| Latest Commentary: | Volume IV, Number 142 |
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US Military to Expand Domestic Surveillance
-- The US military has a long and honorable history of staying out of domestic squabbles (with the possible exception of the Southern War of Treason, commonly called the Civil War). While other republics in the hemisphere have succumbed to military coups d’ etat, America’s armed forces have never questioned the concept of civilian control of the military. Unfortunately, that comfortable position is threatened, not by a huge and might blow against freedom (for which the Pentagon wouldn’t stand) but rather by a slow erosion of limits on military intelligence. The military’s gathering of intelligence for the War on Terror may now target private US citizens.
England’s Liberalized Drinking Laws Survive First Week-End -- For New Yorkers, whose bars must close no later than 4 am, a visit to London for a booze up has always been a shock. Those Upper East and West Siders who rarely leave their own homes on Friday and Saturday before 11 pm for a night out used to find London shutting down at that hour. Those old enough can remember the pubs closing in the middle of the afternoon as well. This past week-end was the first of potentially unlimited drinking hours, and the result was not the lager-fuelled chaos the Tory Party predicted. The papers had no reports of such, and the only article one could find on the matter was called “The civilised face of late-night drinking.” Cyber Monday Follows Black Friday for Retailers -- “Black Friday” is the only good day in the Wall Street jargon that carries that adjective. It is the day after Thanksgiving, when shoppers crowd the malls as early as 5 am to get the “best deals,” and when retailers have a hope of finishing the year in the black A better name might be “Fat Friday,” but “Vendredi Gras” makes it sound like a New Orleans party. In any case, the day came and went followed by a week-end of shopping that makes sellers of stuff feel perky about this year. Thanks, Maggie -- Dogs are, in most respects, better friends than people are. Dogs are pretty transparent and can only be sneaky when they are trying to get into the garbage for a snack. While they might mess up a carpet now and then, and perhaps chew up a shoe, they are incapable of genuine deceit or malice. That is why humans live about seven times longer – they need the extra time to get in as much decency as a dog can in a decade or so. This week-end one family had to say “good-bye” to its canis familiaris and came to realize that dogs get a better deal at the end of their time than people do with theirs. © Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux. |
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