Arrested developments

Oddly enough - from Reuters, comes this little gem with the familiar-sounding headline, "Landlord arrested for spying on tenants." To quote:

German police have arrested a 60-year-old landlord after discovering he used cameras and microphones to spy on his tenants for a decade while they bathed and slept.

Falling down on the job -- I want my nation's landlord (OCP*) "arrested for spying" on our own citizens without warrants. And I want certain members of the mainstream media, pointed out in Glenn Greenwald's recent post, arrested for being stenographers, rather than investigating the domestic spying charges. In a series of well-documented Salon articles, Greenwald calls Time magazine Joe Klein to task for sloppy reporting about the upcoming legislative-administration showdown over amending the Protect America Act. To quote:

. . . The issue of "why" the media behaves this way is complex and completely separate from demonstrating that they do. There are numerous factors. Some of it is ideological. Much of it is the perception of what is economically rewarding . . .

A huge amount of it is due to the herd behavior of our vapid, eager-to-be-liked journalist class, desperate for access to and affection from power -- which, in Washington, means GOP operatives and high government officials.

The discipline required to do a good job as a political activist blogger is a big personal commitment. Greenwald is one of the best at it. For him it means getting his facts straight, and sticking with issues about which he is passionate. I stand small in his shadow. Others who do it consistently well include Juan Cole (Middle East specialist), Steve Clemons (The Washington Note), and the Firedoglake weblog.
Blogging for me means all 7 days from Sunday, whether my spirit and psyche like it or not. But the rewards are worth it: A new reader, regulars from other nations, prose that flows, and finally, venting positively, rather than just ranting and complaining. What I must guard against is activist's arrested development.
*Abbreviations - OCP is for "our current president," because the term makes his tenure feel more temporary.
View my current slide show about the Bush years, "Millennium," at the bottom of this column.
My links:
(Cross-posted at The Reaction.)
My “creativity and dreaming” post today at Making Good Mondays is a new poem, "The rhyme that wrote itself."
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