I Love The Washington Post
I read something remarkable in the Post today. This particular item was published in Sunday's Outlook section. This is the weekly section devoted to op-eds, political analysis/essays, etc.
I suppose to explain why I was reading this Sunday section on a Tuesday, I should tell you a little about myself. I like to think I am a "spontaneous" person but not so when it comes to the newspaper. My daily routine goes something like this: wake up, bring in paper, quickly toss the Business section in the recycling pile, scan the Sports section to see how badly the Cubs lost the previous day (if they won, I'll open the section and read about it), check out the stupid Metro section and wonder why I even bother to look at it, then I read the fun Style section during breakfast; thus I save the most brain taxing section, the front page, for the commute to and fro work. It's a nice routine.
Sundays, however, are a different story. The front page loses out to the Outlook section for most brain taxing (front page: the world is ending; Outlook: why the world is ending). After reading all the fun Sunday only sections in bed, I sometimes don't have it in me for Outlook. This week, I didn't get to it until today at lunch. But boy! If i ever think about skipping the section altogether in the future, I will remember this article and keep on saving that section til I read it.
So, without further ado:
A Run for the Border
By P.W. SingerSunday, July 9, 2006; Page B03
Those of us who track federal contracting come across unusual announcements all the time. Sometimes they are a useful indicator of preparations for a policy soon to be enacted. Other times they signify nothing more than a government bureaucracy in all its inane glory. How, then, should we react to the solicitation at right -- a Department of Homeland Security request for an "indefinite quantity, indefinite delivery" of burritos to be stockpiled along the Texas border?
The contract raises a feast of questions: Why didn't Homeland Security just get the super-value meal? More important, is Taco Bell disqualified from bidding because of its slogan "Make a run for the border"?
Posted in late June, the solicitation came on the heels of another spicy tidbit on the same government database -- a contract for as much as $385 million awarded just a few months ago to Dick Cheney's old firm Halliburton to be on call in case the government ever needs to build 5,000-person camps for "temporary detention and processing." Could we have here a bean-and-beef-stuffed sign that the administration is contemplating a showy border sweep before the congressional elections?
That such conspiracy theories should even come to mind is a sad statement about our politics. Rather than serious public debate, we've been served a summer of faux outcries, such as describing flag burning and same-sex marriage as epidemics and treating immigration as a national security crisis. It's enough to give anyone indigestion.
P.W. Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, always gets the Gorditas.
(wait--who gets the gorditas?)
There's a picture to go along with this article. I'm having trouble posting it so hopefully it will follow. It's something.
Another thing: what, are immigrants never vegetarians? just like the U.S. to not take such a thing into account.
I suppose to explain why I was reading this Sunday section on a Tuesday, I should tell you a little about myself. I like to think I am a "spontaneous" person but not so when it comes to the newspaper. My daily routine goes something like this: wake up, bring in paper, quickly toss the Business section in the recycling pile, scan the Sports section to see how badly the Cubs lost the previous day (if they won, I'll open the section and read about it), check out the stupid Metro section and wonder why I even bother to look at it, then I read the fun Style section during breakfast; thus I save the most brain taxing section, the front page, for the commute to and fro work. It's a nice routine.
Sundays, however, are a different story. The front page loses out to the Outlook section for most brain taxing (front page: the world is ending; Outlook: why the world is ending). After reading all the fun Sunday only sections in bed, I sometimes don't have it in me for Outlook. This week, I didn't get to it until today at lunch. But boy! If i ever think about skipping the section altogether in the future, I will remember this article and keep on saving that section til I read it.
So, without further ado:
A Run for the Border
By P.W. SingerSunday, July 9, 2006; Page B03
Those of us who track federal contracting come across unusual announcements all the time. Sometimes they are a useful indicator of preparations for a policy soon to be enacted. Other times they signify nothing more than a government bureaucracy in all its inane glory. How, then, should we react to the solicitation at right -- a Department of Homeland Security request for an "indefinite quantity, indefinite delivery" of burritos to be stockpiled along the Texas border?
The contract raises a feast of questions: Why didn't Homeland Security just get the super-value meal? More important, is Taco Bell disqualified from bidding because of its slogan "Make a run for the border"?
Posted in late June, the solicitation came on the heels of another spicy tidbit on the same government database -- a contract for as much as $385 million awarded just a few months ago to Dick Cheney's old firm Halliburton to be on call in case the government ever needs to build 5,000-person camps for "temporary detention and processing." Could we have here a bean-and-beef-stuffed sign that the administration is contemplating a showy border sweep before the congressional elections?
That such conspiracy theories should even come to mind is a sad statement about our politics. Rather than serious public debate, we've been served a summer of faux outcries, such as describing flag burning and same-sex marriage as epidemics and treating immigration as a national security crisis. It's enough to give anyone indigestion.
P.W. Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, always gets the Gorditas.
(wait--who gets the gorditas?)
There's a picture to go along with this article. I'm having trouble posting it so hopefully it will follow. It's something.
Another thing: what, are immigrants never vegetarians? just like the U.S. to not take such a thing into account.
posted by Elizabeth at 12:00 PM
3 Comments:
I'm sure some of the burritos will be bean and cheese. The department of Homeland Security is NOT going to drop the ball this time.
Where does the Taco Bell franchise stand on immigration anyway?
all i can say is that was intense....and i do believe anything is possible coming from the department of homeland security. "beans or no beans. meat or no meat."
i have to assume that TB is pro-immigrants because: 1. they say they serve mexican food (i choose to believe them, some do not) and 2. they hire a lot of immigrants and 3. if i were to believe that they sided with bush or other conservatives on immigration, i'd have to shut down my blog.
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