Musings on topics of small or large importance. Especially partial to subjects that include baby boomers, public figures, friends, Corporate America, the Denver Broncos, NASCAR, my previous home towns of New York City and Columbia (Maryland), stupidity (mine and others'), diets and health and who knows what else!

Sunday, July 17, 2005

Judith Miller -- My Hero

Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Judith Miller has been in jail for nearly two weeks now for refusing to reveal her confidential source to a grand jury. The Karl Rove story is headline news all over the country, if not the world, and part of that story is about two journalists involved, and their two media organizations.

Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper also refused to reveal his source to federal prosecutors. But his editor, Norman Perlstine, decided to turn over Cooper's original e-mail and his notes, thereby giving up the source, who turned out to be presidential advisor Karl Rove. Still, to Cooper's credit, Cooper held fast to his refusal to testify until he got permission from Rove in writing to testify to the grand jury as to his identity.

On "Meet the Press" this morning, Cooper told NBC's Tim Russert that Perlstine had a tough decision that he put a lot of thought into but that Cooper disagreed and that it was a disagreement between individuals. Very charitable, I thought. I doubt that I could be that politically correct if I were to speak about my boss betraying me and everything I and supposedly he believed in as journalists and editors. I hope never to have to find out.

As an aside, on CBS' "Face the Nation" this morning, host Bob Schieffer ended it with the editorial comment that the White House's investigation as to who leaked the information that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative should have never gotten to the point of naming a special prosecutor, which has cost taxpayers millions of dollars. It should have remained in-house, he said; President Bush should have called together his top staffers and told them he wanted to know the identity of the leaker by the end of the day. Period. Hear, hear, Bob Schieffer!

Matt Cooper is testifying before Congress in support of federal shield legislation that would give protection to whistleblowers and confidential sources to members of the press. Miller would no doubt love to do that too, but it's a little tough to do from a jail cell.

I always thought when a reporter was sent to jail for refusing to reveal a source that it was punitive. But I learned through the federal court papers on this case that it's not supposed to be punitive but coercive. It's supposed to convince the reporter to give up their source and testify in compliance with a subpoena, which is the reason for the time being limited to the term of the grand jury, not to exceed 18 months. District Court Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan denied Miller's motion to reconsider the order because she (supposedly) failed to make the case that "there is no realistic possibility that confinement would be effective in obtaining Miller's compliance."

Also in those court papers, in the "Government's Memorandum in Opposition to Judith Miller's Motion for Reconsideration," about 3/4 down the page under II B, it says, "Much of what appears to motivate Miller to commit contempt is the misguided reinforcement from others (specifically including her publisher) that placing herself above the law can be condoned...."

Schieffer says in a column on the subject, "What I find most offensive is this government claim that Judy Miller considered herself above the law. If that were true, she would have tried to escape. She recognized the authority of the court and went to jail just as Martin Luther King, Jr. and other Americans before her went to jail when they thought a law was wrong."

In my own career as a journalist, which dates back to 1984, I was confronted early on by the seriousness of the decision to keep my sources confidential. I was writing a column on advertising for the Arizona Business Gazette in Phoenix and one of the local radio stations had conducted a survey on opinions of their station, which they presumably hoped to make public. The responses were so negative that they kept it as an internal document. But I got a call one day from a source telling me about it and asking me if I'd like a copy of it. Well, of course! It was juicy and relevant to what I wrote about. My source made me promise not to reveal his or her name and I, of course, agreed. I got a copy of the survey and responses from the source and called the station's general manager for comment. He was livid and told me he would sue me if I ran anything about it. He accused me of stealing it. He was powerful enough to possibly follow through with this threat so I didn't take it lightly. I decided on the spot and knew deep in my soul that I would go to jail rather than reveal my source. I ran the piece and never heard a word from the station.

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein kept the identity of "Deep Throat" to themselves for 33 years. They didn't even tell their spouses at the time, both of whom are now ex-spouses, which may be the ultimate manifestation of source protection. Only after Mark Felt's family decided they wanted to benefit from his "help" in the Watergate scandal and went public with Felt's identity did Woodward confirm it.

The irony in the Judy Miller situation is that she never wrote the story that this case is all about. Still, she sits in jail while the court hopes to coerce her to testify. We can only hope, for the sake of a free press, that other journalists would have Judy Miller's courage. And, most of all, that Congress quickly passes a federal shield law. Judith Miller, from one journalist, please hang in there, for all of us. And to both her and her courageous editors at the New York Times who have consistently stood behind her and the 1st Amendment, thank you, thank you, thank you!



**Note: Registration required for the Sydney article, the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Insomni-aaaack!

Once again, I'm wide awake late at night. I should be and want to be sleeping. Well, I guess if I wanted to be sleeping that badly, I'd be trying to instead of writing in ye olde blogge. But after years of chronic, sporadic insomnia, you get to know the signs and just kind of submit to it. This is somewhat inherited. My mom has been an insomniac for years. As my dad used to say, "How can you sleep with a problem like that?"

In all these years of stolen awake time, I could have learned a language or written a novel or cleaned every drawer and closet in my place numerous times. But instead I've read whatever mystery or thriller I'm reading (currently Edna Buchanan's Shadows). I read until I realize I've read the same paragraph 4 times and don't have any idea what it says, or until the book crashes onto my nose.

Or I've watched tv -- everything from the reshowing of the day's Oprah (which starts at 1:30 a.m. where I am) to middle-of-the-night news to Celebrity Justice to Elimidate (AWFUL!!! but it has its own morbid fascination) but rarely a movie because I usually see it through to the end even if it's 3:00 a.m. I can tell you pretty much what's on every major channel all night long. Usually I know I'm in trouble early on in the late night if I see the end of Craig Ferguson. I love his take on the U.S. and American quirks from the point of view of a Scotsman -- we are a funny bunch, aren't we?

So tonight I actually did sort out my books and video tapes (DVDs take up so much less space!) and then succumbed to part of the Michael Clarke Duncan interview on Jay Leno, which at least wasn't a repeat as Letterman was. Then I flipped over to take in the first few minutes of Jimmy Kimmel (Gary Busey, his first guest, is just sooooo strange....and/or high on something), but the moment Ferguson came on, I was there, even though it was a repeat (with Dr. Phil).

Now Ferguson's over (Ringside, his musical guest, was good! I'm a new fan) and Elimidate is just starting. I can't handle it -- I think I will try again to sleep. Wait, first I have to see which catty bitch will be dumped in round one....

Monday, July 04, 2005

Tales of a Neophyte Blogger

Okay, I confess: I thought this was going to be easier. The blog that I started on Construction.com over a year ago, Diggin' Deeper, involved me "just" writing and e-mailing pics and our fabulous production people doing the layout, photo sizing and formatting and posting. (Yes, amazingly and ridiculously enough, we do the blog manually. Hopefully that will soon change.) So I figured I'd take an hour or two this weekend -- when I couldn't sleep late last night -- and start a personal blog. I've never particularly wanted to before but on a whim I thought, hey, why not? How tough could it be?

Ha! Wake up and hear the fireworks! I don't find
this blogging siteware especially intuitive, and I've spun my wheels, gone around in circles, chased my tail and every other cliche for several hours this afternoon. I *should have been* sorting through the zillions of papers I promised myself I'd go through this long weekend. My fabulous business coach will kill me. How ironic. I used to clean out my drawers or desk to avoid writing and now I'm writing to avoid cleaning out my drawers and desk. Yes, I know it's beautiful outside and I've been out some, but my mission this weekend was to be able to truly get organized. Will I ever learn?

Yes, as a matter of fact, I've learned a lot! When I went to sleep last night at something like 3:00 a.m., I had no pictures in my paltry little one post, I couldn't figure out how to post a picture in my profile ("
Hello" siteware isn't intuitive to me either). But now I have all of that down pat (except for some mysterious disappearances as I changed templates or added another posting). Still, it's disappointing that I couldn't figure it all out in a couple of hours. Maybe it's that, as a baby boomer, I have to try harder to master some of this tech stuff I didn't grow up with. Or, maybe I'm just not as smart and I thought I was.

Fireworks


It's actually shortly after midnight -- the 4th of July has 23-1/2 hours to go before it ends, at least on the East Coast of the U.S. Earlier this evening, but under the cover of darkness that shields thieves, miscreants and chicken****s, some kids (regardless of age) were outside my window (which faces a wildlife sanctuary) setting off fireworks. Not the pretty kind. The loud kind. The jolting, nerve-wracking, angering kind. My least favorite kind, especially in this day of any explosives making some of us -- me, certainly -- skittish and nervous. Reading CNN online (I can't get the videos there to work and I'm a pretty good techie) and seeing the stats of suicide bombers diminishes my already nearly nil fondness for fireworks other than the awesome kind that Macy's puts on at a safe distance every year in the East or Hudson River.

Driving around my little town today (I actually went to the gym, which necessitated my driving through our two-block "historic" downtown), I saw American flags clumped together, probably 20 of them, around our city sign and single ones poking out from several houses that normally are unadorned. My dad used to hang out the flag on sporadic holidays and I used to think it was geeky and old-fashioned and loser-ish of him. He served in WWII (memorized the eye chart so he'd get in when he normally wouldn't qualify) and always felt patriotic, though he only demonstrated it that visibly a few times a year. Now I know what he meant -- I still have a "United We Stand - 9-11-01" sticker in the rear left window of my car that I got a few days after 9/11.

The neighbors on our block (and many blocks around the country) on the 4th of July used to break out the sparklers and hand lit ones to us kids, and we'd twirl them in circles and infinity curves and delight in the light trails. Fireworks were legal then and little temporary stands would dot the major roads in Littleton, Colorado, where I spent much of my youth. Every year there were stories of some kid in the area (though never on my block) getting a hand blown off or an eye put out by an exploding device gone wrong, and it never appealed to me to mess with the damn things. That was an innocent time and I think I even felt that way then. I miss that.

I probably won't go see the lavish Macy's fireworks display this year now that I don't live "in the city" (Manhattan) anymore and it would eat up a day to take the train in, navigate to a good watching place, wait and wait and wait (standing, unless you have friends in high places) for the show and then impatiently inch along in the mass of bodies moving as one giant quivering blob away from the river, get back to Penn Station (along with a zillion other people, including drunks and whiny and screaming kids) and muscle into a jammed train to get back. Sounds like fun, huh?

What I like best about this July 4th is that so many people across the country will be doing somewhat the same thing on the same day, i.e., putting out the flag, barbecuing, watching the fireworks and, just for a moment, at least, feeling pride and gratitude for being a "free" (don't get me started on that, post-9/11) American. It is a unifying moment for a very ununified nation.