Dark Ages Revisited

A slamming door has power. The sound alone raises every vertebra I own 50 centimeters, then slaps each bone hard against my spinal cord with mach force. If you've ever had a back ache, you know what I mean.

Attitudes about slamming doors tend to depend on whether you are standing inside or outside. If the door is slammed in your face, you have an attitude about that. But if you are the perpetrator, you feel differently. Probably, satisfaction is uppermost in your mind.

There's something insidious about a silently slammed door. We expect our nerves to jangle, our eardrums to vibrate, and our backbone to dance the hootchi-kootchi when wood or metal slams against a resisting force. But a -- silently -- slammed door? It gives neither party any satisfaction.

The federal appeals court's decision in Washington today was just such an affair. It ruled unanimously to remove one more American freedom. The decision silently slammed the door on the freedom of the press which allowed groundbreaking news to reach Americans at their barbecues in their back yard. The court's decision returns us to the dark ages when only people in positions of power had access to the facts.

In case you missed the cast, the key players in this drama are Matthew Cooper, Time magazine reporter, and Judith Miller of the New York Times.

It's the last name, Judith Miller, whose current situation tightens the gut muscles and clangs the cymbals of alarm in my ears.

She was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Her crime? She thought, let me repeat that in case you missed it, she only thought about writing a story. She researched the story and then, as women will, she changed her mind. The story never went to press. It was never published.

It's like coming home from work and there's no supper on the table. So you say to your wife: "Hey love, what's for supper?"

She replies, "Well, I started to cook supper and had it halfway done, then changed my mind, so there is none."

Still hoping to rescue the situation (foolishly) you ask: "What were the ingredients?"

She gives you that look reserved for obtuse husbands and says, "There aren't any ingredients. And if there were, I wouldn't tell you anyway. They're Grandma's trade secret. No woman worth her culinary degree ever shares family recipes. Besides, we're eating out tonight at that new restuarant which opened last week on top of the Sheridan. They say the whole top floor revolves, so we can watch different views of the city as we eat."

Well, Judith Miller's case is a bit like that. She changed her mind halfway through the story and canned it. She's received an 18-month prison sentence because she thought about writing a story and now won't share Grandma's special ingredients.

OK. So journalists are prohibited from using every source available to them to bring us the news. We heard that last month and not an eyelid fluttered.

But now, we can be jailed for what we merely think about doing. Now, we can be imprisoned for our thoughts !

A door slammed today. How many of you heard it close?
Dark Ages Revisited © 2005 Chaeli Sullivan