Thanks to...

Many thanks to Daily Pepper for an excellent and thoughtful commentary on my recent post about an article in the latest issue of Harper's (see "A Defense? Perhaps. You Decide.).

Pepper, you and I may not agree on everything about politics and faith, and that's fine. I'm definitely glad we're friends. The Crepe Vine awaits us on my next trip to the Bay! Or maybe Jupiter, for a change of scene...what do you say?

Also, thanks to S4P, who, during an online chat session, gave me more food for thought re: the whole Newsweek mess. As he rightly pointed out, these kinds of issues are very complicated, and so I will clarify (retracting nothing!) that in my last post I wasn't at all trying to say that journalists shouldn't be responsible with their reporting. They should. Was the story true? I don't know; my opinion is, it very well may have been. If it was, should they have published it, knowing the reaction it would cause? I don't know; I need to think about this one a little more. It's a delicate question in some ways. But anyway, none of that was really my point; what concerned me was the fact that the reporting of the incident seemed to highlight our government's tendency toward manipulating a press that is already corrupt enough, when it pays more homage at the shrine of the Almighty Dollar than it does at the Temple of Truth.

Ok, so enough of politics for now. My head hurts. Bleah.