Week Nine and hanging in there

Despite being tired and frazzled and generally lost in the endless to-do list, I am managing to get through the quarter.

Some funny/weird/annoying things:

I gave one class an essay to write on encouraging business ethics. One student spent half the essay on the ethics of dress codes. That's right, if you wear hot pants and a T-shirt to work, you're being unethical--unless you work at Hooter's. I wonder, is it unethical for Hooters employees to wear suits?

When I came home tonight, I saw the mailbox was absolutely stuffed. Usually I only get Son's mail and the annoyingly daily local ads. This was a huge wad of envelopes and magazines, bound with a rubber band. Turns out more than half of it was for other condos in the complex. Hm. Did Mr. Mailman get tired of walking around, and just dump everything in my mailbox?

Last month's DC conference hotel bill reimbursement is being held up because some bureausnot in accounts payable wants more verification. I gave them the credit card statement with the charge on it and the pre-payment voucher I got from the conference housing site. The bureausnots are in a snit because the voucher doesn't have the dollar amount on it. I CANNOT HELP THAT! THAT'S WHAT I GOT FROM THE CONFERENCE SITE! I am getting very very annoyed over this snafu.

Saturday I fly out to a conference and will return Tuesday. Is my presentation ready? Of course not. I don't present until Monday afternoon. Sunday night is PLENTY of time to get it ready. :-)

Kitty Son has been very vocal the past week or so. He talks so much, you'd think he had some Siamese in him. I confused him by turning the bedroom around and putting the bed against the opposite wall. He is still trying to figure that one out.

Three weeks until my kids come home for Turkey Day and the annual infusion of pumpkin pie into their bloodstreams. Can't wait! They are going to get some serious hugs.

It's Saturday!

So why, then, am I up at the crack of...wait, it's not dawn yet.

Rhetorical question: Why does Youngest Daughter's all-nighter (finishing an Italian paper due this morning) have to result in a broken night of sleep for Dr.Mom?

Yeah, don't bother answering that one. Yaaawwwwwn.

In which I avoid work and feel only slightly guilty about it

I spent most of today refining a lecture I've given twice before, instead of grading the essays and homework assignments that are on my to-do list. I don't know why I bothered, because the lecture had about as much life in it as our 10-year-old Neon. "Now, recall the standard normal..." Blank faces...much paging in notebooks...more blank faces. Ooooooookay.

However, I did spend some time this morning going over a graduate student's statement for her MS degree proposal. Sigh. I think it's probably the third time I've told her to remove the "I feel...this" and "It seems that" from her essay and support her argument with citations from the literature. Not a company web page, but real honest-to-goodness research articles from--gasp--the LIBRARY. Goodness knows we can't go THERE!

Yeah, yeah, she is a distance student. Well, that's what electronic databases are for. I really hope she fixes this thing, because if the grad committee kicks it back because it has no legs to stand on, I think I'd launch myself through the window rather than read that statement again. I don't think I could stand to correct, for the fourth time, her spelling of "assess" and "possess" (in each case, missing the final 's') or her continual confusion of the usage of "to", "two", and "too."

Argh.

I opened one of the essay files for my online class and closed it immediately. Too late, though, to avoid the instantaneous realization that the essay is full of grammatical errors and I'll want to immolate my mouse by the time I've waded through it.

Kitty Son likes maple spice cookies. He sits and stares at Youngest Daughter and me until we share with him. He is cross-eyed. Having Kitty Son stare intently at you is just a tad disconcerting.

Ack: random bullets recounting ways I ain't doing so well on many fronts

• I'm in grading jail. I have 41 assignments to grade by Thursday. Ain't gonna make it.
• Because of the way our paychecks are scheduled, it will be nearly three weeks from my last paycheck to my next one. The money ain't gonna stretch.
• The dishes need doing, the floors need vacuuming, everything needs dusting, and the bathroom needs cleaning. Ain't gonna get done any time soon.
• Time for the truck to have its 15,000 mile checkup and an oil change. See bullet #2.
• Youngest Daughter's skates need sharpening. I ain't got enough time on Saturday to drive to the shop and back. Also, that ain't helping with bullet #2.
  
• Big conference starts next weekend. My research ain't ready for prime time yet.
• Oh heck. I ain't got time to list any more, and this list ain't helping me feel better!
  

An important message from Michael Yon

Reprinted in its entirety here. Read it all. It will be good for you.

Resistance is Futile

October 22, 2007

Resistance is futile: You will be (mis)informed.

A gulf.

A gap.

A chasm.

A parallel universe.

All describe the bizarro-world contrast between what most Americans seem to think is happening in Iraq versus what is really happening in Iraq. Knowing this disconnect exists and experiencing it directly are two separate matters. It’s like the difference between holding the remote control during the telecast of a volcanic eruption on some distant island (and then flipping the channel), versus running for survival from a wretch of molten lava that just engulfed your car.

I was at home in the United States just one day before the magnitude hit me like vertigo: America seems to be under a glass dome which allows few hard facts from the field to filter in unless they are attached to a string of false assumptions. Considering that my trip home coincided with General Petraeus’ testimony before the US Congress, when media interest in the war was (I’m told) unusually concentrated, it’s a wonder my eardrums didn’t burst on the trip back to Iraq. In places like Singapore, Indonesia, and Britain people hardly seemed to notice that success is being achieved in Iraq, while in the United States, Britney was competing for airtime with O.J. in one of the saddest sideshows on Earth.

No thinking person would look at last year’s weather reports to judge whether it will rain today, yet we do something similar with Iraq news. The situation in Iraq has drastically changed, but the inertia of bad news leaves many convinced that the mission has failed beyond recovery, that all Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence, or are waiting for us to leave so they can crush their neighbors. This view allows our soldiers two possible roles: either “victim caught in the crossfire” or “referee between warring parties.” Neither, rightly, is tolerable to the American or British public.

Today I am in Iraq, back in a war of such strategic consequence that it will affect generations yet unborn—whether or not they want it to. Hiding under the covers will not work, because whether it is good news or bad, whether it is true or untrue, once information is widely circulated, it has such formidable inertia that public opinion seems impervious to the corrective balm of simple and clear facts.

In fact, the trend across the country is clearly positive. Further, each new development can be seen to set into motion other additional developments which are combining kinetic forces faster than even the best reporters can keep up with.

Anyone who has been in Iraq for longer than a few months, visited a handful of provinces, and spoken with a good number of Iraqis, likely would acknowledge that the reality here is complex and dynamic. But in the last six months it also has been increasingly hopeful, despite what the pessimistic dogma dome allows Americans and British to believe.

I wasn’t back in Iraq three days before this critical disconnect rocketed up from the ground and whacked me in the face. There I was with British soldiers, preparing for a mission with a duration of more than ten days in the southern province of al Basra, when someone asked me about the media reports alleging that Basra city had collapsed into violent chaos. Not wishing to trust solely to my own eyes and ears, I asked around and was able to quickly confirm what I’d already noted: conditions in this region had improved dramatically in the months since my previous embed with the Brits.

When “Maysan” was published, that milestone event had to compete with bad news coming from a college campus in Virginia.

That month-long experience was marked by “Jaish al Mahdi” (Mahdi Army or JAM)-related attacks on British soldiers. These attacks were further fueled by enemy media operations which distorted the long-planned draw-down of British troops in Basra city, something I noted in the dispatch “Maysan”:

As the British increase their forces in Afghanistan, they are drawing down in Iraq. Although the drawdown in Iraq is based on pragmatism, the enemy apparently is attempting to create the perception of a military rout. So while the British reduce their forces in southern Iraq, they are coming under heavier fire and the enemy makes claims of driving “the occupiers” out.

In reality, the Brits were about to transfer authority over the Maysan Province to the Iraqi government. Thus, the day’s purpose, although seemingly more ceremonial in nature, was to counterpunch in the perception war, by focusing on the progress being made by the Iraqi Security Forces in the region. Some of the biggest battles in Iraq today are being fought not with bombs and bullets, but with cameras and keyboards. For whatever reasons—and there are many—today, when Western media is most needed here, it’s nearly gone.

Several upcoming dispatches will focus on how the situation in Southern Iraq has dramatically improved over past months. Ironically, the character of this improvement is distinguished by the lack of violence, as well as the increasing order and normality as Iraqi Security Forces step up to greater responsibility for security in the region. Though the local leadership picture in downtown Basra is fuzzier now that British forces have pulled further back to begin performing their long-planned overwatch phase, it is clear that this natural progression in turning Basra over to Iraqi control has not catapulted the city into chaos.

Nic Robertson of CNN was recently down here. I saw him out on the Iranian border. When Mr. Robertson and I appeared jointly on CNN, his reporting was accurate and in context.

No one who’s actually been to this area in the last month could honestly claim it was swarming with violence. I’ve been with the Brits here for more than two weeks, during which time there have been only a few trivial attacks that could easily have been the work of an angry farmer with extra time on his hands and a mortar in his backyard. As to serious attacks on British forces, in the last eight weeks, there have been exactly zero. So, any stories that make it sound like Basra is in chaos are shamefully false.

Sadly, this is not a new phenomenon. I’ve written often about the near complete failure of most media reporting—as the craft is most typically plied over here—to capture the truth of Iraq and accurately portray it in an increasingly commercial news environment.

I came to Iraq in December 2004 specifically because friends in the military had been telling me about the disconnect between the situation on the ground and the media coverage about it. This is partly why I have remained focused enough on this problem to write about it dozens of times, beginning with an early dispatch about how many news reports “from” Iraq are generated . Later I described the expensive and exasperating embed process that makes long-term on-the-ground reporting next to impossible for most small or medium media outlets, and just plain impossible for most freelancers and independents.

I called it “Catch-22 Redux” in a dispatch earlier this year, writing about how “my new work space has no internet capability, no surface for work, not to mention the obvious problem with secure storage for the heavy pile of incredibly expensive gear needed to cover this war the way it should be covered. Can’t run a mission AND keep an eye on it, and can’t do the work the way it needs to be done without running missions to see and hear it firsthand.”

I’ve written about the small and petty ways the military’s Public Affairs Offices can sour even the most earnestly and positively-inclined reporters. I’ve written about how the military’s entire approach to media has failed utterly to serve both the particular mission in Iraq and the greater cause of an informed and vibrant democracy. I’ve written about reporters who got the story right, about those who got it all wrong, and also about those whose reports, good or bad, never saw the light of day.

I’ve written about why an effective and engaged media is especially crucial for the kind of counterinsurgency strategy only now being applied comprehensively in all areas of Iraq. I’ve written about how the current system of over-reliance on questionable sources creates a pressure to rush to judgment.

I’ve written about how dangerous this war is for reporters who claim there is no real consumer demand for articles about Iraq that would justify the risks. The internet erosion of the mainstream media subscriber base and advertiser support doesn’t reduce demand for news from the ground in Iraq, but it does dry up funds for anything but local stringers with spotty notions of accuracy.

But it wasn’t until I spent that week back in the States that I realized how bad things have gotten. I believe we are witnessing a conspiracy of coincidences conflating to exert an incomprehensibly destructive force on the free press system that we largely take for granted. The fact that the week in question also happened to be when General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker were delivering their reports to Congress makes me wonder if things are actually worse than I’ve assessed, and I returned to Iraq sadly convinced that General Petraeus now has to deal from a deck clearly stacked against him in both America and Iraq.

I’ve called it The Green Gator Phenomena. This tendency for average people to put unwarranted stock in any information—including an outright falsehood—that is reported as true by many sources, seems now to dominate both the mainstream media and a majority of the consumers of its Iraq product line.

Clearly, a majority of Americans believe the current set of outdated fallacies passed around mainstream media like watered down drinks at happy hour. Why wouldn’t they? The cloned copy they get comes from the same sources that list the specials at the local grocery store, and the hours and locations of polling places for town elections. These same news sources print obituaries and birth announcements, give play-by-play for local high school sports, and chronicle all the painful details of the latest celebrity to fall from grace.

To illustrate the absurdity to which this conceit of the collective has grown, I’m tempted to borrow from the boy in the fairy tale, only this time pointing to and shouting at the doomsday-sayers parading by: “Hey, they aren’t wearing any clothes. . . . ” Except in this case, I realize I am not a lone voice. Furthermore, with the help of other clear-eyed individuals, I may actually be in a unique position to do something to remedy this, if the experience I had with the AP response to my challenge to investigate and report on the disturbing gravesites in the Al Hamira village is any guide.

Although I can’t answer to the cause of the problem, I humbly offer permission to media outlets to republish excerpts of the dispatch or the dispatch in its entirety, including my photographs from the story (if used as they are in the dispatch) at no cost during the month of July 2007. I only ask that the site receive proper attribution and that any publication taking me up on the offer email the website with the details.

That offer was dying on the vine until Bob Owens at Confederate Yankee took the Associated Press to task for their bungled reportage of a different mass graves news story, using my dispatch as a comparison. Although it took a little back and forth, and some additional pressure from all the other bloggers who started tracking on the topic, the AP finally dispatched a reporter to the scene. The resulting article was picked up by at least one other major media outlet, reaching thousands more people. This got me to thinking: what if I made a similar offer on a more permanent basis to a large media syndication, say, the National Newspaper Association?

Very few of NNA’s 2,700-member daily and weekly papers around the US can afford to send their own reporters and photographers to Iraq. But if they had a source of news and photographs they could tap into that did not cost anything, there would be one fewer obstacle to their running more firsthand news from the ground in Iraq.

Using the lessons learned from “Bless the Beasts,” it probably won’t be enough just to make the news I am reporting available to NNA-member publications at no cost. There may need to be a little irritating sand in order to get a pearl out of this oyster.

This is where my readers come in, at least those among them who share the concern that the distorted picture most Americans have of the situation in Iraq has strategic (and disastrous) implications for this war, our national security, and the stability of one of the most volatile regions on the planet.

Those readers can first check to see if their local paper is a member of the NNA . Because only NNA members will be able to

” . . . print excerpts of Michael Yon’s dispatches, including up to two of his photographs from each dispatch. Online excerpts may use up to 8 paragraphs, use 1-3 photos, and then link back to the full dispatch on his site saying ‘To continue reading, click here.’”

If their local paper is a member of NNA, readers can contact the editor, urging their participation. [If Bob Owens’ experience is a reliable indicator, this might take several, uh, prompts.] By encouraging their local daily or weekly newspapers to reprint these dispatches in their print editions, more people without internet access can begin to see a more accurate reflection of the progress I have observed and chronicled in dispatches like “Achievements of the Heart,” “7 Rules: 1 Oath,” “The Hands of God,” and “Three Marks on the Horizon.”

There is a cost to this. By making these stories available to NNA members at no cost, I have to forego any license fees they might otherwise generate. Although the newspapers who participate in this venture won’t have any additional costs, that also won’t reduce the expenses I incur to continue producing work that many commenters say needs to reach a wider audience. But it certainly gives those same commenters an easy way to put some walk behind all their talk.

Reader support is critical and highly appreciated, because I depend on my readers for all the funds required to do this work. I have been trying to thank each and every person who has helped—something of a feat in itself—but I want to say it clearly: Your support is hugely appreciated. In addition to setting up a support link to Paypal, we now also have a page on Blog Patron, and we have added more than 50 new photographs to the gallery.

In a related effort, we are completely reworking the underlying architecture of the website. This is very expensive, but the current configuration makes it difficult for readers to find archived stories, and for us to host a lot of video and audio. This creates an opportunity to also take a giant step forward in reaching a wider audience with these dispatches. In the past two days, readers have come from at least 84 countries: Portugal, China, Japan, Indonesia . . . and on and on. Some days readers come in from over a hundred countries.

In many places where I have traveled in the past year—like Kuwait, Qatar, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, United Kingdom, Iraq and even the United States—all seem to have large portions of their populations who think we are just running amok around the globe. Even our close allies have a distorted view of Americans.

As I travel around the world, I see that even many of our close allies have a false impression of American soldiers as brutally oppressive towards people. Even our great friends in Singapore and the United Kingdom, and the pro-American people on the island of Bali, Indonesia, think we are savaging people. This loss of moral leadership will be costly to Americans on many fronts for many generations to come.

The media memes put us on par with the old Soviet Union.

The only antidote for this toxic press is a steady dose of detailed stories about the amazing men and women who serve in the United States military. People like Lieutenant Jeffrey Pettee, Iraqi Army Captain Baker, USMC SSG Rakene Lee, and LTC Fred Johnson. Each of these soldiers is a credit to every human being.

It is important that Americans let their best and clearest voices be heard around the world. If the world contained only twenty people, only one would be American. We represent about 5% of the world population. What those other nineteen people think about America is truly very important to each one of us. We cannot afford to let the media around the world continue promulgating so many recycled misconceptions about our soldiers and the character of our nation.

Since this website already has a vast foreign readership coming from over ten dozen countries, I’ve decided to try to truly penetrate into these countries by translating the site content into 16 other languages, for a total of 17: English, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish.

These languages can reach most of the people in the wired world. As importantly, many journalists visit this website, and frequently reference and quote from it in print, on television and radio around the world, helping the website “radiate” beyond the cyber world. Translation of the site content will also invite commentary from those other nineteen people which can lead to people around the world connecting to exchange information and ideas.

The ill-will being generated against the United States and Britain costs us hugely and in unfathomable ways. Words such as “Made in the U.S.A.” increasingly carry dark undertones. We will never know how often a bottle of fine wine produced in California is bypassed for grapes, perhaps inferior, grown elsewhere. We are allowing our grapes to be soured and our enemies to define us.

As with the syndication project, there will be costs. The total reworking of the website including accrued bills, and the initial translation from past and up to about six months in the future, is roughly $100,000. One thousand people supporting the effort with $125 contributions would make it all happen. And the combined power of the widespread syndication of these dispatches in newspapers across America, with a retooled website reaching a global audience, might just have the thrust needed to break the truth free of the inertia that keeps so many people clinging to so many false assumptions.

Now some people turn up their noses at organizations and individuals who solicit reader or viewer support, but these forms of support have been essential to organizations such as PBS, NPR, and the church I attended growing up. Asking Americans for help is one of the few economic models that always seems to deliver results. More importantly, reader support is the only thing that grants me true editorial freedom.

Other people, especially “professional” journalists, will question the wisdom of placing such faith in my readers, pointing out—correctly—that it is a big gamble. But here again, I don’t have to rely on think-tank studies or media projections. I have direct experience that tells me this is a safe bet. Every time I break a lens, wear through the soles of another pair of boots or need to fly home to attend to a family member’s failing health, my readers step up to the plate. When I need them to help me make my voice heard, they pick up the phone or man the keyboards. It’s humbling, but I am not suffering a conceit that their support is for me, personally or per se, but rather it is an indication of how much value is placed on reports from the frontlines. After all, my readers are funding that effort as well.

To find out more about the NNA syndication project, go here. For more information about how to encourage your local NNA member newspaper to participate, contact our project administrator here. It’s easy to complain about the state of mainstream media coverage of the War in Iraq. Now, it’s also easy to do something concrete to improve it. The hardest part is the work our soldiers and the Iraqi people are doing every day; even the work I do in getting the stories about their efforts out to my readers pales in comparison.

Michael Yon does not receive funding or financial support from Fox News, or from any network, movie, book or television deals at this time. He is entirely reader-supported. He relies on his readers to help him replace his equipment and cover his expenses so that he may remain in Iraq and bring you the stories of our soldiers. If you value his work, please consider supporting his mission.

More special snowflakes

I've had two instances this quarter where a student not just fails a test, the student fails to TAKE the test. Both instances are in my inherited online class.

The first student claimed some sort of family medical emergency that kept her offline for the three days the exam was open. The only thing is, our course management software shows when students log in, and she had logged in during the exam period. When I asked her twice to call me so we could discuss the problem further, I got no response. So, finally, I gave her the zero she had earned. I've not heard another peep out of her.

For the second exam, I made sure to post a huge, flashing red "ANNOUNCEMENT" news item on the course home page a week before the exam period was to start, giving the dates and times-also in red-and stating if the students had a problem with the time period I had to be notified before the exam began. No way anyone could miss it. Except maybe, the second special snowflake in this class.

The exam ended Thursday at midnight. I got an e-mail dated early this morning that this student had an "unexpected trip south with no internet access" and had just returned to UniTown. Okay. Except that the student logged in twice after I posted the announcement, the last time less than 12 hours before the exam opened. So he has known for seven weeks that the exam would be held this past week, and he has known for another week exactly when the exam would be available. He has also known that he needed to contact me if there was a problem with the exam time. Okay, no e-mail. Did he also not have access to a telephone?

Sigh.

On a brighter note, Youngest Daughter is in the final countdown for her weekly allergy shots! She only has seven more weeks to go. That brings her to December, right before she goes to Peru with Best Friend and Old College Friend and Pretty Niece. Yay!

Friday shot day

I've finally made some headway on my to-do list (work list, that is. Home list, that's another story). I still have a proposal to comment on, a homework assignment to write up, and two assignments to grade. That's for this week.

Almost time to leave for Youngest Daughter's shots. It's rainy and windy, and I can hear the our little chipmunk friend building a nest near the door. I don't blame him for wanting to stay inside and cozy!

I just don't get it

I teach four classes this quarter. Each one of them is just...well, weird. I have 9/11 conspiracy theorists in one class, non-talkers in another, and the online class--oh my.

Three of these classes I have taught several times before. I've used the same basic assignments (data and small details changed) several times. Why is it this crop of students has such a hard time understanding and following directions? They just don't get the simplest things. Weird.

The 9/11 conspiracy theorists, they just depress me.

Me? Tired? Nah, not me

I went to bed at 2 a.m. and got up at 7. Why? Well, I watched a movie we had rented from Blockbuster that has been sitting around waiting for me to get to it. That accounts for the 2 a.m. deal. Waking up at 7 was not my intention.

Somewhere around 5 or 6 a.m. one of the cats puked someplace. I heard it, but didn't get up to investigate. Then at 7 Kitty Son, who was curled up next to me, uncurled and spent about 3 minutes coughing up a hairball. I was up anyway, so I thought I'd go clean up the puke.

Note to self: put on glasses before walking around barefoot looking for cat scrack.

I have survived Week Six, and tales of snowflakes large and small

Week Six had some residual nastiness left over from Week Five, an online student who inexplicably went sort of postal on me because I didn't put the dropbox up for an assignment that was due THE FOLLOWING WEEK. Ooooooooooooooooooookay. I took the precaution of sending the entire increasingly bizarre e-mail exchange to her on-campus adviser. Then I met with the adviser, who told me the Postal One called to complain that I was ignoring her (!?!), and who had sent the same exchange minus the very last, not-so-nice snit fit she had sent me. Adviser and I had a good laugh over Postal's weirdness. Adviser agrees there was no need for the snit fit, and that I was more than polite in the face of escalating rudeness on the part of Postal. Whatever.

Even more drama this week from the Special Snowflake with the 4% average. SS suddenly began posting in the discussion forum, albeit with no explanation for the 2+ weeks he went AWOL, during which time he missed two assignments and a team project. Tuesday he posted in the public forum that he missed the deadline for the third assignment and wanted to know where to send it in.

I replied via private e-mail that he could not pass the class whether he turned the third assignment in or not, and that he should withdraw before he got an F in this class a second time. Then I told him to find a course he'd be more interested in. Hey, dude, if you take a course twice and still can't manage to do the most minimal work in it, there's got to be something else that you can waste your time on.

The biggest snowflake of the week is my problematic adjunct. I got this message from him this week: "DrMom: Send me the solution for the final in the X class. Thanks. Clueless Adjunct."

I suppose I should be grateful that he said "thanks." He'll get the solution when I get a request that includes the word "Please."

On a good note, Youngest Daughter finished the 13-chapter workbook for her Music Theory class this week. The actual class is on Chapter 4. Teacher and I decided YD will move into AP Music Theory, starting tomorrow.

On another good note, I was nominated for a teaching effectiveness dinner. Free food! Yeah!

I think I shall spend $5 tomorrow and go to the public skate while YD is taking her lesson. I need to work off some of this week's stress.

Found a cheater,

Found a cheater,
Found a cheater just now
Just now I found a cheater
Found a cheater just now.

Gave him a zero
Gave him a zero
Gave him a zero just now
Just now I gave him a zero
Gave him a zero just now.

He didn't like it
Didn't like it
Didn't like it just now
Just now he didn't like it
Didn't like it just now.

Gave it to him anyway
Gave it to him anyway
Gave it to him anyway just now
Just now I gave it to him anyway
Gave it to him anyway just now.

I find this to be disturbing


Steal and destroy classified documents, get hired by a presidential campaign. Niiiiiiiiiice.

Report: Sandy Berger Advising Sen. Hillary Clinton

Monday, October 08, 2007

AP

Former national security advisor Sandy Berger

WASHINGTON — Sandy Berger, the former national security adviser to President Bill Clinton who was convicted for stealing and destroying top secret documents, is now advising Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, according to a news report.

The (Washington, D.C.) Examiner reported the connection Monday. The Clinton campaign did not provide comment to the paper.

The Examiner reports that the arrangement with Berger is similar to one with Sen. John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign, for which Berger provided foreign policy advice. Kerry, however, severed the relationship with Berger once charges that he stole the classified material became public.

In 2003, Berger took sensitive national security documents from the National Archives in the lead-up to the 9/11 commission hearings, at times stuffing them into his socks, and one time hiding papers under a construction trailer near the archives building in downtown Washington.

Berger, who at first denied any wrong-doing, later pleaded guilty and was fined $50,000 and sentenced to two years probation. He also lost his security clearance for three years.

Good morning from Ronald Reagan National Airport....

Well, not really. That was Wednesday. A very interesting Wednesday morning.

But first, Tuesday evening.....

When last we "talked", we were chuckling over the spelling-challenged co-facilitator at the so-called working group session. I say so-called because the facilitator took over the session and essentially answered all the questions under consideration. He pretty much disparaged any input from the rest of us, so we had nothing else to do but be entertained by the spelling sideshow.

After that interminable session ended, I checked my voice mail and found that Best Friend and College Friend wanted to meet at the White House and then go to dinner at a restaurant nearby. So, I went back to my room and checked e-mail, then hopped on the Metro. A few minutes later I was strolling down Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the President's house.

I sat in front of the White House and waited for my friends, texting Eldest Daughter. Thought I'd try to get a picture of the place on my cellphone, and turned around to take a shot but there was way too much glare. ED told me to wave to the Prez, so I did, and when I turned back to sit down one of the DC cops was watching me very, very closely. I messaged ED and told her, and she said to tell the cop I'm a Republican. Hahahaha.

BF showed up, and then CF, and we set off to circumnavigate the White House before going to the restaurant. I remember visiting the White House in 1973, but we didn't go see the south side of the place. It's beautiful. The monument to the 1st Division is gorgeous; CF wanted to know who polishes the statue on top, because one arm was kind of tarnished.

We wandered past the Treasury building, an absolutely gorgeous piece of architecture, with its statue of Alexander Hamilton (the north side has Albert Gallatin), visited Barnes and Noble down the street, and finally walked over to the Old Ebbit Grill. Son would LOVE this place--they have something called the Orca Platter that features a one pound lobster, one dozen Jonah crab claws, one dozen clams, one dozen oysters, and one dozen shrimp for nearly one hundred dollars. I am not kidding. It's $94.95! I had the chicken.

After dinner (it was really LOUD in there) I said goodbye to my friends and went back to my hotel to get ready to leave the next morning. It took a while to get to sleep, and then at 2 a.m. my phone buzzed--Youngest Daughter sending me a pic of Kitty Mama and Kitty Son sleeping (!) next to each other on the sofa. At least SOMEONE was sleeping!

I got up at 6:30, washed up quickly, and left the hotel at 7 for the Metro to Reagan airport. Once through security, I went to get a croissant and tea for breakfast, as my plane wasn't leaving until 10 a.m. When I got to my gate, I noticed it was full and overflowing with people. This gate is where the regional jets are, and there were multiple flights leaving all within a 10-minute period. I found an empty seat (hurrah!) and pulled out my computer to see if I could score a wifi connection. Surprisingly, there was none to be had. So I read a couple pdf articles I had stored in my "Must Read" folder, and listened to my MP3 player. At first, I wasn't listening to the ongoing announcements, but this one caught my attention:

"Passengers, this gate serves several regional aircraft. The lower level is for boarding only. Do not go down there. It is very congested and there is no seating area. Do not go down there until we announce your flight. If we find you down there and your flight has not been called, the airline will send you to a destination of its choice. Do not take this risk."

Huh? What did he just say? I looked around to see if anyone else had noticed the unusual announcement. A couple people looked perplexed, but most had just ignored it. I put away my MP3 player and started listening to the agent. I was soon rewarded with these gems:

"Passengers flying to Indianapolis, in the Hoosier State. Home of the Indianapolis Colts. GO COLTS! WIN THE SUPER BOWL! Passengers going to Indianapolis, please go to the lower level. Go down the stairs and turn left. You will be in Indiana."

"Passengers flying to Charlestown. Wild and wooly. Almost heaven, West Virginia. Go down the stairs and take a hard left, also known as a U-turn. You will be in West Virginia."

"Passenger X, flying to Providence--your plane is ready to take off but you are not there. The other passengers are asking where you are, they want to go. DO NOT MISS THIS FLIGHT! You will have to drive many hours and get stuck in traffic."

Then this gem:

"Passengers, we fly regional jets only from this gate. If your luggage has wheels, it will not fit in the overhead compartment and it must go in the cargo bay. You must come to the desk and get a yellow tag for your luggage. Do that now. Put the tag on right now. It will be the second-best thing you have done today."

He never did say what was the best thing...

Then, once we boarded the plane, the pilot got in on the act:

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to X airline express to Y city. If you are not going to Y city, now would be a good time to get off the plane."

Altogether, a delightful morning. I never laughed so much in an airport.

Blogging about, instead of from, Washington DC

Monday morning, dark and early, I flew to Washington for a conference on global sourcing issues for food manufacturers. I was actually there a day early; the conference didn't start until Tuesday, so I spent most of Monday wandering about the city. Best Friend and her spouse, College Friend, work in DC--so we met up for lunch at the Ronald Reagan building. Afterwards, they went back to work and I walked over to the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution for the very first time.

The documents are in a modest-sized rotunda, dimly lit and constantly guarded. Several cases containing letters, news articles, and even George Washington's annotated copy of the draft Constitution line the walls. The Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights are in heavy frames outlined in green lights. Since the movie National Treasure came out, throngs of people have made the pilgrimage to see the Charters of Freedom, as the National Archives calls them. It's good to see the crowds of people, especially teenagers, leaning over the cases and excitedly reading out the familiar phrases.

Three of my relatives signed the Declaration; I was eager to see their handwriting in person, to trace the letters and honor their bravery and commitment to our country. It's a grand document, badly faded and hardly legible. I could make out all but one relative's signature, but the other--and the majestic sweep of John Hancock's penmanship--is almost gone now. A sign next to a clear and readable facsimile of the original document makes it clear that the battered and worn Declaration shows the signs not of abuse, but of devotion. Its ringing truths are still self-evident. They are engraved on the heart and mind of those who love the United States and cherish the foundations she stands on.


I expected to be moved by the Declaration. I did not expect to be instantly verklempt at the sight of the words "We the People." The large lump in my throat took me entirely by surprise, and I blinked back tears while reading the familiar but always thrilling Preamble. Many years ago a small film company working in the now-defunct mall on Main Street pulled random shoppers into a makeshift studio and asked them to recite a short phrase from the Preamble. My phrase was "secure the blessings of liberty." I've never forgotten that experience, and often wondered how the film came out.
After that emotional visit, I wandered over to the WWII memorial which is the only one on the Mall that I had not yet seen. On the way, I looked up at the Washington Monument and wondered what George, John, Ben, and Sam would think of us now.

The WWII memorial is huge and noisy. Waterfalls and fountains abound. The only calm water is the pool directly in front of the curved, gold-star-studded Freedom wall. Another surprise catch in the throat, prompted by the glistening stars and a stark sentence: "Here we mark the price of freedom."



Finally, I made my footsore way back to the hotel. Took a nap and then watched Monday Night Football. The conference started at 8 a.m. the next morning.

This conference was a working meeting; we were to help draft recommendations to Congress on food protection issues. The morning and early afternoon were taken up by successive 15-minute presentations on different aspects of food safety and supplier management. Unlike academic conferences, this one actually served us lunch! Quite a nice lunch it was, too. After the presentations we were divided into smaller working groups and sent into adjacent rooms to hammer out responses to six questions. So far, so good.

But...my working group's facilitator was the president of the trade association sponsoring the conference. He had a specific agenda in mind for those six questions, and started off by talking for a half hour, then vetoing every suggestion the group made. Not surprisingly, people stopped talking and suggesting and just let the guy ramble on. Then we found something to be interested in. An older gent, a colleague of this so-called facilitator, was tasked with writing down the responses of our working group. He clearly did not have a good grasp of MS Word or of spelling. His document was all in bold font, and he had clicked on the button that exposes all the paragraph marks and spaces. We watched him painfully hunt and peck but the real delight was his attempt to spell "anonymous". Of course, Word was underlining his attempt ('anonomous") in red, so he backed up and tried "anonimous". Then he tried "anonamous", "anonimus", "annonomous", etc., etc., etc until he finally got a bright idea. SPELL CHECK! Triumphant, he turned to the next bullet point.

"Discression"? No....."disgression"? Hmmm...let's try spell check again..it's recommending "discussion". Nope, that's not it. "Digression"? Nope...by this time, my end of the room was in stitches and some in tears. The facilitator finally realized our attention was totally not on him, and he turned to the hapless scribe and hissed "Not 'ss', 'T'!!"

It was the brightest point of the whole day.

Coming tomorrow: Recounting a delightful morning at Ronald Reagan National Airport.

(photos from the National Archives and the National World War II Memorial)