Beautiful Horizons

What I Did During Lunch Today

I borrowed Mercia's still camera, which can also shoot video and walked from the northeast edge of the World Trade Center site to the proposed Park51 location.

While I'm a pretty good photographer/videographer, I am not Max Ophuls and was in a bit of a hurry and apologize for the shakiness of the video.

Nevertheless, I think it shows to anyone who doesn't know the area, that calling it the "Ground Zero Mosque" is demonstrably false. I pass by the oldest Roman Catholic Church in New York, a strip joint a couple of bars and a construction site.

I want to call special attention to the first few seconds of the video. After the start of the video, you'll note a position establishing the WTC location and then a short about 90 degree pan. At the end of the pan before I start walking, you'll see two men, one in a dark shirt and another in a light shirt. They are there every day along with others trying to sell picture books about the attacks of September 11, 2001. No one speaks of denying them their first amendment right to sell the books, thus making a buck off of a tragedy. Now there's a direction for someone's outrage, but there's no political upside to it, is there Newt, Sarah, Rick, Rudy, Harry, and Carl?

Some good discussion at Marc Cooper's site. Here's the video:

Liz Cheney and John Adams

Dick Cheney's daughter has been running ads demonizing Justice Department lawyers for previous legal work as defense counsel for several detainees in the Guantanamo prison. Liz Cheney produced an attack TV ad that calls these lawyers the "al Qaeda 7."   Ms. Cheney  might do well to take a little history lesson and recall the Boston Massacre, a watershed event leading up to the American Revolution. British soldiers killed 5 American colonial civilians protesting British excesses.  The soldiers were arrested by authorities and tried for murder, but the defendants were so reviled that they had trouble finding legal counsel.  John Adams stepped forward as their lawyer. Despite his providing legal defense of soldiers who had shot and killed American civilians, he was eventually elected as 2nd President of the United States.  One can only imagine the attack ads Liz Cheney might have conjured against Adams. 

HT: Hullabaloo

Whether or not you are inclined to support Obama...

this video of his sermon this morning at Martin Luther King's Atlanta church will be good for your soul and is an appropriate commemoration of the MLK holiday with something other than nostalgia. (Click on Senator Obama - "Campaign event in Atlanta GA" at the C-Span link. A transcript is here, at unlikely ally Andrew Sullivan's.)

As I said, this one is good for your soul, even if you're not convinced of Obama's primary campaign message and are planning to pull the lever for Clinton's vaunted experience or Edwards' excellent policy agenda. Believer, unbeliever, Obama-lover or Obama-skeptic, just listen to it as an American and be proud.

He's the Reason for the Day

There is no better biographer of Martin Luther King than Taylor Branch and there is not better    chronicler of the Civil Rights Movement in this country than Taylor Branch.

That's why if you read nothing else about Martin Luther King today, read Branch's op-ed from the New York Times.

Interview With Tom Blanton

I'm not feeling well and don't have much to contribute today, except for this: I urge you to listen to the edition of Fresh Air that aired today. Terry Gross, arguably one of broadcasting's best interviewers has a long and informative discussion with Tom Blanton, the Director of the National Security Archive, a thorn in the side of those who think our government is best when it operates in secret. This good NSA turned twenty this year and continues to perform a valuable service.

I'll be back on Saturday.

Que Plus Change . . .

As someone who moved to New York from Alabama and spent much of my formative years in the Deep South, I have always made the case that racism is certainly not exclusive to the Deep South - or anywhere else for that matter.

So it pains me to read something as blatantly racist as this comment from Republican Georgia State Representative Sue Burmeister:

The chief sponsor of Georgia's voter identification law told the Justice Department that if black people in her district "are not paid to vote, they don't go to the polls," and that if fewer blacks vote as a result of the new law, it is only because it would end such voting fraud.

The newly released Justice Department memo quoting state Rep. Sue Burmeister (R-Augusta) was prepared by department lawyers as the federal government considered whether to approve the new law. It also says that despite Republican assurances the law would not disenfranchise elderly, poor and black voters, Susan Laccetti Meyers, the staff adviser for the Georgia House of Representatives, told the Justice Department "the Legislature did not conduct any statistical analysis of the effect of the photo ID requirement on minority voters."

The requirements reeks of poll tax, but aside from that, the tone of her comment is absolutely racist.  What may be even more disturbing is what Kevin Drum notes here:

But remember this: the Bush Justice Department approved Georgia's law even though they had Burmeister's statement on record. In their view, this was not sufficient evidence of any kind of racial animus in the bill. One wonders just what kind of evidence Alberto Gonzales requires.

That'll help the Republicans in their outreach to minorities. At least now we know what they really think.