Fifty-seven steps above me, behind twelve great pillars, President Lincoln sits impassively, looking out from his memorial chamber toward the Washington Monument, illuminated against the dark backdrop of night like a needle pointing heavenward. The very top tip blinks red to ward off airplanes and, perhaps, low-flying angels.

In the reflecting pool, the monument points directly at me.

I look back at Lincoln. For the moment, he has company enough—busloads of school kids and vanloads of families. A gaggle of middle-schoolers in red sweatshirts that say “Redwood City, California” race past me, the adults looking every bit as anxious to get up the stairs as the kids.

Instead of following them, I peel away toward the south, toward the Korean War Memorial, just a few hundred yards away. Full Story »

War has to be the strangest human institution.  It brings out the the most brutal territorial animal and tribal human in us.  It also showcases extremes of selflessness, courage, and even compassion.  Today, in the United States, we celebrate our warriors in a manner that, all too often, centers on the “glory” of death in battle.  I’d like to extend this tribute to our living warriors — the ones who came home — and the battles they never left.

I think this clip from a longer film demonstrates what war is in the most eloquent manner I’ve ever seen; and it’s done without words.  It’s about 10 minutes long, but worth viewing for many of us.  If you don’t want to watch that long, scrub ahead to around 6:08, and if you’re really pressed for time, go to 7:22, but I warn you; the impact will be greater if you don’t scrub ahead.

[P]erhaps the most compelling evidence against the existence of a boys’ crisis is that men continue to outearn women in the workplace.

— from a report by the American Association of University Women, “whose 1992 report on how girls are shortchanged in the classroom caused a national debate over gender equity,” that debunks the notion of a “boys’ crisis,” saying, “Girls’ gains have not come at boys’ expense”; May 20.

I would say the president really has a choice here to show how much he values military service.

— Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., who has led the Senate’s efforts to expand education benefits for veterans, on President Bush’s threat “to veto a bill that would pay tuition and other expenses at a four-year public university for anyone who has served in the military for at least three years since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001″; May 22.
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The accessing of private passport-based travel data of all three Presidential candidates by contractors working for the State Department has finally galvanized Capitol Hill to address the issue of privacy–something we’ve been begging them to do for years. Ron Wyden sums it up succinctly:

“The Government Accountability Office has been warning about this problem for a decade. And it seems to me in this administration, there’s been pretty much a culture of disregard for privacy, and that’s part of the problem,” he said.

Wyden may have been referring to a 2006 report from the GAO documenting the lack of oversight in sharing Social Security Numbers with contractors working for various federal agencies, including the IRS and the FBI, as well as within the private sector. It is but one of many reports the investigative agency has issued documenting the serious vulnerabilities our government’s mad drive to outsource its functions to the private sector has wrought–but it’s only the tip of the iceberg. Full Story »

I know that caring for our nation’s vets is a massive task, and I know that even the best system is going to allow for exceptional cases at the fringes. But it’s been a long time since I heard anybody arguing that we have anything like the best system, and the Walter Reed debacle really called into question how committed our government is to “supporting the troops.”

This morning yet another unfortunate story found its way to me. Soldier breaks back during training, needs surgery, system won’t approve it. The wife in this story, Sarah, turns out to be somebody I know through one of my online groups, and I’m trying to imagine her pain as well as his.

Clearly our troops need more support, so maybe today I’ll make time to go buy one of those Chinese-made yellow ribbon magnets for my car. Maybe if they hang a really big one on the side of Walter Reed….