On this, the 33rd anniversary of the death of the King (bet you thought I’d forgotten; fat chance), here are our top headlines:
- U.S. to Tighten Reviews for New Offshore Drilling Plans (NYT) — A dry lede, but on the whole a slow news day. Hey, it’s August, people.
- Obama under fire for Ground Zero mosque defence (BBC) — Picking up on this story a bit late because of the weekend, but here it is now.
- Now, Obama Has Rhetorical Tics. So … (NPR) — Just a light sidebar, for those of us who love words. What I’d like to see is this story reported by Mark Sanford: “I would say, at the end of the day, that the President has some verbal ticks. To be continued…”
- Karzai Says He’ll Disband Foreign Security Firms (WSJ) — A move that’s going to be really unpopular with VIPs in that country. And help me remember: Didn’t such foreign hired guns save Karzai’s own personal bacon at least once in the past? Interesting turn of events.
- James J. Kilpatrick, Conservative Voice in Print and on TV, Dies at 89 (NYT) — Wow. First Elvis, now Kilpo. Who’s left?
- S.C. football player dies after collapsing on field (thestate.com) — Why does this keep happening? What are these kids doing that keeps killing them? And is it important enough (I’m thinking of football practice in the summer, for instance) to keep doing it?
One more story that is historic, but I couldn’t decide what I wanted to bump to include it. Well, yes, I could decide, but the football player thing was the only local item I had. Sometimes you sacrifice importance to “mix.” It’s complicated.
Anyway, the story is, “Militants Overtake India as Top Threat, Says Pakistan’s ISI,” from the WSJ. Another contender was the still-unfolding disaster story from that same country.
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Actually, here’s a story that’s more important than anything above, but I left it off because it broke yesterday morning. And now I’m having second thoughts about that: “Gen. Petraeus: 2011 Afghan Exit Could Be Impossible.”
Kilpatrick was in favor of Massive Resistance in Virginia, which is something that’s hard to forgive. I did a couple major projects on school desegregation in Richmond, and seeing so many powerful people do so much for something so heinous kind of makes you lose faith in humanity.
I don’t know if the football player deaths (and the recruit deaths) are a result of
1. something remediable, like proper hydration and electrolyte replenishment or better medical screening,or
2. these people are just cardiac time bombs that would go off sooner or later–they would never have a normal lifespan, or
3. these deaths are inevitable in the heat but totally preventable–the individuals would live normal lives but for the extreme exertion.
If it’s 1 or 3, we need to rethink this.
Re: the so-called Ground Zero mosque, per Salon.com
‘Just a quick digest of the worst lies: It’s not a “ground zero mosque,” it’s a Muslim community center with a prayer room two blocks from ground zero; there’s another mosque two blocks away; it’s not, as the blowhard Newt Gingrich says, “like the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor.” We’re not at war with Islam, we’re at war with al-Qaida.’
Did news about the woman who suffocated her kids before strapping them in a car and pushing it the river come out after today’s edition of the Brad Headlines? That would be my lede story at the appropriate time. A really sick event.
Let’s talk about the Japanese putting up something in Pearl Harbor. If they were to put some type of memorial to the people killed during the war, from both sides, I’d see nothing wrong with it provided it wasn’t within viewing distance of the Arizona memorial.
Of course this isn’t an exact analogy. Many Muslims were killed on 9-11. And there were also Muslim first responders during that crisis. Really folks. This shouldn’t even be a topic of discussion. They have a damn strip club within 2 blocks of ground zero. Wouldn’t that be a desecration?