FZINE: a place for high school students and teachers to read, interact, and contrbute. LAUNCH
IT TAKES BALLS to tout increased funding for renewable energy resources and lament, as our President did in the State of the Union address on January 31, that our country is “addicted to oil.” Two days later Bush’s Energy Secretary announced that that the President “didn’t mean it literally,” and within the week the Administration released a 2007 budget that actually cut Department of Energy funding by 5.6 percent.
IT TAKES BALLS to rail publicly against a leak to the New York Times about the NSA wiretapping program, as Vice President Cheney has, saying the information “was improperly given to the news media.” However, according to Irv Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s testimony, Cheney authorized and encouraged leaks of specific classified information to journalists, so long as it supported the Administration’s agenda.
IT TAKES BALLS to run on a platform of reform, as newly elected House Majority Leader John Boehner did, who, according to Newsweek, accepted more than $150,000 since 2000 from private interests groups for paid “working” trips to golf courses (ranking him within the top 10 receivers in all of Congress).
The Washington Post also reported on February 8 that Boehner rents his home in Washington D.C. from a powerful veteran lobbyist, John D. Milne, whose clients “have direct stakes in legislation Boehner has co-written and that he has overseen as Chairman of the Education and Workforce Committee.”
IT TAKES BALLS for the Simon Wiesenthal Center to plan a Center for Human Dignity Museum of Tolerance on land that for hundreds of years was part of Jerusalem’s main Muslim cemetery. The goal of the project, according to the Center’s website, is to spread “the history and vital need for tolerance in Israel and around the globe.” Designed by Millennium Park architect Frank Gehry, construction has already begun on land that holds the remains of Muslims dating from the 7th century.
In a study released this year, Syracuse University found that in some bat species, the bigger the balls, the smaller the brains. After Vice President Cheney accidentally shot a friend he was (illegally?) hunting with on February 11, the big balls/small brain relationship seems less than surprising.
MARCH 2006