New York Times: "How could President Bush be cavorting around on a long vacation with American troops struggling with a spiraling crisis in Iraq? Wasn't he worried that his vacation activities might send a frivolous signal at a time when he had put so many young Americans in harm's way?
'I'm determined that life goes on,' Mr. Bush said stubbornly. That wasn't the son, believe it or not. It was the father - 15 years ago. I was in Kennebunkport then to cover the first President Bush's frenetic attempts to relax while reporters were pressing him about how he could be taking a month to play around when he had started sending American troops to the Persian Gulf only three days before. On Saturday, the current President Bush was pressed about how he could be taking five weeks to ride bikes and nap and fish and clear brush even though his occupation of Iraq had become a fiasco. 'I think it's also important for me to go on with my life,' W. said, 'to keep a balanced life.' Pressed about how he could ride his bike while refusing to see a grieving mom of a dead soldier who's camped outside his ranch, he added: 'So I'm mindful of what goes on around me. On the other hand, I'm also mindful that I've got a life to live and will do so.' Ah, the insensitivity of reporters who ask the President Bushes how they can expect to deal with Middle East fighting while they're off fishing."

Going toe-to-toe on office etiquette

By Olivia Barker and Sarah Bailey, USA TODAY
Even though he was never given a dress code, rising Syracuse University junior Michael Swartz knew enough not to turn up on the first day of his summer internship on the Kalamazoo (Mich.) Gazette design desk wearing sandals and iPod earbuds. Yet by the second week the sandals were on and the earbuds were in — and no one seemed to mind.

Just the other day, he sported a T-shirt emblazoned with a Budweiser logo. (OK, so it peeked out from under a button-down shirt.) A co-worker noticed. "He goes, 'Dude, you wore a beer shirt to work?' "
It must not have been an egregious misstep "because no one has sent me home yet," says Swartz, 20, who is unapologetic about bringing his campus-casual habits to the office.
Then there's Justin Young, 22, who IMs at his architectural consulting job in Manhattan as often as he did in college (read: all the time) and does so with impunity. Nonetheless, he compromises when it comes to his iPod; he listens to it only when he's doing mindless work (faxing, scanning) and only with one earbud. "To me, that sort of says, 'Hey, I'm ready if you want to say something to me. I'm ready to work, but I just really want to hear Ludacris right now.' "
This is what Generation Y — and its ultra-casual culture — hath wrought at work, a place where style and technology trends are more woven in than ever. It's neither a Gen-Y dream nor a human resources nightmare but something in the middle, where adjustments and concessions are made by young people and their employers alike. And this summer in particular proved one in which underlings and bosses learned a lesson or two about good behavior and fair practices.
Office culture varies, of course, according to the kind of office; a law firm is always going to be more polished than a newsroom. But the atmosphere of the workplace is changing dramatically — becoming more informal, more gadgetized, more employee-centric — in large part because of the expectations of today's crop of college interns and recent graduates. And considering the thirtysomething staffers who now duck out to the hall to take cell phone calls or wear heeled flip-flops on Fridays, the rules are shifting for everyone as a result.
Those who have been logged on since grade school "are a different breed," says Teresa Alewel, career services director at Central Missouri State University. She speaks from 20 years of experience.
It's no 8-to-5 world
Talk to career counselors and corporate recruiters and they'll say today's kids multi-task — IM-ing, e-mailing and reading, all while chatting on their cell phone or listening to their MP3 player. (And they assume they'll have at least some access to their toys at work.)

Continued: http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/2005-08-14-office-etiquette_x.htm

CAMP CRAWFORD DAY 9 words of Cindy Sheehan:
"Speaking of George, I understand that he was riding his bike yesterday out at the ranch. (I hope no London Bobbies got in his way). He took a 2 hour bike ride and when he got back, he was asked how he could go for a two hour bike ride when he doesn't have time to meet with me, and he said: 'I have to go on with my life.' (Austin Statesman, August 14) WHAT!!!!!????? He has to get on with his life!!! I am so offended by that statement. Every person, war fan, or not, who has had a child killed in this mistake of an occupation should be highly offended by that remark. Who does he think he is? I wish I could EVER be able to get on with my life. Getting on with my life means a life without my dear, sweet boy. Getting on with my life means learning to live with a pain that is so intense that sometimes I feel like throwing up, or screaming until I pass out from sorrow. I wish a little bike ride could help me get on with my life. I can't believe that someone who is the figurehead of an administration that has killed tens of thousands of innocent people doesn't spend his days hiding under his bed in shame, let alone riding his bike."

Reformer Without Results - New York Times: "President Bush has done so much for women. Not at home, of course. Women in jeans in America may have their rights eroded by an administration where faith trumps science, but women in burkas? The president can't talk enough about how important their rights are.
And in the administration's diplomacy-free foreign policy, five of its top spokesmen on the Muslim world are women: Condi Rice; Laura Bush; Liz Cheney, No. 2 in the Near East bureau of the State Department and head of the Middle East democracy project; Karen Hughes, the new under secretary of state for public diplomacy; and her deputy, Dina Powell. W. thinks so highly of Ms. Hughes, his longtime Texas political nanny, spinner, speechwriter and ghostwriter, that he put his Lima Green Bean, as he called her when she prodded him about the environment, in charge of the critical effort to salvage America's horrendous image in the Islamic world - even though what she knows about Islam could fit in a lima green bean. Why get any Muslims involved in reaching out to Muslims? That would be so matchy.The real role for the newly minted ambassador hasn't been defined yet, but so far it looks as if Ms. Hughes's first priority will be to take her spinning skills, honed for W. in 2000 and 2004, to improve his image, and his policies' image, on a global scale."