May You Live In Interesting Times

That we do. Like it or not, good or bad we live in interesting times.

A major American City was quite nearly destroyed a couple of weeks ago. That only happens every century or so. But that was overshadowed by an even rarer occurrence: George W. Bush admitted responsibility as President.

Have you seen the video of his...well...apology? You must! Go to that blue link and scroll down 'til you see the President in front of a podium looking uncomfortable.

Before talking specifics, first an aside about apologies. There are many kinds.
1. I only hit you honey, because you made me mad.
2. I know I shouldn't hit you, but you shouldn't make me mad.
3. There's no excuse whatsoever for what I did. I'll seek counseling and pray you'll give me a
second chance.

As you can tell from the above, apologies come in many varieties, and they all contain different levels of guilt acknowledgement. In ascending order, the guilty party above rests no guilt, a little bit of guilt, and total guilt on his shoulders.

The Bush apology resides in the midling ground, in my not-too-humble opinion. Here's the apology transcribed:
"Katrina uh...exposed...(long sigh) serious problems in our response capability in all levels of government. And...to the extent that the Federal Government...uh...didn't fully do its job right...I take responsibility."

The President was about as uncomfortable as I've seen him, especially at the beginning of his so-called apology. He seemed to physically struggle to actually get the words to come out. Just before he says "And...to the extent that the Federal Government..." his hand gesture and dipping of his head are what I take to be distancing gestures. I think the truer nature of his feelings came out briefly there.

Then he switches into 3rd person briefly with "didn't fully do its job right..." which suggests that it's the Federal Government that didn't do its job right, not him. He does end it with "I take responsibility." Time will tell if he does, but judging by his apology, which has all the visual trappings of an 8 year-old boy's insincere apology, I'm not exactly filled with a sense of hope.

Couple of quotes:

"...to the extent that the Federal Government...uh...didn't fully do its job right...I take responsibility."

"The buck stops here."

Which of those two is more direct, more responsible sounding, and more sincere? In reading the two quotes do you believe one and doubt the other?

To close out here, I'll end somewhat ridiculously with a quote I came across in researching the title of this piece "May You Live in Interesting Times." It's an old Chinese quote that has no applicability other than it amuses me. Hope it amuses you, too.

"It's better to be a dog in a peaceful time that be a man in a chaotic period."

The Back of Summer Is Not Quite Broken Yet

Every year about this time I announce to the family that the back of summer is broken. I don't know how long I've been saying it, but I think it dates back about a decade when we were living without benefit of air conditioning. Our stone house had tile floors, ceiling fans everywhere, rooms with windows that opened on both sides, and westerly shade from a massive live oak.

That being said, 98 degrees and humid is hot regardless. I'd go to bed at that house all through July, August and the first part of September with the big box fan blowing right on me, and not so much as a sheet for cover. I'd wake up with the sheet pulled cocoon-like around me because I'd gotten cool in the wee hours.

But as summer grudgingly gives way to autumn, instead of it being 88 or 90 degrees during the 10 o'clock news, the night cools down to the low 80's or even the 70's. The daytime highs, which hovered all summer near 100, top out in the low 90's, or even less.

I walked out of the house to my truck early last Friday and my digital thermometer explained the slight nip in the air: it was just 66 degrees. I haven't seen those kind of temps since early May. Man, I love that kind of weather.

Here in the hill country of Texas the last round of really bright Crape Myrtle blooms are everywhere. The purple gay feather plumes stick up a couple of feet around fenceposts, or wherever they escape the lawnmower blades.

The harbinger of the greatest weather though is the Maximillian Sunflower. It's not blooming yet because it's still too hot. These guys sprout up about 3 feet tall on roadsides all over the place. They're native, so they take no effort. As a Texan though, I know that when I see them life's no longer a sweatbath. We'll turn off the air conditioner, open up the windows and let the house breathe.

I expect next week will come my announcement to the family that the back of summer has officially broken. 'Til then, there are still a few 95-degree days to suffer through.

Will Katrina Blow George Out of the White House?

There's a certain glee amongst folks like me. Finally, oh dear God finally GW Bush's teflon coating may be wearing so thin that his actual job performance may finally be sticking to him.
I think it's time to fess up, and I want to be clear about this: I hate George W. Bush.

I don't say those words lightly. It's not hard for me to dislike certain folks, but I hate damned few. I reserve that for the tiny number who not only do not good, but they do damage. Ol' GW qualifies easily.

I'm of the opinion that GW Bush may have greased the skids on the changing of the USA in a way that the country of my youth will never exist again. The balance of power, always in the hands of the movers and shakers, has shifted further away from the powerless. The options for the lower class have diminished measurably, and their remedies are drying up like the phantom water on a desert highway.

Compassionate Conservatism has emerged as a cruel joke. It was the first in a line of Bush misnomers that continued with No Child Left Behind, Clear Skies Initiative, and Healthy Forests Initiative. These phrases are actually 180 degrees away from their actual effect, which is in fact the reason they're called what they're called.

If there's anything Karl Rove knows as well as I know Texas is hot, it's that Americans are busy and have a marginal interest in the minutia of politics. As such, he likes to call a program that will have ill effects on those things that we value something positive. We see phrases like the above and think "Yeah, I don't want any kids left behind. Who's not for clear skies?" And "I love our forests...who wouldn't want them to be healthy?"

Our inattention has been this administration's best friend. Which is the upshot of this post. Politics has become a sport of the few and dedicated. Put simply, they're more dedicated than we are. Because of that they've taken over, they've won the trust of America despite their bizarre objectives.

Those of us on the left need to re-commit our time, our energy our money, to get the word out. Here in Texas where we're far outnumbered by Republicans, we need to speak out. We need to write letters to the editor. We need to be informed.

The good ol' USA can't take another Republican President, at least no one in the mold of GW Bush. And the only way to be sure that doesn't happen is to not let it happen. We've got our walking orders. Now all we need to do is walk.

Bet Your Love Your Kids. Wanna Keep 'Em?

When George Bush got the No Child Left Behind Act passed, he wasn't kidding (for reasons I'll reveal shortly).

All this time I've been critical of the title because I've heard that there are too many unfunded mandates that the local schools have to figure out how to fund. In the course of doing that, other programs get cut to the point that...well...how do I put this? Some kids get left behind.

There was a little-known proviso buried deep in that No Child Left Behind Act that was so cunning that I'm going to have to think twice when I get the notion to call Republicans idiots. They're oh-so-smarter than I thought! Let me step you through this little item:

If you were a president and you had an agenda that almost certainly would include one or more wars in foreign lands, what's one of the first things you know? You know you're gonna need soldiers. Lots of 'em. How do you get lots of soldiers? The draft! No...can't do that. The draft is really unpopular.

Mmm...how can they get a steady supply of soldiers? Appeal to lots-n-lots-n-lots of our must manipulable populace...teens. God, what a great idea! Get 'em fresh off the tree before they ripen and fall into...say, college. But how to get inside their noggins before they can really get their life plans in place?

I've got it! Write into the No Child Left Behind Act a stipulation that requires high schools to provide recruiters with names, social security numbers, addresses and phone numbers of kids starting at age 16. That way they can send them recruitment literature with their names on it, not the parents' names. They can call them on the phone and start painting the pictures in those young kids' minds as to what their lives in the military might be like.

Okay, change of gears: This is where I break out of the wise-cracking blogger mode and into the outraged parent mode. My 16 year-old daughter has probably gotten a dozen or more pieces of propaganda from 2 or 3 different branches of the military. My child's name has been shared with military recruiters whose only objective is to meet their monthly quota of recruits.

You might by now be thinking, well...the school doesn't have to comply with that...surely it's optional? You'd be wrong if you thought that. Not optional. In fact, federal funding to the school can be pulled if they don't comply. Kinda takes the school out of the education bidness and into the soldier pimping bidness, doesn't it? I'll apologize if that strikes you as crude. But that's a pretty accurate statement!

Them's some pretty smart, pretty devious, pretty dastardly Republicans what wrote that 670-page bill, doncha think? But if it seems like you've been painted into a corner without your even knowing it, I have a solution. Schools by law have to co-operate, but parents don't! You can get your kids taken off the student list that the school has to provide.

Just go here to a place called Leave My Child Alone and you can find out how you can borrow advice from Nancy Reagan: Just Say No! While you're there, take a few minutes and watch the video by Cindy Sheehan's photograph on the right side of the screen. If you're a grandparent and you don't like the military beckoning 16 year-olds to consider enlistment, please share this info with your kids.

I like to say that I think there's a perfectly justifiable reason for our having a military, and that a career in the military is exactly what some people need. Nothing wrong with that. But President Bush (who rushed into a terrible and unnecessary war) has proven that war is not the last option for him. And despite his pretty words, he doesn't care about the kids who are being snookered into the military on false promises.

As for me, I had my daughter sit and watch the video referred to above. I asked her if she understood everything in it, and she said yes. I asked her if she minded if I "opted her out" of the program through her school. She wanted out. So tomorrow I'm going to act on this information. My child is one that they're definitely going to leave behind. And I'm damned well happy of that.

Let's Cut It To the Quick

There's been a lot of speculation over who's at fault for what will surely amount to thousands of people dead in New Orleans. Blame #1 goes to Katrina, no doubt about that. It's whether there's more blame to spread around that is the remaining question.

But near as we can now tell, not that many people died in the initial storm. The greatest loss of life will by far be the result of New Orleaneans not getting out of the city. Whether they'll die through disease, dehydration or other maladies, most will die because they hadn't the means, the strength, the wherewithal, or the luck to have been saved.

"They were warned!" you might say, and you'd be right. But I must say, if I were a poor, car-less and lifelong citizen of the big easy, the idea of leaving my home would be anything but easy. This is all just talk though. Let's get to the meat.

Much has been made over whether or not Governor Blanco asked Bush for emergency assistance. Reports conflict as to whether or not she did. We'll arrive at the truth eventually, but for now, that's academic.

Let's play a game here. Let's play like the governor didn't ask. The levee broke. The waters rushed in to New Orleans. Camera-laden helicopters filled the skies over the city and we saw hundreds of shots of people asking for help and being rescued. The 24-hour cable channels--and almost everyone else--were all over it. It was riveting can't turn away from it television.

Now I want you to consider the president, finally having returned to Washington DC from his 5-week vacation that he cut 2 days short when the publicity over his inaction became too difficult to defray. Are we asked to believe by Bush supporters that our compassionately conservative president watched Fox News transfixed by the same footage we all saw...saw the death and destruction, saw the hell of the Superdome, saw the even worse conditions at the Convention Center, saw all the abject need for food, for water, for leadership...and dismissed presidential responsibility because he hadn't gotten a call from the Governor?

Does he think he couldn't pick up the phone himself? Is this a strong leader? Is this the moral character of a Christian man? Would this guy have let the Tommy Hilfiger-wearing wealthy sit on Beverly Hills rooftops for five days if the catastrophe had happened there instead?

Bush just appointed himself lead investigator for the commission that will investigate what went wrong.

Sometimes when I think things couldn't get any more bizarre...they do.

An Odder Than Normal Weak

I work in television and have spent a good deal of time in satellite feed rooms and edit suites having editors build pieces of video to try and capture the length and breadth of the Katrina Hurricane disaster, to help viewers process what's gone on. I've come home emotionally exhausted every day, and that's followed immediately by embarrassment. I'm embarrassed that looking at other peoples' suffering makes me feel as though I'm suffering.

Hell, I'm in an air conditioned building. I know where all my relatives are. I'm sitting in my at least middle class home. And I drive a truck whose gas I can increasingly not afford.

I don't even know misery.

The fingers have begun to be pointed. While I'm indelibly on the left end of things, I'm a pragmatist and a reality buff. As far as I'm concerned whoever's to blame for the way things shook out, they oughtta pay, regardless of party affiliation.

I had an altercation with a guy who's just to the right of Ann Coulter. We were watching a piece of video within which a woman says "There's a woman over there in contractions, and nobody's doin' nothin'!"

He snickered and asked "What does she want 'em to do?"
"Oh I don't know...maybe give her some medical attention!" I exclaimed. That precipitated an argument wherein I was dismissed with "They're doing everything they can!"

But you shouldda seen the look on his face when I said "How do you know?"

Clearly it had never occurred to question words that fell out of Bush's mouth.

The biggest offender by far though is Katrina, or if you prefer, God. Given that, I think we should start with the 2nd most offensive offender, the President. This guy is no good in a disaster. Sure, his spontaneous John Wayne dance played quite well standing in the rubble of the World Trade Center. That was a combination of serendipity, luck, a well-groomed Texas accent, and America's thirst for a monosyllabic answer to very difficult questions.

This Katrina disaster actually requires true leadership. This guy was born with a silver spoon up his ass and knows little of actual leaderhip. Imagine if you will: Katrina hit New Orleans in 1943. Can you imagine FDR doing very little for the first four days? That guy did more in his wheelchair before breakfast than Bush does on his treadmill all week.

Ah, but I shouldn't rant and rave. I'll leave you with the "please do what you can" advice. Red Cross is considered by most to be one of the best.