On the CNN’s Reliable Sources this morning, new host David Folkenflik hosted three female journalists, including Judy Woodruff and Candy Crowley in considering the career and legacy of Helen Thomas. The entire discussion addressed Thomas’s groundbreaking career and generous influence on young women journalists like Woodruff and Crowley. Just before the end of the discussion, […]
As the sad red earth Turns
As you know if you have been a follower of this blog, I have withdrawn from the regular blogging of the past nearly five years in order to devote more of that time and energy to longer-form and more varied writing projects. The sad red earth is transforming into my writing website, where I will […]
The Case against James Clapper: the Metadata Deception and the Smear of Ron Wyden
At least one prominent member of the national security establishment, and a prominent legal blog, have come out in defense of Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper by attempting to smear Senator Ron Wyden. This past March 12 at an open hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Wyden, Democrat from Oregon, asked […]
A Second Look: The Uncanny John Mearsheimer
The weekend found me in my cyber perambulations encountering greater than the usual concentration of anti-Semitic eruptions from the maw of the uncivilizing world. We withdraw from the end of history. It produced my own ironic rants in twitter eruption, first on Saturday, again on Sunday. Some meditation on the nature of that ur-hatred that […]
Three Proposals for Altering the State of Surveillance
These several weeks after Edward Snowden’s arguable NSA “revelations” have offered several other kinds of revelation, including one additional that is also arguably not new – about how very badly reflexive political posturing contributes to the proper understanding of national issues or effective public debate. Let it be noted as further revealed for a broader […]