Too good not to post

This family of non-human vertebrates reportedly lives with a homeless individual in Santa Barbara.
To life!

William F.Buckley, long-time opponent of drug prohibition: a memoir

Monday, March 3, 2008

William F. Buckley, Jr., conservative intellectual–and supporter of drug policy reform–passed away February 27, 2008. He is remembered by Ira Glasser, president of DPA’s board and former executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union:

It was sometime in the eighties. I had been the Executive Director of the ACLU for a number of years, and the ED of the New York Civil Liberties Union before that, and had in that capacity debated William F. Buckley, Jr. on his show Firing Line, a number of times on a variety of issues, including the always contentious question, which had been boiling and bubbling since the late sixties, of whether using the American flag to express opposition to American policies, both domestic and foreign, could be criminalized.

We called it symbolic speech, the idea that the flag symbolized American constitutional freedoms, including the right to denounce it, superimpose it with doves (the then-current symbol of peace) or even burn it to communicate the notion that American ideals were going up in smoke.

To read the rest of Glasser’s story, about Buckley’s staunch (and perhaps surprising) belief in the idiocy of drug prohibition, click here.

The Folly of Experience

Are they experienced? Stanley Kutler takes a critical look at the (over-)emphasis on experience in anything resembling the Oval Office before a candidate assumes the presidency.

by Stanley Kutler (published in TruthDig)

Experience is the word du jour in this political season. The debate over experience cuts two ways—it is, of course, a politician’s, not a historian’s, argument.

John McCain and Hillary Clinton have used it as a major talking point in support of their own candidacies and to build a case against Barack Obama. But presidential history attaches little importance to experience; it is strikingly absent in the historical credentials of our most honored presidents. Certainly, inexperience blighted some recent presidencies, including those of John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and, more memorably, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. In 1945, shortly after Harry Truman became president following Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death, Director of the Budget Harold Smith compiled a summary of Truman’s votes and statements on issues through the years. Truman thanked Smith and then added: “What I have said or done before I was president has no bearing on what I will say or do now.” And how did all that experience prepare Truman for the fateful news he received upon FDR’s death about the development of an atomic weapon?

Read the rest here.

(Historian Stanley Kutler was of considerable help in my research for The Prince of War. Thanks again, Stanley.)

Answering the call

Taking the Call on Black Men

By Richard Cohen
Washington Post
Tuesday, March 4, 2008; Page A19

What if the White House phone rang in the middle of the night and the president was told that one in every nine black men ages 20 to 34 was behind bars? What if the red phone rang at 3 a.m. and the president was told that among black men 18 or older, the figure was one in 15? If the president was like any of his (or her) predecessors, he’d pull the blankets over his face and go right back to sleep.

Cohen says Obama should answer that red phone in the middle of the night. Read more here.

The myths of terrorism

The Fading Jihadists
By David Ignatius

Washington Post
Thursday, February 28, 2008

Politicians who talk about the terrorism threat — and it’s already clear that this will be a polarizing issue in the 2008 campaign — should be required to read a new book by a former CIA officer named Marc Sageman. It stands what you think you know about terrorism on its head and helps you see the topic in a different light.

Sageman has a resume that would suit a postmodern John le Carré. He was a case officer running spies in Pakistan and then became a forensic psychiatrist. What distinguishes his new book, Leaderless Jihad, is that it peels away the emotional, reflexive responses to terrorism that have grown up since Sept. 11, 2001, and looks instead at scientific data Sageman has collected on more than 500 Islamic terrorists — to understand who they are, why they attack and how to stop them.

The heart of Sageman’s message is that we have been scaring ourselves into exaggerating the terrorism threat — and then by our unwise actions in Iraq making the problem worse. He attacks head-on the central thesis of the Bush administration, echoed increasingly by Republican presidential candidate John McCain, that, as McCain’s Web site puts it, the United States is facing “a dangerous, relentless enemy in the War against Islamic Extremists” spawned by al-Qaeda.

click here to read more

No shotgun wedding for Medford

Former Buncombe County Sheriff Bobby Medford will be released to house arrest following today’s hearing on an appeal of his detention. At the behest of the government prosecutors, his three co-defendants were accorded the same treatment by Judge Thomas Selby Ellis III.

The session started with consideration of Medford’s appeal, but after both the prosecution and defense had laid out their cases, Ellis set the matter aside to consider detention of his co-defendants. Medford was sent out and Johnny Harrison was brought into the courtroom. While Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Edwards had argued for Medford’s detention, he immediately announced that the prosecution would move that Harrison, Guy Penland and Ronnie Davis, Medford’s codefendants, should be released to house arrest.

Each of the defendants was required to pledge substantial property or assets as a surety bond for release.

After a lunchtime recess, Ellis once again took up the question of Medford’s detention. While he affirmed that Medford’s age and potential sentence might amount to a life term and therefore pose a strong incentive for flight, Ellis said he deemed the likelihood of flight was small, particularly within the strict confines of house detention with radio monitoring. However he carefully weighed the strong possibility that Medford might attempt to obstruct justice through contact with potential witnesses, other collaborators or potential jury members. Ellis said that the question came down to the difference between the government’s monitoring of Medford’s communication from a jail and from home coupled with the chance that he would attempt or succeed in contacting others.

In the end, Ellis opted for strict home confinement. Medford would be restricted to his home except for pre-approved appointments with legal counsel or doctors. In the case of emergency medical care the judge said, “There will have to be an ambulance in the driveway,” in order for Medford to leave without previous clearance. But “home” proved to be a problem.

Medford has lived with Judi Bell for about two years. (Bell testified in court today that they have been an item for 20 years, but cohabited for two). The judge considered appointing Bell as Medford’s custodian, but Bell is likely to be called as a witness, so Ellis could not permit them to continue cohabiting pending trial. He noted that if they were married, Medford could claim that her testimony was privileged, but as cohabitants that was not permitted. Bell offered to move out, but that would have left Medford unmonitored.

Defense attorney Stephen Lindsay suggested that Medford and Bell could get married, “tomorrow,” in an apparent attempt to empower the marriage privilege, but Judge Ellis indicated his belief that the privilege would not be so extended.

In the end, the judge determined that Medford must live with his sister and her husband pending trial.”The trial is not far off,” said Ellis. “It will begin March 25. I’m from a jurisdiction where continuances are as rare as hen’s teeth.”

Medford and the others will be released as soon as probation office home inspections and bond paperwork are complete.

A new year’s message from Carl Sagan

End of argument: climate change for dummies

Check this out, the argument is over.

Interview with U.S. Senate candidate Jim Neal

Jim Neal is running for the U.S. Senate seat currently occupied by Sen. Elizabeth Dole. I recorded an interview with Neal last Friday. It will air on my radio show, Blows Against the Empire, on WPVM 103.5 FM Asheville, Friday, Dec. 21, at about 11:30 a.m.

You can listen in at wpvm.org, and stream the archived show for a week starting on Saturday, by going to wpvm.org and clicking on the archive tab.

Bothwell bumped by Xpress: Lite calls it “foolish and short-sighted”

I was fired last week by my longtime employer Mountain Xpress, Asheville’s premiere alternative newsweekly.

Though blogs and letters to the editor have included much speculation about the reasons for the firing, I am not authorized to speak for the paper, nor will I speculate about what motivated my employer to fire me. When they fired me, both Managing Editor Jon Elliston and Publisher Jeff Fobes mentioned the $500 I contributed to a political campaign, though there is no policy at the paper concerning donations.

In response to the blog speculations, Asheville City Council candidate Elaine Lite said, “I certainly hope it wasn’t the campaign donation that tipped the scales. Cecil Bothwell is such an amazing journalist … and this is such a foolish and short-sighted action on their part. How will Asheville survive without Cecil’s insight and stellar investigative writing?”

The paper only hinted at its reasons for firing me in its Oct. 31 issue, asserting that “the issues between Cecil and Xpress are long-standing ones that all parties involved have been discussing and attempting to resolve for years.” In a blog entry, Elliston denied that the campaign contribution was the reason for the sacking. However, a week later, Fobes accused me of working for the Lite campaign, a false charge, but one which appeared to reassert the importance of the campaign cash.

My assignments and the paper’s direction changed significantly by the summer of 2006. I stopped pushing the envelope. The last meaningful editorial dispute I can recall was probably a year ago. I used to investigate, write and advocate publication of deep investigative reporting on the sheriff, violations of city ordinances like the Staples sign and other hot issues. My writing assignments became more diverse, though I continued to cover County Commission meetings and other political issues. I started writing more theater, dance and book reviews together with gardening columns, feature stories as well as outdoor and environmental writing.

(While I didn’t do any work for the Lite campaign before being fired, limiting my involvement to a contribution, I am now free to do so. For more info about Lite or to order a yard sign, visit the campaign Web site.)

Coming only two days after I won the paper’s annual readers’ poll for best writer, the loss of my job was a shock. I was surprised and saddened by the termination of my job. I have been employed full-time by the paper for more than five years, and wrote the paper’s first cover story thirteen years ago.

My relationship with Jeff and Jon has been cordial and cooperative, and throughout my tenure at the paper I have received regular raises and bonuses. In August, Jon even signed on as co-author of a piece on the Nixon/Graham tapes, a story he then posted for national distribution. Then he suggested the paper publish a review of my book, The Prince of War: Billy Graham’s Crusdade for a Wholly Christian Empire. Jon stopped in my office after it was on the street to ask how I felt about it. The review was quite critical of my book and included an unsubstantiated attack on one of the hundreds of academic sources cited, but I didn’t utter a word of complaint that the paper hired a Christian evangelical to write the review. Instead, I allowed that it was reasonably fair and had included some positive comments.

Fobes had questioned the adverse effect on the paper of my Graham book back in the summer, but I asserted its possible benefits for Xpress. This was followed by the decision to commission and publish a cover story about Graham including a review of my unauthorized biography, which set the tone for a great working environment, in my mind, at least.

“By silencing one of its most trustworthy voices, the Mountain Xpress has shot itself in the foot, hammered a nail in its own coffin and set itself on the tried and untrusted road to media-ocrity,” wrote Peggy Seeger to the Xpress.

As I tell people who ask me about my plans, I love Asheville and hope to continue calling it home.