And now, because I have been so busy as to not write an actual entry for today (and because these e-mails tend to say pretty much whatever I was going to say in my journal, anyway), following is the latest in e-mail exchanges between Barbi and I. Enjoy.

-----Original Message-----
From: Karen
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2003 8:32 AM
To: Barbi
Subject:

Hey, do you think it was counter-productive to make brownies immediately upon returning home from my walk yesterday?

Regards*,

Karen

-----Original Message-----
From: Barbi
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2003 9:41 AM
To: Karen
Subject: Re:

Oh no, that was fine. You needed to replenish your energy! I had a good walk also. I was by myself so I was listening to tunes and having a good ole time. I was listening to Gary US Bonds, if you can believe that. I have a very, very bad old tape you made for me. I thought of Sondra when "Here She Comes" came on!

I just spoke very briefly with Cathy (about having dinner). She said June 6th is good for her. So, put in on your social calendar, ok?

I need to find out what you were planning as far as paying for lunch Saturday. I was planning on paying for Mom and then we asked Dad too. I can pay for both if I need to, I know you weren't really planning on lunch in the first place. Just let me know what you were thinking you would do. I don't really want to ask Linda to pay for anybody other than herself.

Talk to you later,

B

-----Original Message-----
From: Karen
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2003 9:51 AM
To: Barbi
Subject: Re: Re:

Actually, I was assuming you and I would split the cost for Mom and Dad�s lunch. I saved money to go to lunch, so don�t worry about that. It�s just that I can only afford like one social outing per pay period and I knew we had lunch coming up so I didn�t want to spend money this weekend, ya dig?

Um�I really don�t think he�s gonna want to come, but if he does would you care if John comes along?

Those brownies are damn good, too. :) I just extended my walk a little yesterday to go in to Vons and pick up the brownie mix. Luckily I just happened to have brought my change purse along�I had a bag of pecans at home, too. Mmmmm�

Fun Dallas/Phoenix game yesterday. :)

Talk to ya later.

Regards*,

Karen

-----Original Message-----
From: Barbi
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2003 9:57 AM
To: Karen
Subject: Re: National Geographic Photo of the Day

well, that was a fun Dallas/Portland game, yes (not Phoenix, bingo head).

Ok, good. I just didn't want to assume you were going halfies with me on Mom and Dad's lunch. I'll bring cash.

You're killing me and Alisa talking about those brownies. We're starving!

bye

b

-----Original Message-----
From: Karen
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2003 10:17 AM
To: Barbi
Subject: Re: National Geographic Photo of the Day

Leaving aside the whole �bingo head� argument for the moment, I meant Portland.

Someone stole two Slim Fasts out of the fridge. MY two Slim Fasts.

Who the hell needs a Slim Fast that badly? If it were chocolate cake, I might understand.

Our computer system has been down for like ten minutes.

Two of our people are out today: Alanna and Rob. This means I have to post cash (Christina and I are sharing those duties), plus I have to release all of Rob�s customer�s orders whenever he is out. Yippee for me!

Bye4Now!

Regards*,

Karen

-----Original Message-----
From: Barbi
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2003 11:07 AM
To: karen
Subject: (no subject)

Arnett calls me bingo head when he thinks I'm being dense. It's meant to be endearing.

Joe just sent this press release about how his congressman is trying to get some bill about affordable prescription drugs for seniors on the ballot. I wrote back that yes, it was critically important that we do something about the cost of drugs. He wrote back that yeah, we need lower cost on weed and cocaine. And crack would be nice too, since it works so well for weight loss! What a bingo head that guy is.

love ya

Oh, I just realized I didn't respond to your question.

No, I don't care if John goes. I asked Arnett if he wanted to try to change his Saturday work day so he can go, but he doesn't think he will be able to. He hates to miss special lunches. Or dinners. Or even breakfasts! My kinda guy.

So, June 6 is ok with you, right?

b

-----Original Message-----
From: Karen
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2003 11:11 AM
To: Barbi
Subject: (no subject)

Oh yes, June 6 is fine by me. It�s on my calendar. In ink, now.

By the way�

I am in the middle of posting a check. This is a large customer and they are paying like fifty invoices on this check, plus taking a bunch of credit memos, etc.

When customers pay exactly the amount invoiced, it�s really easy to just find them and click them and posting goes fairly quickly. If they pay an amount different than what was invoiced, you have to do it all manually and it takes about five times as long.

Well, this particular customer is paying each and every invoice off by like one or two cents each. They do this every time; I have no idea why. AARRGGHH!!!!!

Regards*,

Karen

-----Original Message-----
From: Barbi
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2003 11:17 AM
To: karen
Subject: (no subject)

I say you call Tony Soprano...Hey and Happy Cino de Mayo (we're having tacos for dinner and I'm starving right now). Also...GO LAKERS!!!

~~~

And here is some more nice stuff from our friend Dubya and his regime�oops, I mean cabinet.

May 4, 2003

Bah, Wilderness! Reopening a Frontier to Development

By TIMOTHY EGAN

SEATTLE � More than a century after historians declared an end to the American Frontier, the Interior Department made a somewhat similar announcement last month, with no fanfare. On a Friday night, just after Congress had left for spring break, the government said it would no longer consider huge swaths of public land to be wilderness.

The administration declared that it would end reviews of Western landholdings for new wilderness protection. As long as the lands had been under consideration for the American wilderness system, they had temporary protection from development.

With a single order, the Bush administration removed more than 200 million acres from further wilderness study, including caribou stamping ground in Alaska, the red rock canyons and mesas of southern Utah, Case Mountain with its sequoia forests in California and a wall of rainbow-colored rock known as Vermillion Basin in Colorado.

By declaring an end to wild land surveys, the administration ruled out protection of these areas as formal wilderness � which, by law, are supposed to be places people can visit but not stay. Now, these areas, managed by the Bureau of Land Management, could be opened to mining, drilling, logging or road-building�.

The move follows a consistent pattern in the president's environmental policy: to change the way the land is managed, without changing the law. Whether the issue is allowing snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park or logging in the Pacific Northwest, the course has been to settle lawsuits by opponents of wild land protection, opening up the areas to wide use, without going to Congress to rewrite the rules.

Oil and gas developers and others point out that the Clinton administration did the same thing � making broad changes of policy by administrative order � but on behalf of an environmental constituency. In their view, wilderness protection amounts to a land grab, putting potential timber or mining areas off limits. They say citizen groups were abusing the law by bringing land surveys to the government, which then managed the land as de facto wilderness. Leaders of some Western states have long complained that wilderness study essentially eliminates the chance to gain any economic value from the land, money that is needed for state coffers.

To many conservationists, the announcement was more than another setback. Wilderness, in the oft-quoted line of the writer Wallace Stegner, is "the geography of hope." To have that geography capped, they argue, has had the same effect on some outdoor lovers as the fencing of the public range had on open-country cattle ranchers. "They are trying to declare, by fiat, that wilderness does not exist," said Heidi McIntosh of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance�

In another letter, Ms. Norton said it seemed senseless to consider declaring any more wilderness areas in Alaska because its elected officials are against expanding this protection. But critics say that in California, a majority of elected officials favor more wilderness. And in New Mexico, Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, has asked the government to prevent drilling in 1.8 million acres of the Otero Mesa, an area that has all the qualities of wilderness�

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

~~~

NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE

The Secrets of September 11

The White House is battling to keep a report on the terror attacks secret. Does the 2004 election have anything to do with it?

April 30 � Even as White House political aides plot a 2004 campaign plan designed to capitalize on the emotions and issues raised by the September 11 terror attacks, administration officials are waging a behind-the-scenes battle to restrict public disclosure of key events relating to the attacks.

AT THE CENTER of the dispute is a more-than-800-page secret report prepared by a joint congressional inquiry detailing the intelligence and law-enforcement failures that preceded the attacks�including provocative, if unheeded warnings, given President Bush and his top advisers during the summer of 2001.

The report was completed last December; only a bare-bones list of �findings� with virtually no details was made public. But nearly six months later, a �working group� of Bush administration intelligence officials assigned to review the document has taken a hard line against further public disclosure. By refusing to declassify many of its most significant conclusions, the administration has essentially thwarted congressional plans to release the report by the end of this month, congressional and administration sources tell NEWSWEEK. In some cases, these sources say, the administration has even sought to �reclassify� some material that was already discussed in public testimony�a move one Senate staffer described as �ludicrous.� The administration�s stand has infuriated the two members of Congress who oversaw the report�Democratic Sen. Bob Graham and Republican Rep. Porter Goss. The two are now preparing a letter of complaint to Vice President Dick Cheney.

Graham is �increasingly frustrated� by the administration�s �unwillingness to release what he regards as important information the public should have about 9-11,� a spokesman said. In Graham�s view, the Bush administration isn�t protecting legitimate issues of national security but information that could be a political �embarrassment,� the aide said. Graham, who last year served as Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, recently told NEWSWEEK: �There has been a cover-up of this.�

Graham�s stand may not be terribly surprising, given that the Florida Democrat is running for president and is seeking to use the issue himself politically. But he has found a strong ally in House Intelligence Committee Chairman Goss, a staunch Republican (and former CIA officer) who in the past has consistently defended the administration�s handling of 9-11 issues and is considered especially close to Cheney.

�I find this process horrendously frustrating,� Goss said in an interview. He was particularly piqued that the administration was refusing to declassify material that top intelligence officials had already testified about. �Senior intelligence officials said things in public hearings that they [administration officials] don�t want us to put in the report,� said Goss. �That�s not something I can rationally accept without further public explanation.�

Unlike Graham, Goss insists there are no political �gotchas� in the report, only a large volume of important information about the performance and shortcomings of U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement agencies prior to September 11.

And even congressional staffers close to the process say it is unclear whether the administration�s resistance to public disclosure reflects fear of political damage or simply an ingrained �culture of secrecy� that permeates the intelligence community�and has strong proponents at the highest levels of the White House.

The mammoth report reflects nearly 10 months of investigative work by a special staff hired jointly by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees and overseen by Eleanor Hill, a former federal prosecutor and Pentagon inspector general. Hill�s team got access to hundreds of thousands of pages of classified documents from the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency and other executive-branch agencies. The staff also conducted scores of interviews with senior officials, field agents and intelligence officers. (They were not, however, given access to some top White House aides, such as national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice or other principals like Secretary of State Colin Powell or Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.) The team�s report was approved by the two intelligence committees last Dec. 10. But because the document relied so heavily on secret material, the administration �working group,� overseen by CIA director George Tenet, had to first �scrub� the document and determine which portions could be declassified.

More than two months later, the working group came back with its decisions�and some members were flabbergasted. Entire portions remained classified. Some of the report�including some dealing with matters that had been extensively aired in public, such as the now famous FBI �Phoenix memo� of July 2001 reporting that Middle Eastern nationals might be enrolling in U.S. flight schools�were �reclassified.� Hill has since submitted proposed changes to the working group, pointing out the illogic of trying to pull back material that was already in the public domain. But officials have indicated the �review� process is likely to drag on for months�with no guarantees that the �working group� will be any more amenable to public disclosure.

A U.S. intelligence official cited international distractions as at least one reason for the delays. �In case you hadn�t noticed, there have been two wars going on,� the official said. The official added: �We�re working this [report] to try to get it out without putting lives at risk and without endangering sources and methods.� Asked why the working group was refusing to permit disclosure of material that had already been made public, the official said: �Just because something had been inadvertently released, doesn�t make it unclassified.�

The administration�s tough stand, some sources say, doesn�t augur well for the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks�which is conducting its own investigation into the events of 9-11. Already, flaps have developed on that front, as well. When one commissioner, former congressman Tim Roemer, last week sought to review transcripts of some of the joint inquiry�s closed-door hearings, he was denied access�because the commission staff had agreed to a White House request to allow its lawyers to first review the material to determine if the president wants to invoke executive privilege to keep the material out of the panel�s hands.

�I think it�s outrageous,� says Roemer, who plans to raise the matter at a commission hearing this week. But a commission staffer says he expected the White House review to be finished by the end of the week, and it was unclear whether the president�s lawyers would try to invoke executive privilege�a stand that would almost certainly provoke a major legal battle with the panel.

The tensions over the release of 9-11 related material seems especially relevant�if not ironic�in light of recent reports that the president�s political advisers have devised an unusual re-election strategy that essentially uses the story of September 11 as the liftoff for his campaign. The White House is delaying the Republican nominating convention, scheduled for New York City, until the first week in September 2004�the latest in the party�s history. That would allow Bush�s acceptance speech, now slated for Sept. 2, to meld seamlessly into 9-11 commemoration events due to take place in the city the next week.

Some sources who have read the still-secret congressional report say some sections would not play quite so neatly into White House plans. One portion deals extensively with the stream of U.S. intelligence-agency reports in the summer of 2001 suggesting that Al Qaeda was planning an upcoming attack against the United States�and implicitly raises questions about how Bush and his top aides responded. One such CIA briefing, in July 2001, was particularly chilling and prophetic. It predicted that Osama bin Laden was about to launch a terrorist strike �in the coming weeks,� the congressional investigators found. The intelligence briefing went on to say: �The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning.�

The substance of that intelligence report was first disclosed at a public hearing last September by staff director Hill. But at the last minute, Hill was blocked from saying precisely who within the Bush White House got the briefing when CIA director Tenet classified the names of the recipients. (One source says the recipients of the briefing included Bush himself.) As a result, Hill was only able to say the briefing was given to �senior government officials.�

That issue is now being refought in the context over the full report. The report names names, gives dates and provides a body of new information about the handling of many other crucial intelligence briefings�including one in early August 2001 given to national-security adviser Rice that discussed Al Qaeda operations within the United States and the possibility that the group�s members might seek to hijack airplanes. The administration �working group� is still refusing to declassify information about the briefings, sources said, and has even expressed regret that some of the material was ever provided to congressional investigators in the first place.

A NEW HAND IN HOMELAND SECURITY

The White House is once again shuffling the deck in the staffing of top terrorism jobs, NEWSWEEK has learned. Gen. John A. Gordon�who has wielded broad if largely unseen powers as deputy national-security advisor in charge of combating terrorism�is moving up to become White House homeland-security adviser, a post formerly held by Tom Ridge. The new job is expected to give the brusque and secretive Gordon even more power as a �principal� with direct access to Bush. (Ridge is now secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.) Sources say Gordon beat out ex-FBI official James Kallstrom�an old ally of former FBI director Louis Freeh�for the key post.

The elevation of Gordon is the latest sign of the increasing prominence of intelligence-community veterans throughout the upper reaches of the government under Bush. (FBI director Robert Mueller, for example, recently reached outside the ranks of his law-enforcement agents to select Maureen A. Baginski, a former National Security Agency deputy director, to oversee FBI intelligence efforts.) For his part, Gordon was a former deputy CIA director with a reputation as a �a results-oriented guy� who has little patience for bureaucratic procedures, according to one former government official who has worked with him.

Gordon�s departure, however, leaves vacancies at the two top White House counterterrorism jobs: Gordon�s old post and that of his former deputy, Rand Beers, who resigned the week the war in Iraq began. On the surface, the vacancies seem conspicuous in an administration that has made combating terrorism the centerpiece of its policies. But sources say a vigorous search has been underway and replacements are likely to be named shortly.

� 2003 Newsweek, Inc.

*"Regards" is included in my e-mail signature by default. I wouldn't usually be so formal with a sibling, silly.

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