Last post for this year before pulling the plug for a couple of days (I hope).
2008 has been a bittersweet year.
Mostly bitter.
A war with no end. An administration with no sense and even less decency. A collapsing economy and the ruination of millions of lives and families -- with a lot more to come. Shameless [...]

This ain't no monument to a deceased 2008. Though it might as well be. Nope. It's actually the self-congratulatory pre-death burial site erected by self-prolcaimed "trail blazer" Roland Burris -- you know that "untainted" guy who the criminally-indicted Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has appointed to fill the senate seat of Barack Obama.
I'm not much of [...]

I had vowed to break from blogging until the New Year, but it is difficult to remain silent in the face of the horrific bloodshed now occurring in Gaza -- and the escalation threatened by Israeli Defense Minister Barak. The death toll is now well above 300, a good chunk of them civilians. If Israel [...]

If Barack Obama can take a 12 day vacation, I figure the world will get along just fine without any blogging from me for a few days or so.

Apropos of confessions -- if not boasts-- this week by Dick Cheney that her and other top admin officials directly greenlighted the use of waterboading torture, we now have this reaction:
"A prosecutor should be appointed to consider criminal charges against top officials at the Pentagon and others involved in planning the abuse."
From The Nation? The [...]

If I were Barack Obama, I would not have chosen religious blow-hard and basic con man bigot Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at my inauguration -- in case you're interested. That's because I wouldn't have anyone do it.
I'm no more fond of liberal clerics than I am of the right-wing species.
I don't really care [...]

The New Yorker's George Packer takes it to the chin of Sean Penn.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
Well, as long as we are picking at this scab again, we might as well go all the way and just rip it off.
Here's the latest post from Cuba's most prominent and, by definition, dissident blogger Yoani [...]

Boning up for his current round of super-spin legacy exit interviews, it looks like Dick Cheney has been reading Fidel Castro's old speeches from a half century ago.
Cheney's basic line is no regrets. He takes responsibility for everything ugly of the last eight years. But, of course, it wasn't really ugly. It just had to [...]

Okay, Okay I will admit to being human and confessing that I burst out laughing when I saw the video of an Iraq journalist chucking his shoes at George W. Bush's head during his Baghdad press conference.
"Here is your farewell kiss, Dog!" exclaimed the agitated reporter -- pretty much summing up the thoughts of many [...]

How do you know when the congressional Republican Party has reached its ultimate, historical dead end?
Answer: when it gets outflanked on the left by none other than George W. Bush.
Or, put more simply: when a bunch of blow-dried, ideologically drink and not-too-bright Republican Senators would rather risk a devastating depression in order to demonize and [...]

Taipei
Thursday Morning
It's with some reluctance that I leave Taiwan tomorrow after a 10 day stay. I came here with rather modest expectations, as I knew very little of Asia. I was in South Korea last decade but that's about it. So I didn't really know what to expect but anticipated that Taiwan would be a [...]

The Cuban regime cracks down on bloggers. They're subversives, you know. Here's my commentary on it from Mother Jones.

Taipei, Taiwan
Tuesday Night
It's late Tuesday night here where I will remain until Friday morning. I have one more formal session to go in the conference titled Renewing Journalism.
We're lucky the confab ends this week, because if it lasted any longer there might not be anymore Old Media Journalism left out there.
It has been with a [...]

Taipei, Taiwan
Monday Night
This is the first real break in time I've gotten since arriving here last week. Our gracious hosts from National Taiwan University have run us ragged 15 hours a day with visits, trips, conferences and rather wonderful meals. The highlight was a dinner last night with an aboriginal Puyum tribe leader about 75 [...]

Taipei, Taiwan
Monday Morning
I'm probably going to stop blogging this conference because I am getting too frustrated and am starting to think it is pointless.
My fellow panelists are ery sweet and are good traveling companions but I fear as mostly newspaper people they are consumed by denial of the implications of the Digital age
Today's [...]

Friday Afternoon
Kaoshsiung, Taiwan
After about a 15 course meal at the Hospitality University, we've bussed across town for our second panel -- this one titled "Precision or Immediacy" being staged at the National Sun Yatt-Sen University. This time around we have a an audience of authentic comm/journalism students.
Once again we begin the proceedings with some words [...]

Friday Morning
National Kaoshiung Hospitality College
Taiwan
Here we are at Day 1 of the the When Bloggers Report and Reporters Blog Conference organized by The National Taiwan University. Our first panel on Global Marketing and Journalism has just opened at a hotel management university a 90 minute bullet train ride south of Taipei.
It's a strange scene. [...]

Taipei
My initial thoughts abut Taiwan are that's a helluva long plane ride from LAX!
I spent half the time watching the rest of the BBC's enthralling Planet Earth series on DVD on my Thnkpad. And after watching one more seal get scarfed by a Great White in slo-mo, I fulfilled my earlier promise by spending the [...]

I could be blogging about the near 700 point drop in the Dow and the proclamation that we're now in an official recession. But it turns out that's all old news -- a year old.
Who knew? No doubt tens of millions of Americans did. But just about no one in the media dared say so. [...]