Had a great time on Saturday – Kitty and I went to see a play called “Wintertime” at the Wilma Theater, and then to dinner at Morimoto’s.

The play was by Charles Mee who is rapidly becoming my favorite current playwright (as though I know any at all…) and has been described as a “surreal romantic tragicomedy” which is about as close a description as you can get. Morimoto’s is the extremely upscale restaurant by one of the “Iron Chefs” of TV fame, and was perhaps the best restaurant meal I’ve ever had. (Warning, you’ve got to love Japanese cuisine with lots of raw or lightly cooked fish, but I do).

Sunday I was up at seven to meet the troop at a weekend campout. Unfortunately when I got there, they were off at a firehouse breakfast. That sounds like fun, but I was a little perturbed as it kind of defeated the purpose of the trip, which was to get everyone up to speed on camping skills. It also meant there was a lot of fresh food left over, paid for but not used. As a leader I don’t really approve, but I didn’t want to say anything at the time. After that, home, quick change, and off to the homebrew store, where we were swamped, very busy. Home, collapse, and watch Xavier lose, unfortunately.

On the national front, I see where the bush-league wants to declassify portions of Richard Clarke’s earlier testimoney before a congressional panel investigating the September 11 attacks in 2002 to prove he lied under oath. Fascinating. They are willing to hide behind executive privilege to keep Rice from testifying (and weren’t they blistering when Clinton tried to use that tactic?), but want to declassify other testimony for political gain. Even better is the response from Clarke. He told them fine, as long as you declassify all of it and not just a line here or there, and that that would prove he was not lying. I bet that shuts them up if they can’t just pick and chose a few sentences for political purposes. I find it amazing how the whitehouse attack machine can try to paint a 20 year veteran, known as a policy hawk, and who was extremely supportive of the current Bush’s father, as just a hack trying to cash in on a book.

Richard Clarke was a career member of the Senior Executive Service, having begun his federal service in 1973 in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. In other words, about the same time the current president was hiding out in Alabama, dodging his national guard service.