Cada dia te quiero mas ...

My predictions about the Germany/Argentina game were true, to my dismay. I'd seen a headline on a TV at work saying that Germany had won, but during the game I was hoping I had read it wrong.

I even wore my Argentina scarf!

So now it's Fourth of July weekend, and I have four days of vacation. I'm not going to do anything but have fun.

So far planned for the vacation: Tomorrow I'm going to Brit's Pub to watch the England/Portugal game. Then Tom and I are going swimming at his parent's house 'cause they're in Montana. Pool party! Tomorrow afternoon, we'll watch the France/Brazil game.

Sunday we're going to Valleyfair with Tom's little cousins since their Mom had surgery at the Mayo Clinic last week and they're sick of hanging around a hospital.

Monday is officially "all-day fun day Monday." The crew and I are gonna play tennis, have fun, and I don't know what else.

Tuesday is another World Cup game, and traditional Fourth of July activities. Fireworks! Hot dogs! Freedom!

I had an entire week of vacation last week, but I'm excited about my four-day weekend since I was kind of worthless at work this week. Sorry about the lame blog entry.

Bridezillas

Cable television is ruining my life.

I got cable a few weeks ago to watch the World Cup and the Tour de France, which starts Saturday. My plan was slightly flawed, in that I don’t have any way to record the numerous World Cup games that happen when I’m at work. But I’ve watched all the weekend games, and carefully monitored them on the Internet during the week.

In fact, I’ve even managed to stay far enough from the news today so that I don’t know who won the Germany/Argentina game this morning. That’s quite a feat when you work for a newspaper, and there are television screens in every hallway with the day’s headlines.

But when I signed up for cable, I never thought shows like “Bridezillas” and “Dr. 90210” would help me waste away beautiful summer evenings. Rather than go for bike rides or walk around the lakes, I’m spending my nights in my air-conditioned apartment watching trashy TV shows.

On Bridezillas a few nights ago, there was a woman who broke up with her fiancée because he tried to help her arrive at the church on time for their rehearsal. And she had 15 bridesmaids! And then on Dr. 90210, there was a transsexual doing a male-to-female transition by getting breast implants. But he was too skinny so they couldn’t stretch his chest skin far enough to give her big enough boobs.

I even watched “The Art of an Athlete” on the Health channel. It featured the life story of gymnast Dominique Dawes, and how she became a super-duper Olympian without being psycho like all the other cute little gymnasts.

When I had cable television a few years ago, my vice was Law and Order. It was all I would watch on T.V., because TNT had it on at least eight times a night. Now, it’s on 3 different channels all night long, so I can even choose between regular Law and Order, Criminal Intent or Special Victims Unit. I’m so conflicted!

So, do I cancel my cable after the Tour de France, or do I work on self control? Clearly there’s a problem here.

Anyway, since I think I just saw a headline saying who won the soccer game this morning. Crap. I’m just going to think about their final appearance in the World Cup tomorrow vs. Brazil. Allez, les Bleus!

Put Up Your Dukes

By William Powers,
National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, June 30, 2006

"The press is the enemy." -- Richard Nixon

The White House is always at war with the press, but the fighting doesn't often get as bloody as it's been the past week, with the president, the vice president, the Treasury secretary, and other officials denouncing reports in the New York Times and elsewhere about a secret anti-terrorism program that taps into a global financial database.

The only way to get the public to focus on anything in this news-drenched world is to make it larger than life, bigger than a movie.

Bush called the stories "disgraceful." Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, declared the leaks "treasonous" and asked the attorney general to investigate "the recent actions of the reporters, editors, and publisher of the New York Times ... for possible criminal prosecution under the Espionage Act."

There are plenty of reasons to hope that there will be no such investigation, especially if you believe that a free press is as crucial to the country's security and well-being as any intelligence program could ever be. Journalists publish secrets all the time, sometimes wisely, sometimes not. Even if Bush is right and this particular story did "great harm," why should the government spend all of that time and effort going after our own media outlets? Is there anything to be gained by making a nasty moment in White House-media relations even nastier?

There may be. Watching the story play out, I've found myself hoping that reasonable heads don't prevail on this one, that the conflict will get hotter and uglier and eventually wind up in court, a la Plame only more dramatic. Why? Because this country needs to have a great, big, loud, come-to-Jesus argument about the role of the press in a time of war, terror, and secrecy.

Should news outlets ever report government secrets? Under what circumstances? When is leaking wrong and treasonous, and when is it heroic? Do the news media have rights and duties that sometimes conflict with, and even transcend, the law?

These questions have been swirling around us for five years now, but in a vague, amorphous kind of way. They are crucial, and they need to be thrashed out, even if there are no absolute answers. But they are also abstract and apparently not very engaging to the public. A poll [PDF] conducted by the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum in Chicago recently found that Americans know more about The Simpsons than they do about the First Amendment -- a lot more.

Freedom of speech may never be as engaging as a classic sitcom. But if Americans had a ripping good brawl to focus on, they might tune in. The only way to get the public to focus on anything in this news-drenched world is to make it larger than life, bigger than a movie. The First Amendment needs a Terri Schiavo moment, a Katrina, a story that stops everything the way a 7.5-magnitude California earthquake does.

So let's have a fight. Not an opaque, mind-bendingly complicated fight like the Plame case, but a clear one that pits the government's legitimate interest in secrecy against the media's equally legitimate interest in truth and disclosure.

This could be that kind of fight. There are heavyweights on both sides, and the details are chewier and more interesting than most people realize. For instance, the administration and its allies have worked hard to portray the New York Times as a coven of knee-jerk leftists, implicitly pro-terrorist. Said The National Review in an online editorial: "The New York Times is a recidivist offender in what has become a relentless effort to undermine the intelligence-gathering without which a war against embedded terrorists cannot be won."

Yet the Times' editor and point man on this story, Bill Keller, is nothing like this caricature. His defense of his decision to publish the latest disclosure has been logical and reasonable. What's more, he's no leftist, but more of a tortured centrist. As an op-ed columnist, Keller supported the Iraq war, calling himself a "reluctant hawk."

And remember, this is not just any war. It's a war launched on fallacious secret intelligence, by an administration that often seems to think the only good news outlet is a docile one.

So, is the press really the enemy?

This pot's been simmering for too long. Let it boil.