Monday, September 28, 2009

Monday morning short takes ...

Here are a few things to think about this Monday morning ...

First, new tapes released from cameras around the Oklahoma City bombing tragedy apparently have been edited - removing footage of the roads leading to the Murrah Building before the detonation of the bomb: ["Attorney: Oklahoma City bomb tapes appear edited"].
According to the story: "An FOIA request by Trentadue for 26 CIA documents was rejected in June. A letter from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which reviewed the documents, said their release 'could cause grave damage to our national security.'" "Grave damage to our national security"? How? They already supposedly found the perps of this tragedy and executed one of them. What is there to hide? How can this affect our "national security" nearly 15 years later? Amazing ...

Speaking of the Clinton era, get a load of Mike McCurry here, Clinton's former press secretary, going off about the Gov. Mike Sanford scandal: ["Former Clinton press secretary addresses Sanford scandal"].
Oh yeah, President Bill Clinton was credible, revealed consistency, candor, and had credibility ... NOT! Well, actually, he was consistent ... he consistently lied until he was caught perjuring himself. McCurry forgot the two most important "c" words of the time period: Constitutional crisis, which is what Clinton brought the country to because he just couldn't be honest about his failings.
Look, no one is perfect. But in the wake of that mess, let's be totally, totally honest about it, not make things up.

I'm pretty shocked, but not so, about this story: ["Lost Vegas"].
I guess I'm shocked that this hasn't been published in every American newspaper but is being covered by the Brits. It kinda reminds me of those tent city videos that are online but somehow we don't see them on the news. But, I'm not that shocked ... considering we have people living in tents along the Merrimack River. If you have nowhere else to go, these tunnels might be a better option ...

TIME Magazine has this Q&A with Ralph Nader about his new novel: ["Ralph Nader, Fiction Writer"].
Speaking of TIME, we have been getting it delivered at the house [$20 for the year from a preschool fundraiser ...] and it's not a bad read. This week's edition features a "special report" - "The Tragedy of Detroit." TIME bought a house in the city and plans on taking the next year to cover things going on in one of America's most desperate urban centers. It's a pretty cool idea actually.
But, we kinda already know what the problems are and how this came to be, described so eloquently in two letters in the "Inbox" section of the same edition: One, complaining about an IT job being outsourced overseas, and another letter, revealing the $670 billion trade deficit which "represents millions of jobs that have been exported." "It's time to recognize that free trade doesn't work. Bring jobs back from overseas with a 20% across-the-board tariff on imports." Congratulations to Lawrence Briskin of Centerville, Ohio, for nailing it right on the head ... Hey Lawrence: you should run for Congress!

More short takes tomorrow.

3 comments:

Bob said...

Thought you might be interested in my follow-up to the recent AP piece about Jesse Trentadue’s FOIA-obtained surveillance tapes from the area around the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. On Monday, I wrote and published a copyrighted story about those recently-released tapes, based upon materials provided by — and conversations I had with — Jayna Davis, author of “The Third Terrorist.” Important note: I sought her out and became the first journalist/blogger with whom Davis has spoken about the case in four years. link

Jeremy said...

It is quite disturbing that 15 years later (and one execution) we can't see the videos. What is there to hide? This is going to throw the conspiracy theory people a new bone to go nuts with.

Tony said...

Thanks for the posts!
I think I have her book - I have a number on the subject matter including those by Chuck Harder/J.D. Cash and Stephen Jones. I have always thought that there might be more people involved, especially when you think of all the crap that went on in Elohim City, the mysterious John Doe #2 - who looks just like Jose Padilla, and that Strassmeier guy ... all too weird for me.