The Live Wire, Oct. 28: Clinton Gives Meek the Best Advice of the Year

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Today’s Live Wire: Quick Links

• Clinton to Meek: Drop Out
• Del Trayer Naming Rights
• Obama, Defensive on Daily Show
• Woman to Woman in Afghanistan
• Foreclosure Crisis Spreading
• The Paris Review Interviews Online

Clinton to Meek: Drop Out

From The Times: “Former President Bill Clinton last week tried to convince Kendrick Meek, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Florida, to drop out of the race – but Mr. Meek changed his mind at the last minute, a spokesman for Mr. Clinton said Thursday evening. Matt McKenna, Mr. Clinton’s spokesman, said the former president believed that Mr. Meek would not win on Tuesday and was urging him to drop out and endorse Charlie Crist, the state’s governor, who is running for the Senate as an independent. The back-channel efforts by Mr. Clinton, which were first reported by Politico, were apparently an effort to prevent the state’s Senate seat from falling into the hands of Marco Rubio, the Republican who is leading both of his rivals in the polls. There had been reports that for several weeks that Mr. Meek was being urged to consider dropping out of the contest. But the Democrat said repeatedly that he was staying in until the end. “I will not drop out of this race for any reason,” Mr. Meek said at the time.” The full post.

Del Trayer Naming Rights

The Flagler County School Board is looking to honor former (and deceased) member Dell Trayer by naming something–a room, a library, a building–after her. It’s not as simple as it sounds. One option was to name a room, part of the Wadsworth Elementary School media center (or library), after her, but board member Colleen Conklin thought that wasn’t “appropriate” enough. “I don’t want to do something to insult her, her memory,” she said. The whole library was discussed. Then Harriett Holiday, the director of personnel, raised the matter of precedent: does the board want to name something for every board member who dies? What about past board members? What about members of long date who died in office? Or those still alive? “Andy’s mom was on the board for 16 years,” Conklin said, referring to Nancy Dance, on the board until 2000. The issue, which the board discussed during a workshop earlier today (Oct. 28), wasn’t settled. Naming rights are headed for a mulling over.

Obama on the Defensive on the Daily Show

Woman to Woman in Afghanistan

From the Nation: “The military officially maintains the fiction that women are excluded from combat, so Army FET [Female Engagement Team] organizers have to recruit volunteers among the women in “soft” skill jobs on base—women soldiers the Army hasn’t trained in the “hard” skills of combat soldiering. (They have the right to refuse to join the FET, but in the Army it’s hard to say no when you’ve been “voluntold.”) The FETs are then attached to male infantry units for missions that take them outside the wire. The Marine FETs who volunteered for training at Camp Pendleton are similarly attached to male “maneuver units.” Deployed to Helmand province, scene of the first major offensive of Obama’s war, some Marine FETs have been engaged in firefights. Yet it’s one of the ironies of FETs that women soldiers, insufficiently trained to defend themselves, must still be escorted by men, just like Afghan women.” The full story.

Foreclosure Crisis Spreading

From the BBC: “The foreclosure crisis in the US has spread across a wider area of the country, according to RealtyTrac, which monitors repossession activity. The organisation said foreclosure notices increased across a majority of large metropolitan areas, including Chicago and Seattle. Previously, these cities had seen relatively low levels of activity. Separately, Wells Fargo said it would refile documents on 55,000 foreclosures after admitting technical mistakes. RealtyTrac’s report said that California, Nevada, Florida and Arizona remained the worst affected areas. They accounted for 19 of the top 20 metropolitan areas with the highest foreclosure rates between July and September. The trend is the latest sign that the US foreclosure crisis is worsening as homeowners – facing high unemployment, slow job growth and uncertainty about house prices – continue to fall behind on their mortgage payments.” The full story.

The Paris Review Interviews Online

Since the 1953, the Paris Review, one of America’s best quarterly journals of literature and culture, has been home to the very best interviews of the world’s greatest living writers, on their craft. Writers read those interviews the way scientists hunch over the petri dishes. The interviews dispense with the stupidities of gossip and likes and dislikes and immerse each writer (and reader) in the nitty-gritty of writing–how novels, plays, poems are written, to the extent that the creative process can be understood (or at least observed: it’s ultimately inexplicable), with rich discussions of some of the century’s best books. Until now some of the interviews had been posted online, but most were behind a wall. The Paris Review’s new editors, Lorin Stein and Philip Gourevitch, have placed the entire collection of interviews online. Here they all are: John McPhee from this year, David Grossman (Israel’s best and an eventual Nobel winner: mark these words) in 2007, Stephen King, Woody Allen, Maya Angelou, Mario Vargas Llosa (who just won the Nobel), Faulkner, Hemingway, Truman Capote, Thornton Wilder, Jack Kerouac… they’re all there. Or here.

A Few Good Links

• Cambodia’s Perfect War Criminal
• ObamaCare IS Working – That’s WHY It’s a Problem