Blue Neck Nation

David Van Os VS Your Apathy: Who Will Win?

2006-08-09T19:18:00.000-07:00

David Van Os will be here tomorrow--Thursday--at 10:30 in the morning. He's doing one of those old style whistle-stop stump speeches on the steps at the Kendall County Courthouse.

His race for the Attorney General's office is an uphill one. Kinda like Ned Lamont's uphill race against 2000's Democratic Nominee for Vice President, Joe Lieberman. If you've been out of touch for the last 24 hours, know this: internationally-known several-time incumbent Senator Joe Lieberman lost to an unknown so-called pencil-necked geek in Connecticut.

Well, David Van Os isn't a pencil-necked geek. Besides being smart and passionate, he's a good guy. You really should give your apathy a quick kick in the butt, and show up tomorrow morning. Be an American! Go listen to a politician on the courthouse steps tell you why he deserves your vote! It'll make you feel good again!

Bill Moyers--Does It Get Any Better?

2006-02-28T19:24:00.000-08:00

Moyers is fearless. He takes on the big boys--from chemical companies all the way up to the President of the United States. He simply doesn't care about the ramifications because what he says needs to be said.

And the thing about Moyers is that he understands that to say what no one else is saying and to say it well, honors both the truth, and art. Few people have that combination of passions, talents and tastes.

I'm not a religious man, but I thank God for Bill Moyers.

If I haven't yet made it clear, I'm a rather large fan of Moyers. And the following excerpt from a Huffingtonpost article is testimony to why. Ostensibly it's about Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff, but really, it's about the state of political affairs in Washington. He maintains that corruption has gotten way out of hand, and we need to do something about it. The article is a rallying cry, and we would all be wise to heed its call:

"Something can be done about it. Organized people have always had to take on organized money. If they had not, blacks would still be three-fifths of a person, women wouldn't have the vote, workers couldn't organize, and children would still be working in the mines."

"Our democracy today is more real and more inclusive than existed in the days of the Founders because time and again, the people have organized themselves to insist that America become 'a more perfect union.'"

"It is time to fight again. These people in Washington have no right to be doing what they are doing. It's not their government, it's your government. They work for you. They're public employees - and if they let us down and sell us out, they should be fired. That goes for the lowliest bureaucrat in town to the senior leaders of Congress on up to the President of the United States."

So as you think that the Republican machine is too finely-tuned, too entrenched, too devious, remember that the proposition we face now has always been this way. In fact, probably much worse in times past.

Very powerful people look after their power with great care. It's only through time, a massive effort, organization, creativity and guts that we will overcome the odds. What I'm talking about really, is securing the tenets of our Democracy. The stakes are that high.

While TV Was Playing the Dean Scream a Million Times...

2006-02-25T15:31:00.000-08:00

...here's what Dean was saying in the leadup to the Iraq war.

"The Administration has not explained how a lasting peace, and lasting security, will be achieved in Iraq once Saddam Hussein is toppled. We have been told little about what the risks will be if we do go to war."

"Iraq is a divided country, with Sunni, Shia and Kurdish factions that share both bitter rivalries and access to large quantities of arms."

"Anti-American feelings will surely be inflamed among the misguided who choose to see an assault on Iraq as an attack on Islam, or as a means of controlling Iraqi oil." "There are other risks. Iraq is a divided country, with Sunni, Shia and Kurdish factions that share both bitter rivalries and access to large quantities of arms."

There's a full URL below with more. The point here is that television news made an absolute FOOL out of Howard Dean by playing the Dean Scream constantly instead of a speech like the above one. What an amazing disservice was done the American public by this kind of stupidity.

As you can see, everything Dean warned against has transpired, and nearly all the predictions by the Administration have turned out to be wrong. Who looks the fool now?
http://www.crooksandliars.com/stories/2006/02/25/whoseJudgmentOnTheIraqWarIsEntitledToRespect.html

Peace. A Recurring Theme

2006-02-20T20:22:00.000-08:00

It's been pretty close to two months since I've blogged. Part of me feels so bad about this because I know there are a dozen or two people at very least who check in from time to time to see if my blather is of interest. To you I apologize.

Regarding politics, my thoughts have been pretty dark of late. In the last two months we've had further revelations on the Katrina disaster. The Vice President shot a hunting companion, and kept authorities away for 12 hours while they made sure everyone's story added up (got sober perhaps?). Have decided to give a large measure of control over several American ports to the UAE. They've installed another right wing Supreme Court justice. We've discovered that the government may be spying on a goodly number of us (hi there, if you're working for the gov!). The Vice President's revealed he has the power to classify, or de-classify secrets (which could in work as a defense if he's found to be the reason Valerie Plame was outed [a shame the CIA didn't know about his de-classification]). Then of course there's the Jack Abramoff scandal.

That's all in just less than two months. I know I've missed a scandal or two. Or three. And this is the gang of thieves who said they were going to clean up the way Washington DC runs things. Do you really need me to point out that...well, someone's definitely cleanin' up allright!

I gotta be honest...my faith in the American people is measureably on the wane. After these scandals in the last two months (piled onto all the other scandals of the last 5 years) what in the hell do Americans need to lose faith in the so-called leadership of George W. Bush? His popularity still hovers at 39-40% when common sense tells you he should have been tarred, feathered, and run out of Washington quite some time ago.

Yes, I understand. The Republicans have control of everything right now, so the chances of an impeachment are far-fetched at best. Nonetheless, Americans are free to answer poll questions honestly, and 39% of them honestly think GW Bush is a good President. That's enough to make me want to jump off a really tall building.

Instead though, I've been making some more stained glass. Pictured above is my Peace window, designed and built for my daughter. When the politics of this world make little sense to me, the concept of peace still does. I kind of like my daughter, too. So before you get too burned out on the politics, don't forget to get back in touch with whatever makes this wacked-out world make sense to you. And then be sure to vote on March 7.

The Story of the Year...That Disappeared

2005-12-26T05:17:00.000-08:00

It's Jeff Gannon.

If the details are a little sketchy for you, let me give you a quick re-iteration: it was revealed on a liberal blog that a reporter in the White House Briefing room was not the Jeff Gannon he claimed to be, but Jeff Guckert.
--Turns out that not only was this reporter there under a name that wasn't actually his, he wasn't actually a reporter. No journalism degree. No experience in reporting.
--Turns out the organization he worked for (Talon News) was created by a right wing Texas Republican looking to get the GOP view more airplay. It wasn't actually a news service.
--Turns out that Gannon/Guckert didn't have a standing White House Press pass, as do most reporters, but was issued one on a daily basis.
--Turns out Gannon started appearing at the press conferences about a month before Talon News Service even existed.

Let me repeat that last part: before the fake news service for which non-journalist Gannon/Guckert even was created, Gannon was given press passes to get into the White House Briefing Room.

There's no way around the fact that this is a construct of someone within the White House. That is a hardcore, big time scandal. Unfortunately, it came and went without a congressional investigation, which would have revealed exactly who rubber-stamped his appearance at presidential briefings.

But wait! There's more. Turns out Gannon/Guckert owned three web sites promoting gay escorts, including none other than himself. There were many pictures of him as an adult wearing every bit of the clothing he was born in. He bragged on being "8 inches cut" and the pictures I saw back then appear to underscore that.

I don't care one bit if someone's gay or not, but what it boils down to is this: a gay escort posing as a journalist was allowed into presidential press conferences to lob softball questions to the president representing a news service that was actually a PR firm. Besides being a movie plot too outrageous to sell, this could not have been done without high-level complicity. How does one get beyond the FBI clearance screenings? There had to be someone there saying "let this guy through." Who?

This whole gay prostitute scandal comes from an administration which vowed to clean up the White House, to restore dignity and to make America proud again. My irony meter is now broken by the sheer bizarrity of it.

So where did this story go? Why is there no congressional investigation? Why is the President no longer being asked for an investigation on this matter? Congress is controlled by Republicans (who are more concerned with keeping power than their duties as promised to the people) and a complicit, or at least lazy press. Asking tough questions is hard, and it can jeopardize your place at these conferences. Ask Helen Thomas.

My renewed outrage over this story was fueled by my daily visits to crooks and liars. Crooks and Liars is an excellent liberal web site offering up videos that you really should see--and see again. Today a retrospective on the whole affair is there, and I highly recommend a viewing. Go to crooksandliars and look for the headline
Blast from the Past: Jeff Gannon retrospective in Video
Your sense of outrage will be fueled too, I suspect. There's also the great line from Bill Maher, referencing Gannon where he says
"Now I understand what Bush meant when he said he had a mandate..."

More Stained Glass

2005-12-09T17:46:00.000-08:00

I am just in a stained glass jag. I've made four windows in the last month and a half, and it's been about as much fun as I've had in a long time. Here's the one I posted nearly done a while back.

It's almost six feet tall and has thirteen beveled diamonds, two beveled stars, and a fleur de lis.

It now resides in Austin, where it soon will be installed in a door. I've made a dozen or so doors like this in the past, and hope to be making more in the future.

It's a pretty plain design, but sometimes, that's exactly what a design should be.

The window on the right is my last window, and tends to elicit fairly positive--and pretty negative responses. People tend to like it, or really not like it.

I just love it myself. I call it "Hoit It On The Grapevine" since the pieces and parts are so wrapped around one another.

I'll get back to political ranting and raving before long. Right now though, I'm just in this stained glass thing...

What the Republican Leadership Needs for Christmas:

2005-11-27T05:33:00.000-08:00

A clue.

The degree of these folks' incompetence is staggering. The near-constant parade of mistakes by the Bush administration and the Republicans who support it are baffling. Yet their bravado is unabated. Perhaps you noticed that former FEMA Director Michael Brown has started a new business: A Disaster Preparedness Consulting Firm.

'Scuse me? Should we expect OJ Simpson to open up a butcher shop?

The Republicans may be clueless, but they've got cojones the size of beach balls. Will Michael Brown's counsel be "do not do what I did, and you should be okay"? Here's the recent quote which just about breaks the irony meter:

"If I can help people focus on preparedness, how to be better prepared in their homes and better prepared in their businesses...then I hope I can help the country in some way."

These are the words of a man who couldn't be bothered to help the country when it was in the throes of its worst natural disaster. More of his words in an e-mail early on Aug. 29--the day Katrina hit New Orleans, acknowledging a colleague's compliment about his clothing:

''Are you proud of me?" he wrote. ''Can I quit now? Can I go home?"

But wait...there's more. On Aug. 31, in response to a message detailing how people are being ''kicked out" of New Orleans hotels and that food and water had run out at the Superdome, Brown responded

''Thanks for the update. Anything specific I need to do or tweak?"

People were dying at the Superdome, and that's what he had to say. And what did your President have to say about Brown's response to Katrina? "You're doin' a helluva job, Brownie."

Moving beyond the pick-yourself-up-off-the-floor-in-shock words of the President, and back to Michael Brown, the quotes cited above are not just the words of a man who isn't actively engaged in his job. His words show a fabulous inability to empathize.

I have to put this in bold type: The FEMA Director is without empathy?

You can run the Department of Transportation, you can be the Secretary of State, you can run the Department of the Interior and not have to be terribly empathetic. But FEMA? The notion of there being a FEMA Director incapable of empathy is beyond my ability to express outrage over. That's about as bizarre as Ohio Representative Jean Schmidt calling former Marine John Murtha a coward. Yet both it seems, are quite true.

So if you're buying for a Republican this year, you might seriously consider getting him this.

Making Stained Glass

2005-11-20T20:01:00.000-08:00

God I love stained glass. I know, I've been blathering on and on about autumn, and now you have to endure a few thoughts about stained glass. I'll get back to politics soon...honest.

I learned how to make stained glass windows about 25 years ago from a really neat woman who designed and built her own windows. She was probably the best in West Texas, and due to good luck, good karma, or perhaps providence, she not only taught me how to make these windows. She paid me to learn!

She had a 15-window job to complete and she was getting sicker and sicker, and was incapable of the work. She showed me how to assemble and solder and complete the windows she'd already cut the class for, and I spent the next week doing exactly that. I think I had an aptitude for glass, as my learning curve was pretty short.

The woman got progressively sicker and I kept on building windows she'd already signed contracts to do. She finally got cured from what ailed her, and I moved on, taking my knowledge with me. About a decade later I decided I wanted to get back into glass, so I invested in the basic tools you need to create windows. I've probably made about 70 windows since then.

Pictured at top right is my most recent window. It's about 5 & 1/2 feet tall and features a beveled fleur de lis, diamonds and stars on clear, but textured glass. I think I could only count on one hand the things I like doing more than making stained glass windows. And it's probably the only one I could actually get paid to do!

The Other Day Howard Dean Was Telling Me...

2005-11-17T19:16:00.000-08:00

Got your attention, did I? Maybe I should have been a headline writer!

Actually, I'm not lying. I was part of a nationwide conference call associated with Dean For America--whoops...that's Democracy For America. Dean For America was its incarnation before Dean was sabotaged by the press and withdrew from his presidential aspirations. Don't get me started on that whole Dean scream thing, or you'll never hear the end of it.

So about 18 of us are huddled around a space heater in the inner city...there I go lying again! That's what image might be conjured by those who aren't Democrats. They probably figure we lefties as being urban and smack dab full of minorities. In fact, I don't remember anyone there who wasn't white. And the there I'm referring to was an upper middle class home in a prosperous hill country suburb. I'd say the median age was close to 50 and there were far more gray hairs and few hairs than brown-haired folks.

The conference call was Dean's way of fanning the flames of grass roots efforts throughout the country. There was laughter and applause and the real sense that these kinds of things will make a difference. I can only hope so.

Dean's 50-state plan (which in a nutshell means that the Democratic party will fund and push to win offices in red states just like they do in blue states) excites us here in Texas, one of the redder states out there. Our state of mind is bruised and battered, being Bush country. More and more people are speaking out against the prodigal prez, but this place is still solidly behind him. It takes a special breed of us to stand tall speak out when the opportunity arises.

A woman named (if memory serves) Jamie said she always wears lefty-styled buttons wherever she goes. She gets lots of stares, a few snide comments, but also a lot of people who come over and strike it up with her in a very positive way. "They're happy to see other liberals" she says.
Well, we're going to have to encourage a lot more liberals out of the woodwork and into the voting booth if we want to become a real force here in South Texas. We can do it. It just takes the grassroots efforts that the good doctor Dean has begun.

Get involved folks...that's the only way to turn this oh-so-slow-to-turn aircraft carrier around.

Another Autumnal Blog

2005-11-13T09:55:00.000-08:00

Autumn's finally arrived in a very big way here in Texas. The temperatures haven't--highs today around 80--but the most impressive trees are approaching peak display. As I mentioned in a previous blog, Texas does of some fall color.

One of my little treats as I drive around my town and in the hill country, is to notice color where I didn't know to expect it before. All summer long trees labor in the obscurity of green--most all are the same general color, especially as you drive by quickly in a car. It's not until autumn that each tree's individual attributes emerge from that obscurity.

I was driving down a street recently that I don't often take and lo and behold--two big tooth maples I wasn't aware of. Always a treat to find new trees to go back and visit each autumn.

Several years ago I was shocked to see vivid golden color of a 25-30 foot tall big tooth maple on the south side of the driveway leading into the Frost Bank in Boerne. Pictured above from two years ago, its trunk splits into two leaders about 8 feet up. I think it's Boerne's most magnificent big tooth. Because of pruning, or natural growth habit, the branches are high enough where you can walk underneath it. It's become my yearly barometer of fall color in these parts, and no autumn's complete without a visit to the tree. On a clear day with a blue sky, the gold-tinted light beneath it is impossible to describe.

Yesterday me and about 8 others, primarily from Boerne's Native Plant Society, planted about a dozen new trees and understory shrubs outside the Cibolo Nature Center in Boerne. Those holes didn't dig themselves, so it was lots of hard, sweaty work. In time though, it will yield more color and more native plants for locals or visitors to see and learn from as the years go by.

Planting a tree is one of the most optimistic things a person can do. The very act says "I believe in the future and I care about those who will follow. " They will be shaded by these trees and they will gaze in wonder at their leaves in the autumn and be thankful that someone cared enough to plant them. Thanks to the Cibolo for setting such a fine example for this community, and for encouraging its citizens to fine works like this. If the Cibolo didn't exist this town would be greatly changed, and clearly for the worse.

So get outside and drink in what nature's provided you.

I Become A Mass Transit Guy

2005-11-09T06:12:00.000-08:00

A co-worker friend of mine rushes into my office yesterday and says "Hey, I just rode the Via Express Route from 281 and 1604!" They dropped him off two blocks from where we work, and he strolled into work, having read the newspaper he rarely gets to properly read. My interest was piqued.

So if you didn't click on the blue item above--shame on you--I'll explain. San Antonio's transit company, Via Metropolitan Transit Company, now offers four different routes from various places on 1604 or I-35 to downtown. They have very few stops, depending on which route you take, and which bus within that route.

"What's it cost?" I asked."20 bucks a month; unlimited rides."
Mmm...$20 a month. I headed over to the Via Transit headquarters on San Pedro and laid my money down for a month pass.

I've got a 16 mile-per-gallon gas-hog pickem-up truck and on my particular commute, I figure I can shave 24 of my 63 miles-per-day round trip by riding the express line. The part of my drive that's the most difficult, the most stress-inducing, and the worst gas mileage for my truck happens to be the part I'd shave off by taking the bus.

So I found my way to the Park and Ride lot below I-10 and 1604. I wasn't there five minutes before the bus arrived and I joined what ended up being about 18 downtown-bound commuters. My day didn't go without a hitch though. My co-worker's optimistic reporting about being let off two blocks from work was accurate, but only for his particular route. My route gets no closer than about 8 blocks. I walked to and from the bus stop this morning, and while it was humid and sultry, it was a very pleasant walk. I'd never walked through the new courtyard at San Fernando Cathedral. I walked beneath the massive trees at the plaza in front of the old Courthouse. And then across the ornate Houston Street bridge over the River Walk.

Would I do this in the summertime? Forget it! Too hot. But for now, I think I'm going to enjoy this. While I rode on the bus I was able to chew up three chapters on the Maureen Dowd book I'm reading. When it was over and done and I got in my pickup to head toward Boerne, I joined the traffic and was immediately aware of something different. It took a minute to put my finger on it, but I finally figured it out: I wasn't stressed. Usually by the time I'm passing Fiesta Texas I'm wound up in knots after having dodged the gauntlet of bad drivers and merging trucks from Huebner through 1604. That stress just wasn't there today.

This Kendall County Democrat is urging you to consider this new offering by Via. It's easy to talk about doing the right thing for the environment, and embracing the idea of mass transit. Actually doing so means breaking bad habits and putting out a little effort. I can report that at this point, the effort's been worth putting out.

Autumn Comes To Texas

2005-11-05T08:30:00.000-08:00

Texas? Sure, we have autumn color. It's not Vermont or Wisconsin, or even Virginia. But on a good year, it ain't bad. While it's still early, I think it's going to be a good year.

The sumac are turning pretty quickly, and some have even dropped their leaves already. I haven't seen a really red RedOak yet. We'll see how it shakes out. A tree which often just kinda turns brown is the Cedar Elm. This year though, I've seen quite a few of them turning golden. I don't know if it's rain or air temperature or moisture in the air, but I suspect it's a combination of all the above. Whatever the case, it looks like they might give us quite a show this year.

There's a non-native tree called Chinese Pistache, which those of us who love native trees would like to think is native. Lord knows it's drought and heat tolerant, and it gives a great show.
I have a Burr Oak(not the one pictured) that I planted in my front yard. He's turning a little gold, so I'm optimistic about Burr Oak's color this year.

The tree that lovers of autumn in Texas are most passionate about though is the Big Tooth Maple. Sometimes they're golden, sometimes they're red, but most always just plain beautiful. The two I have in my yard are doing okay, but got a little summer burn. I planted them in the full sun and mulched and watered them fairly well. This was their first year though. Time for them to get established.

This afternoon I'm going to a place just outside Boerne. There's a long, winding road that gets progressively smaller, and finally becomes a dirt road, ending at a ranch gate. If you park your truck and walk a few paces to your left--not too far or you'll drop about a hundred feet down into a deep cut valley with steep cliffs and a stream at the bottom. In that riverbottom soil there are lots of live oaks, cedar elm and red oaks. The treat though, is that there are probably 30 or so large Big Tooth Maple growing down there. Last year their color wasn't anything too impressive, but this year, they're looking great.

Postscript: The picture above was taken Sunday morning 11/6. A 35-foot Big Tooth keeps a toe-hold overlooking everything from the side of the cliff. I can report that indeed, the maple colors are looking quite fine this year. In fact, they're downright Vermontesque. Heck of a word I just coined there.

Post Fitzmas Funk

2005-10-30T19:08:00.000-08:00

You know the feeling. The day after. The presents are open, and...while you pretty much got what you asked for, you'd hoped for more. Fitzmas never quite lives up to the pre-Fitzmas hype, now does it?

If you're wondering what the hell I'm talking about, I'm of course referring to Patrick Fitzgerald's Friday afternoon press conference, and the Libby indictments.
bad: Rove escaped indictment.
good: Multiple indictments came down.
bad: All indictments came after the crime for which no one was indicted.
good: The indictments go all the way to the Vice President's office.

Fitzgerald came across at the press conference as straighter than straight. I got the feeling that he was there to do the peoples' bidness, and if crimes were comitted, he was going to prosecute, regardless of the party or who was being investigated. That should give us solace that perhaps he'll find something for which Rove needs to be indicted, and will then do so.

Clearly Libby lied about having heard the Plame news from Tim Russert. Clearly that information originated in the Republican realm, and clearly Novak, Miller and Cooper were told in an attempt to shut up Joseph Wilson. While intent is harder to prove, has anyone suggested Libby told these folks to cause Wilson anything but pain? The former ambassador was publicly suggesting the President was a liar, and he needed to be shut down.

There are a few untold stories here, but here's the one that seems the most massive of them all: this is so stupid! Allowing columnist Novak to publish the name of an undercover CIA operative, and the fact that two high administrative officials had verified Plame's identity...doesn't that just say to law officials: "You want me? Come and get me!!" It reminds me of Gary Hart's catch me if you can scenario about a decades and a half ago.

If outing Plame was not a crime, it was oh-so-very-close to one. And that a pair of high-ranking administration officials are giving out a CIA operative's name because her husband disagrees with the President is an instant national scandal!

And herein lies the interesting point to me: there is such hubris...such a blatant example of pride getting in the way of common sense. Answer me this: after the Novak column, why in hell would there not be an investigation? Why in hell would that investigation not uncover that everyone points fingers in a couple of directions only, and that their stories all match up?

The old saying applies: Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. And when your party is controlling the house and the senate and the presidency and the supreme court, you dine on hubris with garlic, and vanity under glass.

Why else would anyone make such an idiot decision as to out the CIA operative wife of the man who's been on Meet the Press to tell everyone your President lied in the State of the Nation address? The untold story in this matter is how stupid a decision it was in the first place.

What kind of stain does this put on the Bush administration? They swept into office early in 2001 claiming they would bring back honor and dignity to the White House. It appears that after nearly bankrupting the nation, taking us into and unnecessary war and turning most of the world against us, they didn't find time to work on that honor and dignity thing. Here's an interesting new poll, an excerpt from which follows:

The poll, conducted Friday night and yesterday, found that 55 percent of the public believes the Libby case indicates wider problems "with ethical wrongdoing" in the White House, while 41 percent believes it was an "isolated incident." And by a 3 to 1 ratio, 46 percent to 15 percent, Americans say the level of honesty and ethics in the government has declined rather than risen under Bush.

The man and the party who had an opportunity to do good things and to put a shine back on politics and dirtied it more than a stained blue dress ever could.

It's....beginning to look at lot...like...Fitz-mas...

2005-10-27T18:53:00.000-07:00

If you're looking for a prescient examination of up-to-the-minute details in Prosecutor Fitzgerald's investigation, with informed detail-oriented observations, you've stumbled onto the wrong blog. I just thought it was time to post a few thoughts about what's going on.

The Grand Jury clock is ticking down. It's defacate, or get off the pot time. I haven't anticipated anything so much since that time I spent 4 months in another time zone and flew back to Texas to see the wife.

I have an Austin friend who calls me at least once daily to check in and see if there's anything I've heard that he hasn't. Being in the news bidness, I have the Associated Press on my desktop and if there's anything fabulously newsworthy my computer will ding at me. Suffice it to say I'm longing for the dinging.

This part-time political observer thinks the Republican party is l-o-o-o-o-o-n-g overdue for a hard slap across their collective face. After years of them talking God, guns and gays instead of jobs, peace and security, the Republican leadership needs to be humbled. I'm talking drawing and quartering! They should be tarred and feathered, then run out on the rail, and let the bums deal with them! They're a sorry bunch, the whole lot of them.

But rather than just listen to me rant and rave, you should do something else...go here and take a look at a six-minute video. It's crooksandliars.com--an excellent site--and the video is a CNN interview with former CIA operative and Valerie Plame classmate Larry Johnson. He meets head-on and debunks many of the Novak-disseminated disinformation that's become lore of right wing world of late. Once you go to the site, page down. If you see Bill O'Reilly's splotchy face you've gone too far. It's right above that.

Good viewing...and it'll whet your appetite so that tomorrow--let's hope--you'll have a very merry Fitzmas!

Getting Kinky at the Library

2005-10-25T20:35:00.000-07:00

Shame on you! Get your mind out of the gutter. I'm talking about Kinky Friedman. He spoke tonight at my small town Texas Library. This is the Kinkster's 2nd visit to the library, ostensibly to talk about his books and about writing. But things have changed since his first visit nearly 3 years ago. This time he's running for governor.

The first time he was here there were lots of sexual references...I can recall a number of audience gasps...and I distinctly remember the word sphincter being used. That was then. This was now.

Tonight Kinky talked a lot of common sense, a lot of humor, and the one edible he knew that any Texan worth his salt would eat heartily: Texana. He referenced Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Sam Houston...all the legendary icons of Texas which were nostalgic, and vote-getting safe bets.

But I have to give him kudos: as he made the audience comfortable, wrapping them in this blanket of Texana, he threw a few curve balls. He said that politicians tried to get everybody worked up over issues that meant absolutely nothing. The issue he cited: gay marriage. He said it wouldn't hurt anybody. That same statement coming from me would have raised the possibility of my being physically attacked. Coming from the cigar-chomping, goateed, black-hatted cowboy-looking Kinky, it was warmly received.

And there was also the idea of naming Willie Nelson as his energy secretary. Or Czar. Or something (I thought ol' Willie should have been drug Czar. Lord knows he's done plenty of research on the subject). He thought we all should be using biodiesel instead of gasoline. He's right.

Something that came through, without a doubt, is that Kinky is serious about being governor. He's not too fond of the political process and his anti-politician leanings seem quite sincere. He hopes as governor to charm the pants off those who want to continue politics as they are.

Is it the cynic in me who thinks there's something further here? Yes, I do think Kinky would love to do Texas good, to turn the place around to start doing some of what it should but isn't, and stop doing some of what it shouldn't, but is. I think there's something more though. I think that as a mondo-bizarro country/western singer, an award-winning widely-read author, a saver of stray animals, I think he wants to be able to put Governor on his lack of resume (surely the Kinkster doesn't actually have one, does he?). I think he wants to lend his name an immortality that will put it up there with Willie Nelson, Waylon Jenning and Sam Houston.

I've read several of his books and can highly recommend him. I've seen him work the crowd twice now, and am cognizant of his talents as a humorist. And you should know that he has a gentle, artistic, poetic and world-weary streak that comes out only occasionally in his writing that's really exceptional. He gets my vote for one of the top five most interesting Texas artists. What remains to be seen though, is whether he'll get my vote for governor.

Pardon the Interruption...

2005-10-21T18:25:00.000-07:00

For various reasons I've abandoned this blog for the past month. I've missed the heck out of it and intend to begin feeding the blog with regularity again.

For the dozen or two of you who come here often looking for real-life examples of how not to write, my apologies. I've been off being who I am when I'm not a blogger. I've been doing really fun things, and this is perhaps the most fun: I went to Washington DC, amongst other reasons, to let the President know I'm not fond of how he's been conducting himself. 250,000 of my closest friends showed up as well, and it was both quite somber, and quite a party. And sometimes those two elements were in close proximity to one another.

Another odd fact about that trip to DC: I took my 16 year-old daughter. My sister-in-law found out about this and e-mailed my wife questioning why we'd allow our baby to go to "that communist freak show." I didn't have the heart to tell her that nearly everyone I met there was further away from a freak show than she is.

But to the main business here: My fellow Americans, let me entreat upon you this...you're aware of, and perhaps have often made the claim yourself that America's the land of the free. To which I ask, how do you know? Let me guess that your first reaction is surprise.

"What do you mean how do I know?? This is America!"

Right you are. But all those things in the constitution about free speech...if you never challenge the prevailing paradigm, you're not being free. If you play along as you always have, and as nearly everyone does, then you're not making your country live up to its claims.

So that's what we did. Just hundreds of yards from the White House, a quarter million of us gathered to tell the President that we in no way, shape or form supported what he was doing in Iraq. I can report that our nation did not fall to its knees. Cats and dogs were not fornicating in the streets. The sun rose in the east, and set in the west after a day of very civil disobedience.

My daughter had a great time, too. Against my better judgment, she got onstage after Cindy Sheehan spoke and greeted her. Ms. Sheehan gave her a long, warm hug, then signed my daughter's Code Pink sweatshirt. I don't know as much about Code Pink as I might, but I love their slogan"

Stop the Next War Now

Such wisdom there! The idea that being anti-war is not an affectation you put on in the lead-up to the war, but a climate for dialogue and action that your create year round, year-in, year-out.

During the visit we also went to the Kennedy Center for a play, did a couple of Smithsonian Museums, some of the monuments, and rode the Metro like pros. It was a fabulous father/daughter time.

I'd like to urge all of you who are seriously thinking about getting old: while that's a viable option, you might consider methods to keep you younger. Heading off to the nation's capitol with your teenager, galavanting around town, and joining a 1/4 million-person anti-war march can take 2 or 3 years off of you.

And more importantly, there's something so patriotic about measuring your country's claims about itself...and finding out that on that day and in that place it measured up. It made the forefathers proud of what they'd created.

But just like the Code Pink ladies who work hard year 'round to keep us from going to war, we Americans need to fight year 'round to be sure the land of the free really is free. Your participation, however can help, would be most appreciated.

May You Live In Interesting Times

2005-09-19T20:01:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-13T19:42:00.000-07:00

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?

2005-09-10T21:21:00.000-07:00

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?

2005-09-07T20:38:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-06T20:40:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-02T17:56:00.000-07:00

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.

They Tell Me Hell's Hotter Than Waco

2005-08-28T20:02:00.000-07:00

...but I have my doubts.

Five of us piled into my truck at 7:45 on Saturday and headed to Camp Casey. It was a great trip up, filled with deep discussion and music from Eliza Gilkyson.

We got to the Camp Casey area a little after 11 and the vibe was completely different from last time. The 5-7 pro-Bush protesters across the road had swollen to about 80. The 125 or so anti-Bush diehards at Casey 1 were less contemplative than before, and more rowdy. Someone had a guitar and would play a riff and come up with a few lines that the anti-war crowd would parrot. The people across the road would then yell something back at them, throw out some insults and catcalls, and the anti-war crowd would respond.

It looked to me to be only a matter of time 'til there was trouble, so after about an hour or so, we left. As we left a guy was walking past me on the other side of the road with a sign: "Repent you treasonous bastards." I saw red.

"Hey! I'm not a bastard."
"Yeah you are."
I looked at him a minute. He was dressed in the standard redneck uniform; jeans and a cowboy hat. So I had a very minor epiphany.

"Did your mama raise you to hold a sign with a cussword on it?"

He looked uncomfortable and moved on. If logic doesn't work, what the hell--give shame a try. I don't think I kept him from holding the sign up, but I know I made him think. Might've been the first time that week for him...

We went over the Camp Casey II about 3 miles away. The vibe was far different...kind of like a pep rally at Woodstock, if that makes sense. I read that the whipped-meringue-with-peaks-looking tent held 2000 people, and it was full to overflowing. All age groups were there, and all were VERY hot.

Iraq war veterans were speaking passionately against the war when we walked up. Shortly afterward, Cindy Sheehan took the stage. She's the face of the anti-war movement, and the crowd loved her. I was surprised and delighted to see Joan Baez had stuck around. She still looks luminous and...well, almost sexy at 60-whatever she is. She sang Joe Hill and the Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and then sat on the stage leaning against Cindy, holding her hand. It was very sweet.

My wife recognized Laura Flanders, the Air America radio host, so we said hi to her and talked to her for several minutes. We even snapped a couple of pictures with her. She's as pleasant and smart in person as she is on the air.

We had wanted to go to the Crawford Peace House, so we headed to town. There was lots of Pro-Bush action on the very busy Crawford streets, but nothing organized. We found a parking space and were walking to the Peace House when I noticed a life-sized photo of George W. Bush with a sign below it saying "Political Quackmire." I asked the people if they minded if we took a picture and they said that was fine. We posed next to him, me with my thumb down. Suddenly the guy jumps in front of us waving his arms and yelling and basically going nuts. Turns out he's a GW Bush fan. He grabbed my daughter's hand and kinda pushed her away and I was like "Hey buddy, that's not necessary..." He said something like "typical liberals!" My wife had to urge me to move on. It wouldn't do to have a fight next to the Peace House after all...

The question I haven't figured out is why a fan of Bush would have that "political quackmire" sign below him. I'll bet I wasn't the only one to mistake his allegiance.

The Crawford Peace House is an old wooden place with a nice grounds and a neat little stone labryinth that is supposed to help you meditate on peace. The place was rockin' on Saturday, so not a lot of peace to be had. Some rectal orifices from the University of Texas were standing across the road taunting peace folks, to little avail.

Laura Flanders had arrived at the place and was, with help, setting up an audio edit station on the floor to try and get her show together. She was quite disappointed when we told her we weren't going to stick around for her show, but were heading back home. We promised to call in.

We left Crawford knowing that that poor little town will be so happy when el Presidente's vacation is over and they can return to some kind of normal.

I did indeed call in to Laura Flanders' show and we talked for several minutes about our experiences out at Camp Casey. That's twice in two weeks that I've been on national radio...I think I should ask someone for my own show!

A word in closing, and something that was harder to grasp during this visit than our first: this is all about the war, and the soldiers dying. I think the anti-war movement is very important right now. The president, and the right wing need to know they have significant opposition. If they don't, they'll continue to make horrible decisions that we all will pay for. They need to understand the concept of accountability. The best way we can make all that happen is to write our representatives. To speak out. To give money. To sign petitions. To get involved. I wouldn't ever ask you to do something you can't, but please: do what you can. Thanks!

Heading Back To Crawford

2005-08-26T21:07:00.000-07:00

We'll be on the road by 7:30 heading for the sweatbath at Crawford.

Cindy Sheehan was on Real Time with Bill Maher tonight. Bill tried to throw her a couple of hardballs, but she did really well anyway. For this nobody of a housewife, she's damned smart, and suprisingly quick on the uptake. When he was done with her he told her "a straight up thanks for what you're doing." Looks like Bill's a fan, too.

I don't want to suggest I'm fawning over Cindy Sheehan. I am quite grateful that someone emerged to be the face of the anti-war movement. She didn't emerge as a carefully chosen spokesmodel. She wasn't the choice of a PR firm somewhere. She was just a mother outraged at why her son had to die.

So This time five of us go: my wife and daughter and myself, plus my daughter's gymnastics team partner and her mother. They've been kinda cheering us on from the sidelines, and just decided to jump in. I'm real happy about that.

It'll be a looooong day. About 3 & 1/2 hours up and 3 & 1/2 hours back, plus hours and hours in the heat. It could be contentious. The YOU DON'T SPEAK FOR US CINDY caravan is supposed to get there tomorrow as well. Wish us luck.

Hope

2005-08-23T03:47:00.000-07:00

I've been busier than I like to be of late, and I don't see any signs of that lifting. I noticed that it's been a week since I posted, which is way too long. Apologies to those who come here often hoping to read a little something that gives you grist for your thought mill. Let's see what I can do as I get ready for work.

There have been a few daunting things that have bothered me personally recently. I of course, wish Cindy Sheehan's mom wouldn't have been taken ill and hope for her speedy recovery. I'd love to have seen Cindy been able to stay on in Crawford and keep up the good fight. She's done what she's got to do, and there are increasing numbers of veterans and their families who have arrived at Camp Casey, so at least the work continues.

What I don't like is some of the rhetoric that's flying around. I watched an interview with Mark Williams--yet another far right wingnut radio host. He's just returned from Iraq and he's full of himself, full of bluster (and full of something smelling quite unlike bluster). He's going to take a convoy of buses to Crawford in his YOU DON'T SPEAK FOR ME CINDY tour.

I don't like this stuff. It moves beyond the protest standpoint to the let's cause a confrontation standpoint, or the let's inspire the idiot weirdos standpoint. As we found out with Larry Northern when he ran over hundreds of crosses and American flags at Camp Casey, the uber-patriotic can be inspired to idiocy in their fervor. And when I listened to the Mark Williams interview on MSNBC, it was full of that blinded-by-their-own-rhetoric bluster that is about as ugly as it is energetic.

Extreme vanity + extreme energy=trouble.

As I was walking in downtown San Antonio the other day, I came across one of those hip-high bushes full of the canary yellow flowers. They're called Esperanza, which is the Spanish word for hope. I don't know the history of why the bush was named esperanza, but I speculate this: in the absolute heat of summer, when just getting through the day is a major effort in South Texas, there is a bush that inspires such hope...such a sense that we'll all persevere and overcome that which is now so difficult.

So I offer that to you in a time where the words are flying too fast, with too much passion and too little sense...that we'll get through this, the temperatures will fall and the seasons will bring soothing change. Esperanza. Hope.

I Meet Cindy Sheehan

2005-08-16T18:03:00.000-07:00

After we'd been at Camp Casey for most of an hour and had looked at most of the booths, done a lot of people-watching, and generally soaked up the ambience, I came across Cindy Sheehan. She was off to the side of the road in a lawn chair, one or two people to her side, and another couple in front of her. She looked exactly like she did on TV, and remarkably approachable.

I knew my wife would want to meet her, so I walked the 50 or so yards across the length of the camp to tell her. "Cindy's over there." "Really?" she said as she turned to walk Cindyward. I think most all of us have a fascination with celebrity, even that which has been arrived at in so circuitous a fashion.

We kinda walked over in that direction, and that's about the time my daughter started crying. I've blogged about this previously, but essentially she was overwhelmed by the emotion--the crosses representing the fallen soldiers, the fresh-scrubbed young but now dead young people with faces looking back at us, not at the time the pictures were made knowing what their fates would be. And now there was Cindy. This woman who had started it all out of rage and love and the desire to save some lives.

My daughter and I got diverted with that emotion for a while as my wife took a few pictures. By the time I worked my way back to Ms. Sheehan, she was sitting in the back seat of her van, taking a break in the shade. I'm not a physical person--I tend to avoid touch with those I don't know. But when I walked up her hand was splayed across her lower thigh and I just reached out and put my hand on it, as if that were normal for me to do.

"Cindy, I'd like to thank you for doing what you're doing. I think it's a great thing, and it means a lot to me." She took her hand out from under mine and grasped it affectionately with both of hers. Her green eyes look right into mine, and she smiled gently. She thanked me for coming to Crawford, and for my support. I told her that I was wishing her strength, because I knew this must be really hard.

She looked down at our joined hands and said it a world-weary way "Yes, it's been really hard." Then she looked back up at me and said "But it's nothing compared to what our soldiers are going through, or the Iraqi people."

"Yeah, that's true. Good luck to you; we're behind you." She thanked me and I turned and left, more convinced than before I came that Ms. Sheehan was the person she seemed to be.

In the days since I've been back I now hear that her husband has filed for divorce. A local rancher has fired a shotgun in the air while drinking beer, just for fun. Just to be intimidating. And then a Waco man dragged a pipe behind his pickup mowing down hundreds of the crosses that represented the soldiers who have given their lives in the war.

I now know that the difficulty I could see she was feeling then was just the tip of the iceberg. And it may be just a fraction of what's to come. As we all think about our trials, wish some energy her way. She could surely use it.

And now as I'm about to publish this, I find that the cousin of the man who was shooting a shotgun nearby has volunteered to house Camp Casey at his property. The whole thing will be moved and they'll no longer be sleeping in ditches and be so vulnerable to whatever misguided psycho might do to them. I'm pleased and relieved for Cindy.

If you can't make the trip to Crawford, and for the latest in goings-on at Camp Casey, go here.

Pro-Bush Protester Shows What A Class Act He Is

2005-08-14T19:13:00.000-07:00

We'd arrived at Camp Casey at about 12:45 on Saturday, August 13th a few miles outside of Crawford where Cindy Sheehan is holding her vigil to get a meeting with President Bush. We were surprised that there were only 100 or so people there, including 15 or so Department of Public Safety and other law enforcement. We passed the immature, taunting signs of the 5 pro-Bush protesters who were just across the small county road from Camp Casey.

The camp was erected along the periphery of a half acre triangle of grass that was where two country roads met at an odd angle. There wasn’t a lot of shade, but a few hackberrys cooled the few who could fit in their shade.

We began to walk around, looking at the various booths that had been put up. Code Pink was there, the Gold Star Families were there. Even PETA.

Seeing a tarp over three tents that were set up in the midst of many of the crosses, we headed that direction. There was a metal sculpture of the United States out of which was carved the words "The US in Iraq." In chalk on to the side it said "1841, 13,538." Those were the dead and wounded Americans.

Suddenly my daughter turned and I could see she was crying profusely. I gave her a hug and she continued sobbing. "Are you okay? Why are you crying?" She didn't try to voice anything, but just hugged me back. Finally I asked "So...does it just seem real now? Is that it?" She nodded her head yes and continued to cry.

It was about then I noticed that a steady line of cars were arriving. I looked on the road back to Crawford, and there were bumper-to-bumper cars leading back a good 3/4 mile. Many of the anti-war protesters were gathering at a place where the cars would drive by to greet them and yell to them and flash the peace sign. A very unofficial greeting committee. Diana and I walked over and started doing the same. She continued to cry. I told her I was going to get some water from the truck, and did.

As I approached where my daughter had been, I noticed the Viet Nam vet hugging her, and was touched by that. A few minutes later I approached and noticed she was flashing motorists the peace sign, and continued to cry. This was highly unusual for our rugged, resilient daughter, so I hugged her too.

“See that guy over there?” She pointed to the 5 pro-Bush guys. “Yeah.” “He was making fun of me for crying.” I couldn’t believe it. She said he was calling her crybaby. What the idiot across the road doesn’t know is that my daughter rides a 1200-pound horse, putting in brutally-long hours at the stable, has a wall full of ribbons for the shows she's won, and is in some ways far more macho than I am. She doesn’t know a lot about fear.

What he also didn’t know was whether or not that girl across the road had a brother who had died in Iraq. It probably didn’t even cross his mind. As a barometer of the class of the other 4 protesters, none of them had told him to stop taunting.

After the music by folksinger Eliza Gilkyson and speeches by several people, including Cindy Sheehan, we started heading back to the truck. We got separated, going different ways. When I spoke to my daughter next she told me the protester did it again. “There’s that crybaby!”

It's not fair to judge the opposition by the worst of its kind. I hope you'll forgive me though, if I do precisely that.

Part IV: I meet Cindy

Viet Nam Vet Lost a Leg, But Not His Heart

2005-08-14T06:44:00.000-07:00

We'd been at the Cindy Sheehan's Camp Casey outside of Crawford Texas for about 45 minutes. My wife and 16 year-old daughter and I had milled through the booths, saw dozens of pictures of fallen American Soldiers, and I'd met Eliza Gilkyson. Eliza is a folksinger who, if you haven't yet discovered her, please do. And if you're one of those roll-your-eyes-at-folk-music types, you haven't discovered Eliza.

She had her guitar in the bed of a pickup, and an amp nearby and I said with a smile "Is that thing here for a reason?" "Yeah, I'm gonna play a few songs in a little bit." "Excellent." I walked toward the road where I saw my family.

I passed a guy with a ball cap with silver-tipped brown hair and a great big blonde walrus moustache. He was proudly holding a Veterans Against the War flag. As I walked by I said "We need to see more of your type here!" He took that as an invitation to speak, and yes, he did speak.

He wasn't fond of Bush or his administration for the cuts to benefits for veterans. He stated clearly his support for the soldiers, but not of the administration which sent them there. His clear blue eyes and freckled skin (the kind you see on a lot of redheads) were intense and vivid. He spoke animatedly without the accent of a Texan. His name was Tim Origer from Santa Fe, and spent only a month in the DMZ zone in Viet Nam.

"So you were in the war?" I asked. "Well, yeah..." He looked down toward his legs. His left one wasn't there, replaced by some kind of steel pivoting limb with a shoe that allowed him to walk. I'd been standing about 2 feet from him for several minutes, deep in conversation and hadn't even noticed.

He told us about the rocket that destroyed the artillary battery he was manning, and sent him flying 40 feet up the hill. If I understood him correctly, he actually remembered the event, and that it wasn't terribly unpleasant. But then a flare got shot directly into his leg as he lay there, burning and destroying his leg, and turning it all into a hellish nightmare of pain.

My family listened to the story intently, trying, but failing to comprehend the horror of what he'd been through. We transitioned to another subject.

"I like your button--where'd you get it?" my daughter asked. It was a skull and cross-bones on a black field, with W's face where the skull should have been. He pointed to a guy who had a bag of them, and that guy gave us one. I tried to give Tim a few bucks for it and he refused. Finally I stuffed the bills into his compadre's pocket. Hell, it cost them money to produce the buttons. Why not give them something to at least meet their costs?

A while later I went to get water, and more people were arriving. A line of people had formed to wave and greet the cars as they got there. As I walked back I saw that my daughter was crying, overwhelmed by the moment. Standing next to her was Tim, still waving his flag with one arm, but the other was around my daughter. She later said he hugged her for several minutes, and that it was a real help for her.

Part III: a Pro-Bush Protester Shows What He's Made Of

Crawford: Here We Come

2005-08-14T06:15:00.000-07:00

My wife's got Sirius radio and was listening to an interview with Cindy Sheehan about her Crawford vigil after having picked up my daughter at the stable. Not much for politics, my daughter hates talk radio. But after a few minutes, she turned up the volume and listened intently. After it was done, she told her mom she wanted to go to Crawford.

Saturday morning we headed out for the 400-mile round-trip, full of questions as to what lay ahead. Crawford is out in pleasant, slightly rolling farmland with occasional woods. The town itself was fairly typical small-town Texas. My wife noticed a blood drive, so we thought "what the heck?"

The guy overseeing the blood drive was happy to see us, though had I to guess, I'd guess his feelings about Bush to be quite un-similar to mine. He was much like so many in this country: a very pleasant, optimistic guy who continues to assume the best about Bush.

After giving blood we headed out to the ranch. We finally could see some kind of a gathering in an area where a half-acre triangle of grass marked where a pair of roads met at an odd angle. About a quarter mile away though, rows of little white crosses appeard, stretching toward what's come to be called Camp Casey. The crosses were placed there, one apiece for the American soldiers who have died in Iraq. They set an appropriately somber tone as you drive up, a reminder that this isn't about Bush, this isn't so much about protest, and it isn't really about Cindy Sheehan. It's about those who have given their lives because George Bush started this war.

As we drove by and looked for a place to park, I was surprised there were so few people there, surely no more than a 100 or so. that would include the 15 or so Department of Public Safety officers and local Sheriff's contingent. Parking was quite easy, and as we walked back to the triangle of grass, I noticed the opposition protesters across the little 2-lane county road. The most obnoxious sign was this one:

Sheehanistan: American Haters Welcome

Lots of hate simmering over there ("cut and run traitors," "don't dishonor our troops"). I really hated to see the ignorance parading before me. I stopped and videotaped the people and the signs to be sure that I would remember what hate and misunderstanding looks like.

I thought their protest was inappropriate and really immature in substance, but this is America. This freedom of speech thing isn't always fun or how we would want it. But that's as it should be. They had the same right to be there that I had. And they proved their total lack of class within the half hour by what they did to my daughter.

Part II coming...

Democratic Texas Women

2005-08-11T19:15:00.000-07:00

Women
I think women in general have a larger burden to bear, what with having to share the world with the disgusting brutes with whom they have to co-mingle in order to actually bear children.

Texas Women
Women in Texas have a double burden. Many of them actually live under the same roofs as men who look at George W. Bush, and think "God, I wish someday I could be like him."

Texas Democratic Women
If that's not enough to make you lose your hamburger helper, let me see if I can give you yet more motivation. There are those in this world who are triple-burdened: They are women, they are married to Texas men, and despite their husband's best intentions, they are Democrats.

There are lots of people here who don't consider Bush a curiosity, but actually a role model! No, I'm not kidding. So a lot of Texas men try to act like they see George act. And who gets to see it play out in the kitchens and the living rooms and (Lord forbid) the bedrooms? Texas women. And if those Texas women have the misfortune to have half or more of a brain, they're Democrats. Thing is, in the gracious tradition of southern women, they have a high tolerance for suffering in silence. And indeed, many do precisely that.

And the moldy cherry on top of this un-palatable milkshake is the fact that Democrats are by far the minority in these parts, and Republicans don't hold back in their effort to make Democrats feel like it's they who are the odd ones. I could talk your ear off on that one, but not at this sitting.

Today I spent an hour and a half with about 35 Texas Democratic women. A rowdy, spirited bunch they were. I actually went there to speak in front of them. It was my first speech in...oh, let me see...this is August of '05...forever! I've never been invited anywhere to speak, but they foolishly asked me and my wife to come.

They welcomed us as we presented some great options on how to get the news that they may not be finding elsewhere. Alternative news. Democratic perspective. Liberal stuff. It was a lot of fun. Many of them were feisty old gals who probably were quite the handful in their prime, and in fact might well still be. There was even one who bore a decent resemblance to Hillary Clinton.

I think it's worth noting that if you think life is difficult, you should reflect on these gals whose very lives are an uphill battle: being women, being liberals, and living in the homeland of the great buffoon, Mr. Bush. But as you reflect on these truisms, don't forget: this bizarre stew of culture and bravado and way-too-much-heat has also produced some real female firebrands. Molly Ivins comes quickly to mind. So as you lament their unfortunate condition, it's proof that sometimes the best art comes from those most pained...

What's a Mother to Do?

2005-08-08T18:48:00.000-07:00

By now you've probably heard of Cindy Sheehan. The Vacaville California mom lost her son Casey in the Iraq war. She's found her way to Crawford Texas and "demands" to speak with the President about the war in Iraq.

Demands is probably a mischaracterization here. She demands like the Democrats demand control of what legislation gets considered, or which Supreme Court nominees are offered up for consideration. She is, let's face it, sitting in 95-degree heat-then-rain-then-heat, avoiding the fire ants in a roadside ditch in a very inhospitable part of Texas. She's demanding this audience with the Prez like I'm demanding a quarter million dollar salary.

Her story touches me like many of the other things that get headlines don't. There is an immeasureable sadness when mothers allow their boys to go off to fight old men's wars, then are forced to watch those sons lowered into the ground. Those mothers will never hold their sons again, never see grandsons, never know the pleasure of seeing the wisdom that often comes with age spread across their maturing son's face.

Maybe because I would hate to see that depth of sadness in my mother's life, this particular pain is something to which I can relate. And maybe it's made more acute to me because I'll soon have a draft-age daughter, and I have no faith that this renegade president is beyond re-instating the draft to manifest his advisors' neo-con goals.

Whatever the case, Cindy Sheehan says now that she'll be jailed if she's still outside Bush's ranch on Thursday, and she'll be considered a national threat. Also on Thursday's ranching agenda: Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice are slated to arrive. It brings to mind another visit by Condoleeza Rice to Bush's ranch. It was August of 2001 where she brought a report entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike Within the US."

Strange to think that these clowns, the only administration to allow a tragically successful inside-the-US terrorist attack, think that a 48 year-old unarmed mother is a national threat to security.

I swear to God: if I wrote this in a screenplay they'd laugh me out of Hollywood. "Who would believe this kind of shit?" they would scream at me as they shoved me out the door in anger.

Who indeed?

Oh, About Those Bad Poll Numbers...

2005-08-06T19:15:00.000-07:00

...looks like El Presidente has more bad news, more evidence that his floor show is beginning to get booed far more often than applauded.

From Newsweek:
A NEWSWEEK poll taken one month ago showed that 41 percent of Americans approved of Bush’s handling of Iraq; 54 percent did not.

In one week that 54% has slid to 61%. A 7% drop in a week? My God, but that's precipitous. I can almost hear momma Barbara saying "George...don't stand by the edge of that chasm! Y'might slip and fall in!"

And there's this little gem:
Bush’s approval ratings have dropped to 42 percent; 51 percent of Americans say they disapprove of the way Bush is handling his job as president. Bush’s approval ratings reached a high of 88 percent in his first term, in the month after the September 11 attacks. Forty-two percent is his low.

For the mathmatically challenged, his popularity has been more than cut in half. Even his never-deserved popularity for doing well with Homeland Security--his bulwark issue really--has taken a nasty hit. The only President to ever allow a massive scale, tremendously successful terrorist attack on US soil still has 51% of Americans fooled that he's doing a good job with that issue. But that's a 6% slide from March.

And here's a doozy: 64% of Americans think the war in Iraq has made us less, rather than more safe from terrorism.

These new stats make me feel smarter all the time, as they underscore what I was saying before we went to war--that an unnecessary war in Iraq would create more terrorists and terrorism instead of reduce both.

Thing is, I'd far rather feel safer than smarter. In all honesty though, it wasn't intelligence but common sense which told me that. If a country behaves the way we have--invade a non-threatening country on false pre-text, kill tens of thousands of people there, dismantle the various systems they've spent thousands of years developing and insist they do what we tell them to--then lots and lots of people will be outraged. We re-invigorated a cause that was running on fumes before the war.

Mr. President: I hope you extend your stay in Crawford. Maybe by the time your record-setting vacation ends they'll meet you at the DC limits with tar and feathers...

Bush Sliding--But Does He Give a Rat's Derriere?

2005-08-06T07:39:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the polls surprise even a jaded Bush basher such as me. Yesterday's MSNBC's online poll about Bush's waging of the Iraq war:
15% thought he was doing a good job
2% weren't sure, and
83% thought he was doing a bad job

Wow! That's only a measure of the MSNBC online surfers who were willing to take the poll--hardly scientific, but a measure nonetheless.

A far more accurate poll shows that his numbers have never been worse. Bush's handling of Iraq is at 38%. With a sizeable percentage of Americans still support GW Bush, the Iraq question clearly threatens many Bush supporters' views of Bush. Because nearly 2 of every 3 Americans don't like how he's managing the war.

Bush is overwhelmed with concern for these awful new numbers. How's he showing concern? By taking a month-long vacation at his Crawford ranch. Bush doesn't so much think of what he has as a presidency anymore, but as a monarchy. Who cares what the people think? They don't know what's good for them!

Ah, but there's more...overall job approval hovers at 42%, which is quite low. Disapproval is quite high, at 55%. The honesty issue is also a clear divider in American opinion. 48% believe Bush is honest, and a whopping 52% believe he is not. More than half of Americans believe we have a dishonest president.

The last poll item, and perhaps the most damning, is 60% of respondents' belief that America's headed in the wrong direction.

This is the alarm bell ringing and ringing and ringing, and it's up to Democrats to respond: 6 of every 10 Americans say we're going the wrong direction. Democrats have another direction. Democrats need to voice what direction that is. Democrats need to offer their alternative so that we can give those 6 of 10 Americans a place to feel comfortable.

Bush has, in a sense, made it easy for us. He's such a phenomenally bad leader that finally, finally Americans are getting it. Democrats: you up to the task?

I Take NO Satisfaction In Being Right This Time

2005-08-01T19:07:00.000-07:00

But as I predicted,Bush did it. John Bolton's been appointed Ambassador to the UN.

Bush did the ol' end-around, avoiding having to be further embarrassed by civil peoples' reaction to his freakish choice for Ambassador. What I don't understand is how he can be appointed to represent the US at the UN when it actuality, Bolton doesn't even believe that it exists. Think I've been smoking crack? Go here and watch him say so yourself.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, whose job it was to help Bolton pass un-caught through their net, thus sending his nomination to the senate for a confirmation vote, instead landed themselves a whale of a controversy. Republican George Voinovich of Ohio probably said it best when he called Bolton
"the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be."

Republican Senator Richard Lugar, a white-haired waterboy for the home team, said more than he intended to when he said about Bolton
"...there is no evidence that he has broken laws or engaged in serious ethical misconduct."
And to our knowledge he's molested no small boys, nor shot down any American Eagles...that's good enough for me!

So now it's done. GW Bush has continued in his mode of Damn the torpedos! Full speed ahead! (or in this case, backward)

It's odd that 5 short (?) years after Bush first took office, the notion of being proud of what this country stands for and how it comports itself on the world stage seems...seems almost quaint and naive. I feel nostalgic for a time when the UN Ambassador wouldn't arrive at the UN greeted as he was today.

I apologize for the morose tone of this. Today at my chat room of choice for people in the Television field Bush supporters were doing their nanny-nanny-boo-boo routine, laughing at those of us who thought Bolton was a bad idea. And it occurred to me how far we'd slidden that mature journalistic adults were taking cheap pleasure in the appointment against the will of a thoughtful and discerning group of people, of a man widely known as a bully and a jerk. And far worse than that unsettling thought is what happens when I ponder what he'll be doing for the next 17 months.

Never Miss An Opportunity to Divide, Not Unite

2005-07-30T07:03:00.000-07:00

The prevailing opinion is that Bush is going to put Bolton into the UN Ambassador position while the senate's on break. So...does John Bolton have pictures of Bush's homosexual affair with Jeff Gannon? (and before you accuse me of being a looney liberal, that would of course be a joke)

This liberal is trying, through the use of common sense, to understand why Bush, who has driven such a huge wedge between those of us on the left and the right, would toss yet another gallon of gas on that fire instead of nominating someone who isn't the most divisive candidate possible. John Bolton's exactly that.

Maybe the President could nominate someone whose work record doesn't include chasing a woman down a hallway screaming and throwing things after her. I know Republicans can be an intense and incendiary lot...but don't you think he could find someone whose work record doesn't include that episode of craziness?

Some conservatives have asked about Clinton's liason with Lewinsky--"what would happen to you if you were caught doing that?" The insinuation is that we might be fired, and that may in actuality be true (though it's important to note that Lewinsky was an intern, not an employee). I can tell you that if I'd been caught doing what Bolton's documented as having done, I would have some major 'splainin' to do. I think it's also safe to say that kind of behavior wouldn't cause me to be elevated to a very high position. More than likely I would have been fired, but in lieu of that, I'd surely have been reprimanded and made to undergo anger management counseling.

So I ask: this is the one-n-only guy who can try to make peace in America's name?

Has John Bolton been given a unique set of genes which allow him and ONLY him the combination of brain cells and assholiness required to slap that UN around and make it a subservient body that will bend to our every will? Can Bush truly find no one who could combine extreme intelligence, knowledge of human nature, a worldwide sense of confidence, and sheer will to mend, rather than yank out by the roots our country's attempts at diplomacy? Is our diplomatic bench so non-existent that there's truly NO ONE who could be the UN Ambassador but John Bolton?

Or is this instead about EGO? Is this about saying "I'M in the driver's seat and DAMNIT, I'll appoint the man I want to appoint, and I don't care a lick what anyone else thinks!"

This attitude doesn't just show a disrespect for the idea of professionalism, nor just the Democratic opposition to Bolton. This shows a disrespect for the American people, which deserve to look with pride toward our UN representation. Why would Bush want us to wince when we think about what Bolton will do there? If Bolton's appointed without Senate confirmation, it'll be yet another notch in the wall of shame of this presidency, which by now is a pock-marked moonscape of stupid moves powered by ego instead of the American peoples' best interest.

I Retired My Kerry/Edwards Sticker Today

2005-07-27T19:38:00.000-07:00

Here in South Texas I pass a dozen or more Bush/Cheney '04...or W'04 stickers on my 35-minute commute to work every day. I passed an otherwise dignified-looking older lady the other day that made me feel oh-so-slightly pathological:
Osama is Kerry's man
Bush is my man
Something tells me that her admiration for him had more to do with how he looks in jeans than how he's gonna look in stripes after Lady Justice has her way with him.

But the sticker that offends me the most, beyond all the hokey stupid idiotic short-sighted ignorant misguided foolish stickers...is the one that's square and jet black:
W
The President
The layout is simple and (attemptedly) classy in understated elegance. Problem is, lipstick on a pig still leaves you with just a made-up porker. And that President they're referencing is
W
Dub-ya.

There's nothing classy about anything he's done since becoming President. There is in fact a very good case to be made that he's systematically destroying those things which--not just me,--but most Americans hold in high regard about their country. To me that bumper sticker is the most eloquently symbolic of the difference between what is said, and what is done by this administration. Looks like class, but it actually represents a ruthless gutting of what makes this country great.

So in the 9 months since Kerry/Edwards "lost"--gosh, I think they lost--I've kept my Kerry/Edwards sticker there so that everyone whose eyes find the back of my truck see that I'm not just another supporter of
W
The President

But finally today I retired that ol' sticker. I pulled it off intact and retired it to the side of my file cabinet in the office. Along with Amnesty International, Orlando Recycles, Re-Defeat Bush, Howard Dean for President, it now has a more tranquil, out-to-pasture existence.

What did I put on that place where Kerry/Edwards was? Thought you'd never ask:

FIRE ROVE
AirAmericaradio.com

Randi Rhodes, Stephanie Miller & Joe Wilson Dropped By Today...

2005-07-23T19:58:00.000-07:00

...to a friend's house. John Conyers dropped by as well. They were very funny and very serious, and almost at the same time.

If you're thinking my friend must be someone important, you're right, she is. But while she's important, she's no celebrity. She's a 50-something grandma, former army nurse who's concerned about the direction this country's headed. A dozen or so of her friends (I'm one) dropped in too, and dialed up for a conference call that was being heard from coast to coast, and all the way to Alaska and Queensland, Australia. The conference call was enabled by John Conyers folks in order to keep people connected to the stories that your press isn't adequately covering.

The liberal media is not earning its stripes in the whole Rovegate and Downing Street Memo issues, and continues to almost behave as if it's serving the interests of the ultra rich and those in power. (that's a joke...because that's precisely how they're behaving!)

But back to current headlines, or more accurately, the headlines we should be seeing, but aren't: former CIA agent Larry Johnson testified before a session of Democrats on Friday. For his video testimony, go here. If you're a Republican, I double-dog dare you to go there. In fact, I challenge you now: you don't have the nerve to go there and watch his testimony!

(For Democrats only: I'm challenging Republicans' macho tendencies. Perhaps questioning their manhood if they don't go there will cause them to go there. If they do, they'll see a dedicated CIA guy pissed off at what's been done to Valerie Plame. He worked with her and has a perspective that we haven't yet heard, and if the allegedly liberal media has its way, we will continue not to hear from him!)

But back to the conference call I was talking about originally. It was great being here in the red state homeland of our shameful president, a houseful of true blue Democrats rallying behind the cause and feeling connected with others, all the way to Alaska and beyond. If you're reading this blog I encourage you to connect with those of your kind. And most especially if you reside in the liberal wasteland of red states. The only way to slow down and stop those dismantling what makes our country great, and to turn things around, is to connect with others who believe the way you do. Get involved with your local Democratic party, or perhaps the Democracy For America people. Don't be yellow...to turn blue!

Your President: Mr. I-Won't-Lie. What a Sleazebag

2005-07-20T21:15:00.000-07:00

The Republicans tell us that this Karl Rove thing is a tempest in a teapot...
(that's a remakable image, a wonderful use of the English language, isn't it? Comparing a tempest
[A violent windtorm, frequently accompanied by rain, snow, or hail] to the very contained tumult which happens when you boil water in a teapot...brilliant use of metaphor. God, I love words!)
...just more falderal from we liberals.

Allow me, if I might, to cite a thing or two which might cause even those not of the liberal bent, to register strongly on your bullshit meter: Originally Bush spoke out and said that anyone on his staff who leaked information about CIA operative Valerie Plame would be fired. Then the other day Bush said that anyone who "committed a crime" in the case would be fired. It takes no Rhodes scholar to determine that a crime is only a crime once someone's convicted of having committed one. That determination will only happen after months-n-months, perhaps years' worth of legal wrangling.

So Bush says one thing then, and quite another thing now. I don't know where you were raised, but here in Red-land Texas, that's called a flip-flop.

The nature of this flip-flop is a little different though. Back when Bush made his original statement, the idea of this all coming out was so remote that he was indiscreet with his word choice. Now that each of his words are being gone over with a fine-toothed word comb...so to speak...he's being far more careful. He resists the bizarre notion of actually being held to account for what he's saying. And after five years of not being held to account for those things which fall out of his mouth, why in God's name start now?

The Republicans snort and cackle and rant and rave about Clinton's "depends on what the meaning of is, is..." talk (I kinda did too). But they rationalize away Bush's flip-flop so that he doesn't have to live up to his pledge to fire Karl Rove.

How do you stupid shits sleep at night? Your walk and your talk don't align. Your word and your deed are often poles apart. Your pledge of honesty and your corrupt administration bear no resemblance.

I take consolation in knowing that never have Bush's approval ratings been so low. Never have Americans trusted him less. Maybe, just maybe, the jig is up.

Propaganda a la Mode in Iraq

2005-07-17T05:00:00.000-07:00

A few days after the brief and impressive US miltary campaign raced across Iraq and then "took" Baghdad, I got to work (I work at a TV station), and got started with my day. Suddenly the TV volume in our lobby went up and the buzz told me something worth seeing was going on. I turned my TV on and watched as the American soldiers helped Iraqis tear down the huge statue of Saddam Hussein in Fardus Square.

I was strongly against the war, yet the images were so inspiring. Despite the faux pas of a soldier first putting the American flag over Saddam's head, then taking it off, I found the video of the throng of Iraqi people working with American soldiers to tear down the statue really inspiring. It felt as though maybe there was some substance to why we went to war.

A week or two later I came across this site. The images I saw the morning the statue came down were tightly-shot footages of hundreds of people in a crowd. Photographs at the above site reveal that there were in fact no more than a couple of hundred, probably most of which were American soldiers. The square had been been blocked off by American tanks and this spontaneous celebration of newfound freedom was in actuality a propaganda coup.

So later that day a very conservative co-worker, infused with the bravado that the day's news inspired, stopped by and said something like "I'll bet you still think Iraqis don't want us there. Don't you?"

I responded something like "I don't exactly know what they think...but I know that since we got there the electricity is on only sporadically, people have lost their jobs, that marketplaces where they shop don't dare to be open, the university's shut down...I suspect a lot of Iraqis aren't too happy about that."

He was just spitting mad. He paced back-n-forth just hurtling "I can't believe you people" and "what's it gonna take for you people to see that life is better for Iraqis since Saddam got deposed?" and things like that.

I told him "Look: society's built on things like running water and availability of food and a stable government and a sense that things will likely get better. Right now those people don't have that. My stand isn't about politics as much as it's about psychology. This has got to be very tough on them."

He kept on spewing things about how freedom's on the march and how I'm on the wrong side of freedom, and whatever other phraseology that was popular with the right wingnuts at the time.

I had no idea then, and I doubt I would have predicted that two years and four months later that things would not be measureably better. Sure, to cherry pick measurements, I know there are things that are better. I do. But there are also measures which show life's gotten worse.

We keep hearing that the insurgency is in its last throes, yet those throes have never been more deadly to Iraqis. What's life like for Iraqis when they have no assurance that when they go to market for food they will return home alive? How is it to get on your bus to head to your job not knowing if that bus will be the place that you die in an explosion?

I've thought a time or two about having that conversation again with my co-worker. But I know him well enough to know that he's constructed a rationale that makes sense to him. That he probably harkens back to WWII and fills his head with images of resoluteness and heroism in the face of adversity to keep himself from seeing the bottom line: we shouldn't have gone there in the first place. And that there's something elementally wrong with how we're doing what we're doing there.

There are many ways to look at the Iraq war. If you have read to this point in my post, you're likely an engaged and intelligent person. Make your own mind up. But as you do, go to the web site above and see the masterful manipulation of images. And wonder how many times your perception of reality has been futzed with so that you'll end up thinking the way they want you to think.

Thanks for your time and attention...

Father Forgive Bernie, For He Knows Not What The Hell He's Talking About

2005-07-13T21:05:00.000-07:00

You've seen 'em a million times. Authors come on to the Today show, David Letterman, Jay Leno. The idea is that these writers are there to impress viewers at home that they're an interesting person, their book is a compelling read, and that viewers should buy a copy of their book. No, make that two copies!

So I tune in tonight for my only real appointment television--TheDaily Show With Jon Stewart--and who's on but Bernard Goldberg. You may remember that Bernie is a former CBS correspondent who ran afoul of the network, then wrote a book (fiction?) lamenting the network's entrenched Bias. Bias was in fact its title. This makes him the darling of the right, and not one of my favorite authors.

Bernie comes out to hawk his new book (100 People Who Are Screwing Up America) and Jon Stewart tries not to hide his bias--there's that word again--against the upshot of Goldberg's book. Problem is, he quickly fails to hide that bias. And I can't blame him.

A couple of establishing facts for you regarding the book. More than 90% of the people in the book are liberals--no big surprise. But they're not the movers-n-shakers in DC who necessarily are going to affect all of our lives. They're rappers and movie makers and Al Franken and Barbara Streisand.

Babs?

These facts don't go unnoticed by Stewart who (and I speak from memory here) questioned Goldberg about the premise of the book. He said these are almost all people who are involved in what the right calls the culture wars. Right, Goldberg responds. Stewart: But the people with the REAL power are in Washington DC. Those are the people who can make or break us, not these people.

Goldberg tried to mount a defense that popular culture was indeed very important and affected us all...but it was very weak. It got to the point where I actually felt sorry for Bernie. He started awkwardly into a joke and Stewart leaned forward, puts his hand on Bernie's shoulder and said "Bernie, humor is very very difficult..."

Couldda heard a pin drop.

But one of the most telling moments is when they went to a break and video was shown of former President Jimmy Carter pounding nails at a Habit for Humanity house. Then this came on the screen:
#6
"Oh my God!" I thought. Jimmy Carter is the #6 in d0ing harm to this great land of ours. If you take nothing else away from this, please take this: an old man with a hammer can't do squat against this country. At least not when you put him up against the dirty dozen: Bush, Rove, Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz, Delay, Cheney, Rush, Hannity...and three more than I can't think of at 11:31 at night.

Something tells me that when Bernie left the Daily Show set his agent didn't slap him on the back and say "You hit it out of the park Bernie...out of the park!"

That Thread on Your Sweater? Let Me Give it a Yank, Mr. Rove...

2005-07-11T18:43:00.000-07:00

Oh my...let the great unraveling begin. Speculation on blogs like this one for months, more than a year actually, has been that he who outed CIA Operative Valerie Plame was none other than the rather insane-looking brain-behind-the-cowboy, Karl Rove. As you've heard by now, it's moved from speculation to fact that Rove communicated with Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper, specifically mentioning "Joseph Wilson's wife" in that interchange.

This revelation came about through an investigation authored by Clinton attack dog and Newsweek magazine investigative reporter Michael Isikoff. By Clinton attack dog, I'm meaning that Isikoff went for the Clinton throat with several Drudge-styled revelations back in the early days of the Lewinsky scandal. If you haven't arrived at this conclusion thus far, let me help you out: this guy hardly lives to serve Democrats. He was one of their worst nightmares.

But back to our sordid tale...the suspicious amongst might be easily convinced that that gun over there is still smoking. I mean, is it happenstance that Rove was pointing reporters to Wilson's wife, and then shortly thereafter rightwingnut columnist Robert Novak spilled the beans about Valerie Plame?

When the Plame story came out, anyone with even half an objective bone in their bodies was saying uncomfortably... "Uh...is that right? Is that a decent thing to do? Is that...legal??" We don't know the answer to the last question yet, but the definite answer to the first two isn't no. It's hell no!

So the stage is set for today's press conference with Scott McLellan (derogatorily called "Puffy McMoonface by the less polite of us on the left end). Strangely, the press began behaving like a press ought to. When McClellan tried to dodge a good question, they called him on it. Finally David Gregory asked McClellan if he wasn't even going to stand behind the words he'd uttered at the same podium a year and a half ago. An electric moment, no doubt.

Suddenly McClellen has begun sounding as though he's going to break into a "depends on what the meaning of is is..." speech. Oh, it was rich.

Payback's a...what's the word I'm lookin' for? I think you know!

Actually though, this isn't payback. This is a press not taking a shit answer and moving on to the next question. The questions were valid and McClellan's avoidance of them didn't come across as having the investigation's well being as his first priority. He was doing everything he could to not say the right thing. And he was well aware that this could be a press moment that lives on and on, as one of his few notable points in front of the camera. He didn't want what fell out of his mouth to be the wrong thing.

Someone forgot to tell him that closing the barn door after the horse bolted doesn't do a lot of good. And that thread that someone started pulling on Mr. Rove's sweater? It won't be pushed back into it.

Where There's Plame, There's a Liar

2005-07-06T19:05:00.000-07:00

I don't claim to be a brainiac, though I'm usually successful at merging verbs and nouns to form understandable sentences. So I'm obviously not an idiot. But there is something I've yet to comprehend the logic behind. Perhaps you can help?

As you well know, columnist Robert Novak outted CIA operative Valerie Plame in his newspaper column. Now, I'm not going to go through the convoluted story as to why. The bottom line you well know already, because you have enough grey matter to be here on this site reading what I'm writing.

But the real mystery here is this: Novak's not going to jail. The people first in line to go to jail over this outing--Judith Miller and Matt Cooper--never published Ms. Plame's identity. These two New York Times reporters were told about Ms. Plame, but elected not to use that information.

Make sense? I didn't think so either.

If you're reading this late in the evening and are not in possession of all your faculties, let me re-state. Judith Miller and Matt Cooper were told about Valerie Plame, but decided not to use that info. Robert Novak wrote about Ms. Plame, revealing her identity to the entire world in his column.

Ms. Miller and Mr. Cooper are preparing to spend 18 months in jail.
Robert Novak continues to spew bilge from his Right Wingnut observation tower, apparently not threatened with a loss of freedom.

Now there's the late-breaking tidbit that Mr. Cooper won't be headed to the hoosegow.

Could it be that Novak--he who crows about being on the right side of freedom--won't have his threatened for outting a CIA operative? This may not be Denmark, but something does smell.

It's been said many times that the wheels of justice turn slowly, and at times, in the strangest fashion. When whoever said that said that, they musta been talking about this case. I gotta tell you truly, the logic, the justice, the sense of this case completely eludes me.

Like I started out saying, in the toolshed there are tools sharper than me. If you're one of them, please cause the logic of this case to come clear to me. Hearing that in fact our legal system isn't being blatantly subverted for political reasons--this time--would be most comforting to hear. I thank you in advance...

How We Sleazy Liberals Are So Different From Conservatives

2005-07-04T06:19:00.000-07:00

If you happen to be conservative and have somehow wandered into a this bastion lefty thought, I'm going to open up the hidden and sordid world of what we liberals do when no one's looking. Can you handle it?

We had set the alarm for 5:30, but when I'm about to travel I tend to beat the alarm clock. I was up by 5:08, showering and getting our stuff ready. We had a 3+ hour drive to east Texas where our daughter was riding in a horse show.

We got there and began doing what we always do on horse show days: remind her to put her number on her back. Fetch water. Ask her if she was sure she had her dressage test memorized. Pronunciation of dressage is dr-säzh, if that helps(?).

Dictionary.com defines dressage as
"The guiding of a horse through a series of complex maneuvers by slight movements of the rider's hands, legs, and weight."

A dressage test is ridden in a rectangular arena which has a series of letters from the alphabet posted at specific points all around it. A very exacting set of moves committed between the letters (say E and M) which showcase the rider's ability to cause a horse to accomplish those moves reveals the skills of the rider and horse to a judge, who grades everything in minute detail.

So yesterday, our daughter had a very good test, and was first in her division at the end of dressage. Next came stadium jumping. This test is given in a larger fenced arena which has been set up with a series of jumps. Riders have to ride a specific route without variation, jump each jump, and not knock down any portion of the jump. Our daughter did that and had no time penalities, so she remained in 1st place.

Lastly was the Cross Country portion of the competition. A Cross Country course is set up over about 20 acres of land, wherein logs have been set up, jumps built, ponds created, up and down-hill jumps built, and riders have to traverse the course, inducing their horses to jump them all. The course has to be completed within a certain set time, and riders are given time penaties for too large a variation.

My kid completed the course, and all within 10 secs of the optimum time. In short, my daughter was best in her division, and came home with the Blue Ribbon.

So...while you may not have a daughter who rides horses, I'll bet that the time and effort (and Lord knows the money) that we've spent on our daughter is a lot like that which you've spent on yours. And you didn't do it for the pleasure of spending money, but to try to give your children a hobby, perhaps a passion, something positive to do with their time, and something which gives them self esteem. The lessons they learn through their hobbies is something that they can take into adulthood.

Okay, so my title might have been misleading. Sorry about that. Seems to me the lesson here is that we're made of the same stuff. And that our hopes and dreams for our kids are probably a lot alike.

Stephanie Miller: the Power of Laughter

2005-07-02T13:41:00.000-07:00

Just a quick one for you folks who don't have enough laughter in your life. Stephanie Miller has a talk show which battles the insanity (disguised as government--and Fox News) with the power of humor.

She's funny as hell.

Now Stephanie may or may not be broadcast in your town, but she IS available on the internet. Go here for a listen. The one I'm listening to right now is 6/30, hour 1. She draws and quarters and skewers and sautees Bill O'Reilly. She does it the old fashioned way: with his own words. She doesn't make up things that O'Reilly supposedly says, she plays back what he put on his own show.

So as we slog away in this awful war with the misguided Republican party, when all humor seems to have been sucked out of the room in a Monica Lewinsky moment, Stephanie Miller comes along and makes you laugh your socks off. Guaranteed, you'll be sockless if you go and listen.

I'm listening now as O'Reilly lectures General Wesley Clark on how to fight a war. What????

I'm Back from the Big Blue

2005-06-30T19:31:00.000-07:00

Had a blast in New York City. Hey, if you haven't been there, you should know that it's a VERY big place. Lots of people. Huge buildings. The city goes on and on and on and on...

A few amusing points to note:
--I was watching a newscast on WCBS and Roz Abrams asked her co-anchor who was going to be on Letterman. He said Tim Robbins. "Oh great...he's one of my favorites!" she gushed. If I didn't know before, I knew then "buddy, you ain't in Texas anymore..."
--Sitting in a Greenwich Village Thai restaurant and having Hillary Swank walk by with her dog. --Having a subway faux pas wherein we had to go all the way to Harlem to get downtown from Midtown.
--Seeing summer-attired (think skimpily-clothed) women walking by Orthodox Jewish men.
--Hearing Robert F. Kennedy call George W. Bush a son-of-a-bitch.
What? You didn't hear about this? It was outstanding. I was at a convention and Kennedy was a keynoter. He'd been asked there to speak on his passion: the environment.
I can tell you this...he had no prompter, no notes, no nothing. He spoke from his heart for probably 40 minutes. And he got himself quite worked up over the environmental protection rollbacks/corporate polluter giveaways that GW Bush has been responsible for. He was talking about one of his favorite activities: taking his kids fishing. Unfortunately, every year when he gets his license, New York state gives him an inch-thick booklet detailing all the rivers and lakes, and fish that he shouldn't eat because of how much mercury and other chemcals there are in the water. Just after he referenced the polluted waters, the sonofabitch comment slipped out.
Since I figured there would be those who told the organization they were offended, when I saw the chairman of the organization, I told him that I appreciated Mr. Kennedy's speech. He told me that Kennedy had called from his car after he left and apologized. The chairman told him there was no need for an apology.
To those of you offended by such talk, please accept my apoligies.
On second thought, never mind. I apologize for nothing. Besides Bush being responsible for everything that Kennedy pointed out, he started that unnecessary war, within which tens of thousands have died. I understand he's our president, but there's no getting around it: he's everything Kennedy called him. And honestly folks, far worse.

Off to the Chief Blue State

2005-06-20T12:38:00.000-07:00

I'm going to New York City tomorrow, and will be there for the rest of the week. Ah, New Yawk. It's the chief Blue State. The land of Hillary. The office of Bill. The trip is a combination work and vacation. The family is going along and I really look forward to it.

Sorry I've been so inconsistent recently. My grandmother died and I went out to West Texas to bid her goodbye. My Pennsylvania sister was there, and it was nice to see her, as well as the other relatives.

My family has PHDs and farmers, professionals and ranchers, gamblers and evangelist assistants. I tend to think of us as a standard American family, a la Texas. But surely your family tree doesn't grow as twisted as ours. Or does it?

I can trace a lot of those people right back to the day they were born, as many can me. Seeing them is yet another one of those ways you measure yourself in life. What have they done with themselves? What have you done with yourself? It was a bit like a high school reunion, but it didn't for me have the loaded interpersonal intrigue that those do. I'm sure the funeral held that for some, but for me it was a very pleasant experience.

It was good to hear what was said about my ancient grandma. She was a significant person in west Texas. She was a no-nonsense mover and shaker, in a common-person fashion. But this isn't a piece about her. I'll do that later. This is just a promise for more thoughts headed your way. That gives you plenty of incentive to come back...or perhaps to stay away!

See you next week.

Republican Target has a picture on it: Howard Dean

2005-06-12T11:36:00.000-07:00

The current "let's laugh Dean out of office" campaign by Republicans is cynical beyond what one would expect, even from them.

In case you've been living in a cave the last few months, Howard Dean now runs the Democratic National Committee. He's not minced words when citing his distaste for the direction Republicans have guided ( and I use that term loosely) this country in the last several years. Because of that, he has raised the hackles of Republicans.

Or is it that simple?

Fundraising: Despite flawed comparisons by right-wingers, Dean's raised more money than any predecessor. Regrettably, that's one of the position's primary functions.

Public Relations: The Republicans would have you believe he's a walking talking disaster. Common sense will tell you that walking, talking disasters don't outpace all predecessors in fund-raising.

Here's what's really happening: Dean's determination and willingness to speak the truth--even if the Republicans scream like stuck pigs--plus his not backing away from his words, is exactly what we need. If he continues, Republicans will begin to see what many of us already know: Dean is what Democrats need to overcome 8 years' worth of namby-pamby Presidential candidates.

The Republicans realize that Dean's got the policy wonk intelligence of Clinton, but also an unwavering confidence in his beliefs. That combination makes him extremely dangerous to Republicans. So what do they do? They do this.Vice President Cheney goes on the attack. While you'd expect an attack, you'd at least expect an attack which wasn't provably stupid. I mean just s-t-u-p-i-d.

Cheney: "I've never been able to understand his appeal. Maybe his mother loved him, but I've never met anybody who does. He's never won anything, as best I can tell."

Besides the bizarre tactic of dragging Dean's mother into it, Dean was quite popular in Vermont, and his campaign attracted millions of Americans. And then there's the quote about Dean never having won anything. Perhaps it escaped Cheney's attention that Dean won five Gubenatorial races in Vermont. And then there's his winning of the chairmanship of the Democratic party, after his catastrophic defeat in the primaries. Most pundits thought his political career was dead and buried after that.

But then this idiotic statement about Dean follows: "That's not the kind of individual you want to have representing your political party."

Perhaps he would prefer someone running the party like...say Tom DeLay. Ol' Tom's been the subject of three ethics investigations. He exploited the Terry Schiavo case for political gain. He's taken junket after junket after junket on the tab of companies who stood to profit from legislation before the house.

In fact, Cheney probably would prefer someone like Tom DeLay to run the Democratic party. If he were corrupt he'd be a much easier target.

But while Dean is clearly the target of the Republican slime machine, he's not an easy one. Here's what he said in Iowa:

"We need to be blunt and clear about the things we're going to fight for. I'm tired of lying down in front of the Republican machine. We need to stand up for what we believe in."

Now that's how we're going to beat the Republicans. Standing up for our beliefs, and not backing down when the fecal matter starts flying.

Your President Is a Lying Son of a Bitch

2005-06-09T19:32:00.000-07:00

I apologize for that kind of talk, but Bush has earned it.

I am mad as hell. I'm spittin' mad. I'm beside myself. I'm so beside myself that I'm looking over at myself thinking, "man, you need to lose some weight." (I try to humor myself when I'm this angry.)

YOUR PRESIDENT IS A LIAR

How else can I put this? Here's the deal: When Bush ran for President in 2000, he said that he was concerned with Global Warming, but that it needed more study to determine if in fact existed. As the studies keep piling up, Bush continues to dance around actually admitting that the phenomenon is real, or that we should be doing anything about it.

But as much as that's reason to be angry, that's not what I'm mad about. No, your President has done something far more shameful than that. What your President did is to hire Philip Cooney to take Scientific reports and water them down. If they sounded conclusive about Global Warming, he made them far less conclusive. If the findings sounded dire, he made them sound less dire.

You're wondering what kind of a bought-n-paid-for scientist would threaten his credibility by such behavior? A scientist didn't. Philip Cooney was a lobbyist for the oil industry "once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases." This article goes into more detail about the shameful person who your President employed to alter scientific documents to change the tone. This allowed Bush to continue skating for several more years because the evidence wasn't conclusive. In fact, just this week in a press conference with Tony Blair, Bush called for more study.

What, pray tell, has he been doing over the last five years?

Allright...so it's one thing to be catty and deceptive and maybe even employ someone to water down scientific reports. But what, in the final analysis, is the upshot here? Bush is mortgaging your kids' future.

He's not interested in scientific reports which tell him what he doesn't want to hear (kind of like the intelligence reports which didn't suggest WMD).

This man is beyond shameful. He doesn't so much deserve impeachment as imprisonment.

And the liberal media: where are they in all this?

Political Potpourri

2005-06-06T18:33:00.000-07:00

There's not a single theme here...so let me just rant a bit.

Last night I was blogging here and fortunately showed it to the wife before I hit publish. Basically I was going to post that you'll be surprised by this post: I don't have a lot of sympathy with the Gitmo prisoners who had to witness Koran abuse. I went into a rant about how a Koran--or a Bible--is just a book. That the value it has is contained within each of our hearts and brains and that the book was just that--a book.

Further I said I thought everyone was being waaay too sensitive about this whole Koran thing. I'm a believer in Americans' right to buy a flag, and if they choose, burn it. That the flag contains nothing--it's what it represents inside us all that has value.

About that time the wife walked up and informed me that it was the prisoners' Korans that were abused, not something the guards brought in. Boy did I feel dumb! Still do. Don't know how that fact escaped me, but there it is. So my sympathy returned from where it had been.

Shut up Joe Biden! I didn't think I'd ever say that, because I like ol' Joe. But a couple of times recently he's said a couple of things I really didn't like. For one thing, he's mentioned that despite all these massive misgivings against Bolton, he intends to vote for him.

Huh?

We're supposed to find the best man for the job. When you say you have tons of misgivings, you've not found the best man for the job. Could that be any more obvious?

Joe Biden: call Dr. Howard Dean. He can help you find your spine.

Speaking of Howard Dean, Joe Biden said that Dean doesn't speak for him, or a lot of Democrats. Well, I'll tell you Joe: Dean speaks for me. I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore. When I see Republicans doing awful things to the country, I'm not going to say "I think we may be headed in the wrong direction." I'm going to say "Republicans are doing awful things to the country."

That's what Dean is doing. That being direct and forthright and to speak the truth is perceived as a mistake by you Mr. Biden is a damned shame. Because I think the only way that Democrats can stop being perceived as wimps and without a strong sense of self is for Democrats to stop being wimps and to establish a strong sense of self. This namby-pamby, meet-'m-3/4-of-the- way-towards-their-side tactics that Democrats have been using the last 2 and 1/2 decades has a very poor track record.

There. Rant done.

Deep Throat Revealed! (so why is it ME who's gagging?)

2005-05-31T18:50:00.000-07:00

So after three and a half decades of mystery, the man we've come to know as Deep Throat appears in a doorway, supported by a walker, looking frail enough to expect that death will surely be visiting in the next year or two. Strange to think that the American political landscape turned on the words uttered, the facts given by this grandfatherly-looking guy.

The bare bones facts of the Watergate Affair are bizarre and convoluted. What it boils down to is that people associated closely with the President, perhaps even Nixon himself, ordered a break-in of the Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate complex, in Washington DC. A night watchman came across the men in the headquarters, and had them arrested.

Enterprising reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward caught wind of it, started connecting the dots, and eventually were able to tie the story credibly to the White House. When it was discovered that Nixon had a taping system in his office, well...without going into too many details, the President's stack of lies began to crumble. The scandalous affair ended in the one and only resignation of a President of the United States, and a series of corrective laws which emerged in its wake.

So the question remains: why am I gagging over the revelation of who Deep Throat is? Because it made me flash back to the details of Watergate. As awesome and tacky as they are, they are nothing--nothing--in comparison to what our current President has done. Think I'm stretching the truth?

--President Bush began a war on a premise that's been since proven false. In this war,
conservative estimates claim 24,000 Iraqis have died, 1700 Americans. (I recall not a single
death caused by the Watergate scandal). You don't cause optional wars. You just don't.
--We've incurred $300,000,000,000 (300 billion) in debt to fight the Iraq war. While
Watergate cost money to prosecute, a buckets-to-0ceans is analogy is about right.
--The world in general thinks we're absolutely nuts to be in Iraq. While they thought we were
nuts during Watergate, they admired that we could uproot a cancerous aspect of our
government without a collapse of it.
--The recent memo found in England is strong evidence that Bush was committed to invade
Iraq 9 months before he ordered it, and states that he was gathering evidence to justify the
war to the American public.
--Former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neil says that Bush was planning to Invade Iraq eight months before 9-11.

Chooose any one of the above items, and it's far worse than Nixon was ever guilty of in Watergate. Far worse. That all five of them could happen under one president is chilling.
And yet the idea that Impeachment could be seriously considered for GW Bush is almost laughable. The man is so entrenched with the powers that be, his party SO in control of the mechanisms of government that even a left-ended guy like me doesn't even seriously consider the possibilty, despite all the fine reasons to impeach, or at very least, pressure him to be the 2nd President to resign. The Democrats lack the power and the Republicans lack the moral will to demand better of the president, or resist the power he wields. This is a far more shameful period of American history than Watergate ever was.

I thought the lesson of Watergate was to create government that earned its people's trust, that behaved ethically, and that admitted its mistakes as it tried to right them. The lesson of Watergate though was quite different: secure absolute power and there will be no Watergate.

Thank You, Soldiers

2005-05-29T13:38:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow's Memorial Day. I feel the need to thank those of you who have served to defend America by choice, or by any method you ended up wearing a uniform.

We on the left tend to get a lot of things thrown at us, most of which we don't deserve. One of those things often thrown our way is that we hate the military, and worse, that we hate the soldiers who are sent to the far flung ends of the globe for various reasons, and in the name of our defense.

What those who make these charges against us expect people not to realize is that our fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles have served, and have died too. And in many cases, we have served. Why would we be against the military? That's our relatives, our friends and neighbors we supposedly hate.

That kind off stupid thinking is part-n-parcel to many conservatives who don't have enough capability to process nuance to understand that an American can be against the unjust war soldiers been sent to fight, but very supportive of the soldiers who have been sent to fight it.

While I never served in uniform, I lived on military bases most all of my life 'til I was about 16. My dad was a career pilot in the Air Force. He even volunteered for Viet Nam as his last tour of duty before he retired. So if there's someone who's seen or is sympathetic to the military point of view, it's me.

That doesn't make me think that I should support sending our soldiers to Iraq. However, I think that once we did, we should have provided them the proper armor to protect themselves. I hope this isn't too nuanced for you to understand, because it makes total sense to me.

And as we come upon this solemn holiday, I can't help but think of those who have come before, in justified and unjustified wars, who have had to give all, who have had to suffer the terror of being in a war zone and seeing others around them dying. I thank you one and all for your sacrifice.

Two Measurements that will make you feel G-O-O-D

2005-05-26T18:23:00.000-07:00

Remember Freedom Fries? Two plus years ago, the Republican propaganda machine ginned up American nationalism to convince us to send our boys and girls to die in Iraq. The cynical process was bizarre on so many levels, but one of its strangest aspects was manifested in this little episode. A North Carolina Congressman got the House of Representatives cafeterias to change their menus, turning French Fries and French Toast into Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast.

It was an intentional slap in the face of the French, who refused to be bullied into supporting the invasion of Iraq. How dare those funny-talking French have their own opinion! So a pair of US Congressmen indulged in bald-faced jingoism in order to fan the coals of the efforts to convince Americans to allow invasion.

It was a really really dumb American episode, at which the world laughed uncomfortably. Who could be comfortable as the world's biggest power prepared to invade a country which hadn't so much as issued a threat to harm America?

Ah, but here's the good news: that North Carolina Congressman now doesn't support the war. He obviously feels a little foolish about his footnote in history, and now distances himself from the I Hate The French movement. I love it when people finally come around!

Remember this: it's never too late to do the right thing.

Speaking of coming around, maybe just maybe Fox News viewers are starting to wise up just a little bit. And since the best way to wise up is to stop watching, you should be encouraged to know that that's exactly what they're beginning to do.

This article details how their ratings in the key demographic--the people their advertisers want to watch Fox News--have been dwindling for the past six months.

"April '05 marks "the sixth consecutive month where FNC declined versus prior month in M-F, primetime P25-54 (every month since Nov '04),""

Since the more you watch Fox the less informed you really are, this can only be good for liberals, Democrats, and truth, and bad for Republicans, the Right wing, and our esteemed President.
So as you look around the bleak political landscape and wonder at the future of our country, note this: there are measurements which suggest that all is far from well for the powers of ignorance. These folks are getting tired of their own bull, and it's not a moment too soon!

Russert: Talk Show Host, Or Potato Head?

2005-05-22T19:52:00.000-07:00

I watched Meet the Press this morning, with Tim Russert. The guest for the entire hour was Democratic party head Howard Dean.

I think the bottom line is that if you didn't like Howard Dean before watching, you probably continued not to. And if you're like me--I like ol' Howard--then you thought he did well. A transcript of the whole hour is available at that clickable icon above, so if you have the interest, check it out.

Howard Dean is a wild card of sorts because of what he says, how he says it, and peoples' reactions to what he says. He doesn't dance around sensitive issues, he lays them out. He laments how Republicans keep getting elected on issues like God, guns and gays, when what's far more important are jobs and health care and national security. The Republicans figured out a long time ago how to hit emotional hot buttons to cause reactions in people. Those hot buttons often have little to do with peoples' day-to-day lives, but they work on election day nonetheless.

After the hour was over, my wife turned to me and complained about the format. "It's like Tim Russert pulls out every quote, yanks it out of context, then asks guests if he wasn't being too rash, or if he wanted to apologize." I was happy to see Dean stick by his word and offer no apologies.

But more importantly back to my wife's complaint, Dean spent about 47 minutes answering questions of Russert but most all of that was spent defending this or explaining that instead of being able to detail a Democratic vision. Dean was able to work that in to his response several times, but it most importantly, that wasn't Russert's objective. His objective isn't to delve into a guest's platform, but to confront him with his own words.

It's an odd format which seems like journalism--it's all about facts, right? There are dated and sourced quotes put on the screen, and well...facts don't lie, do they? That's not the really important question. What we should have after 47 minutes of watching a guest is a far better understanding of who they are, what solutions they have to offer, and how they will manifest their vision.

We didn't get that today.

I don't suggest that Mr. Potato Head (couldn't resist, with a name like Russert) isn't tough on Republicans. I've seen him be pretty strident with them too. But I will suggest that his show is far more about the heat than the light. And that one of America's premiere journalism programs is far less of one than it could be.

Tim Russert should be tough as hell on his guests. And he should ask the question--and be prepared to listen--"What is your vision for changing America for the better?" He should also say something like "We've covered a lot today, but maybe there's something we didn't hit on that you'd like to talk about..."

That doesn't mean Tim wouldn't get to probe even during guests' free question. But wouldn't it be nice if we got to see guests who didn't spend all their interview defending themselves. The questions Tim asks, regardless of the guest, tend to have a "what the hell were you thinkin'" tone to them.

So Tim, since I know you're a regular reader here (I jest) I expect a change...next weekend. Got it? Thanks!

One of the Greatest People You Never Knew Died on Saturday

2005-05-16T19:14:00.000-07:00

Although she was born in Foo Chow China, she wasn't Chinese. Although she had all the benefits of an upper middle class life, most of it was spent working to benefit those who had less. Though she had a passionate liberal streak a mile wide, she was one of the most respectful people I've ever known, even to those without the benefit of her liberal perspective.

I didn't meet her 'til she was 76 years old, but the day I met her she was out cross-country skiing. She was a textbook example of how to live life, then how to greet death. She found out last Thursday that she was going to die, then on Saturday she passed on. At home. In bed. If you've gotta go, but there aren't that many more better ways to say adieu than that.

She was former Vermont State Senator Jean Ankeney. Jean was an old school liberal, and if you don't know what that means, let me illustrate. When she lived in Cleveland as the wife of a surgeon, she started a library in a very rough, decidedly un-white neighborhood. Active in family planning, once she moved to Vermont she became active in the Planned Parenthood outlet there. Jean thought life should, if at all possible, make sense. Things like libraries and Planned Parenthood are great dispensers of sense.

In 1992 the leader of the Democratic Party in Chittenden County came to her and asked her to run for the state senate. She didn't really want to, but she figured if this young man could raise kids, complete his residency at the local hospital to become a doctor, all while being a lieutenant Governor at the same time, maybe she could give that Senate seat a run. So she told Howard Dean that she'd do it. And did. And won re-election four more times.

She and the soon-to-be Governor Dean went head-to-head a lot, though. His inflexibility on balancing the budget conflicted often with her primary focus: early childhood development and education issues. Governments often find spending wherein there's not a statue or a building to put a plaque on the most expendible, when something's got to go. But she and Dean came together more often than not, and remained friends to the end.

I met her in 1998 when I moved to Vermont ahead of my family. The idea: get to know the area to determine where to live once they got there. 4 days into looking for a place to live on my own for the 5 months before the family moved up, I came across an ad saying something like "live on 12 acre farm free in exchange for dusting and household duties." That was just what I was looking for! Decidedly cheaper than cheap.

So I went to meet her and her aunt at her farmhouse. We hit it off and I moved in the next day. I got to know Vermont on a country farm with a big barn, sheep, horses, chickens, and more snow than you could shake a snow shovel at. It was really, really great. I spent January through May walking her dogs, starting the fire in her wood stove, shoveling out the driveway, and vacuuming.

And she told me what she thought was important about Vermont. Just two things: its people, and its nature. She loved both with equal passion. And a lot of that rubbed off on me.

My family and I moved back to Texas two years later, but I stayed in contact with Jean. She was the personification of decency. And tough. Rural Vermonters are that way, especially as their bodies get older and even the simple becomes difficult.

But then last summer I took the family back for a visit to Vermont. Jean was gracious enough to let us spend, probably five nights back at her house. We got to take her up to Lake Placid on a day trip. It was a splendid day (splendid being a word Jean would have used to describe it), topped off by a brisk ride across Lake Champlain on the ferry. We exchanged lots of smiles, without any discernible reason for them other than the pleasure of the moment.

There are many kinds of great people in this world. Some demand attention and adulation, which powers their efforts. But some of the great ones just go about their work quietly, their determination to make this world a better place quiet, but resolute. Jean made no more noise than she had to, but her efforts were felt in large and small ways. Vermont without her would have still been a wonderful place, but less so.

I thank the powers that be that Jean and my paths crossed. I know she made me a better person without my even knowing it.

What's More Optimstic Than Planting a Tree?

2005-05-09T17:47:00.000-07:00

Not one darned thing. Here in Texas, where shade is more important than most other places, planting a tree is also an act of kindness to your fellow men and women.

But you should first know that here in what's called the Hill Country it's not like the John Wayne movie version of Texas. There's far more green than brown, at least 'til mid-summer. There are 40-100 foot trees all over the place. The 100' trees have their toes in the streams and rivers, and the 40' ones have roots that search deeply in the limestone and caliche for moisture.

My little town had the wisdom to turn an old railroad right-of-way into a bike path, once the tracks had been ripped up. It cuts diagonally across town and is only a mile and a quarter long. But if you're counting, that's 2 & 1/2 miles to and fro if you're looking to get a little exercise. Along the way every quarter to half mile benches have been put on both the southwest and northeast sides.

There are trees here and there, but mostly it's bathed in sunlight. As I reported here last January, the local Native Plant Society--yes, they have them in Texas--sponsored a planting of 30 trees and shrubs at the end of the bike path. I can report now that all but one survived the planting. That's a very good record.

The county's Democratic Club bought a 5' tall Burr Oak--a fine specimen in fact. And last Saturday myself and two women members showed up with shovels and mulch in hand. We found a good spot to plant the tree, where a couple of years hence it will shade a bench, and began digging. We found a few spoonfuls of soil along with the boulders we excavated, and it took about 45 minutes of hard digging to get deep enough. But finally we did. We posed for pictures with our tree, then went on home.

Planting a tree, to me, is one of the most optimistic of endeavors. It says "I believe in the future." Little trees are all about possibilities. You don't know what they'll be when they get older, but barring the worst, they'll be big, they'll be green, and they'll cast shade. And for a shady character like me, it doesn't get much better than that.

Missing in Action: THE LIBERAL PRESS

2005-05-07T05:43:00.000-07:00

We've heard it now for decades: the press has a liberal bias and pushes things which make Republicans look bad and Democrats look good.

I've worked in the press for more than 20 years now from the eastern seaboard back home to Texas and I can tell you that there are examples of both liberal and conservative bias in newsrooms all over the place. Period. There are only 2 units of measure which really matter:
1. The sum of those bias's--which bias wins out more often, or the degree of seriousness in that bias, and
2. What the press chooses NOT to cover.

Well here's an atomic bomb-sized subject NOT being covered. It's an article from the London Times talking about papers leaked pertaining to talks with American officials in July of '02. Within those papers are these quotes:
"A separate secret briefing for the meeting said Britain and America had to “create” conditions to justify a war."
and
(Jack) "Straw suggested they should “work up” an ultimatum about weapons inspectors that would “help with the legal justification”. Blair is recorded as saying that “it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors”.

This stuff references potentially impeachable offenses. They are smoking gun styled materials. Now, keep in mind I'm not saying here that the President is guilty, that here's proof; he lied. I'm not saying that here's the evidence; the President should be impeached.

What I AM saying is that this should be investigated for its legitimacy, and that it should be reported in our notoriously liberal media. Strange thing is, as I search the liberal media for mention of it, I find nothing. A scan this morning of abcnews.com, foxnews.com, msnbc.com, and the Clinton News Network (CNN.com) yields new twists and turns in Michael Jackson's trial, the fact that Harry Reid apologized to Bush for calling him a loser, and a projected winner in today's Kentucky Derby. But no mention of the scandal that's all over the papers in the UK.

"But wait!" as they say..."there's more!" 88 members of the House of Representatives have formally submitted a letter requesting more information directly from the president about this memo.
They asked:
1) Do you or anyone in your Administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?
2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization go to war? Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain's commitment to invade prior to this time?
3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?
4) At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?
5) Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to "fix" the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states?

Surely you would think that the liberal media, being served up such a scandalous buffet of tidbits would be all over this...but you'd be wrong to think that. The liberal media is missing in action.

And I gotta say, I don't want a liberal media. I want one which lives up to what it's supposed to do: cover the news in a fair and unbiased way. Investigate. Find the facts and report them. It's entirely possible that this scandal doesn't actually have merit. THAT'S what a real media's pressure and investigative might could determine...if that media existed. I'm sorry to report, that media is gone without a trace.

Ben Cohen, and our Nuclear Family

2005-05-05T18:01:00.000-07:00

Have you been here yet? It's Ben Cohen's True Majority web site. There's a :90 video within which Ben makes a point using little beads as representative of our nuclear weapons. It's pretty shocking stuff which, if true, should knock us all out of our chairs.

There's a whole lot of things that are done with our tax dollar of which we have hardly a clue. Decisions made a time zone and a thousand miles from here easily go undetected. It would be interesting to know if Cohen's little video is accurate...let me know if you find something out.

The PUBLIC Broadcasting System

2005-05-02T20:42:00.000-07:00

Could we play a little game here? Let's play like you've never heard of PBS, and I'm going to tell you some things about it. I really want you to try to discorporate from whatever suppositions you have about the network. Here's a 1-paragraph snapshot of its purpose:

PBS was created in 1967 "not to sell products," but to "enhance citizenship and public service." This vision was articulated by the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television, which proposed a system free of commercial constraints that would serve as "a forum for debate and controversy," providing a "voice for groups in the community that may otherwise go unheard" so that we could "see America whole, in all its diversity."

1. PBS was created to be free of commercial influence.
2. PBS was created to help Americans be better citizens.
3. PBS was created to be a forum for debate and controversy.
4. PBS was created to be a vehicle for the disenfranchised to be heard.

It's important to keep these things in mind because PBS is up to its eyeballs in criticism these days. In its attempts to be free of commercial influence, it's run donors and potential donors off because of programs which haven't pulled punches in their criticisms of those donors, or the industries they represent. People who give millions of dollars to have their names associated with PBS aren't fond of being criticized by same.

PBS lives up to its pledge to help make Americans better citizens by holding candidate forums and debates, both regionally and locally so that voters can become more acquainted with candidates' views. The Newshour with Jim Lehrer takes the time it takes to go into stories in depth. And there are dozens of other ways that PBS empowers viewers with information that will only enhance their understanding of our world.

#3 above is where PBS really gets into hot water. Its mission is to be a forum for debate and controversy has gone more unrealized than not. Though every few years some Republican or another gets so angry that tax dollars are going towards a network which doesn't cowtow towards him that he proposes de-funding PBS. As quickly as the politician proposes it viewers shout them down, and the de-funding attempt tends to rot on the vine. But now Republicans control the House, the Senate, the Presidency and the Supreme Court. If ever there were a time when it could happen, now's that time.

And then there's #4: Gays are disenfranchised. Don't believe it? What other subset of our culture has had the President propose a constitutional amendment to keep them from having the rights that the rest of us do? If they'd been black, hispanic, oriental, the President would have been shouted down as a bigot. But since it was gays Bush was talking about, he didn't get his way, but he got his objective: to enflame his bigoted base just in time for last November's election.

That aside, I'm referring here to this controversy about this children's program on PBS. Postcards From Buster is about an animated rabbit who goes all around the country finding out how different Americans live. Well, how dare Buster go off to Vermont and visit a household with two mommies who were operating a farm that was turning maple sap into maple syrup. There was of course no mention of homosexuality or gayness. There were just two mommies in that house.

By the reaction of the right wing media you'd think Michael Jackson had declared he was opening up a home for wayward boys. In the firestorm of controversy, PBS pulled the episode from its schedule and took a pretty big black eye from right wing special interests. Going back to its charter, PBS failed to live up to #3 or #4, despite its best efforts.

So as you read this with your own opinion, and you're perhaps thinking that "yeah, but PBS needs to be fair and balanced" I'll tell you that no--it doesn't. It needs to live up to its charge. The ideas of the right wing and of conservatives, and of business and the mainstream culture is well represented in the media. There are what? 2 or 3 all business networks, plus all the cable news outfits have hour-long programs on about business + special cut-ins constantly letting us know where the stock market is going.

But let's just say you're disenfranchised. What the heck--I'll say gay. Where's your network? Which programs can you point to which represent your interests, push information that's important for gay people to know? I don't think a half-hour of Will and Grace every week quite cuts it.

My point is that the units of measure we might judge PBS--the fair and balanced one--is not a valid measure because that is not its purpose.

Uncle Sam Wants YOU. He Really Wants You...

2005-04-30T05:24:00.000-07:00

I was going to start by saying that I can't imagine being 17 now, and facing a war wherein Americans were dying every day. I've seen a half century come and go, so it's been quite some time since I was that full of piss and vinegar.

But then, when I was 17 several dozen to hundreds young people every week were coming home from Viet Nam in flag-draped coffins (that were able to be photographed back then). So, while it's been a long time, I have deep in my memory that dull fear of the possibility that I might be sent to a distant place to die for something that no one could quite put their finger on.

There was very little fighting the good fight romance to the war back then, and the same can be said for now. In Iraq there's no specific person--an enemy whose troops have invaded other countries and must be turned back. We're the troops who have invaded a country, and a goodly percentage of the people there hate us and want us gone.

It's against that backdrop that the Army is having a hard time meeting its recruitment quota. With the US's unpredictable economy, and daunting outsourcing problems, many young people these days look around their respective home towns and see little of interest and few solid possibilities for the future. Military service seems like a viable possibility.

Ah, but then there's the Iraq war. I believe there's a collective sense that this was an elective war. And since they're the ones who pay the price, our volunteer military has every right to its doubts and its fears.

So a high school student in Colorado decided to do a little investigative journalism to see if his local recruiters would bend...or even break the rules to get him to sign up. The local news report on the matter is here and quite worth watching. Two separate recruiters urged him to lie, and even create a fake diploma to be accepted into the military.

This all hits a little closer to home though for me. Since my daughter has turned 16, she's gotten several items from the Army encouraging her to consider enlistment. As someone who's watched our president send more than 1500 Americans to their deaths for a war he can nowhere near justify to me, I'm angry that my child is being encouraged to consider the Army. Lord knows if Bush were of enlistment age, his privileged ass would see no combat.

The brave young men and women who volunteer to serve have every right to believe that their president will only send them to fight and die when all other possibilities have been exhausted. I feel horribly for those who believed that about this president because they were not only wrong, they were the ones who paid the ultimate price for his errors in judgment.

Doing My Sunday Best in the Name of Religion

2005-04-24T18:36:00.000-07:00

I'm all worked up, and nowhere to go...so maybe where I should go is to blog city.

Where does this "I believe, therefore YOU must too..." attitude come from? I'm referring of course to this ever-increasing presence of the religious right in politics. Over the past several years, beginning with Reagan and culminating in the Bush administration, there's been a presence, then an influence, and now it seems a dominance of attitude over the Republicans by fundamentalists. These folks want to re-make the world, and the world they want to see is where there's no Rap, there's no porn, there's no abortion, there's prayer in school (whether you want it or not!), and the white girls date who it is they ought to date. You know what I mean.

Y'know, there are quite a number of things I'd like in this world. I'd like it if there were gates around Washington DC and at the checkpoint to get in there was a great big LOBBYISTMETER. If that Lobbyistmeter went off, then the person wouldn't be allowed into the nation's capitol.

I'd like it if all the manufacturers got together and issued a statement something like "we realize we haven't looked after this ol' world like we should. We're all going to try lots harder to stop polluting so much. Instead of resisting, we're going to embrace change on this issue. And by the way, we're sorry..."

I'd like it if all those morons with jacked up pickup trucks with huge tires and the stickers on the back window where someone is pissing on a Ford logo, or pissing on a Cheverolet logo, would all go and live in one state. Nebraska. Mississippi. I don't care where, but someplace far away from here. They're such obnoxious people.

I'd like it if everyone who wanted to work could get a job. I'd be happy to see everyone who's sick get the help they need to get better. I'd like to see the auto industry release every last invention it has which increases gas mileage.

There's a lot of things I'd like to have happen, but the down side to being a free country is that we all have the right to make bad decisions. It's a right we hold dearly here it seems, because we make so many of them.

Back to Fundamentalist Christians. Thank you, but no thank you. I don't believe that Jesus is on your side. He didn't believe in making war, and surely not for the half-baked reasons your leader cooked up. Jesus believed that people should embrace the truth because they felt they should embrace the truth. Not because they were pressured to do so by a government.

This marriage of the extreme religious right with the current day Republican Leadership is spooky. It ain't Taliban Spooky, but it's definitely Twilight Zone spooky. I urge you, resist it. If you're in a setting where someone wants to steamroll you with their religion, politely decline to participate. Or if they wanna argue, do! Let 'em know that there are other intelligent perspectives and that they don't get to ride roughshod over people who aren't on the same page as them. If they can't handle that, tough! This is America buddy; we all have a right to our opinions. Can't handle that? Then choose the Theocracy of your preference and move. This country has a freedom of--and from--religion. That means you can worship however the heck you want to...but that doesn't mean I have to.

More Shameful Republican Behavior

2005-04-22T04:09:00.000-07:00

First off though, a tip of the hat to Congressman Henry Hyde. Though I'm about to read him the riot act, I also think it's important to note that at least Hyde was honest about this issue. Honesty is an increasingly rare attribute in politicians these days, even if what he's being honest about is a shameful event.

Hyde was recently asked if the Clinton impeachment was payback for the Nixon impeachment. He couldn't say it wasn't. "That's not an admission" you might offer, to which I'd reply "if it weren't payback the proper answer is something like "absolutely not!" Hyde's "can't say it wasn't" was PR-talk for "okay, I admit it: it was."

He went on to say that if he had it to do all over again, he probably wouldn't. He felt that at that time the Republican party had to stand for something and to walk away wouldn't have been right. And I agree with him. That's why the House is given the option to censure. Looking at things comparatively, censure is prison time, impeachment is the death penalty.

So the Republicans, in the name of standing for something, and in retaliation for the Nixon impeachment, sentenced Clinton to the most severe of penalties for his behavior. That kind of collective thought process isn't good government. It's shameful. They made two errors, compounded by the rest of reality, which I'll get to in a moment.
Error #1: making a decision based on retribution for absolutely un-related matters (the Nixon impeachment)
Error #2: giving the president the harshest penalty possible, instead of something which more befit the presidential misbehavior.

To top it all off, nearly all the movers and shakers on the Republican side--including Hyde-- were found to have participated in similar behavior themselves. Did they tender their resignations? Only one--Bob Livingston.

So the most severe of steps to rein in presidential misbehavior was done for reasons that weren't earnest, weren't what they were stated to be, and weren't in the national interest.

There's no way to take ego out of the political process--it's part-n-parcel to it. But we have to do better than this. And I'm ashamed to add that I suspect the quality of politicians has only eroded in the last 6 years, not improved.

There's No Hope. Not a Bit

2005-04-20T03:30:00.000-07:00

There are times where you wanna grab a 2 X 4 and beat yourself upside the head, if for no other reason than because maybe if you do, it'll cause you to see the world in the skewed way that so many others do. Our country has gotten so strange that I've come to call the aspect of it (the strangeness where we hear from those in power that up is down, good is bad, that no child is left behind etc.) the bizarro world. Because really, reality in America defies definition these days.

Last night the wife and I were watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. It's one of our favorite parts of the day. Stewart is decidedly left of center, but with a very comedic twist. A cadre of irreverant and hilarious reporters deliver satirical takes on the day's top stories, and last night it was Samantha Bee's turn. Her focus: the "Town Hall" meetings that the Bush administration has been conducting throughout the nation.

These town hall meetings are every bit as genuine to open debate as Stepford is to the institution of marriage. As Swanson frozen dinners are to fine cuisine. As current journalism is to a free press.

So, in order to go in depth about the Town Hall Meetings, she sought out their originator, Frank Luntz. Well, ol' Frank has his own research company which you can find on the web. Right there on his web site he quotes someone who's diametrically 0pposed to what he does--Al Franken:
“Asking Frank Luntz if he understands public opinion is like asking Julia Child if she knows how to make a soufflé.”
Here in bizarro world you can quote people who hate what you do if it makes you look good.

Okay...so Samantha goes to talk to Frank Luntz, who's remarkably candid about what he does.
They watch a videotape of a Town Hall meeting and he points out that the most important thing is a good backdrop. The backdrop shown has a great smattering of Americans, including (he points out) a black, a woman, Asians...this appearing inclusive for the cameras is quite important.

And of course the big banner in the back, which says Saving Social Security. He points out that whatever this backdrop is, they need to be short-n-sweet, and to have a repetitive consonant (note the SSS).

As I'm being entertained, I can't help but note that one of the prime movers-n-shakers of the Republican party--this is the guy who came up with the name Clear Skies Initiative for a program which allows polluters to exchange the right to pollute with one another-- has gone on national television to point out the tremendous vapidity of their message, not to mention the techniques of how they sell such stupidity.

This, as I feel the need to point out again, is bizarro world. This is the world we live in today, where there is such a lack of shame that someone can stand proudly next to their work, which consists of marketing a pile of dog poo as something fabulous, something beautiful, something special, and say with earnest smiles that they do good.

Bizarro world. The US of A in 2005. Where what something's called is far more important than what it is. Where what something does is far less important than what it seems to do. Where what something appears to be is far more important than what it is.

I'd like to add some more to this, but for now, gotta run. I'm headed to the Home Depot so I can buy a 2 X 4.

The Essential Difference Between Them and Us

2005-04-15T19:07:00.000-07:00

As the battle looms in the senate over whether or not they will change the Constitutionally-guaranteed right to filibuster, there are those of legal mind who can tell you more legalities than you have the patience to listen to. I'm going to stick to areas where I know a little something: psychology.

There is a Tsunami of conservatism in this country right now which threatens anyone with half a free-thinking bone in his body. If you're reading this blog, I'm probably talking about you. Why does it threaten? Because the evangelical Christian right isn't just content to raise their families how they want, home school with a ciriculum which conforms to their belief, have a stranglehold on the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court and the Presidency. No, that's simply not enough. They want to create such a grip on power that those who think differently are just shit outta luck. And perhaps even an endangered species.

I don't know about you, but my Christian upbringing taught me to believe that wasn't fair. One of the things that stuck with me, even after a lot of the rest went away is this: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Christian or not, that's powerful stuff, doncha think?

But back to politics: if they're able to wrest the last significant point of power Democrats have to resist their dominance, they'll be stocking judgeships with people of like mind and ruling propensities.

Still not rattled?

Once they do, they'll close "head shops" like the one in Austin where I bought my "Why is there always money for war, but not education?" bumper sticker. They'll decide that the internet is waaaay too free and clean it up. But as they "clean" it up, will they stop with porn, or will they continue on to places like this, where folks who don't believe as they do say what they want? Ladies--I suspect your right to choose will be gone within 2 or 3 years. Abortion's a darned ugly a thing, but not as ugly as the reality of not having the right to make your own decision about it. Then there's prayer in school.
Jewish? Just bow your head; the prayer will go by quickly.
Muslim? Look...you're lucky we tolerate you in these parts.
Atheist? Y'know what? I think you need an ass whuppin'...

So the difference between us and them is that I think they should have the right to be as Christian as they wanna be. But they don't think I should have the right to be who I am, if I'm not like them.

Two Important points here:
1. One of the key points of Christianity is Free Will. You're supposed to choose Jesus, not have him shoved down your throat.
2. This is America. They're proud Americans. Isn't this the land of the Free? Well...not if they get control.

So the difference between them and us is in my world, they're safe. In their world, I'm...well, the enemy.

The Most UN-Wise Choice for the UN

2005-04-13T03:36:00.000-07:00

I've stayed out of the John Bolton for Ambassador to the UN fight. I mean, what do I really know about international politics? Finally I realize though, what the hell do I have to know about international politics when I know common sense?

You've probably heard the quotes from John Bolton, regarding the UN: "There's no such thing as the United Nations," John Bolton declared in 1994. ''If the U.N. secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference.''

And this is the guy we're wanting to send to that building to represent us? Common sense tells me that if I work in the UN representing my foreign country, or even if I work there as a US citizen, Bolton probably despises me just because that's what I do.

North Korea has called him a "human scum and bloodsucker."
Allright. So you tell me: with North Korea factoring huge in our future as an alleged member of the Axis of Evil, how smart is it to have as your UN Representative someone who has earned such richly descriptive titles from them? Doesn't common sense tell you we ought to have someone who's not openly despised by one of our chief enemies?

And in this article it's revealed that Bolton is a serial abuser, in terms of his management style. Here, common sense tells me that the UN is supposed to be all about diplomacy, and we're looking to send a management-through-intimidation serial abuser to the UN?

Diplomacy. That word seems to have little meaning to Bolton. Here's one of www.dictionary.com 's definitions of the word: "Tact and skill in dealing with people." Sound like John Bolton to you?

Once again, these people calling the shots in DC are calling almost all the wrong ones. Could anything be more clear?

What's the Deal With Right-Wingers and Judges?

2005-04-10T07:17:00.000-07:00

You'd think the recent bad hits Republicans had taken over Delay's veiled threats to judges ("The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior.") and then Senator John Cornyn's damned
stupid follow-up and reaction to it, that maybe they would take the foot off the accelerator a bit and let the engines cool.

There you go, using your common sense again! I'm talking about the Republican leadership, who, if you look very carefully, is on a mad rush toward a Taliban-esque one-ness of thought. It goes something like this:
We're always right. They're always wrong. Period.

And the only reason it's not something that I laugh about is that these folks aren't a curiosity. They're in charge.

But back to my original point. In this article we find that conservative leaders went to Washington to discuss the topic "Remedies to Judicial Tyranny." Mmm...to which tyrannical judges might they be referring? How about Reagan appointee Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy?

"Okay" you're thinking. "Just more theatrics from the bizarro parade of the right wing of the right wing party...no biggie, right?" Wrong. Then lawyer/author Edwin Vieira says this about Kennedy, quoting of all people, Joseph Stalin: "He had a slogan, and it worked very well for him, whenever he ran into difficulty: 'no man, no problem,' " Vieira said.

If you're scratching your head wondering exactly what that was supposed to mean, maybe you'd like to see the rest of the Stalin quote: "Death solves all problems: no man, no problem."

So...why hasn't Edwin Viera been at least questioned by police for threatening a Supreme Court Justice? Because as I said before, these folks are in charge. (this is the point where, if it hasn't before, you hear the Twilight Zone music and a chill runs up your spine.)

Don't Delay!

2005-04-07T05:31:00.000-07:00

Let's Investigate Tom...Today!

Are you anything like me? I'm a guy who likes my government served straight up, hold the corruption, please. I've got no use for it.

But recent developments in the nation's capitol leave me shaking my head in disbelief. Or it would be disbelief if it weren't Tom Delay we were talking about. I've gotten to where I believe most anything about him.

The leader of the republican party in the House has been the subject of four separate ethics investigations. Ethics. Remember them? How does Mr. Delay reconcile his allegedly fundamentalist Christian beliefs with fundamentally corrupt behavior? And for that matter, how about his fundamentalist followers? Aren't they beginning to get a little uncomfortable about now? If you're going to err on the side of life, please also remember to err on the side of ethics!

Here's a handy site that's filled-to-overflowing with the transgressions of Tom Delay. The head of the Ethics Committee (Representative Joel Hefley) actually believed that he was supposed to help maintain Ethical standards in Congress instead of just be a figurehead, and did so. Boy, was he ever mistaken! Tom Delay (by way of Dennis Hastert) had him removed.

Interesting Tom Delay move #1: instead of changing your unethical behavior, change the head of the ethics committee!

Interesting Tom Delay move #2: Get rid of two Republican members of the committee who actually believed Delay had an obligation to behave ethically and replace them with two running buddies. Can you guess who one of them is? Well, it's none other than my very own living, breathing representative dedicated to the lower realms of mediocrity, Lamar Smith!

Question for you: do you think Lamar Smith's $10,000 contribution to Tom Delay's legal defense fund might signal that he's going to be an objective arbiter of Ethics? Letsee here...hell freezes over when?

And another question: could things get any worse? I suspect they can, even though that's awfully hard to believe!

What is it about Texas...

2005-04-04T20:56:00.000-07:00

...that produces such world class rectal orifices? I really try to steer clear of name-calling, but Lawd a'mighty...these three stooges deserve every last name we can throw their way.

Hailing from Texas there's George W. (though he's as much a product of the northeast, despite that Texas accent that remarkably, no one else in his family has [explain that one, willya?]). There's Tom Delay...oh, don't get me started. And now there's John Cornyn.

Senator John Cornyn hasn't distinguished himself through too much bizarre behavior yet, but give him time. He's just getting started. Regarding the Terri Schiavo ruling he said this on the Senate floor:
"It causes a lot of people, including me, great distress to see judges use the authority that they have been given to make raw political or ideological decisions," he said.

Let me translate for you: "When judges rule other than the way I want it, that's ideological! Rule the way I want them to and they're good judges."

Why would I say that? Because if judges ruled to allow school-conducted prayer, there's not a snowball's chance in hell Cornyn would consider that a political or ideological decision. They'd consider them courageous and outstanding judges.

And if you're thinking "maybe we should allow prayer in school..." remember, there's not one law that says you can't pray in school. You can pray any time you want to. The law prohibits the school from conducting the prayer. The Jewish students, the Muslim students and the non-believers are quite glad that here in the land of the free they aren't compelled to pray in Jesus' name, just like Christians and Jews aren't too inclined to pray to Allah. As proud Americans, we ought to be glad that we have freedom of--and from--religion. You want religion to be the law of the land? Move to Iran!

But back to the Texas buffoon-du-jour, Senator Cornyn. Unwisely, he didn't stop there.
"I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection, but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. . . . And I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters, on some occasions, where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public."

My grasp of the English language tells me that he's drawing a connection between courthouse violence and judges' decisions. He doesn't justify it, but linking the two together is in one sense, exactly that.
1. Judge makes bad ruling, so
2. As a result, this other guy does that.

When in fact what he should say is this:
1. Loony bin gets a gun, and
2. Loony bin shoots a judge.

Those judges aren't being accountable, so let's shoot them! To be fair, Cornyn doesn't suggest the loony bins' actions are justified. But to understand in any fashion their actions shows a perceived common ground on Cornyn's part. To have Tom Delay issuing a veiled threat, then John Cornyn vocalizing an even tenuous understanding of why the loony bins do what they do, all in one week...Lawd have mercy!

Texas has unleased an unprecedented spate of stupidity on the rest of the nation. If you've heard it from no other Texan, hear it from me now. I'm so sorry that these fools are running the show. 'Course, you all supposedly voted George W. back into office after having 4 years' worth of reasons not to...so I suppose there's enough blame to go around.

The Parade of Buffoons, Disguised as Leaders

2005-04-03T07:09:00.000-07:00

Most of the time I shake my head and wonder how these guys have managed to get so far without being laughed out of their jobs. I'm talking about the Tom DeLays of the world. These folks are genetically incapable of understanding how anyone could see things differently than they do. But the worrisome part of their personalities isn't their ignorance. It's their outrage at the possibility anyone could see things unlike they do that should cause us concern.

Surely you've heard what Delay said about the judges who ruled against Terri Schiavo's parents? His veiled threat was irresponsible beyond words. And this guy isn't some two-bit congressman from a backwater district. He's the leader of the Republican party in the house. This is thug-like behavior. The best and brightest should be running things, not two-bit asses like Delay.

There is a slice of people in the right wing, and Delay is their figurehead, who obsess about right-to-life issues. Thing is, their right-to-life logic plays out very strangely. Some of them actually feel as though they have a right to kill in the name of "life." And while Bush isn't that strange, he's not against courting the votes and emotion of those who are. He rarely distances himself from the extreme right wing, because he taps into their passion for his own good.

While claiming he errs on the side of life, Bush managed to oversee the execution of 152 men and women in Texas prisons. And that's to speak nothing of the unnecessary war that Bush waged in Irag, which may have killed as many as 100,000 people.

This erring on the side of life stance is flimsier than a rained-on paper towel.

Bush and DeLay are masters at exploiting the emotions of a public which has a superficial view of the life-n-death issue. They take our outrage at murder and focus it on those convicted of murder. Fine. But what about their alleged respect for the culture of life? Where does Bush's logic go when as governor, he signed away the lives of 152 people?

Regarding Schiavo, he and DeLay embraced the life issue of a woman who's been brain dead for 15 years. What an emotional drain it's been for the family to maintain a shell of a person in a bed for a decade and a half! Terri Schiavo had long ago checked out. But the home video of her made her look as though she were "there." So that emotional button was pushed, and then exploited by the culture of life folks.

And then when it was all over and done with, Tom DeLay issued threats. Can someone tell me why he hasn't been arrested for this?

Their logic is inconsistent, and emotion-based rather than fact based. That's a volatile combination that scares me more than any terrorist.

This Is My Einstein Whinestein

2005-03-30T16:05:00.000-08:00

Energy is neither created, nor destroyed. That's what Mr. Einstein told us. But just like free will, it's what you do with that energy that really matters.

I was taking my Diet Dr. Pepper can to the lunch room the other day to drop it into the big plastic barrel with the can-sized hole in the top. It's the place where anyone who has an environmental bone in their body takes their cans and recycles them.

I dropped it in and turned to leave. A woman who works not far from me had just finished lunch. She approached the trash can and recycling can inches away from it, then dropped her trash, and her aluminum can in the trash. I was so angry...

Not sure if recycling instead is a good thing? Read this. You don't have to be a wacked-out tree-hugging environmentalist to realize that it just plain makes sense. In 2002, we recycled enough cans so as to save the equivalent to 15 billion barrels of crude. That's a lot of oil. And that kind of behavior can make Americans less dependent on foreign-drilled energy sources.

But back to my co-worker. She's a degreed professional who has no excuse but to know that recycling her can was wise, tossing it dumb. And the cans were right next to one another. She elected to toss it anyway. How can she have all that education and still be so stupid?

So while energy can neither be created or destroyed, it CAN be recyled and used again. We have the free will to do whatever we wish. And I wish we'd be a little smarter on things like this.

So uh...do you recycle?

Sleazebag City

2005-03-29T10:30:00.000-08:00

It’s Tom Delay, one of the most powerful politicians in the country. He’s elected with the help of the Christian right, to whom such things like honesty and propriety likely mean something. So what do they think of this? Click on Act Now, Without Delay. If you're reading this after 3/29, click on Archive and search for Tuesday March 29th.

The leader of the House of Representatives has been admonished three times by the House Ethics Committee just this year. Does that raise your eyebrows a bit? So who’s on the House Ethics Committee? None other than MY representative, wacked out fool Lamar Smith. I got to ruin a photo opportunity one time several years ago with Lamar Smith. He tried to lay out a lie about the Endangered Species act and I had told an Audubon Society friend about his photo-op. She showed up and questioned him where he thought there would be no questions, just an easy photo-op. He claimed that ranchers could no longer cut down cedar like the one he was standing next to.

"Yes they can" she maintained. She was right, he was wrong, and he knew it.

“Who invited you to this thing?” she said he asked her. I take some pride in having been the one!
But back to Tom Delay: He’s got a legal defense committee, on which Lamar Smith serves. Now this is the same time Lamar serves on the House Ethics Committee, which investigates Tom Delay.

‘Scuse me? I don’t smell a rat. I smell a vat of rat stew!

Born Again Christians: can you answer me why you’re not concerned with the ethics of one of your most beloved congressmen? Do you just turn off your concern about honesty when it comes to someone who’s exercising power for you in congress? That’s hypocritical, and in no small way. Jesus looked un-kindly at hypocrisy. If you really DO have ethical beliefs, I urge you to start applying them to Tom Delay. Because his ethics are at very least in question.

The Deer Wandered Out In Front Of My Truck

2005-03-28T18:33:00.000-08:00

Boy, was I glad when I could steer out of the way and not hit him.

I've almost hit deer dozens and dozens of times. There was one time when a fawn moseyed up in front of me on a dirt road, then disappeared under my front bumper as I skidded to a dusty stop. I was driving a jacked-up truck and to my relief, and the deer re-emerged out of the dust behind me, hopping up and running off. I couldn't believe I hadn't killed him, and I may in fact have not even hurt him.

Another time I was in the passenger seat when I saw a deer off to my right running at about a 45 degree angle. Towards the car. We were going about 35 mph and he had the peddle to the deer metal himself, running about as fast as deer run. And he kept coming. Coming right towards me. Angling for the door I sat an inch away from. He got so close I could see the fear in his eyes. And then he hit and I could feel the impact on my shoulder, and hear that metal collide with flesh-n-bone. We stopped the car in time to see the deer get up, look really embarrassed like "man...what kind of idiot am I??" and then bound off over a fence onto the neighboring ranch.

Here in the Hill Country, deer are a dime a dozen. They're really a pest hereabouts, growing in such numbers that they threaten the new crops of the indigenous hardwoods trying to grow. As little red oaks struggle to get tall enough to get the light their fresh, young salad-like leaves need (you see where I'm goin' with this?), deer come along and have an afternoon snack on those tender little leaves. That happens a few times and young master red oak never gets to become a mister.

But I must say, one of the images I've always wondered about with deer is this: they're so secretive and quiet as they move through the woods. They kinda hang together, maybe a half-dozen or more of them. I wonder sometimes if one group of deer, moving along with almost no sound, ever come across another group of nearly soundless deerfolk...and then at the last minute one sees another and nearly jumps out of their pelts shrieking in fear
"Man, you scared the hell out of me!"
"No dude, you scared me!"
"Don't you come sneaking up me like that...for all I know you couldda been a coyote!"

I imagine this scene often, to my delight. Kinda helps kill time inbetween bizarre real-life deer episodes on the highway.

The Magic of Chickenfoot

2005-03-27T18:37:00.000-08:00

If you read the title: The Magic of Chickenfoot, and wondered if I'd been delving into Voodoo, fear ye not. The Voodoo I do is no more than the Voodoo you do.
Sorry about that sentence. It was just too fun to pass up.

No, Chickenfoot is one of the games you can play with Dominoes. My parents taught my wife and me Chickenfoot a dozen or more years ago. And a few years after that, we introduced it to my daughter, who's now 16. She's always gotten a big kick out of it.

When we go out and visit my West Texas parents every few months, the Chickenfoot games we play are one of the few places where I see my daughter act like a 16 year-old acted when I was a kid.

Teen-oriented Television is a fabulous HOW-TO network where they are taught to be sullen, demanding and self-centered to a "T." While teenagers may or may not be able to pull off good grades, may or may not be able to make the team, may or may not have a clean room, nearly every last one of them is fully capable of believing at any given time that the universe does in fact revolve around them.

Ah, but a spirited game of Chickenfoot, wherein all that matters is getting rid of a domino that will penalize you tremendously...and the sullen teenager disappears to the other end of said universe, and is replaced by a smiling, laughing, kid.

Unlike when my daughter rides her horse or competes on her Acro-gymnastics team, my plus and minus 80 year-old parents were competing on the same playing field with her. And last night after almost 2 hours of Chickenfoot, my nearly 82 year-old dad beat us all at Chickenfoot.
Not reflected in the score though, was my win. I got to see my daughter, whose life is so very unlike that of her grandparents, share some great moments with them. And sharing those was worth a little Voodoo...even if no chickens were sacrificed in the process.

What's Missing From Republicans in the Terri Schiavo Case:

2005-03-27T17:15:00.000-08:00

Rational Interchange

Tom Delays the arrival of rational thought concerning the Terri Schiavo case by saying things like this: "That Americans would be so barbaric as to pull a feeding tube out of a person that is lucid and starve them to death for two weeks."

What part of brain dead does Tom Delay not understand? The only way the words lucid and brain dead belong in the same sentence is if, for instance, someone said "At one time Tom Delay seemed lucid, but now he's obviously brain dead." Now that would make sense.

Here's the whole article.

Things have gotten so strange that you have to laugh. And if you want to make that easier go here where Delay is said to have claimed that Terri Schaivo is mulling over a run for the House of Representatives in '06.

I don't want you to think that I have no sympathy with Ms. Schiavo or the Schindler's. I can't fathom the hardship this has been on her parents, or for that matter Michael Schiavo. But there comes a time when you have to let go.

If, as these born again Christians believe, that there is a far better world that the good folk go to after this one's through, why in the world wouldn't they be happy that Ms. Schiavo would be going there, instead of being kept in a medically-mandated limbo in hospital hell? I believe that pulling her feeding tube is in fact the humane choice.

Have Republicans Found Their Collective Hearts?

2005-03-23T20:49:00.000-08:00

Of course not. What they've found is yet another issue with which to frame the debate in the eyes of the American public. They're wanting to appear the kinder, gentler humanists against the Democrats--the party hoping to starve a young woman to death.

Republicans have dug deep to find previously little-used words like compassion and precious when referring to the value of human life. And in specific, the one human they're talking about is Terri Schaivo. These compassionate Republicans who find life so precious are the same folks who cut or discourage programs which benefit America's poor.

There is a disingenuousness to this whole affair that's about as angering as anything I've encountered of late. The Republican leadership continues to say one thing, do another, and at the same time, try like hell to make Democrats look bad in the process.

Ah, but maybe the American public is getting wise to this kind of manipulation. An ABC News Poll finds that 68% of Americans think removal of Ms. Schaivo's feeding tube was the right thing to do. And they thought that despite news coverage which was emotionally slanted toward the parents and away from Michael Schaivo. Just now as I type this out, Pat Boone's on Larry King weighing in on the matter. To which I respond Ain't That A Shame...

America, I gotta say: if you're looking to show some heart, go down and volunteer at an old folks home. You want to do something kind for someone in need? How about homeless children who are suffering along with their parents? Maybe you could take them some books to read, or pay for a medical visit? Besides not having a regular home life, Lord knows they're not getting the medical checkups they could use.

Deciding that a woman who's been in a vegetative state for 15 years should be the national focus of an outpouring of love, when there are millions of Americans who are fully awake, fully aware, and fully in need of so much, is testimony to how bizarre this society has become. On the up side, the ABC Poll cited above may encourage the public opinion whores deeply imbedded in the Republican leadership quit while they're behind on this fool's endeavor.

Republicans: The Party of Hypocrisy

2005-03-21T20:35:00.000-08:00

First, an apology to you respectable Republicans. I know you're out there. I know a number of respectable Republicans. But your party leadership, and a goodly percentage of your representatives are slimes of the highest order. On 2nd thought, they're slimes of the lowest order. I wouldn't want to give them any more credit than they deserve.

My current beef--and it's an Omaha corn-fed critter of massive proportions--is the Terri Schiavo case. I'm no medical ethicist. But after 15 years of measureable un-responsiveness, it seems pretty odd to not let her go to her just rewards. Her wishes were to not be kept alive medically. Her husband wants to let her go. But her parents can't handle it.

My beef is not with her parents. As far as I'm concerned, they have the right to try whatever they want. It's our Republican government and the President that I'd like to throttle. This culture of life thing they've been tossing out in poetic terms, and whispers and seemingly heartfelt gestures is a poles-apart message than was delivered with the Shock-n-Awe. That Culture-of-life message killed as many as 100,000 Iraqis. If you have the misfortune to live in Darfur, that message-of-life thing isn't playing too well. Another place where the culture-of-life is systematically dying is here in Texas where we kill more people convicted of murder than anywhere in the US.

Ah, but that's not all. There's the little matter of a bill then Governor GW Bush signed before his late-life discovery of the culture of life. The bill allows hospitals against the will of patients' parents to disconnect life support from said patients, amongst other reasons, for the inability to pay.

That ol' Culture o' Life gives way to the Culture o' Cash on the barrelhead. And Mr. Bush, despite the Tsunami-caused great loss of life, couldn't be bothered to even appear outside of his ranch to make a statement of concern and commit to significant help after two days. Yet the potential death of ONE PERSON warranted cutting short a ranch weekend to get back to DC and sign a bill. Why? To properly exploit Terri Schiavo medical condition to the benefit of the Republican party.

But wait! There's more! The Republicans circulated a memo to themselves detailing how they can exploit the Terri Schiavo case at the Democrats' expense.

Americans: how much longer will you allow these sleazebags to continue to say one thing, and do another?

A Hobbit That's Hard To Break

2005-03-20T20:10:00.000-08:00

If you're thinking that the above picture is a still from the Fellowship of the Ring movie, and you expect to see hobbits racing around the porch, no. That's not Middle Earth you're seeing there. It's Vermont.

I moved into this house in Vermont about the time that the name Monica Lewinsky was first being heard on your evening news. And I moved from Vermont back to Texas 2+ years later, about the time they made Civil Unions legal in VT.

This blog has no hidden agendas or political meanings...it's just a little postcard from me to a place I really love. Vermont, this is for you: smooch!

Horse Sense vs. the Horse

2005-03-19T20:08:00.000-08:00

Two lights lit the arena where my 16 year-old daughter woman-handled a 1200 pound horse. The side reins she put on her helped control her, but let's face it: most of that 1200 pounds was muscle. She was more than a handful.

Most horses assume the human beasts are superior to them. Because of this, and their non-aggressive nature, few set out to actually hurt people. While many riders get hurt and frequently killed by horses, it's almost never because the horse got mad and used his far superior strength to kill. It's usually a rider mistake of timing or weight shift which leaves them on the ground, or under hoof.

As the dad of the 16 year-old that was woman-handling the hooved beast, I was not having a good time. A thunderstorm brewed on the southern horizon and the lightning was getting closer, the thunder louder. This mare was a thoroughbred, a thoroughly spooky one at that. Thousands of years ago, horses learned to survive by bolting at the earliest possible sign of danger. This horse was in touch with her roots, because she was trying to spook at every shadow, anything which might conceivably be cause for fear.

My daughter wasn't actually up to par either. She hopped in the local lake yesterday right at the place where someone had kindly placed a beer bottle. A broken one.

Y'know, there are few I like less than litterbugs. But that subset of person who would break a beer bottle and toss in in the water where people swim...yeah, I'd like to bury them up to their necks in dirt, smear honey all over their heads, then dig up a fire ant mound, depositing a good portion of it on his head.

So as my daughter tried to keep this strapping sixteen-hand mare controlled, she was doing it with a big slash on the ball of her foot. She'd planned on spending about 45 minutes working the horse, but after nearly being bucked off, the daughter decided the horse required some further schooling. And as an aside, you should understand that you don't know pleasure 'til as a parent of a 16 year-old you watch a horse try to buck your kid off. Yessiree.

As little fun as it was for her, my daughter knew she had to work the mare. Had to tire her out and let that mare know that her being tempermental wasn't going to cause an early end to the workout. Horses are dumb as mud but if they figure out that bad behavior will cause you to give up quickly, bad behavior is what you'll get every time. My daughter's ability to endure her spooky recklessness outlasted her ability to dish it out. My daughter as much as said "You wanna mess with me? You don't know who you're messing with."

Eventually, the horse believed her. The thunderstorm petered out, spread easterly and was breaking up as the horse was cooled down and put away. We drove back home, me happy she was in one piece, and her disappointed in the horse.

But I have to admit that I also was happy she had a tenacious streak half a mile wide. I just wish she'd use it on the horse more often than she used it on me.

I Love This Time Of Year

2005-03-16T18:43:00.000-08:00

Ah...there's nothing like this time of year! The leaves are turning golden, then brown. And on the windy days they fall off the trees in droves, and are blown down the street. No, I'm not smoking the wacky tobacky. This is the unusual way we do springtime in Texas.

Here's the deal: live oak trees are evergreen, but they actually lose their leaves so they can replace them with new ones. And the time they do it is right about the time everything else is beginning to green up. So all winter long when the red oaks and pecans and sycamores and sumacs are nekkid, live oaks are covered with their dark green leaves. But around the ides of March they turn yellow-to brown, and then drop, all within a week or two.

You don't have to tell me we do things strangely in Texas. We're known to create odd Presidents as well...

War of Words

2005-03-12T20:19:00.000-08:00

I'm reading What's the Matter With Kansas right now (quite worth the read) and as do most books, it causes me to think in slightly different terms than I would without getting so intimate with someone else's views.

Something Thomas Frank hasn't yet said, but due to his book my mind has thought is this--The Republicans have waged a very successful war of words. They've changed the playing field from the actual: the results...and instead cause us all to compete on the field of the theoretical: what sounds good in your head.

By that I mean that Republican leadership has become masters at creating batches of pretty words which tug at heart strings and create the warm-n-fuzzies, but then that leadership often does actions which are polar opposites to those pretty words.

That's why the party which extols the virtues of looking after those who can't look after themselves have nonetheless abandoned the young through cuts in medical programs for the poor, cuts in Head Start, and other programs which are sure to only hurt the poor.

As a measure of how conservative these times are, it feels almost radical for me to offer up the obvious by saying that it's the poor which need the helping hand. The rich have proven that they can look after themselves quite well, than you.

Further, what's so bizarre on this new playing field is that a record that at very best could be called piss-poor is enough to get GW Bush re-elected. That's because he didn't run on his actual record. Instead, he ran on what's come to be called by detractors as the God/Guns/Gays platform. It's a fable told from the Republican point of view, and goes something like this:

1. Unlike Democrats, we believe in God, and are in fact guided by the hand of him.
2. Democrats want to take your guns away!
3. Democrats want to turn your kids gay by giving gay people rights they don't now have.

These arguments are designed to appeal to an irrational side of you that doesn't closely examine anything for facts, but instead recoils in fear. And that's the name of the game. They don't want you to see the miserable job creation numbers, or the exploding deficit, or what we're doing to the environment, or what the rest of the civilized world thinks of us. They want you to think that Democrats are Godless gays who want to keep you from being able to defend your home.

It's time to get the discussion back into the realm of the actual. When you hear people spouting out about gay marriage, why not chime in with "I don't give a damn what people want to do with their private lives...but I'm all worked up about whether or not my child is going to have a job once he gets out of college!" Take the debate to the areas that really matter and the Republicans, with their awful record in those areas, will lose pitifully.

There's something happening here...what it is ain't exactly clear...

2005-03-09T16:40:00.000-08:00

It's an interesting, if troubling, read. But read it you should. Penned by Congressman John Conyers out of Michigan, he's talking about what he fears is going on with our Democracy.

Many Americans think the different viewpoints of Republicans and the Democrats as simply a different perspective on how to manifest our Democracy. And I think that evaluation was, at one time, quite correct.

Times have changed.

We now have a government actively working towards lessening the rights and abilities of its most vulnerable taxpayers to resolve financial problems. Yesterday's passage of the bankruptcy bill is tilted towards money and away from the little guy.

This article points out that half of people declaring bankruptcy is due to overwhelming medical bills. While the inadequacy of our health care system makes people choose between health insurance and their children's needs, that fact isn't even as bad as the picture actually gets. Having insurance is by no means the fix for medical problems. How could that be? Because as the same article points out, 68% of those who file for bankruptcy because of health expenses actually have health insurance!

There's something very, very wrong going on here.

Mr. Bush calls himself a compassionate conservative, yet someone with compassion would be coming somehow--any way possible--to the aid of families destroyed by medical bills. But instead of doing so, Mr. Bush supported the bankruptcy bill. He's also on a 60-day stump to turn the tide around in his (thus far) losing battle to destroy Social Security.

While Social Security does need to be fixed, keep in mind: it won't quite be able to meet all its obligations (drumroll please) 37 years from now! I'm all about fixing problems...but good God a'mighty! What about the families who are being destroyed right now? Mr. Bush: where is your compassionate conservatism?

John Gibson: One of the Absolute Best at Being Bad

2005-03-08T18:24:00.000-08:00

You don't know John Gibson? He's labored in semi-obscurity on Fox News in the shadow of shadowy character Bill O'Reilly. You can find a bio of Mr. Gibson on the Fox News web site here. The smiling picture makes him look friendly enough, but as your mama told you, you shouldn't judge a book by its cover.

Why do I have such a beef with John Gibson? He wrote this piece about the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena. Ms Sgrena, as you probably know, spent weeks as a captive of Iraqi insurgents, was finally released to Italian authorities, and nearly killed at an American checkpoint near Baghdad airport. What we don't know is exactly what happened at the shooting. An American spokesman says one thing, and she says quite another.

So, how do we arrive at the truth? Investigations are conducted to ascertain all the facts and to go over all the evidence carefully. At the end of that investigation, a report is published detailing exactly what happened. Usually at that point blame is assigned-- if it's possible to determine where blame lies.

Ah, but John Gibson doesn't need an investigation. He already knows that the Americans are telling the truth, and Ms. Sgrena is lying.

Not so fast! One thing I can determine right here and now and without further investigation: John Gibson doesn't know squat. He thinks what he wants to think, and that's damned well good enough for him. And while everyone has a right to his opinion, Gibson expresses his as a journalist. He should know that kind of behavior is irresponsible, and actual journalists don't behave that way.

I've grown weary of alleged journalists acting like they know what they don't, spreading lies, and making journalism look worse in the process. I'm also tired of taking this stuff lying down. Here's what I wrote to him:

Mr. Gibson—
You’re speculating on what happened to Ms. Sgrena at almost every turn, including the most important one: whether or not her car tried to speed through a checkpoint. Your Fox News bio strongly suggests you’re a journalist. Your posting on Ms. Sgrena however, proves you’re not one.
The most disgusting thing about this whole deal--other than the tragic death--is your absolute, complete and utter rush to embrace the truth as you want it to be. If facts emerge which disprove your assumptions (and here’s a tip for Mr. Journalist: when you have to use the word assumptions, you’re not being a journalist) will you re-publish an apology?
Hell freezes over…when?

Anyone care to guess whether or not he's responded? You're pretty sharp! No response yet...and I'm not holding my breath. The stupid thing is, it's possible that everything he reported as fact will be proven to have happened. But that's why investigations are conducted. That in no way would absolve him for his completely unjournalistic column.

One last thing: I'm going to take this opportunity to suggest that you write letters of complaint when you see stupid errors like this one. Don't let them get away with this stuff without you giving them a piece of your mind. And fear not. If you're on my blog, that means you have plenty of mind to give...so don't worry about being left with too little!

My Bumper Sticker

2005-03-07T18:24:00.000-08:00

I was in Austin a few months ago. I saw one of those old style "head" shops where hippies and ne'er-do-wells go for pipes and rolling papers and assorted drug paraphenalia. I had my mission too, and though I was euphoric, it had nothing to do with drugs. I was going to buy a bumper sticker.

These folks probably offer up five hundred different wacked-out bumper stickers. Speaking of which, if you find yourself wanting to make a statement this place has some great ones. But back to my story...this head shop in Austin has probably five hundred, three-quarters of which are political, nine-tenths of which could be called liberal.

I probably spent 45 minutes or more looking for just the right one to stick on the back on my pickup...and what did I end up with:
WHY IS THERE ALWAYS MONEY FOR WAR,
BUT NOT EDUCATION?
Is that not a fine question? We've borrowed almost 200 billion dollars to fight a totally unnecessary war in Iraq, but our kids' futures--besides being on loan because we had to borrow for war--aren't worth investing in by way of their education. There's never enough money for education, is there? They put students in trailers because they can't afford the school we ought to build them. Their books are old because we can't afford new books. Teachers are under-paid, so the best ones tend to find careers that pay enough to live on.

But somehow, some way we find money enough to send our boys and girls to the other end of the world to fight and die. And at very great expense. Methinks our priorities are screwed up. And methinks this education president isn't one.

What is this, Seattle?

2005-03-04T21:23:00.000-08:00

I bought this pretty snazzy bike a couple of weeks ago. And so we've had rain almost every day since I got it. I look at the forecast for the next week and most days have at least a 30% chance of rain. And I'm thinkin', this is Texas. Texas.

C'mon. Cactus. Heat. Dry, blue skies. Where are they? I've been assuaging my frustration by saying that "at least that means we'll have a great spring for flowers." Bluebonnets are the state flower and here is what they look like on a good year. Bluebonnets are fabulous all by themselves, but when they're mixed with Indian Paintbrush, they're hard to beat.

I was telling the weatherman at the station where I work that we need a new weather device. Something to measure how murky and moist the weather is. I suggested we call it the
Seattle-ometer
or perhaps it should be called the
Drear-ometer
Maybe something needs to address the bad-hair-day nature of murkey weather. The graphic icons on one end of the scale show fluffy, flowing hair, and on the other someone obviously experiencing a bad hair day. It would do me no good. I've been experiencing a bad hair decade...

That Ol' March To Freedom

2005-03-03T03:29:00.000-08:00

I keep on hearing that Democrats are on the wrong side of the March To Freedom. Mmm...The March To Freedom. What the hell is that anyway? Since when have speech writers' snappy turn of phrase played such a role in political discourse in America?

I saw some guy posting on a TV talk group where I go and regarding the changes in Lebannon, he said with standard issue neo con bravado that Democrats were simply on the wrong side of the March to Freedom. I replied that this Democrat supports anybody anywhere who wants to make their country freer. And I followed that by asking which Democrats where are doing what to prevent freedom from coming to Lebannon?? The response was pretty amazing. It's in the next paragraph.

Looking for the next paragraph? Well, that was his response. In other words, this semi-mindless droid figured that if there was possibly some positive by-product of Bush's war on Iraq, that Democrats would naturally oppose it--that wrong side of freedom line. And while there is reason for concern about developments in Lebannon (inertia is safe, change is dangerous), I don't see Democrats stepping up and saying that the Lebanese don't deserve whatever freedom they can attain. So this guy was generating something out of nothing.

That's what's called the "disinformation business," a business at which those on the right have excelled so mightily. I for one am quite tired of it. And when I see lies, that's what I'm going to call them. When I see disinformatioin, I'm going to ask for proof. An un-inquisitive media has allowed this particular group of Republicans (the Bush administration and its supporters) far too close to free rein in Washington. And that's how they get away with saying so many things which are just one true fact away from being impressive. If the facts actually backed up what they said, I'd be impressed. It's just that lack of fact problem that hampers their March Towards Honesty...

People Are Horses. Well, Kind Of...

2005-02-27T05:57:00.000-08:00

We in the US of A love to think of ourselves as rugged individuals. Given our late entrance on the world stage, we were writing our history as most of the rest of the world's was already ancient.

In our collective conscious are many endearing images of ourselves. From the midnight ride of Paul Revere, riding to tell the colonists that the British were coming, to the Texans who died rather than give up the Alamo to the Mexicans, to the solitary American cowboy.

The image of cowboys is probably most endearing. We think of them as people whose need to be themselves was so intense that they'd sleep out on the ground in the rain, snow and sleet to get the job done. Their earnest mental makeup and intense dedication to getting the job done appealed to our shared Calvinist roots: hard work and clean moral character was our job here on earth.

We hold in reverence that shared concept and, in a sense, view ourselves through that charming prizm.

Reality though, is far different. We Americans are less like the cowboy and a little more like the horse. "How's that?" you're wondering? Think of it this way: The horses we see now are the direct descendents of horses who were the fastest, most skittish, most attentive horses. They are the ones who first saw wolves sneaking up, turned and ran like their lives depended on it. Those who spent an additional second or two eating grass ended up being eaten themselves, their bloodline stopping with them.

Horses are herd animals. They stick together because there is power in numbers. Horses don't like being left alone because as dumb as they are, they know that avoiding predators is far more successful in a herd situation.

We humans are exactly like that. You may recall that when Jennifer Aniston became all the rage, women around the country flocked to hair stylists to get her distinctive cut. Fashionistas and businessmen know that Americans are herd animals and have gotten us to buy parachute pants, leggings, and pet rocks despite every good reason not to.

Which brings me to my theme: forget the image of individualism. Be an individual. Think for yourself. In these times we need creative thinkers. Thomas Jefferson and FDR were extremely creative thinkers who fought against waves of opposition to create bold answers. They rocked the boat, but did so with substance, with creativity, with intelligence.

And so I urge you to come together--in herds, if you prefer--with your creativity, intelligence and indiduality and use it to make a difference. Offer up what the other party isn't. Compromise on the details, but not your principles. The obstacles are many, not the least of which is herd mentality. But damnit, do it anyway! That which is worth having is hard to get.

Finally, I urge you to think outside the box, or as I prefer to say: box outside the think. It's time to get over the style-over-substance herd mentality, and really become rugged individuals.

Fox News Says: Liberal Groups Keep Close Watch Dean

2005-02-25T16:12:00.000-08:00

What's in a headline you say? Well, let's just take a look here: at the Fox News web site, a headline says Liberal Groups Keep Close Watch on Dean. That's a pretty loaded headline, doncha think? Because you never really know what wild man Dean might be up to. He just might be revving up a Dean Scream, and Lord knows we can't have that!

So I read the story. It begins by talking about a Seattle group which presented Dean with a backbone statue. That statue references Dean helping the Democratic Party find its backbone which has been missing the last many years. Then there's a guy who says that Dean just needs to be Dean. Another positive comment. Then someone else from the Backbone group says something nice about Dean. Yet another admirer hopes he'll continue using his backbone to stand up to the administration. Finally, yet another person hopes Dean will just be allowed to be Dean.

Allright...so no crime here at all. But judging by the web headline on America's most conservative TV News network, you'd think that the kind of scrutiny Dean was suffering from Liberals was a critical, antsy, queesy kind of scrutiny. But alas, the article reveals a bunch of Dean supporters hoping he'll hold firm to his principles.

I have a funny feeling that not even 10% of Foxnews.com readers opened up the article. I'll bet they just saw the headline and had their negative feelings toward Dean re-enforced. Pure speculation, but there you have it.

So then I head off to cnn.com to see what's new in the world. Well, lookee here: it's the very same Associated Press story. The headline's a little less loaded though: Liberal Groups Watching Dean. I guess I can abide by that. But...I'm going to be keeping a tight watch on journalists. And you know what I'm gonna do? A direct suggestion from my wife: "When you see an article written fairly and journalistically, write them and thank them. When you see that they've been unfair and bad journalists, write them and tell them they did wrong." I think that's a great idea.

How about you? Can I count on you to give that a shot, at least every now and then? They've proven that if we're not watching them, if we don't say "Hold on there buddy!" then they'll do anything they want. I think it's time to call them on their mistakes, and I intend to do precisely that!

What Sprouted From his Mouth In Brussels:

2005-02-24T20:48:00.000-08:00

They don't make Presidents like they used to. And Lawd knows that Mr. Bush has lowered the standard by which we measure the humans who ascend to the highest office in the land. But his joint press conference in Brussels took the cake.

Well, at least for this week.

Referencing the growing sense that the US may be thinking of an invasion of Iran, he said "This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous." He paused a couple of beats, then said "Having said that, all options are on the table." It was followed by open laughter. Begs the question: were they laughing at him, or with him? And the other question it begs is "could our President represent us any worse than he does on the world stage?"

Why does his quote get so annoyingly under my skin? Allright, let's pull out the hair-splitter here: He said that the idea that were were going to attack Iran was ridiculous. Then by saying that all options--including that one--were on the table, it means that we would definitely consider doing the ridiculous.

I truly don't know how to follow that up. I suppose I can say that the path towards doing the ridiculous is a well-worn path that he knows so well he can drive it with his eyes closed.

My footlocker full of reasons to dislike this guy is full to overflowing. I'm gonna have to rent a storage unit nearby to store all the antics and accidental malapropisms and Bushisms and just plain stupid mistakes he's made.

And I think back of how so many people gave as a reason for their vote for Mr. Bush: "He just seems like the kind of guy you could drink a beer with."

That's all well and good...but when I think of who it is I want as President, I want someone smarter than me! I can drink a beer with a friend! Next time around folks, let's leave the presidenting to someone who's capable of it, could we?

My Most Controversial Post Ever

2005-02-21T18:38:00.000-08:00

Okay...now that I've got you in the door, let me tell you what this posting is really about. My new bike! I love it.

Last year I did the really stupid thing of, knowing I needed more aerobic exercise and liking biking (a mini-poem there), I went to the local Wal Mart and bought me this dopey bike that was designed with the same weight distribution and aerodynamics of a Studebaker. And not the Studebaker Hawk (a finemobile if there ever was one). I tried my Studebaker-ish bike three times on the local bike path and was winded after a half mile each time. Simply ridiculous. When I lived in Vermont, where the scenic bike trails abound (thanks by the way in part to Howard Dean), I used to bike 6 and 8 miles in one direction, then turn around and bike back.

The Studebaker bike was a disaster. So for the last year I've been thinking I needed a real bike and did some asking around. Where can I find one that didn't cost an arm, a leg and a left testicle. Someone I work with sent me to a specific bike shop and this last Saturday--a really rainy day--I bought me a Raleigh C-30. Doesn't look like much in the photo, but it's very nice. I think it's safe to say that it's on the low rung of good bikes.

Sunday the weather broke enough to where I headed down to the bike path for my ride. It was FABulous. I did the 2 & 1/2 mile round trip without even getting winded. I only stopped because the mist covered my glasses to the point I couldn't see. I finally have that feeling that my bike doesn't stand between me and getting some good exercise.

Weather reports say we have three days of off-n-on rain starting tomorrow, but I can hardly wait for the weekend. And lest I end this, my most controversial post ever without hitting on politics, I think you should know that I really don't like George Bush.

Gannon: Why It Matters

2005-02-20T07:12:00.000-08:00

There are those who say that GOPUSA/Talon News reporter Jeff Gannon's softball questions are simply that: non-challenging questions, and nothing else. So what? And that maybe the press shouldn't have so adversarial a relationship with the President. Allright then; let's look at that.

The President is the single most powerful person in the world. He is surrounded by folks whose main job is to give him what he asks for. In this particular president, his party controls the House of Representatives and the Senate. Turns out, people from his philosophical viewpiont also control the Supreme Court.

Power looks after itself. While the holders of Power may well have a philosophical viewpoint, Power doesn't tend to look at issues as right or wrong, but as "what we want VS what they want." So it's philosophically counterintuitive for power to give ANY of itself up. And when a President's party also holds the House/Senate/Supreme Court, it's the perfect setup for corruption to flourish.

Your first thought may be that GW Bush is an incorruptible man. I think you're quite wrong, but let's not argue about that. Instead, let's push this outside of GW Bush and into those with whom he surrounds himself. Bush is not too interested in details. He always wants the executive summary, not the laboriously-detailed reports. This is not my opinion; this is widely known.

Imagine shrewd, top-of-their-game folks who also have almost unimagineable power reporting to a guy who cares little of detail. This is the perfect combination of elements for corruption to thrive. Think Cheney/Halliburton and their swoop into Iraq, followed by overcharges by the tens of millions. Just an accounting error you think? Why do these accounting errors always benefit those who make them? It never goes the other way.

Our government consists of three arms: the executive (President), legislative (House-Senate), and the judicial (Supreme Court). Then there's the press. The press is the unofficial 4th leg of the stool of Democracy. The press is usually allowed unusual access to the halls of power, and this is by design. Without the press, the three other arms of government are only accountable on election day, and even then the judicial has no accounting. If the two other arms are able to effectively fool the electorate, then that accountability amounts to nothing.

The press is uniquely positioned to look after the rights of the people. During Presidential news conferences, and on editorial pages and political television programs, the press can raise questions, can ask for accountability...for the people. It's an important function, and given the dynamics of the President having more power than ever, the press has never been more important than it is now.

And suddenly, there's Jeff Gannon. He doesn't just lob softballs to the president. He specifically positions the administration as right and those who might question them silly. The question that got the most attention was when he asked "How are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?" Had Gannon asked what Bush's plans to work with the Democrats are, or if it's going to be hard to get through to them, or does Bush feel they'll be receptive to their ideas are perfectly legitimate questions. But what he did ask is not journalistic. If he were actually a journalist, he'd know that. But a 2-day how-to does not a journalist make.

But why stop with just that question? Wouldn't it be neat if someone had compiled a clip of all the Jeff Gannon questions one after the other so that you could judge him as a journalist by all of what he said? Guess what? Someone did. And This is it. Thanks to Bruce in Austin for sending it to me. Give it a listen and see if this sounds like a journalist. 'Til next time...

I Would HATE To Be A Republican About Now...

2005-02-17T19:11:00.000-08:00

Oh Lord a' mighty. Wouldn't you hate to have to make sense out of this administration's errors over the past couple of months?

A high-ranking American military spokesman declares that in fact, there are 12-15,000 insurgents in Iraq, and that number is not diminishing. How many times have we heard that the insurgents were weakening? Turns out they weren't.

Bush's nominee to head the Homeland Security department wasn't properly vetted by the FBI before they announced his appointment. 'Scuse me? Who are they going to nominate to head the Department of Buffonery? Maybe even I could run that kind of gauntlet... Ellis Henican lays it out pretty nicely in his column. And after all is said and done a Homeland Security chief knocked out because he wasn't properly investigated by the FBI. If I were writing a book and had this plot twist, the editor would say "No one will believe this!!"

Then there's that little matter of Iraqis deciding that Ayad Alawi (the US's hand-picked Iraqi to head the new government) was only worthy of a distant third place finish when the Iraqis were doing the deciding themselves. Though I give credit where it's due: the Iraqi Election Lite was a better attempt at Democracy than I thought it would be. It might even have exceeded the USA's last two presidential races in terms of reflecting the electorate's will. Who can say?

And then there's the matter of the male prostitute fake journalist who's been let into the White House Press Corps. Scott McClellan says he went through all the proper avenues for approval and he was representing a legitimate news outlet. Funny thing is, now C-Span has footage of him asking a question of the president two months before there even was a Talon News Service. Whoops!
That means that 1. Scott McClellan was lying, and that 2. Jeff Gannon got in the White House with someone's help. If you can't spell it, let me give you a hand: s-c-a-n-d-a-l.

So no...I'd never want to be a Republican, but in particular, not now!

If You're Up North, DON'T READ THIS!

2005-02-13T16:03:00.000-08:00

Because you're going to be green with envy. Green. The color of leaves. Remember what leaves look like?

But let me start by saying this: I don't like Texas summers. Way too long, way too hot, and the worst thing is that the blistering heat of the day is slow to go away. I've tuned into 10PM newscasts and they report that it's still 90 degrees out. If you're reading this in Phoenix you're thinking "so what??" But here in this part of Texas, it's a wet kind of heat, not a dry one.

So back to today and why you northerners--who shouldn't be reading this, but you did anyway, didn't you?--will be envious. After an ugly rainy day yesterday, this morning dawned blue. And as the sun came up, it came up warm. Temperatures climbed up to the mid-70's. There were robins all over the front yard, and after a dreary mostly rainy week, it was a splendidly beautiful early spring Texas day.

I put on a shorts and t-shirt, then went outside, turned the compost pile, transplanted a rose bush further away from the house, and just walked around looking at my trees. I'm big into trees. And I'm really big into big trees. The biggest trees in these parts are at the Cibolo Nature Center.

The Cibolo (SI bo lo) is 100 acres large, and quite a gem in my town's crown. There are 4 very different walks there, and my favorite is along the creek. The largest living creatures in this part of Texas straddle the creek, and they stand 100 feet tall. The Bald Cypress trees are that right now--bald--but in about a month they'll start coming out with the greatest-colored green needles. They're almost electric with color.

Right now with grasses all dead and the branches all bare, browns and greys predominate the color scheme along the Cibolo...except one place: the bright, emerald green of the mosses. And there are mosses on the cypress knees, mosses on the tamped-hard mud flats just off the creek, mosses on the north side trunks. The sun shone bright on the mosses and I don't think I'd ever noticed how green they were.

I was gazing in wonder up to the tallest of the cypress branches and I noticed an airliner, probably 30,000 feet up. It was heading almost due south to due north. Since the only cities of any real size south of here are in Mexico and points beyond, I got to thinking of all the people returning from vacation, or coming on a vacation to the states. I wondered at who the people were in that plane, where they were headed, what their stories were. And how they had not one clue that I was standing below a massive cypress tree wondering about their adventures.

It was a fine moment, on a fine day. A day that you northerners will have to wait a lot longer for. But that's okay. You're probably getting a snowstorm that I'd really enjoy playing in if I didn't have to suffer through another great day tomorrow. Weather man says it'll be 73 degrees and sunny!

I Challenged Journalists; Journalists Quaked

2005-02-11T18:44:00.000-08:00

I go every day to a web site called TV Spy where people who do what I do for a living--I work in Television News--go to stay up on new developments in the field. There's also an extensive subject-divided chat area for television folks. My favorite is the Sandbox because it's all politics, all the time.

Two weeks ago Thursday I posted something like "I'm always hearing how the Democrats won't win because they run for president far-left wing types who Americans just won't vote for... and candidates who are just out of touch with Middle America. So tell me: what program, what platform issue have Gore, Dean or Kerry pushed which would define them as being far left wing?"

It's been two+ weeks and the responses I've had have been amazing, simply amazing. Here's one:
--"Gore wanted to appease the terrorists." When asked precisely what Gore wanted to do to appease them, he couldn't come up with anything.
--"Gore is left of center on the environment." When asked what exactly are you referring to, he could give NO examples.
--"Dean supports gay marriage." When told that Dean actually was forced into creating a method to secure the rights of Gay couples by the Vermont Supreme Court, and then only supported Civil Unions (and has never supported gay marriage), he had nothing to say.
--"Kerry supports late term abortion." When I found on the Kerry web site that he'd voted against late term abortion except when it threatened the mother's life, he could think of nothing to say.

I'll spare you any more, but understand here: I'm not talking about a bunch of carpenters, or furniture salesmen, or even biologists. I'm talking about journalists here. Of all people who should be aware of candidates' positions, journalists should rate right up there at the top. So it's been TWO weeks and not one journalist has posted a credible program, platform or law passed by Dean/Kerry/Gore that proves they're far left.

There were half a dozen or more who posted stupid stupid stuff--"They're out of touch with middle America," "They just too angry," "They're on the wrong side of freedom..." But those are all just empty platitudes, campaign phrases or straight lifts from GW Bush speeches. They could of course offer no specific attribution, just baseless thoughts.

What I'm saying is that the Karl Rove smear machine worked gangbusters on the very people who should view this kind of thing with the most sophisticated eyes. What I've discovered here is Journalists who believe to their core things that they can't, given two weeks to do so, justify in the least.

Amazing...simply amazing!

The Best Journalism Money Can't Buy

2005-02-10T18:50:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately, I'm not here to write about the best journalism. I'm here to write about a shameless shill. In case you've not heard about the too-weird-to-make-it-up case of Jeff Gannon, it's time you did.

Jeff Gannon works for an outfit called the Talon news agency. Talon claims that "Talon News is a news company which covers political, national, and world news. Talon News focuses on those stories often overlooked by other media outlets."

Sounds pretty interesting, eh? We can always use more intrepid journalists finding the stories the others let get away. But lest you think that maybe they actually are an in-depth unbiased news source, here's a few of their story titles:
"Kerry's Alleged Intern Identified"
"Kerry Could Become First Gay President"
"Swift Boat Vets focus on "Kerry's bitter legacy that haunts many Vietnam veterans"
"Put Abu Ghraib "in proper perspective"

Now that's some journalism, doncha think? And surely you don't think the story ends there, do you? Jeff Gannon--not his real name--is on the White House Press Corps. How does one get on the White House Press Corps? I have no idea (and without more time than I have, or a research staff, I'm probably not going to know by the end of this article). But logic tells me this: you don't get on the White House Press Corps without having an outstanding and traceable journalistic background.

Whoops #1: Jeff Gannon doesn't have one. Mmm...how does a guy representing a rather bizarre right-wing "news" agency get on a White House Press Corps? It wouldn't have anything to do with having...connections, would it? An inside lead perhaps? I suspect it would. Investigative journalists: this is your cue...
Whoops #2: Jeff Gannon managed three gay porn sites for men. Big Oops! Why would I think they're gay sites? The titles kinda give it away: HotMilitaryStud.com, MilitaryEscorts.com and MilitaryEscortsM4M.com.
Whoops #3: There's even a "come hither" picture of Gannon himself. In what strange world does it make sense to a gay man to be a shill for the only president who's ever tried to get a Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marriage? This is a highly conflicted individual...

For a good general overview, former conservative David Brock's media matters is pretty outstanding. But then, it's pretty outstanding all the time. I recommend it always.

So the last question I have is this: why is this not a huge, major breaking scandal that the 24-hour news networks are milking for all its worth? Surely there's a Bush administration connection...otherwise, how would a hack get on the White House Press Corps? And if this hack's job is to write great stuff about Bush while getting access under the guise of being a press corps pro, that's a big smelly scandal. Throw in the gay web sites, and suddenly, Monica Lewinsky seems such small change. Yet I've heard hardly a peep from the liberal press.

Liberal press...hell-llo...where are you?

Democracy's Last Stand

2005-02-07T17:21:00.000-08:00

You may think you live in a Democracy, but technically, you live in a Republic. In a Democracy, each person has a vote and governmental decisions are made per your vote. In a Republic, each person uses that vote to elect representatives to go off and do the governmenting for us. Since you elect city council, county commission, state and national representatives and senators, and (I'm hoping) your president, you live in a Republic.

Don't worry; that doesn't make you a Republican, though you have the right to be wrong if you'd like (smirk).

But there IS a place where Democracy still thrives. It's the tiny state of Vermont. Why does Democracy thrive there and not elsewhere? Because ever since about 1760 on the first Tuesday in March, nearly every one of Vermont's 180 towns and cities has what they call Town Meeting. Town Meeting is the definition of economy of language because the town...(how shall I put this?) meets.

And when they do, they determine how to spend the town's taxes. There's a yearly budget and people stand up and say they need more snow plowing out on their road. They say their school doesn't buy enough library books. They say that the town's gazebo needs a new paint job. They fashion their town in the way they want it to be.

They say a lot of other things, too. Some towns considered resolutions condemning the war in Iraq. Other towns considered seceding from Vermont over taxation issues. For a state known for its quiet reserve, some town meetings get surpisingly contentious. And why not? Is Democracy supposed to be some pristeen, scrubbed-clean history-book item? No, it's raw and gritty and it sometimes may even need a bath.

The state of Vermont understands its unique situation with Town Meeting and promotes it to young and old alike. And why not? As we find out--and always too late--"we don't know what we got 'til it's gone..." It's a point of pride in Vermont that with all the changes that have come about, there's something that's gone essentially unchanged for centuries.

What's a Town Meeting look like? I think calling it glamorous might be a stretch. But its direct and neighborly honesty is something you won't find in spit-n-polished city council meetings out in the rest of the world.

I think we could all use a little more Democracy in our world, though I don't think this form of government would necessarily transfer well to places outside of Vermont. But I'm glad to think it exists there, aren't you?

In the mean time, you can still participate in your Republic. But DO try to remember this one adage: Friends Don't Let Friends Become Republicans!

You May Be More Powerful Than You Think

2005-02-05T19:19:00.000-08:00

Autumn isn't so fabulous a season hereabouts. On a good year, the red oaks live up to their name, as do the flame-leaf sumac, the bald cypress occasionally go out in glory, as do the golden cedar elm every few years.

But the dominant trees here are evergreen Live Oak and Cedar (technically Cedars are Junipers, but we Texans tend to latch onto something and not easily let go, despite all contrary evidence available. I'll avoid speaking of the Texas Shrub which is currently wreaking havoc on the environment, other than to just call it a Bush).

At any rate, Texas isn't exactly the best place to view the autumn leaves. But there is one tree here that's a pretty big exception to that. It's called the Big Tooth Maple. The Big Tooth is the western cousin to all those great northern and eastern maples that cause places like Vermont to have such great fall colors.

The Big Tooth is native to canyons and riversides all the way up into British Columbia. The southern terminus of its territory is about 60 miles west of here at a place called Lost Maples State Park. That pocket of Big Tooths is the most colorful place in Texas come late October. But there are also little pockets of Big Tooths all around my town of Boerne. In fact, the two tallest stood about 35' high, just off Interstate-10 at a fast-developing corner of the access road.

A sign appeared there one day saying that Boerne was going to get a Mercedes Benz dealership. The developer's name and phone number were big and bold on the sign, and every day I passed it I thought I should call that guy and tell him he has 2 of the areas biggest big tooths. "You want to save them, don't you?"

But the months went by and I always found a reason not to call. I thought if I did call, my concerns would be marginalized and this big-deal developer would shine me on, then do whatever he wanted to. Then I noticed a whole bunch of the trees had pink ribbons around them....including one of my great big big tooths. Yikes! So finally I called the guy. He had no idea that those were maples, and in fact had an environmental study which labeled them as hackberry trees. I don't want to be seen as a tree snob, but the bizarre-barked opportunistic hackberries are not the best Texas has to offer.

I was pretty amazed that whoever did the environmental study didn't know the difference between the two, but he didn't. The developer said he would check out the trees the next day. When I called back he reported that the distinctive maple-styled leaf convinced him--he had big tooth maples on his property, and he was going to keep them. "I'm gonna lose a couple of parking spaces, but I'd hate to take those trees down."

So the lesson here is this: it might just be that despite everything you do, the worst comes to pass. But it might not. And know this: if you do nothing, that's what you'll get: nothing. So, do something! Two simple phone calls saved this town's 2 biggest big tooth maples. Who knows what you can do in your town if you just try!

Pat Yourself on the Back, Texas Liberal

2005-02-03T19:46:00.000-08:00

I really admire you. You're just so...persistent. Resilient. And just plain ol' bent. You'd have to be to be a Texas Liberal.

It's tough being one hereabouts. And the best way to imagine how tough it can be is to conjure in your mind a great, big, lush, green, spreading maple tree. Then imagine it in West Texas (can you say wilt?). Texas is tough on the soft green leaves. And it's every bit as tough on liberals who are soft.

So if you're a liberal and you're in Texas, you ain't soft. "Hell, I don't even know what soft means!" you might be inclined to say. And I'd believe you. Because there jest ain't many of you in these parts.

Important note: when there aren't many of certain things--let's say they're a little rare--that means the price goes up. So if you'd like, you can choose to think of yourself as overwhelmed and outnumbered. And you'd be right. Or you can think of yourself as rare and valuable. And you'd be even more right!

And your value isn't confined to supply and demand reasoning. You're valuable because if left alone Republicans will screw things up from here to Christmas, then start all over again. You on the same page with me here? I thought so! We're Texas' most valuable resource. Forget the black gold...we're the ones who keep those dumb son-of-a-bushes from doing any more damage than they already are.

So pat yourselves on the back. You deserve my admiration. And for that matter, your own.

My Scream: We Need Howard Dean!

2005-01-31T18:26:00.000-08:00

Upfront: the Dean Scream was one of the lowpoints of modern journalism. The So Called Liberal Media (SCLM-- made popular by Eric Alterman's excellent book,) failed us all miserably when it took the rather silly-sounding rallying cry that Dean yelled out to his disheartened supporters to try to pump them up...then played the scream 1000 times in the week between Iowa and New Hampshire on network news--yes, someone actually counted.
Those airings don't by the way, include local news, nor Jay Leno/Jay Letterman. That scream ran 1000+ times in less than a week!

So the SCLM turned a highly respected multi-term governor into a cartoon. Inquiring minds want to know how this could happen. Here's how: They allowed themselves to be manipulated by the powers that be...and they acted with a herd mentality. What they didn't act like are journalists.

Answer me this: when have you seen--before or since--the playing and replaying and replaying of what's considered an embarrassing moment by a politician? I think the word you're looking for is n-e-v-e-r. I have a bite we could play 1000 times: How about when GW Bush said "Too many OB-GYNS aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country"? This is a bite you didn't see again and again followed by furrow-brow'd pundits wondering whether the Bush Presidency could rebound from one of the most asinine things ever said by a public figure. And by the way, where was that SCLM we're always hearing about?

Dean had a medical degree and 14 years in and around the governor's office, during which time every Vermont adversary--and he had some--could have uncovered his bizarre behaviors. Surely if Dean were the wacked-out guy he was portrayed to be, tape would have surfaced that would have verified his insanity. Strangely though, no tape ever surfaced.

But Dean was from outside the Washington power structures. He wasn't in the Clinton camp and instead of towing the acquiescent party line, Dean said in uncompromising terms that Bush was absolutely wrong about Iraq and the Democratic party needed to find it's backbone and resist the war. Democrats searched with both hands, but couldn't find their backbones. Instead, they decided to kill Dean.

And kill his presidential bid, they did. But now Dean, a man of near limitless intellect and drive, has risen like a Phoenix. And I applaud the guy. It took a doctor to help the Democrats locate their spines. And I think he will make a fine Democratic party chair. I urge to you cast aside your pre-conceptions provided by the SCLM, and research for yourself the career of Howard Dean. You might well be surprised.

What the Heck Is Going On In Boerne Texas?

2005-01-28T11:27:00.000-08:00

The short story: the Boerne (BUR nee) city council approved a rough draft of a loop that would encircle the 8500-person town 25 miles north of San Antonio. The objective is to alleviate traffic problems and to position the city best for future growth. Buy the property for the road now while land prices are nearly unaffordable instead of later when they’re ridiculous beyond words.

Suddenly (Boom!) a local blog-http://www.boernetownhall.com/-is created to talk about local issues, from politics-to-restaurants. Then another pops up--http://www.boernetogether.org—designed generally to fight sprawl and unplanned growth, and specifically deal with the question of the loop.

Ya gotta understand: Boerne is an old German-rooted berg which has become a bedroom community for San Antonio professionals. With an 82% Bush voting record in November’s election, this is NOT considered a liberal town. But wait! Also in that election was approved a 6 Million dollar bond issue to buy land to develop parks so Kendall County will have more greenspace. Mmm…and let’s not forget: Boerne’s Cibolo Nature Center is one of the premiere natural areas in the state, and its new 1.5 million dollar near state-of-the-art nature center is nearing completion.

So Boerne’s far harder to define than just to say it’s just conservative or just liberal.

The aforementioned http://www.boernetogether.org/ secured the Bear Moon—a local better-than-Starbucks bakery/coffee bistro—for an evening meeting to rouse the rabble. The 100 people that who showed up spilled out onto the sidewalks. A passionate couple of dozen people got up to speak, and the shared conclusion was that the people needed to become more knowledgeable, and to attend City Council meetings. So...did they?

Next city council meeting 90 show up, spilling out into the hallway. City council determined they need a new master plan and commit to getting one written. They also will form an advisory committee, including 2 members appointed by boernetogether.

City council has heard the people speak!

This is the way people can affect the direction their cities are going. I offer up this local tale as an object lesson. If it can happen in little ol' Boerne, I see no reason why this “Think Globally/Act Locally” scenario couldn’t play out in YOUR town. All it takes is some belief, some will, a web site, and a good cause. The world is out there to make better or worse; the choice is yours.

Eeee-Ron

2005-01-25T20:48:00.000-08:00

By most any measure, our war with Iraq has been a massive failure.
--Instead of flowers thrown at us, bombs were.
--Instead of the people rising up and joining us, they've risen up and joined Al Quaeda.
--Instead of Ahmed Chalabi being an invaluable font of important information, he ended up being an amazingly overpriced font of worthless disinformation.
--Instead of the war being fought by a coalition of the willing, the members are less willing all the time to be IN the coalition.
--Instead of Iraqis taking to the idea of free elections like ducks to water, the Iraqis at the polls will probably be doing a lot of duck-n-cover.
--Instead of Iraqi oil revenues paying for the war, the new 80 Billion dollar request about to be made will put our costs at 300 billion dollars. Did you hear me? I said 300 BILLION. And that figure doesn't count interest(!).

1 victory: we deposed the mayor of Baghdad!

As you know, I could go on and on and on at the miscalculations, the pipe dreams and the out-n-out fantasies that this administration has indulged in, to the detriment of us all. But wait! There's more. Seymour Hersh has written an article on the very real possibility that the Neoconartists co-responsible for the Iraq war remain unsated. They still want to dominate the world.

These guys are bulldogs for democracy...and since they've sunk their teeth into the flesh of Afghanistan and Iraq, they just don't want to let go...'til they get Iran, too. The neoconartists would like through targeted air strikes to expose to Iranians that the powers that be are less powerful than the people believe. Pray tell why, you ask? Because then the people would rise up and finish the job, deposing their rulers.

I think I've read this script before! Bad script! Bad movie! Bad neoconartists!

My question is this: if these neoconartists had gotten laid in high school, would they still be trying to measure their manhoods by dominating the world? Is that what's really going on? And more importantly, can't we just hook these guys up with some nice conservative girls with loose morals and maybe just maybe they'll get laid and leave the worldwide domination fantasies where they belong: as fantasies. Hey, I can hope, can't I?

Good People, Good Works

2005-01-23T08:31:00.000-08:00

There was once a railroad track that ran through Boerne Texas, but has been unused for quite a few years. It was called the Old #9, and it cut a straight, diagonal line through Boerne from southeast to Northwest. After the tracks had been pulled, some progressive someone decided that the right-of-way could be put to use as a hike-n-bike path.

The city of Boerne came on board with it and a few years later the town has the beginnings of a nice hike-n-bike corridor. It begins at the Cibolo Nature Center, Boerne's premiere preserve that features four separate natural environments all within a small 100 acres. Plans for the bike path call for it eventually to continue past where it ends in north Boerne, to go underneath I-10, and all the way to Boerne's City Lake. I can imagine a time when Boerne kids can bike all the way to the lake in safety, swim for a while, and bike back home.

Enter the Native Plant Society of Texas, Boerne division. The Native Plant Society, as you might guess, promotes the use of native plants in home and business landscapes. Since they're more easily grown than exotics, the success rate is far higher than if one tries to grow something native to Great Britain. Besides, planting native helps a locale keep its overall sense of self.

So yesterday morning me and about 27 Native Plant Society folks showed up at the Southeast terminus of the Old #9 Bikeway and planted 28 trees and shrubs. The city of Boerne had already dug the holes for the trees with an overly-ambitious machine (B-I-G holes!), so it wasn't as much work as it might have been. Parents brought kids to help, old folks showed up and defied their age with their labor. It was a great endeavor, and the fruits of our labors will only grow as the years go by.

There's something supremely optimistic about planting trees. It metaphorically says "I believe in the future..." and if you're 80, like a friend named Ellie who worked particularly hard, you're not really planting them for yourself. The trees she planted are for her kids and grandkids to enjoy.

So I salute the Native Plant Society for its energy and efforts, and the City of Boerne for its wisdom and attitude. And if you're ever down this way, be sure to bring your bike and seek out the Old #9. Maybe by then part of your sunny ride will be shaded by trees we planted yesterday.