This is a sad day. Steve Jobs has died. He was a visionary and a genius — a genius of design, and of knowing how we wanted to work and play long before we had any idea. “The world is immeasurably better because of Steve,” said Apple in a company statement, according to NBC News. It’s true, and how many people can you say that about?
Was the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki justified?
Before the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki slips off the media’s radar screen, I hope we insist on one important question being answered: What, precisely, did Awlaki do to warrant his being killed by American forces?
I am not particularly concerned with Awlaki’s U.S. citizenship. He left the United States and joined a terrorist organization, Al Qaeda, against which the United States essentially declared war in 2001. As Bob Woodward reported in the Washington Post 10 years ago:
Since the Ford administration, all presidents have signed an executive order banning the CIA or any other U.S. government agency from involvement in political assassination. Generally speaking, lawyers for the White House and the CIA have said that the ban does not apply to wartime when the military is striking the enemy’s command and control or leadership targets.
And as Scott Wilson wrote in the Post on Friday, “citizenship is not a factor in determining whether a person can be lawfully killed under the laws of war.”
But I think we ought to know whether Awlaki was merely a propagandist for terror or if, as U.S. officials contend, he was actually involved in planning and operations. If any evidence has been released, I haven’t seen it.
Scott Shane wrote in the New York Times on Friday that Awlaki “participated in plots to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner in 2009 and to bomb two cargo planes last year” and “was fighting alongside the enemy in the armed conflict with Al Qaeda.” If those statements are true, I think the White House owes it to us — and to the world — to release whatever proof it has gathered.
BostonGlobe.com free trial extended
In the past week or so, I’ve been telling people I thought the Boston Globe ought to extend the free trial period for its subscription-only website, BostonGlobe.com, until a few bugs got worked out. So I’m not surprised to learn the Globe has done exactly that. The site will be free through mid-October.
Here’s the main thing I’m looking for: a rock-solid “Today’s Paper” section that includes everything in the print edition, including all editorial cartoons (currently only staff cartoonist Dan Wasserman’s work gets posted) and “Names” items (sometimes they’re there, sometimes they’re not).
I also want the “All Headlines” feature under “Today’s Paper” to be sticky rather than constantly reverting back to “Quick View.” I’d like to be able to click on photos for a larger version. Finally, I want to return to where I was when I click on the back button rather than to the top of the page. On that last point, I notice improvements, but it’s not totally consistent.
Have you tried BostonGlobe.com? What do you like or not like about it?
It looks like Francona is leaving the Red Sox
It looks like Terry Francona is leaving. And the most interesting take I’ve read this morning is by Gordon Edes of ESPN Boston, who makes it sound like Francona didn’t believe in some of the players that management saddled him with.
Edes writes that some of those in the executive suite believed the 2011 team “operated in a vacuum of clubhouse leadership. That in turn cultivated a climate lacking accountability, over which the manager presided with a curious sense of detachment, a marked departure from his previous approach, when he was fully engaged with his entire roster.”
OK, so that’s the case against Francona. But it begs a larger question: If this is true, why did he act that way? Did he simply not like this group? At least from a fan’s perspective, it didn’t seem that any of them were particularly loathsome except for John Lackey. And even Lackey is supposedly a much different presence among his teammates than when he’s throwing his hands up on the mound, lashing out at the media or filing for divorce from his seriously ill wife.
Certainly there have been suggestions that, after a certain point, Carl Crawford checked out. But who else? Nick Cafardo writes in the Boston Globe that the way the Sox babied Clay Buchholz was “nauseating,” which strikes me as a pretty weird thing to say about someone with cracked vertebrae in his spine. Then again, few in the media wanted to believe that Jacoby Ellsbury was really hurt in 2010. It’s safe to say Ellsbury proved them wrong, although some persist in the fantasy that Ellsbury simply got tougher mentally.
I’ve said it before, but my first choice would be for both Francona and Theo Epstein to stay with the team. My second choice would be for Francona to stay and Epstein to go. So I’m not happy about this.
I hope we’re going to hear a lot more about what was really going on in the clubhouse, especially during the disastrous September collapse. As for Francona, this is pure speculation, but I’ll bet he could have kept his job if he was willing to fight for it. Instead, it looks like he’ll end up with the White Sox, where he’ll be treated with the respect he’s earned as one of the best managers in baseball.
This just in: Red Sox fire Joe Morgan, express confidence that Butch Hobson will turn things around.
Photo (cc) 2009 by Keith Allison and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.
An outrageous order of secrecy
Keep an eye on this one. Earlier this week, a clerk-magistrate in Suffolk Superior Court ruled that the details of criminal charges against former probation commissioner John O’Brien and Scott Campbell, who was a high-ranking aide to former state treasurer Tim Cahill, should be kept secret.
It was an outrage, done at the request of Campbell’s lawyer, and the office of Attorney General Martha Coakley has decided not to contest it. As Globe editor Marty Baron, whose paper is contesting the order, puts it:
If anything should be fully open to the public, it’s a court case involving allegations of malfeasance by a high-level public official. We feel an obligation to do our part to make sure the public gets the information it needs and deserves.
The Globe editorializes about the matter here.
This is the end
Our three-month-old HDTV was in the repair shop — and we’re a one-TV family. It sounded like the rain delay would be a long one. So I turned off the radio and went to bed. The Red Sox’ historic collapse came to its inevitable end without me.
Three quick thoughts:
1. Jonathan Papelbon had a terrific comeback year, so much so that the assumption he’d be gone after the season had recently turned into “they’ve got to sign him.” I don’t know. These things happen, but if Papelbon stays, I’m afraid he would forever be defined by what happened last night, reinforced by his meltdown in the 2009 playoffs against the Angels. Maybe it’s time to start over.
2. We’re going to hear a lot of speculation as to whether Terry Francona should be fired. That’s natural, I suppose. What I don’t want to hear is Theo Epstein’s opinion on the matter. Epstein shouldn’t even have a say. If it were up to me, I’d keep Francona and Epstein, but if I could only keep one, it would be Francona — the greatest manager in Red Sox history and as good a manager as there is today. (OK, maybe not as good as Joe Maddon.) Epstein has done a good job here, but he’s had a dubious two years, and he’s got some explaining to do. If I were John Henry, I might ask Francona if Epstein should stay.
3. Can the Red Sox seriously contend next year? All of a sudden, these guys look really old, without much room for maneuvering. Last night could truly have been the end of an era that started in 2003.
Trust in government requires public access
During the weekend, more than 20 of the state’s daily newspapers, with support from the American Civil Liberties Union, Common Cause, the New England First Amendment Coalition at Northeastern University, the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association and New England Newspaper & Press Association, published this editorial endorsing legislation to increase government transparency. A list of those newspapers can be found here. Media Nation is proud to lend its support.
The walls Beacon Hill has erected between itself and those it governs have taken on two dramatically different faces.
Outside, they show decades’ of wear at the hands of those fighting for better access to their government. Inside, they’re increasingly pocked with a taint that thrives in the absence of light.
That taint, most recently seen in a disturbing chain of high-profile corruption cases, suggests any benefits such barriers provide to the efficiency of lawmaking are grievously undermined by the efficiencies they also provide to those more interested in lawbreaking.
The felony convictions of three successive House speakers – and a Probation Department scandal that threatens to reach into every corner of public service – clearly indicate state transparency laws are in dire need of improvement.
Central to that effort is eliminating exemptions that free the governor’s office, Legislature and judiciary from having to live by the meeting and records laws that apply to every other public office in this state. Just as important is making it easier and more affordable for people to take advantage of the access already protected by a law that predates e-mail and the Internet.
It’s an area where minor advances have been made but substantive reform has been routinely killed or ignored.
Given recent scandals and polls showing a deep and growing distrust in government, we hope this year is different.
That notion will soon be tested on several fronts as lawmakers consider a number of initiatives.
One bill seeks to reduce the cost of obtaining records, requiring state agencies to make commonly sought public documents available electronically. It would also cut administrative costs and processing time associated with such records requests.
Another would strengthen the enforcement and investigatory powers of the Supervisor of Public Records.
A third would assess penalties against lawmakers who purposely skirt access laws and would cover the legal fees of those who successfully challenge them. And several seek to breach that battered and stained wall around Beacon Hill, subjecting the Legislature to the state’s Open Meeting Law.
Critics of the measures have focused on the financial and manpower burdens they impose on records keepers. Yet this push for more easily accessible records, already successfully implemented in other states, holds the promise of reducing those burdens.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo, following the June conviction of his predecessor, Salvatore DiMasi, vowed to regain voters’ faith in state government.
“Today’s news delivers a powerful blow to the public’s trust in government,” he wrote then. “One of the things that I find most disturbing – and the thing I am most committed to changing – is the public’s view of politicians and public sector employees.”
Fewer walls – legal, financial and technological – would go a long way toward that goal.
Newt Gingrich. John Edwards. John Lackey.
If you know anything about Boston, then you know John Lackey will never be able to pitch here again. Good riddance. Have fun paying off his contract, Mr. Henry.
Who’s to blame? None of the above.
I haven’t written much about the Red Sox this year — at least not here. I’ve found that Twitter’s 140-character limit is a pretty good match for my baseball knowledge.
But with the team in free fall, I’ve been listening to a lot of sports radio. The consensus seems to be that Terry Francona bears some of the blame, and Theo Epstein a great deal more. Both propositions strike me as wrong. I’d say Francona is largely blameless — not entirely, but no one is perfect. And though Epstein clearly has had a bad couple of years given the way guys like John Lackey and Carl Crawford turned out, I don’t think he deserves that much of a thrashing either.
I could go on and on, but Earl Weaver explained it perfectly: “Momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher.” The Red Sox’ five-man rotation consists of three disasters and two aces, Josh Beckett and Jon Lester, who haven’t been at their best during the collapse. Notice I stayed away from saying that “they haven’t stepped up” or “they haven’t risen to the occasion.” Do we not think they’re giving it a full effort, or that they feel terrible about their recent failures? As for the disasters — well, that’s where Epstein has to look in the mirror over the winter and figure out what to do. Only the loss of Clay Buchholz was completely unanticipated.
Two other observations. Francona’s getting a lot of heat for not doing anything when Lackey stared him down the other night. Not doing anything? Tito had come out to remove Lackey, and he did. Mission accomplished. Seriously? As for the sloppiness and errors that have crept in, I think you’d have to be a robot not to be affected by being down by five or six runs early in every game. You’d like to think they players could rise above it and maintain focus, but they’re not really any different from the rest of us.
If it turns out to be true that Epstein used Peter Gammons to deflect the blame onto Francona, well, shame on him. Francona is the best manager in Red Sox history, and Epstein is among the best general managers in the business. I hope they’re both still here after the Sox’ likely playoff run comes to what we all imagine will be a short and ugly conclusion.
How’s that trade working out? (XVIII)
OK, he’s having a lousy year. But last night Bronson Arroyo pitched a six-hit, complete-game shutout. Why can’t the Red Sox get pitchers like that?