Prairie Recommends: Bob Herbert on The Ultimate Burden

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Vacation state of mind, everybody's got it right now, except for the young college kids flooding the campuses to begin a new year. The preschoolers clutching their Crayolas heading off to kindergarten for the first time.

And then there's the precious few with something else entirely on their minds, as Bob Herbert poignantly reminds us today. Will we have a thought for them? Will we take time out to do something for them? Do our own part?

Or will we just go along to get along until those little kindergarteners are grown up enough to send off where the blood is spilled for naught.

Four soldiers were killed near Kabul today, an I.E.D. Did you know?

Do you care?

Well, then, what are you going to do about it?
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

Musts

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Spring cleaning time in Prairie Country, so we'll probably be light on content hereabouts. But we do want to steer you to some "musts" this weekend.

Bob Herbert's column in today's New York Times on what Jon Stewart dubbed the Reverending Story. Herbert's pretty pointed: can't we get back to the issues?!? Would that the Sunday morning punditocracy actually reads and heeds, because Herbert speaks for a lot of us who are absolutely fed up to the hair follicles with the push-pastoring. Enough.

Arianna Huffington visits Firedoglake 's Book Salon this afternoon to discuss her new book, Right Is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe. [5 pm ET to 7 pm ET] If you've never "met" Arianna or visited Firedoglake, what better time to start.

And we've learned that 60 Minutes will be reporting on the Pat Tillman story this Sunday night. Mary Tillman speaks out, saying the government still has not told the truth about her son's death. 60 Minutes has been bringing their A game of late to reporting. We'll definitely be watching.

Oh, and have we mentioned that Senator Obama will spend an hour with Tim Russert Sunday morning live on Meet the Press? We'll be watching. Won't take long to tell whether Russert's read Herbert's column...or just the McCarthyist screeds from Blumenthal and the Clintonistas and McCainiacs.

UPDATE:
Snuffy will be questioning Hillary Clinton Sunday morning. We saw his idea of "tough, but fair" in the ABC-sponsored debate. We'll be looking for "tough, but fair" when he questions Hillary. Substance, not shiny objects. And tough but fair follow-ups, too.

We'll be watching.