Letters to the Editor
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Stop being a sissy!
I am all for "using harsh interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists"
Terrorists are by logical necessity war criminals so if someone wants to lower them head fist into a bucket of shit, god bless him.
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Some practical concerns
I think Yoo is a fine place to start for two reasons. The first is that I think the easiest and safest place to get this ball rolling is with an underling. I don't feel like Bush would circle the wagons to protect Yoo, so I think there's a chance that he could actually be brought to justice. The other element, aside from sheer feasibility, is that Yoo's is the weak intellectual underpinning for our torture. By bringing him down, after whatever process is still needed to establish his wrongdoing, we start to unravel whatever justifications Bush and others have for their obnoxious actions. I don't think this will be especially hard in an intellectual sense because Yoo's is not an intellectually defensible position. I'm not saying you can't make a point for Yoo, I'm saying you can't make a valid one. I have read numerous indictments of Yoo which ignore his legal gyrations and point out that the very root of his arguments show a staggering ignorance of, or contempt for, law. This is also why, I think, at the end of the day the academic community is not going to be willing to throw itself on a grenade for Yoo - It becomes tantamount to arguing for the primacy of one's right to be completely wrong. I absolutely agree with Greenwald, though, to have Yoo be anything other than the first step in bringing down others who are far more culpable would be simply wrong.
The other thing I want to emphasize is that torture does not do what its proponents say they need it for. Anyone who has actually been seriously engaged in the process of trying to get information out of people (meaning it mattered whether they got useful information or not) will tell you that torture is an almost completely useless tool and that it provides notoriously unreliable information. The obvious fact is that if torture works, the tortured party will say WHATEVER is needed to stop it. Which begs the question - why do we torture? We torture so other people know we torture, so they know what happens to the enemies of the United States. We do it to demonstrate that we are the new Rome, and are above all international laws and treaties, including ones like the Geneva Conventions which we helped write and encouraged other people to sign.
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Breadbaker aka Rumi.
What you wrote resonated. Words can be empty. Words are important. Beneath everything a person says, a mysterious "music" can have a center... so mentions Persian Sufi, Rumi. Rumi has a whole theory of language based on the reed flute (ney). All language is a longing.. a capacity... a note. It carries tonality. Rumi muses, and if we are empty... people are attuned and can become full and communicate a sort of signature Truth. A harmony. a oneness. a wonder. wonderful. awe. full of awe. awful?
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If I see GC! aka AJ ;`, I almost flee, or curl up inside, and wonder who will label me what now? Yikes.
The Rumi ~ Breadmaking ~ poem always brings a warm sensation. So, the title is not a rough, cold, smack at you in the face. The bread of every experience offers nourishment. So. I mean no metaphors... no stale moldy loaf is tossed your way ~ okay. No shake a stick...@ a loaf.
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Yesterday was some informative 'stuff' and a fabric of fresh community, I thought. Often days get a bit unmannerly? Stuff was getting torn down? A bunch of dim-wit ideas mixed with bright light Swiss Chard? I mean. there were some strong (drink) opinion. My eyes were often squinting. Outside Nature was brilliant, extravagant, gorgeous, and inside here ~ a serious talk about law... jurisprudence. It was powerful. Somewhat raw, or cruel, and often silly. That's okay. Overall, a good day. People are curious what's happening on whatever level.... be it baseball, or nuclear detonation. People need butter, and a little jam to spread on their bread.
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Jkalos. @3:04. apologies I missed you at ondelettes, Humanity Against Crimes... You spelled your name wrong? It was Spring giddy. Holly berries were given much dung fertilizer yesterday? Whoa. There were flaming braziers, foul verbiage, killing looks, barn stalls mucked, taunting, mocking, and wine seemed to grasp commenters mental wits. O we all can babble, and poke a tight fist, and pretend we pop a snout and gush some human's blood. We macho tuff?
I sure got wore down. I was feeble at picking spinach, and wondered who will be emasculated at Glenn's thread today? Where was Kermit the green frog when he's needed?
He's in DC? O wow. I wonder about firedoglake?
They loosen up the tongue of guest with liberal drink?
A shave and a mopped chopped is expensive. It's vain?
It's way too ~ late to lose fifty pounds and buy boot polish.
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dung? a positive memory. there was a seed collector who always remembered ~ That when he was a child a favorite seed catalogue discontinued a rare melon he enjoyed. The seed saver lives near the Chesapeake Bay and brags of a mixture of Native American, African American, blue eyes, and Puerto Rican genes, etc., He does seed research for universities. Alan Kapular, a third generation botanist did a article about the seed saver. I visited him. He has his own home seed bank. He gave me a rare heirloom melon seed that grew about 18-inches oblong.
The melon is delicious. The outer skin was curled to indicate (If It Was A Dung) a healthy colon bowel. Did you ever see a wold bear dung? It's curled. It has a healthy colon shape. My point? My giddy Spring thought? A Memory : At the farm, a student apprentice name the melon, "A elephant dung." I always have smiled, instead of anguished, @ e-dung. I admit I do also wince, at the mention of a melon named : Elephant Dung. The heirloom melon is excellent.
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I hope to shut up today. I'll be baby sat. Friends shake the head at me and call me "a blogger." Why do they shake the head like a person shakes the curled up fist? Now I always shake my head when I say, "blogger."
It's like receiving a silent cold kiss.
Try to kiss someone silently. It's not right?
Something seems missing. A gentle smack is better.