Life of Smiley

Dear middle-aged woman behind the Dunkin' Donuts counter, I am legitimately concerned for your well-being. Do you have someone to take care of you? This morning I asked you for a medium mocha Coolata with no whip cream. You nodded confidently and went off to work. Moments later you returned with a cup of dark brown sludge and asked if I would like anything else. Now, I don't like to tell other people how to do their jobs, but I wasn't about to buy that, so I told you that it didn't look right to me. In hindsight, I should have tried to explain that a mocha Coolata contains both syrup and coffee. I was hoping you would ask one of your colleagues for direction. Anyway I wouldn't know how to tell you the exact recipe. That's not my job. You mumbled something about me not wanting syrup, and then hurried off again. I figured you might be able to make a regular Coolata, so I let it go. Disturbingly, your next attempt was clear . Do you even realize that yo...

Back in February I wondered about the efficacy of these "above the influence" ads. If You Can't Get Them to Stop Using Drugs, at Least You Can Get Them to Make Fun of You A Government Accountability Office report on research tracking the impact of the federal government's $1.2 billion anti-drug ad campaign concludes that "the evaluation provides credible evidence that the campaign was not effective in reducing youth drug use...." In fact, during some periods and for some subgroups, exposure to the ads was significantly associated with an increased tendency to smoke pot. With the Bush Administration focused on the war on terror, it's good to see they haven't forgotten about financing the war on drugs.

I was recently sent a link to this article on the war in Iraq. The author makes some intelligent, reasonable arguments, and I don't necessarily disagree with any of his specific points. But the overall position of the paper seems to be that if you are not totally on board with the war on terrorism then you are part of the problem. And our politicians have never seen a difficult issue they can't run away from. Thank God we didn't have a lot of these guys around when we were fighting the Germans and the Japanese. At the first sign of pain we would have negotiated away Hawaii and given Hitler time to develop his own A-bomb. In fact, the sentiment I hear most frequently from responsible politicians in Washington is that the Bush Administration has gotten us into a bad situation and now we're stuck. Pulling out of Iraq too soon would only make things worse. But are we doing everything we can to make the best of a bad situation? It isn't pretty for the troops. The en...

I just watched United 93 again in recognition of the five-year anniversary, or something. It doesn't get any easier. If anything I felt it even more intensely this time. I also paid more attention to some of the details. I've already said my piece on the consipiracy theory aspect of this story. In that post , I stressed that it is important to keep in mind that this is one man's interpretation of what happened. But I think we can assume that most of the key elements of the timeline are represented accurately, as they have been corroborated by multiple sources. So today I'd like to talk about the military's role in the events of that day, as depicted in the film. As soon as the NORAD commander confirms that hijackers are flying commercial airliners into buildings in Manhattan, he gives the order to scramble fighters from Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod. Some time later we hear him complaining that he can't protect the whole Eastern Seaboard with f...