derivative work

I’ve never known quite what it means to love one’s country. A moral failing apparently. The land? The individuals who live there? The history? The government? I really, really love the land in North America — the contours, the mountains, the trees. Agricultural products native to the americas include bell peppers, corn, chocolate, potatoes (or [...]

From a Bush press conference last week: Q: Mr. President, I wanted to return to the question of torture. What we’ve learned from these memos this week is that the Department of Justice lawyers and the Pentagon lawyers have essentially worked out a way that U.S. officials can torture detainees without running afoul of the [...]

Today, I saw on salon.com a blurb about New Hampshire Is for Lovers The Jumper: When the aging ex-president leapt from a plane this time, he would prove — hands down and forever, time eternal — which party was more badass and steel-balled By Dave Eggers Haha, I chuckled. A funny joke about the machismo [...]

frankly i’m sick & tired of hearing all about reagan. he was charming & likable (to the rich & the conservative). he destroyed the soviet union (which was on a rapid slide to self-destruction). etc. anyway i am just irritated half to death by the reagan worship that is everywhere. it’s not surprising that he [...]

A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” – James Madison, from a letter [...]