AddieStan

Living the busy blogstress life, your cybertrix is prone to fall behind on her reading, as she did over the course of the last month -- which explains why, today, she offers her devotees a glimmer from a most fascinating essay that appeared in the April issue of Harper's magazine. Curtis White , a professor at Illinois State University, uses the forum to call for, in exceptionally beautiful prose, a movement of civil disobedience that would manifest itself at the most personal and individual level. Yet, in order to make his case, White jumps off from a profound question and then exposes it as one that can only lead to untrue answers: Are we fundamentally a Christian or an Enlightenment culture? No one gets off easy in White's treatise (except, perhaps, Henry David Thoreau) as he asks the following: Do Democrats really imagine that they can articulate a compelling moral vision for the United States or for the democratic West without a spiritual foundation? ...[D]o Democrats ...

Josh Marshall has some goods on the hookers-and-defense-contractors scandal that reaches into the CIA. Our Nation's Capital is abuzz that the scandal may be the reason for today's resignation of Porter Goss.

While your blogstress could not get herself exercised about the "special treatment" afforded Kennedy after he crashed his car into a Capitol Hill barricade, she is saddened by the Rhode Island congressman's handling of his situation. While Kennedy has displayed a certain courage in speaking frankly of the fact of his addiction problems and his manic depression, much appeared to be missing from his explanation of just what addictive substance caused his recent run-in with the law. (Ambien? Painkillers? Alcohol? Nausea meds?) And his revelation today that he spent his Christmas vacation in rehab seems to be news to his constituents, long past Easter. Your cybertrix was pleased that Kennedy took the opportunity to call for parity for mental health coverage in insurance plans, but would have been happier had he taken a question or two. Now, that would have been courage.

Your blogstress invites her readers to visit The American Prospect Online, and while there, she invites them to read her piece on the paid advertisement by the United Church of Christ that has been rejected by the networks, apparently for drawing a contrast between itself and churches that reject gay people as full participants in their congregations. After that, do stroll, dear reader, through the Prospect Web site, where you will feel much to admire. For eggheads, there's a wonderful conversation between Bernard-Henri Lévy and Anatol Lieven. For distraught Democrats, there's Tomasky on ideas . And there's a swell blog called Tapped . So, get, get!

Who'd'a thunk it? Your Webwench must admit, she hadn't thought of Goss as the likely target. Stansfield Turner is asserting that Goss's resignation was just that -- the CIA director's own idea -- but this move seems to smack of something less voluntary. Turner attributes it to Goss's being passed over for the newly created position of the director of national intelligence, which went to John Negroponte. Signs of disarray seem to appear daily in the Central Intelligence Agency. Is there a scandal brewing?

The suspense is killing your blogstress, mes amis . The wires are reporting that at 1:45 President Bush will make a "personnel announcement" from the Oval Office. The choice of the Oval as the venue for the announcement is interesting; it denotes something of great importance on which the president wants to take no questions. Is this about Cheney? Rove? Rummy? Watching the beleaguered Scott McClellan give his final White House briefing, as your cybertrix is doing now, she's betting the poor guy is wiping his mental brow, saying, thank God Tony Snow's gotta deal with this one.

With all the talk about whether Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI), son of the Lion of the Senate, was granted special treatment after crashing his car on Capitol Hill, your blogstress finds herself transported back to her salad days (also known as her Scotch-and-phenobarbitol days), and a conflict between her Pinto and a telephone pole. (Thank goodness it was the front end of the car that kissed the pole; hers was indeed the Ford model that came equipped with the standard exploding gas tank.) A kindly police officer took down her story, observing that the road was icy. Although he did file an accident report, your cybertrix was not charged with a crime, and was given a lift to her destination by the authorities. Note that your écrivaine was neither a congressman nor a Kennedy -- just an ordinary (if exceedingly comely) young woman.

In a fascinating piece of video, the fellas at PoliticsTV.com confront Time magazine contributor Joe Klein for going soft on President Bush, among other things. Klein's response is a fascinating bit of bob-and-weave, though he does make an arguably valid point about the public being as much to blame as the media for buying Bush's lies. Your blogstress certainly agrees that the public at large bears some responsibility for wandering around, channelling Rod Stewart (or Cheryl Crow): Still I look to find a reason to believe... However, let's not forget just from where the public learns of Bush's lies -- from people like Klein. And if people like Klein are advancing and soft-pedaling those lies, then the media needs to pick up the heavier end of the blame burden.

That's the question posed by Newsweek 's Michael Isikoff last night on MSNBC. Noting that the purported "mastermind" of 911, Khalid Sheik Mohammad, is in U.S. custody (presumably at Guantánamo), Isikoff is asking whether said mastermind will face trial in the U.S. Answering his own question, Isikoff, according to the host of "Hardball With Chris Matthews," predicted that a public prosecution of Mohammad will likely never come to pass because it would reveal the torture techniques, such as waterboarding, that were likely used to extract information from him. Well, that's one reason he's unlikely to face the scrutiny of a jury (not to mention the legal questions surrounding his "enemy combatant" status). Your blogtress dares to suggest, however, that it's not waterboarding revelations the administration fears, but rather the resurfacing of certain facts regarding the 911 plot that could raise questions about the administration's ro...

As your blogstress writes, word comes that the jury in the case of Zacharias Moussaoui, a member of the 911 terrorist plot, has sentenced him to life in prison -- not death. This is a sage decision, even if it does provoke the U.S. right to rabid denouncements of the nation's judicial system. As has been long discussed, a death sentence for Moussaoui will make a martyr out of this hateful, and likely mentally ill, would-be terrorist. Today's decision is one in which justice surely wins.

Anyone who's paid attention to the travails of the noble people of Afghanistan will not be surprised by today's New York Times report , by the indefatigable Carlotta Gall, of the Taliban's resurgence in that beleaguered nation. Of course, that would be a mere handful of Americans, since no one seems to care about the fate of the Afghans, who could be arguably credited with having ended the Cold War. From Carlotta Gall's report: In one of the most serious developments, some 200 Taliban have moved into the district of Panjwai, only a 20-minute drive from the capital of the south, Kandahar, Mr. Karzai's home city. The police and coalition forces clashed with them two weeks ago, yet the Taliban returned, walking in the villages openly with their weapons, and sitting under the trees eating mulberries, according to a resident of the district. The resident, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, said the Taliban had been demanding food, lodging and the Muslim t...

As she gets her late start at today's posting, your blogstress is listening to a most interesting discussion on today's edition of The Diane Rehm Show , a show syndicated to NPR affiliates, on the massive levels of spying focused on "U.S. persons," a category that includes U.S. citizens and others who are in the country legally. Today's show (click on the above link and click on appropriate player in the left-hand sidebar to listen to live stream) features David Cole (the Georgetown University law professor, not the Washington, D.C., guitar virtuoso), former Reagan administration Justice Department official Lee Casey, and Robert Block , the Wall Street Journal journalist who last week reported on the Defense Department's data-mining expeditions against Americans. The audio will be posted online at about noontime, EDT.

Who says J. Edgar Hoover is dead? It is not without good reason that his disgraced name remains the same as that of the building that houses the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is making itself quite busy these days snooping -- without the need of a court warrant -- on Americans. Dan Eggen writes in the The Washington Post : FBI Sought Data on Thousands in '05 The FBI sought personal information on thousands of Americans last year from banks, Internet service providers and other companies without having to seek approval from a court, according to new data released by the Justice Department. In a report to the top leaders of both parties in the House, the department disclosed that the FBI had issued more than 9,200 "national security letters," or NSLs, seeking detailed information about more than 3,500 U.S. citizens or legal residents in 2005. If you think this is about catching bin Laden, please think again, dear reader. It saddens your écrivaine to remind her...

Soon to dominate all media, the incomparable J. Scales is newly published in the anthology, Growing Up Girl by Michelle Sewell. In case you thought J. to be merely a songwriter, singer, bass player, drummer and composer of beats, think again. Her poem, "a letter to God (while thinking about my hair)," provoked a strong response from the crowd assembled at Howard University last Friday for the release-party reading. Oh, and on a completely different matter, you surely saw her in the Sunday Source section of the Washington Post .

Kudos to your blogstress's foxy friend, Glenn Kellis, for reminding us that, compared to the chimera that is our economy, war, pestilence and the de-facto suspension of the Constitution are mere nuisances. No, your cybertrix is not being ironic -- c'est vrai, mes amis, c'est vrai . For when this baby blows -- and sooner or later she must (the economy that, is -- not your Webwench), war, pestilence and oppression will be compounded manifold on a global scale. And though, here in the world's only superpower, we like to think we stand apart, we are, sad to say, actually part of the rest of le monde . Over at his Ob:Blog , Kellis offers a novel approach to dieting: Introducing the Core Rate Diet (tm)! It's so simple, too: Just do what the government does to the inflation numbers, only in this instance we're dealing with another kind of inflation. Body inflation. Intrigued? Click here to read the rest.

"Who's this, Dad?" asked your blogstress, as she sifted through a pile of ancient family photos. "Lemme see now," he replied, adjusting his glasses and taking the formal, 1920s studio shot in hand. "Oh, that's my grandfather and my Uncle Joe." Grand-Grandpa was a small, sturdy-looking man of indeterminate ethnic heritage who arrived in the U.S. from Poland in the late 19th century. Uncle Joe became a ward-heeler for the Democratic Party on the South Side of Chicago. And there, mes amis , you have the secret of why Republicans so fear immigrants.

You'll recall, mes amis , your blogstress waxing poetic on a most fascinating forum called "Why Media Matters," hosted by David Brock and his watchdog organization, Media Matters for America , and featuring Al Franken, Helen Thomas and Eleanor Clift. As promised, herewith a link to the video highlights .

Your blogstress has gotten weary of the excuses made for Colin Powell, former U.S. secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Powell remained in the administration for the entire first term, despite numerous momentous actions by Bush he is said to have opposed. The latest to revisit us is his assertion, reported here by Bloomberg , that he had recommended that the U.S. invasion of Iraq be carried out with many more troops than it was. Why do the media insist on giving this guy a pass, pretending that he acts solely from a place of honor -- a soldier honoring the chain of command? Because Powell appeared to be a moderating force in the administration (he was not), many grew attached to the retired general as evidence that the Bush administration fell short of embodying absolute evil. And after the Viet Nam disgrace, liberals tend to bend over backwards to try to prove their respect for the military. Further, as one of very few African-American generals, he is ad...

The Associated Press (AP) is reporting recently-appointed White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten's stated raison d'être : ''What the change does provide is an opportunity for the White House to step back, refresh, re-energize at a time when we're 5 1/2 years into an administration -- normally a slow point, a low point, in many administrations -- and a chance for us to get our mojo back, to go back more on the offensive and to get people within the White House to look at our operations, re-energize them for the next six months up through the election, the next 1,000 days through the end of this president's term,'' Bolten said. According to the AP, with his appointment of Fox News personality Tony Snow as the new White House Press Secretary, Bolten is considering the elimination of the daily White House press briefing, which has become ritualized in the era of the 24-hour news cycle. The article notes that the briefings throw light on reporters' noto...

In order to justify blogging on the Sabbath, your blogstress offers a new feature that will appear each Sunday: a spiritual thought for the day. Herewith a snippet from Chapter 58 of the Tao Te Ching by Lao-tzu, as translated by the great Stephen Mitchell : If a country is governed with tolerance, the people are comfortable and honest. If a country is governed with repression, the people are depressed and crafty. Prozac, anyone?