Commentary Update For September 30, 2003
1. This Week's Show: This week's show features a half-hour interview with Oshkosh Common Councilors paul Esslinger and Mark Harris. We actually interviewed them for an hour, but a technical glitch eliminated half the program. We will try and have them back again in the near future to redo part of the interview. In the segment that will be on the air, we spend a good deal of time talking about the restaurant no-smoking ordinance and why it failed. Mr. Harris claims that the Breathe Free Oshkosh is currently organizing a direct legislation referendum to try and get the measure approved that way.
2. Remember Poverty?: One thing I find extraordinary about the modern United States is the extent to which poverty has become an annual statistic. Here's the latest figures from the Washington Post. Whatever were the faults of Johnson's Great Society--and there were many--at least it generated a national discussion of the causes and possible solutions to the problem of poverty. Perhaps the great irony is that those portions of Dubya's $87 billion Iraq request that are not military related are essentially designed for what might be termed antipoverty measures (rebuilding infrastructure is a major element of fighting poverty in any country).
3. "The [women] know that getting knocked up is a ticket out of this s--thole": That's according to a US corporal in Iraq, talking about women soldiers in this disturbing look at troop morale from the Toronto Sun. Equally as disturbing is this Associated Press report talking about the proliferation of ransom kidnappings in Baghdad. This report from today (Sept. 30) suggests almost that full-scale war has resumed:
A military spokesman said US forces had come under attack 20 times in the past 24 hours and that they had detained 73 Iraqis during that time.
The incidents follow a protracted battle Monday when US troops had to resort to tanks, helicopters and fighter jets after a convoy came under rocket-propelled grenade and bomb attack near the central city of Khaldiyah.
Witnesses in Khaldiyah said US soldiers took heavy casualties, and AFP correspondents saw two Black Hawk helicopters land there, one of which left with four wounded. Helicopters and a US warplane roared overhead.
4. Simile of the Week: From the Washington Post's David Ignatius, in a mostly optimistic assessment of what's going down in Baghdad, writing about Viceroy Bremer and his staff: "Bremer's headquarters, inside the old Republican Palace, feels like a terrarium in which an American bureaucracy has sprouted like an exotic plant. Inside, 1,000 Americans are trying to run a large country about which they know very little. The compound is known as 'the green zone, with the implication that what's outside is a different world."
5. Sucking Sound Gets Louder: Early in the summer Levi Strauss began
to market a brand of jeans called "Signature" that are sold in Wal-Mart.
Then last week the jeans giant announced
the closure of its last remaining manufacturing plants in the US and Canada.
You can connect the dots. Mark
Fiore's satire pretty much sums up what's going on with the economy.