Well, the Capital Police have apologized for arresting Cindy Sheehan last night, at the president’s annual Trust Me, I’m Not A Megalomaniac speech. Which is nice. What would’ve been better? A little training day for the officers, on the fundamentals of the US Constitution.

I really think somebody needs to lose a job over this one, as a matter of principle. Though I’ll bet Ms. Sheehan isn’t entirely sorry. She went there to make a statement, not to hear the speech, and damned if she didn’t. A lot more so than if her shirt had been on camera once or twice.

Just for yucks, read the article. You don’t want to miss the part about the other woman who got tossed out.

US News Article Reuters.com

Never judge a book by its movie.
  – JW Eagan

ABC News: Newspapers Republish Muhammad Caricatures

I don’t like seeing mockery of God. I don’t like seeing Jesus depicted as an effette talkshow host on South Park. But I agree that dogma has no right to impose itself on others. In fact, I maintain that no one has the right not to be offended.

Happy Birthday, Galway. I have loved your poems for over twenty years. I remember sitting with your book in the university library, reading strange, dark New England flavored lines, again and again. I remember your vapor trails, mystical trees, your small fires of thought.

Do you remember the reading you gave in Santa Barbara, the year you published Imperfect Thirst? And the cake in the likeness of your book? I was the guy who carried it eight blocks in the rain. I couldn’t find a closer place to park, and sometimes I’m an idiot. I recall you had a cold.

I have been in love with your love of words and people I will never meet, so come again. I’ve grown this wise: I’m not afraid to double park.

CNN.com – Sheehan arrested in House gallery – Jan 31, 2006

She refused to cover up a shirt with an anti-war slogan, so in a refreshing tribute to the First Amendment, the Bush Administration arrested her… In in the US Capital. Unfarkingbelievable.

For you pet lovers – especially cat people – out there, metaphor recommends:

My Four-Legged Heart Specialists
By Carol Smith

Although I didn’t know how deathly ill I was, my two cats did–and became my ‘pacemakers.’

The New York Times has this article about Harper Lee, and her gracious appearance at an annual event in Alabama.  

Sometimes I wish she’d written another book after To Kill a Mockingbird, but what would one write after that?  And I can always read it again.

Lee Goldberg – A Writer’s Life –  has an interesting post on creating suspense.

It’s amazing how hard it is to do.

one of those days that goes by so fast, it takes you by surprise?  The sun goes down, it seems, hours too early.  Yeah, me too.  What do you suppose we can do about this, short of getting up earlier?

Things really are as bad as I thought, aren’t they? Bush has sailed up, above and beyond the law, and the military is rotting from the head down, like bad fish. Americans are not supposed to kidnap women and blackmail their husbands into surrendering. We don’t do that kind of thing, right? We’re the good guys! Do I sound like a whineyass weirdo liberal? Maybe, but the paranoia is catching. It’s spread all the way to Andrew Sullivan’s blog at Time.com.

“Sure, it’s against the Geneva Conventions. Sure, those Conventions are supposed to apply in Iraq. But this is the Bush administration. King George doesn’t have to obey the law; and his military can do anything they want.”

I don’t mind my subconscious making decisions, I just wish it would discuss them with me first.