October
5, 2006
Over a week into baby life, and we are doing well.
Aidan is growing quickly--according to our visit with the midwife
today, he is already up to eleven pounds. Craziness. His sleep patterns
are not too bad--he spends a lot of the day sleeping, waking up
more and more often and for longer periods with each passing day.
At night? Well, he does okay. He likes to sleep in bed with us--he
is very clingy, and likes to be held as much as possible. It's a
habit we hope to break sometime, but for now, it's okay. After all,
he's barely a week old.
And Maria? Doing well. Each day she gets to feeling
stronger and stronger. She still spends most of her time reclining
on the couch, as per my demands--I worry about her, and it helps
her relax. She and I work pretty well with Aidan, taking turns on
everything--she mostly handles diaper changes during the day, and
I wake up for them at night (I do help out with them during the
day as well, when I can). Apart from that, she and I are just trying
to survive--feed the baby, feed ourselves, and get used to this
new life.
And I'm really digging it. Aidan is a sweet baby--he
doesn't fuss too much, and when he does, it's not shrill, like many
babies. He likes to be held, but honestly, it's hard to mind that
too much. I've watched a lot of movies this week, most of them with
my infant son sound asleep on my shoulder...and that's really cool.
A strange feeling, but nice. (My wife questions whether films like
Do the Right Thing are quite appropriate for him, with
their language; I figure a) he's asleep, b) language isn't big with
him now anyways, and c) better to start him off with great films
than with garbage. That's why he watches The Daily Show
with me, too!)
Anyways, in house, life is good. Outside of here?
Well, I'll close today by letting Garrison
Keillor's recent Chicago Tribune editorial speak for
me...
* *
*
*
*
Congress' shameful retreat
from American values
Published October 4, 2006
I would not send my college kid off for a semester
abroad if I were you. Last week, we suspended human rights in
America, and what goes around comes around. Ixnay habeas corpus.
The U.S. Senate, in all its splendor and majesty,
decided that an "enemy combatant" is any non-citizen
whom the president says is an enemy combatant, including your
Korean greengrocer or your Swedish grandmother or your Czech
au pair, and can be arrested and held for as long as authorities
wish without any right of appeal to a court of law to examine
the matter. If your college kid were to be arrested in Bangkok
or Cairo, suspected of "crimes against the state"
and held in prison, you'd assume that an American foreign service
officer would be able to speak to your kid and arrange for a
lawyer, but this may not be true anymore. Be forewarned.
The Senate also decided it's up to the president
to decide whether it's OK to make these enemies stand naked
in cold rooms for a couple of days in blinding light and be
beaten by interrogators. This is now purely a bureaucratic matter:
The plenipotentiary stamps the file "enemy combatants"
and throws the poor schnooks into prison and at his leisure
he tries them by any sort of kangaroo court he wishes to assemble
and they have no right to see the evidence against them, and
there is no appeal. This was passed by 65 senators and will
now be signed by President Bush, put into effect, and in due
course be thrown out by the courts.
It's good that Barry Goldwater is dead because
this would have killed him. Go back to the Senate of 1964--Goldwater,
Dirksen, Russell, McCarthy, Javits, Morse, Fulbright--and you
won't find more than 10 votes for it.
None of the men and women who voted for this
bill has any right to speak in public about the rule of law
anymore, or to take a high moral view of the Third Reich, or
to wax poetic about the American Ideal. Mark their names. Any
institution of higher learning that grants honorary degrees
to these people forfeits its honor. Alexander, Allard, Allen,
Bennett, Bond, Brownback, Bunning, Burns, Burr, Carper, Chambliss,
Coburn, Cochran, Coleman, Collins, Cornyn, Craig, Crapo, DeMint,
DeWine, Dole, Domenici, Ensign, Enzi, Frist, Graham, Grassley,
Gregg, Hagel, Hatch, Hutchison, Inhofe, Isakson, Johnson, Kyl,
Landrieu, Lautenberg, Lieberman, Lott, Lugar, Martinez, McCain,
McConnell, Menendez, Murkowski, Nelson of Florida, Nelson of
Nebraska, Pryor, Roberts, Rockefeller, Salazar, Santorum, Sessions,
Shelby, Smith, Specter, Stabenow, Stevens, Sununu, Talent, Thomas,
Thune, Vitter, Voinovich, Warner.
To paraphrase Sir Walter Scott: Mark their
names and mark them well. For them, no minstrel raptures swell.
High though their titles, proud their name, boundless their
wealth as wish can claim, these wretched figures shall go down
to the vile dust from whence they sprung, unwept, unhonored
and unsung.
Three Republican senators made a show of opposing
the bill and after they'd collected all the praise they could
get, they quickly folded. Why be a hero when you can be fairly
sure that the court will dispose of this piece of garbage.
If, however, the court does not, then our country
has taken a step toward totalitarianism. If the government can
round up someone and never be required to explain why, then
it's no longer the United States as you and I always understood
it. Our enemies have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.
They have made us become like them.
I got some insight last week into who supports
torture when I went down to Dallas to speak at Highland Park
Methodist Church. It was spooky. I walked in, was met by two
burly security men with walkie-talkies, and within 10 minutes
was told by three people that this was the Bushes' church and
that it would be better if I didn't talk about politics. I was
there on a book tour for "Homegrown Democrat," but
they thought it better if I didn't mention it. So I tried to
make light of it: I told the audience, "I don't need to
talk politics. I have no need even to be interested in politics--I'm
a citizen, I have plenty of money and my grandsons are at least
12 years away from being eligible for military service."
And the audience applauded! Those were their sentiments exactly.
We've got ours, and who cares?
The Methodists of Dallas can be fairly sure
that none of them will be snatched off the streets, flown to
Guantanamo Bay, stripped naked, forced to stand for 48 hours
in a freezing room with deafening noise. So why should they
worry? It's only the Jews who are in danger, and the homosexuals
and gypsies. The Christians are doing fine. If you can't trust
a Methodist with absolute power to arrest people and not have
to say why, then whom can you trust?
* *
*
*
* |
