Timing is everything

Let us assume you are an editor at a certain well known right-leaning political site, the spinoff of a now decades old magazine. It is perhaps understandable, especially given recent events in Washington, that an earlier story might have been missed, so in the course of catching up you notice something of interest and decide to post it. Thus (emphasis mine):

How Cool Is This? [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

I had missed, from the Daily News Monday:

RAMADI, Iraq – When members of the government of Anbar Province met with President Bush last week, they presented him with a letter dedicating their success in wiping out Al Qaeda here to the victims of Sept. 11

The letter, which was obtained by the Daily News, was signed by Anbar Governor Mamoun Sami Rashid, Provincial Council Chairman Abdul-Salam Abdullah, and Sheik Sattar abu Risha, the sheik credited with beginning the Anbar Awakening.

One small problem:

Iraqi tribal leader Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, a key figure in U.S. efforts to turn local residents against al-Qaeda in the restive Anbar province, was killed today by a roadside bomb, U.S. military and Iraqi sources confirmed.

This was reported earlier today, earlier than the first quote [EDIT: Lopez has now added a separate post with the news]. Now, I’m far from perfect when it comes to bad timing, so my thought is more rueful empathy than anything else. Still, you’d figure they’d have a rolling newsfeed up at this point over there after four years plus. Ah well, maybe that’s something for their next budget update.

UCI, the law (school) and Erwin Chemerinsky

First, I should make clear that I choose not to comment about my specific workplace on my blog — it’s a matter of public record that I work at the UC Irvine campus in their library system, of course, as I mention on places like my Myspace page (and as has been mentioned on my Wikipedia page, though I have to point out I am not a librarian but a library assistant; I have an MA but not an MLS degree) but that’s all I feel I need to say.

Larger questions about UCI are of obvious interest to me, though, and there’s been a pretty big to-do in the last couple of days about the abortive hiring of Professor Erwin Chemerinsky for the position of founding dean of the campus’s new law school, an institution that the campus has been pushing for for a long while, and which will officially kick in in two years’ time.

The larger issue will play out as it does. What’s been of most interest to me has been the commentary, specifically from any number of legal scholar/bloggers whose political position is in opposition to Chemerinsky’s, a noted liberal. As this page links and shows, figures like Instapundit, Hewitt, Professor Bainbridge, John Leo and others have all posted on their blogs strongly condemning what happened to Chemerinsky, based on what is known. Allowing for the fact that there could easily be a lot of professional companionship at work above all else, quite honestly I’d not expected that reaction from them, which shows how I can just as easily suffer from the blindness of knee-jerk conclusions as much as I feel many of the writers just mentioned can do in turn. Salutory reminders that conclusions aren’t always simply drawn as all that are good things (for instance, as Hewitt notes in his post, Chemerinsky is a frequent guest on his program, and clearly both host and guest would not have this regular match-up going if they did not both feel like it was well worth continuing). Based on some of the comments I’ve caught in response — not all, sadly, but a good amount — this is understood and appreciated by others across the political board too. Moments like that give at least a little hope in what can seem intractable times politically.

To Bobb Trimble and company — thanks!

Okay, so. Here’s my review of Jupiter Transmission, the first digital release of the work of Bobb Trimble, drawing on his two first albums Iron Curtain Innocence and Harvest of Dreams.

Those said two albums are going to be officially rereleased by Secretly Canadian in November, and after an e-mail sent to me today, said discs happened to arrive in the mail from them, which is cool — trust me, he’s good stuff. What I did NOT expect at all was to be listed in the thank-you notes! Which I kinda can only guess is for that earlier review? Whatever the reason — hey, thanks! That’s pretty cool and quite flattering.

(So yeah, check out Bobb Trimble at the link above. Quite, quite hauntingly beautiful and great.)