Word Has It

On the Way to the Forum

2006-11-03T13:26:00.000-08:00

Funny things happen. A decorated Vietnam vet tried to tell a joke, something he is not well qualified to do. Perhaps I should say something he is well qualified not to do. The lesson, I suppose, is that those with stone faces do not belong on Comedy Central, unless they make deadpan part of their shtick. There are lots of things wrong with humor, not the least of which is that it frequently contains a kernel, or a full portion, of truth. Another problem, in John Kerry's case, is that the deliberate misinterpretation of a remark by the feather merchants on the right may be too close to the truth. It's not that our troops are dumb, just that at eighteen or nineteen years of age most of them have not had the opportunity for higher education. Windbags like Rush Limbaugh, for whom mention of Vietnam caused sphincter control problems, left their medical practice serving Michael J. Fox long enough to express outrage that anyone in public life would put someone down, particularly members of the armed forces.

I saw a newscast that indicated about one fourth of the 18 to 25-year-olds serving in Iraq has at least a bachelors degree. I would like to know what number or percentage of those are officers. I would like to know what number or percentage of the killed and wounded in that fiasco had such a degree. I would like to know how many or what percentage are National Guardsmen. John Kerry might have been better off forgetting his attempt at humor and, instead, openly questioning the motives and abilities of the man who got us into this mess in the first place.

Middle-aged men who passed on the opportunity to serve in the war of their youth are not qualified to make judgments on those who did serve. Sanctimony and hypocrisy are requirements of right wing politicians, so it comes naturally to them. However, when a man like John McCain jumps into the fray, it simply shows how far he is willing to go to further his hopes for the presidency. He has tried to establish a picture of himself as an independent thinker, but his remarks this week did nothing to paint such a picture, quite the contrary.

John Kerry still has ambitions for the White House, even though his chances of getting there are not much greater than my own. One consequence of his gaffe this week may have been to convince him to give up that idea. He could have quickly apologized, finished telling the joke correctly and turned the tables on his critics. Unfortunately for him, but perhaps fortunately for the Democratic party, he has pretty well nailed the lid on the coffin of his presidential hopes. It showed me that he would still not be able to handle the swift boat liars from Texas. There are no purple hearts for shooting yourself in the foot.

I've been assured that a soft answer turneth away wrath, and I think that humor can do much the same thing, but you have to make sure that you leave them laughing. That's Show Biz.

Move Over Pearl Harbor

2006-10-17T00:37:00.000-07:00

On December 8, 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaimed December 7th a day that would live in infamy. I was a Junior in High School, and we listened to his speech on the radio in Spanish class. Up until now, that day has stood alone as one deserving such a description. It is no longer alone. September 11, 2001 was in the running to join it, but today's events make it pale in significance. Almost three thousand lives were lost on that day. Today, the hundreds of thousands of lives sacrificed to preserve our freedoms were thrown on history's trash heap. Today, George W. Bush signed into law the most despicable act of a despicable legislature. Today the guarantees of freedom from government abuse, which we have taken for granted throughout our history, disappeared—with the stroke of a pen. The ceremony was filled with enough sanctimony to sicken an elephant, but the damage to all of us has been done.

Until a case reaches the Supreme Court, the president or the Secretary of Defense can determine what constitutes an enemy combatant and throw away the key. You've heard the expression where the sun don't shine in a different context, but this one is really frightening. No longer is there a guarantee that you can know the charges against you, have the right to a speedy trial, or a trial at all for that matter, face your accuser, see the evidence against you, or the many rights we as Americans have enjoyed and, indeed, taken for granted. Our hopes are in the hands of one Supreme Court Associate Justice, Justice Kennedy. Four of the black robed deciders are in the president's camp. Four are usually on the side of liberty. One is a swing vote and can't be counted on, particularly in this case. He's already said it's up to the legislature and, unfortunately, that rubber stamp group has acted. October 17, 2006. Patrick Henry, where were you when we needed you?

Moral Quarrel

2006-10-10T23:49:00.000-07:00

The arrogance of the ruling party may have finally come home to roost, leaving an opening for the Democrats to take charge of both Houses of Congress. If only one changes hands, my preference would be the Senate, because there are still two years left for Bush to mess with the Supreme Court.

If they do take over the legislature, I hope the Democrats will show some statesmanship. Some things need to be undone if we expect a real future as a country, but such undoings must not be carried out like a vendetta, which has been part of the Republicans' problem. The only thing holding the disparate wings of the GOP together is their shared hatred of Bill Clinton. Homophobia is the glue that binds evangelicals to the party, greed holds the take-care-of-the-wealthy wing.

We cannot solve the national debt without more income. Tax revenue has modestly increased of late, but not nearly enough to make up for the enormous cost of the tax giveaway, and certainly not enough to pay for the war. Even the most conservative among us knows that we cannot cut government services enough to balance the budget. We need more income. This argument should be easy to understand for all who do not see themselves as welfare cases. Most Republicans believe in paying their bills, they just object to paying taxes. Perhaps we could bill them for their share of the interest on the national debt. We wouldn't call it a tax, just an interest payment.

The worst thing to have happened recently is the passage of a bill to set up military tribunals. That bill did away with the keystone of our system of jurisprudence, habeas corpus. The immediate purpose of the bill was—supposedly—for use against enemies of the state. Since anyone who disagrees with the current administration is unpatriotic, it is only a short step to labeling them traitors and terrorists.

After a charade in which four Republican Senators made a show of defending the Geneva Convention, the bill was passed that gives the president himself the power to decide what behaviors are within the parameters of that convention. It did away with most of the due process rights and built in a pardon for the president and all who work for him should they overstep the law. The battle the administration put up to defend the right to torture gives us a good idea what those parameters will be. It is my personal opinion that no legislator who voted for the bill should be allowed back into the Congress. They gave away rights that hundreds of thousands of our citizens have died to protect. It was unpatriotic and cowardly on their part.

Finally, Mr. Foley demonstrated the hypocrisy of the ruling party. It was not his homosexuality, nor was it his suggestive words. It was his abuse of power, pure and simple. The steps taken—or not taken—by the House leadership have simply extended that hypocrisy. It comes down to the old saying, "Those who walk on feet of clay must be careful where they stand to pray." Stay away from the street corner.

Waffling

2006-09-15T21:01:00.000-07:00

During the 2004 presidential campaign, John Kerry was described by his opponent as being a "waffler" and a "wind surfer." Some of those descriptions may have been deserved—focus groups determined far too much of what he thought. But, there are larger and more far-reaching dimensions to the subject of waffling. The GOP was once seen as being more on the side of minorities, since the Solid South, the Southern wing of the Democratic Party, was definitely racist. Until the sixties, about the only people in the South claiming to be Republicans were Negroes, as Blacks were then identified. Republicans were and remain the party of big business and the wealthy, but because Lincoln was a Republican, Blacks considered Republicans their friends. FDR brought the Northern Blacks into the Democratic Party, but because few Southern Blacks could vote, their numbers remained inconsequential. Many, if not most of them, continued to consider themselves Republicans. Richard Nixon used the Voting Rights Act as a wedge to turn the Solid Democratic (Dixiecrat) South into the Solid Republican South. That was one easy waffle for most of them. They've remained in the Republican column ever since. In fact, they are the Republican Party there. The Blacks were politely invited out. Flip, flop.

The GOP used to be the party of fiscal responsibility. They always opposed taxes, but debt they opposed even more—government borrowing was anathema to them. The last three Republican administrations have managed to turn that argument on its head, the current one turning debt into an art form. Flip, flop.

Ronald Reagan was fond of the argument that government itself was the problem. By that he meant government was too intrusive. He may have meant that it got in the way of making money, but his argument was stated more generally. The current group wants government to know our every move, and indicates that it's unpatriotic to object. If the American government has ever been more intrusive than it is now, that fact has not been recorded in the history books. Flip, flop.

The war in Iraq began as a search for weapons of mass destruction, and then waffled into a battle for regime change. It has since waffled into a war to bring democracy to the Middle East. While our brave young soldiers die to accomplish this noble feat, the rights that have made us the envy of the world have been eroded as quickly as the would-be dictator and his lemmings in Congress could manage it. So they were right. Government is the problem. The party that once touted small government as the answer now wants unlimited power, and fear has become their weapon of mass destruction. Flip, flop.

During the fifties, the Republicans were fond of calling Democrats the war party. After the First and Second World Wars, and the Korean conflict, it sold pretty well. Korea might have been forgotten were it not for Hawkeye, Hot Lips, Radar, and M*A*S*H*. It's still going on, only the shooting has stopped. Eisenhower gets credit for that. How or why we got into Vietnam is a matter of great conjecture. It began slowly with JFK, and heated up under LBJ. Dizzy Dean might have said we just "slud" into it. In any case, it started under a Democrat, enhancing the war party theme. Nixon, a Republican, got us out of it—sort of. Since then we've had Grenada, Panama, Iraq, and, again, Iraq. All four of them under Republican presidents. Another waffle. The current occupant of the White House, a Republican, has made being the warrior president his mantra. We're supposed to feel safer now with Bush, rather than the war party, in power . How's that for a waffle? Flip. flop.

There are other issues that have flip-flopped, but one of particular importance remains. During the Sixties, while church leaders were greatly involved in the Civil Rights Movement, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell stood on the sidelines. Among the many leaders who fought the good fight, Martin Luther King, Jr. is the best known, but he was joined by Catholic priests and leaders from many Protestant churches. Now that civil laws have been enacted, and have made a difference, the Republicans, with Falwell and Robertson, have adopted the morality issue, as if the next life should be an issue for government! The sad thing is, it was the Democrats who waffled on this one.

Waffling, it appears, is a sign of weakness, but only as applied to small issues—the battles, not the war. Democrats have made a significant difference in people's lives over the last seven or eight decades, but they have failed to capitalize on their accomplishments. "It's all in the selling," as they say. It's time we took back the waffles. IHOP says it best: We need people to Come hungry. Leave happy.

Adden Dumb: A Follow-up to "The Doctored Drama"

2006-09-13T23:44:00.000-07:00

As a remnant of the World War II generation, I deserve some leeway. Though I did nothing courageous or even productive during my time in the service, I have outlived the many who might contradict me should I involve myself in the writing of fairly tales. Those who are neither dead nor senile are probably telling lies of their own, but, despite the literary license available to me, I think I'll save that exercise for a creative writing class. Instead, I'll dwell on the home front, and compare it to the Administration's fairy tale version of the Iraq war.

To make the current war a credible version of World War II, as this Administration is attempting to do, we would first have to reinstate the universal draft. There were few families in the 1940s who did not have a son or daughter, niece or nephew, grandson or granddaughter in the service. Those who did not, had friends who did, so the entire nation, in one way or another, had an emotional stake in the fighting.

Lives were impacted in many ways. Imagine, if you can, being unable to replace a tire if you had a blowout, settling, if you were lucky, for a recap of reclaimed rubber. Imagine price controls and rationing. You'd need ration stamps to buy gasoline, which was in short supply for civilians. Highway speeds were reduced to stretch the supply of that precious liquid. The zipper on your fly might be replaced by buttons. High school and college sports were severely restricted, and night games were no longer allowed because of the blackout. Taxes were increased to make a down payment on the war. A twenty percent luxury tax was added to such things as jewelry. Items such as coffee, sugar, cooking oil, and cigarettes were both scarce and valuable commodities. Fresh meat, if you could find a butcher who had meat to sell, required ration stamps. High school and elementary students bought saving stamps each week that were turned in for war bonds when the proper amount had been reached. Cooks saved bacon grease for use in munitions production. Automobile factories turned out tanks, jeeps and military trucks in place of passenger cars. The airplane industry built only military planes—fighters and bombers. Children collected tinfoil to help build them. The shipbuilding industry built only merchant and warships for the Navy. Junkyard owners rose quickly on the social ladder. Civilian Defense volunteers watched for enemy planes at night, calling the authorities to report fly-overs. They were also on the lookout for lighted windows. Coastal cities and towns had blackouts for homes and automobiles. Grateful citizens gave rides to hitchhiking service personnel.

These and many other sacrifices and inconveniences brought the war home to us all. We did not consider many of them particularly restrictive—it was a time of lowered expectations. After all, we had just come through the Great Depression. Spoiled generations were yet to come. Everyone, in one way or another, was involved in the war effort. Nowadays we'd have to find other ways to sacrifice, and that's precisely why the comparison is truly a fairy tale. We have not been asked to sacrifice at all. In fact, our president has encouraged us to act as if nothing has happened. We are expected to be afraid, but that's just so we'll vote Republican. It's the current version of the bloody shirt that kept the GOP in power for decades following the Civil War. It's hard for a leader who has never had to sacrifice anything to know what to ask a nation to give up.

If this really were a modern version of World War II, we would all be well acquainted with sacrifice. It's not that we as a nation are unwilling, it's just that this war is a lot like a bad movie. There's no real plot or story line. There's no prospect of it ending with a kiss and money in the bank, as classic Hollywood once aimed for. The best that Bush can hope for is to salvage his legislative majority and to ride out the war for another two years.

Most of us no longer believe in fairy tales, so we're not looking to live happily ever after. But, we would like to start the ever after part soon. That would be close enough to a fairy tale for most of us. It would be for me.

The Doctored Drama

2006-09-12T22:51:00.000-07:00

The Disney owned ABC network ran a mini-series recently depicting the purported lead-up to the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. I didn't watch the series, but the reviews I've read suggest that the Disney Corporation did not stray far from its history of turning fairy tales into big bucks or, in this case, propaganda.

The current administration in Washington, not to be outdone, developed a fairy tale of its own. The war in Iraq, so it seems, is World War II. The terrorists we're supposedly fighting have become goose-stepping Nazis—fascists all the way. Saddam has become Hitler and the W in Bush's name has somehow become Winston. Our president relishes this role of savior of the West. Of course, a few changes to history will have to be made if he expects all the characters and events to work.

Winston Churchill spoke English, and because of a speech impediment that made writing speeches for him a work of art, certain words had to be carefully avoided to accommodate his lisp. Something similar is being done for W. His sentences have been reduced to three word bursts followed by long pauses, and all words difficult to pronounce have been eliminated, though he still mispronounces many of them. But, more changes will have to be made if the current crisis is to match the events of the 30s and 40s.

Several characters in the drama will have to change sides and the Allies will have to attack Franco's Spain rather than Italy or Germany. Joseph Goebbels will have to change sides to provide a role for Cheney. The infallible Donald Rumsfeld can play Pope Pius XII, though the Pope did many things behind the scenes that do not fit well with Rumsfeld's record. Wolfowitz and Feith can fill the roles of Eisenhower and Montgomery with no problem, but Lord Ha Ha and Tokyo Rose will have to change sides so that Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly can fill their roles as administration apologists. Condi Rice may have to settle for the relatively minor role of Antonia Eden, necessitating a sex change. Karl Rove should be able to continue writing Dick Cheney's speeches. Numerous Democrats will be auditioned for the part of Neville Chamberlain—John Murtha, that old softie, is the leading contender. His suggestion that we implement a plan for withdrawal or re-assignment of our troops fits the Munich agreements to a T. It's true that Osama might have been cast in the role of Hitler, but his beard is far too long and, besides, he's nowhere to be found.

They needed someone to play FDR, but W insisted on playing both sides of the Atlantic. He assured the producers that the language barrier was no problem. Tony Blair will, of course, play Fala.

Osama bin Laden entered the developing hype for this fairy tale aimed at the showdown in November. Once again, using reverse psychology to keep the current group in power, he inserted a video at a critical juncture. Nothing unites like a common enemy. The crew in Washington has provided Osama with poster boys for the Ugly American, and he knows a winning strategy when he sees one.

Let us hope that this fairy tale does not come true, and that, in the spirit of true fairy tales, we all live happily ever after... at least, for a while.

Ann's Fact-Free Crockbook

2006-08-12T19:15:00.000-07:00

Ann Coulter has figured out that as long as she sticks to politicians and political organizations she's free to say whatever she wants without worry from the courts. If she were sued for libel or slander it would only add credence to her vicious prevarications. She has a built-in readership, the political equivalent of the readers of tabloids found in grocery store checkout lines. They don't believe her either, they just wish what she says were true. It would make their hatreds understandable, perhaps even acceptable.

I've seen Ann Coulter on at least four talk shows and each time she was wearing the same inadequate black dress. It looks like the same dress she wears in the publicity shot for her latest book, Godless. I guess she thinks if she shows enough thigh and buttocks it will take the viewer's mind off her face. Also, she may hope we'll think Goddess instead of Godless when we see the book.

It occurs to me that she might be the modern equivalent of Little Orphan Annie who wore the same dress fifty or sixty years in a row. Except, of course, that Annie's dress was red.

If they chose Ann to play Dracula's wife it would only be type casting, which may explain why she seemed more relaxed on the Tonight Show than the early morning Today Show. No matter who does the interview, her face shows defensiveness and anger. I haven't seen her on Fox —I stopped watching Fox—but she's probably much more relaxed on that network. They, doubtless, consider her balanced there.

I'm not sure if her readership includes much of the religious right, but I suspect it does. The hatred I have witnessed in that group is astounding. They proudly bear the prophet's name who preached and practiced love and forgiveness, yet they end up being the worst, or among the worst, haters in our nation. (Just mention Bill Clinton.) The sad thing is they don't seem to see this as a contradiction. Ann Coulter, our most unhappy of women, continues to feed this hatred toward anything considered liberal.

The black dress may have been intended to be a burqa, one of those tent-like dresses worn by Muslim women. Her opinions seem quite suitable for one. Maybe the dressmaker did the best she could, but ran short of material. And, unlike Ann, she couldn't just make it up.

Calming the Waters

2006-08-04T00:48:00.000-07:00

The battlefield death of Senator Baucus's nephew and the enlistment of Senator John McCain's son in the Marines take the edge off of what I am about to suggest. However, they are the exceptions, I think, that prove the rule. I believe the best way to cool our cowboy diplomacy is to reinstate the draft—including women—and allow no deferments. That way the children of those making the decision for war will be included in the forces charged with waging it.

Our current system ensures that only those suffering financial need, those with little hope of upward mobility, will end up in the armed services. We are now paying bonuses for enlistments and reenlistments, but they are nowhere near enough to attract the well-heeled or well connected. Making comparisons with World War II, I suppose, is futile. But, it was a time when almost everyone was involved, including a large number of women. President Roosevelt's sons were in uniform and some of them saw action. By the time Vietnam rolled around, many, including our current bellicose leaders, were able to secure deferments, in some cases, several of them. A universal draft would provide a real test of the commitment to whatever cause was being trumpeted.

A war that was justified because it connected to our jointly held values would likely be popular enough to attract a good cross section of our society. The hype that led to the fiasco in Iraq involved no such cross section, especially if we focus on the troops. They carried little or no weight in the decision making of our leadership. Had it been otherwise, had we seen more of the children of our leaders in uniform, we'd hear less stay the course, fewer accusations of cut and run, and more of the value of diplomacy. We'd hear a lot more about the need for a draw down of forces in Iraq. With a universal draft, we would be better prepared for war, and in all likelihood, we would never have stood for the invasion of Iraq in the first place. We might even be positioned to affect the peace process in the Middle East. Shalom.

What a Waste

2006-07-23T23:56:00.000-07:00

I come from an older generation than the president, but my memory for some things is still dependable. One thing I remember about adolescence was the growing interest in things sexual, as nature knocked us together, a common phrase at the time. My experience as a physically maturing adolescent male was quite similar to the experience of others at the time, and similar, I'm sure, to those between that day and this. I know that I washed millions of potential babies off my hands, my shorts and my sheets. I find it impossible to believe that our current president did not experience something similar. What was discarded so casually amounted to half the ingredients that make up an embryo, the subject of so much concern at the moment. Nature has provided ways to eliminate overloads on the seminal vesicle, and a method for disposing of unfertilized eggs. But, have wet dreams and tampons instilled in us the need for funeral services? Do we make a big deal out of discarded surplus embryos formed in petri dishes and stored in fertility clinics?

The president, of course, was well past his adolescent years when he experienced the transforming religious experience that has informed his decision-making. I think it is safe to say, however, that he had that religious experience and its associated commitments by the time he became governor of Texas. In that role he presided over the closest thing to a production line execution system ever known in these United States. In fact, he boasted of it during a debate with Al Gore. He had no trouble denying requests for clemency from death row. He mimicked, in a sharp little voice, a women asking for mercy while he told of his role in the process. He obviously does not see the culture of life as being contradicted when he says no to the many among us with debilitating injuries or illnesses, denying them the possibility of a quality life and a cure for the incurable.

His political record belies his commitment to life. Vetoing the bill to fund embryonic stem cell research did nothing to save the unwanted embryos. They will simply be discarded, and whatever life they contain will be gone. He surrounded himself with a few of the 128 babies who were grown from "adopted" embryos, but failed to make mention of the almost 400,000 that were not adopted.

We may picture the baby as being formed when the embryo is introduced into the welcoming womb of an adoptive mother, but do we picture the brain, heart, lungs, stomach, liver, spleen, intestines, or any of the other organs formed from stem cells in a frozen embryo? Are they not just as important to the culture of life as the personality of the baby in the mother's arms? When embryonic stem cells grow into muscle, spinal bone, brain or nerve tissue to replace that damaged by injury or illness, they become just as much a part of the culture of life as babies born from them.

It was good to see that some of the Republican lawmakers have themselves grown backbones, and are now showing a willingness to think for themselves. The upcoming election may have something to do with this sudden spurt of growth and I'm sure the veto was as much political in nature as it was religious. The legislators apparently have a different assessment of their base than does the president. I could understand him playing to his base if he planned to run for office at some time in the future, but he's already a lame duck with no place to go. At this point he could get away with thinking for himself, even if Dick Cheney didn't like it.

His disastrous war in Iraq has added many to the Army of the Needy, those with debilitating injuries or illnesses whose best hope for a decent life is the proper use and research of embryonic stem cells. With the current veto, he may feel like he's washed some blood off his hands—he's only added more. What the president needs is to get a life.

Finding the Middle

2006-07-16T18:23:00.000-07:00

We are a nation facing an obesity problem, yet finding our middle seems beyond us. The one-sided forces of nationalism and religion are behind most of the turmoil and killing in the Middle East, but finding a balance point, a middle ground, seems almost impossible. In my dealings with the religious right, I find we have many similar concerns, but emotional issues such as gay marriage and flag burning occupy such enormous positions for them that there seems no way around them. They trigger responses that do not allow for a middle ground. As one who grew up when it was perfectly acceptable to call homosexuals fags, queers, fairies, and other such cruel terms, when mistreatment of them (physical or emotional) was also acceptable, it is impossible for me to think of their lifestyle as a choice. I think we are just wired differently. Also, I doubt that homosexuals will reproduce fast enough to become a major problem to the world. Global warming, on the other hand, threatens more than our lifestyles, it threatens our species, ours and others as well. On this I find much agreement, but not nearly enough interest.

Our leaders have focused on free elections, equating them with democracy, but the results so far have shown remarkably little interest in self-government, at least in the Middle East. The big winners in those elections have been theocrats, Imams making the decisions for everyone else—hardly a democratic society. In the developing nations of our own hemisphere, the movement has been toward the left, again with powerful leaders taking over. The average person continues to be guided by the persuaders in power, and nationalism, as with our neighbors to the east, continues as a motivating factor for our neighbors to the south.

The only real democracy in the Middle East is Israel, where its citizens have been influenced by generations in Europe. Most of the developing countries we are dealing with have had no such experience. They tend to go with the known, the familiar, rather than risking the responsibility of democracy. Yet, even in Israel religion and nationalism pull most of the strings.

Our situation is somewhat different. We are moving from a truly democratic society of long standing toward a theocracy. We have lost most of our friends and thousands of our youth because of cowboy diplomacy—another way of saying belligerent nationalism. The findings of science continue to be questioned by the religious right and the merely greedy refuse to look much beyond their own life span. Under such conditions, finding a middle ground is well nigh impossible.

Iraq is in a state of civil war, a war that bears little resemblance to our Civil War because the combatants do not wear uniforms and march into battle, they simply take turns executing each other. They may well find themselves killing relatives and friends, but otherwise there is little outward resemblance to our established picture of civil war.

Israel's response to Hezbollah has moved world attention away from Iraq for the moment, but the problems haven't gone away, they've just grown more complicated. At home and abroad we find people more willing to fight than to talk. We have systems of communication enormously more convenient than ever before in the history of mankind, yet we can not talk our way out of a fight. If there is a middle ground, few are interested in finding it, and there is a middle ground in almost every argument, someone just has to look for it. Our theme song would seem to be Billie Holiday's "All, or Nothing at All." It wasn't a sad song in its day, but you have to be my age to remember it. That's sad enough.

Ever the Unpopular

2006-07-01T18:53:00.000-07:00

If I read the Supreme Court decision on the treatment of prisoners correctly, it says they can either be treated as prisoners of war (POWs) or else be accused as criminals. In either case we have long established methods and procedures for their treatment. The Court said there is no such category as enemy combatants. According to news reports, some within the Republican party think they can turn this into a "weak on terrorism" issue by forcing Democrats to vote against unthinkable legislation that would make the present illegal behavior legal. I think any time a party can say it is defending the law of the land, it is standing on safe and patriotic ground. Apparently, several influential Senators and Representatives in the Republican ranks have similar concerns. The term "strict constructionist" is still popular in parts of the GOP. We should remember that in the course of our great history thousands have died either to gain or retain the same rights that now hang in the balance.

It is often politically popular to deal with ugly realities in harsh and often illegal ways. John Wayne justice we call it. History shows, however, that the manner in which we treat the probably guilty determines, in the long run, how we treat the probably innocent. Demagoguery is often popular with the masses… until it comes full circle. Sooner or later the indiscretions of the mob come back to haunt them, especially those who applauded early on. The ACLU is roundly hated by many with limited vision. They take the side of unpopular causes with regularity. I've often hated them myself for sticking their noses into other people's business. Being right, it would seem, is seldom appreciated.

Rush Limbaugh, the epitome of hot air patriotism, had hardly recovered from his most recent brush with the law—trying to sneak medication for the Bob Dole disease into the country—before flaming Nancy Pelosi's response to the Supreme Court decision. In his youth, Limbaugh passed on an opportunity to serve in Vietnam. Now that we find ourselves in a similarly undeclared war, he's all for tough treatment of the enemy. Does middle age do this for everyone? Does it somehow bolster their courage and toughen their stance? From the examples of leadership in the White House, it would seem so. I don't really blame anyone for choosing to miss Vietnam, but I do prefer consistency among politicians… and others.

I've made this point before, but it bears repeating. This administration has pretended to defend us against terrorism by stomping on the rights and freedoms we are supposedly defending. If we do away with the rule of law, what exactly are we defending? If there's an acceptable answer to this question, I haven't heard it.

The Rise of the Doormats

2006-07-01T00:15:00.000-07:00

There is still hope that the nation's government will again be a three part arrangement. For the last five years it has mostly been run by the Executive branch, with the implicit consent of the Legislature and the Judiciary. We have been fed the line that any limitations placed on Executive power is unpatriotic and works to the benefit of terrorists. The collective backbones of the elected members of the House and Senate, as well as those in the Judiciary, seem to have dissolved. Now there is a stirring, and hope that the Phoenix will rise from its ashes.

A large segment of the populace has been willing to give up its guaranteed rights and freedoms to the support the machinations of the current White House. When the Vice President, with a permanent sneer, speaks out of the left side of his mouth, he receives standing ovations, no matter how badly he distorts reality. Early in his tenure, the president said things would be a lot easier if he were a dictator. Ever since the Twin Towers came down he has acted like the war powers he assumed made him one. The brakes needed to be hit for a long time, but no one in government seemed willing to apply the pressure.

Finally, the Supreme Court has said that the laws of the nation, the Constitution and binding treaties, such as the Geneva Convention regarding the treatment of prisoners, must be followed. The myth of enemy combatants concocted by the White House cannot stand. The kangaroo court system established to deal with them must give way to established law. It is more than Congress and the Judiciary reasserting their powers. It is America recognizing that too much has been given away in the name of safety. We cannot allow the things that help to distinguish us from the rest of the world to erode, and still expect to remain a democracy within a republic.

Senator Specter has raised his sonorous voice to challenge some of the invasions of privacy. He intends to demand answers from the White House on the practice of monitoring our bank accounts and financial transactions as well as eavesdropping on our phone calls. The expected cries and crocodile tears from the Executive branch have been no surprise, but I don't think he will ultimately be deterred. It matters not so much that anything specific in terms of legislation come from these hearings. What matters is, that the unfettered power claimed by the President stands challenged.

We are supposed to be a nation of checks and balances, but for the last five years there has been no balance—since the Supreme Court declared the 2000 election over. It wasn't noticeable because the President spent the first eight months of his term vacationing on his Crawford ranch. Beginning with the bullhorn moment, however, he assumed powers totally out of step with the Constitution. It's a little early to celebrate, but you might want to just hum a few bars of "Happy Days Are Here Again." They just might be.

Trivial Pursuit

2006-06-27T22:18:00.001-07:00

The Republican Party, particularly the ultra-conservative section of it, controls all three branches of our government. It spends most of its time on emotional issues, hoping to embarrass Democrats and bring its base out come November. Issues that demand attention have been lost in the attack on gays, flag burners, and in a recent unnecessary vote involving the war in Iraq. In fact, they shot themselves in the foot during the battle over troop withdrawals, labeling the Democratic proposal a cut and run strategy. The following day, General Casey offered a similar plan. The president and legislative spokesmen have tried to make an orange look like an apple, but no one's buying. The two proposals are the same.

The Democrats in the Legislature should be making proposals of their own and doing whatever it takes to publicize them. If their proposals are enacted into law, so much the better, but if they are shot down, at least they died trying. Harping on the Republicans' waste of time is only half the battle. Painting this Congress as being wasteful of opportunity is easily accomplished, but the Democrats need to make it clear that they are doing something positive themselves, and then keep doing so. It may be fun watching the civil war inside the Republican Party, but the Democrats need proposals and solutions to such problems as health care, the national debt, immigration, social security, and the environment, in order to be effective. There are no shortages of available ideas, and there are plenty of groups willing to promote them. Those sources of strength need to be tapped.

The Republican economic policy, beginning with Ronald Reagan and continuing through the two more recent administrations, has been to cut income and max out our credit card. This should scare the daylights out of fiscal conservatives—there should still be plenty of them in the GOP. These are the people who believe in paying their own bills, and think government should do the same. They are convinced that government is wasteful, and the pork their party is now responsible for proves them right. There is no way that government itself can be trimmed enough to pay the bills run up by the last three Republican administrations, but every legislative add-on to spending bills can be cut. Good publicity awaits those who capitalize on it. Witness John McCain.

I have no doubt that the next election cycle will feature mostly negative ads, since they seem to work, but contrasting negative behaviors with positive efforts would make the picture a lot clearer. No one gets elected to the Senate without a good grasp of public relations, and there was never a better time to put that knowledge to use. It's hard to paint yourself as a problem solver if you haven't proposed any solutions. It's time to stop playing defense, and start pressing the attack. Remember, quarterbacks are paid a lot better than linebackers.

Shhhh, It's a Secret

2006-06-24T17:19:00.000-07:00

Today's papers had three interesting articles that are related, yet somewhat contradictory. The major story concerned the arrest of seven possible terrorists in Florida who allegedly planned to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago. The second presented departing Treasury Secretary John Snow's defense of the government's secret tracking of our financial dealings. Although it was done without our knowledge or permission, he called it "government at its best." He implied that terrorist activities had been deterred by it, and that the secrecy of the operation was vital to its success. The third story involved the government's defense in a lawsuit challenging its secret collection of phone records. The administration maintains that if the suit goes forward, it threatens to reveal state secrets and jeopardize the "war on terror." The last two involved governmental snooping into our private lives, and the defense for both of them is basically the same.

Secrecy is an important commodity for our national leaders. The people who always know what's best for us guard those secrets, unless revealing them might have some political value. The arrest of the seven alleged terrorists in Florida was timed to make national news. It allowed Director Mueller to have a news conference. It also gave Vice President Cheney more material for his predictable exaggerations.

The seven plotters had no weapons, no money, and apparently no connections. The descriptions provided of them have the sound of spit and whittle club members bitching about life in general. The whole thing would fit nicely in a Pink Panther movie, if it didn't make the bad guys look more comical than the Inspector. Their capture will be hyped, no doubt, as a great accomplishment in the war on terror, and then slip quietly from the news. Of course, with the administration now in power, you don't actually have to break the law to be thrown in jail. You don't even have to be charged with anything.

The stand taken by the Bush administration is that whatever the president claims is necessary can and should be done, and does not have to be defended in court. The government need only invoke the so-called "state secrets privilege" to hide its nefarious actions. If this fails to give us pause, I don't know what will. And to think we are trying to teach the Iraqis how to be a Democracy.

The actions taken by the administration, and its Republican cohorts, amount to a campaign of fear. In fact, it is not dissimilar to the "bloody shirt" strategy that kept the Republicans mostly in power for the decades between the Civil War and World War I. If we fall for it now, we will be forfeiting freedoms that may never be regained. Power is a heady tonic, and those who enter politics have a large appetite for it. The present administration has demonstrated an enormous need for secrecy, and the chief string puller, Vice President Cheney, has an insatiable appetite for it.

Political freedom is a dangerous thing. It allows bad guys opportunities that are hard to find under a despot. The activities advanced in the name of safety, or freedom, are often carried out by secret police using powers that have no basis under law. In such circumstances, the only thing people have to fear is… government. The question before us is: How much freedom are we willing to trade for safety?

Think before you answer.

Stay the Cut and Run the Course

2006-06-23T20:18:00.000-07:00

We now have government by slogan. Mission Accomplished, Stand Down when they Stand Up, Cut and Run, and Stay the Course are ones we've heard often the past few years. Now an effort is being made to paint the man who does little more than repeat those slogans, a man with no imagination and even less interest—hence, no alternative strategy—as a determined leader who sticks with his word no matter what the cost. It would be funny if it weren't so crushingly tragic. That cost, by the way, is borne by our youth in the Armed Services and their families. The rest of us have not been asked to make any sacrifice, financial or physical. The war is being paid for by Chinese lenders and is set to be repaid by the generation fighting the war, and by their children and grandchildren, provided we haven't declared bankruptcy by then. That's what would happen to us as individuals if we drastically reduced our income and increased our spending beyond reason. We can only hope that the Social Security System remains solvent, because the soldiers' grandchildren will be using their allotments to repay the Chinese.

The House of Representatives has passed a revision of the Inheritance Tax so that only three tenths of one percent of our nation's heirs will pay anything, and that will be about seventeen per cent of their inheritance. The Republicans call it the Death Tax and the Democrats call it more appropriately the Paris Hilton Giveaway. A majority of the public seems to be in favor of doing away with this tax since, I guess, they picture themselves striking it rich. For the great majority of us, it is tantamount to a libidinous ant ogling an elephant cow and murmuring, " Acres and acres." The Republicans' line is that present law is stealing the family farm, but they've never been able to come up with an example. It does sound convincing, though. The simple truth is that those with enough money to be affected by the inheritance tax also have lobbyists arranging loopholes, and the best accountants to make use of them.

This same House refused to increase the minimum wage above $5.15 on the basis that it would harm the economy and would put small businessmen out of business. It is almost a decade since the minimum wage was increased. During that time, legislators' salaries increased by $30,000. That increase didn't put government out of business, but it does seem like government stopped doing much of the people's business.

Recently, the Republican leaders in the Legislature wasted several days debating proposals designed to make the Democrats look weak on defense. Rather than run away from the votes, the Democrats should remember Harry Truman's message about the "do-nothing Congress." I'm sure they will stress the lack of an exit strategy, but they should also stress the government by slogan approach this sad lot has adopted. They should list the names of those who died as the result of our invasion of a sovereign nation. They should emphasize that our fighting men and women have been turned into sitting ducks for insurgents. If the casualties in this war do not count as victims of terrorists, then who or what does? Say, that has the makings of a slogan we might adopt.

The FDA, What Have They Been Smoking?

2006-04-22T20:06:00.000-07:00

The Food and Drug Administration recently concluded that marijuana has no medicinal benefits. I don't think those pushing for the medical use of mary jane have ever claimed that it had curative powers. It does, however, enter into the quality of life issue. Those suffering the ravages of cancer, especially patients on chemotherapy, too often lose their appetites and waste away until they are only skeletal remnants of their previous selves. The main claim for its use is that it increases the appetite. It is difficult to see how anyone could say there is no carryover, at least to a more decent life, when by using it one can enjoy a meal instead of starving to death.

The FDA has become a political extension of the current administration and represents the skewed views of former Attorney General John Ashcroft, rather than the objective views of the scientific community. John was led more by Leviticus than the Constitution, but marijuana, so far as I know, was not a problem the ancient Jews had to deal with.

I have seen numerous members of my generation featured on news reports using hemp for the purpose listed above. The drugs of choice for our generation were tobacco and alcohol. Both were legal, and remain so today. Their combined effects have brought the scourge of cancer to many of the aforesaid generation, and will doubtless bring the same scourge to succeeding ones. It would seem to me that these legal drugs have helped build a case for medical marijuana.

I don't think it is true, but one of the touted benefits of marijuana is an increased libido. Since the group of which I am a part is dying at the rate of a thousand a day for one cause or another, I doubt if many would mind leaving this realm with satisfied smiles on their faces. Some of the more profitable drugs on the market today are designed to help solve the problem of erectile dysfunction. It seems like a double standard to allow a manufactured chemical, endorsed by Bob Dole, and yet to refuse the natural product chosen by the masses.

I gave up cigarettes almost six decades ago, and my alcoholic intake is now limited to a glass or three of wine in the evening. However, since everyone must die of something, cancer has become a common choice for the elderly. If I wind up with some form of it, and taking up smoking again would keep me from starving to death, I think I'd say, "Pass the roach."

Often Wrong, But Never In Doubt

2006-04-18T22:07:00.000-07:00

Donald Rumsfeld cannot be separated from the policies of George W. Bush. Perhaps it should be stated in reverse. I doubt the president has the strength or the desire to suggest that Rummy leave. President Bush is a man of small imagination and his solutions to problems are limited to tax cuts and bellicose bluster. Donald is the one with ideas, and he agrees with himself on every issue. His treatment of a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was enough to discourage any Admiral or General from disagreeing with him, at least while on active duty. I guess even professional warriors can be intimidated when all they have worked for during their careers hangs in the balance. The descriptions I've read of Tommy Franks' meeting with the secretary, then his repeated trips to the planning station to answer Rumsfeld's questions, explain our going to Iraq with inadequate force — sufficient to handle a small time dictator's army, perhaps, but without plans for follow-up. Generals Franks and Myers have come to Rumsfeld's defense, but since they were part of the problem, they have vested interests to defend. In truth, I doubt that we had the troops available to do the job right in the first place. Slim and trim armies can win wars, but they are unqualified to win the peace.

Donald Rumsfeld has even more trouble admitting a mistake than his boss, and that means it is well nigh impossible to get such an admission. While the president was playing at the Lincoln theater in San Diego Bay, Rumsfeld was playing the Palace in Iraq saying, "Never have so many been so wrong about so much." In the course of this grandstanding, Iraqis were stealing anything that wasn't nailed down, and the insurgents were stealing from Saddam's ammunition dumps. The material from the dumps is being returned to us, and to Iraqi civilians, on a daily basis. Every wrong decision available to us was chosen by our leaders in this far-off land. Since the Secretary of Defense won the battle with the Secretary of State, the Pentagon became responsible for the rejuvenation of this oil-rich nation, and it took months for Rumsfeld to stop looking for those bouquets of roses he expected the Iraqis to hand us. The failures continue as we try to control an unhappy nation with inadequate manpower.

When you're the boss and make all the decisions, you're also stuck with the blame when things go wrong. That's where Donald Rumsfeld is today. But, he can't be fired without the President admitting he made a truckload of mistakes, because the two of them are joined at the hip. The war against Iraq was unnecessary, a terrible mistake, and the American public has come to realize it. Rumsfeld's departure would probably solve very little, since our options now are so limited. It might be good to be rid of his smug face, but the problems won't go away. In the end, we are probably going to do what we did both in Korea and Vietnam, declare a victory and come home. That will leave us with with Iran next door and no credibility whatsoever.

Remember the bullhorn moment at the ruins of the Twin Towers? Have you heard the expression, The best ad libs are rehearsed? Have you ever wished we'd stayed with the Afghanis long enough to have found the real culprit? So have I. I wonder if the President and the Secretary of Defense have such thoughts, in private, of course.

Proceed Without DeLay

2006-04-18T20:50:00.000-07:00

Tom DeLay is leaving the House, but says he intends to stay involved. He will continue to push religion in government, though I don't know what religion this vicious little man espouses. It certainly encompasses some strange values. Most religions I know do not include selling pollutants to farmers, robbing the poor to further enrich the wealthy, relinquishing national treasures to corporations, starving our national places of beauty of the finances needed to maintain them, reducing safeguards for water and air, burdening the generations to come with massive debt, or the many other causes he has championed.

Tom did show just how cheaply the loyalty and support of our politicians can be bought — he was a real cash cow. His sources had trouble providing the kind of money I expect candidates for Congress need, but once his cohorts were beholden to him, he earned his nickname — The Hammer — by tactics intimidating to anyone who tried to show some independence of thought. I don't doubt that he, like many zealous reformers before him, sought changes he thought necessary, but the arrogance of power soon overtook him, and his appetite for the good life was fed by the lobbyists he dealt with. His expanding girth displayed how well his appetite for food was nurtured, but the good life included more than food. He lived the jet set life to the hilt. He succumbed to the view that he was above the law, and came to believe that if he wanted to do it, it was probably a good idea. Overreaching was not unique to him, but it was definitely a part of his comeuppance.

DeLay's replacement, John Boehner, is a cosmetic change at best. The only hope is that in assuming Tom's role he will be less effective. After all, he doesn't have Tom's connections to lobbyist bank accounts. Besides, everyone is a little antsy about the current national prominence of Abramoff, and the scandal involving money for legislation may provide some of them with a little more backbone. Nothing, after all, exceeds like excess.

The Status Quo Has Got To Go

2006-04-18T20:41:00.000-07:00

Achilles had his heel, and it's been said that we all have one. Mine is a little farther up the leg, but part of the same appendage. After nursing a worn-out knee for several years, I've decided to have the original joint replaced with a metal one. As part of my preparation for the knife, I've had to give up my daily aspirin. In the process, I've become much more aware of the aches and pains that seem to accompany my aging machinery. If I continued to ignore the warning signs, and became a cripple, few would be affected beyond myself and my wife, who would find it even harder to enjoy life. On a national scale, it would not cause a ripple. The same cannot be said for many of the ailing limbs of our society. The warning signs have been around for some time now, but our current leadership has continued blithely on its way, as have others before it, and the piper is about to demand his payment.

I am currently reading Kevin Phillips' American Theocracy. It should be required reading for all members of government. It's very well researched, and it pinpoints several trends in our society that will bring us down if we fail to make changes. So far, I have only ingested the section on oil dependence. If that were his only topic, it would still be enough to put this book on the required reading list, but that's only the beginning. Making the changes he suggests, like giving up aspirin, will make life a little less enjoyable, but some pain just has to be endured. We can make the changes, as tough as it may be, and continue as the dominant power in the world. Or, we can ignore the signs and symptoms and follow England, and others before them, into the dependent status they now enjoy.

As the title suggests, there are other factors we must also deal with. I recommend this book for all realists, those willing to face the problems of our nation and to look for solutions to them, because, staying the course is no longer an option.

Hypocrimony or Sanctimocrisy

2006-04-08T17:46:00.000-07:00

"Hoist on his own petard" is a phrase that comes to mind when thinking of our president's most recent secret sin. Politicians who have built political reputations on saying what they mean, as clearly as they are able, and meaning what they say, as best they understand, have raised the bar sufficiently that being caught in a lie is more deadly for them than for most other politicians. If president Bush had followed through on the threats or promises he made at the time of the leak to Robert Novak of Valerie Plame's CIA employment, we would be dealing with president Hastert right now. The defense offered is that no law was broken and, of course, it was for the good of the American public. The real reason was that we were going to war with Iraq, come hell or high water, and a fellow named Wilson was getting in the way.

Mr. Bush likes to pretend he's John Wayne pretending to be a war hero or a gunslinger, and a lot of people have bought that image. In fairness to John Wayne, he was sort of between the wars, too young for the First World War and too old for the Second, though several Hollywood leading men his age or older either joined or were drafted. And in fairness to our president, he did serve an abbreviated stint with the Texas Air National Guard, a safe haven for the well-connected, and was prepared, in his way, to defend Texas against incursions by Oklahoma. So the manly man image is not completely without merit.

His followers, however, have had their expectations raised by his sanctimony, which still sells despite Karl Rove's political war games. They have supported his obviously misleading rationale for the invasion of Iraq, and his rosy picture of the disaster we are now embroiled in. They are inclined to forgive him any failures, domestic or foreign, as long as they believe him to be a strong defender of the American way.

When it became known that he okayed domestic spying, tapping our phone lines without taking legal steps to do so, a few began to question. Recently the attorney general said that it would be just as legal to tap individual's lines even if no foreign connection was made. It seems that whatever this president wants to do is legal as far as the AG is concerned. Yet, even some of his staunchest supporters have expressed doubts about that, and about his strength when it comes to defending us against terrorists.

It is difficult to remain snowy white in the battlefield of American politics, and when you depend on people like Karl Rove and Tom DeLay to get things done, it's really hard to keep the skirts clean. Part of president Bush's political success has been that people have extremely low expectations of his personal gifts and, as a result, mediocre performances are applauded as great successes. They developed high expectations, however, for his honesty. As a result, this most recent failure has been greatly magnified. And it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

As for the Democrats, they are at least two years late in apologizing for their votes on the war resolution. I find it difficult to support anyone who sticks by such an obviously wrong choice. Politically, it would probably be wiser to let the Republicans tear each other apart with internecine warfare, but I'm still looking for someone to say what s/he would do differently. Unless the Republicans do a one eighty on many of the current issues, I'll have to vote for a Democrat. I just want to avoid having to hold my nose while doing so.

The future of this nation, and the future of life on much of the earth will depend on good decisions in the coming decades. The right ones will take more courage than most of our leaders have displayed up to now. But taking the high ground has many advantages. It is much more apt to give us an unimpeded view.

A Book Review Thank Goodness for a Stuffed Up Nose

2006-03-31T22:31:00.000-08:00

I recently finished skimming a book by the author Bernard Goldberg. If he's someone I should recognize, I'll have to admit I'm delinquent. His recent book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (and Al Franken is #37), makes reference to another one labeled Bias. If it's as biased as this latest effort, then it's appropriately named. The closest he gets to indicting the real culprits is naming a headline-seeking religious zealot from Alabama and a weeping televangelist, best known for having sinned. I suppose I should mention the book was loaned to me by a friend who is much farther to the wrong than I.

Mr. Goldberg takes on "gansta rap" and several tasteless sitcoms, areas which drew no complaint. Most of the people he named were relative unknowns to me. The majority were vaguely familiar, but seem to have kept pretty much under my radar. While they may be screwing up lots of people, blaming them for screwing up the nation seems like it makes them more powerful than I imagine they really are. He particularly dislikes entertainers — mostly Hollywood types — though he does not include Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarznegger or a Senator named George Murphy on his list. Like Texas oilmen, most of the entertainers he condemns are more useful at fundraising than at guiding our political thought. But their names are clearly recognizable, so his readers can shake their heads knowingly in agreement — a form of name dropping.

His political sinners include Robert Byrd, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy, and John Edwards. There may be others, but this gives an indication of who he thinks the screw-ups are. The politicians came near the end of his list, nearing as it did the number one sinner. I kept thinking he might redeem himself by naming the one person who has most ignored the Constitution, who has taken a great nation to war on falsehoods, undone a century's worth of environmental progress, reduced taxes for the wealthiest among us, laden our children and their grandchildren with enormous debt while polluting the air they breathe and the water they must drink. Instead, he chose Michael Moore.

He says in his introduction that most of his choices are from the Left. If most means the same as all, then he spoke truthfully. I'd have settled for Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, Dick Cheney, Tom DeLay, Pat Robertson, or Jerry Falwell. Even Gale Norton. But Michael Moore?

Please.

This Is Not Forever, Darling

2006-03-14T18:05:00.000-08:00

For every good outcome we seek, there seems to be a downside which inevitably adds its counterweight to any solution we suggest. As I watch the endless and infernal television ads touting pharmaceutical companies and their products, I realize why they are making so much money. It seems that our greatest desire is to live forever, and to be forever young and pain free while doing so. The fact that disclaimers for their products take up more airtime than the rest of the ads does not seem to give us pause. The hidden message in such ads is that our wish can be granted if we are willing and able to pay.

Congress, at the urging of our president, has recently passed an industry-written prescription drug bill offering an array of choices that the elderly are now trying to decide which, if any, they can afford. The most likely answer will be none, though that hasn't become clear as yet. The medical community fought Medicare for years before realizing it was their salvation in disguise. The term "socialized medicine" was coined as a pejorative to discourage its passage.

We are now faced with a huge and growing number of people with no health insurance, and the problem is larger than business or the medical community can solve through private enterprise alone. Problems of this magnitude can be solved only with government intervention and the use of tax dollars, and cannot be solved by favoring tax reductions for those most able to pay, nor will they be solved by those favoring tax reduction for those somewhat less able to pay. They will not be solved until the middle class begins to hurt even more than it now hurts, because only the middle class has enough power to bring enough pressure to force action by a reluctant Congress — because they are the ones who vote. The solution will be expensive and will obviously require different priorities than those currently in vogue.

Once a system is in place and the costs are known, many guidelines will have to be established. Sooner or later, we will have to face the reality of our mortality. I doubt that it will lead to forced euthanasia, but it may well lead to more realistic decisions about expensive care. More thought and more money will be given to Hospice, I suspect, than to the many painful, demeaning short-term treatments currently in use.

The Eskimo people put their old folks on an ice floe to freeze or become polar bear food once they could no longer provide for themselves or contribute to the common good. We live in different circumstances, but we will have to face similar choices. We may not look for the nearest ice floe, but we will have to give Mother Nature more opportunity to take her course. After all, Mother has always known best.

Whose Uterus Is It, Anyway

2006-03-07T19:22:00.000-08:00

South Dakota's legislature just saw fit to require that every orgasm have a name. I'm not against families, but I'm more than a little tired of all those pious males holding placards and sounding righteous about the right to life. Their voting patterns indicate that their commitment to life ends at birth. The life they seem to revere is the life of the fetus, not the child. They tend to favor capital punishment, and to decry welfare of any kind. They tend to be overwhelmingly religious, but have somehow missed the Biblical injunction to care of the widows and orphans, and by implication, the poor among us. That may be tarring with too wide a brush, but I think the odds are greatly in my favor.

I would like to know what percentage of the South Dakota Legislature is female. Does it go without saying, predominantly male? Since that limits the majority's role in child making to a few seconds of extreme pleasure, I question their right to make such decisions. Sometimes the pleasure is mutual, but since the male genitalia do not include brains, and since they are not known for altruism, any sharing seems incidental. I suspect that the Mississippi legislature has a similar disproportion of males, meaning they are faced with the same limitations. It also appears they will not be limited by their limitations, but will follow South Dakota in their commitment to piety and motherhood.

Recently I've noticed more pictures of women holding placards at abortion clinics. It shows, I think, that the groups are beginning to recognize the same limitations I do, and their effect on PR. These are the same people who fight any effort to distribute condoms to sexually active youth, on the basis that it encourages the behavior they want them to resist. Since all of us are made by the same basic process, most of us can thank lust for our very existence. These people think it will go away if we just pass a law. Since the sex drive is built directly into almost every creature, abstinence and the rhythm method are never going to be adequate methods of contraception.

Recent statistics indicate that parent notification requirements have not reduced the number of abortions. If anything, they seem to have increased them. Since I did not come with the equipment required to carry babies myself, I don't deserve a vote, but I would be more than happy to settle for an all-female vote on the question. If the majority of the women in this nation think every pregnancy should go full term, I'll settle for the law that requires it. If that same majority says rape and incest are not legitimate reasons for aborting, then I'll say the right people decided the issue, no pun intended.

Since that will obviously never take place, I think all males in the offending legislatures should swallow footballs and let them slowly pass. Their stretch marks would be signs of true commitment.

I've Got A Secret, Yours

2006-03-07T19:21:00.000-08:00

There are many things the American public should be worried about with respect to the current administration, not the least of which is its obsession with secrecy. Loyalty and secrecy are such high priorities with Bush and Cheney that you might expect their aides to be taking blood oaths while holding a burning scrap of paper in their bare hands. This was true well before they had 9/11 as their excuse. Now, of course, everything is justified by the war on terror. If you're as tired of that expression as I am, then you're really pooped.

What seems ironic, though perhaps logical, is their interest in other people's business. Patently illegal wiretaps without benefit of court approval are symptoms of contradictory values. A young teacher is in trouble for comparing this behavior to Hitler, and while he may have shown some immaturity in pushing the envelope, he had a great deal on his side to back up the suggestion. I would sooner have compared these acts to the KGB than to the Nazis.

Now they are taking declassified material off the available list. Some of these things go back to the 1940s. Those include my teenage years, and I am now an octogenarian. Anything I might have wanted to keep secret at that time I would probably be happy to brag about now. What secrets from that era could possibly be of interest to terrorists? Any dirt on public figures from that era has either been thankfully forgotten, or else long since revealed. Even the tabloids aren't interested. The Germans now know we had radar and the Japanese know we cracked their code. Russia got the secrets for the atomic bomb in the 1950s, and today the rest of the world can find them on the Internet.

Following their twisted logic, it is not surprising that they are pressing to criminalize the whistle blowers who let the NSA cat out of the bag. I've said this before, but it bears repeating: Turning someone into a criminal for leaking someone else's criminal behavior is not something we should support. We should be handing out Medals of Freedom, not trying to jail them. Sending our armies to Iraq to establish democracy, while running a secret police system at home is the height of hypocrisy, and we are witnesses to it. The real question is, will we put up with it? To string a couple of old phrases together, I know not what course others may take, but as for me and my family, we will Vote in November.

Much Ado

2006-02-25T17:46:00.000-08:00

I can understand the glee that Democrats feel as the Republican leadership feeds on itself, but there has never been a better time for holding our collective tongue. Many are having a field day as Republicans revolt against the sale of Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. — the one that controls a number of our ports — to the United Arab Emirates. It is an emotional issue on a par with gay unions and their threat to the institution of marriage, or the one raised against Christmas by Wal-Mart greeters, and has about the same substance. The danger of terrorist infiltration would be no greater under the business leadership of a Muslim firm than it has been under the leadership of a British one. Some of the profits might go elsewhere, but we are already sending plenty of our cash to the Middle East. A little more will be of small consequence. The control over things that keep us safe remains with us.

I might be concerned if a Muslim country took over the production of canned goods, or the manufacture of breakfast cereals. If one of their Imams was in charge of the recipe for Starbucks coffee, we might be in danger, but we are making a big deal out of something that has been in development for a very long time, as part of the globalization of commerce. I'm sure that we control to a similar extent many parts of other nation's commercial ventures. A few years ago we worried that Japan might end up owning most of the good old U S of A, but then their economy collapsed. It has only partially recovered, and we no longer fear the yellow menace. There is much more to fear in the dollar amount of IOU's the Chinese government now holds for our over-spending, under-collecting government. It would be nice, now and then, to worry about things that matter.

At the risk of repeating myself, I think we could come up with a long list of problems that we should be trying to solve. The melting of the Greenland glaciers, the changes in weather patterns that are spawning multiple hurricanes, over-population, affordable health care, burgeoning individual debt, out of control housing prices, and the disappearance of the middle class are only a few of the problems facing us. Some are beyond the reach of government, while others can only be solved with governmental help. Take your pick. But, let's work on the real ones.

Luck of the Draw

2006-02-25T17:07:00.000-08:00

The Near East is a good place to leave alone, and we are learning that lesson the hard way. The trouble with democracies and democratic elections is that they are unpredictable. If you say you want people to decide things for themselves, then you have to accept their decisions — the recent election in Palestine being a good case in point. Our reaction up till now has shown just how much we believe in democracy, and why we find Mubarak and others like him more to our liking. Though he lost ground, he still controlled the outcome of Egypt's election.

Our reaction to the Hamas victory shows how little we have learned from our experience in Iraq. Punishing a people for making a democratic decision is a good way to ensure their enmity for all time to come. You lose even if you win, and you really lose if you lose. When your only stance is that of a tough guy, you limit yourself to making victory dependent on military or economic strength. The fact that our military is stretched beyond its intended capacity hasn't yet touched home. In the long run, the use of military might causes less harm than the application of economic pressure because we can win wars. It's peace that frustrates us.

The threat to starve out the new Palestinian government economically, unless they do things our way, will probably be as successful as our attempt to starve Castro out of Cuba. In the first place, we are not their only possible source of financing. There are plenty of oil-rich Muslim countries with an interest in their success. The leaders may not like Hamas, but their citizens obviously do, since elections continue to put theocratic governments in power. If we intend to gamble at playing hardball with an elected government, we had better make sure we hold all the cards. In this case, we don't. As Kenny said, "You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em." But, the next words in the song might be the wisest of all: "Know when to walk away and know when to run."

Free at Last

2006-02-24T22:16:00.000-08:00

It seems the president has suddenly got religion. He is touring the nation preaching the Gospel of Alternative Energy Sources. While there is nothing unusual about a recently reformed sinner being zealous in his attack on sin, after five very long years of ignoring and deploring the urgings of conservationists, it is hard to believe that his conversion is either real or complete. His answer till now has been to drill holes in the Arctic and to offer tax incentives for the purchase of gas hogs. I would be far more inclined to accept his conversion as genuine if his budget offerings matched his words. They do not.

I think it would be wise on the part of the Democratic party to applaud this new-found commitment and to use it as an opportunity to make the budget match his fine words. The development of alternative fuels, together with tax incentives for buying energy efficient automobiles, homes and fixtures, requires the backing of real money. But, tax breaks for gas hogs also need to be replaced with penalties. Carrots and sticks are called for.

One of the few benefits of the petroleum industry's price gouging has been the acceptance, by most of us, of the increased cost of all energy. Wind, solar, hydrogen, and other alternative power sources, such as ethanol, cost more than the cheap oil we grew accustomed to — provided by our business partners in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. That difference became much smaller with the Enron mentality of our domestic refiners. Government sponsorship will be required if companies are to make the enormous investments these other sources require. Now is the time to show the president that we agree with him.

I hope this will not be another case of a fancy title and a starvation diet, because this is something we can afford to use borrowed money for. However, while we find ourselves in the process of overcoming our addiction to oil, it would also be a good time to overcome our addiction to the credit card economy — at least the credit card government. It didn't begin with Ronald Reagan, but it certainly escalated in the course of his eight years, and the four that followed. Sixteen per cent of our entire budget now goes to pay interest on the national debt, and that number is moving rapidly toward twenty. The first President Bush supported a tax increase and, though he spent months apologizing for it, it started the process that led to a balanced budget in the Clinton years. That process has been reversed in the last five, and at a rate that makes Reagan look like a piker. At least he knew how to play bluff without actually going to war.

Some members of the president's religious base have begun to read Genesis a bit more carefully and have learned that they are the earth's stewards. It would be wonderful if this president, who seems so committed to things religious, were to join them in preserving things of beauty in addition to those things merely necessary for the continuation of life as we know it. They are his only allies with no economic interest that I am aware of. If he could renounce the drill and spill philosophy that has guided him till now, he might influence those who need to hear it most, those in the oil industry. After all, they owe him.

It Was None of Your Business

2006-02-18T12:16:00.000-08:00

Much has been said, and much more questioned, about the recent shooting in Texas quail country. Deadeye Dick and his companions were on a 50,000 acre ranch showing their macho side by shooting defenseless creatures. They showed their lack of confidence by using shotguns instead of rifles. Rifles would have made the battle more even, but it could have been disastrous in this case, so it's better they weren't really testing their skills.

There is no indication that the group had been drinking, other than the gratuitous statement by their hostess that none had taken place. If an ordinary citizen had pulled the trigger, then followed the law by reporting it immediately, there probably would have been a blood test, and that would have erased all doubt. Instead, this very private person in a very public job said nothing until most of a day later. He had his medical team administer what help they could to the victim, then took Mr.Whittington to a hospital for continuing medical service.

Once Mr. Whittington was safely ensconced in the hospital, the VP called in his other team of doctors, his spin doctors, Mary Matalin and Karl Rove. It is not known what advice they gave him, but Karl did inform the president of the shooting. The president, as is his custom, deferred to the vice president in this matter. As a result, the news staff of the local paper turned out to be the first in the media to know of the accident.

The activity was an appropriate one for the vice president, because it involved birds. He has been giving the general public a bird for the last five years. He picked himself for what is usually the number two spot when it became clear that George W was the winner of the Republican primary in 2000. Since that time, he has acted as though he had done the citizens of our fair land a favor by accepting the nomination. When there is perceived danger, it is the VP who goes to an undisclosed location. An action reserved for the most vital member of the team.

The president gave his usual eloquent endorsement of the vice president's explanation, calling it strong and powerful, and said that people were making the wrong conclusion, whatever that means. He used the same unusual powers of insight that he used on Vladimir Putin when he looked into the vice president's eyes and saw the profound effect this tragic shooting had on him.

One ironic outcome of this was to show how differently members of this administration value their own privacy as compared to the rest of us. While they are listening in on our phone conversations and checking our e-mails and library choices, they sit on a shooting involving one of their own for most of the day. Of course, we shouldn't question it. It was probably to protect us from terrorists.

The shooting was no doubt a simple accident, but the follow-up displayed a good deal about the number two man in the country and his relationship to the number one. Instead of the president being in charge, it is clear that the Veep is. As Pinnochio was to learn, a puppet does not question the puppeteer.

Party Lines

2006-02-14T22:40:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid in the rural Central Valley of California, very few people had telephones. Those who did shared a line with several others. Each telephone was assigned an identification code consisting of a certain number of long and short rings — called longs and shorts. When you called someone on your own line, you used the handle on the side to crank out the code. The phones were ugly, wall mounted contraptions that today may be seen occasionally in antique shops. The rotary dial had not yet been invented, or at least it had not come into common usage. When you placed a call, every phone on the line rang and people would know immediately whose phone was being contacted. All you had to do to listen in was to take the receiver off the hook as quietly as possible. Those were the days of simple entertainment, and listening in was common. I suppose useful private information was gathered from time to time, but most of it was already known. J. Edgar Hoover and his G-men came along in the thirties and they could have listened in, but they were still busy fighting criminals.

The party line served several purposes, some of them constructive. If you wanted to get some piece of information out to the community, all you had to do was call someone on your line and say it out loud. The distribution system would take over from there. At times it was almost as useful as a 911 call is today.

The term "party line" means something else to most people today. The listening in has gained in popularity with Big Brother. The technological advancements in the communications industry make it possible to listen in on millions of conversations, some of them meant to remain private, most of them none of the government's business. They tell us this is done to protect us from the bad guys. But, given the character assassination skills and habits of Karl Rove & Co., I'd prefer to keep my privacy and accept the risks it entails.

Double Negatives

2006-02-14T22:04:00.000-08:00

Remember when Bill Clinton's healthy sex drive provided titillating subject matter to discuss? Remember when all you had to do was turn on any newscast to see "the hug?" Remember when that was considered scandalous? Remember when the House of Representatives, led by that fellow Henry Hyde, with a "youthful indiscretion" of his own, impeached him for lying to save his marriage? When it turned out that Bill Clinton failed to turn down an offer few men could refuse, America was reminded of it many times a day for at least two years.

With the current administration and the legislative leadership, hardly a week goes by without a new scandal breaking in the media. Usually it involves money and/or abuse of power. Instead of holding our attention and being reminded of it on a daily basis, they have tended to cancel each other out. Each new scandal has taken the heat off the previous one. The liberal media suffers from a short attention span, or else limited interest. In fact, the enormity of the scandals has been a source of protection for the perps.

The government hired a special prosecutor in the Clinton case. He spent several years and at least fifty million dollars trying to prove something criminal. He wound up telling us something we already knew — the president had a sex drive. It is obvious that we as a nation are more interested in people's sex habits than we are in power grabs by ruthless politicians. Voyeurism sells.

By the Sea, By the Sea

2006-02-05T02:27:00.000-08:00

Articles in both the newspapers I read each day spelled out the problems the ocean is facing from human generated pollutants. The human race has used the ocean, and lakes and waterways, as a septic tank for as long as humans have inhabited the earth. Two things, however, have turned this into a life-threatening situation. First, the Industrial Revolution led to far greater production of industrial waste. We can blame the second on the medical profession, since more babies survive and more people grow old as a result of their efforts. The combination of longevity and industrial waste has taxed to the limit the ocean's capacity to absorb our offerings. It seemed so huge and limitless that it was natural to do the things we did, out of ignorance. But, even if ignorance of the law were an excuse, we could no longer plead ignorance to the laws of nature.

Regardless of whether you believe that life developed because of a super power, or simply through time and chance, most agree that life came from the ocean. So, it seems only fitting that it play a role in life's end. Of course, the world won't end if the human race becomes extinct, but if we do sufficient harm before we leave, it may require a few million years for the ocean to clean itself sufficiently for other species to develop. Wouldn't it be ironic if future life forms pumped our remains out of the ground and used them to fuel their SUV's.

Most people agree that in order to exist we need air and water. A healthy ocean is vitally important in providing both. We also need a temperature that stays within certain parameters, and few would deny the ocean's role in regulating temperatures as well. I think the case for a healthy ocean is pretty well made without my help.

In his speech last Tuesday, the president spent the first half defending his war in Iraq and his patently illegal wiretapping. His defense was that both were needed for our safety. Safety, I assume, includes our continued existence as a species. His Secretary of Defense said that the war has not made us safer, so that's out the window. The Constitution takes care of the illegal wiretapping with no help needed from Mr. Rumsfeld.

Since war and eavesdropping do not guarantee our safety, nor guarantee our continued existence as a race, the dangers of the continuance of various nations fails to compare in importance to the dangers of polluted air and water. Since the total cost of the war in Iraq is expected to exceed two trillion — a staggering sum — it would appear obvious to me that a better use of that money, or at least a major portion of it, would be to clean up the ocean, and to end our contamination of it. The efforts to sustain a way of life are important, but not if life itself as we know it ceases.

Short term profit continues to be the guiding principle of the current administration. Scientific certainties have been dismissed as having insufficient study and/or proof. This has been especially true when they involve the expenditure of money to deal with them, or if they get in the way of profits for the industries the president represents. The illness of the ocean is a scientific certainty. Unlike Scarlett O'Hara, this is not something we can think about tomorrow. Tomorrow is already here.

Keeping Up Appearances

2006-02-05T02:19:00.000-08:00

The last few days have brought to prominence some interesting contradictions. Sometimes what people do — legally — is offensive and in poor taste. The cartoons of the prophet Muhammad served no purpose that I can discern, but they would have gone largely unnoticed had they not been repeated as a news item. Stepping on things which involve great emotional attachment should be done with considerable care and concern. However, those who choose to move to democracies must accept some things that are offensive.

The administration has made much of the elections in Iraq and Palestine, as well as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, as signs of the successful outcome of the war in the Middle East. The unfortunate thing about democratic processes is that they do not always produce choices to our liking. I'm not sure how any part of our government could be happy with the political success of Hamas in Palestine, or the Shia majority in Iraq. The hard line leadership of Iran came to power through an election. One point of view is, you should be careful what you wish for. Being offended does not let us off the hook. We still have to deal with the elected leaders of independent nations, or nations that want to become independent, even if their voters choose theocracies.

In our country, a lady wanted to express her disagreement with the president at his nationally televised address. The words on her t-shirt were accurate, and the questions they raised represented the feelings of many others. So far as anyone knows, her intent was to sit quietly in the audience with no further confrontation. She was taken out forcibly and arrested. This happened in the House of Representative of the United States of America just before a speech which dealt with our success in giving voice to the oppressed in other nations.

Whether she was grandstanding or simply stating her case, it would appear that she broke no laws. The president has been treated like a rock star and has been shielded from contrary opinions in all of his carefully orchestrated appearances, both on the campaign trail and in his sales pitches around the country. The fact that dissent has been silenced should be a concern to all of us. It affects both our place in the sun and our message to a world we say we want to change.

I was not happy about Mrs. Sheehan's appearance with president Chavez in Venezuela. It seemed in poor taste to me, and counter-productive to her anti-war stance. So far as I know, she did nothing against the law. We are still dependent on Venezuela for a lot of the petroleum we use, and in spite of Mr. Chavez's dislike of us, he is still a trading partner.

The war that began as a means of ridding the world of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction has morphed into a battle to democratize the Islamic nations of the Middle East. As a result, we have to be very careful of appearances. They may not understand our democracy, but they are sure to recognize our contradictions.

Repubconomics and Other Issues

2006-02-04T00:20:00.000-08:00

Today's newspapers were just full of exciting news. The Senate, with the help of Democrats, passed a tax bill that will supposedly cut forty billion dollars from the deficit over the next ten years. It will accomplish this largely at the expense of Medicare and Medicaid recipients as well as college students. There were benefits as well, but they seemed limited to the upper end of the food chain. This was followed, or accompanied, by White House requests for eighteen billion to repair the Gulf Coast, and another one hundred twenty billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think there was another request, but it's slipped my mind. It was only for a few billion. The direct cost of the wars to ensure our freedom is approaching half-a-trillion dollars. I hope you feel safer as a result.

Secretary Rumsfeld said that despite our success in fighting terrorists, they are just as strong and maybe stronger than before. They are still capable of attacking us on our own soil, and they are gaining more dangerous weapons as well as the expertise to use them. I think he misplaced his rose-colored glasses on the way to giving this speech. The irony in this confessional is that our safety is the only point on which the current administration has the confidence of more than fifty percent of the voters. If this is the high point, I hate to consider the realities of the low points.

There was a battle of words in the Senate Intelligence Committee over the Administration's use of wire taps without court approval. Not surprisingly, all the defenders were Republicans. The last word on the matter came from Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, the committee chairman. He said, "I would point out that you really don't have any civil liberties if you're dead." I can only assume that this also applies to those Americans who have already given their lives to protect our liberties. Just an afterthought: I wonder how many of these same Senators would have defended Bill Clinton had he been responsible for eavesdropping?

The House Republicans continued their efforts toward giving the Republican Party a facelift. They elected a new fox to guard the hen house. John Boehner of Ohio beat out Roy Blunt for Majority Leader. The picture of him standing between Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Whip Roy Blunt tells part of the story. The somber expressions on the faces of the number one and number three men make you wonder if they themselves are wondering who will be next. Representative Boehner's election shows just how hard it is to find clean skirts in Washington. His ties to the lobbyists are too long and too deep to allow him much standing as a reformer, but at least he's a Gingrich man instead of a DeLay follower.

CIA Chief, Porter Goss, and National Intelligence Director, John Negroponte, bemoaned the leaks that have plagued their spy catching activities. I didn't hear any complaints about their successes being leaked, only their illegal activities. Breaking the law for a good cause, it seems, is in the interest of everyone, and stool pigeons deserve to be punished. It's really hard, I suppose, knowing what's best for everyone. Little people are so unappreciative.

If Only

2006-01-27T12:48:00.000-08:00

Better red than dead was a slogan used by peaceniks during the cold war. It was rightly derided by the brave souls on both sides of the aisle for suggesting that we give up our valued democratic ideals in return for safety. Today, we are being asked to accept the loss of our right to privacy, to forgo due process, to eliminate the concept of co-equal branches of government, and God knows what else, all in the name of War on Terror — the new words for safety. The sides have changed, but the philosophy remains.

Suppose for a minute that the passengers on the three commandeered 9/11 flights had realized, as did those on the fourth, that they were dead no matter what they did. Can you imagine any group, armed only with box cutters, holding that many hostage while their plane was flown into the Twin Towers or the Pentagon? I am reasonably sure that the passengers would have done what the fourth group did and taken back the planes, if only to have them crash in vacant fields. The changes in our lives would have been dramatic, and the political landscape would be totally different.

We would not be faced with an imperial Executive branch. In all likelihood, we would have a Democrat in office. We would still have the Twin Towers and the thousands of good people who worked there. We would not be subjected to the patriotic hype that has kept King George in power. We would not have Judge Alito on the verge of confirmation, ready to tilt the Supreme Court into a subservient branch of the Executive. We would not have John Roberts on the court, and certainly not as Chief Justice. We would not have the Patriot Act with its multiple intrusions into our private lives. We would not have the prison at Guantanamo Bay filled with people having no recourse to the courts. American citizens would not be classified as enemy combatants having the same rights, or lack thereof, as prisoners of war. We would not be faced with a president claiming powers usually reserved only for dictators. We would certainly not be mired in a multi-billion dollar war in Iraq, and in all likelihood at least 2,200 young Americans would still be alive, and thousands who have suffered life-changing injuries would still be whole. We would not have policies based solely on fear. And finally, if we had gone to war at all, it would have been limited to where the actual enemy was located — Afghanistan — and we would have shared the battlefield with our many allies.

Rather than one-party rule, we might still be facing stalemate in the legislature, but I think we might also have had a legislature that faced up to the fact that compromise and cooperation are required to get things done. The realities of the polling place have a way of motivating some of each, since do-nothing congressmen are much more likely to be voted out of office — the worst punishment possible for a politician.

The passengers on the three ill-fated airliners did not realize they were doomed. As a result, they did not act. They died in a fiery inferno, and many of our freedoms died with them. The move to make the Executive branch superior to the Legislative and Judicial branches is succeeding, because two of the branches of our government have done little or nothing to equalize the power structure. With the addition of Alito to the court, that fateful imbalance is almost a fait accompli.

The answer is obvious: We must restore balance to our national government. The election of a Democrat to the presidency would totally change the dynamic. So would the election of a Democratic majority in the Senate. It is more than the ability to say no to a headstrong president that is needed. It is the restoration of the setting that made government workable and representative in the first place. Our system, under most circumstances, is cumbersome, and not always responsive to the public, but it's worked pretty well for a couple of centuries. Most of that time we have enjoyed a balance of power between the Executive and the Legislative. We need that balance again.

Did You Hear What He Said?

2006-01-24T18:45:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading Double Tap, a murder mystery/courtroom drama by Steve Martini, published in 2005. It seems like he had a contact at the New York Times, because much of the plot is currently being played out on the national scene. The New York Times sat on the current story long enough for Dubya to be reelected, after which they sprang it on us — the domestic spying that is. Had the story broken when it should have, it might have blunted the trumped-up issue of gay marriage, and might well have made a difference in several key states. It must have been those liberals at the Times, the ones out to get King George, who held it back.

Karl Rove & Co. have renamed domestic spying to make it sound like something it isn't. They've tried to make it sound more palatable. In fact, it is now being trumpeted as a major step forward in defeating terrorists. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Something similar could be said of dog doo, but you'd still rather not track it into the house.

What is impossible for me to understand is how a group, one that has complained for my entire life about government intrusion into their lives, can now make excuses for this kind of illegal eavesdropping by the federal government. As a rule, I don't listen to talk radio, but I can imagine the rationalizations being visited upon the ditto heads. I suppose this is reasonable, since they have a vested interest to protect, but most conservatives I know, and I happen to know many, are not employed by the government or by any of the politicians who make up the government. Why they would choose to defend this intrusive behavior is beyond me.

This administration is the most corrupt, un-American, power hungry group to hold sway in my lifetime. Then again, I only go back to Coolidge. Warren G. Harding might have given them a run for their money had he lived out his full term. Anything I am apt to say on the phone, or by e-mail, I have probably said publicly many times. It is not the fear of being overheard that bothers me, but the fact that King George thinks he has the right to do so. They are now saying that the eavesdropping was very limited, but the truth is more that they vacuumed up information from numerous sources, then picked and chose. What's so ridiculous is: they could have done all of it legally. The rubber stamp court they might have appealed to ahead of time, or three days afterwards for that matter, is not in the habit of saying no. There is an arrogance of power at play here, and no word game is going to change it.

This administration has played on our fears ever since 9/11. It is the cornerstone of their propaganda, and it is likely to be their theme during the next election season. Dubya has great difficulty saying three consecutive sentences without referring to the War on Terror. I assume he means the war on terrorists, but he never says so. It might be well to remember that each of us is going to die, but only a few get to live in a democracy as wonderful as ours. The rights that make our democracy so great involve some risk. They are worth the risk.

Just Ducky

2006-01-12T17:08:00.000-08:00

Back in the early days of the cold war, and continuing throughout most of its existence, a favorite expression of Joseph McCarthy, and the McCarthy Lites who accompanied or succeeded him ran, "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck." I wonder how they would interpret the actions of an administration that places itself above the law? Would they recognize its actions as tyrannical and dictatorial, and as dangerous to our way of life as Communism? Would they excuse its intrusions upon hard-won rights and liberties, as they excused their own character assassinations of those who disagreed with them? Probably, but even hypocrites can recognize hypocrisy.

Many wars have been fought to gain or protect the civil liberties we have. Though the truth is, those wars have been taken for granted. No war that I can think of has ever been fought to save lives. The idea of going to war to save lives is something of an oxymoron — to save a way of life, perhaps, but not lives. The government-hyped state of fear we now live within has led us into war supposedly to protect us from those who wish us harm. In other words, we are fighting a war supposedly to save lives. So far, of course, it has had the opposite effect.

With your indulgence, I would like to go back to the duck analogy. When government leaders operate in secret, when they lie to the public, when they demand absolute loyalty, when they seek to destroy the reputations of those who disagree with them, when they use patriotism as a catch-all cover for their actions, when they accuse detractors of sabotaging the war effort, when they re-interpret the constitution and the laws of the legislature in self-serving ways, they are doing precisely what dictators do. Am I quacking yet?

Nations that have allowed such behavior only because it was seemingly directed at people unloved among them have lived to regret it. At present, the secret elements of our government have focused their efforts on members of the Islamic faith, it being a given that the majority of the recent terrorists have been of the Islamic faith, however misguided they have been in their interpretation of it. The resultant fear of Islam, however, plus efforts by the religious right to make Christianity a part of the government code, is setting us up for a religious war, and such wars have tended to go on for centuries.

Since our citizens have been willing to risk their lives to gain or protect the rights we have, it seems to me that we should be willing to risk living with them — our rights, that is. I can see why a man who has had four heart attacks and a bad foot would not be terribly interested in the long-term effects of his behavior, especially since the prospect of grandchildren is somewhat limited. The president, however, is a healthy man with two daughters and excellent prospects in that area, and while another generation of Bushes might be a frightening thought, it should also be a compelling reason for Mr. Bush to think beyond his more selfish interests.

Unless and until the Legislature and the Judiciary assert their independence, and accept their responsibilities, this administration will continue to do as it pleases. In five years time they have undone generations of work toward protecting the planet, almost completely by administrative fiat. If allowed to, they are likely to do exactly the same thing to the civil liberties we are guaranteed by law. Does this sound like a duck?

Much, if not most, of Dubya's actions have been to undo his father's accomplishments. His father's favorite word was prudent, and that was the operative word for most of his actions. Even the tax increase he backed and later disavowed was an important part of the boom of the nineties and the lowering of the deficit. He showed his courage in war by driving a lumbering torpedo bomber, the TBF, into a barrage of anti-aircraft fire from a Japanese warship. I think that Dubya has been trying to prove that he has bigger cojones than his Dad. It was hard to do while defending Texas from Oklahoma, while others of his generation were fighting in Vietnam. Now he has his own war, and he wants to call the shots, all of them.

The war in Iraq is being fought at great sacrifice by our young people. When it draws to an end, I hope that the Iraqis are better off. But, the real worry is here at home. The war at home is a war we must all fight. I am not a pacifist. I believe, however, that the war in Iraq was manufactured by those in power, and should not have happened. As a country, we will bear the individual sacrifices of our soldiers and their families, and should honor them appropriately. Though the domestic war will have few heroes, it is well worth the fight, and deserves our support. I hope we win.

I Know This Medicine Tastes Bad, But It's Good For You

2006-01-01T16:49:00.000-08:00

Big Brother is listening, so be careful what you say. Am I the only one who sees the irony in our government's pursuit of someone suspected of reporting a crime? Irony may well be the wrong word. Hypocrisy seems like a better fit. According to today's newspaper, Alberto and Andrew visited John Ashcroft in intensive care in an attempt to have him sign off on the NSA's intrusion into our private lives. Shades of Newt Gingrich. Now that Alberto has replaced John, we may see more naked statues, but we will also have less privacy. It should not be difficult to discern Alberto's stance on our privacy rights.

What seems obvious to me is that a Democracy is a very dangerous place to live. When people have rights and want to keep them, we have to accept the dangers inherent in an open society. Until now, most of us have accepted the trade-off as worth the risk. A dictatorship is probably a much safer place to live, so far as the criminal element is concerned. The government is the only thing to be truly feared. Iraq was probably safer for most people before we liberated it, Saddam being their only worry.

The pitchmen for the administration, including some Senators, are saying that this loss of freedom is necessary to protect our freedom. The whistle-blower has endangered us, they say, by alerting our enemies that the government has been breaking the law. It reminds me of the rationale for burning heretics at the stake. It was supposed to save their souls by punishing their physical bodies. I wonder if those human torches appreciated the gesture.

Pyrrhic Victories

2005-12-21T20:21:00.000-08:00

Dick "Five Deferments" Cheney, our heroic vice president, cut short his trip to inspire the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, to return home in case his vote was needed as a tiebreaker in the Senate. The vote was needed to insure that the tax breaks for those most able to pay would stand, while programs designed to help the least able were cut, in order to balance the budget. Not that it will even come close to doing that. His vote might also be needed to help Senator Ted "Bridge to Nowhere" Stevens open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a welfare program for Big Oil, and to turn Alaska into a welfare state even greater than the earlier oil drilling already has.

While Dick was doing this patriotic duty, he defended the president's domestic spying as returning rightful powers to the Executive Branch, powers that have been eroded ever since Watergate. Don't you feel safer knowing that this patriotic citizen is on the job protecting us from terrorists, foreign and domestic? He also said that those who question these policies may well pay a political price — meaning at the next election, I assume. Karl Rove, get busy with your poison pen.

This group of courageous leaders has done a great job of commingling religion (Christianity) and patriotism. Their scorched earth approach to the environment continues to depend on a finite supply of oil as the answer to our long term energy needs. If, as some believe, the end is nigh, in a Biblical sense, it will probably work. If they should turn out to be wrong, however, and the planet keeps on spinning, we're going to be in a world of hurt.

We rebelled against the policies of George III because, among other things, he established taxes without our approval. Now, George II has decided he should spy on us for our own good. I don't know if it's true, but I seem to remember that George Washington was offered a crown during the early days of the Republic. He turned it down. Apparently, George Dubya has decided to accept it.

A Class Act

2005-12-14T22:07:00.000-08:00

I read recently that the Navy is putting its last two battleships out to pasture. The Iowa and the Wisconsin are scheduled to become floating museums. I hadn't thought about battleships in a long time, but they were, at one time, the queens of the seas. If memory serves, the Iowa was the first of the new battleships built during World War II. The Panama Canal determined how wide they could be, but the new ones were much longer and faster than the ones sunk at Pearl Harbor. Overhead views showed them to be much sleeker and slimmer.

Again, if my memory is still working properly, the new group was originally referred to as the Iowa class of battleships. It is fitting that the first should be the last, the last one remaining that is. Iowa had the misfortune of having a president in office who hailed from Missouri, and when the battleship bearing that name was built, it became the poster child for the class. They were thereafter referred to, mistakenly, as the Missouri class. I have no idea when the Mighty Mo was decommissioned, but apparently it has been.

Battleships began to give way to aircraft carriers during the war. Rockets have given us more firepower than any cannon could deliver, and between the development of air power and rocketry, the battleship's fifteen-inch guns have become obsolete, or nearly so. Hence, the floating museums. I find it a little sad to contemplate their fate, but not nearly so sad as scrapping the Iowa might have been, or the Wisconsin for that matter. Long may they float.

It's Not Pure, But It Floats

2005-11-29T16:48:00.000-08:00

My fellow octogenarian coworker and I were returning yesterday from part-time jobs inspecting flexible couplings for Helical Products in Santa Maria. I spotted what looked like a large balloon in the sky several miles north of us. I thought it was probably an anchored balloon advertising a local car dealer, but as we got closer it turned out to be a Met Life blimp. So, I was partly right and partly wrong. It was a balloon of sorts and it was advertising, but it was neither local nor tethered.

It brought to mind my second year in Mrs. Downing's combination first/second grade class at Cutler Elementary School. It was a time when hopes for rigid, lighter-than-air craft were running high. The Macon and the Akron had followed the unfortunate Shenandoah in capturing the nation's imagination. It was also a time of great economic hardship, and these huge craft gave people something to take their minds off of their troubles. It was sometime in 1932 or early 1933. The sky was overcast and gloomy with fog. We left the warmth of our classroom one morning and walked several blocks south near where the town's one railroad track crossed the north-south corridor of Palm Avenue. We were told to look south and watch the sky, which we all did. No one told us what to expect, so all of us were curious as to the purpose of our venture. Curious, but unquestioning. We were glad just to be out of class.

A round shape became visible in the clouds several miles south of us. The shape grew larger, then veered to the west. We could see clearly what it was: a dirigible, sometimes called a zeppelin. I can't remember if it was the Akron or the Macon, but something tells me it was the Macon. The fog never lifted, so it remained a large gray shape as it moved slowly across our field of vision, disappearing into the western clouds. It is a picture imprinted in my obviously impressionable mind. The Macon crashed off Point Sur a few months, weeks or days later, and the Akron followed suit a short time later off the New Jersey coast.

Dirigibles proved too costly, too often the victims of bad weather to be suitable for expanded use. Perhaps the Hindenburg disaster finished them off in the minds of most people. Our dirigibles, however, did not face the same danger as the German models that used flammable gas such as hydrogen. We had a corner on helium production, and we weren't sharing — at least not with Germany. The smaller, less expensive blimp did become a useful tool for the Navy during World War II, however. It was well suited for submarine spotting, and was used with our convoys throughout the war. Yet, by the end of hostilities, our newer ships were much faster and had a tendency to outrun the blimps. So, once again, they lost much of their usefulness. After the war, there was a brief period of renewed hope for the viability of dirigibles in the transport of passengers back and forth to Europe and other places of interest. I can't remember what happened to these dreams, but probably the development of the airlines put the idea finally to rest. As planes grew larger and faster, and air travel more common, the notion of slow blimp passage, I suppose, lost its charm.

It's a bit of a digression, but I just remembered that the First Radioman on our crew — I was second — had served in Lighter-Than-Air (LTA) service before being court martialed. The pilot on his blimp got airsick easily and had to gulp down extremely hot coffee to settle his stomach. The skipper, it seems, was not well liked. My first radio added some powdered tobacco to the coffee causing the pilot to throw up all over himself after gulping down the mixture. There were accusations of trying to poison him. My crewmate served no time in the brig, but he lost a couple of stripes on his sleeve and was, it seems, drummed out of the LTA squadron.

I had forgotten all this until a picture on the Internet jogged my memory. I also remembered that the Empire State Building was built so that dirigibles could anchor to its peak. Once stationed there, they could float and turn in the wind, but they were still a long way off the ground. It was a large step indeed from the gondola to the nose. How they managed to dismount is a mystery to me, and one that I will probably never know the answer to.

Enough Already

2005-11-22T20:32:00.000-08:00

Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania has proposed that our troops be brought home from Iraq within six months. This proposal, coming from a consistent hawk and supporter of the military, brought out the worst of the attack dog mentality from the White House and its minions, though they have since backed off considerably. Apparently, they decided that neither Dubya, whose daddy got him into a safe haven for the well connected, nor Dick, who demurred and was deferred, are qualified to question the courage or patriotism of a decorated Marine Corps veteran. Murtha's consistent support of the military during his decades-long tenure in the House give considerable credulity to his attack. Dick, the original IHOP ("I had other priorities,") has now turned his vitriol on the Senators who question the honesty of the claims that took us to war in the first place, a war decided upon before they came to power.

In the House of Representatives, a different twist was added to the administration's usual tactic of changing the subject. Representative Hunter, a Republican, put forward a version of Murtha's call, and this version was debated instead of the one that should have been on the docket. Of course, all the rhetoric was aimed at Murtha under the guise of another topic. In my opinion, Murtha should have let the Republicans debate their own proposition and waited until they wanted to address his recommendation before becoming engaged in the discussion himself. The Republicans brought every military veteran to the podium they could muster to disagree with him. (There aren't many veterans in the House in either party.) It was a lot like their nominating conventions, where they crowd every moderate onto the lectern, keeping the true leaders of the party under wraps. This particular exercise in futility ended as expected, with a no vote.

Dick Cheney made his name as Secretary of Defense during the first Gulf War, before we knew how comfortable he was dangling his legs off the right edge of the flat earth. Now, this demurrer turned war hawk is the chief attack dog for the president. His statements before the war are being strongly questioned, and it is all too easy to see why he is attacking so viciously those calling his lies lies. These questions should have been raised at least two years ago, and the failure to do so then showed a real lack of backbone.

Murtha has also lifted the curtain to reveal the best kept secret of the war: the maimed and wounded youth who will suffer the rest of their lives for this war of choice. Pictures of flag-draped coffins tell part of the cost, but once the lid closes it is difficult to picture the bodies of our dead. Those who have given up limbs, eyes, hands, feet, genitalia, and much of life to roadside bombs should remind us forever. May we never forget.

One final thing Murtha may have done is to short circuit the administration's plan to bring home the troops in time for next November's election. He has put forth the arguments they themselves might have used to justify a long anticipated political move. The administration might have said that our military has done all that it can do, and we must leave before we are seen as occupiers. Now that argument has been taken. No one hates the truth quite so much as those who defend and depend upon a lie.

The Bully's Pulpit

2005-11-17T22:39:00.000-08:00

I have just finished reading Jimmy Carter's new book, Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis. Before I finished the book I took time off to see the documentary Good Night and Good Luck about the courageous battle Edward R. Murrow fought in his capacity of newsman against Senator Joseph McCarthy. I must say, the two did not seem unrelated. The McCarthy era, as it came to be known, was as dark a period as I have experienced in my eighty years on earth. It was a period of irrational fear during the early days of the cold war, focusing on communism. It followed on the heels of the most cohesive time in this nation's history: World War II. It amounted to a time of national paranoia not seen before or since — at least until now. For those too young to remember, it was a time when being accused of being a communist, or of having communist ties of any kind, was as damaging as if one had been accused of molesting a child. Guilt by accusation was the order of the day, and the junior senator from Wisconsin played it to the hilt.

Jimmy Carter's book addresses the real moral issues we face today, particularly with the current administration. I could not hope to compare credentials with President Carter as a scholar or practitioner, either religious or secular, but I will say, nonetheless, how heartening it is to see how often we see eye to eye on the problems we are facing today. President Carter's multiple roles in doing good around the world put most of us to shame, certainly me. I could claim it's because he's older, but I doubt that one year could explain it. More likely seventy points on the IQ scale and a huge difference in motivation are to blame. Suffice it to say, he is a man I greatly respect and admire. He has done a lot of praying, but not on street corners. Instead he has worked to improve the lives of the forgotten, whether in Africa or the rest of the world, including here at home. A true humanitarian.

He sees the real moral issues as being the exploitation and pollution of the environment, the disregard for the poor in order to benefit the rich, and dishonesty in government. The costly war of choice we are currently fighting was unnecessary — and he says so. The debt we are building is a national disgrace. He discusses the real attributes of greatness and great nations, and clearly there is a total mismatch with our current leadership.

Fear is a valuable asset in many circumstances. It can keep us alive when we might otherwise be killed. But, fear attached to jingoism is a deadly combination, as many people are beginning to realize. Was it fear of being called unpatriotic or soft on defense that caused most of the Democrats in the Senate and probably most of the Republicans to give war powers to the president? Was it not similar to the soft on communism tag that was used in the fifties and sixties to disparage one's political enemies?

Now we are being told that to criticize the lies used to take us to war is unpatriotic and demoralizing to our troops. What nonsense. It's time to demand some answers from the current leadership in Washington, and it's good to see that Republicans are also making that demand. It's time for the moderates in Washington and in the hustings to demand some sensible cooperation from our leaders, and to stop the fiscal hemorrhaging tied to current policies. This is a nation that can make sacrifices if shown the need. Our nation's balance sheet should suffice to prove that point.

Look Who's Talking

2005-11-17T22:32:00.000-08:00

Dick six-deferments-or-was-it-seven-I-had-other-priorities Cheney came out of his secure location recently to back up the president's argument that it was unpatriotic to say that the lies we were told to get us into war were untrue. He called those who say such things spineless, or words that mean much the same thing. When terms like that are applied to the context of fighting a war, he is something of an expert.

In his speech Dick used the same intonation of unquestioned authority he used when admonishing Moses for dropping and breaking the first set of stone tablets.

Most people need to use both sides of their mouths to deliver such fiction. Dick was able to deliver the whole speech without moving his lips at all. Fortunately for him, there was a fire extinguisher handy to cool his pants after he finished. His buttocks sustained only second-degree burns.

I Am Not A Crook

2005-11-12T17:26:00.000-08:00

President Bush has taken the offensive against those who intimate that he cheated on his pathway to war. Personally, I have always found him offensive, but that is neither here nor there. He is using the most familiar of his defenses, basically that questioning his ethics and/or honesty is unpatriotic, because it demoralizes our troops and encourages the enemy. You get the same results by questioning any of his decisions since the 9/11 attacks. Either you're with him or you're unpatriotic.

He has accused the Democrats of attempting to re-write history. Oh, that we could. Those of us who opposed the war from its inception would love nothing more than to have the chance to replay that scene. Since the lies we were fed never sufficiently justified war, it would be nice to have one more chance to vote. The only part of history that needs rewriting is the vote by our Democratic Senators that gave Bush a free hand. No matter how they have tried to justify it, the real need right now is to admit that the vote was a mistake. That admission is long overdue.

The attempts to blame the war on faulty intelligence has always rung hollow. I am reminded of the story of a man being interviewed for City Manager. When asked by a councilmen what two plus two equaled, he shut the door and asked in a whisper, "What would you like it to be?" I think that sums up the behavior of former CIA director George Tenet and his employees. After a while, it became obvious to them that there was only one "correct" answer to the administration's questions.

Only those with short memories will buy the rewritten history defense. The administration spokesmen were quite successful in convincing the majority of our lightly informed population that Iraq had an involvement in the 9/11 attack. It was never said specifically, but it was inferred over and over again. Any reference to the attack, and there were many, included some mention of Iraq, or some reference to Saddam Hussein. Polls have shown that a sizable majority of Americans believed the hijackers were Iraqis. Quite an accomplishment, considering the publicity they and their true countries of origin received.

Let us hope that the offensive against those who question will be a much harder sell.

Pat Robertson, God's American Spokesman

2005-11-12T17:21:00.000-08:00

It has been truly said that Pat Robertson opens his mouth only to change feet. Having assumed the Old Testament role of pronouncing God's wrath on a people, we may expect the catastrophes to begin in Dover, the Pennsylvania town that ousted most of its school board this week for pushing Intelligent Design. FEMA will be glad to know there is one less town to worry about. After all, these people will have invited the hurricanes and tornadoes on themselves.

What seems to be missing in this battle over Intelligent Design is the realization that they accept Darwin's and others' theories of evolution. They have been tweaked a bit, but they recognize the process. That is quite a turnabout for those who crave another Scopes monkey trial. I have no personal argument against the concept of Intelligent Design, as long as it is not passed off as science. It seems entirely appropriate in a context of church activities and beliefs. It might even be an appropriate topic for a Philosophy class. But, unless those who espouse it welcome the scrutiny of scientists, it is not science. True science never stops investigating, never stops looking for alternative explanations of physical phenomena. It continually adjusts its insights to admit new discoveries. I don't think something based on faith will fit that description, even with Pat Robertson's support.

When I see Pat on television I am both reminded and convinced of Hamlet's remark, "That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain."

Peace, Brother

2005-11-08T19:13:00.000-08:00

I see that the IRS has been unleashed on an Episcopal Church in Pasadena for speaking out against the war in Iraq. The timing may have been the decisive factor, since the sermon was delivered just two days before the 2004 election. Karl Rove has been known to keep an eye out for such dissenters. These worshippers of the Prince of Peace were threatened with the loss of their tax exempt status for speaking out against war.

How ironic.

I have not heard of any such threats being raised against churches promoting Proposition 73 in today's California election. (Written notification and consent of parents before abortions involving minors.) I guess the only reason to call in the IRS is when the plans and beliefs of the current administration are questioned. Perhaps tax threats are used only in cases of dissent. Someone should tell Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell to be careful what they profess. It might be a good idea to check with Karl or Dick before taking a stand.

Unions Torn Asunder

2005-11-08T19:09:00.000-08:00

Unions in America are in real trouble. They have lost much of their membership. Many deserted their fellow employees in 1980 when they voted for Ronald Reagan, one of the more successful union busters. Oddly enough, the real problem for union leaders has been their success. They were able, over the last half of the twentieth century, to gain wage scales high enough to allow their members to join the burgeoning middle class. But, the self-made man mentality convinced workers that they had somehow pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps and no longer needed the strength of numbers.

We now have a Wal-Mart economy, and many of the hard won gains of the last century are being lost as new agreements are forced upon workers. Outsourcing has sent many jobs overseas, and many more are on the way. The situation in third world countries is much like it was in the United States of the nineteenth century — the day of the robber barons. Rockefeller, Carnegie, Gould, and others of the industrial era gave as little as they wished to their employees, and it was just such a culture that fostered the unionization process.

There is little that unions can do domestically until things change in other parts of the world. They need desperately to expand their efforts overseas, because until the workers in India, Bangladesh and other exploited countries realize they are being used, nothing will get better here. Until then, things are likely to get worse. Perhaps they should send copies of Markham's The Man With The Hoe to workers and organizers overseas.

Alito, Scalia Light?

2005-11-08T19:06:00.000-08:00

Much has been made recently of the Catholic majority on the Supreme Court that will result if and when Alito is confirmed. This is not particularly worrisome for me, since I can't get pregnant. It does, however, represent quite a change since Al Smith and JFK, but even that is OK with me. My only worry is that they may share a philosophy as well as a religion with Pat Buchanan.

I'm sure that Roe v. Wade is high in the minds of our Senators, and also in the minds of a majority of our women. Other than Alito's Pennsylvania decision, I see little to guide us in that arena. But, there are other things in his portfolio of decisions that may be just as important to all of us. He has sided consistently with big business against the individual, and that is particularly worrisome, given the mentality of the current administration and the Republican led legislature. It carries over into the misuse of our natural resources. He does not seem sympathetic to efforts directed at sustaining our environment or at preserving our natural wonders. We don't need another guy who suffers from a short term profit mentality. Harriet, where are you?

The Hell You Say

2005-11-01T17:36:00.000-08:00

Last night I watched a segment on CNN about churches scaring the hell out of teenagers. It seems they are setting up houses of horrors depicting Hell and its promised pain. The scenes, or short plays, are straight out of Dante's Inferno, featuring selected "sins" from the modern day world. It follows the political and emotional agenda of the right wing of evangelical Christianity. The scenario is basically the same as the discredited Scared Straight program which featured hardened criminals yelling at potential criminals. Many of the youth in the CNN segment were left in emotional tatters from this religious experience and ready to accept salvation. It's a modern day version of the sawdust trail of decades ago.

The preacher who put this program together, and who continues to write the dialogue for it, is planning to publish his work in book form. He expects to turn a profit from this exercise in misery and fear. I guess that is, after all, the American way and I can't blame him for wanting to make a buck, but I prefer Stephen King's horror works. They make no religious claims — just entertainment and profit.

Politics and Purity, Oil and Water

2005-10-28T23:24:00.000-07:00

Just some random thoughts on the current situation in the Bush administration. The American Ayatollahs and Imams, as well as the poison tongues of the bitch, blame and bellyache radio talk shows are really flapping and crowing tonight. Poor Harriet was sacrificed for their questionable agenda. I don't think the lady was up to the standard we should have for the court, but she might also have done exceedingly well. It is dangerous for our nation to have this much power vested in right wing religious zealots. Rush Limbaugh and his wannabees will be with us for as long the need exists to blame and complain. We have a sizable population with those needs, so allow them to keep their small minds occupied. It's too bad we can't capture all the hot air they blow. We could probably turn it into useful energy.

Right now, the ascendancy of the Ayatollahs is providing the Republicans with power, but I think in the long run they will end up being the undoing of the party. Most of us don't want to be as good as they say they want us to be, and very few of us appreciate someone else making judgment calls on our morality. As long as they have a common enemy in the Democrats, they will have power, but many Republicans will tire of them. We may yet have that third party we so obviously need. Cotton Mather had his day in the sun, but his sun set a long time ago. I doubt that Democrats are the only ones who have problems associated with hormones, and if that's true, there is bound to be a difference of opinion about abortion rights, at least among the women in the party. I think the difference is there now, but it just hasn't risen to the surface.

It must be difficult for the Ayatollahs and their lemmings to justify the lying and outing that Libby seems guilty of. Karl Rove and Dick Cheney still serve a purpose for them, but they must see the contradictions in their professions of loyalty and patriotism and the outing of a CIA agent for political purposes. They thought it was bad enough to demand and get impeachment when Clinton lied about a sexual affair. Senator Hutchinson of Texas stuttered and stammered her way through the answer to a question about perjury on Meet the Press, then a day or two later spent another stammering session on TV trying to say what she meant to say — as opposed to what she did say. Her dilemma is just the tip of the iceberg. Do you see a need for the Democrats to start pushing a positive agenda? I do.

Frist, DeLay, Rove, Libby, Cheney, and probably others, have serious problems. It must be awfully lonely for poor Georgie right now. He must be glad to have Harriet back in the White House to tell him how brilliant he is, and to sing him to sleep with "How Great Thou Art."

Caught in the Middle

2005-10-21T23:40:00.000-07:00

The credit card economy of the current administration is finally catching up with it. Even the Republicans have become aware that far more is going out than is coming in. Those among them who are still fiscal conservatives have stopped worrying for the moment about Roe vs. Wade and are making noises about the cost of war and the cost of those natural disasters visited upon us. These and the cost of other things, such as the rising cost of prescription drug benefits, a plan designed for us by the pharmaceutical companies, are beginning to add up. You may remember what Everett Dirksen said many years ago, "A billion here, a billion there — pretty soon it adds up to real money." As a result, the fiscal conservatives in Congress are looking for ways to cut the deficit, and you might know where they would start. When cutting benefits the first rule is to take from those with the least clout, in this case, the poor among us.

The president's tax advisory commission has come up with some recommendations for tax code simplification. The first change would be to reduce the long standing mortgage interest credit, the primary deduction of the middle class. They would also disallow credit for interest paid on home equity loans, a booming market in recent months. Again, a credit used mostly by the middle class. They would reduce the deduction allowed for charitable giving, to the probable detriment of churches and charitable organizations. Credit for health insurance premiums would be reduced, and health benefits paid by employers would be counted as taxable employee income. Two plans are proposed for investment income, and, as one might expect, each of them helps the large investor.

This tax code revision, if passed by Congress, would further shift the burden of taxes from the top earners to the middle ones. If you didn't notice, the tax bills passed in 2001 and 2002 shifted the tax load in two ways: who pays and to whom. The cost of delivering services may not change in itself, but when the pot's empty, those who pay for them do. In addition to the changes brought about by government, some of the tax supports that once provided services have been limited by initiatives. The missing payments by government have simply been replaced by service charges.

Of course, no mention has been made of rescinding earlier tax cuts. The inheritance tax is off the table, though it affects only a tiny minority of our citizenry. There's a proposal to cut the top rate again, benefiting those most able to pay. The net result of these proposals is to shift the tax burden ever downward, squeezing the folks in the middle. You'd think even the most loyal of lemmings would see that this administration does not represent them in any way that counts.

It's time for Democrats to do something more, besides pointing out the shortsighted, short term profit mentality of the president and his followers in Washington. It's time they came up with concrete proposals. Right now, it reminds me of the response to Bill Clinton during his administration. If he had anything to do with it, it was a bad idea. It's time not merely to oppose, but to articulate the differences between the parties and to offer alternatives. Opposing the need for tax increases helped Reagan sweep Mondale aside in 1984. But, his successor had to face reality, and that reality was partly responsible for the Republican defeat in 1992. Some things have to be dealt with honestly. What the commission is proposing is a tax increase by a different name. When you take away the deductions, proposed in the name of simplification, and the net tax you pay goes up, that is a tax increase. What the Democrats need to answer is who should be paying it.

We watch General Motors struggle with the possibility of bankruptcy. We watch the shifting of health costs from company to workers, together with forced pay reductions and the loss of benefits. We see reduced opportunity, and diminished expectations. Is it finally time, then, that we acknowledge the growing truth that the middle class can no longer pay what it owes, and has little or no way to pay more? It's time for Democrats and Republicans alike to realize not only the human costs of war, but the financial costs as well. The current administration has not asked anyone — military families excepted — to make sacrifices for the war in Iraq. Short term sacrifices, anyway. But the lives it ruins are as real as the billions it costs to pursue this war, and we cannot continue to pay for it by stealing from the Social Security surplus, by continuing to borrow from Japan and China, as we are now doing, to pay current expenses, or by squeezing the middle class.

Anyone with a thought of running for the legislature in 2006, or the presidency in 2008, needs to tell us not only what they support, but how they would pay for anything they propose. Opposing W's proposals is one thing. Having ideas and answers is another.

Using God

2005-10-15T01:31:00.000-07:00

The most recent misuse of “religion” has been as a code word to reassure the lemmings that Harriet will overturn Roe versus Wade. Pat Robertson, who fancies himself a kingmaker, has threatened any republican senator who votes against her with defeat at the next election. The Hammer is not the only religious nut willing to use muscle. We can only hope that once Harriet meets a few other men she will revise her opinion of W's brilliance and perhaps even listen to reason.

The president this week engaged ten soldiers serving in Iraq in a transparent, scripted dialogue. Just like his town meetings, now copied by our governor, the participating soldiers were by invitation only. They were given the topics the president would cover and the answers they were expected to give in response. This apparently demonstrates one of the democratic ideals we are fighting to give the Iraqis: freedom of expression. Patriotism, in case you haven't figured it out, is what's playing at this theater of the absurd.

When I see the neo-cons praying on street corners, I am reminded of a cameo appearance by Eddie Foy, Jr. in a 1940s musical. He was playing his father, Eddie Foy, who was a well-known entertainer in vaudeville. The only people left who remember vaudeville firsthand are probably lingering in rest homes, but a few of us, encamped on the banks of the River Styx, remember the early days of radio and the stage entertainers who found their way into that new medium: Burns and Allen, W. C. Fields, Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Edgar Bergen... But I digress. Eddie Foy, Jr. did one of his father's song and dance routines about this fellow who spent the week cheating everyone and pocketing the money, ending with the refrain, “Ah, but he goes to church on Sunday, so they say that he's and honest man.”

I am not anti-religion — I have my own set of beliefs — but I am opposed to the current usurpation of religion by the right wing of the republican party. They have made much of the supposed morality of their party and of this particular president. They find it impossible to believe, apparently, that one of the strongest of human drives could influence a president to the point where he'd say yes to an offer few other men would refuse. Even if they could understand that, they still wouldn't understand him lying about it to save his marriage. Their version of morality includes three basic things: They are anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage and anti-sex in the White House. They appear to be in favor of raping the environment, robbing the middle class for the benefit of the wealthiest among us, fighting unnecessary wars, and savaging anyone who disagrees with them. It makes you wonder what books of the Bible they are reading. Their hatred of Bill Clinton knows no bounds, which also seems to be against the teaching of Jesus, the one they supposedly follow.

Since most of the followers of the religious right are members of the fading middle class, give or take a step, they are the ones paying for the tax cuts, sending their children to fight the wars, suffering from dirty air and water, and losing their stomach lining in the hatred of another human being. It is difficult to find the benefits they think they have received from electing this president. Few of them can do more than gloat over a political victory, only a very few can reap any of the spoils. Is masochism a religion?

On the Other Hand

2005-10-11T22:50:00.000-07:00

The disasters just keep piling up. Now it is an earthquake in Pakistan and points east. It is dreadful. After looking at the destruction to unreinforced buildings, I don't think we should decry the codes designed to keep that from happening here. Living on fault lines as we do in California, we need all the help architects can give us.

Our national response to the cries for help was limited, but provided quickly. It may be partly the lessons of Katrina, but more likely the location of the helicopters had something to do with it. It's a lot shorter trip from Iraq to Pakistan than from Iraq to New Orleans. You have to go where the copters are.

These disasters of war, wind, water and soil are terrible, but the death count remains in the thousands, not millions. Of course if you happen to be one of them, you are just as dead as if you had more company. Avian flu, on the other hand, promises to kill in the millions, perhaps hundreds of millions. The subject of quarantine has been raised and some decisions will have to be made to keep infections limited. The 1918 epidemic killed millions in Europe and the United States, including a young uncle of mine, and this one will likely be just as hard to contain. Tidal waves can be seen afar off, and hurricanes can be tracked for days. Earthquakes are more difficult to predict, but they are of a dimension we can understand. The tiny bugs that carry the flu are harder to detect. They fly below our radar.

In earlier times we would have considered these disasters God's punishment for some of our many sins, but today we will have to settle for Intelligent Design. I'm not sure how this works, but I expect there will be a sermon or two along this line. Come to think of it, I wouldn't be surprised if pornography was the culprit. Some of the churches are already working on that subject as I write. I’m guessing it might be an interesting topic to research.

Somehow, I don't think punishment has anything to do with it. The development of the virus, or whatever it is, is part of the natural order of things, but its spread is going to be largely the result of our scientific advancement. People like me live longer, fewer babies die and the population explodes. We have planes that carry people and their bugs much faster and farther than the wind could alone, and so our population is thinned, if only for a while. I believe Thomas Malthus had something to say on that subject. Perhaps if enough of us go, however, whether by old age, disaster, or flu, we will have sufficient petroleum for those who remain, and won’t have to give up our SUVs. That should make our highways safer.

The Times They Are A-Changin

2005-10-07T20:34:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up in the 1930s I was one of the few Republicans in the San Joaquin Valley in California. It was the time of the Dust Bowl when many people were on welfare or working for the WPA or another of the Federal programs designed to help people eat and get some good work done in the process. We were somewhat more fortunate than most, though not really aware of it since our lifestyle was basically the same as everyone we knew.

My mother's parents were German immigrants and she and her siblings were probably Republican because of Wilson's deliberate efforts to alienate them, combined with the Republicans' efforts to recruit them during the first World War. I always thought my dad's family might have been carpetbaggers since they came to California from Tennessee and were strong Republicans. That was the time when the Solid South referred to a Democratic bloc.

At any rate, it took real courage, or ignorance, to admit to our leanings during the elections of the thirties and early forties. There was never any physical danger, but most kids my age couldn't imagine being a Republican. My dad thought FDR was the worst thing that ever happened to this country, and his favorite economic slogan was "You can't borrow yourself rich." He also believed in paying his bills. So, when he died he left my Mother debt-free and with money in the bank. Today the San Joaquin Valley, like the solid south, has become a Republican bastion in a liberal state.

With the advent of Ronald Reagan and his tax cuts and increased spending, Republicans gained responsibility for the largest increase in the national debt of any administration in our history — until the present one. It became less clear what "conservative" meant. Reagan renamed Hoover's trickle down economics supply side and was as unbothered by facts as the current president. He was, however, able to sell his ideas to a large number of voters. Now that we have repeated the tax cut folly instead of using the income to pay bills, we find ourselves in the process of leaving the largest debt in history for our children and grandchildren to pay.

It is more than a little confusing since the parties have exchanged some of their beliefs over the years. The crumbs from the table economics of George W bear a strong resemblance to the supply side or trickle down theories of the past, and the tax policies certainly favor the same sector of our society, but the commitment to sound fiscal management has definitely changed parties. Conservative and conversation have the same root word, but now mean very different things. The century between Theodore Roosevelt and George W. Bush has seen the efforts to conserve what nature gave us traded for a short term profit. There may well be a successful third political party in our future.

While on the topic of changing sides, with the nomination of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court, the irony and hypocrisy of politicians should be clear. The far right is now demanding answers to the same questions that the far left demanded just a few days ago. They are asking the same questions, but are looking for far different answers. Confusing, isn't it. Wouldn't it be funny if the Democrats moved to limit debate and demanded a straight up or down vote? Could happen.

Karen the Interpreter

2005-10-04T22:37:00.000-07:00

Karen Hughes has been very effective in interpreting W's scrambled syntax and presenting the message to voters and doubters that he, no doubt, wished he'd delivered. She has done an admirable job of spinning his every action so that it seems admirable and unselfish. I've often wondered what someone as bright as she obviously is sees in him, but there is no accounting for taste. Of course, if you're impressed by the selected crowds he plays for, you may think he is a rock star.

She has recently been given the task of spinning him full-time. If I understand the assignment, it is to improve his image with the worldwide audience. I'd say the task is monumental if she never goes farther from home than Europe. When your policies are intent on making the rich richer and ignoring the points of view of any but your cronies, they make for a tough sell. Karen is very good at what she does and just might make believers of a few Germans and may be able to bring some of the doubters in England back in the fold, but Muslim countries are a harder sell, as she has learned.

Our sins of commission and omission during the two Bush presidencies have traveled ahead of her. We encouraged the Shiites to rebel against Saddam Hussein and then left them swinging in the breeze. We encouraged Muslim women to assert themselves and when they did, they too were left to suffer the consequences. This was particularly true with our staunchest ally in the region, Saudi Arabia. It is one country in which the Bush name should carry some weight. Oh, sorry, I forgot about their oil.

At any rate poor Karen was left to her own devices in both Saudi Arabia and Turkey and found worse than a cold reception. She learned, quickly, that what sells in the Midwest does not sell in the Middle East. Back to the drawing board.

Poor Little Me

2005-10-04T22:36:00.000-07:00

It has been amusing to watch Tom DeLay try to paint himself as a martyr to the cause. The cause, I suppose, is to bring religion into every decision made by our government. It is also to make sure that only Republicans get money from special interests and only Republicans get elected to office. Some of these goals could apply to any political party, but Tom has taken such obvious delight in using muscle on donors and his lemmings in Congress alike, that the nickname he loves was given him, "The Hammer." I'm sure this is especially rewarding to a person of his small stature.

Underhanded dealings and a take no prisoners attitude accompanied by a deep layer of sanctimony are useful for one in his position, however, they do not make him a sympathetic character. On the contrary, I suspect that many of his "followers" are secretly pleased to see some of the wind taken out of his balloon. They may be obligated to him or afraid of him, but neither has ever been a recipe for winning friends. On the contrary, they are more often than not, sources of resentment. The public face of the party will be one thing, but the battle for his position has already begun and shows some of the cracks in this lock-step group known as the GOP. The president's falling approval ratings also remind them that the next election is only a year and a month away.

Tom accomplished what he set out to do in Texas. He cornered the market on funds and got a Republican majority elected in the Texas legislature. He got the district lines re-drawn so that they gained additional seats in Washington. His attempt to hide the money was so transparent that only someone with the arrogance of power would have done anything so obvious. It was no different than asking someone if they had five ones for a five dollar bill. They didn't even change the amount. Only someone who thought he was above the law would have been so obvious.

Mr. DeLay has shown his arrogance in many ways, not the least of which is in taking special trips at lobbyist's expense. This is not terribly unusual for congressmen, but when someone portrays himself as a paragon of virtue, it is harder for people to stomach, even his followers. The pesticide salesman from Houston may have reached his level of incompetence. The Peter Principle works in Washington as W reminds us daily. But remember, Tom's a martyr.

The Truth Will Out

2005-10-04T22:35:00.000-07:00

In this case it may be a Phlame out. Karl Rove, the Machiavellian mastermind behind the desk in the Oval Office, and his sidekick, Scooter Libby, should be facing some tough questions soon. Then the question becomes, "What will the president do?" He has already backtracked and is now saying that they do not, and have not discussed the matter because the special prosecutor has said not to. This answer was given with a straight face just this morning.

We may never learn the truth behind the newspaper stories, printed and unprinted. Since Bob Novak has been left unscathed and free of jail, we must assume that he testified. Cooper and Miller have now divulged their sources and it is up to the special prosecutor and the Grand Jury to decide who the culprit is, if only one is responsible. The Gulf tragedies have dimmed the interest in this story temporarily, but it has not gone away.

Rove, the architect of Bush's campaigns and Libby, one of the hawks in the Pentagon, have kept relatively low profiles, but both have played key roles in the debacle in Iraq and in the makeover of our armed forces. We are now facing low recruitment levels and diminishing poll numbers for the president. They both have plenty on their plates without the duplicity charges they are likely to face. It may be that the President will be left to his own devices and will have to attack his enemies face to face, while Secretary Rumsfeld will be even lonelier at the Pentagon.

Karl Rove is an accomplished character assassin and Libby has interfered extensively with the military ever since this administration has been in power. Rove is one of the main reasons it came to power. But even politicians who have been good and faithful servants have to be sacrificed to protect the name of their bosses. This isn't unusual in politics, but the reluctance Bush has shown to facing miscreants in his party probably means they will be let down easily. However, those who live by the sword...

And Justice For All

2005-10-04T22:34:00.000-07:00

Harriet Mier is more of an unknown than Justice Souter was when he was nominated. I believe she was quoted as saying that George W. Bush is the smartest man she has ever known. Assuming the "known" wasn't a Biblical use of the term, it would appear her dealings with the opposite sex have been unduly limited. One other thing is clear, if you want a job, be the one who picks the candidates. It held true for the vice presidency and now of the Justice nomination.

Other than her obvious low opinion of men, there are several hopeful signs about this nominee. She has in the past supported Democrats and has been a good daughter to her mother. On the other hand, she has supported anti-abortion groups. Given her spinsterhood, I am reminded of the Italian joke when the subject of birth control was a hot item in Italy. "He no playa da game, he no make a da rule," was the punch line for that one.

Perhaps the most hopeful sign is the opposition of the extreme right, the evangelicals and Pat Buchanan. The fact that they are worried and potentially opposed are heartening signs. I just hope they know something I don't know since there is little evidence as yet to use in deciding. I can only hope that she is more able than several of W's cronies we have suffered. She is a woman who has done rather impressive things in a man's world so she may be sympathetic to women and their right to have the say over their bodies. Her friendship with W is the major minus at this point.

Science, What Science?

2005-10-04T22:33:00.000-07:00

According to a poll quoted in yesterday's Fresno Bee, 45% of our citizens believe God created humans within the last 10,000 years. I don't know what that says about their opinion of carbon dating, but I'm afraid it indicates either a great deal of ignorance of science or a rejection of the whole process. Either way it is frightening and the logical conclusions from it are even more frightening. Given the short shrift this administration has given science in general, we are in the "Me worry?" frame of mind. If science is rejected by that high a percentage of our population, we are sure to fall behind India and China in the next few decades.

With the push to include Intelligent Design as part of the teaching of Biology, we may soon see the Bible used as the textbook. There is already a real push to replace the constitution with the Bible. Now that Judge ( Ten Commandments ) Moore has announced his candidacy for the governorship of Alabama, we can expect the move to gain headway there. It seems we are in a mood to take a giant step backwards. I don't believe that science and religion are mutually exclusive, but you do have some choices to make. Inasmuch as religion involves more faith than proof, making some changes there seems the logical place to start to make the interpretations fit what we learn and are able to verify in the field of science.

Religion, by its very nature, opposes change, while science, by its very nature, seeks change. It is easy to see why they are in conflict, but change is inevitable. The Middle and Dark Ages were dominated by religion and the church authorities. It would be a real shame if we allow the passionate pursuit of the next life to be our main goal in this one. If the Intelligent Design advocates turn out to be correct, they will have eternity to laugh at the scientific community. In the meantime let's keep our eyes and our options open.

Hail to the Chief

2005-09-28T20:56:00.000-07:00

I feel a little like a guy treading water on the confirmation of John Roberts. It seems to me his confirmation is a foregone conclusion and not worth much of a fight. I can't imagine W nominating anyone I would approve of to the top spot on the Supreme Court, but on the other hand, he is replacing someone as conservative as all but two on the court, and will not by himself change the balance. He might even turn out to be more acceptable than his earlier lawyerly efforts would lead one to believe. An attorney once described himself to me as a hooker, doing whatever the one with the money wished. I'm sure he would happily have taken either side of the argument, depending on who paid for his advice or services. I suspect that lawyers who work for the executive branch are not much different.

The main reason I would probably wind up voting for Judge Roberts is that I would prefer to look reasonable and not appear in an obstructionist mode. It's a little like being run out of town. If you hurry to the front you can look like you're leading a parade. I would prefer to keep my powder dry for the real battle, the replacement of the swing vote, Sandra Day O'Connor.

W's numbers have gone down to about the place his performance deserves and, since he is a lame duck, the moderate Republicans can afford to buck him. They don't have to vote against his nominee. They simply need to allow the Democrats to use the filibuster and prevent the faith healer Frist from invoking the nuclear option. Most of them know that political approval is a transient gift and that the GOP will one day need to use the filibuster for its own agenda. Faces without noses are not attractive. They also have difficulty breathing. All that can be hoped for, anyway, is to keep the five to four decisions evenly distributed.

Selling Out

2005-09-28T01:24:00.000-07:00

I read an article in last week's student newspaper at the local college. It was actually a reprint of an article originally published in the Oklahoma State University student paper and was bemoaning Bob Dylan's selling out to the corporate world by having his most recent album handled exclusively by Starbucks. I figured the article must have been written by a late-arriving graduate student since Bob is older than most parents of today's college students. I believe he turned 64 last May.

He is part of a generation who said you couldn't trust anyone over thirty and now he's twice that. I could see the parents being dismayed, but most of them lost their fervor when they became parents and their folks stopped supporting them. I'm not being cynical, but it is hard to imagine many fifty year olds still operating out of the same philosophy they had as college age youth. A great many have traded their pony tails in for comb-overs and their youthful zeal for a guaranteed income. Life does that. I still see a few scraggly pony tails on the age group, but most of them are defense attorneys. I am told that we change every cell in our body every seven years so Bob has had at least four new bodies since his rebellious youth. In most cases each new body has less hair, more flab and less muscle tone than the last one, and it becomes harder to relate to the poor — at least as well as they thought they did in the 60's and 70's.

Now these facts do no not make it right for one who made his fortune as a rebel to sell out, but it makes it more understandable. It looks like high priced, bitter coffee is going to continue to sell, so Bob's income should be guaranteed with his Starbucks' deal. There is no way to guarantee such a return on the open market, and Bob is retirement age. After all, Medicare is only a year or two away.

The American Taliban

2005-09-28T01:23:00.000-07:00

The desire of the Taliban and others of the far right of Islam is to move the world back several centuries in its thinking and culture. The treatment of women, in their thinking, would be similar to that ordained in the early books of the Old Testament. Beings without power and without control over their own bodies is the role they see for them. The Koran, or Quiran, is being pushed today as the basis of law in the "new" Iraq. Theocracies are already more repressive in several of our allies, Saudi Arabia being the chief, but far from the only example.

When you listen to the strident voices of the religious right in our country the difference is in degree, not substance. The battle against abortion is for more than the single issue. It is for the place and power of women over their own destinies. It is for the decision making power of the legislature and the executive and the judicial branches of our country. It is for the display of religious teachings and instruction from the Judaeo-Christian vision of God. It is for a theocracy as our form of government. The fact that a secular government is the only sure way to guarantee freedom of religion does not escape them because freedom of religion is not their goal. They have that. What they want is a Cromwellian leader with the powers of a Cromwell.

A little reminder of how well that form worked in England might be worth their study. It lasted until Oliver Cromwell died and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Shortly thereafter, Charles II was invited back from his travels in France to assume the throne his father lost to the executioner's axe. If Pepys' diary is accurate, Cromwell's remains were removed from the Abbey and hung for public display before being tossed in a lime pit. That kind of puritanical government obviously has a limited appeal.

The ignoring of science is loudest in the battle over creation, but the actions of the current administration show how little they wish to let true science inhibit their desire for short term profits. They make a big issue of their pro-life stance, but are led by the chief executioner from a state with a production line execution system. I won't get into the issue of an unnecessary war at this point. Monica hasn't been back in the White House since W came in, but the nation has been deflowered on an almost daily basis. If you read past the front page of most newspapers you will see an article about a change of rules from one or another of the various agencies originally meant to protect us. In almost every case, the safety measures which began with Theodore Roosevelt are being weakened so that the groups this administration represents can rape the environment. Science be damned. It doesn't seem to bother the religious leaders that life in general is being damaged beyond repair.

The battle over intelligent design is really meant to replace science texts with the Bible's version of more than creation. It is a power struggle for control of our education system and hence the minds of our citizenry. Every religion has its creation story and most have similarities, but few are taken literally today. They are metaphors or similes to help us understand, in a simple way, a very long and complicated process. Simplistic approaches always sound good — that explains John Wayne's popularity — but life is rarely that simple.

Those who wish to replace the Constitution with Leviticus should be careful what they wish for. They just may get it. The heathen will not be the only ones who suffer.

Blondie, the Original Sweater Girl

2005-09-28T01:06:00.000-07:00

For someone who has to be at least 95, Blondie is a real piece of work. She was one of the first, if not the first, sweater girls after the flat twenties, when girls were bound to be flat. I don't remember whether she was as top heavy in 1930 as she is today. At that time I was midway in the journey between seeing a woman's bosom as a food supply and erotic art, so she may have developed during the war when mammae worship hit full stride. I know that the Dragon Lady in Terry and the Pirates grew dramatically during the war.

I must have been about seven when she and Dagwood married, because I was able to read the comics without help. I have a vague recollection of her working in an office and having no shortage of suitors, but she chose the dork, Dagwood. I think it came as a surprise to many of the readers who had followed the strip for at least two years. I don't know what Chic Young was thinking except that there was more humor in a family than in the hunt.

At any rate, they both look much better than anyone has a right to expect at 95 or older. Blondie is a beauty in a bathing suit while Dagwood looks like he hasn't started pumping iron as yet, but at least he remains unwrinkled. Perhaps I missed the passing of the baton, but is Chic Young the original cartoonist? If he is, he has to be at least as old as his famous characters and that's quite a feat in itself. Perhaps I'm thinking of the wrong cartoonist. Unlike Blondie and Dagwood, time has not left me unscathed.

Lessons Learned

2005-09-26T22:44:00.000-07:00

In fairness to FEMA and the governors of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, as well as mayors of several cities and towns, Rita was handled with a great deal more foresight and preparedness than might have been expected considering the debacle that was Katrina. The military was also better prepared, at both the state guard and national levels. More lessons were learned as the evacuees from Houston faced almost impossible traffic problems. It would be nice for the nation and particularly the gulf region if we could have a year for planning and preparation as well as recovery before another hurricane comes ashore. Nature does not provide such guarantees, however, so I hope the planning and revisions are done immediately.

George W, or his advisers, learned some lessons also. His Mother, America's matronly answer to Marie Antoinette, did not help, but Karl Rove and the other thinkers did. He was positioned for some helpful photo ops, listening to military planners telling him that we needed a national plan for the military. It seemed like a natural conclusion, but our fearless leader sat and nodded his head while wearing an _expression which indicated he was listening and thinking seriously about what was being said. It is to be hoped that he listened enough to get the gist of what was being presented. I thought this kind of planning was one of the main purposes of combining all our eggs in the Department of Homeland Defense basket, but apparently not.

Gays and the Guv

2005-09-09T21:36:00.000-07:00

When he was running for the top job in the state, Arnold spent his time throwing T-shirts to the crowds and repeating stale lines from his heroic films made in the town of make believe. Since he had the loyal support of all Republicans and many Democrats, he thought he would be able to do whatever he wished. It was in this atmosphere that he promised to sign a bill allowing gay marriage if the legislature sent him one. It is probably unconstitutional anyway, but now that his approval rating is about as low as the president's, he is going back to his base, which includes a great number of evangelicals who are scared to death of gay marriage. Since most of the gay couples are together already, this amounts to preferring that they live in sin to taking their vows and making it legal.

Since the guv lived in Hollywood for many years, it is logical that he came in contact with many gay couples, given the attraction the arts hold for them. I don't know if the same holds true for body building, his avocation prior to movie stardom. But when you spend hours each day with a group of narcissistic males, lifting weights and posing in front of mirrors, then striking poses in front of other men, and women, while wearing only a coating of oil and a g-string, it does make one wonder. In either case, he has enough experience with gays to know that they are going to stay together as couples about as long and successfully as their heterosexual counterparts. The argument that the battle is to save marriage as an institution rings hollow when you think that heterosexual marriages succeed only half the time—success being the continuation of the arrangement, not any accompanying bliss. I have some opinions on the zeal that church folks display in battling this faux war to save marriage, but it deserves a blog of its own.

The next few months may involve the governator in a more believable fight than in any of his movies. We will have to judge him by how he handles this, particularly watching him perform in front of groups that are other than by invitation only. I think the T-shirts and stale lines will fall short, so watch for his ad libs when the real questions come. I doubt that just opposing gay marriage will do it.

Two Messages

2005-09-07T21:38:00.000-07:00

The master manipulator is hard at work. Under cover of the White House, Karl Rove has sent his troops two messages they are to deliver. The first is: This is not the time for finger pointing. There will be plenty of time for that. It is important to get supplies to the needy and to rescue the victims of this horrible accident of nature. There will be plenty of time to assess blame. The second is: Blame the state and local leadership and accuse the victims of impeding the federal rescue efforts with guns, looting and rape, thus diverting the soldiers sent to the rescue. These messages started with the White House spokesman and, if you pay any attention to the letters to the editor, you will already have seen them almost verbatim. The idea is first to silence the critics and while they wait, to send in the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to do the dirty work. A good plan. It's worked before.

It is true that the emergency needs our full attention, but it will pay to remember that those troops supposedly being "diverted" by the victims were several days late getting started, thanks to a dearth of orders from above. The awful truth is we are poorly prepared to deal with a terrorist attack and our leaders have no idea what to do about it, other than to blame the victims.

Lemmings

2005-09-06T20:04:00.000-07:00

Having lived long enough to remember when the Solid South was in the Democratic fold and was the burr under FDR's saddle, it is interesting to see how Nixon's anti civil rights group has morphed into the Christian right. The great bulk of them do not live in the style of Pat Robertson, but more along the lines of the rest of the common folk, of which there are many. I can never understand why anyone who punches a clock for a living could think an administration such as the one we have presently could possibly have their best interests at heart. From an economic point of view, it makes no sense at all. If most of them got anything out of the Bush tax cuts, it was the $300.00 the Democrats insisted on. I think that was a serious mistake on the Democrat's part since it dulled the pain slightly and made it appear that something was being done for the bottom of the food chain.

I have concluded that the religious right have three or four things they are against and have visions of a theocracy as their main attraction to the Republican party. They are against gays having any rights and against abortion for women, two groups who are more in the Democratic fold than in theirs. They want prayer in schools even though it has not been allowed in their lifetimes. It just sounds good. They hate the term evolution and want to replace it with their updated version of Genesis I. Whether they stick with the six days and a day off version or intelligent design, they want to replace science with religion and they think they have a better chance with the Republicans than the Democrats. As they must realize, if they bother to think and look at their paychecks, this administration looks out for the wealthy and is in the process of establishing, firmly, an oligarchy. In their case it should be spelled oiligarchy, of course. As a result of these limited goals and one overarching one, they follow like lemmings to the sea, the party which is working on putting them in their proper role—serfs.

As for me, I don't need a guy who spent over half his adult life as a drunk being held up as an icon of morality any more than I need a group of feather merchants teaching me about patriotism. We will talk about what this group is doing to the environment another time, but caring for God's creation, I thought, was a Christian responsibility. Apparently not.

Fiddling Around

2005-09-06T18:41:00.000-07:00

There has been plenty of coverage of the disaster in New Orleans and other Gulf cities and a good deal of attention drawn to the shortcomings of FEMA, but one aspect of the delay has not been pressed. Our glorious leader was on one of his many lengthy vacations when this predicted and predictable disaster occurred. Riding a bicycle may be good exercise to get rid of fat around the waist, but in his case, the fat is located higher up the body. It is not surprising that this disengaged leader was enjoying himself far from the seat of government since he pays little attention when he is in Washington, but after his slow start on nine eleven and even slower recognition of the tsunami disaster in Asia, you would have thought his advisors would have awakened him early for this one. His behavior is not without precedent. After all Nero had his fiddle, but Nero didn't have TV coverage to worry about. The president's subsequent sightseeing tours and photo ops have contributed little, but it would have helped if he had alerted those in responsible positions that this was a job for our National Security forces. The weather personnel on the news had been tracking Katrina for a week before she hit land so it was hardly a surprise.

"W" owes his reelection to two things, the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision on gay marriage and the perception that he was the better candidate to provide for our security. The former resulted in several ballot initiatives which drew attention to the fact that gay people wanted to be treated equally ( perish the thought ) and the latter was milked to its fullest extent with the continuous use of the term "war on terror." I don't think the terrorists are going to bring anything more terrifying than Katrina and the failure of this administration was monumental. If I were given to worry, I'd worry about our safety. Second thoughts, anyone?