Me: Frank Lynch

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They Might Be Giants, showing their roots. Last night Celebrate Brooklyn hosted They Might Be Giants in a free concert at the Prospect Park band shell, and it was a lot of fun. In addition to a really tight performance, they were amusing throughout, opening with a song for the occasion they called "Celebrate Brooklyn" (apparently freshly written, since John Flansburgh had a pad of lyrics before him as he sang). It was a very funny song, not only repeatedly expressing affection for the Gowanus Canal, but also for Marty Markowitz (Brooklyn's borough president, perhaps most famous for showing up at free concerts and providing remarks, brief or otherwise).

John Linnell was funny, too, making jokes about the surroundings... such as all the people standing outside the fence when the concert was free anyway, and the lit trees (here's an example at joe's nyc from when Los Lobos appeared earlier this summer).

Oddly, the song selection was not as good as the actual performance was — and I'm not complaining that they didn't play enough of their hits, they did, it's just that over the course of 10 CDs they've got so many songs that are brilliant, and the ones they played were merely very good. (Is this what they call faint praise? left-handed compliment? whatever, I've no reason nor intent to complain.) It was just an odd selection, is all; while they gave appropriate attention to their newly released CD The Spine, they played only one song from their prior adult CD Mink Car ("Older"). The selection was just a bit of a surprise. Those who came to hear "Birdhouse in Your Soul" and "Istanbul" (both from 1990's Flood) were not disappointed.
Link 9:57 AM

Oh, we're sorry. Did we present a conflict? Florida's GOP is apologizing for sending out a flier telling voters to vote absentee because the voting machines aren't reliable (contradicting Jeb Bush's position that we can have complete trust, honest).

The flier read, in part:

"The liberal Democrats have already begun their attacks and the new electronic voting machines do not have a paper ballot to verify your vote in case of a recount ... Make sure your vote counts, order your absentee ballot today."

The apology?

"The recent absentee request ballot flier in no way is meant to shake the confidence of voters in Florida's electoral process," said Agostini. "The Republican Party of Florida encourages all Floridians to exercise their right to vote, whether by absentee ballot or in person. With this in mind, we regret that the language contained in the absentee ballot request was unclear in this regard."

I think this ought to be admissible in a court of law — it's not a retraction at all.
Link 4:42 PM

Unnecessary pork. The federal government is allowing $2 billion in "9/11 Aid" to be spent on a massive NYC transit hub which will link the Long Island Railroad, JFK airport, and the original WTC site.

I won't argue with the sensibility of visionary thinking when you're working with a clean slate; there are significant opportunities at a time like this which won't return later. But to do this as part of 9/11 funds seems like taking American taxpayers for a ride. If it's a valuable project, let's give it a separate budget line and put it out in the clear sunshine. But let's not suggest that this is to make NYC "whole," or in any way connected to Homeland Security. Let America know what it's paying for!
Link 4:18 PM

The recovery previously scheduled for this time period has been rescheduled for a later date. The Bush Administration apologizes for this inconvenience.

U.S. gross domestic product, a measure of total output within the nation's borders, climbed at a modest 3 percent annual pace in the April-June period after an upwardly revised 4.5 percent clip at the start of the year, the Commerce Department said.

Wall Street economists had looked for GDP to slow less sharply to a 3.6 percent pace after the first-quarter's previously reported 3.9 percent advance, and said they were surprised by the big pullback in consumer spending.

W will be bummed; he may have to delay buying that new Game Boy.
Link 11:08 AM

Even if he did correct himself later, David Brooks displayed the delusion which much of the country has been under recently regarding the Democratic party. Commenting on John Kerry's speech last night on PBS, Brooks said that Kerry sounded "Republican." (The transcript of Brooks' words is not up yet, perhaps later...) But it showed that the moderate values which Kerry argued for no longer seem the terrain of Democrats, thanks to the divisive, demonizing characterizations which Republicans have made over the years. Again, Brooks corrected himself after Mark Shields applied a little corrective force, but Brooks first reaction was that this was Republican terrain, not moderate terrain. I suspect that many Americans may also have been surprised by Kerry's points, and suspicious that it's all a disguise. We really have to take back this country — not just "we Democrats," but we Americans, who want more progress and less rancor.)

UPDATE: The PBS transcript is up, but doesn't include Brooks' initial remarks. There is a RealOne Player file here, which I'll try to transcribe. (Brooks' remarks are close to the beginning [in the first 0:30] if you care to listen.)

LEHRER: David Brooks and Mark Shields are here with me, listening along with the rest of America, or a good hunk of America tonight... Your initial response, David?

BROOKS: Well, uh, the test of this convention was would John Kerry pass the bar, and I'd say he's passed it by a good margin, it was a very good speech, one of the best I've seen him give, almost a Republican speech in many ways, uh so...

LEHRER: That's the highest compliment you can...

BROOKS: Absolutely, maybe a Teddy Roosevelt Republican, and in fact it was a Teddy Roosevelt Republican, very nationalistic, uh, gave sort of liberal patriotism we saw on display, so I thought he's had a very good convention, we can say that now.

LEHRER: Mark?

SHIELDS: John Kerry had to give the speech of his life, Jim; he did. Uh, it was a, the test of any speech, do you get a bigger hand on the way out than you did on the way in; he did. He got a bigger hand, the crowd stayed with him all the way in this hall, it was a speech that met the test on values, that John, John Kerry cast I thought the values in a very creative way, and it's a speech that you could not tell if you read it whether that speech was given by a Democrat or a Republican.

LEHRER: So you agree with David?

SHIELDS: Well, I don't think it was a Republican speech, I think it was a speech...

BROOKS: That's what I meant to say, that's actually, that's precisely how it read...

At least Brooks corrected himself, but that first characterization is a problem.
Link 8:58 AM

This Just In: Relying on television news (broadcast or cable) is bad for your political awareness. All those who still haven't read Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves To Death are hereby ordered to. (You can afford the money and time, trust me.)
Link 8:43 AM

The Echo Chamber in action, over Kerry's home movies from Vietnam. Media Matter for America reported that Matt Drudge has repeated old claims that John Kerry re-enacted his films from Vietnam, and in doing so ignored Bill Keller's take that they're too dull to have been reenacted. Well, apparently Drudge made an impression on the pundits at FoxNews, and the Media Research Council has seen fit to repeat the content from Fox, similarly not mentioning any contradictions from Keller. When newspapers or television networks don't go out of their way to include "the other side," they get slammed, of course — by the Media Research Council. Really, the dialog in this country would be so much better if people bothered to do a little homework before sitting down at a computer keyboard.
Link 4:11 PM

I hate lyrics mistakes. I can never watch U2's Rattle and Hum without cringing over Bono's singing of Helter Skelter. Maybe it was intentional, I dunno, but getting lyrics right seems such an easy thing to do. So I read the Media Research Council's take on John Edwards speech last night:

The moment Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards finished his Wednesday night speech, the convention organizers cranked up a CD of Stevie Wonder singing "you can feel the love all over." The love for Edwards and John Kerry could certainly be felt from some network reporters...

They use that as their springboard for attacking network coverage, but there's a problem right there. The lyric is "you can feel it all over," not "you can feel the love all over." Did they play a special version last night and I failed to hear it? Somehow, knowing my sensitivities here, I doubt I missed it. I think this is just another case of a right wing lie. You can't even trust 'em on Stevie Wonder.
Link 3:39 PM

Another outrage in Florida. While Gov. Jeb Bush refuses to demand paper records on electronic voting machines, defending their reliability, the GOP has urged some voters to vote via absentee ballot because of machine unreliability. (Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain...) If you're in Florida, you really need to get on this. (Heard on the Al Franken radio show, David Sirota's segment.)
Link 1:00 PM

There's a convention going on? I just haven't been commenting because I haven't had anything significant to add. But I will say something about John Edwards last night. First, to acknowledge that I didn't miss the big stories, yes, it was a stirring speech, and unfortunately he was on the losing end of the expectations game. He was no Great Messiah Campaigner last night. But he sounded a lot of good themes and was an asset. Now, here's what I didn't like, and I don't know if others saw it: there were a few points where he made an argument about what's wrong with the country, scored rhetorical points with the way he articulated it, received applause from the audience, and then seemed to smile — as if he was more taken by the audience appreciation than the seriousness of what he'd just spoken about. That was a little off-putting, and I hope he doesn't do it all the time. Can you imagine how silly Bush would have looked a couple years ago in Cincinnati if he'd delivered his "the smoking gun that comes in the form of a mushroom cloud" line and then smiled? Creepers.
Link 10:02 AM

Government as the new mafia? I've always thought of the mafia as more than just criminals, as a group which holds its members close to its side and punishes those who stray. It's obvious that Bush didn't have the welfare of the country as a whole at heart when he pushed through tax reductions to wealthier Americans and then tried to package it as economic stimulus (while driving us into deficit territory). And it's obvious that secrecy was the primary benefit of having an energy plan developed out of Dick Cheney's office; we may never know what his trusted cronies told him, but we can see the result, and shake our heads about how different the process would have been had it been run out of a more accountable agency like the Department of Energy (concluding of course, that it was to avoid accountability that Cheney headed it). And the threatened reprisals against the Health and Human Services actuary if he revealed his projections of the cost of the Medicare program to congress are also well-known. Retribution and secrecy are a modus operandi of the administration, and now we have an additional case:

A classified Justice Department investigation has concluded that a former F.B.I. translator at the center of a growing controversy was dismissed in part because she accused the bureau of ineptitude, and it found that the F.B.I. did not aggressively investigate her claims of espionage against a co-worker.

The Justice Department's inspector general concluded that the allegations by the translator, Sibel Edmonds, "were at least a contributing factor in why the F.B.I. terminated her services," and the F.B.I. is considering disciplinary action against some employees as a result, Robert S. Mueller III, director of the bureau, said in a letter last week to lawmakers. A copy of the letter was obtained by The New York Times.

This is the same translator whom the Justice Department has blocked from testifying in court, and whose prior unclassified testimony to congress has been retroactively classified.
Link 8:22 AM

How difficult is it to maintain goodwill with the Iraqi people? Well, reports like this don't make it any easier:

Laughing British soldiers tortured Iraqi detainees by beating and kicking them, pouring freezing water on their heads and forcing them to recite names of English and Dutch football stars, a court heard on Wednesday.

The accusations -- which throw the spotlight back on troop behavior in the U.S.-led occupation -- came from an Iraqi witness at London's High Court where families of six dead civilians have launched a test case against UK soldiers.

"The soldiers appeared to be thoroughly enjoying themselves as the beating was accompanied by laughter," said Kifah Taha al-Mutari. He was arrested in September, 2003, along with one of the six dead Iraqis, Baha Mousa, in a raid on a hotel in Basra.

Mousa later died in custody after alleged severe beatings.

Pointing out that these are UK troops and not ours is meaningless of course. Even if our record were spotless (it ain't), Britain is part of the coalition. We can express abhorrence, but can't distance ourselves from their actions because they are there at our behest.
Link 11:38 AM

Your grandchildren's tax dollars at work.

The White House will project soon that this year's federal deficit will exceed $420 billion, congressional aides said Tuesday, a record figure certain to ignite partisan warfare over President Bush's handling of the economy.

Lovely. Need we remind that the Bush administration inherited a budget surplus, and decided that during time of war it made sense to cut taxes for wealthier Americans? Need we?
Link 10:46 AM

Apparently we were so successful in Afghanistan that Medecins Sans Frontieres is withdrawing, following the murders of five of its doctors.
Link 10:41 AM

Thanks for mentioning it; no. A Kenyan Imam is calling on his president to accede to Iraqi kidnappers' demands:

An Islamic leader has criticised the Kenyan government's response to the seizure of three Kenyans in Iraq.

"Kenya is doing nothing serious about the three," said Sheikh Mohammed Khalifa of the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya.

(snip)

"President Mwai Kibaki should emulate the Philippines whose president took up the issue of just one hostage seriously until he was released," he said.

Earlier this month Philippine President Gloria Arroyo withdrew 51 of her country's peacekeepers from Iraq to save the life of Filipino hostage Angelo de la Cruz.

Right: give in to these animals, and continue the bloodshed. Sounds like a plan to me. Why doesn't this Imam condemn the kidnappings, instead?
Link 10:20 AM

The scope of the 9/11 Commission Report is actually kind. All it does is state what it sees as the historical record, without contrasting it against what's been said before, and thus it never points out that we've been told otherwise. For instance, when did first Bush hear about the attacks? According to the commission report (page 35):

White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card told us he was standing with the President outside the classroom when Senior Advisor to the President Karl Rove first informed them that a small, twin-engine plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. The President's reaction was that the incident must have been caused by pilot error.

But what had Bush said in December, 2001, in Orlando?

Well, Jordan, you're not going to believe what state I was in when I heard about the terrorist attack. I was in Florida. And my Chief of Staff, Andy Card -- actually, I was in a classroom talking about a reading program that works. I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower -- the TV was obviously on. And I used to fly, myself, and I said, well, there's one terrible pilot. I said, it must have been a horrible accident.

A TV was not "obviously" on outside a classroom (TV's tend to be in rooms, not halls), and there was no footage of the first crash on TV. In fact, no first crash footage was available on the date of 9/11 at all; and Bush was inside the classroom when the second jet hit. So he couldn't have been outside the classroom then, and surely wouldn't have drawn the conclusion of pilot error once Card informed him that America was under attack. So the Commission has been kind to Bush by not pointing out this incorrect recollection of events.

Nor do they comment on why Bush stayed in the classroom after being informed, and they simply recount his testimony (page 38):

The President told us his instinct was to project calm, not to have the country see an excited reaction at a moment of crisis. The press was standing behind the children; he saw their phones and pagers start to ring. The President felt he should project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening.

Now, if you've seen Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11, you know that the President is anything but calm at this point. Kindly, the 9/11 Commission Report does not discuss the film record.

History is amorphous, and anyone who thinks the 9/11 Commission report is the final word is nuts.
Link 8:37 AM

Jamie Gorelick saw the future. Maybe it was more from political perspicacity than clairvoyance, but when the 9/11 Commission spoke about its report on Thursday, Gorelick pointed out the benefit of releasing the report during an election year:

There are bad consequences to being in the middle of a political season and there are also good ones, because everyone who is running for office can be asked, "Do you support these recommendations?"

Some partisan Republicans' initial reaction had been along the lines of 'blame Clinton.' That morning after his briefing, Bush had said little beyond his finding the report "solid." Congress adjourned.

The most enthusiastic response came from John Kerry.

Republican leaders in the House and Senate have vowed to study the report closely but say there is little time to act on legislation before the general election in November.

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, who is set to accept the Democratic Party's nomination for president next week, praised the report, noting his longstanding support for creation of the post of national intelligence director.

"It is absolutely vital to have somebody of cabinet level who is going to help coordinate both domestic and international efforts so we have the right standards, the right sharing of information," Mr. Kerry said. "That's overdue. And when I'm president, it's going to happen."

Although the commission did not place special blame for intelligence failures on either the Bush or Clinton administration, Mr. Kerry's political advisers have seized on the report's findings as proof that Mr. Bush was inattentive in the spring and summer of 2001 to warnings of an imminent catastrophic terrorist attack.

Not wanting to fall behind, the Bush administration has decided, intelligently, that it has authority in its current capacity and should use it. They have raised the flames on their stove, and are looking at what they can do now.

After long fearing that the report could harm Mr. Bush in the midst of the tight presidential race, the White House, in acting to seize the initiative, underscored how the two parties are seeking to use the panel's work to make points in a campaign that still seems likely to turn on security issues.

From his vacation home here on the day the Democrats began their convention, Mr. Bush spoke with nearly all his most senior advisers by videoconference to begin deliberating over which commission recommendations to embrace and which he might be able to enact without waiting for Congress.

Late in his term, Bush is finally understanding the importance of initiative. On too many occasions (creating the 9/11 commission, creating the department of Homeland Security, creating the WMD intelligence commission), the administration has resisted, only to relent out of political realities. Would that they would do so for other reasons.
Link 7:48 AM

Coalition of the Inept?

The interior minister of Spain said Sunday that a car used in the March 11 train bombings went unnoticed by the police for three months even though it was only yards away from another vehicle connected to the attacks.

The minister, José Antonio Alonso, said an investigation was under way to determine why the police had taken until June 13 to notice the car, which had been parked outside the train station in Alcal  de Henares, near Madrid, since March 11.

And on top of that, Morocco has informed Spain that it's lost track of two-thirds of the Moroccans who'd trained in camps in Afghanistan. I have to tell you, it's news like this that makes me appreciate the wide-reaching scope of recommendations from the 9/11 panel, going so far as campaign for ideas.
Link 3:41 PM

If you're trying to decide between downloading the 9/11 report and buying it, I actually recommend you do both. The words are the same in each case, but neither edition takes full advantage of its medium. For instance, there is no index. This means you can't easily find "Booker Elementary" (the school in which Bush started his day on 9/11) in the print edition. For something like this, the download copy is better, because you can do a "find" (Ctrl+F) to find the references. And yet, the electronic copy is inadequate because flipping between text and endnotes is incredibly burdensome. (If the electronic edition were created as an html document, with links, it might have been much easier.) However, the two editions complement each other quite nicely — not only as I've already discussed, but you can even use the electronic copy to display the end notes while you read your physical copy, and easily enlarge the print size of those endnotes (they're quite small in the printed copy). Seriously, get both.
Link 1:25 PM

Back. While I'm getting settled, you might want to check out an amazing panorama photo taken from the 29th floor of the Williamsburg Bank building, the tallest building in Brooklyn. Bravo, Joe!
Link 7:48 AM

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