Friday, January 23, 2009

An unexpected Drummond Place committee meeting last night sped the sleeve on towards the top. I may even reach the final shaping today.

Yesterday’s misfortune was losing a choice postcard of Kirkmichael in the final seconds of an eBay auction. The action was so split-second that I think the winning bid must have come in from one of those agencies. Kirkmichael itself doesn’t change much, but we don’t have any postcards in our collection showing children playing with hoops in the street, nor, I think, do we have any taken from that end of the street. We were very sorry to lose this one. The left foreground shows the opening of the road over the bridge which one takes to get to our house. Proper Kirkmichael people regard with some suspicion those of us who live over there. And vice versa. The world is ever so.

I am delighted by the news that President Obama – oh! the writing of those words! – has appointed Senator Mitchell to the Middle East. He is the man, with Clinton powerfully behind him, who brought peace to Ireland, although I have seen credit claimed by Tony Blair; by his preposterous Secretary of State for Northern Ireland at the time, Mo Mowlem; and even by Hillary. During the conference which produced the Good Friday agreement, Senator Mitchell required the participants to sit down and eat together. If he can pull that off in the Middle East, the job is done. Not this week, I fear.

And I was surprised to hear on the radio in the night that the president has ordered the closing of secret CIA detention centres. I thought Bush told us there weren’t any. We had a wonderful and astonishing interview on the BBC World Service during the night (what would British-based insomniacs do without it?) by one of Bush’s speech writers, maintaining in so many words that waterboarding isn’t torture and telling us of all the terrorist attempts circumvented by information obtained from men so treated. He thought President Obama’s decision a dangerous one.

On the other hand, the decision to repeat the oath of office seems to me childish and superstitious, although I know, of course, as a knitter, the importance of feeling sure that you’ve Got It Right.

I am grateful for continued help and advice on the DVD question – I think I am speeding forwards towards my goal of seeing EZ at last. And for the enthusiasm for I Knit. I think the next time we are in London I will require my husband to do a half-day of art on his own, while I go there.

7 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:39 PM

    I have visited IKnit a couple of times while staying with our younger generation--there always seem to be some very contented knitters gathered around the table, knitting and visiting.

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  2. I think rather than superstitious, repeating the oath correctly as laid out in the constitution is playing it safe. There were right wingers already saying they could challenge things because Obama wasn't 'really' president due to the botched oath. Sadly, they were not kidding.

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  3. I'm not sure whether the re-administering of the oath was not necessary. The last thing we need - when there are so many other problems to tackle - is having to argue against those who say he is not really the president because of CJ Roberts' slip up.

    I can understand, also, that as a constitutional scholar, President (!) Obama would agree with the need.

    Interestingly, I hadn't realized this has happened twice before. See http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2009/01/22/obama_oath_controversy.html

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  4. Let's try this again. http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2009/01/22/obama_oath_controversy.html

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  5. Nope - sorry, Jean. For the story, check out the atlantic journal constitution or just google "re-doing oath of office." It should be one of the top stories listed.

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  6. When you plan to visit I Knit please can we have "A Meet Jean at I Knit Afternoon"?
    I can get there and I suspect many other readers could as well. I think I Knit would be happy to let us sit, knit, chat and buy!

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  7. I'm sorry to hear you lost a Kirkmichael post card auction. Hopefully when the next one comes up you win.

    There are many of us here in the US who are very pleased with George Mitchell's assignment to broker a peace agreement in the Middle East. The new administration is being more and more impressive as it goes along. All the press can whine about is how the tech-savvy crew had a hard time getting set up in the West Wing offices. It doesn't matter; the Big Guy has his Blackberry!

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