Areas of Unrest

25 February 2001 - All the News That Has Me in Fits

QOTD: "Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." - Will Rogers

Reading: A. R. Ellis (ed.), Under Scott's Command: Lashly's Antarctic Diaries

Listening to: soundtrack of Genghis Blues

As usual, the newspaper provides fertile grounds for ranting. What has me concerned is not the actual stories themselves, but which items get coverage and which don't. For example, our bombing of Iraq is not really news. The recent episode was the seventh time we'd bombed Iraq since the beginning of 2001 and the fourth time since Bush took office. It isn't that there weren't any differences, apparently having to do with what is and isn't within the no-fly zone and what approvals are needed as a result, but the coverage was entirely out of proportion to the actual event.

Another thing which is being addressed rather oddly is the question of the presidential pardons. The Marc Rich case is really the wrong one to be focusing on, since one could easily argue that criminal charges should never have been filed in that matter. (Of the hundreds of other similar cases, Rich was the only one who ever had criminal charges filed against him.) The really questionable Clinton pardon, where one could make a more convincing argument about bribery, was the New Square matter.

None of which is a valid argument for eliminating the presidential pardon power. The reason for that power is well-established and most presidents have applied it well. A handful of abuses (and I'd consider Bush Sr.'s pardon of Weinberger to be the most abusive example in my lifetime) don't invalidate the need for the pardon authority.

Incidentally, what disturbs me most about the New Square case (and, to some extent about Marc Rich) is the Jewish angle. I know it's unrealistic, that we're just people, but I expect us to behave better. At the same time, if I heard a non-Jew saying that, I'd claim it was anti-Semitic to expect Jews to follow a higher ethical standard. Oh, well, I never claimed to be consistent.

I've also been fascinated by the Robert Philip Hanssen spy case. It's pretty frightening how much damage he did, but there is one aspect of the story which elevates it above the sordid levels of, say, Aldrich Ames. Namely, the letters between Hanssen and his handler. I heard several excerpts read on NPR and they were almost poetic. Which makes his actions all the more chilling to me. This was a man who knew full well all of the implications of what he was doing and chose to provide information that probably led directly to the deaths of Americans. That he was so intelligent and perceptive a person magnifies the evil, in my opinion.

Not that all the news is bad. For example, this week's celebrity news is not an obituary for a change. Instead, I am rejoicing that Vikram Seth has been knighted. I remember reading The Golden Gate when it first came out and being blown away by how clever it was. A Suitable Boy got a lot of attention for its length, but I was so absorbed it could have gone on for another thousand pages. My favorite work by Seth, though, is From Heaven Lake, which is his account of his travels through Western China and Tibet. I also love his version of "The Tortoise and the Hare" in Beastly Tales. It's nice to see him getting the recognition he so richly deserves.

And, still on the good news front, there was a marvelous story in the Sunday L.A. Times about a family who get along by recycling cans and bottles, collected largely from restaurants and hotels, as well as dumpsters. What made the story so cheering was that they have two children in college now, including a son who is at M.I.T. (and, apparently, doing well there.) Poor immigrants struggling to get by and fulfilling the American dream is something I am always a sucker for.