It is unfathomable to me why the Boston Herald thinks that how Louise Woodward is living her life is, or should be, news to your readers.
Every bit of Woodward’s conduct since Matthew Eappen’s tragic death has made it clear that even if she was responsible, it was nothing more than a tragic mistake. She is of no danger to anyone and thus should be of no interest to anyone.
It’s truly appalling to watch an unscrupulous reporter attempting to ruin Woodward’s life by spreading her past around to people who had no need to know it.
Opines Mark Nevins, communications director for Clinton’s campaign in Pennsylvania, in a Reuters article: “You can’t really expect to win the general election if you can’t win Pennsylvania.”
Leaving aside for the moment the fact that Mr. Nevins is going to feel awfully stupid about having made that comment to the press if Clinton ends up losing in Pennsylvania on April 22… Why are there so many pundits, campaign staffers, academics, etc. who seem to fail to understand the obvious fact that Democrat vs. Democrat during the primary is completely different from Democrat vs. Republican in the general election?
When Clinton runs against Obama in the Pennsylvania primary, it’s a Democrat competing against a Democrat, with only Democrats voting on their preferred candidate. The result of this primary is only marginally relevant to the question of whether either candidate will be able to win the state in the general election, because the plain fact is that in November, the vast majority of registered Democrats who vote in November are going to back whoever the Democratic candidate is.
In states with open primaries, i.e., where people can choose in which primary they wish to vote, the results are even less meaningful. Now that McCain has sewn up the Republican nomination, many Republicans in such states will cross over and vote for whichever Democratic candidate they think McCain is more likely to beat in November.
The real question is not who can win the primary, but rather how many Clinton supporters will stay home or vote for McCain if Obama ends up being the candidate, and vice versa. There are polls which claim to try to answer this question, but frankly, I think they have little bearing on reality this far before the election.
The Associated Press ran an article recently about the fact that Clarence Thomas hasn’t asked a single question during oral arguments in the Supreme Court in over two years. Apparently, the last time he asked a question was on February 22, 2006, 144 cases ago.
Thomas claims that he doesn’t need to ask questions to do the job. When asked at a speaking engagement why his colleagues ask so many questions, he responded, “That’s a fine question. When you figure out the answer, you let me know.” He has also said that he sees no need to engage in the back-and-forth just to hear his own voice, which would seem to imply that he believes some of his colleagues do exactly that. These statements surely do nothing to endear him to his colleagues on the Court, but at least he’s being honest.
I’m no fan of Clarence Thomas, but it seems to me that he’s not being paid to ask questions; he’s being paid to produce opinions. Therefore, how many opinions he has authored seems like a far better measure of whether he’s doing his job than is how many questions he has asked. By that measure, he seems to be holding his own. I looked at all of the decisions issued by the Court in the name of a particular Justice since February 22, 2006. Here’s how many were authored by each Justice:
Justice
# of decisions
Stevens
21
Scalia
19
Roberts
17
Kennedy
17
Ginsburg
17
Breyer
17
Thomas
16
Souter
14
Alito
11
From these numbers, it appears that althought Thomas is not exactly a shining star in the firmament of Supreme Court Justices, he’s also not the do-nothing which the AP article might have us believe.
On the other hand, a more comprehensive analysis, which I am not qualified to perform and wouldn’t have the time for even if I were, would be to examine the complexity of the decisions issued by the Court in that time period with the goal of determining whether Thomas or any other Justice is authoring more “light-weight” decisions than the others.
I think it’s rather interesting that the author of the AP article, Mark Sherman, didn’t include an analysis of this sort. It’s a rather obvious thing to do, so I wonder if perhaps Mr. Sherman omitted it because it did not serve his agenda.
I have been reluctant to write here about the smear campaign against Barack Obama that has been targeted at Jews. I had hoped that people would recognize it as the despicable pack of lies that it most surely is, but alas, it seems that some are not, so I feel the need to speak out.
I will tell you up-front that I voted for Obama in the primary and I hope to have the chance to vote for him in November. However, I hope that even were I not an Obama supporter, I would still be appalled at the character assassination being attempted by other Jews.
On the topic of mandatory periodic retesting of senior citizens when they renew their driver’s licenses, my wife recently had this letter printed in the Boston Herald (under the completely nonsensical headline “Rights watered down”, thus proving yet again that the Herald really needs to hire some better headline writers):
Over a decade ago, it was a joke: A BU professor involved in a conference on rights for people with disabilities was hosting a visiting Italian professor. The visitor asked why the crosswalk light was beeping. “It’s for people who can’t see,” our professor explained. Her colleague yelled, “You let blind people drive?”
Apparently, now we do.
The story about the older men losing their eyesight (“What does being old have to do with it?” Feb. 12) was like running a sob story about an alcoholic who knows he will drive drunk but wants to be cut some slack to maim or kill since he visits his sister and likes to shop in Lynn.
We are not talking about “bad” drivers; anyone can be a bad driver and learn to be better one. We are talking about impaired drivers.
Older citizens should be using their political acumen to improve transportation and community networks so that individual cars are not lifelines, not lobbying for the right to knowingly drive impaired.
Apparently, the idea of burying someone wrapped in a simple shroud, in a plain wooden coffin, with no embalming and no concrete vault, is so revolutionary that it deserves news coverage.
Admittedly, the “green burial” movement introduces one new concept that traditional Jewish burial practices don’t employ — burial “in a woodland, where a new tree or a stone marks the grave.” Other than that, it sounds just like how Jews have been burying their dead for at least a thousand years. I was sufficiently amused that I dashed off this letter to the editor of the Herald, although I don’t know if they’ll print it:
To the editor:
If forgoing embalming, metal caskets and burial vaults exemplify “good old-fashioned Yankee simplicity and frugality” (“Eco-friendly consumers really dig green burials”, Feb. 18), then apparently the Jewish people have been Yankees for thousands of years.
The assertion that green burials are a modern invention is almost as funny as the statement I read recently on-line, “I guess Jesus knew what he was doing calling for the observance of the Sabbath.”
As we are taught in the Jewish Bible (Ecclesiastes 1:9), “There is nothing new under the sun.”
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has set off a firestorm by refusing to endorse House Resolution 106, which calls upon the Federal government to recognize the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century.
The ADL’s position is consistent with their longstanding policy not to get involved in the debate. They don’t deny that the genocide took place; indeed, there are passing references to it on their Web site as a fact of history. What they have declined to do is to enter into the debate over Turkey’s stubborn refusal to come to grips with its own history.
This story recently broke into the media when the ADL’s New England region broke ranks with the national organization and called for a change in policy, leading to the abrupt firing of the regional director, Andrew H. Tarsy.
Tarsy has been quoted describing the ADL’s policy as “morally indefensible.” A Boston Globe editorial opined, “One shouldn’t play geopolitics with genocide.” A Web search yields not a single author supporting the ADL.
In fact, the issue is not so simple. As paradoxical as it may seem, the ADL is right not to get involved, and the pundits and politicians are right to condemn them for it.
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