You know, I will admit, I'd wondered what was behind "Homeland" as a name. I mean, even the teensiest look at its recent historical use would make most people think, "Hmm. South Africa. Oppression. Really nasty security forces. Nope, don't want to go there. Nope nope nope." (Good land, there's a JOURNAL? Eeek.) But there they did indeed go.
And now it seems as if Ridge may be nothing more than a paper tiger. I don't understand why you would create the position and then not give him the authority to do what he needs to do. Everyone, I suspect, would agree that the intelligence agencies need to share information better now that we can expect more frequent attacks. It will be interesting to see what happens with the various bills in congress; I would expect that the various intelligence agencies, despite the need for cooperation, will defend their turf vigorously. (For all that Ridge said, in his acceptance speech, that "the only turf that needs defending is the United States," I can't imagine that any federal agency actually believes that, even now.)
(And purely as an aside, Salon's decision to put almost everything into its Premium section seems to be backfiring in relentlessly interesting ways. Quite apart from anything else, I'd imagine that they're hemorrhaging readers, which can't help the ads. [Interestingly, I haven't yet run into the forced ads that caused so much controversy. Wonder why?] It also appears that some of their articles are being quoted elsewhere, so you may not need to get behind the Premium wall to see them. This article on the finally-completed Florida recount, for example, is somewhere inside Salon, but I couldn't actually find the thing, for all that it was apparently published only today; even the index information must be entirely behind the Premium pay shield. But I get it for free at Working for Change. That can't be precisely what they intended.)
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
Search entries:
12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!