Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

Off the deep end with O’Reilly

I make it a point to only watch Bill O’Reilly in the smallest doses and never more than a couple of times a week. My head hurts if I tune in more than that.

Monday was one of those nights, though. I was flipping channels, not in the mood for Colbert, not in the mood for “Scrubs,” not in the mood to read The Nation or Taylor Branch’s “At Canaan’s Edge.” And there was O’Reilly, running a couple of (I guess) regulars through what he calls a “culture quiz.” They managed to get a whole lot of easy answers wrong and, in the process, prove that Mr. O’Reilly has truly, madly, deeply lost his mind.

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Runner’s diary, Tuesday

I hate humidity. Wasn’t that hot when I started this morning, but man was I fried by the end. Managed four miles in 38:13 (according to the GPS on my wrist).

Today’s iPod selection: Wilco, Sky Blue Sky. (Figure on this one a lot — seeing them in Red Bank in a few weeks.)

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Pedro for president

This is good news for Mets fans. Pedro Martinez — he of the three Cy Young Awards and dominating presence — threw 31 pitches off the mound today and remains on schedule for an August arrival with the big club.

Whoo hooo!

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The Blog of South Brunswick
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Runner’s diary, Monday

Started with some rowing (about 1,100 meters in five minutes) followed by some lifting. Then onto the treadmill — I do not run outdoors in the rain; I’m not a masochist — for three miles. I took it easy — about 27:30 for the run — and no pain from the knee or the hamstring.

Listened to new Wilco, Sky Blue Sky.

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Collateral damage

I hate the term collateral damage. It is one of those words used by bureaucrats and politicians to make it seem as if their actions on the battlefield have little impact beyond the immediate war. It makes me think of car loans and physical property, when it really means human life.

And the sad thing is, as Derrick Jackson points out in his column today on last night’s Democratic debate, there are too many candidates out there — the exception being Dennis Kucinich — who are willing to sacrifice innocent civilians on the alter of revenge.

Here is Jackson:

So for all the talk about who among the Democrats is most against the war, Iraqi civilians remain too abstract to say “Enough!”

Yes, we lost 3,000 people during 9/11. But between 64,000 and 600,000 Iraqi civilians are now dead because of our invasion and the resulting civil war.

Are we not done killing innocents in the name of bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and weapons of mass destruction?

Apparently not.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
The Cranbury Press Blog

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