesn't constitute an extraordinary circumstance," Vonda Yaeger said.
A representative of the Yankton facility would not respond to specific questions about the situation.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons Web site states its policy -- that furloughs can be allowed for a family crisis and that decision is left to the warden.
"We've asked them numerous times, 'What is an extraordinary circumstance?'" said Vonda Yaeger. "They danced around it. They don't give you a direct answer."
Jayci still gets calls when her father can manage.
"He talks to her. We put the phone to her ear and she cries," Vonda Yaeger said.
She said there have been several times she didn't think Jayci would make it through the night, but she somehow keeps fighting.
"I feel she's hanging on for her dad," Vonda Yaeger said.
The family said that what makes the situation even more difficult is that Jason Yaeger is scheduled to be transferred to a half-way house in Council Bluffs, Iowa, in August. That would make it possible to visit Jayci, but her mother said it will probably be too late.
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Noam Chomsky has it correct....
We Americans think that we "own the world". So any questioning of or harsh criticism of that view will not be received well.
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ah well, omoexx
I wish you could take a class with me!
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anonymust
ya I came up the lower class way. i was the first one in my family to ever go to college, and it took me ten years to get my undergraduate degree, primarily for financial reasons. I was always dropping out to go to work--especially after marriage and kids! Grad school, thank goodness, was a scholarship thing (and a very good one: thank you Emory University!).
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Madness and Method
It all starts with the desire to know the truth, rather than just memorizing the conventional wisdom of your peers
Peers, buckyl, are often just "taking the piss" as our stalwart British allies say. You're so wise to have nothing to do with "conventional wisdom".
"Unconventional stupidity" wouldn't work either, it takes a certain amount of self-awareness and observation to be unconventional.
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Let's be clear on a few things
This interview is superb. It should be required viewing for everyone in congress. Note that Ali Fadhil speaks very bluntly: everything - every single thing - that America is doing in Iraq is wrong. We have no idea what we are doing.
Is this clear enough?
So let's make a few other facts clear and proceed from there.
1. WMD were irrelevant. It was never legal or moral for the United States to invade Iraq.
2. The case to invade Iraq was invented out of whole cloth. Bush and his myrmidons were not mistaken. They made it up. They trolled for evidence to support their claims and found a little. They contracted for the rest - Curveball, the forged Niger documents. All of it. They conflated (and still conflate) the 9/11 attacks with Iraq and focused Americans' desire for revenge on the wrong target. And they did this on purpose.
3. The only plan the government has is to do whatever it takes, including long-term bribery of the former "terrorists" who were killing our troops in the hopes of getting them to re-direct their violence away from our troops, to limp along until it is time to hand responsibility over to the next administration. When it collapses, well, it's not Bush and Cheney's fault.
None of this is partisan. This is not about winning elections. This is about the difference between behaving like criminals and behaving like the honorable people we flatter ourselves we collectively are.
So let's just stop the nonsensical claims about how Iraq is the central front in the GWOT. Tommyrot. We illegally invaded Iraq, we are now illegally occupying Iraq and we need to figure out how best to get out and make amends to the people of Iraq.
Or we can continue to delude ourselves that we are the good guys this time, continue to hemorrhage blood and treasure, continue to vilify those like Charlie Rose's guests who actually know what they are talking about.