The World Around You

Today is the 25th anniversary of C-SPAN. Congratulations to the staff of the network and a special thanks to Mr. Brian Lamb for his years of dedication and service to this outstanding endeavor. I don’t know what I would do without it. I am proud to be a C-SPAN junkie.

*UPDATE: James believes Lamb is a superior journalist. I would have to agree. And Brian’s a fellow Purdue alum!

I’m so glad to know that this is the piece of Alabama news running in today’s New York Times.

ALABAMA: FIGHT OVER OFFICIAL STATE WHISKEY Alabama is fighting over whether to name an official state whiskey that has its origins in the state’s history of bootlegging. The Legislature overwhelmingly passed a resolution to declare Conecuh Ridge Fine Alabama Whiskey the “official state spirit,” but Gov. Bob Riley vetoed the resolution. The fight is not over. The House of Representatives voted 54 to 7 to override the veto. If the Senate also overrides the veto in the next few weeks, Conecuh Ridge will be officially recognized. (AP)

The Governor should be congratulated for trying to stop this ridiculous exercise, especially when the legislature has not accomplished much of anything else this term. There is a lot of work to be done and the mere fact that the representatives on Goat Hill would waste their time with this trivial pursuit enrages me to no end.

Donald Rumsfeld has an Op-Ed in today’s New York Times. I love how he can continue to talk out of both sides of his mouth, I really do. We keep hearing about how this is a different kind of war, but he spends half the piece talking about a trip to Korea and the parallels between what happened 50 years ago and the events in Iraq and Afghanistan.

However, I do want to agree with his sentiments in the final paragraph, thanking the soldiers who are laying down their lives every day in Iraq,

You join a long line of generations of Americans who have fought freedom’s fight. Thank you.

And thank you, thank you, thank you for your service.

Still, on this anniversary of the beginning of the war, we have to go deeper than that sentiment. With everything we know now, about Sadaam’s acts and about what he didn’t possess, was it still the right decision? I don’t believe it was, but this anniversary also reminds us that we can’t change the past. The decision was made and we need to pick up the pieces and help the Iraqis build a stable government that belongs to them. I have about as much confidence that this administration can accomplish this task as I do that President Bush is reading Dude, Where’s My Country right now.

*UPDATE: James sees a different irony here.

Well it appears the officer who stopped state representative Alvin Holmes has been caught in the crossfire between Holmes and Montgomery County Sheriff D.T. Marshall. Marshall can’t stand Holmes and the fact that it appears one of his deputies may have had the man dead to rights and let him go has just been eating away at the man.

So, yesterday the deputy was suspended for 60 days without pay. I truly feel sorry for this officer of the law, who obviously understood the law about legislators as most law enforcement officers did. The fact that Marshall wishes he would have handled it differently, considering the person involved, is irrelevant.

Furthermore, the fact that the officer found out about his suspension via the television is ridiculous. I hope the deputy wins his appeal of this ridiculous suspension.