The Burrow

TBG and I were listening to the talking heads on CNN this afternoon, putting away laundry and making snarky replies to the voices when we stopped in our tracks, looked up at the screen... then each other... stunned.  80% of the victims of violent crime in Chicago refuse to cooperate with the police. Amidst an epidemic of deaths and mayhem, only 20% of the victims are helping the police to solve the crime.  As the CPD interviewee ruefully reminded us, it's hard to turn the tide when the victims are hostile witnesses. Hearing that, I had to stop and wonder, were they hostile or were they afraid?  Were they prepared to settle the score themselves, or were they frightened that further damage would be done should they choose to help? Did they feel so uncertain, so insecure, that laying low was their only option? What is it like, being unable to trust the police? Politics aside, I'm making a connection between the people in those neighborhoods caught up in gang violence a...

I've been thinking about it all day. I haven't listened to the radio or political talking heads and the sports guys are all caught up in Tiger's privacy statement so I've gotten no input from that angle, either. The local paper is filled with the usual crime and mayhem and good deeds being done around town and the Wall Street Journal didn't offer much more than a recap of the speech itself. These thoughts, therefore, are totally my own. I love listening to President Obama speak. He is the very best of teachers and explainers and convincers. He looks me right in the eye and tells me that he refuses to believe that we can't recapture that feeling of all being in it together that we had after 9/11 and suddenly I want to go out and hang the flag as I did all through September and October and November of 2001. He tells the Afghan people straight out that he has no interest in occupying their country nor of becoming a permanent military presence and I almost-ne...

President Obama is doing a lot of thinking about Afghanistan this week. To prove it, NBC Nightly News just ran a picture of him sitting at the head of a long table, in his shirtsleeves, surrounded by Cabinet members and the Veep and lots of paper. There wasn't a laptop in sight. The President was the youngest person in the shot by a bunch of years. He's drinking a bottle of water; Hillary's a Coke girl. Not Diet Coke. Regular, full strength classic Coca-Cola. That's one of the few things I think she gets right. I really hope they recycle at the White House. Otherwise, they're setting a very bad example for our nation. In another conversation on Afghanistan this afternoon, Campbell Brown couldn't believe that the President was " considering separating the Taliban and al Quaeda. I mean, can you do that ?" Um.... yes, Campbell. One is a repressive, hateful-to-women political force with no ambitions beyond its own borders. The other is a terror...