Headline in the New York Times this morning:

DECLARE VICTORY AND DEPART IRAQ, U.S. ADVISER SAYS.

And on the opposite side of the page:

BANKERS REAPED LAVISH BONUSES DURING BAILOUTS.

Example the first:

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — Two DeKalb County police officers have been placed on paid administrative leave after an investigation revealed they ran a background check on President Barack Obama.
A representative for the DeKalb County CEO’s office identified the officers as Ryan White and C.M. Route.
Officials said Obama’s name was typed into a computer inside a DeKalb County police car on July 20 and ran through the National Crime Information Center.
The secret service was immediately notified and contacted the DeKalb County Police Department.

Example the second:

(CNN) — A Boston police officer who sent a mass e-mail referring to Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. as a “banana-eating jungle monkey” has apologized, saying he’s not a racist.

Officer Justin Barrett told a Boston television station on Wednesday night that he was sorry for the e-mail.

“I regret that I used such words,” Barrett told CNN affiliate WCVB-TV. “I have so many friends of every type of culture and race you can name. I am not a racist.”

Barrett was placed on administrative leave after the e-mail surfaced, and he might lose his job as a result.

* * *

In Barrett’s e-mail, which was posted on a Boston television station’s Web site, he declared that if he had “been the officer he verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC (oleoresin capsicum, or pepper spray) deserving of his belligerent non-compliance.”

Barrett used the “jungle monkey” phrase four times, three times referring to Gates and once referring to (Globe columnist) Abraham’s writing as “jungle monkey gibberish.”

From email … I don’t know these people, but have no reason to doubt their veracity …

Hi all,

I am sorry that I have to write this email to you, but we are obligated to try everything in our power to help our daughter get out of China.

My wife, Candace Litchford, and I are currently in China in the midst of an adoption of a 4 1/2 year old girl named Guang Yue Ye (her American name will be Harper Yue Ye Scruggs). After the adoption was completed on the Chinese side (she is our legally adopted daughter according to China), we were provided information that she had 2 months ago been diagnosed with tuberculosis, a diagnosis made through blood tests, chest x-rays, and skin tests. She was tested again a few days ago via skin PPD test and with another chest x-ray, both once again confirming the tuberculosis.

We were not provided this information prior to travelling to China, and now we are in the awful position of being the parents of this poor girl and not being able to bring her back to the US. To backtrack a bit, as of July 1 the CDC/DHS has a new regulation requiring all immigrants to pass a TB screening, and if they fail the screening, they are required to wait until full treatment is administered in the country of origin before coming to the US. We have been advised by both our pediatrician and our international adoption specialist (Dr. Patrick Mason of the International Adoption Center in Fairfax, VA) that since Yue Ye has been taking a triad of anti-TB drugs for over a month, she is not contagious. We have obtained letters from our pediatrician indicating their intent to continue monitoring and treatment for Harper’s condition. Yet even with all of this and filling out the required Class A 601 Waiver Form, we have been told it will take over 6 months for the form to be processed by the CDC/DOS/DHS.

There is a waiver process, and our adoption coordinator Irene Jordan at Adoptions Together has been communicating along with us with our local congressman Jim Moran of VA, as well as with the various consulates and agencies involved.

The problem with the waiver process is that it requires clean (negative) sputum tests for TB before travel. The sputum tests themselves take 6 weeks for a result, and if they are positive, two more months must pass before taking the tests again, and so on, in addition to the approval time required for the waiver. We have had our daughter in our possession here for some time now, and she has bonded quite strongly with us. We do not have the financial means to stay with her, as it would mean most likely losing our jobs in the US and defaulting on our current financial obligations such as our mortgage, etc. We also have a 6-year old son in the US that we must get back to.

We cannot abandon our daughter back to the state-run Chinese orphanage, nor can we stay. It would be extremely cruel to Yue Ye, and we have no way of knowing that she would be provided the treatment she requires. In addition, she would be exposed once again to whatever source it was that infected her with TB in the first place, and we may never get to bring her home.

We are left to grasp at whatever straws there may be out there to get our daughter home. Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s not overlook my other big project of the year. I’m told the Mayor should be showing up in bookstores a bit ahead of schedule, so if you have kids, especially on the younger side (4 or 5 is probably the ideal demo, but it can go a few years in either direction), please consider picking it up. As I’ve mentioned before, some unpleasant experiences with major publishers over the past few years led me to sign up with Ig Publishing, a very small operation out of Brooklyn. This is relevant for a few reasons: (1) they let me do the book right, and I’m extremely pleased with the final product; (2) I got a very minimal advance, and related to that, (3) did I mention they’re a very tiny company? The point of (2) and (3) is that sales of this book, unlike any other I’ve ever put out, will have a real and direct and immediate impact on my life, and on the lives of some people who supported and trusted me. It would be nice to earn a few dollars on this myself, and more to the point, it would be nice not to lose money for them.

And it’s a great kid’s book, if I can say so myself.

You can pre-order it here or here. And there are a few more sample pages up on the “official” Mayor site.

Dreams and memories.

And that’s all you get from me.

Democrats may well blow health care reform … again.

President Obama’s ability to shape the debate on health care appears to be eroding as opponents aggressively portray his overhaul plan as a government takeover that could limit Americans’ ability to choose their doctors and course of treatment, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

Americans are concerned that revamping the health care system would reduce the quality of their care, increase their out-of-pocket health costs and tax bills, and limit their options in choosing doctors, treatments and tests, the poll found. The percentage who describe health care costs as a serious threat to the American economy — a central argument made by Mr. Obama — has dropped over the past month.

Ruben Bolling does a masterful job of laying out the basic dynamic here. I’ve mentioned it a time or two myself. But if Democrats do manage to blow this opportunity, at this particular moment in time, then there’s no longer any room for debate: apart from providing a half-assed bulwark against the ever-increasing lunacy of the right, they’re entirely useless.

How have I not seen this film sooner? Caught it last night on HBO. The Yes Men are what Sacha Baron Cohen pretends to be — true social satirists working in the medium of fearless public pranks. The Halliburton Survivaball had me doubled over with laughter.

Was talking to the longhaired guy with the beard earlier; said he liked this photo and I should put it out there … this seems like the day for it …

I’ve been pretty constrained in what I can say about the Pearl Jam collaboration publicly, but with the Backspacer art gone viral all over the web today (I don’t have a link for you because the full cover hasn’t been officially released, but if you poke around — cough cough Wikipedia cough — you’ll find fair approximations fans have put together) — anyway, it seems like a good moment to publicly say thank you to the band, and especially to Eddie, who dreamed up this crazy scheme to begin with. I was feeling like my career had just been kneecapped with the loss of the VVM papers, and might have spent the next six months moping and feeling sorry for myself — instead, I ended up embarking on one of the great adventures of my professional life. (Not that this was a freebie — what I was offered, initially, was a chance, nothing more. Had I fumbled the ball, I have no doubt that the art you’d be seeing today would be something very different. But happily I didn’t, and it’s not.)

As the album drop date gets closer I’ll be able to talk about this in more detail. But for now, I just want to express my heartfelt thanks to the band, for trusting me as an artist, and for changing my life these past six months. It’s been a fantastic wave to ride so far.

… and while I’m on the subject: everyone in the PJ offices has been amazing to work with. And big, big props to the invaluable Andy Fischer, who’s been handling the production details on this thing for months.

From my friends who work with Pearl Jam:

Pearl Jam recently announced the September 20th release of their anticipated new album, Backspacer (produced by Brendan O’Brien), plus a handful of U.S. tour dates in support of the record. For Backspacer’s cover art, the band enlisted the creative genius of their friend and renowned political cartoonist Tom Tomorrow. Here’s a one image from the cover art –click on it to discover more….

(warning if you’re at work — music will play)

… adding: this is one of nine images from the cover of the album/cd/etc. The rest are hidden all around the web — I suspect the Pearl Jam forums will be of some help finding them. There’s apparently a bonus download once you manage to fill them all in …

Update 2: there were some issues this morning with some browsers, which seem to have been resolved … all good now …