Subtext Messaging

Just saw a rather ridiculous story to make the "Top News" regarding the mayor of Detroit and his exchanging romantic and naughty text messages with his chief of staff in 2002 and 2003. It's an issue because they testified in a lawsuit that they were not having a relationship at that time (probably because they were both married at the time), so now the usual hubbub has ensued about how this destroys his credibility, and maybe it does. That's not what caught my eye.

But the subtext, so to speak, is what I found remarkable. The Detroit Free Press was able to go through 14,000 text messages from six years ago and cross-reference them against the mayor's schedule and credit card records... why not? It's all public records if he used his official phone and cards, right?

Yet down in the corner of the same page is this story from Time about how 12 days worth of White House e-mails from 2003&4 have disappeared. Poof! Coincidentally, the missing e-mails are from the period when the WMD premise for the war was collapsing, and they had to come up with some new cover story. But since it doesn't involve sex, it won't make anywhere near the headlines the Detroit mayor story likely will. While Hizzonor's situation may effect the result of a couple of small-ish lawsuits, the White House scenario has staggering implications in terms of "justification" for the war, the deaths of many thousands of soldiers and civilians, destabilizing the middle east even further, breaking our military, ruining our economy, and trashing our constitutional rights. Just for starters. Oh well...easy come, easy go. Right?

Here's Gaea, without subtext. Looking forward to shooting with her again very soon.