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Sam Smith - Latest News [Page 3]
It's Not The Politics But The Lack Of Limits
Thursday, 15 March 2007, 7:20 pm | Sam Smith
THE ASSUMPTION that the appointment and character of US Attorneys are traditionally free of politics - like, say, federal judges - is a nice one but can find little encouragement in American history. More >>
The Mediacracy: Filler Items For Young Journalists
Tuesday, 13 March 2007, 1:01 pm | Sam Smith
The basic rules of good journalism are fairly simple: tell the story right, tell it well and, in the words of the late New Yorker editor, Harold Ross, 'if you can't be funny, be interesting.' More >>
Sam Smith: Presidents And Parking Tickets
Friday, 9 March 2007, 2:48 pm | Sam Smith
If I just found out that one of my friends had left 17 parking tickets in Somerville, Massachusetts unpaid nearly two decades it would not lessen my affection towards that friend. As has been said, a friend is one who knows your faults and doesn't ... More >>
Sam Smith: The Fight That Doesn't Matter
Friday, 9 March 2007, 2:38 pm | Sam Smith
I recently quoted from correspondence I had as a 20-something with a born-again Christian. In one of my letters I wrote: More >>
Flotsam & Jetsam: Apologizing For The Truth
Monday, 5 March 2007, 8:25 pm | Sam Smith
THE TERM 'WASTED' in referring to the lives of American troops in Iraq is absolutely correct, regardless what the politicians and media claim. One dictionary definition of the word starts with "to use, consume, spend, or expend thoughtlessly or carelessly," ... More >>
Sam Smith: The Politics Of Nothingness
Monday, 26 February 2007, 10:01 am | Sam Smith
Perusing still more puerile pandering in the cause of pacific politics by Barack Oblather, a vision suddenly appeared. While, according to Google, a few others have already experienced this transformational experience, it is still rare enough to ... More >>
Cross-Over Politics And The Ideology Of Scale
Monday, 12 February 2007, 9:42 am | Sam Smith
[Part of a continuing series on devolution - the opposite of governmental centralization, commercial monopoly and cultural domination. Devolution is the art of conducting public affairs at a practical level closest to the human spirit and human communities] More >>
Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama And Vanna White
Tuesday, 30 January 2007, 10:34 am | Sam Smith
The secret of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is that nobody knows who they are. They are vases on the table of politics waiting to be filled by whatever flowers arrive at the door. Jody Kantor, in the NY Times, nicely captures this in a piece ... More >>
Flotsam & Jetsam: On Finding A Candidate
Monday, 29 January 2007, 12:02 am | Sam Smith
As always happens, as soon as I say something nice about a political candidate, I find myself in trouble. Part of the problem may be that I think about political candidates differently than a lot of people. Unlike many, I don't see myself as part of some ... More >>
Sam Smith: What I've Learned As A Part Jew
Thursday, 25 January 2007, 10:08 am | Sam Smith
I grew up part Jewish. It was hard not to if you lived in a New Deal family where your father was involved in things like starting Americans for Democratic Action. My own introduction to politics came as a pre-teen stuffing envelopes for the local ... More >>
Flotsam & Jetsam: Obama's 2004 Speech Revisited
Friday, 19 January 2007, 11:17 am | Sam Smith
Since the establishment media is trying to get us to elect a man as president on the basis of one speech he gave, I thought it might be useful to go back and look at Barack Obama's 2004 talk. More >>
Retrieving The Democrats' Reason For Existence
Wednesday, 10 January 2007, 7:44 pm | Sam Smith
JOHN EDWARDS has done the Democrats an enormous favor. He has retrieved the party's reason for existence from the attic where it has been stowed lost and forgotten for some four decades. More >>
Sam Smith: Iatrogenic Security Threats
Thursday, 28 December 2006, 6:11 pm | Sam Smith
READER DAN writes in response to our listing of American corporations tied to Israel: "Do you have a comparable list of corporations that remain silent when a Palestinian bomb explodes aboard an Israeli bus? The policies of the Israeli government are abhorrent, ... More >>
Sam Smith: Dealing With Myths
Monday, 18 December 2006, 12:45 am | Sam Smith
Having been an anthropology major, I don't get as riled up about mythology in public life as many in the media and politics. Myths can be helpful, benign, sad, or deadly but mostly they're there to fill the empty places in reality. More >>
Sam Smith: Potomac Playground
Monday, 11 December 2006, 5:23 pm | Sam Smith
Phil Hart said the Senate was a place that did things 20 years after it should have. The same could be said of much of the rest of Washington. In fact the yet-to-be accomplished U.S.-Iranian negotiations are now at 27 years and still counting. More >>
NPR Ditches Heartland Pleasure For Homeland Sec.
Wednesday, 6 December 2006, 4:03 pm | Sam Smith
It occurred to me recently that Nominally Public Radio has its red and blue states, too. Car Talk and Whadya Know? are among the red states, Diane Rehm and Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me among the blue. More >>
The Roosevelt Administration's Rating System
Tuesday, 5 December 2006, 6:08 pm | Sam Smith
The Roosevelt Administration also used a rating system but later dropped it. Here's how I came to know about it: When I applied for Coast Guard Officer Candidate School in 1960 at the age of 23, I found myself in the same grim situation as Milo Radulovich, ... More >>
Sam Smith: The Ritual of the Words
Tuesday, 5 December 2006, 5:29 pm | Sam Smith
My view has long been that news is something that has happened, something that is happening or something that is going to happen. News is not what someone said about what is happening nor what someone perceived was going to happen nor what the editors ... More >>
Sam Smith: San Francisco
Tuesday, 28 November 2006, 5:09 pm | Sam Smith
I long avoided San Francisco because I considered earthquakes one hazard I could easily eliminate. That was before both my sons took up periodic residence there and gave me the courage and purpose that I lacked. Now, my 17-year affair with the Bay ... More >>
Sam Smith: Victory With No Place To Go
Wednesday, 22 November 2006, 12:21 am | Sam Smith
Rep. Charles Rangel is planning to introduce legislation that would revive the national draft. Reports Reuters, "Asked on CBS' 'Face the Nation' if he was still serious about the proposal for a universal draft he raised a couple of years ago, he said, ... More >>
