The lawsuit argues that the involvement of the GAB — a civil enforcement agency — in the criminal John Doe probe has created a "Frankenstein monster" that has deprived O'Keefe of some of his legal rights.

"The result is terrible to behold: a creature that covertly collects sensitive information on political activities that do not — and cannot — constitute a crime, all the while maintaining a nearly impenetrable shield of secrecy," the lawsuit reads....

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki apologized publicly Friday for what he called an "indefensible" lack of integrity among some senior leaders of the VA health-care system, and he announced several remedial steps, including a process to remove top officials at the troubled VA medical center in Phoenix.

Shinseki gave no indication that he intends to resign, despite growing calls for him to step down because of the scandal.

"But granting the grammatical right, that Moses might speak of himself in the third person, because any man might speak of himself in that manner, it cannot be admitted as a fact in those books, that it is Moses who speaks, without rendering Moses truly ridiculous and absurd: -- for example, Numbers xii. 3: "Now the man Moses was very MEEK, above all the men which were on the face of the earth." If Moses said this of himself, instead of being the meekest of men, he was one of the most vain and arrogant coxcombs; and the advocates for those books may now take which side they please, for both sides are against them: if Moses was not the author, the books are without authority; and if he was the author, the author is without credit, because to boast of meekness is the reverse of meekness, and is a lie in sentiment."

Bush lied, people [censored]! 

... Ras Baraka [the principal of Central High School, a city councilman, and post-Booker mayoral candidate] held a press conference in front of Weequahic High School, denouncing the plan as "a dismantling of public education.… It needs to be halted."...

In late January, Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, spoke at a school-board meeting at First Avenue School in Newark. Five hundred people filled the auditorium; another three hundred and fifty listened in the cafeteria, and more than a hundred stood outside, demanding entry. Weingarten pledged the A.F.T.'s support "until this community gets its schools back," and declared, "The nation is watching Newark."...

Shavar Jeffries [lawprof and mayoral candidate] believes that the Newark backlash could have been avoided. Too often, he said, "education reform . . . comes across as colonial to people who've been here for decades. It's very missionary, imposed, done to people rather than in coöperation with people." Some reformers have told him that unions and machine politicians will always dominate turnout in school-board elections and thus control the public schools. He disagrees: "This is a democracy. A majority of people support these ideas. You have to build coalitions and educate and advocate." As he put it to me at the outset of the reform initiative, "This remains the United States. At some time, you have to persuade people."

Was Ras Baraka's win a referendum on Cory Booker?...

... Baraka and Booker are polar opposites. Booker is the Ivy-League and Oxford educated, suburban-bred son of IBM executives who brought a deracialized campaign persona, neoliberal policy proposals and tremendous national and international attention to the city. Baraka is the son of the late poet Amiri Baraka who brought his parents progressive, nationalist and activist sensibilities into formal politics. The only things these two men share are a common racial identification and birth year.

There was no reason to go past twenty-two rounds and the limits of the Championship Word List, because neither of these boys was better than the other tonight. Both were outstanding. All that would have happened, had this gone further, was one would have gotten lucky and the other, not—but neither would have been "better" in any meaningful sense.

Greg Lockwood married Lockwood's mother, Karen, when they were both teenagers; he had just joined the Navy. Karen was raised Catholic, but Greg was an atheist. During one patrol, on a nuclear submarine off the coast of Norway, he underwent what he later described as "the deepest conversion on record." He claims it grew out of soul-searching following several personal setbacks, but the family legend ascribes it to the fact that he and the crew on his previous patrol watched "The Exorcist" more than 70 times in 88 days. Whatever the catalyst, Lockwood became a devout Christian. He started a family, attended college and seminary and eventually was ordained as a Lutheran minister. And then one morning in 1985 he "woke up Catholic"; a few years later he became a priest, with the zeal of the twice-converted.

In Lockwood's telling, her father ruled the home as a loving and idiosyncratic patriarch who wore his cassock in the living room, or else very little — "It was either full regalia or nothing" — watched sword-and-sandal movies obsessively, played blues guitar, ate copious amounts of sausage and fed the family a steady dose of prog rock. 

Life Imitates the Onion

"Woman a Leading Authority on What Shouldn't Be in Poor People's Grocery Carts"--headline, Onion, May 1

"The Campaign for Junk Food: Michelle Obama on Attempts to Roll Back Healthy Reforms"--headline and subheadline, New York Times, May 29

"But twee now is almost a value set," said Lisle Mitnik, guitarist for Very Truly Yours, Chicago's best-known twee offering to the latest resurgence of twee-inflected rock. "It's a rejection of societal pressures, a denial of coolness, punk without anger. It can be precious, but a precious moment can also be beautiful."

Indeed, if there's a reason for our current twee proliferation, it's probably here: When every other innocuous TV show and commercial and pop song and animated movie requires the kind of "edge" once associated with a more cantankerous strain of pop culture, what could be more contrarian than a hand-stitched, sunshiney smile delivered without an ounce of detectable irony?