A few years after I got married in an Episcopal Church in Newtown Square, Pa., some friends of mine tied the knot just a few miles down the road at a Unitarian Church here in Media. They also weren't able to secure a marriage license, but the minister wasn't bothered by that bit of Caesar's paperwork. The ceremony was consecrated by the minister in the name of God and blessed by the congregation. No one present felt the wedding or... Read more
I'm worried that my niece is going to grow up to be a Bush Republican. Right now she's 6, and a big fan of chocolate-covered raisins, which she reluctantly shares with her sisters. The other day she announced that the bowl had only 12 raisins left. Her grandfather sees an opportunity for a little arithmetic lesson. He says, "Well, Katie, if 3 of you are sharing 12 raisins, how many can you have? How many times does 3 go into... Read more
Thanks to sensitive CIA reporting dating back to the Clinton administration, as revealed in a classified memo labeled "Top Secret" and also "For Immediate Release," I am able to report the following. 1. An Arabic student from Hamburg, Germany, who may or may not have been al-Qaida terrorist Mohammad Atta, may or may not have met with Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, an Iraqi intelligence agent, in Prague, which may or may not be the capital of the Czech Republic.... Read more
In 1969, a small mission hospital in Tennessee burned down and all of its records were lost. As a result my ex-wife, who was born in that hospital, did not have a birth certificate until she was 23 years old. This created an unforeseen problem at St. Albans (Episcopal) Church, where our wedding date was fast approaching in the summer of 1991. It seems that while it is quite possible to be born without a birth certificate, you need one... Read more
Slate's Jack Shafer wonders why the mainstream press has been dismissive of Stephen F. Hayes' report in The Weekly Standard on alleged links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. Hayes' article largely summarizes a memo by Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith, which may account for some of the skepticism. Feith does not enjoy a reputation as a disinterested pusuer of the truth. Like many of his fellow hawks in the Bush administration, he has a track record of reaching conclusions... Read more
"U.S. agrees to international control of its troops in Iraq." That's the headline of an article in yesterday's (UK) Independent in which Leonard Doyle and Stephen Castle report on comments from Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief. "Everybody has moved, including the United States, because the United States has a real problem and when you have a real problem you need help." There is a "growing consensus" that the transfer of power has to be accelerated, he said. "How... Read more
Via Jeanne and Eve I was directed to this site, where you can find the cover of TIME from any week in the magazine's history. This, as they note, allows you to see who or what was on the cover of TIME during the week in which you were born. I knew before looking what the cover would show for mine. I was born three days after the presidential primary election in California. TIME's cover for that week shows the... Read more
It's a tricky matter for a place like Eastern College/University to produce an alumnus like Bryan Stevenson. Stevenson went from Eastern to Harvard Law School. This, in itself, is cause for institutional pride — it highlights that the quality of education the school provides is acceptable even to the elite centers of higher education. At the same time, Stevenson's acceptance at Harvard Law probably had cartoon dollar signs appearing in the eyes of Eastern's alumni office. Harvard Law usually means... Read more
The previous post discusses Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative of Alabama. Stevenson is, like me, a graduate of Eastern College in St. Davids, Pa. (So too is Doug Davidson, formerly of The Other Side magazine, whose interview with Stevenson I noted.) We Eastern College grads now face a dilemma. A couple of years ago, our alma mater changed its name and its accreditation — it's now Eastern University. The new university includes not only the liberal arts... Read more
Atrios is raising funds for a cause that deserves all the support you can give it — the Equal Justice Initiative of Alabama. EJI provides legal assistance to death row inmates and to the poor in Alabama, a state with no public defender system, where the average capital trial lasts three days. Three days. Thousands of prisoners in Alabama have been sentenced to life in prison without parole and other excessive punishments for non-violent offenses. One EJI client is an... Read more
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