October 20, 2007 to January 4, 2008. In that span of time, not one article was posted on Missile Test. The previous three months leading up to that hiatus had been prolific ones in the life of the site. Seventeen articles posted from July 18 to October 20, an average of more than one a week. In 2006, my output for the site was dismal. Only sixteen articles. Using that as my guide, during the summer I made a decision to step up production, with the goal of posting a minimum of fifty-two articles a year. For me, that was an ambitious goal. In the life of the site, there had never been a year that maintained enough consistency to guarantee that many postings, but I had seemed to hit a stride in the last few months. Quality was as uneven as ever. After all, I am working without an editorial staff to slap me when I’m being foolish, but that’s neither here nor there. Continue reading “Death of a Journalist”
Gears and Dials, True Results
If you’ve ever harbored doubts about the reliability of touch-screen voting machines, then Clive Thompson’s article in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine will turn those doubts into certainty. Thompson spends thousands of words lambasting the touch-screen machines, their makers, and the local elections boards that purchased them. Near the end, Thompson puts forth an alternative system that has proven far more reliable in the past than touch-screen machines: optical scan ballots. In the interest of postulating diverse solutions to an important problem, I offer this: Continue reading “Gears and Dials, True Results”
Sports Do Not Matter
The reverberations from the Mitchell Report released last month will be felt for some time in professional baseball. One of the most prolific offensive eras in baseball history, one in which personal performance soared and the records associated with it fell, has now been tainted. In a sport that maintains a direct connection to its century-long history through its statistics, its holy numbers, anything which could damage the validity of those numbers threatens the very integrity of the sport. The report contained few surprises, but it set forth in writing just how widespread the use of performance-enhancing drugs had become in the major leagues. Most compellingly, the report named names. Continue reading “Sports Do Not Matter”
In the City, Subway Circle of Life
A rat died in the DeKalb Avenue station on the L line about a week and a half ago. I know this because its corpse is still laying on the track bed, in the space in the middle, the one people dive into to save their lives if they’re on the tracks and a train is barreling down on them. Didn’t help the rat any. Continue reading “In the City, Subway Circle of Life”
Jackasses at the Helm, Oval Office Thunderdome
Barack Obama, John Edwards, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, and Dennis Kucinich, all Democratic candidates for president, have withdrawn from the January 15th Michigan primary. The reason? Michigan violated Democratic National Committee rules by moving its primary forward of February 5th. In addition, all the Democratic candidates, including the frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, have vowed not to campaign in Florida for identical reasons. The DNC itself has added injury to insult, vowing that no delegates from the two states will be seated at the party’s nominating convention in Denver next year if the states go through with their early primaries. All this begs the question: Have the Democrats gone insane? Continue reading “Jackasses at the Helm, Oval Office Thunderdome”
In the City, the New Immigrants
The beeping had gone on for days. Once every minute. Loud. It hadn’t bothered me at first. I noticed it during lunch. Later that day the beeping was still there, and I left the living room, retreated to my bedroom. It was strange. The only time I could remember when my bedroom was more peaceful than my living room. I’m not being a pig. Swear. My bedroom faces the street. The living room is nestled in the middle of my apartment. It’s a sanctuary, a place of peace from the noise of the street, a great buffer of contentment, and rarely was there disturbance. But that damn beeping. It was regular, dependable, and loud, in every negative and annoying way a sound could be. But after that first night, I forgot it. Parked in front of the machine, the living room took a back seat. Less living there than there should have been. But that’s the way in the age of technology, right? Continue reading “In the City, the New Immigrants”
In the City, in the Subway
I thought I was being polite. There was a woman sitting to my left. So I turned my head to the right when I sneezed. For some reason I hadn’t noticed the man sitting to my right. He very calmly wiped my spit and snot from the side of his face. I buried myself back in my book, and sped off the train at the next stop. It wasn’t my stop. Continue reading “In the City, in the Subway”
Please, Not Another One
The man in the Oval Office smiles. The great coup in the Bush administration this past week was the visit to New York by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A man who was elected, yet rules by permission from the Mullahs in Qom, came to this country and caught nothing but flak. From the right, from the left, did not matter. He received an invitation to speak at Columbia University, and in return for accepting this invitation, was greeted with a profoundly insulting introduction by Columbia’s President Lee C. Bollinger. Bollinger, after catching flak of his own throughout the week for extending the invitation to Ahmadinejad, felt it necessary to repulse that criticism with such choice sentiments from the podium as, “Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator,” and, referring to Ahmadinejad’s statements regarding the Holocaust, “You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated.” Free speech remains safe for us all. Continue reading “Please, Not Another One”
An Ugly Tactic for an Ugly War
From the category labeled “Be Careful What You Wish For,” the Washington Post reported on Monday that some Army snipers have been baiting targets. The snipers were given such objects as AK-47 ammunition and wire that could be used in bombs by troops from the Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group to place in conspicuous spots around a target area. The snipers would then hide and wait for anyone to pick up the materials. Those that did were greenlit and were engaged by the snipers. It’s not clear at this point how many Iraqis have been killed using such tactics, or if the baiting is an ongoing program. What is clear is the visceral nastiness of such an idea. But, send an army to war, and they will find creative ways to not only kill, but also identify, and perhaps create, targets. Continue reading “An Ugly Tactic for an Ugly War”
Jackasses at the Helm, Part Two
A strange thing happened this past January. The inauguration of the new Democratic majority should have been a cold day for the Iraq War hawks in the Republican Party and the White House. The Democrats rode a wave of discontent about the war to victory in the midterm elections of 2006. There was much high rhetoric and bold pronouncements that the end, if not all that near, was at least foreseeable. Continue reading “Jackasses at the Helm, Part Two”