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May 23, 2005
Summer Reading (That Lasts the Whole Summer?)
Remember former President Bill Clinton's loquacious (969 pages) memoir My Life? Well, the new paperback version is even longer. Even Bill admits in the new edition that the book might have been a little too long and identifies his wife, Hillary Clinton, as a possible culprit after her breakout success with Living History put even more pressure on Bill's book. As a result, according the Associated Press, reading My Life was like being trapped "in a small room with a very gregarious man who insists on reading his entire appointment book, day by day, beginning in 1946."
Posted by Mandy Smithberger at 04:00 PM | Comments (10)
May 19, 2005
Time to Get a Front-Row Seat
I continue to be held completely enthralled by the "nuclear option" showdown, for no identifiable reason. Some more socially-minded bloggers have pointed out that there is a real war going on that Congress might want to focus on, and I'm ashamed to admit that the thought hadn't occured to me until they mentioned it. There's something about all the bitterness and partisanship of the past five years and more all coming down to one huge showdown that is making me spend every morning with the newspaper.
The battleground has been named, and it is Priscilla Owens, a judge so radically conservative that our current Attorney General Alberto Gonzales once denounced her for going to unprincipled lengths to advance her conservative agenda (RawStory.com). Check her out for yourself at IndependentJudiciary.com.
Posted by Elizabeth Tangora at 05:06 AM | Comments (9)
May 17, 2005
It's good to be home
While it's a slow news period pretty much everywhere, my ol' hometown doesn't disappoint; Chicago has multiple government scandals opening for the summer. There's the scandal about the 840 trucks full of asphalt missing (mysteriously unaccounted for), though the real scandal brewing is the investigation into how current governor Ron Blagojevich allegedly rewarded campaign contributions with cushy jobs. In a real homage to the old Chicago patronage system, some of these jobs were "jobs", as in: people didn't actually have to do something to get a paycheck from the state of Illinois. And the source of these allegations? A falling out between the governor and his father-in-law, another powerful Chicago politician.
The things you miss when you're out on the east coast.
Posted by Elizabeth Tangora at 01:40 AM | Comments (806)
May 01, 2005
Virus Warning
If you get an instant message that says something along the lines of 'Hey, click this' with a link, don't click on it! It's a virus that seems to be going through campuses across the country. Finals are stressful enough without your computer crashing.
Posted by Mandy Smithberger at 01:43 PM | Comments (0)