slow going

The Washington Post has an article on some of the day-to-day work of rebuilding Iraq. At times it's ha-ha-only-crying funny:

“So the economy? Boy,” Sherman said, rubbing his brow, “you got me there. Big problem.”

But the ending section--about an attempt to weed Najaf's judiciary of its most corrupt members--brings some joy to a sap like me:

Roe sought out the women and convinced them they had rights — as women, as lawyers. “This is the first time in our lives we have experienced democracy. It is a beautiful thing,” Kassar said. “Everyone is excited. Everyone is here. All the lawyers standing in the sun. Not complaining. Coming to vote.”

Kassar said that before, “the women attorneys were pushed into a small narrow corner.” They could practice a limited specialty of civil litigation, essentially securing benefits for widows and juveniles. “All the big cases, all the criminal cases, they were decided at tables outside of the courthouse. You understand?” Kassar said. “Women could not sit at these tables.”

Distressingly, the article doesn't say how the weeding turned out.

(no subject)

The New York Observer has an interview with Jayson Blair, the reporter whose made-up stories prompted a 7000-word investigative apology from the Times. Pundits, as you may know, have suggested that Blair was an undeserving beneficiary of affirmative action, and that senior editors let him get away with his shameful acts as long as he did because he's black. ( Read more... )

more politics

Via Daily Kos: Christie Whitman, former governor of New Jersey, has resigned as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

One name mentioned by administration officials as a possible successor was ... Josephine Cooper, president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

James's response: "i guess whitman just wasn't obvious enough. after all, not everybody's been to new jersey."

Here's a sympathetic profile of Cooper from the Duke alumni magazine in 1996, when she was vice president of Environment and Regulatory Affairs for the American Forest and Paper Association.

(no subject)

I'd like to draw your attention to the new garageband.com page for piano-playing singer-songwriter Anne Heaton, who is funkier than the piano-playing singer-songwriter you're imagining. "Megan and Kevin" is irresistibly cute, or, if you're more cute-resistant than I am, try "Take Your Desire".

In other music news, I've discovered that my iPod contains, all in an alphabetical row:

• "Poor Little Fish" by the Jayhawks, from Sound of Lies
  
• "Poor Napoleon" by Elvis Costello, accompanied live by Bill Frisell
  
• "Poor, Poor L.A." from Tim Easton's latest record

This makes me happy. So does this lyric, from the Tim Easton song:

A pack of dull monkeys could write circles around that fourth-grade, mumbly-slang, stream-of-consciousness jive that you call a song--is that gonna be your story?