A slight flaw in the system

Looks like the Houston Chronicle is going all-out in its efforts to keep online readers informed about what’s going on in the wake of Ike. But there would appear to be a flaw in the system. Check this out, from an FAQ on the Chronicle’s Web site:

Question: When will the power come back on?
Answer: It could take weeks. CenterPoint Energy reports virtually all its customers — 2.1 million of its 2.26 million — are without power as of 10 a.m. Saturday.

Hmmm … OK, so who in the Houston-Galveston area is able to read the Chronicle’s Web site?

Cracking down on toxic food

If injecting donuts with an industrial solvent somehow improved their texture, it wouldn’t necessarily follow that adding solvents to donuts should be a matter of individual choice.

There are many reasons to applaud the city of Boston for banning trans fats, and to hope that other regulatory agencies do the same. But what often gets lost in the discussion is that most trans fats are substances unknown to nature.

The proper analogy is not If we let them ban trans fats, the next time they’ll ban cheeseburgers. It’s Why should trans fats be allowed in food when other poisonous industrial substances are not?

Trans fats are created through an industrial process: pumping hydrogen into vegetable oil, a process that produces an artificial fat that doesn’t spoil as quickly as natural fats. Trans fats raise the level of bad cholesterol and lower the good. Scientists say trans fats are more dangerous than any natural fat.

Want more proof? Michael Graham, who traveled to New Hampshire yesterday to deliver tubes of lipstick to Barack Obama, thinks trans fats are just peachy. I rest my case.

Photo (cc) by Duncan Cumming and reproduced here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

An attempted October surprise

The Bush White House, by all appearances, hasn’t made much of an effort to capture or kill Osama bin Laden since that botched encounter at Tora Bora in late 2001.

Now NPR reports that the administration is going all out to get bin Laden before Bush leaves office.

If you listen to the audio version of the story, you’ll come to the inescapable conclusion that the real goal is to roll up bin Laden even earlier than that — say, a couple of weeks before Election Day.

Shameful.

The Enquirer targets the Palins

It seems like a political lifetime ago, but it was only last month that the media were flagellating themselves for having ignored the National Enquirer’s (accurate) reporting about John Edwards’ extramarital affair.

Now the Enquirer is going after Sarah Palin and her family. Should the media dive in and try to verify the Enquirer’s claims? Or should they stay silent and risk being made fools of once again? I’m not sure — but that’s the question I try to answer in the Guardian.

The definition of hubris

Long ago, a young farmer and a haberdasher from Missouri, he followed an unlikely path — he followed an unlikely path to the vice presidency. And a writer observed, “We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity,” and I know just the kind of people that writer had in mind when he praised Harry Truman.

— Sarah Palin in her convention speech, Sept. 3, 2008, comparing her qualifications for the vice presidency to those of Harry Truman.

Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now. I don’t know whether you fellows ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when they told me yesterday what had happened, I felt like the moon and stars and all the planets had fallen on me.

— Harry Truman, speaking to reporters on April 13, 1945, upon learning that Franklin Roosevelt had died and he had ascended to the presidency. Truman was serving in his second term as a U.S. senator when FDR chose him to be his third-term running mate, and had won plaudits for his work as chairman of a committee that investigated military waste during World War II.

[O]n January 20, when John McCain and I are sworn in, if we are so privileged to be elected to serve this country, will be ready. I’m ready…. I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can’t blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we’re on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can’t blink.

— Sarah Palin, Sept. 11, 2008, responding to Charlie Gibson’s question asking her whether she was ready to be president of the United States.

Turning the First Amendment on its head

Robert Ambrogi has posted a 36-page section of the report ordered up by the Boston City Council as part of its crusade to get out of having to comply with the state’s open-meeting law.

It’s hard to make out and I haven’t had a chance to go through it yet. But Ambrogi’s comments are on the mark, especially with respect to the councilors’ argument that the law impinges upon their own First Amendment rights:

How does that saying go about the devil reading the Bible to his own ends? That was all I could think of as I read a report arguing that the First Amendment gives Boston city councilors the right to conduct the people’s business behind closed doors….

The … premise is that this “prohibition” on private speech between public officials violates their free-speech rights. That is the most extreme contortion of the First Amendment I’ve ever heard or read.

Ambrogi concludes with a hope that councilors will send the report “straight to the circular file.” But that’s only going to happen if the press and the public pressures them to do so.

The original Boston Herald story made it pretty clear that some influential members, including president Maureen Feeney and former president Michael Flaherty, think weakening the public’s right to know is a neat idea.

He still can’t write about it

What struck me about David Filipov’s account in today’s Boston Globe of his first visit to Ground Zero is that he still can’t bring himself to write about his father’s death on Sept. 11, 2001.

That’s what his piece is purportedly about; but it isn’t, as he instead interviews a security guard, two young women from Kazakhstan, a student — anyone, really, who pulls him away from his grief.

It’s a moving piece, because it’s a reminder of how difficult Filipov and thousands of others still find it to come to terms with what happened on that day.

The online version includes a link to a Filipov piece that was published in the Globe on Oct. 11, 2001, which he filed from Afghanistan.

Driving to work this morning, I started thinking about how much it seemed as it did seven years ago — clear and cool, a perfect September day. It’s become a cliché, but it’s the truth: Just as all people in our parents’ generation know exactly where they were and what they were doing on Dec. 7, 1941, so will all of us remember what happened seven years ago today.

Department of Defense photo by Denise Gould.

Tribal lobbyist faces federal charges

Kevin Ring, a former lobbyist for the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and fraud, according to Stephanie Vosk of the Cape Cod Times.

Ring, who used to work for convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, helped the tribe with its application for federal recognition, a key to its bid to build a giant gambling casino in Middleborough.

None other than former tribal council president Glenn Marshall, who stepped down after it was revealed he was a convicted rapist who had lied about his military record, once testified to Ring’s good name.

The charges against Ring do not may involve his dealings with the Mashpee. [Update: The charges refer to a “Massachusetts tribal client” that may well have been the Mashpee tribe.]

Cape Cod Today has more.