Brian Gongol
So many lives are at stake in Africa's famine
House approves debt-ceiling deal
It's an imperfect deal, but it had to be done. What's disappointing is that some partisans, who are entirely right that the government needs to bring spending under control, used entirely the wrong tactic for getting their point across. Running down the clock to the last minutes before a potential government default in order to protest excessive government debt is like taking the family for a death-defying drive at 100 miles an hour on the freeway just to scare them into wearing their seat belts. Brinksmanship isn't persuasion, it's a scare tactic. Now that the deal looks like it'll go through (pending approval in the Senate), the really critical matter will be determining who sits on the 12-person committee of Congress to come up with some kind of plan for resolving the long-term deficit problem.
Sometimes the drug charge is a better option
Some doofus racked up dozens of traffic violations running from the police in Cedar Rapids, apparently in an effort to avoid getting busted for possession of a small amount of pot. Idiot.
How community institutions get started
The receptionist in the lobby of a Pittsburgh office tower listens to baseball games on the radio and uses home runs as a cue to flicker a light atop the building. It's really quite delightful -- a totally organic, authentic community expression. Very fun.
