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Bob, meet Mark. Mark – Bob

I’m a big Watergate buff and have read about four or so books on it. The enigma of Richard Nixon continues to fascinate me. So this week’s revelation that Deep Throat, the Woodward and Bernstein top secret source was Mark Felt – the Deputy Director of the FBI in charge of investigating the Watergate break in has been some great, meaty news.

Today, Woodward published in his Washington Post column, how his relationship with Felt came about. Some good reading.

For more info on Watergate and the scandal that brought down a president, start here: Watergate (by the Washington Post) and also drop by the national archives to hear the tapes, the infamous Nixon Watergate tapes. Many are on line.

Books on the subject that can bring you up to date

All The President’s Men (obviously)
The Final Days (Carl Bernstein tells what happened next. Under rated – a great read.)
Blind Ambition (a bit self inflating, but a good read nonetheless)
Fear and Loathing On The Campaign Trail (Hunter does a good job talking around it here. He writes about it more in:)
The Great Shark Hunt
The Great Coverup (the Watergate story told by Woodward and Bernstein’s editor. A very balanced read.)

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The Friday Fives

1. What was your favorite breakfast cereal when you were a kid?
Cap’n Crunch, followed by a close second with Lucky Charms.

2. What is the best toy/prize you ever got in a box of cereal or because of sending in UPC’s?
I remember one summer Mom and I saved box tops from King Vitamin cereal and then sent away for his castle and village play set, a monstrosity of cardboard cut outs of midevil fun. It was the best toy ever, I played with it for hours and hours and entire summer. Mom said it was the best $1.50 she ever spent.

3. How do you take your eggs (scrambled, over easy, egg beaters)?
I like my eggs either poached or basted.

4. What is your favorite breakfast meat (bacon, ham, sausage)?
BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON . . . and occassionally some chorizo.

5. What is your favorite spot (local or chain restaurant) for breakfast and where is it located?
Of late, it has been the Bull and Bush – Double Bloody Mary’s and Screwdrivers are the special and the Hollandaise sauce is real, it is fresh and it is homemade. mmmmmm.

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What’s Your Secret

Dear Bugs sent this along for blog reading pleasure. It is a blog whereby you send in a postcard with your secret – something you have told no one – and the anonymous secret is posted on the blog. Some fun and sometimes shocking reading.

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Wacky Friday Foto


Place your caption in the comments section below (Special minor celebrity edition: Thanks to the Rev for the pix.) Posted by Hello

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Friday Fives

1. You can invite 2 artists to your house, but they must sing together. Who are they and what one song will they sing?
Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris. They would sing Christmas songs.

2. Are you on “the light side” or “the dark side”?
Oh, I am on the dark side of the force.

3. If you could completely start your life over from scratch, what would you do differently the second time around (if anything)?
Stayed in the Army. As a clerk, I would have had such an easy life, even with the wars. And perhaps gone to law school.

4. Do you have any purple clothes in your closet? If so, what items are they? Do you enjoy wearing the color purple?
I went through a purple phase for a bit and had a couple of purple shirts. It is still a favorite color but really anything I wear.

5. What do you picture when you think of garbagemen?
A funny guy, from Craig, Dave Jackosn who was a friend of my dad’s.

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It’s Just A Family Squabble


Posted by Hello

I am starting to grasp the big political chasm, or at least part of it. It is the wars and infighting of the 1960s all over again.
The big fights we are seeing in Washington right now remind of family. It is a family barbeque where two brothers who parted ways in their 20s are now pushed together to man the grill at a big picnic and they cant stop the fighting from so many years back.
As baby boomers of so many years ago took different sides during the turbulent 60s, they have now grown. Some still hold on to their younger idealism. Some have found Jesus, some have made money and let greed guide their day.
And now, as the power brokers, to 50-year-old white men who run our country, we are forced to sit back and let this family squabble continue until one side wins.

And, because they are baby boomers, from that less-than-greatest generation, we must watch, because it is always all about them – Public temper tantrums.

Soon, this little fight, this squabble and this power grab will be over and the next generation, a generation raised in healthy cynicism, a generation much less idealistic, a generation guided more by MTV-soaked realism rather than Ozzie and Harriet idealism will take the helm.

Perhaps, they will clean up the mess. Perhaps when Generation X and Y gives up its hackey sacks and its soccer balls and takes up the reins, we can get past the petty fights over who loves Jesus more (or less) fights over every little nuance in parliamentary procedure and screams of injustice as to where men are placing their penis.

Its an idyllic wish, but I dont think I am too far wrong. As the avenged leaders of the lost generation realize that the world they were given by the greatest generation no longer existsperhaps that world of Ozzie and Harriet and Father Knows Best never did exist), they have no other response than to lash out leaving a tremendous mess.

The power struggles of the right-wing conservative movement wont last forever. The mess they are making in Washington and the rest of the nation can be cleaned up. Soon, they will be pushed aside, letting the next generation at the wheel. What course they take is still up for grabs. They say it is rare for someone to change their political course after they turn 30. And the 3518-year-old crowd is demographically much less conservative than those in power today. Hopefully, they will bring that cynicism and that anger that Generation X is so famous for with them into their turn at bat. And perhaps, inside of all of that anger and cynicism is some hope.

I am hoping. I am waiting it out and I am hopeful..

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But, Scott Said . . .

The recent hub bub in the news concerning Newsweek is annoying. Newsweek published a piece that alluded to interogators at Abu Grhab and Guatanamo using the desecration of the Koran as a trick employed to get prisoners to give up the goods on terror.
It isn’t new news. In fact the same information has been printed before, appearing in the Washington Post and a even the Denver Post.
But the White House has decided to tie the whole Newsweek piece to recent violence in Afghanistan, despite the Pentagon’s statement’s that say otherwise.

The White House, it is believed, is using the Prison/Koran story to shame Newsweek and its strong investigative journalist, Michael Isokoff. It is using shame to censor and misses the irony of the whole mess. When the White House lectures that telling mis truths about events in Iraq will lead to people dying, they seem to have avoided the mirror when they spoke.

I think that the American public can see this for what it is, however if Dems take the bait this will become another Rathergate and Newsweek will lose all credibility, which is a shame.

CNN, which is owned by the same company that owns Newsweek’s chief competitor, Time, is a jumping all over it. And once your realize it is “Time” making fun of Newsweek on Time’s own news channel, the whole affair looks silly. Time/CNN covers it to death, so to keep up, MSNBC and Fox get in the game and before you know it, a non story becomes the entire news cycle.

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Wacky Friday Foto


Please leave your caption in the comments box below. Posted by Hello

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Friday Fives

1. How often do you cook at home?
Usually, with my chaotic work schedule, I only cook on Sundays.

2. How did you learn how to cook?
Both of my parents are amazing cooks. Dad was an Army cook and made the best breakfasts. Mom is a little Betty Crocker with mad spatula skills. I learned from them in house where everything happened in the kitchen.

3. What is a meal that has special meaning to you?
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and my favorite meal. It is the holiday in my past where more family is gathered together than with any other holiday, and that makes is special.

4. What is the last meal you cooked?
I made a big old pot of green chili a few weeks ago. Oh, yeah I also cooked an amazing pork roast in a new pan I bought. The roast was good but the pan drippings gravy was divine.

5. What is your least favorite thing to cook?
I am not a big dessert cooker. Cakes and cookies are not my thing. Pie, maybe, if I don’t have to make the crust.