Gitmo et al.

1. Reading the breathless account of what captive jihadists say -- all part of the drum beat of optimism from NY Times-Democrat, do we not wonder whatever to do?  Close Gitmo?  Move it?  Release the Jihadists, some of whom don't know any better?  Impeach Bush & Cheney, who by the way won handily in 2004?  It's a world-class conundrum.

2. "It's freedom of speech," said radio host Al Franken, who had just got a Freedom of Speech Award, when urged to end a too-long tirade vs. Bush admin and war.

"It's not freedom to kill everybody's evening, so why don't you wrap it up," replied the MC. 

There are limits, in other words?

3. Re: Coyotes, from Reader Marta:

Unfortunately your instant rebuttal [they don't bother people] isn't completely accurate -- two children were mauled by coyotes that wandered close to an elementary school here in California a couple of years back.  A bigger problem is their habit of eating household pets -- I've lost a couple cats to coyotes.  I can sort of justify it -- circle of life and all that, but I still went through the pet grieving process associated with the loss of a furry family member.

4. The 23-year-old Bears lineman caught with loaded gun is "from another state and not familiar with what's going on here," his lawyer said (here and here).  The state is Arizona.  After high school, where he was also a star volleyballer, he played for U. of Washington.  He weighs 300 pounds now, is 6 feet 2 inches high, broad-jumped farther than any other lineman in Bears training camp.  At U. Wash. he had to sit out a year because his high-school core-curriculum grade point average was lower than the 2.0 required by NCAA's Proposition 48, covering college admissions for student athletes.  Nor had he scored 700 on the SAT or 15 on the ACT, thus further failing the requirement.

The rule affects black players far more than whites:  In a recent year, 87% of freshman held back were black!  These and the other 13% spent their first year on campus acquiring grades from the college of their choice so that the college could profit from their performance on the gridiron, which says a lot about (a) academic hard work by footballers or (b) colleges' eagerness to get over the Rule 48 hump by making sure grades get good enough or courses are easy enough. 

This bad academic showing by blacks is "hugely discriminatory," however, says The National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest), which "works to end the misuses and flaws of standardized testing and to ensure that evaluation of students, teachers and schools is fair, open, valid and educationally beneficial."    Yessir.

5. Have you ever considered how much safer Chi streets would be if Chi Trib devoted as much ink and space to crime-problem solutions as to legal-system abuses?  If headline after headline blared the message about what works in Chi and elsewhere, like how Giuliani cleaned up Times Square?  Wouldn't that grab the strap hangers on their way to the office?  And help circulation while we're at it, if you please?