INTO THE FRAY

OLD BUSINESS. Jurist and current legal analyst Andrew Napolitano asserts in both print and on camera that former President George W. Bush and former Vice-President Dick Cheney should be indicted for their blatant, unconstitutional violations of habeus corpus and of individual civil rights during the days following 9/11. This, in light of the fact that hundreds of Arab-American citizens were rounded up and jailed without charges, without the representation of an attorney, and without bail. Napolitano makes a compelling argument. Bush and Cheney have a record of participating in criminal conspiracies, not least of which was lying to Congress and the American people about the (non-existent) threat of weapons of mass destruction as a pretext for invading Iraq in 2003, as well as the subsequent kidnapping ("rendition") and torture of foreign nationals vaguely suspected of being terrorists. Time for some accountability.










NEW BUSINESS. The NAACP has challenged the Tea Party movement to weed out racist elements from its ranks. Tea Party members are proudly blatant in their absurd verbal and visual vilification of President Obama (see a sample roadside billboard below -- lately removed for being "counterproductive." Gee, ya think?), and downright vicious in their racist verbal attacks on black members of Congress. Tea Party spokespersons like Sarah Palin deny the allegation, naturally. Here is a brief video clip on the controversy.















"WHAT IF?" BUSINESS. Child: "Did you ever smoke pot?" Parent: "It's complicated." A recent NYTimes article explores this quandary for parents, with humor and insight. Assuming that the parent in question did indeed smoke pot back in the day, should one say No, in order to occupy the moral high ground (at the cost of lying) -- or should one say Yes, and risk being accused of hypocrisy when cautioning youth against the use of drugs and alcohol? The article offers a satisfactory common-sense resolution.

BTW. By the way, here we are at the Ides of July, with Missoula daytime temperatures hovering in the high 80s dF, yet there remains a dusting of snow atop the highest peaks of the Bitterroot Mountains, visible from the valley -- a paradoxical result of our long, cool Spring. Montana is a land of unpredictable contrasts.