Nouns give an essay substance, and verbs give it motion. Adjectives transform it from black and white into color.

Consider Carol Rosenberg’s comments on the rules at the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay. Like Ansel Adams, she works with black and white, giving us a picture of the administration of justice, such as it is, at Gitmo. Even if she doesn’t use adjectives, they come through on their own. Words like “silly” and “vengeful” and “clueless.”

Holder and Gates give the US a black eye with the way Gitmo represents our system of justice to the world. Rosenberg, on the other hand, does the constitution proud.

The government is banning journalists for using a name they’ve used in reports in the past, a name that is publicly known. Is this an attempt to prevent the public from making the connection between two Afghans who died in 2002 and Khadr’s treatment? And/or just an attempt to intimidate the press so the people who know the most about the Gitmo show trials (and particularly Khadr) don’t bring that knowledge to bear on their reporting?

General interest readers in America, apparently, can’t be expected to face the fact that our Congress is not only ruining our own country, it is ruining the globe.